‘Here,’ said the voice. Tenishchev appeared above some bushes at the edge of the forest. He looked ragged and dirty and had no weapon. The dark stain on the side on his face looked like blood. ‘Come here … but keep low. Serduchka is somewhere around here. He’s been shadowing you. Serduchka is a traitor. He killed Vorobyeva and he tried to kill me.’

Stoyan ran across to the bushes and they both dropped behind them. Tenishchev looked afraid. His parka was torn and when Stoyan touched it, it felt wet. Stoyan looked at his fingertips – they were slick with blood.

‘Are you okay?’ Stoyan asked. Tenishchev nodded, but Stoyan put his rifle down and eased back the parka where it was soaked in blood.

‘You say Serduchka killed Vorobyeva?’

Tenishchev nodded again. Stoyan was worried: there was a lot of blood but he couldn’t find the wound that was causing it.

‘Serduchka is one of Vitrenko’s men?’

‘Yes …’ said Tenishchev. ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Do you know what’s even harder to believe …?’

Stoyan stared wildly into Tenishchev’s eyes. He found that he couldn’t breathe. He looked down and saw where Tenishchev had rammed his hunting knife up and under Stoyan’s sternum.

‘… So am I,’ said Tenishchev into Stoyan’s already dead eyes.

11.

Buslenko and Belotserkovsky had been lying flat, scanning the forest fringe for fifteen minutes. The sky was now dangerously light.

‘We’re going to have to move on …’ said Buslenko.

‘We can’t just leave Stoyan behind,’ protested Belotserkovsky.

‘Stoyan’s dead,’ said Olga Sarapenko with sudden authority. She was below them, down by the river, watching the opposite bank. ‘And so will we be if we don’t get out of the wilds. There’s a reason why Vitrenko’s targeted us here … either he is simply making sport of us as if we were a herd of wild boar, or he’s decided that we represent too much of a threat to him if we get to Germany.’

‘We’ll never make it to Germany,’ said Belotserkovsky dully.

‘He’s not going to get us here,’ said Olga defiantly. ‘I’m going to watch that son of a bitch die.’

Buslenko smiled. He turned to Belotserkovsky. ‘You ready to roll?’

Belotserkovsky nodded. Something drew his attention upwards to the brightening sky.

‘Take cover!’ he screamed.

12.