“Take him out and wait for the ambulance.”

“I’m in charge here,” interrupted Fox, who had by then managed to sit Lanky down on a wooden box in the corner. “You,” he said, pointing at K., “will help me get this fucker out of here. And you two keep a lid on things. Lanky, just you try anything! And keep an eye on the others.”

He turned irritably back to K.

“Well?”

K. looked around for something to use as a stretcher, but all he could see was concrete and plastic sheets.

“Right, I’ll take him by the arm, you take the legs,” he said. “On the count of three. One, two, three!”

The wounded man groaned as they carried him toward the exit, down the narrow corridor, up the steps, through the cloakroom, and beyond the barbed wire and sack-pile barricades.

An ambulance was waiting on a corner. They loaded him onto an unfolded gurney. K. again checked his pulse and stepped aside.

“Where are you taking him?” barked Fox.

“The emergency department,” the tired medic replied.

“Make sure he is under guard. Got it?”

“Alright, don’t shout. You say he has to be under guard, he’ll be under guard.” The medic slammed the door.

Fox slid out a cigarette as he watched the departing vehicle. The excavator in the square was tearing down the barricades, casting up a puff of dust. K. realised this was his time to run for it. Either now, or stay and see this through to the end. But there was his passport. The commandant still had the passport. He sighed.

“We got to him just in time.”

“Or at the wrong time.” Fox threw down his cigarette and raised his rifle. “Off we go to the commandant.”

No jabbing in the head this time. The commandant’s mood had improved. He chuckled as he listened to Fox’s account.

“The day I popped my cherry, my mother said: ‘And you thought she took you home to show you the wallpaper?’ No reason for them to be carrying around multi-frequency radio transmitters . . . Right, Fox?”

Fox nodded sombrely.

“So, doctor, you still want to help out?”

K. realised his life—or death—now depended on how he answered. It was a novel sensation, not like anything he’d felt before.

“I want to go home.”

“Well, I’d like to be sipping tea on my veranda in Sochi. But as you can see, I’m sitting here with you.”

With a careless movement, the commandant picked up the passport lying on the table and threw it at K.’s feet. The envelope fell out. The commandant watched with a sneer as K. gathered his papers and placed them into his pocket.

“Go to your hotel and pack your things. There will be a bus tomorrow morning. Don’t try to run. You won’t get through the checkpoints.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You wanted to help?”

“I did.”

“Consider your job application successful. Ok, get out of here. And by the way, don’t catch Number One’s eye. He doesn’t care for people like you. Welcome to the militia.”