She stood in the opening of the alcove, ready to block any sudden dash for freedom, but nothing moved.

‘Get your skinny bones out here and this time keep your rat fangs inside your head,’ she snapped.

She began to think the shelter was empty. It was too dark to see properly so she didn’t bother peering in, but gave it another kick. Inside, a faint whimper was abruptly silenced.

‘I’ve brought a biscuit for Misty.’

She waited. Caught the sound of movement. A rustle, then a dark shape stood in front of her.

‘What d’you want?’ The boy’s voice was wary.

‘I told you. To talk.’

‘The biscuit?’

She held it out. He snatched it and didn’t even snap it in half, part for himself, part for the dog. He gave it all to the puppy in his arms who gobbled it down, then licked the boy’s chin, eagerly asking for more.

‘What’s your name?’ Lydia asked.

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Nothing. It’s easier, that’s all. I’m Lydia.’

‘Fuck off, Lydia.’

She spun on her heel and started to march away. Over her shoulder she called, ‘So you don’t want breakfast, or some money in your pocket after all. I see I misjudged you, you stupid little rat brain.’

For a moment she thought she’d lost him. But suddenly there was the sound of scurrying steps and the young boy was in front of her, facing her, but moving backwards on his toes as she kept walking. A trickle of moonlight brushed his milky hair, giving him a strange elfin appearance, his chin pointed, his blue eyes as reflective as mirrors.

‘Breakfast?’ he asked.

‘Da.’

‘Money?’

‘Da.’

‘How much?’

‘We’ll negotiate that over kasha.’

‘For Misty too?’

‘Of course.’

‘What do I have to do?’

‘Deliver a note.’

The boy laughed, a sweet clear sound that gave Lydia hope.


The boy’s name was Edik. He perched on the end of Lydia’s bed and spooned porridge into his mouth without a word, while at his feet the puppy was snuffling round its empty bowl, its full stomach distended wider than its flimsy ribcage. Lydia sat in the chair, aware that Liev and Elena, still in their nightshirts, had pulled back the curtain and were sipping cups of chai. Through its steam they watched him with suspicion.

Lydia bent down, scooped up the puppy and placed it on her lap. Instantly a moist pink tongue licked her chin and she laughed, stroking the eager little grey head. The puppy had large yellow-brown eyes and paws two sizes too large.

‘Where did you find her?’ she asked the boy. ‘Misty, I mean.’

‘In a sack.’ He didn’t look up from his porridge and spoke between mouthfuls. ‘A man was trying to drown her in the river.’

‘Poor Misty,’ she smiled, ruffling the wispy ears. ‘And lucky Misty.’

‘Lydia?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry I bit you.’

‘As long as you don’t do it again.’

‘I was frightened you wouldn’t let me go.’

‘I know. Forget it.’

The boy’s eyes fixed on hers for a second before returning to the spoon. He didn’t look anywhere near Liev. Lydia was just beginning to think this was going surprisingly well, when Liev hauled himself to his feet and lumbered over to where Edik was seated. He seized a hank of his pale hair. The boy dropped the spoon with a yelp.

‘Chuck this thieving little bastard back out on the street, Lydia. And his animal with him.’

‘No, Liev. Leave the kid alone. He’s going to help me.’

‘Lydia,’ it was Elena this time, ‘look at him. He’s filthy. He’s one of the urchins that live on the streets and will be riddled with lice and fleas. The dog as well. For heaven’s sake, do as Liev says.’

‘Out!’ Liev growled at the boy.

The dog bounced up to Liev’s foot and started to chew at his bare toes. The big man’s hand abandoned the boy and descended on the animal, swinging it up in the air as if to throw it across the room.

‘No!’ Lydia shouted, as she snatched the puppy from his grasp and smacked the Cossack’s great paw. ‘You are heartless.’

Liev’s one eye stared at her with an expression of both surprise and hurt. ‘They’re vermin,’ he muttered and slammed his way out of the room.

Elena, the boy and the dog all looked at Lydia.

‘Damn it!’ she hissed. She grabbed the boy and the dog by the scruff, and hauled them down to the water pump in the courtyard.


‘It’s an honour, Chang,’ Hu Biao pointed out.

He was at Chang’s side as they came down the steps of the Hotel Triumfal. The rest of the delegation followed behind with Kuan at the rear. She had not spoken to Chang since last night.

‘It is a great honour, Hu Biao,’ he corrected his young assistant, loudly enough for their Russian escorts to hear. He was speaking in Mandarin but an interpreter was never more than a pace away from his elbow. ‘To be invited to the Kremlin to have talks with Josef Stalin himself will enable us to report back to Mao Tse Tung the thoughts in the Great Leader’s mind. Mao will be humbly grateful. China needs such guidance in spreading the ideals of Communism among our people.’

Biao glanced at him, just a flicker of the eyes. Chang suppressed a smile. Even this young soldier knew there was nothing humble about Mao, not even in the tip of his little finger. But entry to the very heart of the Soviet system, a meeting in the Kremlin and a talk with the man who grasped the reins of power at its centre would be of great interest. There was even a ripple of danger about it that made the delegation nervy and uncommunicative this morning. As if they knew they might walk in but might never walk out, caught like flies in a web.

The day was bright, the streets drenched in sunlight. Blue skies had replaced the clouds of yesterday, but Chang’s heart hung heavy in his chest because it was not in the direction of the Kremlin that his feet longed to tread. The frosting of snow on the trees opposite the hotel glittered invitingly and people were strolling under them, young couples openly hand in hand. He looked away.

Wherever he and the Chinese delegation went, soldiers cleared an open space for them, pushing people aside as though to keep the delegates from contamination. Or was it from contaminating? The pavement in front of the steps had been scrupulously swept free of any Muscovites, while three official cars with the hammer and sickle pennant flapping on their bonnets purred patiently at the kerb. Their chief escort, a brisk woman in uniform, opened one of the doors and treated them to a stiff smile, but just as Chang was about to enter the cushioned interior he heard a shout.

The cause was a boy. No more than ten or twelve years old, thin as a weasel but running fast. He had wormed his way past a soldier and was dodging another’s grasp, racing across the empty space in front of the hotel as if his tail were on fire.

Chang’s heart opened up. With two strides he stepped into the boy’s path, knocking him off balance and causing him to crash. For no more time than it takes for one of the gods to frown, they stumbled against each other. Then a soldier’s gloved hand reached out and seized the urchin by his thin arm, shaking him so hard into submission that the rag wrapped round his head fell off to reveal pale hair that gleamed like pearls in the sunshine. The chief escort hurried over to Chang, stern annoyance on her face. But something more was there as well. It was fear. She was frightened he would report her for incompetence.

‘Comrade Chang,’ she said quickly, ‘I apologise. The boy will be punished.’

‘Let him go.’

‘Nyet. The street urchin must be taught a lesson.’

‘Let him go, comrade.’

Chang’s tone was quiet. The escort studied him for a second and readjusted the collar of her military coat.

‘Let him go, comrade,’ he said again. It was unmistakably an order. He turned to the soldier, who was twisting the boy’s arm behind his back like a brittle twig. ‘Release him. He did me no harm.’

The chief escort gave a sharp nod and the soldier’s grip loosened. Instantly the boy was running up the street and disappearing into the crowd faster than a rat down a drainpipe. Without comment Chang took his seat in the car and nodded appreciatively as the escort pointed out the new constructions undertaken along their route, the improved street lighting, the widening of the roads.

‘Very good,’ he murmured.

Only when she and his fellow delegates were engrossed in the great Kremlin fortress with its towering red walls and gleaming roofs did Chang slide a hand into his coat pocket. A folded piece of paper lay inside.

33

‘It’s fascinating to see the construction of it.’

‘I agree,’ Jens Friis responded to Olga, who was standing at his side. They were both gazing upward. ‘Every time I see it, it takes my breath away.’

‘It’s like a huge pregnant whale floating up there.’

Jens laughed, his breath a shimmer of white in the early morning air. ‘Ah, Olga, you don’t do it justice. It’s an airship. Look at it. Sleek and elegant. A gigantic silver bullet waiting for someone to pull the trigger.’

He was proud of the design. However much he hated it, he was proud of it. Like a child who goes bad, it’s hard to stop loving it. Airships had a far greater range than aeroplanes and this one, with two biplanes attached to it, would provide a weapon that could terrorise whole cities and battlegrounds.

With a shiver Olga looked away from the creation looming above their heads. Instead she stared at young Fillyp struggling with the ropes, at the cement floor meticulously clean, at her own hands, a skilled chemist’s hands.

‘Olga,’ Jens said gently, and for a brief second while everyone’s attention was elsewhere he touched her shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault. You have no choice. None of us have.’

She turned her bleak blue eyes on him. ‘Is that true, Jens? Is that really true?’


***

The airship’s hangar was as high and as intricately ribbed as the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. It towered above them like a new kind of sky, but no sun ever shone inside this world. It dwarfed the band of engineers and scientists who set about their work with well-schooled efficiency, reduced to the significance of worker ants by the vast structure.

Today it was Jens’ task to reconstruct the release triggers on the gas containers, adjusting his new design for one of the holding brackets on the underside of the biplanes in the adjoining hangar. The weight of each biplane was crucial to the airship’s balance, so he had to calibrate his measurements with minute precision. He was watched carefully. Not only by the guards who shuffled up and down, rifles slung over their shoulders, beating their arms across their chests to keep warm, but by the others. He never knew who they were or what they did. Lean-faced, grey-haired observers, two of them, always dressed in black suits. He called them the Black Widows because they crawled all over the place, poisonous as spiders.

They both wore spectacles and one was constantly unwinding the wire frames from his ears and polishing the glass with his pristine white handkerchief, which seemed to be reserved for that one specific task. They rarely spoke. Just watched everything he did. Sometimes when he glanced over his shoulder, one of the overhead lamps would be reflected in their lenses and it looked to Jens as if hell fire itself was trapped in their eyes.


Outside in the mist Elkin was lolling on a bench at the side of the hangar, smoking a cigarette and picking at a burn on the back of his hand. Smoking of any kind was strictly forbidden inside the hangars, or even anywhere near them for that matter, but once out here in the surrounding compound no one bothered much and the massive buildings provided good protection from the biting wind.

Jens lit his own cigarette – one of the bonuses of being part of this unit was free smokes – and took a place next to his colleague on the bench, folding his long legs under the seat.

‘Elkin,’ he said, ‘you and I have got to have a serious talk about timing. You told Colonel Tursenov that we’ll have it fixed in two weeks.’

‘It’s true, we can.’

‘I think that’s very doubtful. We’ll have to run a sequence of tests first.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Friis, don’t treat me like one of those dimwits over there.’ He gestured with the tip of his cigarette towards a guard sitting on the top step of a stone store hut over by the compound’s brick wall. Near enough to keep an eye on them but too far for words to carry.

‘Elkin, just think about what we’re doing here,’ Jens murmured. ‘Think about the monster we’re creating.’

‘All I’m thinking about is my release at the end of it. That’s what they promised us. Our freedom.’