Page 20 of White Wolf

Nikita shook the thought away. “Make it fast.”

“Of course, Captain.”

In the trees beyond, a wolf howled, one long, mournful note.

“They’ll come for the bodies once we’ve moved on,” Kolya said.

Yes, they would.

6

CHEKA

Tomsk, Siberia

Throughout his life, Sasha’s father had taught him many things, but the most important was this: family came first. Before city, before country, before business, before pride – family held sway over all.

Perhaps that was an idea afforded them by the lawless wilds of Siberia. In Moscow, or Petrograd, or Stalingrad, they would be the inheritors of a legacy of serfdom. Now chained by collectivization, and by the merciless grinding of the Bolshevik industrial machine.

But here, in Tomsk, they’d always been free. Life wasn’t extravagant, but it wastheirs.

Sasha was nineteen, and foolish enough to think his life would always be his.

Evening fell in curtains of pale purple and blue, the sunset a bruise in the western sky, last light striking like flares off icicles and the fresh layer of crust on the snow. Sasha’s long legs ate up the distance; he’d been walking in snow his whole life, and it was second nature, placing his feet carefully, his fur-wrapped boots keeping out the cold and the wet. The sled gliding along behind him, heavy, but manageable. He felt the pleasant burn of lean muscles in his arms and shoulders and chest as he towed his kills. A badger, a fox, a deer – the last a young buck with tiny buds for spring antlers.

He was always clear-headed and peaceful after a successful hunt. After the adrenaline washed him clean, and the urgency bled out of him. When a vague sickness settled in his stomach, a blending of gratitude for the animals he’d killed, and regret for the lives taken. Furs were the family business, and they’d provided them with a comfortable house, food to fill their bellies, vodka for the long cold nights. They had paid to bury Sonya, when she passed, his poor little sister, always sickly and frail. Paid for his tuition at the university in town.

But there would always be a part of him that hated the way the life bled out of the animals’ eyes. A last wink of light, and then nothing. Husks to be dressed, and butchered, and tanned.

The light was gone from the sky by the time he reached the edge of town, but then there were lighted windows to show him the way. Warm wooden houses all buckled up for the night, shadows moving behind curtains. The market was shut up, the children had abandoned their games. He heard the distant whistle of the train – it would depart in just a few hours, loaded with pelts, and raw gold, and coal, all of it bound for the factories in Stalingrad…and the war effort.

“Thank God it doesn’t touch us here,” his mother always said. “There’s not a German alive stupid enough to come into Siberia.”

And there wasn’t.

A few young men from Tomsk had gone to join the Red Army, those from families fallen on hard times, who needed the money. And Sasha had seen the cattle cars packed with prisoners headed for the gulags.

Not us, not us, not ushe prayed at night. He wanted nothing to do with the war. His family had suffered enough losing Sonya – they didn’t need to lose him too.

He turned down his street, routine propelling him forward, through the shoveled drifts to their brown wooden house with whitewashed scrollwork around the windows. He imagined he could smell his mother’s cooking, feel the heat of the fire, the promise of familiar comforts already lulling him half to sleep.

“Sasha,” someone called, and he pulled up short.

Their neighbor, Andrei, big, bearded, and ruddy-cheeked, always laughing, stood with his arms stiffly at his sides, his expression totally out of place. He almost lookedafraidas his eyes skipped up to Sasha’s house.

“What is it?” Sasha asked, heartbeat accelerating.

Andrei’s breath plumed white in the darkness. He shook his head, like a man who’d seen a ghost. “Six men went into your house. One was old. But five were not. They had…they wore long black coats.”

Sasha frowned. “What?”

“Black coats,” Andrei stressed. He looked petrified. “Chekists, Sasha. Stalin’s secret police. Not the locals – these came from the train. FromMoscow, I heard.”

Chekists.From Moscow.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Sasha looked toward his house. The windows were lit. A curtain twitched.

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