Manhunt

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The KGB came to the village of Skel’ki, on the southern shore of the Kakhovskoye Vdkhr, as they had always done, in the hours before dawn.

The bitter easterly wind had picked up snow in its passage over Kazakhstan, and the officer in charge — a young captain — had ordered the snow chains to be fitted before the cars had covered even half the distance from the KGB headquarters in Vasil’yevka. In the village, the wind moaned and howled around that cluster of buildings, leaving deep drifts in the lee of anything that provided a shelter. The few cars and lorries in the settlement had been turned into anonymous white lumps, and the two slow-moving black saloons left clear tracks in the snow as they crunched and rattled over the poor road surfaces.

The small grey concrete apartment building stood on the western edge of the village, where the farmland intruded into the built-up area. Identification of the building was easy — the informer had described it very accurately — and the KGB cars circled it once before they parked, one vehicle at the front and one at the rear entrance. The drivers stayed in the cars to keep the engines running and the heaters on, and also to stop anyone trying to leave the building. Although the absence of any lights suggested that it was an unlikely eventuality.

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