Again, he wished she had a gun. It would have made things more interesting.
HE HAD A Russian rifle; I had an American pistol. The irony was not lost on me. My Colt wouldn’t be effective past fifty meters, but it was better than no firearm at all. I lay behind the boulder, going through the pockets of my lynx coat to verify what else I had: the paring knife, a handful of loose bullets, the discarded jewelry I’d pulled off at the tree line . . . and among the rattle of diamonds, a matchbox.
I heard a rustle of leaves as he moved in his nest and thought about trying for a shot—but in the dark, aiming uphill with an unfamiliar weapon, I’d have to expose myself to get clear aim, and that meant the marksman’s shot was far more likely to hit than mine. He had picked this ground, not me; it favored him, not me, and I didn’t want to tip my hand until the ground was mine. Right now he thought I was cowering here unarmed, the quivering fool who’d rushed blindly, rashly into the night after her enemy.
The air between us shivered with unsaid words. I almost called out to him—Who are you? Why did you do this? Are you a fanatic or just a hired gunman?—but there was no point. It didn’t matter who he was or why he did this dark work. I’d been driven by war to find the midnight side of my moon; he’d followed his willingly. That was all I needed to know.
But I could still feel the pulsing beat of his curiosity all but touching me through the dark. He was watching, he was eager . . . and the time was now.
I squeezed my eyes shut and struck the entire bundle of matches to life by touch. Feeling the flare in my fist, I thrust my hand up above the rock and flung the burning handful out like a scatter of fireflies. The minute the marksman’s night vision was wrecked by the flashes of light I was moving, eyes still shut, bursting out from behind the boulder and flinging myself down the slope toward the creek in the direction I’d already mapped out for my feet. His shot went off somewhere behind, nowhere near me; I heard him grunt, heard the uneven thump of his boots crashing off into the trees at the wrong angle. Heard what I thought was a gasp of pain and smiled at the thought of the knife wound through his calf. I opened my eyes then and went still against the nearest tree, listening with all my senses to the living dark. Distant crunching of leaves; the marksman was still pressing the wrong way, but he’d soon get his bearings.
The forest is like a temple, I remembered Vartanov saying. Be respectful, and the woods will reward you. I used every trick the old ranger had ever taught me about how to move through trees, making my silent way down to the creek and then stealing along its pebbled bank. I knew exactly where I needed to be.
The frozen moon slid out from behind a cloud, and I saw the dark arch of the bridge. I scrambled through the boulders and rocks of the bank, freezing water numbing my bruised feet in their shredded stockings, dead leaves clinging to the sodden hem of my furs, and then I was onto the bridge and moving across it at a flat sprint. If the marksman was already behind me, this was his chance to drill me between the shoulder blades—but there was only the burbling rush of the creek below as I melted off the bridge and down onto the far-side bank beside the stone arch.
It was near midnight and icy cold, the ground beside the water hard-frozen and glittering with frost, but I stripped off my lynx furs, dropping the loose bullets into the bodice of my dress. I gathered an armload of wet leaves and driftwood, casting it all on top of a rock beside the bridge and just above the water. I worked frantically fast, going still every time I heard a new sound. Once or twice a distant drunken shout came to my ears; once I thought I saw the outline of some passerby in the distant trees—this park wasn’t completely deserted, even late at night—but it was too dark and cold for anyone but the odd tramp or troublemaker. However this duel finished between the marksman and me, there were no innocents here to get between us. I was almost grateful to him, for moving the game to an arena where we could fight things out alone.
I finished up my heap of leaves and driftwood under the bridge and tucked my coat around it to look like a woman huddling under the stone arch. I took the diamond brooch with its flashing tremblers （had I really put it on only a few hours ago at the White House, as Eleanor beamed over the table of gifts?） and pinned it to the fur collar, where it would catch the moonlight. I added the necklace and bracelets too, tucking them around the coat’s sleeves, and stood back to examine the effect. You’re no Ivan, I thought, remembering the dummy soldier Kostia and I had built together for the duel with the German sniper overlooking a very different bridge outside Sevastopol. But you’ll have to do. From a distance, to my enemy’s eyes, it would with luck look like I’d crossed the bridge, slid exhausted to hide underneath on the far side, and waited there trembling and praying for him to cross . . . unaware, of course, that my diamonds were catching the moonlight and giving away my position, stupid commie bitch that I was.