Chapter 5

Irina bolted inside the school gates. Svetlana leapt out of the Buick, past Mischa, and chased after her. "Irina!" she cried, "Stop!" She fell to her knees, "Irina?" she cried once more, "please!" The girl stopped, and turned around. "Irina," Svetlana gasped, "I will not harm you. You must come back!"

"Where are my parents?" she asked. "Why does the sun stay up and not go down?" she added in a plaintive voice. "How come there are no people? Where are my friends?"

"Irina?" Svetlana said, "I can't answer you, but we had nothing to do with it. I don't know what's happened for sure, but, there is no-one around for you, except me - us. You must come with me."

"Are my parents coming back?" she asked, sobbing.

"No, darling, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Irina came slowly back to where Svetlana knelt on her knees, tears streaking down her face. Svetlana reached up, and the girl bent down to accept her embrace, crying bitterly onto her shoulder. Svetlana held her, as her body was racked with emotion, pent up for so long. Mischa looked at Rostrimov, who looked back, shrugging. Neither could make much sense of it all. Eventually, Svetlana led Irina back to the car and they both jumped into the back seat. Mischa, once again, stomped on the gas, and off they shrieked.

Svetlana comforted the weeping girl, clutching her tightly as her body was wracked with tears. She gently stroked her head, whispering, to her, comforting her in the way a mother would an upset child.

They passed a small village, with a row of white cottages, a gas station and a corner shop. A bus waited at a stop for passengers that wouldn't turn up. Likely, it had waited, there, for the last four days.

"Where are you going?" Irina asked, from the back seat.

"Wolverhampton," Mischa explained.

"You missed the turn off."

Scowling at Rostrimov, Mischa spun the car into a farm gate, and made a three point turn. With Irina guiding, they finally made the main road.

Mischa watched the two, woman and girl, through the rear view mirror. They looked remarkably similar, as if one, Irina, was the younger version of the older. They had the same color eyes, hair, and their skin complexion matched. They even had the same high cheekbones. If Mischa didn't know better, they could have been sisters.

"What part of Russia did your parents come from, Irina? Mischa asked, curious.

"Not sure," she said, dreamily. "Some place South of Moscow, I think."

"Bryansk, Kaluga, Orel, perhaps?"

"No, doesn't ring a bell."

"Tula?"

"That sounds like it," she said. "Hmm, Tula, yes, I'm sure of it, why?"

"No reason. Just curious," he told her. He looked at her again, studying her face. There was, he thought, something about her. And the similarity between her and Svetlana? There had to be a connection.

Tula? The town played heavy on Mischa's mind as he drove the big Buick. Tula had been a town of immense importance since the late Middle Ages - one of a system of fortresses built to defend the Centre against the Tartars. Since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, it had manufactured the bulk of Russia's armaments and had been key during the Revolution and Civil War that followed. Denikin's 'White Russian' Volunteer Army had tried to capture it during the height of the Civil War before being driven back at the Battle of Orel by Trotsky's Red Army. Again, in 1941, the German General Guderian had laid siege to it during the Great Patriotic War only to be defeated with the greatest of good fortune. The population grew to a peak of nearly a million in the 1930s during Stalin's frantic rearmament program only to decline during the war. It had never really recovered post war when the Soviet Union's munitions industry was widely dispersed.

The onion domes of orthodox churches marked the skyline inside the walls of the old fortress, or 'kremlin.' The churches had lain derelict during Mischa's brief time there, only to be meticulously restored post war as monuments to Russia's past. Only one, 'The Holy Cross' was allowed by the Oblast Authority to open for worship for the benefit of a few, elderly, registered Russian Orthodox Christians. Religion did not completely disappear during the Atheist Communist era, but staggered on under Official forbearance in the hope it would eventually die with the demise of its diehards. The kremlin's churches had been turned over for emergency worker accommodation and he'd made a place for himself in the apse, the bare walls having been stripped of their icons.

It had been Winter, cold and bleak, and the work was hard and monotonous. The old, drafty, unheated factory building had coal fired braziers placed at the end of each production line and workers paused in passing them to briefly thaw out. Young students and cadres from the local Worker's Councils would come and sing patriotic songs for them to spur them on to build Stalin's new Russia. It was on a visit from one of these political glee concerts when he saw her, dressed in the prim, brown uniform of the Militsya. He would pause from his boring work and smile at her, hoping he'd catch her eye. Eventually, she did, and each day, when the concert group arrived promptly at two, they played each other with their eyes, careful the others didn't spot the interaction.

"Onward, heroic workers of new Russia. Build our Revolution, for the people stand with you!"

"What's that song?" Irina asked, from the back seat.

"What song?" Mischa asked her, confused.

"You were singing."

"Was I?"

"You were," chimed in Svetlana. "Mischa, you can't sing. It's not easy on the rest of us to have to listen to you."

"I was not aware. You're right, I'm tone deaf."

"If you turn off up here, you can go around the bypass. It's longer, but you don't have to go through Birmingham. It's faster because you miss all the traffic," Irina explained.

"What traffic?" Mischa replied. "There's no traffic. What's the most direct way?"

"Through Birmingham."

"Then Birmingham it is. How far?"

"Another hour."

"Huh, it was 'another hour' an hour ago. It's always 'another hour' in this country. Why do they have so many roads?"

"Mischa, don't be so bad tempered," Svetlana chided him. "If it wasn't for Irina, you'd be driving around in circles. Why don't you let Yvgeny do the driving? Irina could sit in the front and direct. Why don't you jump in the back with me?" She beamed at him, and he pulled over to the side of the road. He saw Rostrimov grin with anticipation, but he couldn't be sure whether it was the thought of driving the Buick or having the pretty English girl sit next to him.

The son of an Admiral, Yvgeny Rostrimov was raised in Navy schools and entered the Academy at the nominal age of16. Showing a remarkable gift for mathematics, he had excelled in his class, and had opted for the AV-MF, like his father. He had been posted to the Petrovska as part of his practical training and felt privileged to have been placed with the best, Senior Captain Maxim (Mischa) Yefremov, at the urging of his father. With his lineage, capabilities and connections to the Northern Fleet's hierarchy his real age had not become as controversial as it may have been to someone without his official clout. For, on June the 7th, 1959, he hadn't yet reached the age of 18, the official age a recruit was allowed to serve on operations in the Navy.

Mischa cuddled up to Svetlana in the back suit and, quickly, fell asleep on her shoulder. Like all old, navy men, he was used to sleeping amid the noise and activity of a ship's bunk room, taking whatever rest he could between 4 hour watches. Irina seemed relaxed around Rostrimov and she clearly was impressed by his boyish good looks and military manners. She guided him through the City of Birmingham and pointed out what sights the industrial city had to offer in 1959. The rows of tenement buildings on the outskirts were grimy and desolate and large factories still belched smoke from deserted boiler rooms. There was no activity at all, as they threaded their way through the centre, and onto the road to nearby Wolverhampton. At last, after an hour's driving, they arrived at the peaceful, middle class street called 'Chester Road.'

Mischa woke with a start as he sensed the car stop. He looked around and down the street, dotted with parked, small English cars. The houses were all Edwardian, semi-detached with a small front yard fronted by wrought iron fences, one front window on the bottom floor, and two on the top, with red, tiled, pitched roofs.

"Number 12 would be that one," Rostrimov pointed, counting the houses. "If they have even numbers on one side and odd on the other."

"Yes, that one," Irina agreed. "It looks quiet. Who is this Michael, anyway?"

"He radioed us back in Murmansk," Rostrimov explained. "There is a short wave radio next door, he said. He knows morse code and there is a fish and chip shop nearby."

"Over there, look?" Irina said. "I wouldn't mind some fish and chips. I'm so hungry."

"Is, good, this 'fish and chips'?"

"Yeah, with lots of vinegar. They wrap them in newspaper."

"Newspaper? Why?"

"Cheap!"

"Ah! You must try fresh cod steaks, sautéed, with white sauce."

"When you two have stopped discussing the menu, can we find this guy and get back to the plane?" Mischa, snapped. "I have had my fill of deserted streets and English industrial towns."