He slipped seamlessly into a dream-filled sleep like stepping through a doorway. It was a vivid dream. He was in a car driving along an unmade country road, rough frozen mud and icy water all
around. His body was shaking. He awoke with a start and it took several moments before he realized he could hear something, a muffled thud.
‘Kate,’ Lou whispered and gave her a gentle shake. ‘Kate.’
She awoke with a start.
‘It’s OK, babe.’
She pulled herself up and he gave her a reassuring hug and helped her to her feet. She was dazed and disorientated.
‘I heard a sound.’
She saw him put a finger to his lips in the faint light.
Nothing.
‘Wait,’ Lou said and tilted his head.
The thudding sound came again.
‘There.’
‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘I can’t tell. Behind the wall?’
He picked up his coat, shook it and pulled it on. ‘Let’s walk on for a bit.’
They headed along the tunnel in the direction they had been walking earlier. For a few moments the sound did not seem to change in volume, but then they noticed it becoming a little louder.
‘Moving in the right direction,’ Kate said.
A dim light appeared further along the tunnel. They approached it warily, edging forward in the darkness, keeping close to the left wall. As they moved closer they could pick out the sound of a
drill. It stopped and started. In the quiet periods, they heard voices, a man shouting orders in Russian.
Drawing nearer, they caught a light spilling from a crack between an ovoid metal door and its frame. They slid along the wall close to the opening and Lou peered round, doing his best to keep
out of sight of whoever was on the other side.
He could see a large room lit by powerful arc lights. Four men were working in the room. They were dressed in mucky overalls, hobnail boots and metal hats. Two of them were screwing boards over
bare stonework, a third was stirring cement in a mixer, the fourth covering a patch of floor with wet cement.
Lou pulled back. ‘Workmen,’ he said.
‘At this time of the morning?’ Kate glanced at her watch. ‘3 a.m.?’
Lou turned back to the view and watched as the men continued working. He heard a muffled sound close to his ear and whirled round. Another man in a metal hat and overalls, with a filthy face,
soot and grime around his eyes and nose, had a chunky dirt-smeared hand around Kate’s mouth, a knife to her throat.
‘
Kto ty?
’ he spat.
Lou put his hands up. ‘I don’t speak Russian.’
‘English?’ the man said with a heavy accent. He kept the knife precisely where he had placed it, his hand steady. ‘What you do here?’ He flicked his head up, chin thrust
forward.
‘I, we . . . we got separated from our friends.’ He wasn’t sure what to say, so he decided to tell the truth. ‘We were on our way to see Sergei.’
‘Sergei?’ The man looked surprised.
‘Please . . . Can you let my wife go? We mean no harm.’
He gripped Kate tighter, moved the knife a fraction of an inch along the white flesh of her neck. Lou could see the point digging in, close to breaking the skin.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I ask.’
‘I’m Lou Bates, Dr Lou Bates. This is my wife, Dr Kate Wetherall.’
‘Why you see Sergei? How you know Sergei?’
‘We were brought down here from Prospekt Vernadskogo.’
‘Who brought you?’
‘A man named Max. There were three of us with him, us and our friend, Adam Fleming. He has disappeared. I . . . we don’t know Max’s surname. Please . . . could you let her
go?’
The man took a deep breath, slowly pulled the knife away and loosened his grip so Kate could slip away. Lou grabbed her and pulled her close.
‘Need check for weapons,’ the man said stepping forward, putting the knife between his teeth and frisking first Lou then Kate.
‘We are unarmed,’ Kate said.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ Satisfied, he stepped back and gripped the knife in his hand. ‘ID?’
Lou pulled out his passport from an inside pocket of his jacket. Kate found hers in a pocket of her jeans. They handed them over. The man flicked through them.
‘So, what you want?’ he said.
‘What’s your name?’ Kate asked.
He stared at her for a few moments before answering. ‘Milov. Boris Milov, foreman of this work group. I know Max and . . .’ He paused for a moment and puffed out his chest. ‘I
know Sergei. He is my master.’
‘Master?’
‘My boss. He is big boss.’
‘You live in Metro 2?’ Kate asked.
Boris nodded. ‘Again . . . what do you want?’
The door from the room opened and a man stepped out into the tunnel. He saw Lou and Kate and gave Boris a quizzical look.
Lou glanced at the man and turned back to Milov. ‘We were due to meet Sergei to discuss . . . a deal.’
Boris caught the other man’s eye. ‘Hear that, Peter? A deal.’
Peter produced a crooked smile; his teeth were a mess.
‘How we know you not government spies?’
‘You don’t,’ Kate said matter-of-factly. ‘But I imagine Sergei would not be pleased if you were to take matters into your own hands, to make false assumptions.’
‘You threaten me?’ Boris said and took a step towards them.
‘Just pointing out the obvious . . . Boris,’ Kate snapped back.
He fixed her with a cold stare. His eyes looked small and very dark. Then, to their surprise, he broke into a smile. ‘How do you people say it? Pluck. You are pluck, young lady. I like
that. Come on, follow me.’ And he pushed past them, swung the door open and stomped into the room, the drill screeching and then stopping abruptly.
‘This part of new extension. East Wing, Section 4. That probably means little,’ Boris said and nodded to the workmen. They turned back to their labours. ‘We are at outer edge
of Metro 2. You must have followed very strange route from Prospekt Vernadskogo.’
‘We have no idea how we got here,’ Kate said. ‘We were blindfolded for part of the way.’
‘Of course.’ Boris was nodding.
‘But then we were . . . dumped and separated from our friend and from Max,’ Lou added. ‘We started to draw a map, but lost it.’
Boris stopped. ‘The tunnels are our protectors. Many people have died trying to find way out. You lucky.’ He turned into a small room containing a metal desk strewn with papers, an
ancient wood-fuelled heater stood in another corner. A single weak bulb dangled from the ceiling by a coiled wire.
‘Hungry?’
Kate shook her head.
‘I have cheese and strong coffee.’
‘I’d like a coffee,’ Lou said and looked at Kate. She nodded.
It was strong too, syrupy and sweet and delivered in a chipped enamel mug. Lou and Kate felt its invigorating effects almost immediately.
‘Are you allowed to talk about Metro 2, Boris?’ Kate asked, watching the foreman as he reclined in a battered old chair, feet up on the desk, mug of black coffee steaming in his
hand.
‘Depends.’
‘We know Sergei is a recluse and Metro 2 is his . . . well, Max called it his realm.’
Boris barked a laugh. ‘Max is a romantic! Reads too much, watches too many old Soviet movies! Sergei is very different. He is practical man, like me. Most of us practical men, that is how
we survive.’
‘How many are you?’
‘How many? No exact number. Maybe . . . how you say? Two thousand, three thousand . . .’
‘Wow!’ Lou exclaimed. ‘We had no idea.’
‘I come here 1997. My three children born here. We have four doctors now and a good hospital. We want for nothing.’
‘How do you keep going?’
Boris gave Kate a puzzled look. ‘We work hard.’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘We each have our jobs to do. Some go to surface if we need supplies. We grow food.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know word. There are light shafts from surface. We build in recent years. We also use lamps. We have air . . . I don’t know word again . . . Sent down here?’
‘Ventilation. We saw some heavy piping.’
‘That may have been air or electricity.’
‘And there are families living down here?’
‘You sound surprised!’ Boris gave Kate a testy look.
‘I wasn’t judging.’ She had her right hand up, clutching the coffee with her left. ‘Quite the reverse, Boris. I’m amazed at your ingenuity. But why? Why are you
here?’
‘I cannot speak for others. But there was nowhere for me up there.’ He pointed a blackened fingernail towards the ceiling. ‘I got into trouble . . . found my way underground.
That was long time ago.’ He got up from the chair. ‘Come, we are close to finishing shift. You wish to be taken to Sergei? Then you must come with us . . . or tunnels will suck you in
and never spit you out.’
Boris led the way along a narrow passageway that opened out into a large rectangular high-ceilinged space. The workers had gathered there, and Kate and Lou could see an old carriage on a single
track. It was a dumpy, corroded thing fronted by an electric locomotive.
A rail ran along the spine of the carriage from which a series of leather straps hung. The train pulled away slowly accelerating to a sedate twenty miles per hour, before plunging into a tunnel;
the only light, a sparse reflection along the walls from the rather dim headlights of the locomotive. It made an awful noise, clattering along the tunnel shaking and rolling like a jelly on a
dessert trolley.
‘Not far,’ Boris shouted over the racket. ‘Old train . . . but this best way. After long day it good!’
The train emerged from the tunnel into a well-lit station. Lou spotted a sign as it slid past: ‘
Stantsiya Nomer Tri
.’ He nudged Kate and pointed towards it.
Boris noticed. ‘We build loop, cutting off Station Number Two just past where we worked today. Part of network for these electric trains. It feeds off main power grid of regular Metro. We
get around faster than on foot. And it costs us nothing!’ He gave them a gappy grin.
The train slowed and pulled to a stop at the end of the platform of Station Number Three. The men jumped out and headed off along the platform chatting and joking among themselves. Boris hung
back with Kate and Lou.
‘I don’t know your business with boss,’ he said. ‘It is none of mine . . . I shall take you to him now.’
They followed him along the platform and turned into a narrow passageway, through a door and down a long, wide spiral staircase that opened out into a corridor. A man came towards them pushing a
cart laden with sacks, another man dressed in workman’s overalls carried a huge hoop of electric cable over his left shoulder, a metal toolbox in his other hand. He strode past them without a
second glance.
Down a side passage they saw two women hanging their last items of washing on a line. Kate, Lou and Boris edged past the women and headed along the corridor, made a left and a right and stepped
into another wide open space. In front of a heavy wooden door with a large brass handle two children were playing with a pair of handheld Nintendos. Boris shooed the kids away, stepped up to the
door and rapped the handle.
A few moments passed and a man in military fatigues appeared at the door. He had a Kalashnikov over his shoulder and a holstered handgun in his belt. He gave Kate and Lou a hard, questioning
look and then noticed Boris.
‘Anton Viktor Dubovnich, these two are here to see Sergei,’ Boris said in Russian.
Dubovnich looked them up and down. ‘I’m sure they are,’ he sneered, holding his gaze on Kate’s breasts a little longer than was polite. ‘I take it you have checked
for weapons? Checked ID? Followed protocol?’
‘Of course. Unarmed. Their IDs fit their story.’
‘Which is?’
‘They are here to see Sergei on business.’
The militiaman sneered again. ‘Business?’
‘They know Max.’
Lou recognized the word and jumped in. ‘Max brought us into Metro 2 . . . to meet Sergei.’
The man stared coldly into Lou’s eyes.
‘Max brought them down. They got separated and lost,’ Boris said.
Dubovnich considered Kate, then Lou. He unshouldered his Kalashnikov, the barrel a few inches from Lou’s guts. ‘You should know better than to bring strangers here, Boris Gregorovich
Milov. People don’t just get separated from Max and “lost” in the tunnels. These two are either spies or they were meant to be ditched. Either way . . .’ He stepped forward,
swung the rifle round with lightning speed and slammed the butt into the side of Lou’s head, sending him sprawling across the floor.
Lou came to staring blankly at a wooden floor, a throbbing pain beginning at the side of his head and running down his neck. He lifted his head and the pain screamed. Slowly he
began to focus and touched his temple. His fingertips came up red.
‘Lou . . .’ It was Kate.
He looked up at her and gradually his vision cleared. First getting up onto one elbow, he rose slowly, Kate helping him to his feet. ‘You OK?’
He did not answer. Instead, he rubbed his eyes and looked round. The barrel of the Kalashnikov hung only inches from his face.
A man stepped over and took his arm gently. Lou looked round and saw Adam Fleming. He had a black eye and a gash across his cheek, the latter patched up with a row of Steri-Strips.
‘Take it easy, Lou.’
‘What the fuck . . .?’
Fleming stepped back and Lou could see they were in a large room lit weakly by a chandelier containing a dozen candles. In the centre of the room stood a long heavy oak table. At the head of the
table sat a large man in a leather coat. He had spiky salt-and-pepper hair, prominent cheekbones and a vivid scar running from the corner of his left eye in a meandering line to his chin. To his
right sat Max; still dressed in his fur-collared greatcoat, he was staring at the oak table.
‘Please sit,’ Max said. He indicated to three other seats at the table. Fleming strode over to the chair to the left of the man at the head of the table.
Lou took two steps towards the table, the rifle still levelled at him. He stopped suddenly. ‘Fuck this,’ he spat. ‘Why should I sit?’
The stranger at the table raised his hand and Dubovnich backed off.