Page 88 of Bad Bishop

And then, because he was curious—because he’d always been curious about the outsiders who came there—he asked, “How did you get here?”

“Prisoner of war, you could say.” The stranger sat straighter in his cot, his back flat against the wall. “I am anAmerican. I was dumb enough to steal Igor’s shipment. Name’s Michael.”

“Tiernan.”

“Doesn’t sound too Russian.” Michael crumpled his rather ugly face.

“It’s not.”

“Do you speak English?”

“Niet.”

Silence. Somebody moaned at them to shut up. Tiernan ignored the plea. Alex was away for Novy God, probably eating caviar in front of a crackling fire.

“Do you want to?” Michael asked.

Tiernan considered his question. It would be good to know English so he could communicate with his family when he and Tierney escaped. He had every intention of doing that. But English would be useless short-term.

“Igor speaks English,” Tiernan said after a while. “I wouldn’t be able to communicate under his nose.”

“If it’s communicating under the radar you’re after, you should learn the American Sign Language,” Michael said. “I can teach you. My wife is deaf. She taught me to speak it. Always drove my friends nuts when they came over and couldn’t understand what we were saying.”

Tiernan liked that idea. He liked it a lot.

“You don’t have more than two weeks in you,” Tiernan said tonelessly, nonetheless.

“I know,” he allowed. “But two weeks are enough if you make the most of them.”

Tiernan was a fast learner. So was Tierney.

“All right. What do you want in return?”

They bartered everything in the camp. Food. Drink. Clothes. Medicine. The older kids bartered sex, too. But Tiernan refused to let Tierney do anything stupid for a bowl of porridge.

“Your clothes. Blankets. Coats. Anything to fight this cold.” The man shivered, coughing into his fist. Splatters of blood flaked his blue skin.

Tiernan ran his finger over the burn marks on his knees. Igor had tortured him with fire before he went to Moscow for the holidays. The abuse he had taken was becoming too dangerous. He didn’t have time to waste. He needed to get out of here.

“That’s too much for a few language lessons,” Tiernan said.

“If you give me your food and clothes until I die, I will help you escape here.”

Tiernan cocked his head.

“It’s too late for me,” Michael acknowledged. “But you still can. If you ever find your way out of these gates, you take the road of bones to Yakutsk. That’s a twenty-hour drive, so you better have a car. Once you’re there, go to Lenin Square. Every day, at exactly noon, a man named Dima will wait beneath the statue. He is my ride out of Russia. My wife pays him well. He’ll take you out of here. Tell him Michael sent you.”

“What if he doesn’t come there anymore?”

“Impossible. My wife said she’ll pay him to do it until the day she dies.”

That sounded like a risky plan and a load of bullshit. Then again, Tiernan had no other choice. He’d never set foot beyond these gates. Hadn’t known a place other than this work camp.

He could drive well enough. He transported logs back and forth using vehicles. But he and Tierney would need a car and some food. A map of the Sakha. And, of course, the code to the main gates.

“You need to escape or die trying, Tiernan. This is no way to live,” Michael said. His lips were so chapped they hardly moved.

Tiernan shed his jacket and handed it to him. Not because he cared, but because he needed Michael alive to teach him sign language and everything there was to know about the outside world before he expired.