‘What time is it?’ he croaked.

‘Ten to four,’ the black-eyed man said.

Ten to four… They’d probably come for him in about forty minutes. And in an hour and ten minutes… An hour and nine minutes. An hour and eight minutes. Seven minutes.

‘What’s your name?’ his neighbour asked.

‘Artyom.’

‘I’m Ruslan. My brother was called Ahmed, and they shoot him straight away. But I don’t know what they do with me. My name is Russian – maybe they don’t want mistake.’ The black-eyed man was happy that he finally managed to start a conversation.

‘Where are you from?’

None of this was of interest to Artyom, but the chatting of his unshaven neighbour helped him to fill his head. It didn’t matter what it was filling it with. He didn’t want to think about VDNKh. He didn’t want to think about the mission that he had been charged with. He didn’t want to think about what was happening in the metro. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to!

‘I’m from Kievskaya. You know it? We call it sunny Kiev…’ Ruslan smiled, showing a row of white teeth. ‘There are lots of my people there… I have a wife, children – three children. The oldest one has six fingers on his hands!’ he added proudly.

… Something to drink. Just a mouthful. Even if it’s tepid. he wouldn’t mind tepid water. Unfiltered even. Any water. A mouthful. And to be forgotten about again, until the escorts come to get him. He wanted an empty mind again, and not to be bothered. He wanted his head to stop spinning, to stop itching, to stop his thoughts from telling him that he’d made a mistake. He didn’t have the right to do what he did. He should have gone off. Turned his back. Covered his ears. Carried on. Made it from Pushkinskaya to Chekhovskaya. And from there it was just one transfer. So easy. Just one transfer and it would all have been done, his task completed. He would be alive.

Something to drink. His hands had become so numb that he didn’t feel them.

It’s so much easier for people to die when they believe in something! For those who believe that death isn’t the end of everything. For those in whose eyes the world is separated into black and white – who know exactly what they need to do and why, who hold the torch of an idea, of beliefs, in their hands, and everything they see is illuminated by it. Those who have nothing to doubt and nothing to regret. They must have an easy time of dying. They die with a smile on their face.

‘We had fruit big like this before! And the beautiful flowers! I give them to the girl for no money and she give me the smile…’ The words reached Artyom but couldn’t distract him anymore.

Steps could be heard from the depths of the hall. Several people were approaching and Artyom’s heart tightened and turned into a small nervous lump. Were they coming for him? So soon! He thought forty minutes would have lasted longer… Or had his devilish neighbour told him that more time was left because he had wanted to give him some hope? No, it couldn’t be…

Three pairs of boots stopped at his cage. Two of them were in spotted military trousers, one in black trousers. The lock made a grinding sound and Artyom only just managed not to fall over as the cage door he was leaning on opened.

‘Pick him up,’ someone said…

He was grabbed under the arms and he soared towards the ceiling.

‘Break a leg!’ Ruslan wished him, as a parting gesture.

There were two machine gunners, but not those that he’d talked to. However, these were just as anonymous looking. A third guy with a bristling moustache and watery blue eyes was wearing a black uniform and a small beret. ‘Follow me,’ he ordered and they dragged Artyom to the other end of the platform. He tried to walk himself. He didn’t want them to drag him like he was a helpless doll… If he had to leave this life, he wanted to do it with pride. But his legs wouldn’t obey him, they buckled, and he could only clumsily place them on the floor, hampering the forward motion so that the man in the black uniform looked at him severely.

The cages didn’t continue to the end of the hall. The row was interrupted in the middle where the escalators to the next level down were situated. There, in the depths, torches were burning and ominous crimson light reflected on the ceilings. There were cries of pain coming from below. Artyom suddenly had a thought about the underworld and he felt a certain relief when they had led him past the escalators. From the last cage, someone yelled to him, ‘Farewell my friend!’ But Artyom didn’t pay him any attention. He could only see a glass of water looming before his eyes.

On the opposite wall there was a guards observation post, a roughly knocked-together table with two chairs and there was a sign with that symbol which said no entry for black people. He couldn’t see any gallows anywhere and, for a moment, Artyom had the crazy hope that they had only wanted to scare him and that they weren’t really leading him to his hanging but they were taking him to the end of the station so that he could be let go without the others seeing it.

The man with the moustache, who was walking ahead, turned at the last archway, towards the pathways, and Artyom began to believe in his rescue fantasy even more strongly…

There was a small platform on wheels standing on the rails, and it was arranged in such a manner that its floor was level with the station floor. There was a thickset man in a spotted uniform, checking a loop of rope that was hanging from a hook screwed into the ceiling. The only difference between him and the others was that his rolled up sleeves showed powerful forearms, and he had a knitted hat pulled over his head with holes cut into it for his eyes.

‘Is everything ready?’ the man in the black uniform said and the executioner nodded at him.

‘I don’t like this construction,’ he said. ‘Why couldn’t we use the good old stool? Then it’s – pow!’ He punched his fist into his other palm. ‘Break his neck! But with this thing… While he’s choking, he’ll squirm like a worm on a hook. And when they choke, there’s so much to clean up afterwards! There’s like guts everywhere…’

‘Enough!’ the man in the black uniform said. Then he took the executioner aside and furiously hissed something at him.

As soon as their superior had stepped away, the soldiers quickly went back to their interrupted conversation.

‘So?’ the one on the left impatiently asked the one on the right.

‘OK, so,’ the one on the right whispered loudly, ‘I pushed her up against the column and shoved my hand under her skirt and she turned all soft and said to me…’ But he didn’t manage to finish because his superior had returned.

‘Never mind the fact that he’s Russian – he transgressed!… The traitor, the turncoat, degenerate, and traitors should be painfully punished!’ He was encouraging the executioner.

They untied his hands, and took off his jacket and jumper so that Artyom stood there only wearing his dirty undershirt. Then they tore the cartridge case that Hunter had given him off the string around his neck. ‘A talisman?’ the executioner inquired. ‘I’ll put it in your pocket, it might still come in handy.’

His voice was far from evil, and it was curiously soothing.

Then they pulled his hands together behind his back and pushed Artyom onto the scaffold. The soldiers remained on the platform since they weren’t needed. He couldn’t escape anyway since it required all the strength Artyom had just to stand there while the executioner fitted the loop over his head. To stand up, not fall and make no noise. Something to drink. That’s all that he could think about. Water. Water!

‘Water…’ he croaked.

‘Water?’ The executioner threw up his hands in disappointment. ‘Where am I going to get you any water now? It’s not possible, my dear, we’re already way behind schedule – now just be patient, not long now…’

He jumped off onto the path with a thud and spat on his hands before taking up the rope attached to the scaffold. The soldiers were lined up and their commander had assumed a significant and even solemn look.