Polar Star

by Martin Cruz Smith

  Just inside the doorway, Mike sprawled as if hugging the rough floor. The Aleut's left eye was open and had the sheen of dark wet rock. Arkady couldn't feel any breath or pulse. On the other hand, he didn't see any blood. Mike had walked into the bunker only steps ahead of him, had lit the kerosene lamp and then gone to the generator. Young men had heart attacks. He turned the Aleut over, unbuttoned his shirt and hit his chest while Mike watched with one eye.

  'Come on,' Arkady urged.

  Mike wore a religious medal on a chain of metal beads; it clinked at the back of his neck each time Arkady hit his chest. He was too warm to be dead, too young and strong, with a boat half built. 'Mikhail! Come on!'

  Arkady opened Mike's mouth, blew in and inhaled the taste of beer. He beat the chest again as if anyone inside could be roused. The medal clicked as Mike stared with a fading eye.

  Or a stroke, Arkady thought, and put his fingers inside to clear the tongue. He touched something that felt improbably hard, and when he pulled his hand out, his fingertips were smeared red. He opened Mike's mouth as wide as he could, looked in with the flashlight and found a point emerging from the tongue like a silver thorn. Gently, he turned the boy's head to the side and brushed the thick black hair at the base of the skull away from two steel ovals that looked like an old-fashioned lorgnette tangled in the hair. American males had affectations: earrings, heavy finger rings, leather cuffs on long braids. But these two bright ovals were imbedded in the head, the handles of a pair of scissors that had been neatly driven like an ice pick, with hardly a drop of blood, halfway through the cranium. They were what Mike's medal had been hitting. One hand doesn't clap; one medal doesn't click. The body sagged gratefully as Arkady let it down.

  Volovoi stepped into the bunker. After him came Karp.

  'He's dead,' Arkady said.

  The first mate and trawlmaster seemed more interested in the bunker than the body.

  'Another suicide?' Volovoi asked as he looked around.

  'You could say so.' Arkady stood. 'It's Mike from the Eagle. I followed him, and he was in here no more than a minute before me. No one came out. Whoever killed him could still be here.'

  'I'm sure,' Volovoi said.

  Arkady flashed the beam around the second room of the bunker. Except for the generator all it contained was bare walls scribbled with graffiti. There was a pool of water in one corner, and above it a shaft russet-striped with stains that led up through the bomb-proof ceiling to a closed hatch. The hatch was out of reach, though there were two broken flanges that had once supported steps.

  'There must have been a rope here or a ladder,' Arkady said. 'Whoever got out probably pulled it up with him and then closed the hatch.'

  'We were following you.' Karp took the rifle off the bed and admired it. 'We didn't see anyone leave.'

  'Why were you following an American?' Volovoi asked.

  'Let's look outside,' Arkady said.

  Karp blocked his way. 'Why were you following him?' Volovoi asked again.

  'To ask him about Zin –'

  'The inquiry is over,' Volovoi said. 'That's not a permissible reason to follow anyone. Or to leave the ship against orders, to disappear from your compatriots, to sneak alone at night out of a foreign port. But I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised by anything you do. Hit him.'

  Karp jabbed the barrel like a spear into Arkady's back between the shoulder blades, then took a measured swing, like a farmer with a scythe, and drove the side of the barrel into the back of his knees. Arkady dropped on to the floor, gasping.

  Volovoi sat on the cot and lit a cigarette. He plucked a well-thumbed magazine from the bookcase, opened the centrefold and tossed it aside, a flush of disgust spreading over his pink face.

  'This proves my point. You've killed before, according to your file. Now you want to defect, to go over to the other side, to dishonour your shipmates and your ship the first chance you had. You picked the weakest of the Americans, this native, and when he wouldn't help, you killed him.'

  'No.'

  Volovoi glanced at Karp and the trawlmaster swung the rifle down on to Arkady's ribs. His jacket absorbed some of the force, but Karp was a powerful man and an enthusiastic assistant.

  'The suicide note that Zina Patiashvili wrote', Volovoi said, 'was found in the dead girl's bed. I myself asked Natasha Chaikovskaya why you didn't search there. She told me you had, yet you didn't report a note.'

  'Because it wasn't there.'

  In spite of the bunker's dank cold, the first mate was sweating. Well, there was the climb, and Arkady had noticed in the past how interrogation was hard work for everyone involved. In the glare of the lamp, Volovoi's crewcut was a crown of radiant spikes. Of course Karp, who was doing all the heavy labour, perspired like Vulcan at his forge.

  'You followed me together?' Arkady asked.

  'I'm asking the questions. He still doesn't understand,' Volovoi complained to Karp.

  Karp kicked Arkady in the stomach. So far it was all routine police work, Arkady thought, a good sign, still just intimidation, nothing irreversible. Then the trawl-master pinned Arkady's neck to the floor with the rifle stock and landed a more serious kick, one that endeavoured to enter the stomach and come out at the spine.

  'Stop,' Volovoi said.

  'Why?' asked Karp. His boot was cocked for a third go.

  'Wait.' Volovoi smiled indulgently; a leader could not explain everything to an associate.

  Arkady rose to one elbow. It was important not to be totally inert.

  'I expected something like this,' Volovoi said. 'Restructuring may be necessary in Moscow, but we're far from Moscow. Here we know that when you move rocks you stir up snakes. We're going to make an example.'

  'Of what?' Arkady asked, trying to hold up his end of the conversation.

  'An example of how dangerous it can be to encourage elements like you.'

  Arkady dragged himself against the workbench. He didn't sit up; he didn't want to appear too comfortable. 'I don't feel encouraged,' he said. 'You were thinking of a trial?'

  Karp said, 'Not a trial. You haven't seen him in front of a judge, the way he twists words.'

  'I didn't kill this boy,' Arkady said. 'If you didn't, then whoever did this is walking down the hill right now.'

  He ducked because he saw the rifle stock coming, so instead of crushing his face it swept the cans off the workbench, and he became more worried, because while he could tolerate an officially authorized beating kept within certain rough bounds, this was getting out of control.

  'Comrade Korobetz!' Volovoi warned Karp. 'That's enough.'

  'He's just going to lie,' Karp said.

  Volovoi said to Arkady, 'Korobetz is not an intellectual, but he is an outstanding worker and he accepts the direction of the Party, something you never did.'

  Except for a white seam across the middle of his narrow forehead where the skin had been removed, Karp's face was red.

  'Your direction?' Arkady hunched closer to a whittling knife that had fallen with the cans.

  'We caught him running, we caught him killing some-one,' Karp insisted. 'He doesn't have to be alive.'

  'That's not your decision,' Volovoi said. 'There are hard questions to be asked and answered. Such as who, knowing how dangerous and unstable a personality Renko is, persuaded the captain to set him loose in a foreign port? What was Renko planning with this ring of Americans? New Thinking is necessary to increase the productivity of labour, but in terms of political discipline our country has become slack. A year ago he would have been allowed ashore. That's why an example is so important.'

  'I haven't done anything,' Arkady said.

  Volovoi had thought about it. 'There's your provocative investigation, your attempt to sway the trusting captain and crew of the Polar Star, your defection as soon as your feet hit foreign soil. Who knows what else you've been involved in? We'll tear the entire ship apart, rip out every bulkhead and tank. Marchuk will get the message. All the captains will get the message.' />
  'But Renko's not a smuggler,' Karp said.

  'Who knows? Besides, we'll always find something. When I'm done the Polar Star will be in small pieces.'

  'You call that restructuring?' Karp asked.

  Volovoi lost patience. 'Korobetz, I'm not going to debate politics with a convict.'

  'I'll show you a debate,' Karp said.

  He picked up the knife on the floor before Arkady could grab it, turned to the cot and stuck the blade up to the hilt in Volovoi's throat.

  'That's how convicts debate,' Karp said, and cradled the back of Volovoi's head and pressed it forward against the knife.

  While Volovoi struggled a jet of blood sprayed the wall. His face swelled. His eyes inflated with disbelief.

  'What? No more speeches?' Karp asked. 'Restructuring answers the demands of... what? I can't hear you. Speak up. Answers the demands of the working class! You ought to know that.'

  A man lifts weights, keeps himself in shape, but it's not the same as real labour, and it was obvious that Volovoi's muscles were putty compared to Karp's. The first mate thrashed, but the trawlmaster kept the knife tight in the throat as lightly as a hand on a lever. This was how they did it in the camp, when the urkas discovered an informer. Always the throat.

  'Demands for more work? Really?' Karp said.

  As Volovoi's face became darker, his eyes turned whiter, as if all the lectures inside him had been choked off and the very pressure of them was building up. His tongue unrolled down to his chin.

  'You thought I was going to kiss your cock and ass for ever?' Karp asked.

  As Volovoi's face went black he rocked the cot against the wall, and his hands shot out. His eyes still looked full of wonder, as if he had to be watching someone else, this couldn't be happening to him.

  No, Arkady thought, Volovoi's not surprised any longer. He's dead.

  'He should have just shut up,' Karp spoke to Arkady and jerked the knife first one way and then the other before pulling it out.

  Arkady wanted to fly through the door, but the best he could do was push himself to his feet with a can of epoxy to swing in defence. 'You got carried away.'

  'Yeah,' Karp admitted. 'But I think they're going to say you got carried away.'

  Volovoi still sat upright, as if he could rejoin the conversation. From neck to chest he seemed to have burst under the weight of blood.

  Arkady asked, 'Have you ever spent any time in a psychiatric ward?'

  'Have you? See?' Karp smiled. 'Anyway, I've been cured. I'm a new man. Let me ask you a question.'

  'Go ahead.'

  'You like Siberia?'

  'What?'

  'I'm interested in your opinion. Do you like Siberia?'

  'Sure.'

  'What kind of fucking answer is that? I love Siberia. The cold, the taiga, the hunting, everything, but most of all the people. Real people,, like the natives. People in Moscow look hard, but they're like turtles. Get them east, our of their shells, you can just step on them. Siberia's the best thing that ever happened to me. Like home.'

  'Good.'

  'Just the hunting.' Karp wiped his blade on Volovoi's sleeve. 'Some guys go out in helicopters and blast away with Kalashnikovs. I like the Dragunov, a sniper rifle with a scope. Sometimes I don't even bother shooting. Like, last winter a tiger wandered into Vladivostok killing dogs. A wild tiger in the centre of the city. The militia, naturally, shot it. You know, I wouldn't have killed it; I would have taken it back out of town and let it go. That's the difference between you and me: I wouldn't have killed the tiger.' He propped Volovoi against the wall. 'How long do you think he can stay like that? I was thinking of making a matched set. You know, symmetry.'

  Symmetry was always an interesting fetish, Arkady thought. There was a padlock hanging on the bunker door, he remembered; if he could get outside he could lock Karp in.

  'But it wouldn't look right,' Arkady said. 'You can't want to leave three murders here. It's a matter of arithmetic. I can't be a victim too.'

  'This wasn't my first plan,' Karp confessed, 'but Volovoi was such a prick. All my life I've listened to pricks like him and you, Zina...'

  'Zina?'

  'Zina said words freed you or rucked you or turned you inside out. Every word, every single one, was a weapon or a chain or a pair of wings. You didn't know Zina. And you didn't know Zina,' he added, turning to Volovoi. The political officer, his head askew, seemed to be listening. 'An invalid doesn't want to debate with someone from the camps? I could tell you about the camps.' He turned to Arkady. 'Thanks to you.'

  'I'm going to send you there again.'

  'Well, if you can,' Karp said and spread his arms as if to say, now we've finally come to the point, a point past words and into his domain. He added, as his personal conclusion, 'You should have stayed on the boat.'

  When Arkady threw the epoxy, Karp casually lifted a forearm and let the can bounce off. In two steps Arkady was across the room and pushing open the door, but Karp's hand reached out and dragged him back in. Arkady ducked under the knife and grabbed Karp's wrist in the 'come along' grip he had been taught by a militia instructor in Moscow, which brought an appreciative laugh from Karp. He dropped the knife but swung Arkady into the bookcase. Paperbacks fluttered out like birds.

  As Arkady started for the door again, Karp lifted him and threw him over the baidarka into the opposite wall, rattling shark jaws and iridescent shells on to the bunker floor. He swept the boat aside. For all his power, he crouched in the favourite urka stance, with two fingers extended toward the eyes, a style Arkady had seen before. He moved inside the stabbing hand and hit Karp flush on the mouth, which didn't stop the trawlmaster's forward motion, so Arkady hit him in the stomach, which was like probing concrete, then brought an elbow back to the chin and dropped Karp to one knee.

  Roaring, Karp tackled Arkady and drove him into one wall and then another, until Arkady reached up and clung to the fishnet hanging from the ceiling. As Karp ripped him down, Arkady brought a fold of net with him, smothered the trawlmaster's head in it and kicked his legs out from under him. Going for the door a third time, Arkady tripped on the open ribs of the boat, and before he could rise Karp had him by the ankle. On the floor, he had no chance against the trawlmaster's weight, and Karp climbed up his body, ignoring blows until Arkady brought the barrel of shackles down on Karp's head.

  Arkady twisted free. He was trying to open the door when a barrel shot by his ear and slammed it shut. Karp tore him off the handle and threw him on the cot next to Volovoi. As if to commiserate, the dead man sagged against Arkady's shoulder. From his jacket, Karp took his own knife, the double-edged one that fishermen were urged to carry at all times in case of emergency. On the cot, Arkady found the knife that Karp had dropped earlier.

  Karp was faster, and his stroke should have sliced Arkady from the navel up, but the dead Volovoi finally lost equilibrium and slumped sideways in front of Arkady. The knife thudded into the first mate, and for a moment, leaning forward, his blade imbedded in the wrong target, Karp was vulnerable from heart to neck. Arkady hesitated. Then it was too late. Karp tipped the bed over, trapping him against the wall. Trying to rise, Arkady lost the knife.

  Karp lifted him up from behind the cot and tossed him over Mike's body into the smaller room. The trawl-master paused to liberate his knife from Volovoi before following. Arkady could barely budge the generator, but he did manage to heave the gasoline can. Expecting it, Karp ducked until the can had flown by before he stepped over Mike.

  There was a chime-like ring of glass breaking. The sound must have come before Karp entered the room, but afterwards Arkady remembered the man's surprise backlit by a white glare, as if the sun had suddenly risen behind him. The explosion of the kerosene lamp and gas can was followed by a whoosh of spilled epoxy igniting. As gasoline spread, the scattered books caught fire, the tangled sheet of the cot, the corner of the bench. Karp jabbed at Arkady, but half-heartedly, in a disconcerted way. There was a second explosion as the full buc
ket of epoxy blew and a flame shot to the ceiling. Thick, brown, acrid fumes spread up the walls.

  'Even better,' Karp said. He waved the knife one last time and ran back through the burning room; he looked like a demon retreating from hell. After opening the bunker door, he stopped to give Arkady a last backward glance, his eyes lit by the flames. The he darted out and the door shut.

  The baidarka ignited, its ribs black in the boat's translucent skin, which sweated burning beads of epoxy. Already the ceiling was concealed by poisonous smoke that rolled forward like a storm cloud. Arkady stood over Mike. A remarkable scene, he thought Storm, fire, the Aleut stretched out towards his burning boat, Volovoi on his upended funeral pyre, one sleeve covered in flame. He thought of a phrase he had once read in a French guidebook: 'Worth a visit.' Sometimes the mind did that in a panic, going off on its own last-minute trips. There were two choices: burn in one room or choke to death in the other.

  His hand over his mouth, Arkady darted through the burning room and flung himself against the door. It gave, it wasn't padlocked, only blocked by Karp on the outside. The same as the fish hold. Simple ideas were the best. Flames marched towards Arkady's feet. He bent beneath the smoke, wheezing between coughs. It wouldn't take five minutes, ten at the most; then Karp could open the door wide and check his success.

  Arkady shot the door's inside bolt. He had once known a pathologist who claimed that Renko's greatest talent lay not in escaping disastrous situations, only in complicating them. Holding his breath, he waded back through the fire and focused on a barrel that he rescued and carried into the second room. Inside the barrel was trash, Mike's collection of loose netting. With a fisherman's eye, he picked the longest strip of nylon mesh. Illuminated by the flames at the door, the water in the corner had become a golden pond, and he could just see the broken flanges, two rusting tips of iron, under the closed hatch. He set the barrel upside down in the water and stood on it. On his toes he could just swing the strip of mesh high enough to reach. The hatch was not airtight, and by now smoke was lapping into the room, creeping along the ceiling, following the draft to where Arkady balanced. As he hooked a flange, the barrel tipped over and rolled away. While he climbed the net, he heard bottles breaking amid the growing, surf-like sound of fire. He pushed open the hatch. Smoke rushed up, as if trying to drag him back, but by then he was outside and over the earthworks, rolling over mist-slickened grass and falling back towards the sea.