Death of a Tyrant

by Christopher Nicole

  “May I ask who they were told to get?” Lawrence inquired, coldly. “Gulag Number One is full of, as you put it, dames.”

  “They had each been given a photograph to study. Don’t worry, none of the photographs had a name to it; just the Princess’s number. We don’t have milk behind our ears, Mr Lawrence.”

  “I am glad to hear that,” Lawrence said. “Because I have had to consider the necessity of pulling my people out of Russia, thanks to your piece of idiocy.”

  “They’re in no danger,” Eldridge insisted. “We are the ones who lost out.”

  “And when you try again?”

  Eldridge hunched his shoulders. “We’re not going to try again. Orders from the top. We know where the Princess is. As far as we’re concerned, she can fucking well stay there for the rest of her life.”

  “I’ll say Amen to that,” Lawrence agreed.

  Chapter Eight: The Conspiracy

  There was only a small gathering at the graveside; the Bolugayevskis had always kept very much to themselves. Equally, Joseph Cromb’s religious affiliations were somewhat confused, with a Jewish father, a Protestant wife, and a Russian Orthodox background; Alex had chosen a rabbi to conduct the final ceremony. Now, as he escorted Elaine back to the waiting limousine, they encountered Eldridge. “Nice of you to come, Mr Eldridge,” Alex said.

  “Did you see anyone interesting?” Elaine could not resist the question.

  “Maybe,” Eldridge said. “What exactly did he die of?”

  Alex shrugged. “The doctors say he never fully recovered from that shooting.”

  “Heck, that was five years ago,” Eldridge said.

  “So maybe he just died of despair,” Elaine said. “At the loss of his wife.”

  “Yeah,” Eldridge said. “Could be. Keep in touch.”

  “I don’t think we will do that, Mr Eldridge,” Elaine said, coldly. “Have a nice day.”

  *

  Josef Stalin glared at the list of names on his desk. “There is a conspiracy,” he muttered. “A conspiracy,” he repeated. “A conspiracy!” he shouted.

  The three men standing before his desk seemed to coagulate.

  “Jews!” Stalin shouted, the veins in his neck and temples standing out like ridges. “They are a canker in our hearts. They always have been. Well, enough is enough. Poison one of my marshals, would they? Attempt to poison my ministers, would they? Next thing they will be attempting to poison me! We will deal with this. These doctors, first. Arrest them all. Interrogate them, try them, shoot them. Then use what you learn from them to take the case further. It is a conspiracy. A gigantic conspiracy. It stretches far beyond the doctors. But we will root it out and destroy it. You…” he pointed, “will root it out and destroy it.” He waved his hand. “Go on. Get out. Destroy these vermin. You wait a moment, Lavrenty Pavlovich.”

  Beria glanced at Kruschev and Malenkov as they filed out, visibly shaken. Then he looked at his master. Stalin was still trembling with rage. Or was it fear? “Zhdanov,” Stalin said. “Andrei Zhdanov. He is behind it.”

  “Zhdanov? With respect, Josef Vissarionovich, Zhdanov is a Hero of the Soviet Union. He defended Leningrad against the Nazis. He denounced the bourgeois movement in art. He is one of us.”

  “He is a Jew,” Stalin said. “If he defended Leningrad so gallantly, as you put it, that was because he is a Jew. All else is lip service. I have no doubt at all that he is behind this conspiracy. It is your business to root it out, Lavrenty Pavlovich.”

  “Yes, Josef Vissarionovich.” Beria looked as if he would have said something more, then changed his mind. “It may take a little time to get to the bottom of such a conspiracy.”

  “Then take a little time. But only a little time, Comrade.”

  “I shall be as quick as I can.”

  “I also want you to deal with the other matter.” Stalin’s voice was unusually soft.

  Beria frowned. “What other matter, Josef Vissarionovich?”

  “Jennie. You are aware, Lavrenty Pavlovich, that Jennie Ligachevna is a Jew?” Stalin’s tone indicated that if his chief of police did not know that, he was in deep trouble.

  Beria cleared his throat. “With respect, Josef Vissarionovich, that is not correct.” Stalin raised his head to glare at him. “Her mother was the Countess Patricia Bolugayevska,” Beria said. “And her father was the American shipping magnate, Duncan Cromb. Who was also her cousin. There was no Jewish blood in the mainstream of the Bolugayevski family, down to the marriage of Prince Alexei with Sonia Cohen.”

  “You are telling me that Jennie’s brother is not a Jew?”

  “Well, that is true,” Beria conceded. “But he is her half-brother, Patricia Bolugayevska’s son by the man Joseph Fine, whom she met when in exile in Siberia at the turn of the century.”

  “And with whom she was deeply in love,” Stalin remarked. “I remember Krupskaya telling me of this. She and Lenin were in exile with them.”

  “Well, perhaps she was in love, Josef Vissarionovich. It is all a long time ago.”

  Stalin pointed with his pencil. “If Patricia was in love, with all the romantic fervour of her nature, then she would have imbibed everything her lover, who was also the father of her first-born, had to offer. Especially his views on religion, and on politics.” Beria opened his mouth and then closed it again. He had never been exiled to Siberia, as he had still been a boy when the Romanovs had been liquidated, but from what he had learned the exiles to Siberia had had more important things on their minds, most of the time, than lecturing each other on politics, or certainly religion. “Therefore,” Stalin went on. “She would have become, to all intents and purposes, a Jew herself. Therefore she would have brought up both her children as Jews. Then there is the fact that she is a Bolugayevska. I had supposed she had turned her back upon all that. Now it is clear to me that she has been hoodwinking us all of these years. First she continues communicating with her sister-in-law. And now she is in communication with her niece-in-law. You knew about this?”

  “Of course, Josef Vissarionovich. The woman Bolugayevska-Cromb applied for a visa at our Embassy in Washington. The request was referred, as always, as I require to be informed of anything to do with that family. I turned down the request, of course.”

  “Why did you do that, Lavrenty Pavlovich?”

  “Well…” Beria smoothed his bald head. “We do not wish any questions asked about the Princess, do we?”

  “Questions are obviously being asked about the Princess,” Stalin went on. “After five years in her grave, she still rises up to haunt me. And questions will go on being asked until we have destroyed this whole family. That includes Jennie. I am sure you agree with me?”

  That was not a question Beria was keen on answering. “You wish me to arrest Jennifer Ligachevna? To interrogate her?” Well, he had long looked forward to being in a position to do that. But he had never expected it to happen on the orders of Stalin.

  “I consider that to be necessary, yes. In due course. But first of all, issue a visa.”

  “For Elaine Bolugayevska-Cromb to visit Russia?”

  “No, no. For Alexei Bolugayevski. He is the one we want. The very last Bolugayevski. I gave orders for his execution, six years ago. Now we shall make sure of it.”

  “He will smell a trap, and not come.”

  “He will come, because he is a Russian prince, a man of honour. And more importantly, because it is his mother about whom he seeks information. He will come. And you will postpone arresting Jennie until you have told her that this nephew will be allowed into Russia, and until she has written to him, welcoming him and promising to assist him in any way possible. Until in fact he is here. Jennifer will never suspect we have her in our sights. Let me know when you are ready to take her into custody. I wish to oversee the questioning.”

  Another woman, Beria thought, who you have always longed to possess, and never been able to manage it. But he had a more important consideration on his mind. “And Tatiana?”
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  Stalin leaned back in his chair. “Tatiana,” he said thoughtfully. “You are pleased with her progress?”

  “I am very pleased, Josef Vissarionovich. She is one of my best people.”

  “And it is my impression that she and her mother have never really got on,” Stalin mused.

  “Absolutely,” Beria said enthusiastically.

  “Then there is no need to involve her, at this stage. But you must watch her carefully, Lavrenty Pavlovich. The first sign of deviation, or resentment, and she must be disposed of.”

  “I will watch her closely, Josef Vissarionovich,” Beria promised. As if he did not already do that, constantly; in the two years since the attempt to rescue Priscilla by that as yet unidentified squad, they had become as intimate as man and wife in the sharing of secrets. But as always, after one of these policy-making chats with Stalin, he felt as if he had been run over by a bus. He stepped outside, to find Malenkov and Kruschev waiting for him.

  “Do you believe Kalinski was poisoned?” Malenkov whispered. “I mean, deliberately?” Beria shrugged.

  “But you are going to arrest them all,” Kruschev remarked.

  “That is my duty. If there is a conspiracy, I will unearth it. And I will root out the conspirators, no matter who they may be.” He was paving the way for the sensation that would follow Jennie’s arrest.

  “What you mean is, you will unearth a conspiracy, whether it is there or not,” Kruschev said.

  The two men glared at each other, and Malenkov hastened to make the peace. “Whether it is there or not, Josef Vissarionovich certainly believes it. It is affecting his health. You can see it.” Both Beria and Kruschev turned to look at him, and he flushed. He was not the most observant man on earth. “Well,” he said lamely. “One fears that these violent rages of his may…well, have a bad effect. Suddenly.”

  Now they both looked at Beria, who they knew was closer to their master than either of them. “I should keep such thoughts to yourself, Georgi Maximilianovich,” Beria said. “Josef Vissarionovich is in the best of health. I have the report of his last medical examination to prove it. Good day to you.”

  He went to the door, and checked, as Kruschev said softly, “But the examination was carried out by a Jewish doctor, was it not, Lavrenty Pavlovich?”

  *

  Beria sat at his desk and smoked a cigarette held in a bakalite holder. If those fools thought he was going to confide any of his plans to them, they needed their heads examined. But the whole business was taking longer than he had anticipated. If only that fool Spiridonov had not determined to try that potion on Kalinski, but had gone straight to the top. Spiridonov had been too aware of the dangers, and the difficulties, principally the fact that Stalin’s food was tasted. Therefore whatever was going to be fed to him had to be undetectable, both by taste or smell, or by immediate effect. It had to be experimented with first. Neither he nor Beria had supposed that Stalin would overreact in this way. It was another example of the paranoia that was slowly driving the dictator mad.

  But it was also illustrative of the dangers inherent in deviating from one’s plan, through impatience — Stalin was simply living too long. Even more was it an illustration of the dangers of going outside one’s own people for assistance. Spiridonov would never stand up to interrogation. He pressed the buzzer on his intercom, and Tatiana came in. Over the past year he had promoted her to his first assistant. This was not only so that he could look at her, touch her, have her, whenever he wanted — and he wanted all of those things with considerable regularity. It was also because since the abortive attempt to rescue the Princess Priscilla, Tatiana had become his ultimate creature, a depraved harpy clad in the most beautiful of physical garbs. That knowledge, added to her beauty, added to the understanding that she was entirely his, made her irresistible.

  And every time he gave her a mission, as now, he wanted her more. “Two things,” he said. “The Premier has decided that action must be taken against those doctors who were on duty the night Marshal Kalinski died. They are to be arrested and prepared for trial.” He handed her the list. “You will observe that they are all Jews. It will be our task to implicate as many Jews as possible, and bring them also to trial.”

  Tatiana had been reading the list. She raised her head. “Andrei Zhdanov?”

  “His name is on the list, yes.”

  Tatiana continued to read. “Michael Spiridonov?”

  “Ah. I wish to talk to you about him.”

  “He is my mother’s physician.”

  Beria raised his eyebrows. “I did not know that.” Tatiana was surprised. She had supposed her master knew everything. “That only adds a dimension to what I am telling you to do,” Beria said. “We do not wish your mother to be involved in anything unpleasant, do we, Tatiana? Anything treasonable? Before anything else happens, I wish you to visit Dr Spiridonov. Make an appointment in the ordinary way. But when you see him, I wish you to convince him that he is about to be arrested, and that he will be tortured, and that his wife and children will also be tortured, until they all die, slowly. Before him.” Tatiana licked her lips. “Then persuade him that the only way out is to take his own life. If he does that, now, and without speaking to a soul, his wife and children will be inviolate. Give him my word on this.” He grinned. “Help him to die, happy. Then come back here. I have something I wish to discuss with you.”

  *

  Michael Spiridonov slowly lowered himself onto the chair in his examination room. He stared at the naked body in front of him. The most perfect naked female body he had ever known. When she had made an appointment, he had been delighted. For all the years he had visited Jennifer Ligachevna, he had never been allowed to do more than look at her daughter; as a member of the KGB Tatiana had her own doctors. Thus today had surely been his lucky day, especially when she had required a most complete examination, inside and out, as it were. He had never spent a more enjoyable half-an-hour.

  And then, lying there, she had begun to speak. Now she was sitting up, swinging her legs off the examination table, and descending, lightly, to the floor. “If I refuse?” he asked, hardly able to articulate.

  Tatiana delicately pulled on her drawers. “You cannot refuse, Comrade.”

  “You think so? I can take Beria down with me. And you, Tatiana Andreievna.”

  “You will do neither of those things, Comrade. If you refuse, I will place you under arrest now. I will gag you and take you to the Lyubyanka. There I will slice you into little pieces before your eyes. But before I do that, I shall slice your wife and your two charming children into pieces, also before your eyes. As they will not be gagged, you will be able to hear them scream, and beg you to put them out of their misery.”

  He stared at her. “Are you a woman, or a monster?”

  Tattie put on her skirt. “I am what I wish to be, Comrade. What I am commanded to be.” She went to her tunic, which hung on the hook by the door, felt in a pocket, and brought out a tube. From the tube she poured four tablets into the palm of her hand. “These are relatively painless,” she said. “They say that two will kill a man in ten seconds. I suggest you take all four, then perhaps you will die even more quickly.” She went to the washbasin, filled a tumbler with water. Then she returned to the man, who was staring at her as if hypnotised. Tatiana sat on his lap. “I wish you to be happy,” she said, and lifted his hand, placed the four tablets in it. “It must be done, now.”

  Still acting like a man in a bad dream, Spiridonov placed the tablets in his mouth. Tatiana placed the tumbler in his hand. He raised it, spilling some water onto her skirt because his hand was trembling. He threw back his head and swallowed. Tatiana took the glass from his hand and placed it on the table. Then she took his hand, and placed it inside her blouse. Spiridonov’s fingers closed on her breast, gently, and then suddenly his entire body was convulsed. The fingers tightened.

  “Ow!” Tatiana said, at the same time placing her hand across his mouth as he tried to scream, while his eyes
rolled and his body heaved beneath her. But she thrust her feet down to anchor herself, and a moment later the tight grip on her breast relaxed. “I did say relatively painless,” she pointed out. “But you must agree that it was quick.”

  Carefully she got off him, holding his shoulders to make sure he would remain upright in the chair, pushing his lolling head back so that it would not overbalance him. She buttoned her blouse, looked in the mirror, brushed her hair. Her face was expressionless, yet there were pink spots in her cheeks; watching someone die always had this effect on her. But the receptionist would merely suppose that as a pretty young woman she had been embarrassed by the examination. She opened the door, stepped outside, closed the door behind her. “Dr Spiridonov does not wish to see another patient for a little while,” she said. “He has some analysis to complete. He will ring when he was ready.”

  “Of course, Comrade Gosykinya,” the woman agreed. Tatiana left the surgery.

  *

  “Hi!” Even over the phone Alex could tell that Elaine was excited. “Listen. Do you remember two years ago I applied for a visa to go to Russia?”

  There was a moment’s silence, and Elaine could tell, also over the phone, that her husband was raising his eyes to heaven. “Yes,” he said. “I remember. And they turned you down flat. As I said they would do. And thank God for that.”

  “Listen,” she said. “I didn’t tell you, but when I was refused, I wrote Aunt Jennifer.”

  “You did what?”

  “I wrote her and asked her if she could help. And guess what? She’s at last written back to say that of course she’ll help, if we feel that somehow Mom has got herself into Russia and can’t get out again.”

  “That’s what she says, is it? Elaine…”

  “Listen. And to prove how willing she is to help, she writes that she has arranged a visa for you, and that you can go along to the Russian Embassy and get it, whenever you wish.”