Death of a Tyrant

by Christopher Nicole

  Boros hesitated, glanced at his immediate superior, received a quick nod, and left the room. Kagan himself poured the glass of vodka, then took one for himself. “Speak.”

  Smorodsky was trembling so much he had to hold the glass in both hands to convey it to his lips. “Shatrav, dead. All his men, dead. Their car a burned out wreck. A woman, dead, frozen in the stream…”

  “A woman?” Kagan’s voice was suddenly sharp. “What did this woman look like?”

  “Short, yellow hair…” Kagan drew a deep breath. “With a crippled leg,” Smorodsky went on.

  Kagan released his breath in a deep sigh of relief. But still, Shatrav and his people, all dead…he would not have believed it possible. “So what did you do after discovering these bodies?”

  “I went on to the gulag, as instructed, Comrade General, to inquire after Captain Gosykinya. She had been there, she had received custody of a prisoner, and she had left again.”

  “So you had lunch and then returned to the death scene,” Kagan said. “What of the other car?”

  Smorodsky had drunk, deeply, and had regained some composure. “What other car, Comrade General?”

  “There should have been another car, Smorodsky.”

  “I saw no other car, Comrade General.”

  “Well, then, wheel tracks.”

  “There were no wheel tracks, Comrade General. There had been a fresh fall of snow.”

  Kagan stood before the huge wall map of Kazakhstan. “It must be her aim to get out of Russia. She can hardly hope to drive to Afghanistan, in the dead of winter. She needs an international airport. Which is the nearest international airport to Alma-Ata?”

  “Semipalatinsk, Comrade General.” Smorodsky prodded the map.

  “Get them on the phone.” Kagan himself called the weather room. “Is it snowing in Semipalatinsk?”

  “Semipalatinsk is clear, Comrade General.”

  “Shit!” Kagan said.

  “But the weather is closing in,” the man said.

  “Keep me informed.” Kagan looked at Smorodsky, who was holding the receiver.

  “The last flight left half an hour ago.”

  “Bound where?”

  “Kabul.”

  “Contact our embassy in Kabul. Tell them I wish the plane met, discreetly. I do not wish an international incident. On the aircraft there will be two women, one dark, the other fair, both extremely good-looking. I wish them followed, and a report made to me…” he looked through the window at the weather; there was no hope of his regaining Moscow until tomorrow. “Here. I will then give orders for their arrest.”

  “I will see to it, Comrade Commissar.”

  “Then find me a bed for the night. And a woman.” He needed to relieve his tensions.

  *

  Once they were in the aircraft, Tatiana released Priscilla and Morgan. There was no risk in this, as the other two crew members were aft with them. “Just behave yourselves,” she told them, speaking English. “Remember we are in this together.” She smiled at them, “Till death do us part, eh?” The she changed to Russian. “Keep an eye on them,” she told the crew.

  “How long is the flight?” Morgan asked.

  “Several hours. I would have some rest if I were you.” She went forward to sit with the pilots. Soup and vodka were produced as soon as they were airborne. “I wonder if the pilots are having the same dinner,” Morgan remarked.

  Priscilla looked out of the window into the darkness. At least it had stopped snowing for the time being, but she could see little ice particles forming against the window. She wondered if it was her fate to die in a plane crash; she had experienced almost everything else. “Was it very bad?” Morgan asked. Priscilla glanced at him. He flushed. “I mean, I know…well…”

  “It was not worse than Rotislav,” Priscilla said. “But I was a girl, then. Now…” she sighed. “And for you?”

  “I never knew Rotislav,” he said grimly.

  “I think it must be worse for men,” Priscilla said. “More humiliating. Can you now understand how I felt, wishing to see Rotislav hang?” Her hand slid over his, and he turned his head in surprise. “I wish you to know,” she said, “that there is no one I would rather have shared this ordeal with. Should we survive, I would like us to be friends.”

  For a moment he was too taken aback to respond. Then he raised her hand and kissed the gloved fingers, and looked up to see Tatiana, who had left the flight deck, smiling at him. At them both. “One can hardly say, young love,” she remarked. “I did not rescue you to be the Princess’s lover.”

  “Is that all you think of?” Priscilla asked.

  “There is not much else worth thinking about,” Tatiana pointed out. “However, I have not the time to be jealous. Time enough for that, as you say, Princess, when we have survived.”

  “Are we going to survive?” Morgan asked.

  Tatiana shrugged. “A great deal depends on whether we land in Moscow before anyone can work out where we are.”

  *

  Kagan slept heavily. Not only was he very tired, but Smorodsky had procured him a Tatar woman, and there was nothing so calculated as to bury a man in a sexual sea as a Tatar; he was a Tatar himself. When he awoke he was drowsy in the extreme, blinked at the light, and at Smorodsky, standing anxiously by the bed. Kagan looked at his watch; it was just after midnight. “Well?” he demanded.

  “The Kabul flight landed half an hour ago, Comrade Colonel. Our people are on the line. They say no passengers answering your…the descriptions we gave them disembarked.” Kagan sat up, looked at the tousled dark hair on the pillow; the woman had sensibly buried her face. “They are awaiting your instructions, Comrade General,” Smorodsky said.

  “Tell them to forget it.” Kagan got out of bed, pulled on his uniform while Smorodsky hurried back to the telephone.

  The woman rolled over and opened her eyes. “Am I to go?”

  “Stay there,” Kagan commanded. He pulled on his boots and stamped down the stairs. Smorodsky and Boros and two male secretaries waited for him, all highly nervous. “What are conditions outside?” Kagan demanded.

  “We are snowed in, Comrade General.”

  “What are conditions in Semipalatinsk?”

  “There is a blizzard, Comrade General.”

  Kagan stood before the map. “There is an airport at Ablaketka. That is only a hundred miles east of Semipalatinsk. They could have gone there instead.”

  “The Ablaketka airport is a small local field, Comrade General. It does not handle international flights.”

  “But we now know they did not take an international flight,” Kagan said. Yet if they are not attempting to flee the country, he wondered, where can they go? Then he snapped his fingers. He had been thinking from only one point of view. But Tatiana did not know, could not know, either that her mother had been arrested, by Stalin’s order, or that Stalin had himself given the order for her execution. Her obvious course was to reach the safety of the dictator’s aegis, in which security she had lived all her life. He pointed. “Get Semipalatinsk.”

  Smorodsky nodded to Boros, who began the process. “You think they left on an earlier flight, Comrade General?” Smorodsky asked. “They would hardly have got there in time.”

  “I have Semipalatinsk, Comrade General,” Boros said.

  “Tell them we wish to know if any KGB agent chartered an aircraft yesterday afternoon.”

  Boros put the question, then shook his head. “No, Comrade General.”

  “Damn,” Kagan said, and stamped to the window to peer out at the white-lined darkness. “I want a list of all flights out of Semipalatinsk yesterday.”

  Boros got busy. “I would say they missed all the flights, and are still there, waiting for the weather to clear,” Smorodsky suggested.

  “And we cannot get up there,” Kagan growled.

  “Can you not order their arrest by phone?”

  Kagan ignored him. “When is this weather due to clear?”

  �
�Not before tomorrow morning, Comrade General,” said the Met Officer.

  “Damn,” Kagan said again.

  “Here is the list of flights, Comrade General.” Boros held out the sheet of paper. “This does not include military movements, of course.”

  Kagan raised his head from perusing the sheet. “Military movements?”

  “There is a military airbase at Semipalatinsk.”

  Kagan pointed at Smorodsky. “Why was I not told this?”

  “I…” Smorodsky bit off the obvious retort, that the General had not asked. “They could not leave the country in a military plane, Comrade General.”

  “An officer in the KGB can do anything, if he, or she, has the will,” Kagan said. “Get me the commanding officer of that base.”

  Five minutes later he was speaking with a sleepy and terrified Goronski. “She said she was acting on orders from Commissar Beria himself, Comrade General,” the Colonel said.

  “What time did they leave?” Kagan asked.

  “Just after six.”

  Kagan looked at his watch. It was just one o’clock. “Then they will have landed in Moscow.”

  “Well, Comrade General, conditions are not good…”

  “But there is an east wind. That will have boosted their speed.”

  “Do you wish me to contact Moscow, Comrade General?”

  “No,” Kagan said. “I wish you to forget everything that happened yesterday afternoon. That way you may just save your neck.”

  Chapter Ten: The Fugitives

  Kagan was more worried about his own neck. “I wish a private office,” he told Smorodsky.

  “Have mine, Comrade General.”

  Kagan sat behind the desk, waited for Smorodsky to close the door behind him, then dialled, using the access code to reach the appropriate number. “Yes,” said the female voice, above the background noise.

  Kagan sighed. It was not yet midnight in Moscow, and his chief was having a party. Kagan had only once in his life attended one of Beria’s orgies; he had been so obviously disapproving that the invitation had never been renewed. “I wish to speak with the Commissar,” he said.

  “And you are?” the woman asked.

  “Kagan, you stupid slut,” Kagan snapped.

  The woman put down the phone with a clunk, but she had not cut him off, and he listened to the sounds of revelry in the background for several seconds before Beria spoke. “Where have you been, Kagan? I wished to speak with you this afternoon, and your secretary said you had stepped out.”

  “I am in Alma-Ata,” Kagan explained. “Shatrav has fouled up.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Lying in the snow, dead. Together with all his people. I came out here as soon as I realised something was wrong,” Kagan explained. “But my movements have been hampered by the weather.”

  Beria had got his thoughts together. “Where is Tatiana?”

  “I think she is in Moscow, with the Princess. And possibly an accomplice.”

  “Moscow?” Kagan could imagine Beria looking over his shoulder, as if expecting to see Tatiana standing behind him, gun in hand. “I don’t understand.”

  “Lavrenty Pavlovich,” Kagan said, with as much patience as he could muster. “Shatrav fouled up, as I have said. And Tatiana killed him. And three others. There can be no doubt of that. That means she knows that she is marked for execution, and is now on the run. With the Princess. She commandeered an army plane to bring her to Moscow, and by my reckoning will have landed perhaps an hour ago.”

  “But this is terrible,” Beria protested. “You have failed me, Kagan.”

  “There is no necessity to panic, Lavrenty Pavlovich. It is my estimation that Tatiana is not aware that the Premier himself ordered her execution. Thus she is certain to try to reach him. All you have to do is post extra guards and make sure that she, and the Princess, and their accomplice, are arrested should they attempt to gain access to the Premier. Or better yet, shot on sight. I will be back just as soon as the weather clears.”

  “I wish you back, now,” Beria snapped, and hung up. He remained glaring at the phone for a few seconds. In this world, if you wanted something done properly, it could only be done by oneself. He did not imagine for a moment that he could match Tatiana Gosykinya in a shoot-out in the snow, but when his people had her trussed up like a chicken…the veins on his bald head stood out as he contemplated such a pleasant sight. And the Princess, of course. But there were side issues. Such as the fact that Stalin presumed the Princess had been dead for four years. Beria stroked his chin. Just as Stalin supposed that Sonia Cohen had been dead for more than ten years! Ghosts from the past. And now, a ghost from the present, come to haunt him. Could it be time at last? There was an easy way to find out. He clapped his hands. “Get out, all of you. Get out.” He summoned his current secretary, a leggy blonde, half naked and full of vodka, slapped her face. “Pull yourself together.”

  She gulped and swallowed, while the other revellers hurried from the room. “Call my car,” Beria said. He went to his room to wash his face and straighten his clothing. Half an hour later he was at the Kremlin, stopping at the gate to speak with the captain of the guard. “What is your name?”

  The officer stood to attention. “Captain Stagykin, Comrade Commissar.”

  “Well, Captain, listen to me very carefully. I have unearthed a plot against the Premier. These are desperate people who will probably seek to gain access to the fortress. They are headed by an ex-KGB agent named Tatiana Gosykinya. You cannot mistake her. She is tall, well built, and handsome. She has black hair. And she will use her KGB identity card to gain access. I wish you to place her, and anyone who is with her, under close arrest. Do not underestimate these people, Comrade Captain. They are very dangerous. Truss them up as you would a pig for market. I will have agents remove them to Lyubyanka as soon as they are in custody.”

  “Yes, Comrade Commissar. Suppose they resist arrest?”

  “I wish them alive, Captain.”

  Beria drove on, along the slippery road leading out of the city, to the little dacha. He was checked at the gate, but allowed through as soon as it was realised who he was. The dacha itself was in darkness, although there was a sentry on the door. He too was not going to refuse entry to the Commissar for Internal Affairs, but inside, once he was past the inner two sentries, it was necessary to encounter Valechka Istomina, the massive woman who ‘did’ for the Premier, in every possible way now that he was past other pleasures. Beria had no idea whether she and the Premier had ever slept together, but he did not consider it likely; Stalin liked beauty too much and this creature was ugly as sin. On the other hand, there could be no doubting her devotion to her master. “The Premier is not to be disturbed,” she said. “He is asleep.”

  “This is a matter of national importance,” Beria told her. “I must insist you wake him, now.”

  She glared at him, but then retreated into the bedroom. Beria listened to the sounds of Stalin waking up, and a few minutes later the Premier shuffled into the room, wearing a dressing gown over pyjamas, looking more like a bear than ever. “What has happened?”

  Beria glanced at Istomina. “Leave us,” Stalin said. Another glare at Beria, then she banged the door behind her. “Do you know the time?” Stalin demanded.

  “Treachery never sleeps, Josef Vissarionovich.”

  “Treachery?” Stalin’s voice was a growl.

  “I have discovered a plot of terrifying proportions, Josef. Sit down.” Stalin sat, brows drawn together in a deep frown. “As you required, I issued orders for the elimination of Tatiana Gosykinya. I sent her on a mission to Kazakhstan, to get her well out of Moscow while we arrested her mother. My orders were that she was to be dealt with on that mission. Now it appears that she evaded her executioners, and indeed, slew them all.”

  Stalin’s cheeks were suffused. “Who was in command?”

  “Shatrav. He used to be a good man. And he fought with Tatiana in the Great Patriotic War. If he underest
imated her, he was a fool.”

  “Shatrav. Shatrav! Did I not once order his execution?”

  “You indicated that might be necessary. I decided to give him another chance to prove his worth. I am sorry to say that I have been proved wrong. However, I accepted that he was no longer of value in the field. I would never have used him for such a mission.”

  “Who selected him?”

  “Kagan.”

  “Is he trustworthy?”

  “I would have said so. I will deal with the matter. However, I felt you should be informed, Josef Vissarionovich, because all our information indicates that Tatiana has returned to Moscow. There can be only one reason for this: she wishes to reach you.” Stalin gave a little gasp, and clutched his chest, as if he had just suffered a sharp pain. “What concerns me more,” Beria went on, as if he had not noticed his master’s discomfort, “is that as far as I can make out, she is accompanied by Priscilla Bolugayevska.”

  Stalin stared at him in stark horror, his mouth opening and shutting. It was some seconds before he could speak. “The Princess Priscilla is dead,” he gasped, and pointed. “I commanded you to execute her!”

  “And I issued the orders for her execution — to Tatiana. She assured me they had been carried out. At that time I had no reason to distrust her. But now it turns out that instead of executing her, she secreted her away in Gulag Number One, which is in Kazakhstan, as you know. The Princess was kept there as a number only. No one else knew of her identity. But there were special orders regarding her, that she was not to be ill-treated or harmed in any way.”

  The veins on Stalin’s neck were throbbing. “Who issued these orders?”

  “I assume Tatiana, as she was the only one who knew the Princess was alive.”

  “And how have you found this out?”

  “From the description of the woman with Tatiana now, and from a conversation with the Commandant of Gulag Number One, who confirms that Captain Gosykinya delivered to her a special prisoner on the twelfth of September 1947. The date fits. And who also confirms that yesterday Tatiana removed that prisoner again.”

  “The bitch,” Stalin muttered. “The bitch!” he suddenly shrieked. “They are both bitches! You…” he pointed again. “You find them, Lavrenty Beria, and you take them to Lyubyanka, and you call me, and together we will watch them die. We will make sure of it. You…” he gave a choking gasp and fell back against the settee, his face purple.