Death of a Tyrant

by Christopher Nicole

  “Until and unless Beria manages to unlock the main doors,” Maria said.

  Tatiana nodded, and looked over their faces. “Then this has got to be an all-out assault. There is just one thing to remember: Beria must be taken alive.”

  “Even if he is busy killing us?” Andrew demanded.

  “I am afraid so, Andrew. If he is killed, what do they say in America, Princess?”

  “All bets are off.”

  “Exactly. For the sake of the country, he must be tried, convicted, and executed. Remember this, because your lives depend upon it. Check your weapons.”

  They did so.

  “Lead us, Maria Feodorovna.”

  Maria swallowed again, and, incongruously, made the sign of the cross. Then she took a deep breath, and opened the combination lock on the door. They waited, but there was no response from within. Maria opened the door and led them along the corridor and round the corner.

  “Maria Feodorovna,” remarked a voice. “The Commissar has said…” the man checked as Tatiana appeared at Maria’s shoulder. “Captain Gosykinya? You are under…”

  Tatiana levelled her tommy-gun and shot him, then sent a burst of fire at his companion, who had just been getting up. The man crashed over backwards, blood spurting. “Up!” Tatiana yelled, and ran at the stairs, Maria at her shoulder, the other three behind her. The stairs had a reverse bend, and they ran round this to gain the next floor, found themselves facing three men. “Shit!” Tatiana yelled, falling onto her face as she opened fire. But the men were also firing, and Maria gave a shriek, her white shirt front dissolving into red as she tumbled back down the stairs. Andrew also stopped a bullet and fell, although from his language he clearly hadn’t been killed. But Halstead and Priscilla were both firing, Priscilla with all the pent-up fury of a woman who had spent the past five years in intolerable conditions, and Tatiana had never taken her finger from the trigger. The men fell to each side.

  “Are you all right?” Priscilla knelt beside Andrew.

  “I’ll survive,” he said. “Finish the job.”

  Halstead was stooping over Maria. “She’s dead.”

  “The stupid bitch said there’d be no more guards,” Tatiana said. “Come on.”

  She ran up the stairs, Halstead at her shoulder, opened the door leading in, was checked by a shot which struck the wall beside her head. Once again she hit the floor, and Halstead did likewise. Again she was firing, although carefully avoiding the figure standing behind the desk. But the hail of bullets was sufficient to send Beria diving for shelter, and before he could recover his nerve Halstead was upon him, kicking the pistol from his hand, levelling his own gun at Beria’s chest. Beria dragged himself across the floor to sit against the wall; his pince-nez had come off, and he blinked at them. “You are mad,” he said. “I control this building. I control this city. I control this country! The orders have all been given. You are all dead.”

  “Not if you rescind those orders, Comrade Commissar,” Tatiana said.

  “What makes you think I will do that?” Beria demanded. “You think killing me will save your skins? My orders will be carried out.”

  “Of course they will, Lavrenty Pavlovich,” Tatiana said. “Therefore you must change them. If you do not, I am not going to kill you. But I am going to shoot you in the balls. I am going to castrate you, Lavrenty Pavlovich, with a bullet. All your orgies will be a memory. But then, so will your ambitions. The Russian people would never accept a eunuch as their leader. So…” She levelled her pistol.

  Beria pulled up his legs. He was panting. “You would not dare.”

  “Come now,” she said. “You know me better than that, Comrade Commissar.” Her finger was white on the trigger.

  “If…if I rescind the orders…”

  “You will be arrested, and put on trial. You will have ample opportunity to defend yourself.” She smiled. “They are not even going to torture you, Lavrenty Pavlovich. They have the testimony of Sonia Bolugayevska.”

  “It will be her word against mine. She was a whore I took to the Premier, at his request.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear,” Tatiana said. “Now sit at your radio, and I will tell you what to say.”

  *

  When Beria had told his men to obey the commands of General Kagan and Commissar Kruschev, Tatiana handcuffed him. By then Priscilla had joined them. “Andrew needs a doctor,” she said. “I have checked the external bleeding, but the bullets are still in there. I think there are two.” Her hands and her borrowed uniform were bloody.

  “We have no time for that, now,” Tatiana said. “We must get Beria downstairs and free Kagan and Kruschev. And Mother,” she added as an afterthought.

  “We must help Andrew, first,” Priscilla said.

  Tatiana snorted; with success in her grasp, reinstatement and promotion a certainty, she no longer regarded Andrew as more than an incident in her life — especially since he had transferred his affections to the Princess. “He is of no value to anybody, Princess. You have had your fun with him. Now he is nothing. Now kiss him goodbye.” She pushed Beria, who had, like Halstead, been looking from face to face, towards the stairs. This brought her level with Priscilla, who suddenly released Andrew and stood up. Tatiana had slung her tommy-gun and drawn her pistol, which she kept pressed into Beria’s back. But Priscilla also had a pistol, and the muzzle of this was now thrust into Tatiana’s waistband.

  “Are you mad?” Tatiana asked.

  “I think perhaps I am the only sane person in this madhouse, Tatiana,” Priscilla said. “But I am as Russian as any of you. I have a long memory. I can remember that it was your Bolsheviks who killed my husband, destroyed my family and my home. I can remember it is your Bolsheviks who locked up my husband for twelve years and then tried to have him assassinated. I can remember that your great Premier held me his prisoner for over a year. I can remember that it was your Bolsheviks that finally did murder my husband and tried to murder my only son. I can remember that it was you, Tatiana, and this creature here, who had me immersed in an ice-cold bath, and then locked me away for six years.”

  “That is in the past,” Tatiana snapped. “I saved your life. That is what matters now. The future.”

  “The future for me is Andrew Morgan,” Priscilla said. “Tell your boss to call for medical aid now, or I will shoot you both.”

  “You haven’t the guts, aristocrat,” Tatiana sneered. “Beria!” she shouted.

  Beria turned, in order to free her hand, but instead of turning towards Priscilla as she had intended, he threw himself across the room. Tatiana turned herself, striking down with her left hand as she did so, but Priscilla had anticipated that, stepped back, and squeezed the trigger. The noise was very loud in the enclosed space, and a look of incredulous disbelief spread across Tatiana’s face as she slumped to her knees. She raised her pistol, and Priscilla shot her again, this time in the very centre of her chest. Blood exploded from the wound as Tatiana reeled back against the wall. She was already dead, but Priscilla shot her a third time, in the head.

  Then she turned the pistol on Beria, who was cowering against the wall, hands held up protectively. “No,” Halstead snapped. Priscilla glanced at him.

  “They want him alive, downstairs,” Halstead said. “I think we need to go along with that.” Priscilla drew a deep breath, then slowly lowered the pistol. “May I say, your highness, that you are quite a dame,” Halstead remarked.

  “What about Andrew?”

  “Get up,” Halstead told Beria. “You heard what the Princess wants. Get help up here.”

  *

  “You bastard,” Sonia told Beria. “You promised my Anna her life.” Beria preferred to say nothing; he was still looking somewhat shell-shocked. “I am going to watch you die,” Sonia said.

  “It is your testimony that will condemn him,” Kagan assured her. “But afterward, I think it would be best if you left the country. For ever, Madame Bolugayevska.”

  *

  Jenni
e knelt beside Tatiana’s body.

  “I did what was necessary,” Priscilla told her. “She was a murderess, a hundred times over.”

  “Like her father,” Jennie said. “But she was my only child.”

  Priscilla rested her hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder. “Come with me, back to the States,” she said.

  Jennie lifted her head, her eyes dark with grief and anger. “I never want to see or hear of you again,” she said. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  *

  “Your plane leaves this evening,” Kagan told Priscilla. “We have been in touch with both the British and American embassies. You will travel incognito. You will fly first of all to London, and there a plane will be waiting to take Prince Alexei and yourself on to the United States. I trust this is satisfactory.”

  “What about the others?” Priscilla asked.

  “Well, Madame Sonia Bolugayevska will be free to join you when she has given evidence to the Politburo. Incidentally, I should mention that this evidence will be in camera, and that her existence, and the part she played in Premier Stalin’s death, will never be acknowledged.”

  “I understand. And Jennie?”

  “Madame Ligachevna will presumably pick up the threads of her life as best she can.”

  “In her old apartment?”

  “Of course.”

  “Beneath the Schermetskas?”

  Kagan shrugged. “Life sometimes turns out unfortunately.”

  *

  Priscilla saw Alexei to a seat; his head was bandaged but he was conscious. They squeezed hands, then she oversaw the lifting of Andrew’s stretcher on board the aircraft. He was heavily sedated, and obviously in great pain, but he managed a smile. “Only a few hours, now,” she said. “And then we’ll be home.”

  “As far as I can gather, he has no next of kin,” Halstead said. “But we will do what we can for him.”

  “It has nothing to do with you, Mr Halstead,” Priscilla said.

  Halstead raised his eyebrows. “Mr Morgan is not getting off in London,” she said. “I am taking him back to New York.”

  Halstead looked more mystified than ever. “What as?”

  It was Priscilla’s turn to raise her eyebrows. Then she smiled. “Shall we say, the companion of my declining years, Mr Halstead.”

  “Won’t that be, well…frowned upon by polite society.”

  “I am a Russian princess, Mr Halstead. I make of society whatever I wish. Besides, it is what my grandmother would have done. I have based my entire life on that of Anna Bolugayevska. I am not going to change now.”

  Andrew had fallen asleep. Priscilla went forward to sit with Alex. “Now,” she said. “Tell me about this granddaughter of mine. The last Bolugayevska. The very last.”

  *

  Lavrenty Beria was shot on 23 December 1953, having been found guilty of treason. By then, Georgi Malenkov had been installed as Premier.

  Epilogue

  “I imagine you’ll find it pretty dull,” Lawrence remarked. “Tied to a desk. But we’ll get you a gong. For years of devoted service. There will be no need to specify what services.”

  “I’ll look forward to that,” Halstead agreed.

  “So, sum up,” Lawrence suggested.

  “Well, I met two of the most remarkable women that can ever have existed.”

  “I meant, the political scene. With Stalin dead…”

  “There’ll never be another Stalin,” Halstead said. “Certainly Malenkov isn’t in that mould, and neither is any other present member of the KGB.”

  “So what does that mean for us?”

  Halstead considered. “Do you remember what Winston said after Alamein? This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning. I believe Soviet Russia is mortally wounded. It may take a generation, or even forty years, to lie down. There is still a KGB, and there are still men like Kagan running it. But we could just live to see the actual end.”

  “And according to you, we have to thank the Bolugayevskis for opening up this crack of daylight,” Lawrence said.

  “It was my privilege to watch them do it,” Halstead said.

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