“Of course.”
“Turn it on. I’m going to play a tape for you. I want you to get the accent analyzed.”
When it finished playing, Tarasov put the receiver back to his ear. “Got it?”
“I’ll get right on it,” said Leo.
They agreed that Tarasov would call Leo the next day.
“Or maybe the day after,” said Tarasov. “Don’t try to call me. You won’t be able to reach me.”
“Why? Where you goingnow? ”
“Just get that tape analyzed.”
Tarasov hung up and went back to his room. He lay down again beside the heater. He stared at the cracks in the ceiling for a while and thought about the nonexistent arrest record.
Why would Stepan lie?
Tarasov went back to the reception desk and called Fyodor Kagan at home.
“I want to see the cabin,” said Tarasov.
Kagan groaned. “I was afraid you would say that. I can get you to Oimyakon village by helicopter, three hours’ flying time. I’ll need Colonel Novikov’s approval.”
“You’ll get it.”
“Then the chopper will be ready tomorrow morning.”
“That’s not all. I want you to get on your radio set and call the commandant at Leslog-11. Tell him we’re dropping by tomorrow.”
“What?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” said Kagan doubtfully. “The camp is not that far out of the flight path.”
“Tell him I want to talk to every prisoner there who knew Stepan Bragin while he was in the camps.”
“The commandant won’t like it,” Kagan said. “He is God Almighty out there.”
Tarasov ignored that. “Then I want to talk to this prison doctor, Igor Gents.”
“What are you looking for, Major?”
“The Bragin identity.”
It was 7:30 and still dark the next morning as Tarasov and Kagan walked across the snowy tarmac of Ust-Nera’s airport. Snow crunched beneath Tarasov’s boots. The helicopter was a C-9 cargo craft, “the truck of the north country,” according to Kagan. Beside the helicopter, a young, rugged-looking Russian waited. He was only the second ethnic Russian Tarasov had seen in two days.
“Meet Vadim Klimov,” said Kagan. “The best pilot in the north.”
They shook hands and Kagan said, “Flying in the north requires the highest license a pilot can receive. The weather can change in seconds, and it’s very easy to get lost, like flying over water. You need to know all about instruments and extreme weather.” He hit Vadim on the back. “And that’s why we northerners get pilots like Vadim.”
The pilot grinned sheepishly. He bounded into the aircraft and climbed into the cockpit. He put on heavy headphones and was immediately absorbed in the preflight checklist. Tarasov and Kagan sat on facing benches in the cargo section.
And so, at 7:50 A.M. Sunday, by the purple twilight of predawn, the three men lifted off. They looped once over Ust-Nera, over the black-and-gray checkerboard, over the crumbling barracks that was the hotel, over the ten dozen shacks with their wood piled high against the walls, over the tangle of above-ground pipes and around the towering smokestack that spat soot into the air like black snow. They completed the loop, and the nose of the C-9 dipped and the engine roared a little louder and Ust-Nera fell away beneath them like a rodent dashing for its hole. They were heading east.
It grew warm inside the helicopter and Tarasov opened his jacket. He tapped his pistol anxiously in the holster beneath his arm.
“You called the warden at Leslog-11?” Tarasov asked.
Kagan nodded.
They flew for an hour over monolithic ice and snow. Gradually, the land began to rise. Scrubby trees appeared, clinging to the earth like grass to a sand dune. Then, with the suddenness of a plane passing from water to land, they were over forest.
“Taiga,” said Kagan.
Tarasov looked down in awe at the landscape of ice and forest. It was breathtakingly beautiful but it gave him a lonely, homesick feeling.
“How do they get the prisoners up here?” Tarasov shouted over the roar of the rotors.
“Tunga River,” said Kagan. “They come up in barges, like slave ships. That’s in the summer, of course. In the winter, they walk.”
On they flew. The land rushed away beneath him, land upon which no man had ever set foot. Tarasov had an urge to order Vadim to set down the chopper just so he could jump out into the snow and shout, “Here I am!” He tried to imagine how it must have been for the Cossack explorers who had opened Siberia centuries ago.
“When I was young,” said Tarasov, “I used to dream about coming to Siberia to make my fortune.”
“We get lots of those,” said Kagan. He grinned. “How do you think I got here?”
“You?”
“I’m a Leningrader. I figured I’d work in the mines two years, earn enough money for a car and then go back. That was twenty years ago.”
“What happened?”
“Yermali.” He grinned. “A Yakut makes the perfect wife. They worship you like you’re god on earth, work like horses, raise beautiful children and never boss you around the way our women do. You should try to find yourself one while you’re up here.”
“You have kids?”
“Two. One is in college in Novosibirsk. The other lives in Leningrad.”
Vadim shouted from the cockpit. “There it is!”
Tarasov and Kagan rushed forward. Tarasov surveyed the sea of trees rushing at them. “Where?”
And then it came into view, first the guard tower peeking over the treetops. Then, five long barracks and a few other smaller buildings scattered about. Last of all, he saw two parallel rows of barbed-wire encircling everything. And that was it.
“You ever seen a camp before?” Kagan said.
Tarasov shook his head.
“Simplicity is its beauty,” said Kagan. “If you will permit me to use such a word. The prisoners build the camp themselves. They cut the trees, lay the bricks, dig the latrines and stretch the barbed wire. They’re not building too many new camps these days. But back in Stalin’s time, during the great waves, they would march a group of a hundred or so prisoners, weak from months in the cattle cars, up to some spot more or less like all the others, and nail a sign to a tree. Presto! A new camp.”
Tarasov frowned. He knew the stories. Who didn’t?
“What types of prisoners are here?”
“All types, but common criminals, mostly,” said Kagan. “Maybe a few politicals serving the tail end of their twenty-fivers. Don’t worry, comrade. It’s unlikely you’ll have to face someone you sent away. These days, politicals go to the Urals for the most part. I guess we’ve grown more civilized.”
“I didn’t send anyone away,” Tarasov said testily. “Judges do that.”
“How many politicals do you know who were arrested and then later set free by the courts?” asked Kagan.
Tarasov didn’t answer. They both knew. It never happened.
“I never dealt with politicals,” said Tarasov. He was overexplaining himself now. He bit his lip and said nothing more.
The helicopter sat down, and Tarasov and Kagan scrambled out into the blizzard beneath the rotors. Tarasov’s face froze instantly. Kagan’s face was white as a snowman’s. Tarasov would have laughed if he could have moved his mouth.
A man in a gray uniform came toward them along a trail. He carried a Kalashnikov machine gun.
“This way,” he said and turned back toward the camp.
He led them along a path of trampled snow to an archway with a placard over it that read:
LESLOG-11 LOGGING CAMP
PRAISE TO LABOR
They passed into the empty camp. “Where is everybody?” Tarasov asked.
“Work detail.”
Tarasov turned angrily to Kagan.
Kagan held up his hands. “I warned you.”
The guard led them to the best building on the compound, a c
ement-brick structure with a wood-shingle roof. Smoke billowed from a chimney. They went inside and were led directly to the commandant’s office. The guard stopped beside the door.
The commandant, a thin man about fifty years old with a grizzly beard and small eyes, rose slowly from behind his desk.
“Why aren’t the prisoners in camp?” Tarasov demanded.
The commandant sat back down. His eye roamed his desktop a moment. Then he looked up at Tarasov as though he had just come into the room.
“I talked to OSO in Magadan,” said the commandant. “They said to pass along a message. Here it is: ‘Go to hell.’ Got it?”
Tarasov glared at the warden. The OSO was the branch of the KGB that collected all the bad apples among the recruits, men too dim-witted to make it in the regular service, but still useful for their loyalty — and their ruthlessness. The OSO was notoriously autonomous within the KGB, an evil son everyone pretends doesn’t exist until his services are required for a dirty job no one else wants. Tarasov knew they would not answer to reason.
“Take me to where the men are working,” said Tarasov. “That’s an order.”
“Yegor,” the warden said evenly to the guard at the door. “Throw these men out of here.”
The guard took a step forward. Tarasov stepped to his right and spun around behind the commandant’s chair. As he did, he pulled a pistol from beneath his parka. He placed it against the commandant’s left ear.
“What the hell — ” said the commandant.
“Major!” cried Kagan.
The guard froze, his machine gun pointed at Tarasov.
“I was thinking, maybe I should invite a geologist up here to go over your mining operation,” said Tarasov. “I’m sure Colonel Novikov would be interested in the result of an audit.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Yes, that’s what they all say — just before the judge gives them a tenner.”
“You’re bluffing.”
“You know what we say back at Lubyanka? Give me a man, I’ll make a case.” Tarasov cocked his pistol. “But maybe you’ll save us all the trouble.”
Tarasov used his free hand to take out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one free and lowered his head to take it between his lips. He lit it and took a long drag.
“So what will it be, commandant?”
The commandant’s shoulders sagged. “What do I care? Yegor, refuel the snow-mobiles and take these men out to the work site. Tell Gents to cooperate. The prisoners can make up later for the work they missed.”
Tarasov released the hammer and pulled back the pistol.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he said, and left the room.
Kagan followed him into the corridor. He opened his mouth to speak, but then he thought better of it.
They rode the snowmobiles out onto the taiga. The guard led the way, with Tarasov second and Kagan in the rear. Trees were spaced widely so the going was easy. At one point a rabbit crossed their path. The guard raised his machine gun and began to fire.Rat-tat-tat. The snow around the creature exploded. It stopped and darted off in one direction, then another. After twenty rounds, just when it seemed the rabbit would escape, the rabbit’s body gave a jolt and it collapsed on the snow. The guard grinned and threw his gun over his shoulder. He drove his snowmobile to where the rabbit lay and scooped it up. He threw it into a leather bag and went on.
After what seemed like a very long time, Tarasov rounded a bend, and in front of him stood five men in uniform, machine guns raised.
Tarasov eased off the throttle. He had found the work detail.
24
What struck Tarasov hardest was the stupidity.
In a small clearing dotted with tree trunks, a hundred or so men in black-and-white striped hats cut trees with handsaws and axes. Another dozen men armed with machine guns stood guard.
The prisoners were too far away for Tarasov to see them well, but even from a distance it was obvious that they wore only patchwork quilts of tattered coats and bits of cloth and animal fur tied around necks and heads and faces and feet. Tarasov wondered how they managed; his own feet were already numb inside his Finnish boots.
Russians are such blockheads, Tarasov thought.
The guards gathered around him, and their guide, Yegor, relayed the commandant’s orders.
“I thought this was a mining camp,” said Tarasov.
“You can’t mine gold in winter,” said Yegor as though Tarasov were an idiot. “You need water for the sluices. So we come out here to cut timber.”
The pace of the work was somnolent. Two men with chain saws could have done as much.
“It looks like a real efficient operation,” said Tarasov. “Who is Igor Gents?”
A tall, muscular man with the heavily bearded face of a trapper stepped forward. His age was hard to guess, but he was certainly nearing sixty years old. He had large, weathered hands that curled around his machine gun as naturally as a baby held a teddy bear.
“You’re a doctor?” Tarasov asked doubtfully.
“Does this look like a hospital to you?” asked Gents. “I’m a medic. Who the fuck are you?”
Yegor explained, and Gents looked at Tarasov doubtfully. He spoke to the guards a minute, and they headed out toward the prisoners. They began to shout.
“Zek 577!” one called. “Report!”
“Zek 339!”
“Zek 503!”
After fifteen minutes, a dozen shivering ghosts were lined up in front of Tarasov. They had hollowed-out faces and glassy eyes. Their gazes were fixed on Tarasov’s feet. Tarasov wondered if they were so beaten by prison life they could not look a free man in the eye, or if perhaps they were merely interested in Tarasov’s boots. Few of them had proper boots, just ordinary shoes wrapped in cloth. Their heads and faces were shaved. On their heads they wore only striped caps. Tarasov and the guards had fur hats with the flaps pulled down over the ears. The men stamped their feet as they waited to learn the reason for their summons.
Tarasov remembered the commandant’s threat that the men would make up the lost time with overtime work. “Let’s do this fast,” he said.
He fired off a series of questions designed to find out who among them had known Stepan Bragin best at Leslog-7. Soon, he had narrowed the group to just four men. The others went back to work.
“Who can tell me about the day Stepan Bragin arrived at the camp?” Tarasov asked.
The men were silent.
“Speak up!” barked Gents.
“Let me handle this,” Tarasov snapped.
“What happened to him?” stammered a man so thin he seemed lost in his clothes.
“He was killed,” said Tarasov.
The prisoners were quiet a few seconds, then a small man with white whiskers and pale, colorless eyes spoke up. “I suppose I’ve been in the longest. I came to the zone in 1955, to Worker’s Paradise Camp. But Stepan was already there. He was the cook’s assistant. That’s the most important job in camp.”
“That’s impossible,” said Tarasov. “Bragin said he came in 1956.”
A thin man, slightly hunched over, spoke up. “I doubt there is a man alive who can remember a time when Stepan wasnot in the camps. I heard he had been at Socialist Labor-66 Camp before Worker’s Paradise. We all just assumed he was a fifty-eighter.”
Tarasov frowned and looked at Kagan.
“Articlefifty-eight,” said Kagan. “A POW. After World War II, all Soviet soldiers who had been captured by the Germans were charged with treason under article fifty-eight and sent to the camps.”
“But that would be 1945, at the latest,” said Tarasov.
“Nearly forty years,” said Kagan.
“No way was he in Socialist Labor-66 Camp,” said Gents. “That was strictly for fifty-eighters. A tenner was a death sentence there. It burned in 1949. A lot of men died in the fire, including the commandant and a bunch of guards.”
“Another fire,” said Tarasov. “How long have you been o
ut here?”
“I came in 1959 to Worker’s Paradise Camp,” Gents said. “By then, the Estonian knew his way around pretty good — all the scams. How to get an extra portion in the mess, how to get the special assignments. But I can’t believe he was a fifty-eighter. That’s just too much time.”
“You just called him ‘The Estonian.’ Why?”
“That’s where he was from.”
“I know, but why not use his name?”
Gents thought about that. “That’s what the old-timers called him.”
“Not Stepan Bragin.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It was a nickname, I guess,” said Gents.
Tarasov turned back to face the prisoners. “What else can you tell me?”
“Bragin was special,” said a frail-looking man with a faint voice. He was the sickliest of them all. His cheeks caved in and his eyes were sunken so that when he spoke it was like watching a skull talk. It was impossible to guess an age. He might have been twenty-five; he might have been sixty-five. “Everyone understood Stepan was special. We didn’t need to know why. You don’t ask questions like that around here. But I remember one strange thing. We had an Estonian in the camp once, a general, a war hero. I forget his name.”
“General Markus Tragertin,” said the man with the pale eyes. “A big, arrogant son-of-a-bitch who tried to boss us around like we were just his grunts and he was still an officer. He bragged he was going to outlive us all.”
The frail man went on. “That’s him. I remember he was excited when he found out there was a fellow Estonian in camp. But after he met Stepan, he got disgusted and said Stepan was a fake. Everyone got angry at the general, and things went badly for him after that.”
“How so?”
The frail man coughed. He broke into a fit of coughing, and the pale-eyed man picked up the narrative.
“He was always last in line for gruel, and the first chosen for general assignment work. Stuff like that. He worked hard, too, the stupid dolt. He kept burning up more calories than he took in. One day he just lay down in the snow and wouldn’t get up. And that was the end of the big, arrogant son-of-a-bitch who was going to outlive us all. He didn’t even make it through his first winter.”
The Forbidden Zone Page 26