The Twelfth Department

by William Ryan

  But the professor knew, because he’d written one name, over and over again, beside each allegation.

  Zaitsev.

  Zaitsev.

  Zaitsev.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Korolev put the report back into its envelope and then dropped it into the waiting cavity and replaced the bottom drawer. He had a good idea what might have been said during one of those phone calls Kuznetsky had found out about.

  He stood and walked to the window, looking down on the children playing in the small park, before changing his focus to see the grim, merciless anger that showed in his reflection. He reached into his pocket for cigarettes and lit one up, thinking it all through, and when he’d finished he stubbed the butt out on the glass before opening the window and flicking it out. It was uncultured, the act of a hooligan. But then he’d just read what cultured men had got up to in the name of science. Maybe being uncultured wasn’t such a bad thing, if you knew what was right and what was wrong. It might be “bourgeois morality” to a wretch like the professor, but in Korolev’s opinion knowing the difference between right and wrong was what separated humans from wolves.

  The stack of files was still on the table and Korolev walked over to it, going through them until he found the Bramson file. He picked it up and stopped when he saw the other name on the file. Goldstein. Varvara Goldstein. Bramson’s wife. She’d been arrested on 1 March 1936—three days after a husband whose surname she hadn’t taken. And the couple had a son named after the acronym for the Komsomol International Movement: Kim. Age at the time of the arrest of both his parents—eleven. Korolev swallowed dryly. The same Kim Goldstein who was now on the run from the Vitsin Street Orphanage turned out to be the son of the former occupants of Azarov’s apartment. People who owed their arrests to the professor. Korolev felt the band around his chest tighten another notch or two and reached for another cigarette. If he came through this alive he’d give the damned things up, he swore it—but for the moment, he needed all the help he could get.

  Korolev reached for the telephone, tapping for the operator. When she came on the line he asked to be put through to the director of the Vitsin Street Orphanage.

  “Comrade Spinsky? Korolev here, from Petrovka. I came to see you last night.”

  “I remember.” The tinny voice sounded wary.

  “It’s about those two boys—the ones that went missing on Wednesday night. I wanted to know where they might have been earlier in the week.”

  “Earlier in the week?”

  “Monday and Tuesday in particular.”

  “Goldstein and Petrov? They’d have been here on the Monday—it was Tuesday morning that we bussed the boys out to Peredelkino.”

  “What are the chances one or both of them could have slipped away at some stage?”

  “From the orphanage? We keep a close eye on them, but it’s not a prison,” Spinsky said, and there was no mistaking the director’s concern now.

  “So they could have? Do children often leave the Vitsin grounds on their own?”

  “Very rarely. Only the older children, even then. As for Goldstein and Petrov—it’s not impossible. Unlikely, but not impossible. You’d have to ask Comrade Tambova or one of the others, to be certain.”

  “Tambova? Little Barrel?”

  “That’s what the children call her, yes.” The director sounded as though he didn’t approve of such familiarity, either from Korolev or the boys.

  “Can I speak to her?”

  There was a pause.

  “She’s out.”

  “Doesn’t she live at the orphanage?”

  “She has time off the same as any other citizen. Today is her day off. I’ve no idea where she might be.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “I’ll tell her you called.”

  To Korolev’s ears, the director sounded rattled. Korolev wondered if someone might have come to visit him after he’d left the night before. Cartainly Zaitsev would have wanted to know what they’d been talking about, wouldn’t he?

  “Last night you mentioned a facility out near Lefortovo where the children who were chosen by Professor Azarov were taken—have you remembered where that facility might be?”

  There was a lengthy pause. “I’ve no idea. As I told you yesterday—the institute takes over responsibility for the children once they are transferred.”

  “Yes, so you said. So you said. And you’ve heard nothing from either Goldstein or Petrov since last night?” Korolev asked.

  “Not a thing. We’ll give them a few more days and then we presume they’ve gone back on the streets. It’s not unusual, Comrade Captain. Not unusual at all.”

  Korolev smiled grimly. Someone had got to Spinsky, he was sure of it. The man was doing a good impression of being offhand, but Korolev could almost smell his fear down the telephone line.

  “One last question, Comrade Director—I can tell you’re busy. You remember that there were three other children who came in with Goldstein and Petrov back in January. One of them died and the other two were transferred to Professor Azarov’s care. Can you give me the names of the two boys who were transferred?”

  “I’m not sure,” Spinsky began.

  “Let me remind you who I’m working for on this investigation.”

  “One moment,” the director said after a pause, and Korolev heard footsteps and then a drawer squealing open.

  “I have them,” the director said. “Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Kudrin.”

  “Petrov? The runner’s brother?”

  “Yes, Aleksandr Petrov’s younger brother.”

  “Thank you.”

  The director seemed to be about to ask a question but Korolev hung up. He finished his cigarette—wondering about Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Kudrin. And where they might be.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Korolev left the car beside the Gorky Park Metro station. It was a glorious day and men had balled their shirt-sleeves high above their sun-browned forearms while women walked beside them, their laughter light and easy. He’d been to Gorky Park before, of course, but every time he came nowadays it seemed there was some new feature designed to entertain and impress the citizens of Moscow. The parachute tower that dominated this end of the park had been in place for a year or two now—a tall structure, bollard-shaped, with an exterior walkway that spiraled round and up it like the stripe on a barber’s pole. The queue stretched a hundred meters along the central promenade—these days it seemed you even had to stand in line to throw yourself off a building.

  Korolev made his way to the meeting spot down by the river—a band was playing somewhere nearby and he found that he was walking in time with the music. No matter what his feet were up to, however, Korolev’s thoughts were focused on Yuri, where the boy might be and whether he was safe—although he kept his eyes moving, scanning the crowd, allowing his gaze to slowly wander around the park. He wasn’t even sure who he was looking for—Zaitsev’s men or Kolya’s Thieves or someone else entirely—but his senses were telling him he was being watched. And he didn’t like the feeling.

  “Watch your step, Comrade.”

  Startled, Korolev stopped, turned, and found himself looking up into the nostrils of a ten-foot-tall drunk. His surprise must have shown because a laugh came from inside the giant’s stomach. There were eight of them—huge, crude papier-mâché representations of the evils of drink. The one he’d nearly walked into was a broad-chested peasant with an unnaturally pink face and two glass eyes that dangled out on springs as it walked. In one hand he clutched a bottle of vodka and the other was just a red-painted stump. The sign around his neck told the full story—“Drunk at work! He cut off his fist! What a fool! Reduced to a wrist!”

  He supposed a subtle approach didn’t work with drunks—but all the same.

  Ranks of grave-faced komsomol youngsters followed behind the giants, chanting advice to the citizenry—“Drink in moderation—for the good of the Nation!” and “Behave like a cultured Soviet guy—no
t like a pig in a filthy sty.”

  But some in the crowd chanted right back at them: “Stop all the singing, and let’s have a drink.” And more salty advice directed toward the female marchers, one or two of whom couldn’t help but look uncomfortable. And to judge from the raucous laughter, at least some of the crowd were several glasses past heeding any advice on drinking from a squad of teenage activists—and certainly not on their day off. Still, it wasn’t any of Korolev’s business and the statue of the diver was only a short distance ahead—and there he did have business. Important business.

  “Insanity, isn’t it?”

  It was a deep voice, calm—possessed of a certainty that most could only wish for. Kolya.

  Korolev turned, thinking the Thief must be looking at the komsomol agitators, but his gaze was fixed well past them—up at the parachute tower, where a brave soul threw himself outward, falling fast until the parachute jerked his body back and he descended the rest of the way at a more survivable pace.

  “Don’t you think? To throw yourself from such a height and trust in something so flimsy to make sure you land safely.”

  Korolev shrugged his shoulders. “It has its purpose.”

  Korolev couldn’t help but let his eyes drop to the finger and hand tattoos that turned Kolya’s fists blue. Each tattoo had a meaning and there’d be more under his clothes—on his chest, his arms and legs. Kolya’s tattoos, like medals, told of deeds he’d performed, battles he’d won, and the sentences he’d served. Still others signaled Kolya’s rank among the Thieves as clear as the stars or stripes on a soldier’s collar. And Kolya was a Field Marshal among Thieves—as decorated, in their terms, as any Hero of the Soviet Union.

  “Its purpose? To train youngsters for war?” Kolya answered, as he watched another parachute descend. “Yes, I can see the point of that. We’ll need young blood for the Motherland soon enough.”

  Korolev looked around him, wondering where Kolya’s men were.

  “Don’t tell me you came alone?”

  Kolya pointed an inked finger further along the path in the direction of the big wheel and, sure enough, there was Mishka—eating ice cream from a paper cup while the big fellow he’d seen at the zoo pushed one hand against another.

  “Ice cream?” Korolev asked, surprised.

  “He’s fond of it.”

  “It’s the weather for it, I suppose.”

  Kolya smiled but it seemed to Korolev there was something on his mind—and Korolev couldn’t help but wonder what it might be. Was it his imagination or did the Thief look as if he’d aged since he last saw him? He certainly seemed weary.

  “But you, Korolev,” the Thief said. “You came on your own, didn’t you?”

  “I’d good reason to.”

  “I thought as much.” And they began, by unspoken agreement, to walk away from the river toward the central pond where the statue of a female rower stood surrounded by fountains, her long oar leaning against her shoulder like a rifle.

  “So you’re investigating the Azarov killing after all,” Kolya said, looking up at the rower’s naked buttocks.

  Korolev had the strangest sensation of cold, even on this warmest of days—and he wondered if it wasn’t a premonition of some kind.

  “I was given a choice—but it wasn’t much of one.”

  “I heard.”

  He’d heard, had he? Either the man had a source in the most unlikely of places or he was playing games with him. He’d two NKVD colonels and now a senior Thief trying to twist his mind into a shape that suited them—and frankly he’d had enough of it.

  “I’d like to know how you come by information like that, Kolya.”

  “What I know and what I don’t know won’t change if I tell you how I know it.”

  Korolev nearly took the bait, but he reminded himself why they were there.

  “We didn’t come here just to banter back and forth, did we?”

  “No.”

  “A question?”

  “Willingly.”

  “When we spoke about the institute out at the zoo, you said you hoped my son never ended up in such a place. What did you mean by it? You see, you don’t strike me as the kind of man who’d come and tell me something like that just out of the blue. You’ll forgive me—but it seems to me you must have had a reason for it. It’s been bothering me.”

  It occurred to Korolev that, to other people in the park, they probably looked like two old friends out for a walk in the afternoon sun—the thought made him uncomfortable. They stopped to watch two groups of students battling an enormous ball backward and forward across a net—some new sort of game, it seemed.

  “I’ve a boy of my own, Korolev—that’s why I came to see you that day.”

  The Thief’s voice seemed to have lost some of its usual force. Korolev turned and saw that Kolya was pale—his face narrow with concern.

  “Two boys, as it happens,” Kolya continued. “One of them is safe and I’ll keep him that way—until it’s time for him to stand on his own two feet of course. The other I don’t know about for certain. His name is Anton and I haven’t seen him since five weeks ago—when I was picked up by your lot over a little misunderstanding.”

  “You were arrested?” It was news to Korolev.

  “Not exactly. But the person whose name I gave them spent time staring at the sky through crossed bars. Or at least that’s what the records show. I won’t deny it was my friends’ persuasive skills saw that person released and that I was pleased to be out in the fresh air when he was. Fortunately not everyone’s as honest as you are, you see. Many are open to persuasion.”

  Korolev wasn’t surprised—Militiamen did well compared to the general populace, but that didn’t mean money wasn’t tight and small mouths didn’t need feeding.

  “It took two weeks for the matter to resolve itself. At the time my wife was down in the south with her people. When I got myself out, I discovered Anton had been taken by some well-meaning folk and placed in a certain orphanage. I wonder if you can guess which one?”

  “Vitsin Street.”

  “The very same. From the orphanage he was sent somewhere else, and for a while no one was able to tell me where. I’ve a talent for persuasion, as I’ve said, and know many people, but none of them could find out—except that he might have been sent to the Azarov Institute. When I heard that, I became concerned, because I’d already heard things about the place. People I know—strong men, clever men, men of authority among us—you know the kind—men who’d earned their tattoos and stood by them—they’d ended up there and hadn’t fared well. Not one of them will ever be the same, those that survived, that is.”

  “You think your boy ended up there?”

  “He was there—I know that much. But they moved him somewhere else again—somewhere outside Moscow. Some secret establishment.”

  “I’m sorry for it, Kolya. I didn’t know anything about the institute when we met. Except that it was a place to avoid.”

  “I thought as much, Korolev—you wouldn’t have walked away if you had. I think I know that much about you.”

  Korolev wasn’t sure this was the case, but he said nothing in response.

  “And I know I won’t be grieving for Professor Azarov or that fellow Shtange,” Kolya said. “They got what they deserved.”

  “But you didn’t kill them.” Korolev spoke quietly—there were citizens close by after all.

  “No,” Kolya said, and Korolev thought he detected regret. “Their blood isn’t on my hands.”

  “From the little I know, most of the children who went to the Azarov Institute go back to the orphanage, sooner or later.” Korolev wanted to reassure the Thief, although he wasn’t entirely convinced by his own words.

  “So I believe, but some stay on—and no one’s quite sure what happens to them. Even the ones that came back—the things they’d had done to them weren’t pleasant. They treated them like animals, Korolev, and I’m not just saying that. They did what that fellow Pavlov did w
ith dogs, only with children. That’s Soviet progress, for you. They cut holes in the boys’ cheeks then showed them biscuits and rang a bell or something. The holes were there so they could see if they salivated.”

  Korolev found he couldn’t say anything at first. His hands, though, were itching to smack the hell out of someone.

  “Kim Goldstein?” he managed to say eventually.

  Kolya glanced at him. “Why do you ask about Goldstein?”

  “He’s your source for this, isn’t he? He was at the institute—I need to speak to him.”

  “About your son?”

  Well, Korolev thought to himself, he’d been fooling himself if he’d thought Kolya wouldn’t know that much at least.

  “About him, of course. And other things.”

  “You know your boy was picked up by Chekists yesterday evening.”

  “Not just any Chekists, Kolya.” Korolev hesitated a moment, then told Kolya all that he knew about the Azarov Institute and its relationship to Colonel Zaitsev’s Twelfth Department—and how the Vitsin Street Orphanage fitted into the picture. The Thief listened carefully but Korolev had the sense that most of what he was telling him, he already knew.

  “There are times, Kolya,” Korolev said in conclusion, “when I wonder if we haven’t been joined together by fate in some way.”

  “It’s a possibility,” Kolya agreed.

  He didn’t look too happy at the idea, but then again, nor was Korolev. He found himself kicking a small stone, more to avoid the Thief’s gaze than anything else. There was sympathy there, perhaps even kindness, and that wasn’t what he wanted to see. It seemed they’d a common interest, and perhaps, as he’d said, they might even have a shared fate. But there could be no question of friendship. Kolya might talk about his code and the Thieves’ honor but there wasn’t a crime thought up by humankind that Kolya wouldn’t commit if it suited him.

  “So the question is—where have they moved this institute to?” Kolya asked.