by William Ryan
The woman turned toward him, her mouth opening to scream and he was already swinging the cosh back to deal with her, God forgive him, when Slivka took a hold of her, pulling her back, one hand over her mouth, while with the other hand she showed the woman her pistol.
“Quiet now, Comrade,” Slivka whispered in her ear, her voice gentle, “and all will be well. Make one noise though—and you won’t make another. Understand?”
The woman’s eyes were fixed on Korolev and it occurred to him that his face must be clearly visible in the light that was spilling over the top of the bus. It seemed her eyes were begging him for something.
“I asked whether you understood,” Slivka whispered again, pressing the barrel of the Tokarev into the woman’s cheek. The woman nodded, once.
“Take her over to the trees,” Korolev managed to say, wondering for the first time why the hell he hadn’t had enough sense to make sure he and Slivka had covered their faces. If they did manage to rescue Yuri from this place—who would Zaitsev first suspect? Korolev. And now there was a witness as well. He felt sick to the pit of his stomach.
He leaned down and checked the guard’s pulse. There was one—which was good. The last thing they wanted was a fatality during the course of the evening. He took the guard under the arms, pulled him up and then swing him over his shoulder, stumbling as he did so. The fellow was no featherweight and Korolev, it seemed, wasn’t as young and strong as he’d once been—but he made it as far as the bushes, where he dropped the guard down as softly as he could, searching him quickly and finding a bunch of keys and a packet of cigarettes. He took both—and the Nagant revolver from the fellow’s holster for good measure. Then he tied the guard’s hands behind his back and lashed his feet together. Finally he gagged him, leaving him on his side, curled up like a child—still out for the count.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Korolev made his way as quietly and quickly as he could down the slight slope that led to the new building. The door Kolya and Mishka had gone through stood slightly open and he slipped through it, pulling it closed behind him. Ahead of him was a wide central corridor, along either side of which doors stood ajar. At the end of the corridor there was a stairwell with steps leading upward.
It seemed Kolya and Mishka had been busy—in an office halfway along the corridor, two female nurses were sitting tied to chairs with gags in their mouth. One of them, with red hair, was slumped unconscious against the wall, but the other looked up as he passed. Her eyes were wide with fear. He was about to reassure her when there came a muffled crash from the floor above.
Despite his own instructions about avoiding the use of guns, he found he had the guard’s pistol in his hand, with the business end leading the way up the stairs as he climbed them. Suddenly, there was a crash and the sound of feet moving rapidly back and forth.
Korolev opened the door to the upper corridor to find Kolya halfway along it, doing his best to dodge the wild, swinging blows of a huge man in a sleeveless vest. They fought in total silence. Mishka was lying against a wall, trying to push himself back to his feet, blood trickling from a nose that had been unsympathetically rearranged. The little Thief looked confused.
When Kolya saw him, he went on the attack, landing two sharp blows, and Korolev took his cue, racing as silently as he could along the corridor. The giant shrugged off Kolya’s punches and began to turn, but too late—Korolev was already swinging the butt of the Nagant down with every ounce of his strength. For a moment, Korolev thought it hadn’t been enough, but the big man slowly fell to his knees, shaking his head as he did so. He knelt for a moment before trying to stand again. Korolev and Kolya looked at each other, before Korolev, shrugging his shoulders, hit the giant one more time—even harder, if that were possible.
Like a felled tree, the big man quivered for a moment than collapsed to the ground—out for the count, blood pulsing from his injured head.
“What took you so long?” Kolya said, his voice distorted by a fat lip and ragged breath. “I think I broke a finger on that ape’s ear. His ear, mind you, not his jaw or anything solid like that.”
Korolev found he was also out of breath—either from running up the stairs or the adrenaline. He wasn’t sure which.
“If I’d known you were going to go toe-to-toe with this fellow I’d have come earlier, just for the show.”
“Did you get the other guard’s keys?” Kolya asked.
“I have them.”
“There’s a door downstairs we couldn’t open. Mishka found this fellow in there.” Kolya pointed to what seemed to be some kind of an operating room. Korolev stepped inside. A long bed fitted with leather straps stood in the center, its head almost touching a large black machine covered with dials and levers—from which a worrying-looking wire skullcap dangled. Korolev stepped back out to find Kolya helping Mishka to his feet.
“It looks like he found the fellow with his face. Is he all right?”
“What’s it to you?” Mishka growled, holding himself up with one hand against the wall. Then he was sick over his shoes.
“Not too bad then,” Korolev said. “Mishka, keep an eye on your friend here while we check the rest of the floor.”
They moved quickly from room to room, finding another of the strange machines but otherwise nothing. It seemed the giant had been alone on the upper floor. Korolev looked at his watch. They had to get moving.
“What do we do with that lump in the corridor?” Kolya asked, and Korolev, for an answer, pointed to the leather restraining straps on one of the beds.
It took all three of them to drag the giant back into the room he’d emerged from and lift him up on to the bed. They had to pull the straps as tight as they could in order to be able buckle them onto the last notch, so huge was the man’s frame.
Perhaps Mishka’s swearing as he tried to push his nose back into shape but the giant woke just as they’d finished, his eyes meeting Korolev’s for a moment in surprise before they flicked left and right. At the sight of the machine above him however, his eyes went wide with terror and he began to buck and rear on the bed. Even with a gag in place he still managed to make an animal mewling that had the hairs at the back of Korolev’s neck standing to attention.
“What the hell’s up with him?” Mishka asked.
Korolev saw the rubber skullcap that hung down from the machine—a number of small wires dangling from it. On a hunch, he pulled the thing out and held it directly over the man’s head, the wires dangling down to touch his face. The struggling ceased and the giant’s body went rigid. Korolev leaned down to whisper in his ear.
“I have questions for you. Will you answer them?”
The big man nodded and Korolev undid the buckle of the gag. There was silence as he did so and Korolev glanced up to see Kolya watching with interest.
“How many are in the main house?”
“The children?” The man had a voice like pouring gravel.
“Them first.”
“Twenty-two.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs. Two dormitories. At the end of the long corridor.”
“And apart from the children?”
There was a slight hesitation, until Korolev made as if to lower the skull cap.
“Eight guards, four nurses, and a doctor,” the man said in a rush. “The guards sleep on the ground floor. It’s the big room beside the front door. The nurses and the doctor are upstairs. The rooms off the landing.”
“It’s past midnight—who will be up and about?”
“A nurse for the children, the guard who does regular rounds, and the guard at the gate. No more than that.”
“And you? What are you up for? And the nurses downstairs?”
“There’s an operation later—we’re getting ready.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“It’s when they do them.”
Korolev wanted to ask why, but he had a more pressing concern.
“There was a boy brought in. Yesterday. W
here is he?”
“Blond hair?”
Korolev’s stomach seemed to contract. “Yes.”
“Downstairs.”
“The locked room? Where’s the key?”
Again, hesitation, but Korolev knew how to deal with it now.
“The guard up at the house has it.”
Korolev pulled the keys from his pocket and held them up.
“Which one?”
“The brass one.”
“If you’re lying about any of this…”
“On my mother’s life.”
Korolev looked at the size of the man and pitied the woman who’d had to give birth to him. “If you even think of trying to escape, we’ll make an omelette out of that tiny brain of yours. Just so you know. If you stay where you are—you’ll likely come out of this in one piece.”
Korolev motioned Kolya and Mishka to the door.
“Do we trust him?” Kolya asked, when they were halfway down the stairs.
“Well here’s the first test,” Korolev said and put the key the big man had indicated into the locked door. It opened easily and there Yuri was—backed into a corner of the room, his knees drawn up in front of him, his arms holding them tightly and his terrified face looking in amazement as Korolev ran the three steps to him and swung him up into his arms.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Korolev carried his son as they made their way toward the main house, not because Yuri couldn’t walk but because he wanted to hold the boy tight to him.
“Did they do anything to you?” Korolev asked him in a whisper.
“No. But the red-haired nurse”—Korolev remembered the one, she’d been out for the count in the corridor—“she said they were going to fix me, make me loyal to the State. I kept telling her I was loyal. But she kept saying it all the same.”
“There’s no one more loyal, Yuri,” Korolev said, feeling the boy was rigid with indignation. “The Party knows that.”
“Yes,” Yuri said. “Yes, they do. They know everything.”
God help them both if they did, thought Korolev, and nodded to Slivka as she stepped out of the bushes. Korolev was pleased to see Goldstein and the Deacon had joined her.
“Kim,” he said in a quiet voice. “Take Yuri to the woods. Wait for us there. If there’s a problem, head for the cars and go.”
Goldstein nodded, smiled at Yuri, and held out a hand to show him the way.
“Yuri,” Korolev said, leaning down to place him on the ground, kissing his head as he did so. “We’ll catch up with you as soon as we can—but don’t wait if there’s trouble. Kim will get you to the apartment and I’ll meet you there. Understood?”
Korolev pushed him toward Goldstein and watched until they disappeared into the shrubbery.
* * *
They entered the main house through the side door that the guard and the nurse had come out of. They all had their guns out now—six guards could be problematic, and if the giant had been lying and there were more then they really could be in trouble.
Once in, they took the rooms one by one—Korolev and Slivka first making sure the kitchen was clear, while Kolya and the others covered the corridor. There was no need to talk—they worked their way from kitchen, to pantry, to a strongroom with a massive metal door, then into some kind of storage room. They moved quickly and they moved smoothly. Everywhere was empty.
On the ground floor they repeated the exercise, working their way through an incongruously opulent dining room, the table set for twelve, then what seemed to be classrooms, then an office, another office, a sitting room, a toilet. They found the guards just where they’d been told they would be and, with gun barrels pushing into the napes of their necks, bundled them down to the strongroom and locked the half-naked, panicked-looking men inside. Then they started up to the first floor.
Perhaps they’d made too much noise with the guards, and certainly one or two of the stairs creaked as they’d made their way up them, but whether they’d woken him or he’d wandered out onto the landing by chance, Korolev looked up to see a half-dressed man wearing round-rimmed spectacles, staring down at them in surprise, and then fear.
God knew what they must have seemed like to him. Mishka with his broken nose, Kolya with his bumps and bruises, and Korolev’s two-day-old battering probably not looking pretty either. And if Korolev’s face reflected his mood then the fellow was right to look panicked—because a certain Captain of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia had been thinking something through during the last few minutes and had just worked out the answer. If there’d been an operation intended for this very night—then the probable patient had been his son. And if that was true, and if this wretch was a doctor—then Korolev would lay a handsome bet this fellow was the most likely would-be perpetrator of that so-called operation.
“Move one damned inch and I’ll put a slug right between your damned eyes and then I’ll spit in the hole.”
It was only when he’d finished speaking that Korolev realized the voice was his own. What was more, he was surprised to discover that a large part of him was praying the devil would move that damned inch. Korolev’s aim didn’t waver until Slivka reached the doctor and turned him until he was facing the wall, pressing her gun into his spine.
“Are you the doctor?” Slivka asked in a quiet voice and the fellow nodded. And it didn’t take much prompting for him to tell them where to find the nurses. They were broad-shouldered women—hard-faced even in slumber, and hard to wake as well, but wake them they did, and then Slivka and Mishka pushed them downstairs to join the guards.
Korolev kept the doctor though, and pushed him at gunpoint to the first of the children’s dormitories.
“Open it and turn on the light.”
There were twelve metal beds, six on either side of the room. Two of them were empty but the remainder contained boys of around Yuri’s age in various states between sleep and bleary awakening, as they reacted to the three men walking into the room.
“Is he here?” Korolev asked, turning to Kolya who was close behind.
Kolya looked at each boy then shook his head.
“No.”
It was curious that the boys didn’t seem surprised to find armed men walking among them. As they woke, they looked at them with calm disinterest. Korolev was about to reassure them when he realized they didn’t need it.
“The next room,” Kolya said, and there was anger in his voice as he pushed the doctor toward the door.
The second dormitory was the same as the first—a dozen beds—and, this time, a dozen boys. As the light went on they stirred, eyes opening, heads lifting from pillows, and suddenly Kolya pushed the doctor out of his way, going straight to a bed at the other end of the room, pulling the boy in it close to his chest, whispering to him, stroking his hair.
“I only did what I was told,” the doctor said to Korolev. “I only followed orders, no more than that.”
Korolev looked back to Kolya’s son and there it was again, that look of serene calm. The boy didn’t seem surprised that Kolya was stroking his hair, far from it—he seemed barely to notice.
“What did you do to them?”
“It wasn’t me. It was the professor and the others—they set everything up. I just do as I’m told.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“I swear it.”
Korolev took a step closer to him and pushed his gun into the doctor’s stomach.
“Tell me where the files are—the ones they brought out from Moscow.”
The doctor looked nonplussed.
“What files?”
“In the trucks. They started coming out on Tuesday.”
He looked terrified. “I’ve been here all week, there have been no trucks. The only visitors we’ve had are the ones who came last night, with a boy.”
“And that’s the boy you were going to operate on this evening.”
“I told you, Comrade. I only do what I’m told to do.”
“That boy’s m
y son,” Korolev growled.
The doctor took a step back, looking around him as if for a means of escape.
Kolya approached them. “What did you do to them? These children.” There wasn’t anger in his voice; if anything he looked lost. The doctor looked from him to Korolev and back again but he didn’t answer. Korolev lifted his gun. The doctor flinched back as the barrel tracked up the length of his body.
“Tell him,” Korolev said, his voice hoarse.
“They have machines,” he told them. “In the other house. They clean minds with electricity. So there’s nothing left.”
“So he doesn’t know who I am.”
Kolya wasn’t asking a question. He was stating a fact.
“He doesn’t know anything. They only know what the political teachers tell them,” the doctor said. And then the whispering began, the children getting out of their beds and moving toward them, pointing at Kolya.
“It’s him, I swear it’s him.” This, from a brown-haired tyke who was looking at Kolya as if he were the Lord himself come down to walk among them.
Korolev had noticed Kolya’s similarity to the General Secretary of the Party before—it had made him wonder sometimes, in fact; and now it seemed he wasn’t the only one to notice the resemblance.
“Comrade Stalin?” a boy asked.
“It’s all they know,” the doctor said. “It’s all they’ve been taught.”
And Kolya’s son broke through the group and lifted his hand to touch his father’s face, his eyes wet with adoration.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
They left the other boys in the house. There wasn’t anything to be done—they couldn’t bring them all with them and, anyway, they didn’t seem to want to leave—the damage had been done. They’d be made into perfect little Party activists, no doubt, who worshipped Stalin and loved Lenin. And who was to say they wouldn’t be happier for it? Certainly having a mind that thought for itself hadn’t made Korolev content—far from it.
Korolev and Slivka took the doctor down the stairs, and even though he kept asking them what they were going to do with him, they said nothing—just let the man sweat and then pushed the fellow into the strongroom with the others.