by Sam Eastland
“You can be very cruel, Grigori.”
“Not as cruel as the Tsar,” he replied. “He knew that the one thing you would respect in him was the secret disregard for all his wealth, because that was the only way for you to see yourself in him. And why else would you agree to serve a man unless you held the same things to be sacred? What the Tsar did today was to show you his true face, and in that moment the man you thought you knew turned out to be a stranger.” Rasputin leveled a long, bony finger at Pekkala. “I warn you, my friend, that treasure is cursed. Even those you trust with your own life will betray you if you come between them and that gold.”
“Have you seen it?” asked Pekkala.
“Of course!” Rasputin lifted his hands and let them fall again upon the couch, sending up tiny puffs of dust from the crushed velvet. “I enjoyed the experience immensely, because I have discovered that my greatest source of pleasure is neither money nor the women who traipse into my life and get exactly what they’re looking for and who will one day swear they’ve never met me.”
“Then what is it, Rasputin?”
“What this twisted brain of mine can no longer do without”—Rasputin tapped a finger against his forehead—“is to stand at the edge of the abyss, not knowing which way I will fall.”
Six months later, the St. Petersburg police pulled Rasputin’s body from the freezing waters of the Neva River. At the spot where he had touched his forehead on that night Pekkala came to see him, Rasputin’s murderers had put a bullet through his skull.
THERE WAS A SCUFFLING in the tunnel outside, followed by a shout and a strange crunching sound, like someone biting into an apple.
Kolchak moved over to the entrance, the knife still in his hand. “Lavrenov, what’s happening?”
“I found someone prowling around.”
Kolchak and Pekkala stepped into the tunnel.
In the middle of the narrow passageway, a man lay on his back, nailed to the earth by Lavrenov’s pickax. The man was still alive, spluttering as he struggled for breath.
“He must have followed us,” Lavrenov said.
Kolchak fetched the lantern from the cave.
Pekkala stifled a gasp as the light touched the dying man’s face.
It was Savushkin, his bodyguard. Helplessly, the man stared at Pekkala.
Knowing there was nothing he could do, Pekkala struggled to contain his emotions as he watched Savushkin’s last breath trail out.
“Bury him,” ordered Kolchak.
“Yes, Colonel.” Lavrenov set his foot against Savushkin’s chest, and wrenched out the pickax blade.
Kolchak turned to Pekkala. “Go now,” he said gently, “before anyone notices you’ve been gone. And do not worry, my friend. It is all in motion now.”
“KORNFELD SAYS THE TARGET HAS been liquidated.”
Without looking up from his paperwork, Stalin grunted in acknowledgment.
“There is something else, Comrade Stalin—a new development at Borodok.”
The paper shuffling came to an abrupt halt.
“Another telegram has arrived,” continued Poskrebyshev.
“From Kirov or Pekkala?”
“Neither. It’s from Camp Commandant Klenovkin, and addressed to you, Comrade Stalin.” Poskrebyshev handed over the message.
BEG TO REPORT INSPECTOR PEKKALA OVERHEARD DENOUNCING COMMUNIST PARTY AND MAKING THREATS AGAINST COMRADE STALIN STOP BELIEVE PEKKALA PLANNING UPRISING IN CAMP STOP HAS FALSELY ACCUSED ME OF INVOLVEMENT IN CRIME STOP LONG LIVE THE PARTY STOP LONG LIVE COMRADE STALIN STOP KLENOVKIN COMMANDANT BORODOK
Stalin sat back heavily in his chair. “Denouncing me? An uprising?”
“Has this been confirmed?” asked Poskrebyshev.
“There is no time to waste on confirmations,” Stalin snapped. “The prisoners will flock to him. The uprising could spread to other camps. If Pekkala isn’t stopped, this could turn into a national emergency.” He sat forward, wrote something on a pad of yellow note paper, and handed the note to Poskrebyshev. “Send this to Klenovkin. Tell him to carry out the order and to report back to me immediately afterwards.”
Poskrebyshev blinked in surprise when he saw what Stalin had written. “Do you not wish to verify the camp commandant’s message before such drastic action is taken?”
“What reason could this man Klenovkin have for sending me a pack of lies?”
“And what could Pekkala possibly have to gain by turning on you now?”
“More than you know! More than you could possibly realize!” With wild eyes, Stalin glared at Poskrebyshev. “Now send the message, and when I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”
Poskrebyshev lowered his head in surrender, as if it was his own doom and not Pekkala’s which had just been sealed. “Yes, Comrade Stalin,” he whispered.
When Poskrebyshev had gone, Stalin walked to the window. He lit himself a cigarette and looked out over the city. As smoke flooded into his lungs, smoothing out the ragged edges of his mind, the memory of Pekkala was already fading from his thoughts.
EVER SINCE SENDING the telegram detailing Pekkala’s nonexistent threats against Stalin, Klenovkin had been poised over the telegraph, waiting for a reply. He waited for so long that he had dozed off. When the device finally sprang to life, the commandant was so startled that he backed away from it as if a growling dog had crept into the room.
As soon as Klenovkin read the telegram, he sent for Gramotin.
While he waited, Klenovkin paced around his study, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. For the first time in as long as he could remember, something was going his way. This would, he knew, be the springboard to greater things. The meteoric rise he had always imagined he would make through the ranks of the Dalstroy Company had finally begun.
At last Gramotin appeared.
“Read this.”
“Liq …” The telegram trembled between Gramotin’s fingers as he struggled to pronounce the words. “Liquiday. Liquidate.”
“Idiot!” Klenovkin snatched the message back and read it out himself. “Now,” he said when he had finished, “do you understand what must be done?”
“Yes, Comrade Klenovkin. First thing in the morning?”
Klenovkin paused. “On second thought, wait until he has finished his breakfast duties.”
“So we can keep him working to the very end.”
“My thoughts, exactly, Sergeant.”
Gramotin nodded, impressed. “Dalstroy will be proud of you.”
“Indeed they will,” agreed Klenovkin, “and it’s about time, too.”
THE OLD GUARD, Larchenko, sat in his chair by the door, chin on his chest, snoring. His rifle stood propped against the wall.
Nearby, Pekkala lay in his bunk, haunted by the death of Savushkin. He inhaled the musty, used-up air of dreaming men and listened to the patient rhythm of their breathing.
Unable to sleep, Pekkala climbed out of his bunk and walked over to the window. His felt boots made no sound as they glided across the worn floorboards. With the heel of his palm, he rubbed away the frost that had gathered on the inside of the glass.
Soon it would be dawn.
Pekkala had made up his mind to lie low when the breakout began. As Kolchak had said, they would not wait for him if he was delayed in the confusion.
There had been no time to reflect upon his brief meeting with the colonel. He continued to be baffled by the colonel’s choice to return, in spite of the overwhelming risks involved. At the same time, Pekkala felt a surge of guilt that his own faith in this man had not matched that of the soldiers he had left behind in Siberia. Pekkala was glad that the magnitude of the Comitati’s endurance would at last be repaid with their freedom.
And as for Stalin, he decided, the payment for his treachery would be the knowledge that Kolchak had slipped from his grasp yet again, along with the last of the Imperial gold reserves. When the time came, Pekkala decided, he would simply deny that he had known anything about Kolchak’s plans.
&nb
sp; Although Pekkala had solved the murder of Ryabov, it troubled him that he had never learned the motive for Ryabov’s betrayal of the colonel. He realized now that he might never know. Whatever Ryabov’s purpose, he had taken his reasons to the grave.
With shark-gray clouds hanging on the red horizon, Pekkala made his way over to the kitchen as usual in order to prepare the breakfast. The oven was on and the bread was baking inside. Melekov was nowhere to be seen. He often went back to his quarters for an extra half hour of sleep, leaving to Pekkala the job of removing the loaves just before the kitchen opened for breakfast. It was so quiet out on the compound that Pekkala began to wonder if the escape had already taken place. When the bread was done, Pekkala took the pans from the oven and tipped the paika rations out into the battered aluminum tubs from which they would be served.
He had just completed this task when Melekov burst into the kitchen. “You have to get out of here!” he hissed. “They’re going to kill you.”
“Who is?” demanded Pekkala.
“On Klenovkin’s orders, you are to be shot as soon as the prisoners have gone to work this morning.”
Pekkala wondered if Klenovkin had found out about the escape. If that was true, he would not be the only one to die. “Who told you this?”
“Gramotin did. Only a few minutes ago.”
“Damn it, Melekov! Did you not stop to wonder if this might just be another of his lies?”
“He said that orders had come in from Moscow last night. Klenovkin even showed him the telegram. Stalin himself wants you dead!”
Pekkala’s mind was racing. If Stalin had indeed ordered the execution, his only hope of survival would be to escape with the Comitati. Even if the telegram was just a story concocted by Gramotin, Pekkala knew he would be dead before the lie had been discovered. It took him only a second to realize he had no choice except to run.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked Melekov. “If what you say is true, do you realize what your life would be worth if they found out I’d heard it from you?”
“You could have killed me, that day in the kitchen. Maybe you should have, but you didn’t. I pay my debts, Pekkala, and this one is paid. Now move quickly. I know a place where you can hide.” The cook beckoned for Pekkala to follow, spun around and found himself face-to-face with Tarnowski, who had appeared in the doorway to the kitchen.
Before Melekov had a chance to react, Tarnowski laid him out with a fist to the side of the head. Melekov sprawled unconscious on the floor.
“Time to go, Pekkala,” said Tarnowski.
Suddenly, a wall of darkness seemed to rise from the entrance to the camp. A tremor passed through Pekkala. The ground shook under his feet. Then a flash as bright as molten copper burst through the narrow gap between the gates, which tore loose from their iron hinges, scattering the links of chain which had held them shut.
“Head straight through the entrance,” ordered Tarnowski. “Don’t stop for anything. I’ll meet you on the other side.”
Without a word, Pekkala set off running across the compound. In between clouds of smoke, he glimpsed the Ostyaks milling about just outside the gates. They had brought sleds, four that Pekkala could see, each one harnessed to a single caribou.
Guards spilled out of the watchtowers. None of them made any attempt to open fire on the Ostyaks. Instead, they scrambled down their ladders and bolted for the safety of the guardhouse.
On the other side of the compound, Pekkala caught sight of Lavrenov. Kneeling in front of him was one of the guards, whom Pekkala recognized as Platov, the man they called Gramotin’s puppet. On his way to the guardhouse, Platov had slipped on the ice and dropped his rifle.
Before Platov could get back on his feet, Lavrenov had snatched up the gun, with its long, cruciform bayonet, and now aimed it squarely at the guard. “Which god are you praying to now?” screamed Lavrenov, as Platov raised his hands desperately to shield his face. “Haven’t you abolished all of them?”
Pekkala lost sight of the two men as he ran past the bronze statue. At that moment, he spotted a guard up on the walkway between the towers. This one had not fled like the others. Instead, he took aim at Pekkala. As the man raised the gun to his shoulder, Pekkala realized it was Gramotin.
He heard the gun go off, brittle and echoing across the compound, and then came a dull clang as the bullet struck the statue of the woman.
Then another shot rang out, this one from the other side of the compound.
Gramotin’s legs slipped out from under him. He tumbled from the walkway into the ditch below.
As Pekkala sprinted through the gates, an Ostyak grabbed him by the arm. The stocky man, his wide face powdered with smoke, steered Pekkala towards one of the sleds. As Pekkala crouched on the narrow wooden platform, he stared through the jagged teeth of splintered wood, all that remained of the gates, at men running about in the compound. Half-dressed, disoriented prisoners poured from the barracks. The commandant’s quarters looked deserted, although Pekkala knew Klenovkin must be in there somewhere.
The Ostyaks drifted in and out of the thick smoke. The fur on their coats stood up like that of angry cats. They were busily setting fire to the stockade fence, whose tar-painted logs quickly began to burn.
Now Lavrenov emerged from camp. Immediately he took his place on one of the sleds. Crouching there, he stared back at the camp, amazed to be outside the prison walls at last.
Bullets snapped over their heads. Through the windows of the guardhouse, camp guards fired blind into the haze. Pekkala heard the clunk of rounds striking the gateposts and the spitting whine of bullets as they ricocheted off stones in the road.
Sedov lurched through the smoke. He stumbled, righted himself, then stared in confusion at a tear which had appeared in his jacket, the white fluff of raw cotton spattered with his blood. A stray bullet from the guardhouse had caught him in the back, the round passing through the top of his shoulder.
Lavrenov and Pekkala helped him to a sled.
At last Kolchak and Tarnowski arrived, each carrying rifles they had taken from the guard towers.
Now the four Ostyaks climbed onto their sleds, stepping roughly on the men who lay clinging to the wooden platforms.
Huddled at the feet of his driver, Pekkala heard the crack of whips. As the sled lunged forward, he dug his fingers between the boards and held on tight. Soon they were moving fast, the metal runners of the sled hissing as they raced across the ground. Through a blur of snow dust, Pekkala could just make out the other three sleds traveling behind. The hooves of the caribou clicked as they galloped and the frost-caked harnesses shuddered with the motion of their bodies.
Pekkala’s bare hands were beginning to freeze, so one at a time he tucked them inside the sleeves of his quilted jacket. Soon, he felt the burning pain in his fingertips as his nerves began to revive.
The breakout had happened so quickly that Pekkala was uncertain how much time had passed since he left the barracks, but it did not seem like more than a few minutes. The sun was up now. Ice crystals glistened in the trees.
He wondered how long it would be before Klenovkin sent out a search party. Knowing that the Ostyaks were involved, the Borodok guards would be unlikely to venture out beyond the camp anytime soon.
Only now was Pekkala able to focus on Stalin’s execution order. Assuming it was true, the day might never come when he would comprehend what path of twisted logic had led Stalin to turn on him without warning. Pekkala had seen things like this before, when hundreds, even thousands of men had gone to their deaths against the wall of Lubyanka prison, shouting their loyalty to the man who had ordered them shot.
Pekkala felt lucky to be alive, even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life on the run. He did not care about the things he’d leave behind—the tattered clothes and well-thumbed books, the meager bank account. But he wondered how Kirov would do. They will tell him I was a traitor, thought Pekkala. They will never let him know the truth about my leaving. There was s
o much he had not yet taught the young investigator. Feelings of regret rained down upon him. I was stingy with my knowledge, Pekkala thought. I was impatient. I demanded perfection instead of excellence. I could at least have smiled a little more.
Lost in these thoughts, Pekkala was caught by surprise when the sled turned sharply and began to follow a winding path up through the woods. The caribou struggled over the rising ground, the smell of its sweat mixed with the leather of the harness straps and the rank odor of the unwashed men.
By now, the cold had worked its way into Pekkala’s feet and across his shoulder blades. He could feel the remaining warmth in his body retreating deeper inside.
The Ostyaks halted in a clearing deep inside the forest. The men jumped down from their sleds, stamping the crust of snow from their legs.
The sun had slid behind the clouds. Now it began to snow.
Pekkala heard the noise of a stream somewhere nearby flowing beneath the ice. Chickadees sang in the branches of the trees and it was not long before the fearless, bandit-masked birds arrived to inspect the strangers. Like little clockwork toys, they hopped along the backs of the animals.