Snow Wolf

by Glenn Meade

  Kraskin did as he was told. The man stepped toward him.

  “Who are you?” Kraskin demanded, his face chalk-white.

  “My name is Alex Slanski. I’m here to send you to your maker.”

  Kraskin’s face tightened. “You’ll never get away with this.” He nodded toward the bedroom door where the body lay. “And for the crime that’s just been committed you’ll be hunted down like the vermin you are.”

  “You’re hardly one to talk about crimes, Kraskin. By the laws of any land you ought to be put to sleep like a mad dog. You were responsible for the shooting of at least fifty schoolchildren during the kulak wars. I believe your specialty was to sexually assault them before you dispatched them with a bullet in the head. Not that I particularly care, but when they find Pitrov’s body and yours, for convenience they may even call it an argument between two degenerates that turned tragically violent. The gun I’m holding is Pitrov’s. He killed you and then himself.”

  “Very convenient,” said Kraskin dryly. “So who sent you?” He shifted again in his chair, felt the flap of his holster lift against the tablecloth.

  “That really doesn’t matter. But this does.” Slanski removed a photograph from his tunic pocket and tossed it on the table. “Pick it up.”

  Kraskin did as he was told.

  “Look at the photograph. Do you recognize her?”

  Kraskin saw a young dark-haired woman standing on a deserted beach. She was smiling for the camera and held a child in her arms.

  “No, why should I?”

  “Her name was Ave Perlov. And this is where it gets personal, Comrade Kraskin. You interrogated her in Riga a year ago. If I’m not mistaken, you had quite a time with her before you sent her to the firing squad. Torture is too mild a word. She had to be taken to the wall on a stretcher.”

  Kraskin smiled. “I remember now. One of the partisan scum.”

  “She was only nineteen, you animal.”

  Kraskin saw the flash of uncontrolled anger and knew it was time to make his move. As he tossed the photograph away he saw Slanski’s eyes flick to it and Kraskin’s right hand reached into his holster and the Tokarev came out smartly.

  Kraskin managed to get off a quick shot, and it chipped Slanski’s left arm below the elbow.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Slanski leaned in close and shot him between the eyes.

  As the gun exploded, Kraskin was flung back in his chair, the close shot cracking open the back of his skull and tearing out half his brain.

  Slanski picked up the photograph from the floor and replaced it in his tunic pocket. He looked down at the neat hole drilled in his uniform sleeve, saw the patch of blood spread. There was no pain, not yet, just a dull ache in his arm. He found a towel in the bathroom and wrapped it around the wound before he pulled on the military overcoat.

  When he came back into the room, he opened the doctor’s black bag and removed the knife. He knew he had very little time before someone reacted to Kraskin’s gunshot, but he worked calmly.

  He moved back to Kraskin’s body. Using his fingers, he removed the man’s tongue from his mouth. The knife flashed, and the organ was severed in a gorge of blood. The man tossed the severed lump of flesh onto Kraskin’s bloodied chest. He wiped the blade on Kraskin’s tunic and replaced the knife in the doctor’s bag.

  He could hear the noises in the hallway now, fists starting to pound the door, but already he was moving toward the window and the fire escape.

  7

  * * *

  HELSINKI

  OCTOBER 29

  That evening two men sat down to a late dinner at Helsinki’s Savoy Restaurant, a favorite haunt of embassy staff and foreign diplomats. The tables in the eighth-floor gourmet restaurant overlooking the Esplanadi were spaced generously enough apart for conversations to be conducted in private.

  Doug Canning’s title at the American Embassy was Political Counselor, but his real function was as a CIA senior officer. It was Canning who sent the initial report on Anna Khorev and the incident at the border crossing to the American ambassador. Once a decision had been made to call in more expert help to interrogate and assess the woman, Jake Massey, a senior Soviet expert and the head of the CIA’s Soviet Operations office based in Munich, had been put on a plane for Helsinki that same night. After Massey had delivered his assessment, he got a phone call to join Canning for dinner to discuss the matter.

  Doug Canning was a tall, lean Texan with thinning blond hair and tanned good looks. He had southern charm in abundance and wielded considerable influence with the US ambassador.

  It was the ambassador who would ultimately decide Anna Khorev’s suitability for political asylum. Relations between the Soviets and Americans were at their lowest in years, and those who escaped over the border were often considered more a headache than a help. Massey knew Anna Khorev was a problem the American Embassy would rather not have to deal with and that her worries were far from over.

  Canning had ordered a bottle of Bordeaux and the house specialty, Vorschmack, for both of them, and when he had sipped his wine appreciatively he smiled across the table. “It sounds from the report as though the lady had a pretty rough time. But is she telling you anything we could find useful, Jake?”

  Massey hardly touched his food and shook his head. “There’s nothing much she can tell us. It’s been eight years since she was discharged from the Red Army. So any background information in that regard would be pretty much out of date by now.”

  Canning looked out toward Helsinki’s massive, illuminated Dom Cathedral in the distance, then back again. “So I guess she’s really no use to us?”

  Massey knew it was a crucial question but he replied honestly. “I guess not. But there are other circumstances to consider here, Doug.”

  “Such as?”

  “What the woman’s been through. She’s taken a heck of a beating in the last six months.”

  “And you think she’s telling you the truth?”

  “Yes, I do. I think her story’s genuine. Whether or not she can help us with intelligence information, on humane grounds alone I think she has a case.”

  Canning hesitated, then wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat forward. “Jake, let me give it to you straight. Some pretty strong noises are being made at the highest levels. It seems Moscow has got a bee up their nose on this one. Like it’s a matter of principle they get her returned. They say she’s a common criminal and in order not to further damage the already delicate relationship between our two countries, we ought to send her back over the border.” He smiled. “Now you and I know that’s a load of reindeer dung, but I want you to be aware of the fact that they don’t like the idea of us helping the little lady one little bit.”

  “What about the Finns?”

  “They want us to make a quick decision. But if we don’t grant her asylum, they sure as heck won’t. As it is, the Russian ambassador’s on their back with a big stick.”

  After the Finns had endured a merciless and humiliating war with Russia thirteen years before, Massey knew they treated their closest neighbor with caution, like a bear they didn’t want to rouse to anger. But Finland also took a delight in frustrating Moscow. Its officials had allowed Anna Khorev to be moved to a private hospital rather than keep her in the special prison on Ratakatu Street, headquarters of Finnish counterintelligence. And they had granted her temporary refugee status while the Americans made up their minds.

  “So what do you think’s going to happen?”

  Canning looked across the table, concern on his face. “We don’t need the kind of diplomatic trouble this can bring, Jake. So my guess is that the ambassador will send her back. And there’s something else you ought to know: Helsinki has an agreement with the Russians that allows them to interview any border-crossers convicted of serious crimes. The Soviet Embassy has already made it clear it wants to do that. It gives them a chance to save face and exert a little pressure to try to get the escapee to return with promis
es of leniency, before they really put on the pressure at embassy level. There’s a senior official in town right now who’s handling it. Some guy called Romulka, from Moscow.”

  “KGB.”

  Canning grinned. “You can bet your life on it.”

  “Doug, the woman’s already endured a nightmare. She shouldn’t have to face all that.”

  “Maybe, but it’s the law, Jake. You know if I had my way anyone who comes over that border who’s a genuine political refugee has my support. But rightly or wrongly, she did commit murder. And that makes it pretty difficult for us to grant her asylum.”

  “Doug, if we send Anna Khorev back the ambassador will be signing her death warrant. He may as well pull the trigger himself.”

  Canning heard the passion in Massey’s reply and raised his eyebrows. “Hey, it sounds as if you’ve got a strong personal interest in the woman, Jake.”

  “She deserves our help. Sending her back will only condone what the Russians do. We’re saying, ‘Go right ahead, punish her. There’s nothing wrong with the camps you run. Nothing wrong with killing or imprisoning millions of people, most of them innocent.’ ” Massey shook his head firmly. “Me, I’d have a problem going along with that.”

  Canning hesitated. “Jake, there’s something odd about this whole darned thing I haven’t told you about, but I think you’d better know because it kind of upsets the equation. Despite the fact that the woman’s story didn’t change during questioning by the Finns, one of their more experienced SUPO officers who questioned her said in his report he didn’t believe her.”

  “Why not?”

  “The area where she claims she was in the penal camp, the Finnish officer knows it pretty well. He used to live there when it was part of Karelia, before the Russians were ceded the territory after the war. This officer says it’s impossible for the woman to have made the journey on foot from the camp. The story she told us may make some kind of sense, but he says the terrain she’s supposed to have crossed is too hostile and even the length of time she said it took her doesn’t ring true. He thinks she was left near the border by the KGB. Left there to get over to our side as she did, for whatever reason they have in mind.”

  “What else does he say?”

  “That the whole thing is an elaborate setup by Moscow.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Moscow could be fooling us, Jake. They’ve done it before. And whatever they have in mind for the woman, this whole thing about their wanting her back could be another part of the game to make us believe her story.”

  “I don’t believe that, either.”

  Canning shrugged and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Okay, so what do you suggest?”

  “Let me talk with the ambassador before he makes a final decision. And try to hold off letting this Romulka guy talk to her for as long as you can. I’d like to see her again myself. Not for another interrogation, just a friendly chat.”

  Canning gestured for the waiter to bring the bill, indicating the meeting was at an end, before he looked back at Massey. “Any particular reason why you want to talk with her again?”

  “After what she’s survived, I’d guess she needs to talk with someone.”

  • • •

  The private hospital was on the outskirts of Helsinki.

  It was a big old place on a hill with high stone walls set on several dozen acres. There was a small forest of silver birch trees and a tiny frozen lake, wooden benches set around the perimeter.

  Anna Khorev was given a private room on the third floor. There was a view of the city and the brightly colored timber houses that dotted Helsinki’s shore and islands. A guard sat outside her room day and night.

  A table stood in a corner, a blue vase on top filled with winter flowers, and there was a radio on a shelf by the window. On the first day she had twiddled with the plastic dial as it spread across the band of shortwave frequencies, listening to music and voices in a dozen different languages from cities she had only read about: London, Vienna, Rome, Cairo.

  That afternoon one of the nurses had helped her bathe and changed her dressing and afterward brought her fresh clothes. The wound in her side was now just a dull throb, and later she went walking on the hospital grounds. On Massey’s instructions Anna avoided talking with the other patients, though she desperately wanted to see the world beyond the walls and experience freedom. But it was not to be, and she had to content herself with small triumphs, listening to music and reading the newspapers in English.

  That first evening a doctor came to see her. He was young, in his middle thirties, with the compassionate blue eyes of a good listener. He spoke softly in Russian, explaining that he was a psychiatrist. He asked her about her past, and she repeated what she had told Massey. The doctor seemed especially interested in her treatment at the camp, but when he had tried to probe about Ivan and Sasha she had become withdrawn.

  On the following day she turned on the radio, and the music that played was soft and classical and she recognized the strains of Dvořák. It was music Ivan had loved and it made her think of him and Sasha, and suddenly a terrible black wave swept in and she felt utterly alone.

  As she stood at the window trying to shake off the anguish, she saw a young couple come through the hospital gates. It was visiting time, and a little girl walked between them. She couldn’t have been more than two or three, and she wore a blue coat and a red scarf. Her woolen cap was pulled down on her head, and her hands were wrapped snugly in mittens.

  Anna Khorev stared at the child’s face for a long time before the man swept up the girl in his arms and they all disappeared into the hospital.

  As she turned away from the window she switched off the music. She went to lie on the bed and closed her eyes. The sobbing that came then racked her body in convulsions until she felt she could cry no more.

  Sooner or later, she told herself, it would have to stop. She couldn’t live with grief forever.

  • • •

  On the third morning Massey came to see her, and he suggested they go for a walk down to the lake, where they could talk in private.

  A tree had been uprooted in a long-ago storm, its rotting tendrils exposed, patches of moss growing on the dead roots. Massey sat beside her on a wooden bench and lit a cigarette.

  Anna said, “May I have one, too?”

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I don’t. Not since the war. But I think I would like one now.”

  Massey saw the nervousness in her face as he lit her cigarette, but he was amazed by the change in her appearance. She wore fresh clothes—a thick pale blue woolen sweater that she had tucked into tight black ski pants. One of the staff nurses had loaned her a winter coat that was a size too big for her and it made her look vulnerable, but there was no denying her beauty.

  Anna was different from any of the other Russian women Massey had met. He had been one of the first Americans to reach Berlin after the Reds had taken the city, and it was the first time he saw female Russian soldiers. There were few beauties among them. Most had been muscled, tough peasant women who looked as if they shaved twice a day. He guessed so would he if the Germans had been dropping shells on him for four years.

  “Have they been treating you well, Anna?”

  “Very well, thank you.”

  Massey looked out toward the lake and spoke quietly. “I had a talk with Dr. Harlan. He thinks there’s something you should be aware of. It’s not going to be easy for you to get over what you’ve been through. He thinks you’ll need time to deal with your pain.” He looked at her. “I guess what it comes down to is, no matter what happens you have to try to forget about your husband and your child. Put everything bad that’s happened behind you. It sounds easy, the way I say that, but I know it isn’t.”

  She looked at him without speaking, then said, “I don’t think I will ever forget Ivan and Sasha. The other things, maybe, but not my husband and daughter.”

  Massey thought he s
aw tears in the corners of her eyes. She was struggling hard with her emotions, then she bit her lip and looked away. She didn’t look back at him when she spoke.

  “May I ask you a question, Massey?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where did you learn your Russian?”

  He knew her question was a way of deflecting her pain, and he looked at her and smiled.

  “My parents came from St. Petersburg.”

  “But Massey isn’t a Russian name.”

  “Polish. It used to be Masensky. My father’s people originally came from Warsaw—my mother’s were pure Russian.”

  “But you don’t like Russians?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The day you first came to see me at the hospital. The way you looked at me. There was distrust in your eyes, even dislike.”

  Massey shook his head. “That’s not true, Anna. On the contrary. For the most part the Russians are a fine and generous people. It’s communism I hate. It kills everything that’s noble and good in mankind. Make no mistake, the men in the Kremlin are interested in only one thing, and that’s power. You’re looking at the mirror image of Nazism. But instead of a swastika on the flag there’s a hammer and sickle and a red star.”

  He paused. “Anna, there’s something I have to tell you. Someone from your embassy wants to talk with you.”

  Massey saw the fear in her eyes. “Talk about what?”

  He explained what Canning had told him. “It’s only a formality, but it’s got to be done. Do you think you can go through with it?”

  She hesitated. “If you want me to. When?”

  “This afternoon. After that, the American ambassador will make his decision on your case. The Russian official, his name is Romulka. Don’t be afraid, I’ll be with you all the time. Romulka’s not entitled to ask you questions about the crimes you allegedly committed, but he will ask you to return to face trial, and he will promise you leniency. But I guess you know that would hardly be the case.”