Snow Wolf

by Glenn Meade

  He had arrived with his parents from Russia in 1919, two years after the Bolshevik Revolution. In St. Petersburg, where his father’s family had emigrated from Poland two generations before, Stanislas Masensky had been employed by the royal household. Jakob Masensky still had a sharp memory of being taken for winter walks on the grounds of the magnificent gilded palaces of Catherine the Great. Stanislas Masensky was an intelligent man, a reader and chess player who, were it not for the accident of being born into an impoverished family, might have become a lawyer or a doctor and not the humble master carpenter that he was.

  And Stanislas Masensky also had a secret, which, were it known to his employers, would have caused his instant dismissal. He was an ardent Menshevik supporter who in his heart despised the nobility and everything it stood for. He believed that Russia’s future lay in democracy and freedom and that change was coming whether the tsar wanted it or not. When the Reds took St. Petersburg he was not a pleased man.

  “Believe me, Jakob,” his father was fond of saying, “we will pay the price of this Red folly. We need a new Russia, but not that kind of new Russia.”

  And no one had been more surprised by the Reds’ revolution than Stanislas Masensky. It had come like a whirlwind almost out of nowhere, for the Mensheviks had long been the dominant force for change in Russia. And Lenin’s Bolsheviks knew this, and that any threat to their promised revolution would have to be crushed mercilessly.

  The Reds had come one day—three men with rifles. They had marched Stanislas away at the point of their bayonets. His pregnant wife and child didn’t see him until his release three days later. Beaten and bloody, both arms broken. He had been fortunate not to get a bullet in the neck but that might come soon, and Stanislas knew it.

  So he and his wife had packed their belongings and, with a horse and cart donated by a relative, set off with their son for Estonia. What little money Jakob’s parents had begged and borrowed went for tickets on a Swedish schooner bound from Tallinn to New York.

  It was a difficult winter crossing, made all the harsher because of merciless easterly winds. The schooner was buffeted and tossed in twenty-foot swells and in the holds the immigrants suffered the worst. On the fifth day Nadia Masensky went into premature labor.

  Stanislas Masensky lost not only a child but a wife, and when the bodies were buried at sea young Jakob remembered the desolate look on his father’s face. The man had loved his wife deeply, and after her loss he was never the same. A friend of his father’s had once told Jakob that the loss of a beautiful young wife was something a man never really got over, and he believed it, watching his father retreat into himself year after year.

  Until the Depression came, life had been reasonably good in America for Stanislas and his young son. He had settled in the area of Brooklyn called Brighton Beach, known as Little Russia because of its wave of Russian immigrants who had fled the brutality of the tsar, Lenin, and Stalin after him. While Stanislas went out to work on the building sites he found an old babushka to take care of his son.

  That first day on Ellis Island, like so many thousands of other immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia, Stanislas Masensky had his name changed to an Anglicized version, Massey. This was partly because of the immigration clerk’s impatience and inability to understand or spell the Polish name. But also it somehow affirmed Stanislas’s belief in a fresh start in life and satisfied an unconscious wish to erase his troubled past.

  An only child, young Jakob Massey proved to be an ardent pupil at school, but what appealed to him most was to sit at his father’s feet and listen to stories of his Russian homeland. About the assassination of the tsar Alexander and the countless attempts to establish democracy by students and workers put down by a succession of tsars, long before the revolution was even a gleam in the communists’ eyes.

  And later he was to learn too from the émigré newspapers how the Reds had moved whole villages to Siberia, killed anyone who got in the way of their lust for power; how millions of small peasant farmers called kulaks had been annihilated because they dared to speak out against Joseph Stalin’s agrarian reforms. Whole families wiped out, villages destroyed or deported, millions shot because of one man’s lust for power.

  When the Depression deepened and Stanislas couldn’t find work, in his despair he never blamed America, but the Reds for forcing him to flee his homeland. When it became harder for him to support his son and their lodgings became squalid tenements, he finally moved to a hostel where he and the boy had to line up for soup from a charity kitchen.

  For young Jakob, the nadir came one winter’s afternoon at the age of sixteen. He had walked home from school one day to see his once-proud father standing on a street corner with a placard on which he had scrawled: ‘‘I am good honest carpenter. Please give me job.”

  To Jakob it was heartrending to see the parent he loved reduced to such humiliation. It was the final straw. That day he made up his mind that he was going to be rich and his father was never going to have to beg for work.

  But Stanislas was to die on his forty-fifth birthday, a broken and disillusioned man.

  Jakob himself never became rich. And it took longer than he expected to make something of himself. He found a succession of menial jobs just to keep food in his belly. He earned a degree in languages at night school followed by a year at Yale—all paid for by his own sweat. Then in 1939, much to the surprise of his fellow students, he joined the army as an officer cadet.

  After Pearl Harbor there had been rapid promotion for those who sought it, but Massey was more interested in action. Within six months of America’s entering the war he was based in Switzerland with Allen Dulles’s OSS, organizing reconnaissance missions deep into German-occupied territory.

  After the war, America soon discovered her former Russian ally to be an enemy. The wartime American intelligence had little or no knowledge of the KGB and knew still less what went on behind Soviet borders. In a frenzy to gather information, the CIA recruited growing numbers of émigrés—Russians, Balts, Poles, young men with a knowledge of Soviet languages and customs—from the cities and prisoner-of-war camps all over Europe, and the Americans picked their brightest and best officers to train and oversee them.

  It seemed a job Massey was curiously fitted to, and so after the war he had remained in Europe, working out of Munich and dispatching agents onto Soviet soil on long-term reconnaissance missions. He hoped they could send back detailed information on the alarming postwar Soviet military buildup: émigrés and patriots, freebooters and renegades, some of them restless men still thirsting for action after a war that had not provided them with enough.

  Former SS with Russian-language skills who were destined to face long terms in prison or worse, death for war crimes, like the two men being dropped tonight, risked nothing by parachuting into KGB-controlled territory. If they performed their tasks and somehow made it back over the border they were free men with a new identity and a clean slate. At best they prolonged their lives; at worst, they forfeited them in the gamble.

  Jake Massey ran the Munich station with ruthless efficiency, relative success, and nothing short of hatred for the Soviets, and with an intimate knowledge of their wiles. In Washington, it was acknowledged he was among the best.

  • • •

  Massey heard another distant foghorn blast the air somewhere out in the drizzling darkness of the lake and looked up.

  There was another thing Jake Massey was unaware of that cold January evening as he looked out at the icy waters. At that moment, less than two thousand miles away in Moscow, the wheels were already turning in a plot that was to consume the next six weeks of his life and bring the world to the brink of war.

  Massey took one last look out at the dark shore, then pulled up his collar against the cold and started the jeep. There was just time to write his monthly report to CIA Headquarters in Washington before bed.

  9

  * * *

  MOSCOW

  JANUARY 13
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br />   It was almost 2 a.m. as the Emka sedan and the two Zis trucks trundled out through the massive black gates at the rear of KGB Headquarters on Dzerzhinsky Square.

  As the vehicles headed south toward the Moscow River, the plainclothes officer seated in the front passenger seat of the car removed an old silver case from his pocket, flicked it open, and selected a cigarette. Major Yuri Lukin of the KGB 2nd Directorate knew that his task this morning wasn’t going to be a pleasant one, and as he sat back in his seat and lit his cigarette he sighed deeply.

  He was thirty-two, of medium build, a handsome man with dark hair and a calm, pleasant face. He wore a heavy black overcoat and a gray civilian suit underneath. His left hand and forearm were missing, and in their place was an artificial limb, sheathed in a black leather glove.

  As Lukin drew on his cigarette he stared out beyond the windshield.

  The snow had come early to Moscow the previous November, and now the streets were piled high with thick banks of slush. It seemed to fall incessantly, giving no letup even to the hardened citizens of one of the coldest capitals on earth.

  As the convoy passed through the Arbat and headed east along the banks of the frozen Moscow River, Lukin consulted the list of names and addresses on the metal clipboard on his lap. There were nine, all doctors, to be arrested that freezing morning.

  He turned briefly to his driver. “We’ll take the next left, Pasha.”

  “As you wish, Major.”

  The driver, Lieutenant Pasha Kokunko, was a squat Mongolian in his late thirties. His sallow face and muscular, bowlegged body gave the impression of a man who would have looked more at home sitting on a horse on the Mongolian steppes than driving a four-seater Emka sedan.

  As Lukin glanced out at the frozen, deserted streets, the passenger sitting alone in the back leaned forward. “Comrade Major Lukin, may I see the arrest list?”

  Captain Boris Vukashin was somewhat younger than Lukin and had been assigned to his office only a week before. Lukin handed over the clipboard as the interior light in the back flicked on behind him.

  Vukashin said after a few moments, “It says here the doctors are all Kremlin physicians. And to judge by the names, at least five are Jewish. It’s about time we got firm with these Jews.”

  Lukin turned around. There was a smirk on Vukashin’s face. He had sharp features and a thin, cruel mouth that suggested a vicious manner, and Lukin had taken an instant dislike to the man. “Six, actually,” he replied. “Not that it matters whether they’re Jews or not. And for your information, Vukashin, they haven’t been tried and found guilty of anything yet.”

  “My father says that Comrade Stalin believes the eminent doctors are involved in a plot to poison half the Kremlin and has suspected them for some time.”

  Lukin blew smoke into the freezing cab. Vukashin’s father was a senior Party official with friends in the Kremlin. Lukin said dismissively, “Your father ought to keep his opinions to himself, at least until the courts have done their work. One mad physician with a grudge I can understand. But nine? It beggars belief.”

  Lukin rolled down the window and a blast of freezing air stabbed at his face. As he flicked out the remains of the cigarette and rolled up the window again, Vukashin said frostily, “May I be permitted an observation, Major Lukin?”

  “If you must.”

  “I think your comment was dismissive and insulting to Comrade Stalin. My father was simply repeating what Stalin believes to be true.”

  Before Lukin could reply, Pasha flicked him an irritated look. “How come we always get the idiots assigned to us?”

  Vukashin said to Lukin angrily, “Really, Major. This man makes a mockery of my rank. You ought to report him. And if you don’t, I will.”

  “The man’s a Mongol. Allowance must be made for that. Do you know anything about the Mongolian race, Vukashin? Apart from the fact that they were the best fighters the Red Army ever had, they’re impossible to discipline.”

  “I know this one needs to be taught a lesson.”

  Pasha turned around and glared back at Vukashin. “Why don’t you shut your face? You’re getting so far up my nose I can feel your boots on my chin.”

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant,” Lukin intervened.

  The Mongolian was an excellent policeman, a good friend, and totally without fear, but Lukin knew he was wildly impatient and quite capable of stopping the car, hauling the captain from the backseat, and beating him half to death, despite their difference in rank. Besides, carrying out arrests in the early hours of the morning was always a tense and irritable time, and Vukashin’s attitude didn’t help.

  Lukin swung around in his seat. “And with respect, Vukashin, I’m in charge here. My comment was an observation, not a criticism. So why don’t you do yourself a favor and just sit back and enjoy the ride?” He turned back and saw Pasha smile faintly. “Wipe that grin off your face, Lieutenant. Take the next left. We’re almost there.”

  The first address was on the left bank of the Moscow River. It was one of the big old houses from the tsar’s time, converted into apartments, and one of the better areas in Moscow. Streetlamps blazed onto the frosty snow, and the river was frozen solid.

  The cavalcade came to a halt and Lukin climbed out of the Emka. As he lit a cigarette he looked over as Vukashin went to assemble the men. The captain’s face looked white with rage.

  Lukin had been wrong not to take Vukashin’s side, but that type irritated him. Arrogant, all polished boots and discipline, and everything done by the book. Lukin saw the men jump down from the backs of the big, sharp-nosed Zis trucks as Pasha came over, rubbing his gloved hands to keep out the cold.

  The Mongolian lieutenant snorted. “That moron’s been getting on my nerves all week, Yuri. Can’t you get him transferred back to wherever he came from?”

  “Impossible for now, I’m afraid. His father arranged his posting. So a word of warning—from now on watch yourself and keep your mouth shut. Are the men ready?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

  Lukin crossed to the front door of the apartment block and rang the bell of number eighteen. He saw a light go on behind the frosted glass.

  The approach often favored by the KGB was to break down the door of the person being arrested. It immediately put the victim in a state of unease and softened him up for any interrogation. Lukin, however, preferred the civilized approach: see the accused and read the charge to his face. The first name on the list was Dr. Yakob Rapaport, a pathologist.

  A middle-aged woman wearing a dressing gown finally opened the door and peered out. Her hair was covered in a net, curlers underneath. “Yes?”

  “My apologies, madam. Is Dr. Rapaport at home?”

  Before the woman could reply, Lukin heard a voice in the hallway behind her. “What’s wrong, Sarah? Who’s calling at this unearthly hour?”

  The man who appeared had an overcoat thrown loosely over his shoulders. He wore pajamas, and his white beard gave him a distinguished look. He put on his glasses and looked at the trucks and men in the street, then at Lukin. “Who are you? What is this?”

  “Dr. Rapaport?”

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Major Lukin. It is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest on the orders of KGB Second Directorate. I would be grateful if you would kindly get dressed and come with me. And dress warmly, it’s cold outside.”

  The doctor’s face turned chalk white. “There must be some mistake. I have committed no crime. I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I, Doctor. But I have my orders. So please be so kind as to do as I ask.”

  The doctor hesitated, and suddenly his wife put a hand to her mouth and her face was a mask of fear as she stared back at Lukin. “Please . . .” the woman pleaded.

  “Forgive me, madam,” Lukin said as reassuringly as he could. “Hopefully this is all a misunderstanding. But it’s best if your husband comes now.”

  The d
octor put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and nodded shakily to Lukin. “Come inside, Major, and I’ll get dressed.”

  It was almost six when the arrests had been completed.

  Most of the physicians on the list had come resignedly, but all in shock and some in protest. One had to be dragged forcibly to the back of a truck. None of the doctors seemed to believe that it was happening to them.

  At the last address in the Nagatino District there was an incident, and it was recorded in the KGB arrest report for that morning. The doctor in question was a widower in his late fifties and lived alone on the third floor of the apartment block.

  Lukin rang the bell several times but after a minute there had been no reply, and he saw a curtain flicker in one of the upstairs windows. In exasperation he rang another apartment, and when the woman tenant appeared and saw the KGB men and vehicles outside she was rooted to the spot and started to shake, but Lukin went in past her, followed by Vukashin.

  Lukin reached the third floor and pounded on the door of the doctor’s apartment. When Vukashin finally kicked it in, they found the man hiding in the bathroom. The doctor had obviously seen the men come to arrest him and was in a state of panic.

  Lukin’s orders had been to carry out the arrests discreetly and with no fuss, but before he could get to the doctor, Vukashin had crossed to the cowering man and started to lash out with his fists. “Get up, you Jewish filth! Get up!”

  Lukin came up smartly behind Vukashin and hit him hard across the back of the neck, a blow that sent the captain crashing into the wall.

  As Vukashin slid down, blood on his face, Pasha came rushing up the stairs to investigate, his pistol drawn.

  Lukin barked, “Get the doctor downstairs. Now!”

  Pasha did as he was ordered, and Lukin dragged the captain to his feet and stared angrily into his face. “Understand something, Vukashin. You don’t ever hit a prisoner while I’m in charge of an arrest. These are people you’re dealing with, not animals. Have you got that?”