by Glenn Meade
He called out Nadia’s name, and when he got no answer he felt his stomach sink. He picked up the handkerchief and moved into the rooms. A flowerpot and stand had been knocked over. There had been a struggle here, Lukin was in no doubt. He was shaking with rage and fear, consumed with worry for Nadia. Dear God, don’t let her be harmed. He put the handkerchief to his nose and sniffed. Ether.
Lukin checked the bedroom—empty—then moved into the kitchen. He saw the note on the table. He read it and turned even paler, and his body shook. He raced back down the stairs to look for the block janitor. He found him in the boiler room, drinking vodka.
Yes, a man had called, early that morning. Tall, blond, smiled a lot. Said he knew you. Friend from the war, he said. When your wife wasn’t here he said he wanted to call back and surprise her. Why? Is everything all right, Major Lukin? You look pale, Major Lukin.
Lukin had looked at the old man distractedly and lied. “Yes . . .yes, fine. Thank you. I imagine they’ve gone somewhere together.” He went back upstairs and sat at the kitchen table for almost an hour, wondering what to do next.
Nothing. He could do nothing until he met Slanski. He felt a livid urge to kill the man. If he harmed a hair on Nadia’s head he’d tear him apart.
What if she had been hurt? What if Slanski had injured her? Please . . .let her be safe. She’s all I have.
And then another thought: How had Slanski known where he lived? Had he been watching him? Had he simply found his address in the city telephone directory? Lukin was too confused to think straight. He left the question aside. All that mattered was Nadia’s safety.
He imagined Nadia hurt, Nadia ill, Nadia frightened and locked up somewhere, and he almost drove himself insane with worry. He had to stop it. He went into the bathroom, splashed icy water on his face. The mood wouldn’t go away. He wanted to destroy Slanski.
Why had Nadia been taken? Why?
And then he understood. Slanski wanted to trade. Nadia for Anna Khorev. It was so obvious that in his turmoil he hadn’t seen it.
• • •
It was two hours later when Lukin left the apartment. Slanski had chosen his meeting place well. Novodevichy Convent was deserted, the nuns long ago shot or deported to the penal camps.
And as Lukin sat by the frozen river, he tried hard to control himself. Would the Wolf come himself or send someone?
He heard the rustle behind him and turned. A man stepped out of the shadows. He wore a long, dark overcoat, and his face was visible in the twilight. Slanski. He held a Tokarev pistol in his right hand.
Rage erupted inside Lukin. He felt an overpowering urge to rush Slanski and wrench the gun from his hand. “Where’s my wife?”
“Stay where you are. Don’t move, and don’t talk.” Slanski reached over and used his free hand to search Lukin.
Lukin said, “I’m unarmed.”
“Shut up.”
When Slanski finished he stepped back. Lukin said again, “My wife, where is she?”
“She’s safe. For now. But her safety depends on you.”
“What do you want?”
“I want Anna Khorev. And I want her tonight.”
Lukin felt sweat drip down his back. He shook his head. “I can’t release her, I don’t have the authority. You must know that.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lukin. You can do anything you want.”
“I couldn’t release her without permission. It’s impossible.”
“Impossible or not, you bring her here tonight. Eight o’clock. Just you and her. You tell no one what you’re doing. My people will be watching you every step of the way. Just as we watched you taking her into the Lubyanka this afternoon. And these are the rules: you fail me or try anything foolish, you won’t see your wife again. Is that understood?”
Lukin was numb with shock. Slanski had him watched. In the middle of Moscow this American had him watched. He felt the anger flare inside him and clenched his teeth. “I have a condition.”
“No conditions.”
“You bring my wife here tonight. I get her back when I hand over the prisoner. You agree, or I don’t bring the woman.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Lukin shook his head. “No, no thinking. You agree or you don’t. I don’t trust you.”
“Very well. But remember the rules. You do anything foolish, you get no second chances.”
“And you understand: when this is over, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to kill you.”
Slanski grinned. “But you’ll have to catch me first.” He pointed the Tokarev in Lukin’s face. “Close your eyes, tightly. Count to twenty. Nice and slow.”
Lukin shut his eyes. Silence. Cold. But he didn’t feel the icy air. His anger boiled like a furnace inside him. A wind whistled through branches. He counted to twenty. When he snapped open his eyes the Wolf was gone.
• • •
The Lenin Hills were covered in a patina of white as Lukin parked the BMW on a rise and climbed out. He ran the rest of the way to the top of the hill.
In the valley below, Moscow was a million winking lights. When he reached the top he knelt, panting, in the snow. His body shook. So close to Slanski. So close and he couldn’t kill him. He felt he was losing his grip, his mind throbbing with confusion as the image of Nadia raged through it.
He felt hopelessly lost. The Wolf was very, very clever. Lukin smashed his fist into the snow. He wanted to scream but closed his eyes instead, opened them again, blinked several times.
Whichever way he looked at it, he was dead. By releasing Anna Khorev he was signing his own death warrant. Perhaps Nadia’s also. How could he explain to Beria? How? The man would never listen. There had to be a way out of this—had to be. He just couldn’t see it.
How had Slanski known where he lived? How had he known about his taking the woman out of the Lubyanka that morning? Slanski had to have help in Moscow. And the man was far more capable than he ever imagined.
Lukin drew a deep breath, let it out sharply. He tried to think furiously but his head felt like a block of ice. Not responding. Think. Think. He forced himself to concentrate until the action was like an ache in the top of his skull. A wind raged across the hill. The chill gouged at his eyes, but his mind was racing now as a plan started to form in his head.
It was very dangerous, but it was his only hope. If it went wrong, he and Nadia were dead. They were dead anyway if he released the woman. This way they stood some chance. He had to risk it.
Lukin checked his watch. Four p.m. He had enough time to do what he needed to do before taking Anna Khorev from the Lubyanka to the convent. He turned and started to race back down the hill.
AUSTRIA
The hilly streets of the old wine town of Grinzing in the Vienna woods were busy that Sunday afternoon, the cozy restaurants and taverns crammed with off-duty Allied occupation troops and Viennese couples enjoying their first spring weekend. Gratchev stepped off the number 38 tram and crossed the street. The snow lay thin on the ground, but the air was crisp and dry and he walked for several minutes until he reached the tavern near the end of the town. When he was satisfied he hadn’t been followed, he stepped inside.
The place was crowded, and a three-man ensemble with accordions and zither was playing lively Austrian folk music as they moved through the noisy tavern. Gratchev made a face. He hated that sort of irritating music, and the sound did nothing to improve his mood.
He recognized the handsome, dark-haired woman seated alone in a wooden booth. It had been a year since they had last met, and her slim, firm body was still ravishing. She smiled when she saw him, but Gratchev didn’t smile back.
He crossed over and eased his bulk into the seat opposite. He was short and stockily built with bushy eyebrows and, like most men used to a lifetime of wearing a military uniform, he wore his civilian clothes uncomfortably.
The woman said, “It’s good to see you, Volya.”
Gratchev looked at her and grunted. “I wish I could sa
y the same.”
“What’s it to be? Vodka?”
“These days I prefer American bourbon. Ice and water.”
The woman called the waiter and ordered their drinks. When the waiter had gone she lit a cigarette and offered her companion one. Gratchev accepted the cigarette. “What made you pick this place?”
The woman smiled. “Everybody’s too busy getting drunk to pay any attention to two old friends talking. Besides, your people watch the city.”
“True enough. So what’s this about?”
• • •
The waiter returned with their drinks, and as the woman lit his cigarette she looked at her companion’s face. It was a lived-in face. Deep lines like scars on his jaws and forehead and the narrow Slavic eyes that were dark and unpredictable. A Russian face, no question. Brooding, but with a touch of humor, wrinkles at the corners of the man’s mouth from smiling. But he wasn’t smiling now.
She said, “You got my message?”
“Would I be here if I hadn’t?” He looked at his watch dismissively. “I presume you didn’t come to talk pleasantries, Eva. I’m supposed to be at an opera matinée. It finishes at five, and I’ve got to be back at the base by six. I had to tell my driver I was seeing a certain lady acquaintance. It cost me a bottle of vodka to keep his mouth shut. And even that’s compromising. So tell me why you’re here.”
The woman leaned forward. “I have a favor to ask, Volya.”
“I guessed as much.” The Russian put down his bourbon almost angrily. “When will you Jews ever leave me in peace?”
“Mossad has asked very little of you, Volya. But if you do this one thing we wipe the slate clean, and we never contact you again. Ever.”
Gratchev’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a promise?”
“You have my word.”
Gratchev sighed. “Then it must be important. Tell me what it is you want. More of your friends flown to Vienna?”
The woman glanced around the room. The tavern buzzed with conversation and music as the three musicians wandered from table to table. No one was paying her and her companion the slightest attention. She looked back at the Russian. “Not this time. We need to get a man into Moscow secretly, and back if necessary. We need you to do it and provide him with the necessary travel papers.”
Gratchev’s eyes opened wide. “Moscow? Impossible.”
“Hardly. You’re a colonel in the Soviet Air Force. Such a thing would not be beyond possibility.”
“I may be a colonel, but what you’re asking is dangerous and impractical. Who is this man?”
“One of our people.”
“Mossad?”
“Yes. And we need it done tonight.”
The Russian blinked, then sat back and laughed. “My darling Eva, you need to cool that pretty head of yours. It’s been frying too long in the Middle East sun.”
“I’m not joking, Volya.”
The Russian nervously fingered his glass. “Then you’re crazy.”
The woman hesitated. “If you don’t agree to help, your file will be handed over to the Soviet Embassy in Tel Aviv tonight.”
Gratchev’s face turned red, and he clutched his glass so hard the woman thought it would shatter. “You little viper! To think I once loved you.”
“Temper, Volya. I’m only a messenger.”
The men with the accordions and zither wandered over to the table, playing with beaming smiles on their faces.
Gratchev looked at them icily and said, “You’re giving me a headache, you bunch of idiots. Why don’t you get lost and bother someone else?” The grins changed into a shared look of affront, and the musicians moved on.
The woman laughed. “I see you haven’t lost your diplomatic charm.”
Gratchev snorted. “Remember how those Kraut swines used to play the same music near the front lines? It still drives me crazy.”
The look of anger disappeared from Gratchev’s face. His mind flashed back ten years. A captain, he had been shot down over southern Poland in 1943 and captured by the Germans. For four days and nights he had been frightened and in solitary confinement, while the Gestapo had interrogated him in the local police barracks and in the process almost beaten him to death. On the fifth day a group of partisans attacked the barracks to rescue one of their comrades.
Jews, mostly, who had escaped the Warsaw uprising, and they showed no mercy to the captured Gestapo, executing them on the spot. Eva Bronski was in command. She had asked Gratchev if he wanted to join them, and he, grateful for the reprieve, had no difficulty saying yes. They battled the Germans together for over a year, and he had loved her for her courage and beauty as he had loved no other woman, not even his wife.
When the Russians eventually pushed south and overran the German lines, she took Gratchev to the district Red Army commissar and explained that he had been shot down over partisan territory. She told the commissar that Gratchev had helped lead and organize the partisans, and the way she told it he had been a hero, the bravest man she had ever known. She made no mention of his capture and interrogation by the Gestapo, for that could have cost him his rank, his freedom, and maybe even his life.
They said their emotional goodbyes that same day, and by the end of the war he was a wing commander, decorated by Stalin, two years later a full colonel. The first month he was posted to the Soviet air base in Vienna. Three years later he was sitting in a coffeehouse minding his own business when a woman sat opposite him. Gratchev’s face dropped.
Eva said, “Hello, Volya.”
Before he could reply she slid an envelope across the table and told him to open it. When he did he saw copies of his Gestapo arrest documents, a transcript of his interrogation, with replies by him that would have been enough to destroy him utterly.
It was simple blackmail after that. The woman had saved him to use him. He was forced to help smuggle Jews on Soviet Air Force flights to Vienna, bound for the new state of Israel. Not often, but often enough to give him sleepless nights. Now, sitting in the tavern, Gratchev sighed and stood up. “Walk with me.”
“Where?”
“Outside, in the street.”
Gratchev tossed some notes on the table, and they went outside and walked until they found a spot that overlooked the lights of Vienna. Gratchev stopped. “You were serious? About leaving me in peace?”
“If you do this, definitely.”
“Your man speaks Russian, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Gratchev sighed and thought for a moment. “There’s a military transporter leaving for Moscow from Vienna at six this evening. There’s a house on Mahlerstrasse. Number four. I have a mistress there. Have your man at the address at five o’clock. No later.” He looked at the woman. “So this is the last time we meet?”
“You have my word.”
He continued looking at her face almost wistfully. He went to kiss her, then seemed to change his mind and let his hand trace the outline of her face. “Shalom, Eva. Think of me sometimes.”
“Shalom, Volya.”
He turned and walked back toward the town and the tram stop.
Moments later a black Opel pulled up at the curb, and the woman climbed in. The man in the driver’s seat turned around. Branigan said, “Well? How did it go?”
The woman nodded at Massey, sitting beside her. “Your friend leaves tonight.”
There was an expression of relief on Branigan’s face as he looked at Massey. “I guess you’re in luck, Jake.”
Massey didn’t reply. Branigan tapped the driver’s shoulder, and the car pulled out from the curb.
44
* * *
MOSCOW
The guard unlocked the cell door, and Lukin stepped inside. Anna Khorev barely acknowledged him as she sat on the edge of the wooden bed. As the door clanged shut behind him, Lukin said, “Anna?”
She looked up at him slowly but didn’t speak. Her eyes were red from crying, her face drawn and pale. Lukin thought she looked as if she were in a
trance. What had happened in the park appeared to have left her deeply distressed. He said, “Anna, I want you to listen to what I have to say. I’m releasing you.”
She looked up, a puzzled frown on her face. He said, “It’s no trick. Something’s happened you need to know about.”
Lukin told her what had happened to his wife, and when he had finished he saw the shocked reaction but she didn’t reply. “I’m exchanging your life for hers. That’s what Slanski wants. If I don’t agree he says he’ll kill my wife.”
When she still looked unconvinced, he said, “Anna, this is no elaborate trick—you must believe me. You have to come with me now, there isn’t much time. Please.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“A rendezvous near Moscow. The Convent of Novodevichy. As far as the chief warden is concerned you’re being transferred to Lefortovo prison. But I need your cooperation. Please don’t do anything rash when we leave the building, and don’t speak to anyone but me. And when we meet Slanski I want you to do something for me.”
“What?”
“Persuade him not to harm my wife. She’s pregnant. Slanski can do what he wants to me. But it doesn’t concern her. Please, will you do as I ask?”
Anna Khorev continued to look at him as if she didn’t believe what was happening. She seemed to be studying his face. Lukin knew his voice sounded dead with despair. She must have seen the sleeplessness in his eyes and the tension in his body, and he was aware how absurd the situation was. He was no longer the interrogator but a beggar.
He didn’t know whether she hated him or not, or if she was getting some grim satisfaction from his dilemma, but then she nodded. “Yes.”
“Thank you.” Lukin moved toward the door. “We’d better go.”
“What will happen to you?”
“Because of this? Does it matter? Ultimately we’re all dead. You and Slanski because I doubt you’ll get out of Moscow alive after Beria learns about this. And my wife and I for what I’ve allowed to happen.”
“What will happen to my daughter?”