The Margin of Evil!

by Simon Boxall

  'No I don't; but if what you are saying is true and I have no reason to doubt that it is. I need a chip to bargain with. Whether I deal with you or Gerhardt ... You`re right, I do have the information and I have left instructions, as to what shall happen to that 'Embarrassment of Delights' should anything happen to me!'

  At this moment, the real truth was, Georgii hadn't left any instructions on what should happen, in the event of his life, prematurely, being cut short. But he was confident in the fact that whatever was to going to happen to him, was not going to happen just yet.

  'Georgii, let's look at it another way! You need friends. I think it's fair to say that I represent the lesser of the two evils. Not only that, I am offering you a way out; this is what I propose, and part of what I'm asking you to do, is as a personal favour to me. I want you to hand me over Sverdlovs dossier. It will be safe in my hands. The second thing I want you to do is something of a more altogether secret nature ...'

  Stalin told him about Peter the Painter and then showed him the letter. Even though the Georgian told him of the events in Sidney Street, he was, as his nature always dictated, selective with the truth. The story told to Georgii was on a strict, 'Need to Know' basis.

  Finally he said. 'Georgii I want you to find this man and kill him!' He opened his top desk drawer and passed over an old black and white photograph.

  On his way out, Georgii showed his identity papers to the guards at the main Kremlin gate. He walked out onto Red Square. He stopped and thought. It was now September; he looked around him and let out a long breath that turned into a sigh and then morphed into a shrill whistle. He thought and his mind went into reflective mode.

  Georgii knew there was only one place where he could sit down and think and it wasn't around here. He set off on his long walk.

  Most walkers will tell you that, when they set off in that long determined stride, their pace is the thing that distinguishes them from mere pedestrians going about their business; and that sometimes, whilst they are walking, they will drift away into some otherworldly state, or to 'Some Other' imaginary place. As it was, Georgii Radetzky headed off to the river, which was only a stone's throw away. It had served him well as a child and he had no reason to doubt it would serve him well today. The river had always been a good friend; it was always its company he sought out, especially when time was needed to think. Once on the bank, and careful having made one or two discreet manoeuvres in the event of his having grown a tail, he walked briskly on and down to the docks.

  An hour and a half later, he was sitting on the river bank looking across to a small mudflat on the other bank. Evenings were still warm for that time of year, but give it another month and winter would start drawing in. Georgii looked up and down the river. There was almost no traffic on the river these days. Wooden hulks had disappeared during the long hard winter of nineteen eighteen and nineteen. Even the metallic parts, iron keels, brass nuts and bolts, windlasses and capstans had vanished during those nights of hardship. He watched the eddy's of the current as it turned and twisted on its journey to 'God Knows' where.

  Georgii Radetzky's mind turned back to the conversation with Commissar Stalin. There was no doubt in his mind and he had met cold ruthless people just like him before. Stalin differed from the rest, there was no doubt about that, but even though he was a crook, Georgii had already established that via 'The Kevshor' connection, he came across as a completely plausible likeable fellow. Whereas Trotsky and Gerhardt did not. He had to admit that he had never liked that pompous, arrogant shit Lev Trotsky and he was still numbed by Gerhardt's betrayal. It hurt him and it hurt him bad. But he was under no illusions about Stalin, he would tuck him up in a shallow grave when he had no further use for him. But which of the two, in his mind, was the lesser of the two evils. Trotsky or Stalin?

  There was also the case of where on earth was Royston O'Reilly. He must find him, maybe, and this was only a thought, he could get Anna and Pyotr to find him. Georgii would do it himself, but it was clear from some of the 'Commissar for The Nationalities' comments that he had been under close surveillance. There was also that Agent Provocateur to consider. The incident outside Lefortovo prison still resonated sharply in his mind. That man had an uncanny habit of turning up when he was not wanted. Riley's timing was always spot on.

  There was also the weather to consider. If he was to get out of Moscow he had to do it now. But how was he to do it, in this respect he was utterly clueless. Then the answer stared him in the face.

  From upriver a steamboat headed down and passed within twenty yards of him. As Georgii's mind turned over he thought that maybe he, or even better O'Reilly, whenever they tracked him down could make discreet enquiries and they could make their getaway down the river. As he mulled it over Georgii Radetzky thought that it definitely made more sense than getting away by train.

  Train was risky and now there was a strong rumour that war might actually break out between Russia and Poland. Maybe they could all get away down river and make it down to one of the Black Sea ports. There they could claim political asylum. The Royal Navy was known to be down there aiding 'The Whites'. The more he thought about it the more the idea of escape by river appealed to him. It was time for him to make an executive decision. That's what they would do; they would all escape by river.

  As he arrived back home, in the semi permanent twilight light that lights up the Moscow skies during that time of year, Georgii Radetzky was feeling much better. In fact the change that had come over him since his meditations, down by the river, had almost expunged any of the pain felt from Trotsky and Gerhardt's betrayal.

  He would deal with them later and he knew exactly how he would stitch the pair of them up. Georgii would do this with the help of his new Georgian, benefactor. Better the devil, ha, ha, you don't know, he thought!

  Georgii Radetzky grabbed a candle and then went upstairs. He let himself into the writer's old apartment. He looked around, the place was almost bare. The 'Living Space', thankfully, had not been reallocated, and over in the corner was the thing he was looking for.

  Back in his own room, he shut the door, and then placing the machine on the table. Georgii got a sheet of paper and placed it in the typewriter. An hour later he looked at the fruits of his labours. He held the paper up to the gaslight. Perfect he thought. He went to bed. Next morning he told Rezhnikov to phone the Kremlin and tell them that he would not be going in to work. Back in his room he got another sheet of paper out and then he started to type. By evening the job was done. He stood up, looked out of the window and gave his body a good old stretch.

  Georgii turned around and looked down onto the table. In front of him, were three identical files. With a great feeling of satisfaction he picked each one up and examined the contents. Outwardly they all looked the same, but even though the three, pretty much said the same thing, they were, and this was deliberate, slightly different. Placing each file back on the table, he knew that the contents of each file had the potential to blow Bolshevik Russia apart.

  Stalin was going to have two of them and the third one that nobody was to know about. That one, was going to be Georgii's insurance policy for the future. The third file, or at least the knowledge of its existence, was going to get him and his wards out of Russia.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Royston O'Reilly was having the time of his life that summer with the Kevshors. In fact he was enjoying himself so much that ideas of escape and repatriation and, especially Georgii Radetzky, were soon relegated to the back of his mind. If any of his former 'Mucker's' from Liverpool had seen him, they would have been astonished at the change that had come over Royston O'Reilly.

  His Kevshor bosses found him, even though he had no Georgian roots, to be a hard worker. They also found him to be reliable. Two qualities that seemed to be in short supply, during that long hot summer of 1919. Whilst his old associate Georgii Radetzky had slowly boxed himself into a corner; Royston O'Reilly had gone from strength to strength. That is until
he came across the paranoid Aslan Rustaveli.

  Aslan Rustaveli did not like Russians and it is also fair to say that he did not like strangers. Especially 'Scousers' from Liverpool; whom as far as he was concerned had inveigled themselves, even though he couldn't prove it, fraudulently, into that most sacred of Georgian organisations 'The Kevshors'. Most people in that organisation considered Rustaveli to be an amiable nut; they simply gave him a wide berth.

  In the beginning both of them had got on fine, they were given menial jobs to do; such as the setting up and taking down of markets and other menial work. It had been noted that whilst O'Reilly excelled in his duties, the surly Rustaveli did not. The warm friendship started to go cold. Aslan Rustaveli started to resent his 'new' best friend's good fortune. O'Reilly's good, luck began to grate on 'The Georgian' to such an extent that Rustaveli decided that there was no alternative, but to plot the Liverpudllians demise. As far as he was concerned the Englishman was getting undue reward and attention, whilst he got nothing.

  The rot had set in, early on as a matter of fact, when O'Reilly had insisted upon at every meal time, on eating the crust of the 'Black Loaf'. Rustaveli found the Scouser's lack of, 'Breeding' and 'Good Manners' all the more infuriating; especially when O'Reilly kept on shouting, and this happened at every meal, 'Fairst on the Croost!' The others in the hostel were amused by the antics of the Liverpudlian, and realising that the behaviour of the Englishman, or Irishman, as he preferred it to be known, only served to further incense the conservative Rustaveli feelings. So, unbeknownst to the pair of them, the other Georgians derived great pleasure from egging on 'The 'Scouser' to go even further.

  So as he began to plot, much to his disdain, the jovial O'Reilly's star continued to rise. So as the Irishman's star rose on up through the ranks of 'The Kevshors', the demented Rustaveli carried on with his fruitless machinations. But as time went by, the further away O'Reilly's trajectory took him, that is to say further away from the embittered Rustaveli. Aslan resolved that something needed to be done and it needed to be done right now. But he could not think of anything, every time he thought of something, he couldn't remember it, or because his mind suddenly would draw a blank. That was until, in a new 'Living Space', he struck up a friendship with a barefoot Estonian called Toomas.

  The new, 'new', friend, was just as deranged as he was. In fact he made Rustaveli look almost sane by comparison. Night after night, the pair of them, lost to the world in their drunken stupors, would rave on about the harsh injustices of life. Toomas would go on about how a friend had stolen his only pair of boots. The other would go on about Royston O'Reilly stealing his 'rightful' destiny.

  Each proved to be the foil for the other, Aslan Rustaveli warmed to his, 'new' best friend, he slowly got it into his head that fate had thrown the two of them together. As far as his twisted mind was concerned there could be no other explanation to their meeting. So he reasoned that, if their destinies were to be entwined, then there could be no other rational explanation, other than, the two of them were there to help the other one out. It didn't take much convincing, only a pair of boots, to get the Estonian Toomas onboard; as a result the two of them became, as they say, 'Fast Buddies!'

  The plan was straightforward - they would find O'Reilly and kill him. The Estonian would have his boots and the Georgian would have his rightfull 'Kevshor' destiny returned to him.

  O'Reilly on the other hand, even though he went through the motions with Rustaveli whenever he saw him, had never really liked or trusted the Georgian let alone the 'New' new best friend; but in a city where friendship was in short supply, 'The Scouser', felt that any form of companionship, even Rustaveli's, was preferable to the loneliness and isolation etched into the faces of the locals. Besides, he didn't want to make too many waves. So much for 'World Socialism', meagre rations and no money, he thought. Crime paid a whole lot better!

  For Rustaveli an insurmountable blow to his meticulous planning happened. Whilst he had spent hours scheming and plotting with the Estonian, he found that for all of his painstaking work it was getting him, absolutely, nowhere, O'Reilly had been given other duties and, as a consequence, he had been moved to another part of the city. It was an obstacle, not too disastrous, as he felt, given the circumstances; he would go back to the drawing board. Nevertheless he was determined to carry on, kill O'Reilly and give the 'Scousers' boots to his Estonian friend.

  Albeit, it had came as a bit of a shock for Royston to find out that his former associate was now making 'menacing' enquiries as to his whereabouts. He had known for a month or two, that the others always gave Rustaveli short shrift. Indeed he had even seen Kevshor colleagues, make, 'loop the loop' gestures behind Rustaveli's back when the Georgian wasn't looking.

  But he had never been one to judge a book by its cover; he always liked to judge on merit, especially that is, if they had anything worth stealing; Royston O'Reilly soon came around to, and agreed with, what everybody else was saying and thinking about Aslan. It was a simple fact; the man was, in his estimation, 'a couple of bricks short of a full load'. In short he was trouble. Rustaveli was simply the kind of guy you did not want to get in an argument with. O'Reilly put it this way, if you were in a drinking school, or any other kind of competition, you let him win, even if you could down the measures faster, or answer the question, you still let him win.

  So it came as quite a relief to them all, and to 'The Scouser', when fate stepped into solve the problem. Toomas, on the promise of a new pair of boots disappeared and the 'Luckless' Aslan was 'pressed' into service and drafted away to the front. Without placing to finer a point on it, the problem, as they all saw it, had kind of solved itself.

  As the summer moved towards autumn; O'Reilly, ever thinking about the future, thought and, though his reasons were quite selfish, and not wanting to spend another winter in Moscow; Royston O'Reilly thought he might like to look up his old 'Mucker' Georgii Radetzky. See what he was doing and also see if his friend had thought any more about spiriting him out of this Godforsaken land.

  The problem was that his new duties had taken him out of town. He was responsible for smuggling in and out, contraband for the Moscow markets. One of his chosen routes had been past the Novgorod gate. And it was on one such journey in June that he had seen his erstwhile colleague sitting behind a desk at the checkpoint.

  Much to his own relief, his friend and associate had not recognised him. Indeed it is doubtful whether the paranoid Rustaveli would have even recognised himself; because he had changed almost beyond all recognition. Royston O'Reilly had quite simply 'Georgianised' himself; he had gone, overnight, from 'Scruff' to 'Smart Tuff'. As time went by, he decided to go down to the Nizhny Novgorod gate to make contact with Georgii Radetzky.

  Half of the day he stood there queuing in the sweltering heat. The queue was long and slow. By the time he reached its head the official he wanted to see was not around. Royston was told to step over to one side. After what seemed like an eternity he was ushered into a 'Field' ridge-tent. A tall, attractive woman sat behind a desk.

  'What do you want,' the woman said.

  'I'm making enquiries after the whereabouts of one Georgii Radetzky. I was told he was the commandant of this outpost.'

  'He has been relieved of his duties, because he has the fever,' she replied.

  'Is there any way that I can get this message through to him?' O'Reilly said.

  'I know him Royston, you can give it to me,' Yulia said. O'Reilly slightly taken aback, bowed and started to exit the tent. She called over to him in perfect English, 'When he's better he will contact you. Don't worry, he's told me all about you ... and by the way he did know that you were in and out of the city!'

  'Bastard', O'Reilly thought to himself. So the wily old fox did know after all. It wasn't long before contact was made. He was at the large night market down by the railway marshalling yard when two children came up to him. The girl, Anna, thrust a note into his hand. Next morning, when he got back to the Kevshor hoste
l, he opened the small envelope and read it. Instantly he recognised the writer's articulate hand.

  Royston,

  Meet me tonight!

  A Friend

  The meeting down by the river was to the point. Radetzky told him what he was to do. They would meet again the following day at three.

  Elsewhere Comrade Radetzky was feeling pleased with himself, he picked up the two folders. The third one was now safely hidden away. He anticipated that 'The Boss', as those close to the Georgian referred to him, would be pleased with his labours. He set off for the Kremlin.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Instinct, as Joseph Stalin well knew, was the key to it all, especially when it came to dealing with his people. Instinct was something that you could not quite put your finger upon, but that was not of any great importance now, because instinct was telling him something quite different about this young man. He could instinctively feel that a self evident truth was about to emerge; of course God, in heaven, was always there to guide him, but there was something quite different about Georgii Radetzky this morning. He cast those thoughts aside and looked away from the two files neatly laid out on his desk. Stalin looked at them and then at Radetzky.

  'Good work Radetzky. Good work,' the Georgian said. He looked across at the young man standing on the other side of the desk. 'Return to your office and await further instruction. I'll call you when I need you.'

  'But I've got nothing to do,' Georgii said.

  'Don't worry something will come up. Besides I need you on standby,' the Commissar for The Nationalities said.

  As soon as Radetzky was gone, 'The Georgian' opened the top draw of his desk. He pulled out a set of keys and put them in his pocket. Waiting for a few minutes until he was sure Radetzky was out of earshot, he went outside and told his secretary that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. He re-entered his office and locked the door from the inside. He sat behind his desk and read the first file. Most of its contents were known to him. It had been written by the late Yakov Sverdlov.