A Single Spy

by William Christie

  As soon as the door was shut he sauntered up and thrust his hand with two extended fingers in front of Alexsi’s face. The message was unmistakable: I’ll gouge your eyes out. “Let’s see if that coat fits me, little boy. Give it up and you won’t get hurt.”

  Alexsi made a series of instant calculations. The blatnye didn’t seem at all concerned about guards at peepholes. So it was up to him. He guessed what being their slave would mean.

  Alexsi shoved his right hand down into his trousers.

  The blatnye leader let out a harsh laugh. “Oh, he has something he wants to show me, eh?”

  While everyone was staring at his crotch, Alexsi lunged with his left hand and snatched one of those outstretched fingers in his fist. The blatnye’s eyes went wide with surprise. Alexsi snapped his wrist forward and the finger broke with a loud crack. The blatnye screamed like an animal. Alexsi kicked him square in the balls and shoved him back into the other two.

  That only slowed them down for an instant, but it was all Alexsi needed to get his knife out. They charged him. Alexsi took a quick step to the right that changed it from two men attacking him side by side to one slightly behind the other, putting himself close enough to the table to snatch up a stool to protect his weak side. As the nearest one threw a punch Alexsi, quicker, put the stool in the way of his fist and slashed him across the face with the knife. He was aiming for the eyes but missed and cut across the forehead just above the eyebrows. Which worked just as well because the blood gushed out in a flood and blinded the thief as if he’d cut the eyes out.

  As soon as he saw the knife the thief who had been slightly behind quit the fight and leaped back to the far side of the cell, his open hands stretched out in front of him. But the leader came up from the floor fast and, compensating for the loss of his hands, aimed a savage kick. Alexsi sidestepped out of the way and as he went by slashed him across the side of the throat. Knowing he was hurt badly, the leader grabbed for his throat as the blood sprayed and Alexsi cracked him in the back of the head with the stool.

  While all this was going on the two politicals were screaming their lungs out from under their beds. As Alexsi cautiously advanced on the remaining thief to finish him, surrender or not, he slipped on the blood on the floor and fell flat on his back. The thief rushed out of his corner and leaped onto him, aiming to crush him with his weight and pin the knife hand down.

  Alexsi only had time to bring his knees up, and the thief hit them first instead of landing straight onto his body. That gave Alexsi just enough free space to punch the knife into the thief’s ribs. Alexsi kept stabbing, fending him off with his left arm as the thief tried to get ahold of his throat. The lungs were unfortunately not a quick killing blow.

  The cell door crashed open and many feet came pounding in. As the thief was yanked off Alexsi left the knife in his ribs and covered his head with his arms as the rubber truncheons sailed in. The screaming inside the cell was deafening but it wasn’t coming from him. The blows rained down from all directions until finally he was grabbed by the collar and dragged out into the corridor.

  6

  1936 The Lubyanka, Moscow

  Alexsi didn’t resist. He would have been more than happy to get up on his own but they just kept dragging him along the floor.

  The ride ended in a toilet where they tore all his clothes off, threw him naked up against a wall, and strip-searched him again. No shower this time. While he was still propped up against the wall, they threw buckets of ice-cold water on him and washed the thieves’ blood off that way.

  He never saw his own clothes again. While the other guards stood ready, patting their truncheons into the palms of their hands, one shoved a bundle of clothes at him. A pair of stiff canvas trousers and a jacket stuffed with what felt like cotton and stitched like a quilt to hold the padding in place. Instead of shoes, straw slippers and no socks. They screamed at him to hurry up and dress, and as soon as he did they handcuffed him with his right hand in front and his left hand behind his back, with the chain between his legs scraping his balls. It forced him to walk bent over like an ape.

  A guard with his pistol drawn recited, “Prepare for interrogation. Do not move your head to either side. Do not move without being told. If you do not follow instructions to the letter it is our right under regulations to shoot you out of hand.”

  The way he was bent over Alexsi could barely even look to his front, but he wasn’t about to argue over it.

  He had his second elevator ride, but conditions made it impossible to savor it as much as the first. He hobbled along the passages while the lead guard banged his key against his belt buckle every time they passed a door as a warning to anyone inside that a prisoner was passing by. If there was a noise in return and a door opened, they pushed his face against the wall so he couldn’t see who it was. They did the same if anyone else was coming down the corridor.

  After a very long and tiring walk through the labyrinth of hallways they grabbed him by the collar and pushed him into a room. Alexsi’s handcuffs were unlocked and he was pulled upright, back aching, to see two stone-faced State Security lieutenants standing before him. One stamped a receipt and handed it to the guard in exchange for his body. The other grabbed him by the upper arm in a steel grip, took him into an adjoining office, sat him down hard in a heavy wood chair, and left.

  The office was both austere and elegant. Nothing on the walls but dark wood paneling and a portrait of Stalin. A huge and quite beautiful wooden desk, as dark as the walls and the chairs, everything arranged on the top in perfect order. Behind it sat a man in a black suit like an undertaker. His hair was streaked with gray, slicked back and plastered flat like a skullcap. Not one of the well-fed Chekists who seemed to populate the building. He was so gaunt, the flesh of his face under the cheekbones looked like it had been scooped out with a spoon. With shoulders slightly hunched Alexsi thought the man resembled nothing so much as a vulture poised to pick at his carcass.

  A cigarette was burning in an ashtray. He held a Soviet internal passport in his hands and was thumbing through it intently.

  He looked up from it and fixed Alexsi with piercing eyes that appeared jet-black in the shadows of the room. And an instant later stunned him by speaking not in Russian but fluent German. “Young man, your papers say that you are Anatoli Borisovich Bulgakov. I say you are Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov. What do you say?”

  Alexsi was so shocked he didn’t say anything. They knew his name. They knew he spoke German.

  “You’ve had a busy night,” the man observed dispassionately, still speaking German. “Ordinarily I’d enjoy playing cat and mouse with you. But it has taken much longer than expected to bring us together and time is of the essence. So if you are not Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov, and you do not speak German, then you are of no use to me and I will have you removed from this room and liquidated immediately.”

  Alexsi believed him. “I am Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov,” he said in German.

  The gaunt man gave no sign whether he found Alexsi’s German pleasing or displeasing. He tossed the internal passport onto the desk and took a contemplative drag on his cigarette. “This really is quite good. I assume you bought it from someone who issues the genuine article to Soviet citizens.”

  “That is correct, good sir,” Alexsi said, still in German. No sense getting this fellow upset with him so early; he was scary enough just sitting there. Plus he was having to concentrate very hard since his German was rusty from disuse. It was harder to lie in a foreign language.

  The gaunt man just stared at him as if he were memorizing every detail of his face. “Do you know where you are?”

  “In Moscow,” Alexsi said. “The Lubyanka.”

  “Are you familiar with the phrase: Abandon hope, who enter here?”

  “It is from the book Inferno by the Italian poet Dante,” Alexsi replied. “It is the sign on the gates of hell.”

  “Do you believe in hell?”

  Alexsi just looked around the room.


  The gaunt man’s lips curled in the faintest and most fleeting of smiles. “Have you read the other books of the Divine Comedy?”

  “I didn’t finish them,” Alexsi said.

  “Why not?”

  “Hell was much more interesting than heaven.”

  “Yes, it always is, isn’t it?” said the gaunt man. “Do you know why I ask you these questions?”

  “You knew I understood your German,” Alexsi replied. “You wanted me to talk long enough to see how well I speak it.”

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “Because the questions weren’t about anything.”

  “They could have been to frighten you.”

  “I was already frightened,” Alexsi said.

  The gaunt man favored him with another brief smile that was really just a twitching of the lips. “Does any other reason occur to you?”

  Alexsi thought about it. “You maybe wanted to see how stupid I am since I haven’t been to school in years.”

  “Yes, but you have been a dedicated patron of our state libraries, have you not? I salute your commitment to knowledge, especially since libraries were the only place you could be found with any consistency. In order to make your acquaintance it was necessary for a team of men to wait patiently in every library in Baku. And what does all this tell you? Everything that has happened to you since that day in the library. Beware, now. Your answer is very important.”

  Alexsi let out a breath. “You want me for something.”

  The gaunt man clasped his hands together on the table. “Very good. You are meeting all my expectations. I would even say exceeding, but you are full of yourself quite enough already. As I said before, I do not have time to waste. The Main Directorate for State Security of the NKVD of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has decided to offer you the chance of joining us as a secret agent. We accept only volunteers for this vitally important work. If you agree, and prove your loyalty by perfectly executing your orders, in return State Security will help you in every way you could possibly imagine and grant you greater opportunities for your future than ordinary citizens. Your mission will be to actively help the Soviet government build a Communist society throughout the world. As such, you will have the chance to win the highest honors.” He paused and gave Alexsi a piercing stare. “Do you accept?”

  Alexsi was certain a refusal would mean his death. “I accept.”

  The gaunt man continued to examine him with those eerie eyes. He took another long drag on his cigarette and arranged it neatly back in the ashtray. “Do not imagine for a moment that I am ignorant of your thoughts. You agree now, gain your release, and then disappear at the earliest opportunity. I have no doubt that you could eventually accomplish this, despite our vigilance. And no doubt the blatnye would welcome you with open arms. The three you met tonight are down in the dispensary—well, actually one of them has left this world due to your efforts—and you impressed them deeply. They cannot stop talking about you. You could put on the tattoos and become a thief-in-law. You would go far. Until we caught you again. We catch everyone sooner or later. Then it would only be a matter of a quick death from a bullet or a slow one in the bottom of a mine in Kolyma. Whichever pleased us. Because we are absolutely merciless with anyone who betrays us. Now, I ask you again and for the final time. Do you accept?”

  Alexsi stared back into those black eyes. As it happened, those had been his thoughts exactly. But better to live another day. “I accept.”

  The gaunt man once again gave no sign of either pleasure or displeasure. He passed a blank piece of paper and a fountain pen across the desk. “At the top write today’s date, Moscow, and the word ‘promise.’ In Russian,” he added.

  Alexsi just shrugged.

  “What?” the gaunt man demanded.

  “The date, sir?” Alexsi said.

  The man grunted in comprehension and flipped around his desk calendar so Alexsi could see it.

  It had taken nearly two weeks to get from Baku to Moscow. Alexsi wrote as directed, then raised his head.

  “Write exactly as I dictate,” the gaunt man ordered. “This promise is given to the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR in which I, Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnov, bind myself to execute and obey instantly all orders given me by the GUGB. I swear to report to the GUGB all anti-Soviet activities which come to my notice. I swear to talk to no one concerning my work for the GUGB. I shall sign all reports written by myself concerning my duties with the pseudonym…” He paused. “You will pick a name: person, animal, object, or number, by which you will be known to us.”

  Alexsi was first distracted by the fact that they seemed to have changed the name of the secret police. But maybe this was something different and even more secret? He hadn’t the faintest idea what name he ought to pick for himself. He racked his brain until he saw the gaunt man becoming impatient, then said the only thing he could think of. “What about Dante?”

  “Dante it is,” the gaunt man replied. “Write it in.” After Alexsi scratched it on the paper, he said, “Now sign your full name, and in brackets below: Dante.”

  When Alexsi was finished the gaunt man took the paper back, carefully slid it into a folder, then stood and offered his hand.

  Alexsi stood and shook it. The man was taller than he had imagined.

  “Very good,” the gaunt man said. “My name is Grigory Petrovich Yakushev. From this moment on I am your chief, and your training will begin immediately. You will give it your full and complete attention, because only excellence is accepted in our work. Now memorize this telephone number: K-6-32-15.”

  “K-6-32-15,” Alexsi repeated.

  “You will be released immediately and taken to the place where you will live. You will call me at that number at one o’clock in the afternoon tomorrow exactly. Use a kiosk on the street, not the telephone in any residence whatsoever. You will ask for me and use only your pseudonym. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Alexsi said.

  “I hope so,” Comrade Yakushev said. “You have been warned once. You will not receive another. I look forward to our meeting tomorrow.”

  Not knowing what to say—thank you somehow seemed inappropriate—Alexsi gave a little bow that brought another faint smile to his new chief’s face.

  When he left the office the stone-faced lieutenants were now smiling at him. They escorted him down the elevator to the ground floor where it seemed that an assembly line had been set up just for him. A barber cut his shaggy hair and shaved the equally shaggy beard that had grown on the train ride. He took yet another hot shower, this time at his leisure and this time with a fluffy white towel at the end. No washing for over two weeks, and now everything from ice water to steam in one day. At each stop the now-amiable lieutenants watched over him and supervised everyone’s work.

  As soon as he was dry and combed, they presented him with a smart brown suit that fit him perhaps not perfectly but as well as any garment in the Soviet Union. A white shirt with a collar, cufflinks, a tie, and shined leather shoes. A Kirov wristwatch on a leather band. After he admired himself in the mirror, he was brought to another little room with a table and a chair. And waiting for him on the table was a pot of borscht, a thick pork chop, fried potatoes, and half a loaf of sliced white bread with butter. There was even red wine in a crystal carafe. Alexsi tasted it suspiciously, thought it terrible, and timidly asked if he could have some tea. A lady in a white coat had been standing by. The lieutenants only had to give her a look and she brought him some instantly.

  Alexsi told himself to go slow, since he knew what all this rich food would do to him after so many days of bread and water and smoked fish. His stomach had shrunk and he had to force himself to leave food on his plate and not stuff it into his mouth regardless. Or into the pockets of his new suit.

  One of the lieutenants actually asked him politely if he was done instead of throwing him out of the room. Down the hall and they slipped a thick wool winter suit coat over his shoulders, a scarf
for his neck, gloves for his hands, and a fur hat placed on his head like a crown. There wasn’t another mirror, but Alexsi looked down at the clothes as if he’d transformed into someone else. It was like the Frog Prince in the Brothers Grimm tales, except instead of a princess, Comrade Stalin was the one who had thrown him against a wall and changed him from a frog into a prince.

  He must have chuckled out loud, because one of the lieutenants said, “What’s the joke, comrade?”

  Saying what was in his head would have been a guaranteed bullet to the back of it. Instead Alexsi replied, “I was just remarking over my good fortune. Long live Comrade Stalin.”

  In response everyone in earshot shouted out loud enough to nearly make him jump out of his new clothes. “Long live Comrade Stalin!”

  Seemingly out of nowhere, and obviously for him, appeared a young man of about twenty, also wearing a suit. He held out his hand. “Call me Sergei.”

  Alexsi shook it, but hesitated. “What name shall I use?”

  Sergei smiled. “Use your pseudonym only in communication. I will call you Alexsi.”

  Everyone was smiling now. Though Alexsi knew that all it would take was a simple change in orders and everyone who was smiling now would be tearing him to pieces.

  A uniformed sergeant unlocked a steel door and opened it to reveal the Moscow night. “Dosvidanie,” he said. I’ll be seeing you again.

  He was smiling, too.

  7

  1936 Moscow

  Somehow the air outside the Lubyanka didn’t feel as cold as it had before. Alexsi didn’t think it was just the warm clothes he was wearing. He wasn’t about to call it free air, but at least it was open air. And a new lease on life. The stars were beautiful, fading slightly in the faintest hint of approaching dawn.

  As they emerged from the side street into Dzerzhinsky Square, his eye was immediately caught by a sign on a building that said: CHILDREN’S WORLD. “What is that?” he asked Sergei.