by Sam Eastland
‘But you do disapprove. I can tell.’
‘The only advice I have for you is to do what you can live with. The further you go beyond that point, the harder it is to return.’
‘And how far have you gone, Inspector?’
‘If I ever get back,’ replied Pekkala, ‘I will be sure to let you know.’
*
‘I can’t talk now, Pekkala,’ growled Stalin, as he stood up from his desk. ‘I’m on my way to the daily briefing. The Germans have moved into Czechoslovakia, just as I told you they would. It has begun, and we still don’t have the T-34.’
‘Comrade Stalin, what I need to ask you is also important.’
Stalin pressed his hand against a panel in the wall and the trap door clicked open. ‘Well, come on, then!’
‘In there?’ asked Pekkala, the dread of confinement twisting in his guts.
‘Yes! In here. Hurry up!’
He followed Stalin into the secret passageway, his stomach knotting as he ducked into the shadows.
When they were both inside, Stalin turned a metal lever in the wall and the door swung silently shut.
A line of weak electric bulbs lit the way, trailing into the darkness.
As soon as the trap door shut, Stalin set off through the tunnel.
Pekkala had to struggle to keep up, painfully stooped so as not to bang his head on wooden spacer beams which crossed the ceiling at regular intervals.
Doors appeared out of the gloom, each with its own opening-and-closing lever. The rooms to which they led were marked in yellow paint. It smelled dusty in the passageway. Now and then, he heard the murmur of voices on the other side of the wall.
By now, he was fighting against panic. The low ceiling seemed to be collapsing in on him. He had to remind himself to breathe. Each time they came to a door, he had to struggle against the urge to open it and escape from this rat tunnel.
They came to an intersection.
Pekkala looked down the other passageways, the pearl necklace of bulbs illuminating dingy tunnels leading deep into the heart of the Kremlin.
Stalin swung to his right and immediately began to climb a flight of stairs. He paused halfway up to catch his breath.
Pekkala almost ran into him.
‘Well, Pekkala,’ Stalin wheezed, ‘are you going to ask me this question of yours or are you just keeping me company?’
‘The White Guild is finished,’ said Pekkala.
‘That does not sound like a question.’
‘Is it true? Has the White Guild been shut down?’
Standing above him on the stairs, Stalin loomed over Pekkala. ‘The operation has been terminated.’
‘And its agents have been reassigned?’
‘Officially, yes.’
‘Officially? What do you mean?’
This time Stalin did not reply. He turned and continued up the stairs. Reaching the top, he set out along another passageway. The floor was lined with dark green carpet, the centre of which had been worn down to the ridging underneath.
‘Where are those agents?’ asked Pekkala.
‘Dead,’ replied Stalin.
‘What? All of them?’ The sound of water gurgling in pipes rushed past Pekkala’s ears.
‘Last month, over the course of a single night, the six agents were tracked down to their lodgings in various parts of the city. It was a professional job. Each one was executed with a shot to the back of the head.’
‘Do you have any suspects?’
Stalin shook his head. ‘In his final report, one of those agents stated that he had been approached by some people wishing to join the Guild. One week later, the agents turned up dead. The names these people used turned out to be fake.’
‘Whoever these people were,’ said Pekkala, ‘they must have discovered that Special Operations controlled the White Guild. They found out who the Special Operations agents were and killed them.’
‘Correct.’
‘What I don’t understand, Comrade Stalin, is why you think the Guild might be involved in the Nagorski killing, when you have just told me you closed it down before he died.’
‘I did close down the Guild,’ said Stalin, ‘but I am afraid it has come back to life. The Guild was once a trap for luring in enemy agents, but these people, whoever they are, have now turned it against us. I think you’ll find they are the ones who killed Nagorski.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this, Comrade Stalin?’
Stalin threw the lever which lay flush against the wall. The door swung open.
Beyond lay a room with a huge map of the Soviet Union on the wall. The heavy red velvet curtains had been drawn. Pekkala had never seen this place before. Men in a variety of military uniforms sat around a table. At the head of the table was one empty seat. There had been a murmur of talk in the room, but as soon as the door opened, it fell silent. Now all of the men were watching the space from which Stalin was about to emerge.
Before entering, Stalin turned to Pekkala. ‘I did not tell you,’ he said quietly, ‘because I hoped I might be wrong. That does not seem to be the case, and it’s why I am telling you now.’ Then he stepped into the room and, a moment later, the door closed softly behind him.
Pekkala found himself alone in the passageway, with no idea where he was.
He retraced his steps to the stairs, then went down to the intersection. Before he reached it, all the lights went out. He realised they must have been on a timer, but where the switch was for that timer, Pekkala had no idea. At first, it was so dark inside the corridor that he felt as if he might as well have been struck blind. But slowly, as his eyes grew used to the blackness, he realised he could make out thin grey bands of light seeping under the bottoms of the trap doors spaced out along the passageway.
He could not read the yellow writing on the doors, so, sliding along with his back to the wall, he picked the first door he came to. Groping about on the wall, he found the lever and pulled.
The trap door clicked open.
Pekkala heard the sound of heels upon a marble floor and knew instantly he had emerged on to one of the main corridors of the Palace of Congresses, which adjoined the Kremlin Palace where Stalin’s office was located. He stepped through the opening and almost collided with a woman wearing the mouse-grey skirt and black tunic of a Kremlin secretary. She was carrying a bundle of papers, but when she saw Pekkala appear like a ghost out of the wall, she screamed and the papers went straight up into the air.
‘Well, I should be going,’ said Pekkala, as the documents fluttered down around them. He smiled and nodded goodbye, then walked quickly away down the corridor.
*
‘You forgot your gun again, didn’t you?’ asked Pekkala, as they drove towards the Nagorski facility.
‘No, I didn’t forget,’ replied Kirov. ‘I left it behind on purpose. We’re only going to talk to those scientists. They won’t give us any trouble.’
‘You should always bring your gun with you!’ shouted Pekkala. ‘Pull over here!’
Obediently, Kirov brought the car to a halt. Then he turned in his seat to face Pekkala. ‘What’s up, Inspector?’
‘Where is that lunch you made us?’
‘In the boot. Why?’
‘Follow me,’ said Pekkala, as he got out of the car. From the boot, Pekkala removed the canvas satchel containing two sandwiches and some apples. Then he set off into a field beside the road, pausing to snap off a dead branch, about the size of a walking stick, from a tree beside the road.
‘Where are you going with our food?’
‘Stay there,’ Pekkala called back. After he had gone a short way into the field, he stopped, jammed the branch into the ground, then removed an apple from the lunch bag and skewered it on to the end of the branch.
‘We were going to eat that!’ shouted Kirov.
Pekkala ignored him. He returned to where Kirov was standing, drew his Webley from its holster and handed it, butt first, to Kirov. He turned and pointed towards th
e apple. ‘What we will be doing …’ he began, then he flinched as the gun went off in Kirov’s hand. ‘For goodness’ sake, Kirov! You must be careful. Take time to aim properly. There are many steps involved. Breathing. Stance. The way you grip the gun. It’s going to take some time.’
‘Yes, Inspector,’ replied Kirov, meekly.
‘Now,’ said Pekkala, returning his attention to the apple. ‘What? Where’s it gone? Oh, damn! It’s fallen off.’ He strode back towards the stake, but had only gone a few paces when he noticed shreds of apple peel scattered across the ground. The apple appeared to have exploded, and it was a few more seconds before Pekkala finally got it into his head that Kirov had hit the apple with his first shot. He spun around and stared at Kirov.
‘Sorry,’ said Kirov. ‘Did you have something else in mind?’
‘Well,’ growled Pekkala, ‘that was a good start. But you mustn’t get your hopes up. What we want is to be able to hit the target not just once, but every time. Or almost every time.’ He fished another apple from the bag and stuck it on the end of the stick.
‘What do you expect us to eat?’ asked Kirov.
‘Now don’t go blasting away until I get back there,’ ordered Pekkala as he strode towards Kirov. ‘It is important to make a firm platform with your feet, and to grip the gun tightly but not too tightly. Now, the Webley is a well-balanced weapon, but it’s got a hard kick, much greater than the Tokarev.’
Casually, Kirov raised the Webley and fired.
‘Damn it, Kirov!’ raged Pekkala. ‘You’ve got to wait until you’re ready!’
‘I was ready,’ replied Kirov.
Pekkala squinted at the stake. All that remained of the second apple was a cloud of white juice, diffusing in the air. Pekkala’s mouth twitched. ‘Stay there!’ he said and went back into the field. This time he pulled up the branch, walked several paces further back and stuck it into the ground. Then he took a sandwich wrapped in brown wax paper from the bag and jammed it on to the stick.
‘I’m not shooting my sandwich!’ shouted Kirov.
Pekkala wheeled about. ‘You won’t? Or you can’t?’
‘If I hit that,’ said Kirov, ‘will you stop bothering me?’
‘I certainly will,’ agreed Pekkala.
‘And you will admit that I’m a good shot?’
‘Don’t push your luck, Comrade Kirov.’
Three minutes later, the Emka was back on the road.
Pekkala slumped in the back, arms folded across his chest, feeling the warmth of the gun’s cylinder radiating through his leather holster.
‘You know,’ said Kirov cheerfully, ‘I have a certificate of merit from the Komsomol for target practice. It’s hanging on my wall at home.’
‘I must have missed that one,’ mumbled Pekkala.
‘It’s in the living room,’ said Kirov, ‘right next to my music award.’
‘You got an award for music?’
‘For my rendition of “Farewell, Slavianka”,’ replied Kirov. He breathed in, stuck out his chest and began to sing, glancing in the mirror at his audience. ‘Farewell, the land of the fathers …’
One raised eyebrow from Pekkala shut him up.
*
Machine gun fire echoed around the buildings of the Nagorski facility.
In the confined space of the Iron House, the percussion of each shell merged into a continuous, deafening snarl. To Pekkala, standing at the entrance, it was as if the air itself were being torn apart. Beside him stood Kirov, the two men waiting while the metal snake of bullets uncoiled from its green ammunition box, spitting a shower of flickering brass from the ejection port of the machine gun. Just when it seemed as if the sound would never end, the belt ran out and the gunfire ceased abruptly. Spent cartridges rang musically as they tumbled to the concrete floor.
Gorenko and Ushinsky set the gun aside, climbed to their feet and removed the cup-shaped noise protectors from their ears. A hazy wreath of gunsmoke hung about their heads.
The weapon was aimed at a pyramid of 100-litre metal barrels. The diesel fuel these barrels once contained had been replaced with sand to absorb the impact of the bullets. Now gaping tears showed in the metal and sand poured in streams from the holes, forming cones upon the floor like time marked in an hourglass.
Ushinsky held up a stop watch. ‘Thirty-three seconds.’
‘Better,’ said Gorenko.
‘Still not good enough,’ replied Ushinsky. ‘Nagorski would have been breathing down our necks …’
‘Gentlemen,’ said Pekkala, his voice resonating through the girders which supported the corrugated-iron roof.
Surprised, both scientists wheeled about to see where the voices had come from.
‘Inspector!’ exclaimed Ushinsky. ‘Welcome back to the mad house.’
‘What are you working on here?’ asked Kirov.
‘We are testing the rate of fire of the T-34’s machine guns,’ replied Ushinsky. ‘It’s not right yet.’
‘It’s close enough,’ said Gorenko.
‘If the Colonel was alive,’ insisted Ushinsky, ‘he’d never let you say a thing like that.’
Pekkala walked over to where the scientists were standing. He removed the paper from his pocket, unfolded it and held it out towards the two men. ‘Can either of you tell me what this means?’
Both of them peered at the page.
‘That’s the Colonel’s writing,’ said Ushinsky.
Gorenko nodded. ‘It’s a formula.’
‘A formula for what?’ asked Pekkala.
Ushinsky shook his head. ‘We’re not chemists, Inspector.’
‘That kind of thing is not our speciality,’ agreed Gorenko.
‘Is there anyone here who could tell us?’ asked Kirov.
The scientists shook their heads.
Pekkala sighed with annoyance, thinking that they had come all this way for nothing. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Kirov.
As they turned to leave, the scientists began a whispered conversation.
Pekkala stopped. ‘What is it, gentlemen?’
‘Well …’ began Ushinsky.
‘Keep your mouth shut,’ ordered Gorenko. ‘Colonel Nagorski may be dead, but this is still his project and his rules should be obeyed!’
‘It doesn’t matter now!’ yelled Ushinsky. He kicked an empty bullet cartridge across the floor. It skipped over the concrete, spinning away among the sleeping hulks of half-assembled tanks. ‘None of it matters now! Can’t you see?’
‘Nagorski said …’
‘Nagorski is gone!’ bellowed Ushinsky. ‘Everything we’ve done has been for nothing.’
‘I thought the Konstantin Project was almost finished,’ said Pekkala.
‘Almost!’ replied Ushinsky. ‘Almost is not good enough.’ He waved his arm across the assembly area. ‘We might as well just throw these monsters on the junk heap!’
‘One of these days,’ Gorenko warned him, ‘you’re going to say something you’ll regret.’
Ignoring his colleague, Ushinsky turned to the investigators. ‘You’ll need to speak with a man named Lev Zalka.’
Gorenko looked at the ground and shook his head. ‘If the Colonel heard you say that name …’
‘Zalka was part of the original team,’ continued Ushinsky. ‘He designed the V2 diesel. That’s what we use in the tanks. But he’s been gone for months. Nagorski fired him. They got into an argument.’
‘An argument?’ muttered Gorenko. ‘Is that what you call it? Nagorski attacked him with a 40-millimetre wrench! The Colonel would have killed Zalka if he hadn’t ducked. After that, Nagorski said that if anyone so much as mentioned Zalka’s name, they would be thrown off the project.’
‘What was this fight about?’ asked Pekkala.
Both scientists shrugged uneasily.
‘Zalka had wanted to install bigger turret hatches, as well as hatches underneath the hull.’
‘Why?’ asked Kirov. ‘Wouldn’t that make the tank more vulnerable?’
‘But bigger hatches,’ interrupted Ushinsky, ‘would mean that the tank crew had a better chance of escaping if the engine caught fire or if the hull was breached.’
‘Colonel Nagorski refused to consider it. For him, the machine came first.’
‘And that’s why your test drivers have been calling it the Red Coffin,’ said Pekkala.
Gorenko shot an angry glance towards Ushinsky. ‘I see that someone has been talking.’
‘What does it matter now?’ growled Ushinsky.
‘Are you certain this is what Nagorski and Zalka were arguing about on that day?’ asked Pekkala, anxious to avoid another argument between the two men.
‘All I can tell you,’ replied Gorenko, ‘is that Zalka left the facility that day and he never came back.’
‘Do you have any idea where we could find this man?’ asked Kirov.
‘He used to have an apartment on Prechistenka Street,’ said Ushinsky, ‘but that was back when he worked here. He may have moved since then. If anybody knows what that formula means, it’s him.’
When Pekkala and Kirov left the building, Gorenko followed them out. ‘I’m sorry, Inspectors,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to forgive my colleague. He loses his temper a lot. He says things he doesn’t mean.’
‘It sounds like he meant them to me,’ remarked Kirov.
‘It’s just that we had some bad news today.’
‘What news is that?’ asked Pekkala.
‘Come. Let me show you.’ He led them around to the back of the assembly building to where a T-34 had been parked at the edge of the trees. The machine had a large number 4 painted on the side of its turret. Pekkala’s eye was drawn to a long, narrow scrape, which had cut down to the bare metal. The silver stripe passed along the length of the turret, neatly bisecting the number. ‘They brought it back this morning.’
‘Who did?’ asked Pekkala.
‘The Army,’ Gorenko replied. ‘They had it out on some secret field trial. We weren’t allowed to know anything about it. And now it’s ruined.’
‘Ruined?’ asked Kirov. ‘It looks the same as all the others.’