by Sam Eastland
Following Vassileyev’s instructions, Kovalevsky and Pekkala waited at a tram stop across the road from the telegraph office. Each time a tram halted to allow passengers on or off, the two men would step back until the tram had departed and resume their observation of the telegraph office. It was a small building, painted bone-white except for a red sign, outlined with black and gold, above the entrance, which read, ‘Government Signals Bureau’.
‘I don’t think he’s ever coming,’ muttered Kovalevsky, after they had been standing there for an hour.
‘Vassileyev taught us to be patient,’ replied Pekkala, although he was beginning to have his own doubts.
It was three hours before Worunchuk finally arrived. The physical description Vassileyev had provided them made the suspect easy to identify. He was a heavy-set man with an olive complexion, sharp, sloping nose and a black moustache. He wore a black, velvet-lapelled overcoat that came down to his knees of the type commonly seen on lawyers, bankers and office managers.
Worunchuk had chosen the time of day when most businesses were closing, and the streets were filled with people heading home from work.
Rather than risk losing him in the crowds, Kovalevsky and Pekkala hurriedly crossed the road as Worunchuk ducked into the telegraph office. They waited two doors down, outside a woman’s clothing shop, until Worunchuk appeared a few minutes later, tucking an envelope into the chest pocket of his coat.
He set off at a brisk pace along the road which ran beside the Moika River. Several times, he crossed the street and then crossed back again for no apparent reason, forcing Pekkala and Kovalevsky to reverse direction in the middle of the road. Once he stopped in front of a butcher shop, eyeing the cuts of meat on display behind the large glass window.
It was not long before Worunchuk crossed the Potsuleyev bridge, leaving his pursuers sweating with exertion as they watched him disappear among the commuters. As soon as he was out of sight, Kovalevsky and Pekkala hurried back to Vassileyev.
They found him sitting behind his desk, whittling out the inside of his wooden leg with a large bone-handled pen knife. ‘Did you find him?’ asked Vassileyev, without even looking up to see who had entered the room.
‘Yes.’ Kovalevsky removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed the sweat from his forehead. ‘He moves quickly!’
‘And he crossed the Potsuleyev bridge?’
‘That is correct, Inspector,’ Pekkala confirmed, ‘and from there, we let him go, just as you ordered.’
‘Good!’ Vassileyev laid his wooden leg upon the table. ‘Tomorrow you will do the same again. Follow him to the Potsuleyev bridge.’
‘Yes, Inspector,’ both men chorused.
Vassileyev aimed a finger at them. ‘But no further. That’s an order!’
The next day and the next and the next, the two men took up their station at the tram stop.
Worunchuk kept a tight schedule, arriving at the telegraph office at three minutes to five every day. The route he took to reach the Potsuleyev bridge also remained unchanged, and varied only in those places where he zigzagged mindlessly across the road. But he always stopped at the butcher shop, standing before its large glass window to study the cuts of meat.
‘Why doesn’t he buy anything?’ muttered Kovalevsky. ‘If he can afford a coat like that, he can spring for a few links of sausage!’
When, once more, Worunchuk vanished across the Potsuleyev bridge, Kovalevsky turned angrily and began striding back towards Vassileyev’s office.
Pekkala struggled to keep up.
‘This is doing no good at all!’ Kovalevsky’s voice was filled with frustration. ‘As far as I can see‚ he’s doing nothing wrong.’
‘Yet.’
Kovalevsky stopped and turned to face Pekkala. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said “yet”. He hasn’t done anything wrong yet.’
‘This city is filled with people who haven’t done anything wrong yet. Are you suggesting that we follow all of them?’
‘No,’ Pekkala replied, ‘only the one Inspector Vassileyev has ordered us to pursue.’
Kovalevsky grunted disapprovingly, then headed off again towards Okhrana headquarters.
The next day, on Vassileyev’s orders, they were back at the tram stop, opposite the telegraph office.
Kovalevsky was in an even fouler mood than he had been the day before. ‘This is not what I signed up for.’ He glared at Pekkala. ‘Did you sign up for this?’
‘No,’ Pekkala told him. ‘I did not sign up at all. It was the Tsar who sent me here.’
At two minutes past five, when Worunchuk made his usual departure from the telegraph office, Pekkala and Kovalevsky set off after him, following at a safe distance.
As he did every day, Worunchuk paused before the butcher shop.
‘For pity’s sake,’ growled Kovalevsky, ‘go in and buy something today!’
Suddenly, as if Kovalevsky’s suggestion had forced itself into his mind, Worunchuk stepped into the shop.
‘Finally!’ groaned Kovalevsky.
The two men slowed their pace and came to a halt one door down from the butcher shop.
‘We shouldn’t stop here,’ said Pekkala. ‘We’ll walk slowly past the shop and wait for him on the other side. He’s bound to come out soon.’
As the two men strolled past the butcher shop, they were shocked to find Worunchuk standing in the doorway.
He had not entered the shop at all, but only stood at the entrance, waiting for the men to walk by.
Stunned, Pekkala and Kovalevsky met his stare, unable to hide their true purpose.
Angrily, Worunchuk pushed past them and set off towards the Potsuleyev bridge. He did not run. Nor did he turn to look back. It was as if he knew they could not touch him.
Pekkala had taken only one step in the direction of the fleeing man before he felt Kovalevsky’s arm on his sleeve, holding him back.
‘It’s no use,’ whispered Kovalevsky. ‘He’s made us. Somehow he figured it out. We might as well go back and tell Vassileyev we have failed.’
Gloomily, the two men watched him disappear into the crowd.
Half an hour later, Pekkala and Kovalevsky presented themselves at Vassileyev’s office.
Vassileyev was sitting at his desk, smoking a cigarette which he had taken from a gold and red box labelled ‘Markov’. ‘Well?’ he demanded, raising his chin and whistling a thin jet of smoke towards the ceiling.
‘He spotted us,’ explained Pekkala.
‘How?’ Vassileyev’s face showed no emotion.
After a deep sigh, Kovalevsky continued with their story. ‘He was waiting for us in the doorway to a butcher shop. He stopped there every day but never went inside. This day, he finally went in, at least we thought he had. .’
‘Did the shop have a window?’
‘Yes, for displaying the meat. Every day he went to see what they’d set out. But he never bought anything!’
‘He wasn’t looking at the meat,’ said Vassileyev. ‘He was studying your reflections in the window.’
As the truth became apparent, Pekkala lowered his head in shame and stared at the floor.
Kovalevsky’s lips began to twitch. ‘But when he crossed the road, back and forth, he never looked back. He didn’t see us then.’
‘He didn’t need to. He was testing who kept pace with him. Anyone not following him would maintain their speed along the pavement, but you would return to the exact same distance behind him. And all the confirmation he needed would be there for him to see in the shop window when he stopped.’
‘I am sorry,’ muttered Kovalevsky,
‘We are sorry,’ added Pekkala.
For a moment longer, Vassileyev’s face remained stony. Then, all of a sudden, he began to smile. ‘You have both done very well.’
The two men stared at him in confusion.
‘You did exactly what I hoped you would do,’ explained Vassileyev.
‘You mean to let him see us?’ asked Kovalevsky.
‘You didn’t let him,’ said Vassileyev. ‘He outsmarted you. That’s all.’
‘And that was what you wanted?’ asked Pekkala. ‘I don’t understand, Chief Inspector.’
‘Worunchuk is not the man we’re after. As I told you‚ he is only a courier.’
‘Then who are you trying to arrest?’ asked Kovalevsky.
‘A bomb maker named Krebs. We believe he might have been the one who built the device that killed Tsar Alexander III. He has no politics, no convictions. He simply builds bombs for whoever can afford to pay him. We learned from an Okhrana agent at the telegraph office that messages had begun arriving regularly for a certain Julius Crabbe, a known alias for Krebs. The messages are coded, of course. We have no way of knowing exactly who he’s building for now, or what will be done with the bomb when it is ready. Our only chance is to arrest Krebs before he has a chance to deliver the bomb.’
‘But why not simply follow Worunchuk to the place where he’s delivering the telegram?’ Kovalevsky asked exasperatedly.
‘Oh, we’ve done that.’ Vassileyev dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand. ‘He lives in a flat across the road from the Petersburg Wind Instruments Factory.’
‘And why not arrest him there?’ asked Pekkala.
Vassileyev smiled patiently. ‘Because we happen to know that Krebs has prepared explosive devices strong enough to destroy the entire building, along with half the others on the street, if anyone should try to force their way into his apartment. We need to catch him when he is out on his own. Otherwise, he will kill as many or more people than would have been killed by the bomb he’s constructing now.’
‘But Worunchuk will have told him by now that he was being followed by the Okhrana. Surely he’ll be on the next train out of town.’
Vassileyev shook his head. ‘Worunchuk is a professional. He probably realised you were following him the first day you showed up outside the telegraph office.’
‘Then why would he come back the next day, and the next and the day after that?’
‘He was studying you,’ said Vassileyev, ‘seeing how well you were able to track him without being noticed.’
‘Not well at all, apparently,’ said Pekkala.
‘Exactly! And Worunchuk would quickly reach the conclusion that he was not dealing with agents of the Okhrana, who would have undergone months of training. What he would have seen were a couple of amateurs. Forgive me, boys, but what I needed from you these past few days was not your expertise but rather your lack of it.’
‘Then who will he think we are, if not government agents?’ asked Kovalevsky.
Vassileyev pursed his lips and let his hands fall open. ‘Most likely, just a couple of local thugs looking to shake him down. The fact that you would only follow him as far as the Potsuleyev bridge would have convinced him of this, since the gangs in this city co-exist by operating in specific territories. The bridge is one such boundary marker, and a line gang members would not dare to cross.’
‘We could have gotten him,’ said Kovalevsky. ‘He was standing right in front of us.’
‘It’s lucky for you that you didn’t try,’ replied Vassileyev. ‘He would have killed you both for sport.’
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Pekkala. ‘Do we simply show up tomorrow at the telegraph office and start following him all over again?’
‘There would be no point, ‘Vassileyev told him. ‘Worunchuk won’t be there. The fact that he was being followed, even if it was only by a couple of thugs such as yourselves, means that he can no longer function as a courier for Krebs. As soon as he has informed Krebs of the situation he will vanish, probably to another city. No doubt we will run into him again someday. But, for now, that leaves Krebs without a courier to receive his messages. He hasn’t got time to engage another courier.’
‘He will have to collect them himself,’ said Pekkala.
Vassileyev nodded. ‘And when he does, we will be waiting.’
‘What about the person who is paying for the bomb?’
‘In the city of Kiev, there is another equally humiliated pair of young Okhrana agents, and a courier who thinks he’s gotten the better of them. It won’t be long before the man who ordered the bomb is face to face with the oblivion he had planned for many others.’ Vassileyev stubbed out his cigarette and immediately reached into the box to find another. ‘Congratulations, boys. You have just completed your first successful mission.’
‘And what is this last mission to be?’ asked Kovalevsky, as he carefully spooned up his soup.
While Kovalevsky ate, Pekkala explained everything.
By the time he had finished, Kovalevsky’s bowl was empty. With a sigh, he pushed it to the centre of the table, sat back and folded his hands across his stomach. ‘What I don’t understand, Pekkala, is why you need my help at all. It has been years since I practised my old trade. Surely Stalin has his own men to do this job!’
‘He does, but none that he can trust. Somewhere in the ranks of NKVD, or even in the Kremlin itself, there is a traitor. If this person, whoever he is, learns of our plan to bring back Gustav Engel, as soon as we cross the lines, we will be heading straight into a trap. You are the only one with the necessary skills whom we are certain is not involved.’
‘Yet.’
Pekkala nodded.
‘You mentioned that this would be my final mission‚’ said Kovalevsky. ‘I do not mean to sound mercenary‚ Pekkala‚ but what exactly are you offering in exchange for my help on this case?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, Pekkala.’
‘No, old friend. I don’t think you understand. When I said nothing, I meant that your past would be officially forgotten. You would simply go back to living out your life as Professor Shulepov.’
‘That is more than generous,’ said Kovalevsky. ‘Besides, it would have been hard to walk away from a job I’ve grown to love. I am also tired of running. But I wonder if you realise just how difficult a mission this could be.’
‘Getting through the German lines never sounded easy to me.’
‘That is not the hard part,’ explained Kovalevsky. ‘The greatest challenge, since you cannot simply kill this man and be done with it, will be in persuading him to come back with us.’
‘Persuading him? It almost sounds as if you expect him to come of his own free will.’
‘That is precisely what I mean,’ replied Kovalevsky.
‘But surely there are ways to smuggle him across, even if he doesn’t want to go?’
‘There are, but none of them are reliable. We can drug him, bandage him up and try to carry him through as a badly wounded soldier. If it was only a matter of hours, this method would be practical, but it will take days to return and the longer we try to keep a man knocked out, the greater the risk that we might accidentally kill him with the drug, or that the drug might fail and he wakes up and sounds the alarm. If that happens, or if he gets away from you, we are as good as dead.’
‘Is there any way to do this without drugging him?’
‘If you are afraid he might run, you can cut one of his Achilles’ tendons.’
Pekkala winced at the matter-of-fact tone in Kovalevsky’s voice.
‘But the injury tends to arouse suspicion,’ continued Kovalevsky, ‘and unless you find a way to silence him, the man can still cry out for help.’
‘I have taken many people into custody over the years, but none under circumstances as difficult as this.’ Reluctantly, Pekkala returned to Kovalevsky’s original idea. ‘How do you propose that we convince a man to travel with us to what might be his death?’
‘In that one sentence, Pekkala, you have already provided the answer.’
‘I have?’
‘You said “might”. Once we have him at gunpoint, Engel will quickly realise that his chances of surviving an escape attempt are next to none. He will also understand that his odds of surviving in Soviet captivity are very small. Small as they might be, how
ever, we must convince him that this small chance of survival does exist, provided he cooperates. Add to that the possibility that if, on arriving in Moscow, he agrees to tell you everything he knows, he will not only survive, he will prosper.’
‘You mean to get him to change sides.’
Kovalevsky shrugged. ‘If the alternative is a hole in the ground, changing sides can be a mere formality. Remember what this man is fighting for. It is not a love of one country and a hatred of another. It is these works of art. If we can offer him a stake in their future, as well as a future for himself, I think the outcome of this journey will be the one that Stalin has in mind. Have you met this man Engel?’
‘No. That’s why we are bringing someone who can identify him. Her name is Lieutenant Churikova.’
‘Even better. When it comes to convincing Engel, a woman is likely to be more persuasive than a couple of thugs like us.’
‘Even if she can persuade Engel to come with us of his own free will, it will be much harder for Engel to persuade Stalin to keep him alive.’
‘Stalin has made peace with enemies before, provided they are useful enough. You and I are living proof of that. If Engel plays his cards right, he may yet live a long and happy life.’
Their meal concluded‚ the two men stood up to leave.
It was drizzling as they stepped out into a world of moving shadows. On account of air raid precautions, the streetlamps were no longer illuminated. The only lights came from vehicles which, with their headlights blinkered into slits, resembled huge black cats prowling through the rain-slicked streets. Many people were still on their way home from work and since the tram and underground services had been scaled back due to fuel shortages, the pavements were busier this time of day than they had ever been before the war.
‘Do you know what my first thought was when I saw you at the school?’ asked Kovalevsky. Without waiting for an answer, he went on. ‘I thought to myself that Myednikov would have been disappointed in me.’
‘But why? After all, you are the one who survived.’
‘That was more luck than skill. I neglected the most important rule he ever taught me — to have an exit out of every situation, whether it is a way out of that restaurant, or a route out of the city or the country. And then there is the exit through which you disappear forever, after which the person you knew as yourself no longer exists. But that is the most dangerous one of all. After you have gone through that door, only one exit remains.’