by James L. May
“Wait,” Petrovich said. He was panting, his cane slipping. “Now wait a minute. There could be an accomplice in Company Sixteen. The best place to hide coffins would be with the sorry bastards whose job it is to dig our graves, wouldn’t it? You’re right to want to go to Vinogradov, but we’ve got to be careful. Move too fast, we’ll give away what we know. What if someone in Infosec knows all about it? That could be why they tried to kill the case.”
I shook my head. “There isn’t time. We have to get Vinogradov to act now. Today.”
I still didn’t understand all that had transpired. It looked as though Antonov’s plan to liberate the icons from their captivity on the island had gone forward, even after his death. Whether the coffins had been spirited away from the grave site, or simply never delivered, I couldn’t say. It could only have been done amid the secrecy and chaos of a shooting. And if Administration had sent, instead of the drunken Uspenski, a representative with any interest in confirming that the requested preparations had been made—it almost seemed to require advance knowledge of the executions.
Calculating in cold blood on the scheduled passing of bullets through the heads of eleven men didn’t seem like Antonov. But where did that leave us with the partners we’d considered for the smuggling operation? Someone from the Anzer warehouse would almost have to be involved. But how could they—Zhenov, Kologriev, or whoever—have known about the shooting before it happened?
We’d reached the kremlin’s southeastern tower when we heard the noise. Three long, low blasts, lower than our usual steam whistle, unmistakable. It was the ship’s horn.
Petrovich grabbed my arm, but I already knew. “That’s the last of the season,” I said.
“At Administration they were saying the water would freeze finally, tonight or tomorrow. If they’re aboard, if they leave—”
If they left, we were finished. The story could only be corroborated one way. Infosec would never consent to exhume the bodies they’d spent so much effort to blot off the island’s face. Vinogradov could help us if the coffins were still on the island, but once the ship had sailed they’d be beyond our reach. There was a wireless station for communicating with the mainland and boats at sea, but with the water expected to become impassable in a matter of hours rather than days, the authorities would never permit the year’s last shipment of lumber to be faced about and returned to Solovki. The prospect of coordinating a search of the ship at Kem was little better; too much could go wrong, there were too many ways to slip stacks of paintings past uncaring and ignorant guards. We didn’t even know how they had been smuggled aboard.
And the icons would be on the boat. That was certain. The alternative was to store them through six months of winter.
“You go to Vinogradov,” I said. “Tell him what we’ve found. See if there’s anything he can do. I’ll try to stop the boat.”
He hesitated. “I will need the documents. For the monk.”
I took them from my coat and handed them over. One of us had to reach the museum. And anyway, papers or no, at best I would be able to delay the ship’s launch briefly. Even with Vinogradov’s stamp, no one would launch a search of the cargo on my say-so.
Petrovich looked on the verge of saying something—the mustache had begun to bend, the sign of some gruff sentiment about to be emitted—but I left before he could do it. There was no time, and I had no interest in a long goodbye.
As I rounded the southern tip of the kremlin, the bay came into view, smoking in the frigid air. The Gleb Boky rode low in the water. It covered more than half the quay on the opposite side of the bay, a hundred and fifty feet. The steamer’s telegraph masts and rigging bobbed and swayed before the white administration building, giving the whole the air of a huge, slow insect turned on its back. Men scuttled about the deck, steam rose from amidships. The red star on the side of the funnel was the only color in the otherwise drab scene.
I broke into a run. Along the road, prisoners had stopped to watch the departure, huddled at the water’s edge or sheltering in the eaves of what few little structures there were. I saw one of them jerk a thumb at me and say something. His friends laughed, but whatever it was he’d said was lost on the wind as I passed. The huge stones of the kremlin wall flashed by in the snow.
On the quay itself I had to slow down to make my way through the crowd. Work crews leaned against the sledges they’d brought in, with a more active cluster closer to the edge of the water. The gangplank had not been raised—I was able to see that, at least. Halfway up, someone argued with a gray-uniformed guard, gesturing angrily.
“Look,” said a voice behind me. “Still room for that stuff, isn’t there? Not packed quite as full as they’ve been making out, I reckon.”
Down at the other end of the ship, a crane was lowering a pallet loaded with long, low crates to the deck. At one end was a sailor in a pea coat. At the other, buttoned up to the neck as usual and with one huge hand gripping a guy rope, was Kologriev.
Kologriev. That was who, then. Strange, after so long, to put a face to that enemy. The problem of unwinding the secrets around Antonov had reduced itself to stopping the man on the crane.
Looking back on it, the shock of revelation was surprisingly weak. You expect to be angry at a murderer, to hate a man who’s tried to kill you. I looked at him to see whether he resembled either of the figures who’d chased me through the forest that night. His build wasn’t right for the one I’d seen up close at the canal, but I thought he could have been the other, the one who’d first appeared before me on the road. But whether he’d tried to do it with his own hand or not, he’d meant to put a knife in me. And Antonov, Foma: he was responsible for both those deaths as well.
But watching him pass above the heads of the crowd there was like looking at a painting of someone you hate, which you can easily turn away from to look at something else. Since my first glimpse of Antonov’s body, laid out there on the quay with the pink blood frozen in his face, the case had continually put so much before me that there was no lingering over anything. My attention turned constantly from one detail to another. Always the task was to look past, to see what lay behind. In this way even Kologriev, himself behind so much, slid out from beneath my eyes.
Where were the icons? Had they been loaded into the boxes I’d seen on the pallet with him, or were they still somewhere on the quay? The only way I could think of to find out was to stop him, confront him somehow.
I turned to the man who’d spoken behind me. “They shouldn’t be putting those on,” I said.
He gave me a surprised look. “What do you mean?”
“I happen to know they’re contraband. Prohibited goods.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”
“I’m telling you you’re right, there’s still room on the ship. Maybe if you get this sorted out, you can get your load on.”
If the man took my advice it might slow down the ship’s departure, but it wouldn’t be enough. I didn’t wait to see what he’d do. A few more shoves with my elbow brought me to the bottom of the plank.
“—your head on the block when they find out in the Forestry Section that this order hasn’t reached the depot in Kem!” The man I’d seen from the edge of the crowd was still yelling. His eyes popped with anger.
“Not my head,” said the guard.
When he felt the wood bowing under my steps, the man with the Forestry Section order turned. “What do you want?” he said.
Adding a third person to the plank made it crowded. Below, in the chute formed by the ship and the wall of the quay, the water welled up blackly, more slush than liquid. The gap was narrow.
“Listen,” I said, trying to talk around him, to the guard. “This ship can’t leave yet. It’s an emergency.”
“Ship’s leaving soon as they cast off,” said the guard. The bill of his cap was pulled low over his face. “Horn just blew.”<
br />
“Not until my lumber’s on,” said the other man.
I hesitated. Explaining too much would only confuse them and waste time. “Something’s been smuggled aboard.”
“What are you talking about?” the other man said again, before the guard could speak.
“Something stolen,” I said. “They’re trying to sell it on the mainland.”
He threw up his arms. “There! You see? I’ve been telling you, the whole process is a bad joke!”
The guard shrugged. “Not my process. Not my job. Told you, I only make sure no one comes on.”
“Whose job is it, then? I told you before, I have a writ from Forestry—”
A low guardrail made of pipes, painted white, circled the hull. A life preserver hung on each post, but in the wide gaps between them there were no balusters. The wood of the deck, recently shoveled or swept clear, was already stippled with a slippery-looking layer of snow.
“You two get off now,” said the guard, catching a signal from someone further down the ship. “They’re going to pull this up in a minute.”
“I won’t,” said the other man. “There was to have been a berth reserved—”
I jumped. My feet slid from under me when I hit the deck. My chin hit the bar—the taste of blood filled my mouth—but I’d wrapped my arms around the rail, and was able to scramble through underneath.
“Hey,” said the guard, “what are you doing, you prick? Fuck! Stop that guy.”
Someone crouched in my way, working at something on the deck. I caught a surprised face in a watch cap, a rope in his hands. Before he could stop me, I was past.
Behind, the sound of the argument delaying the guard reached me.
“If he’s allowed on the ship, I’m going, too. We’ll just see if that hold is as full as you say.”
“Oh no you don’t. He’s not allowed any more than you are. You’d better stay here.”
“Listen, the berth, reserved—”
The crane had put Kologriev down somewhere towards the ship’s bow, on the other side of the cabin. What I would do when I found him, I still didn’t know.
“Hey!” That was behind me. I skidded around the corner. I could hear excited voices raised on shore—someone had seen me running. Footsteps thudded at my back.
Coming around the bow to the other side of the ship, I pounded into a kind of sudden privacy. With the flat box of the cabin blocking out the crowd, the bay’s expanse made itself present again, as if it had been waiting behind a door. Even pelting through the snow, I was aware of new quiet and altered distances. I slowed.
Kologriev was nowhere to be seen, but the sailor I’d noticed on the other end of the pallet—I thought it was the same one—leaned on the railing, staring off across the water. Next to him were the crates that had ridden with them.
There were five, one stack of three and another of two, like two stairs leading up and over the rail. The narrow, two-yard boxes were all roughly the same shape, but now that I could look at them closely, I could see that their proportions were off. Here one was a little shorter, another a hand’s-breadth deeper, a third squatter. And they were a patchwork, each side made of mismatched wooden panels, attached to each other with what appeared to be tongue-and-groove joints. Where the larger panels were insufficient, gaps had been filled in with new, yellow wood, but most of the grain was gray or beige, worn and old.
Again the shock of knowledge. These were the coffins—these were the icons, hammered together, with the painted sides turned in. I’d assumed Kologriev would have disassembled them after claiming them out of the grave. Instead he’d simply nailed on their lids. Transit papers had been glued to the outside of each.
More thudding from behind—“Sorry, Chief Mate. Sorry.”—and a hard arm wrapped around my neck. I jerked, and someone else grabbed me by a flailing elbow. “Crazy bastard jumped aboard. Just now.” The man panted in my ear while I struggled. “We’ll take care of it. Hand him over to the guards.”
“Wait,” I said, choking the words out best I could. “Wait. Damn it. Those crates. Shouldn’t be here. They’re coffins. That is—paintings.”
The mate, or whatever he was, raised his hand. “Just a moment. Let him talk.”
The arm around my neck loosened. “Those—crates.” I hesitated, coughing a little. “They’re being used to smuggle paintings—icons—off the island.”
“I don’t think so. These contain …” He made a show of consulting the transit manifest. “Salt in twenty-five-pound bags.”
“No.” I shook myself free of the men who held me. There were two of them, both sailors by their looks. The guard must have been stuck arguing with my collaborator on the gangplank after all. “Kologriev—the man who brought them—it’s the boxes themselves he cares about. They’re painted—painted on the inside.”
The mate considered. “I’ll settle this,” he said, waving off the other sailors. “You two get back to work.”
The one who’d choked me gave me a little push in the shoulder as he left. I caught my breath for a moment. Down at the edge of the bay, I could see the huddles of men I’d passed earlier, the kremlin looming above them. They looked small.
“Now,” the mate said after watching the others disappear. He stood before an open hatch, with a set of stairs disappearing down it into the hold. Tall and thin, he was in his late forties or fifties, with a long, grizzled neck. He had a competent look. “Tell me what this is about.”
I went over to the stacks of coffins. The lid of the topmost one on the taller, outer stack hung an inch over the side of the box. The nails that fastened it on were small and few.
“If we can open one of these,” I said, “I’ll show you.” I could hear the start of panic in my voice: Kologriev was still somewhere on the ship. I took a grip on the lid and began to pull. The coffin shifted. It was surprisingly light, lighter than it should have been if it had been filled to the brim with salt, but I could feel something shifting inside. “The paintings—they’re icons. You see, these panels are the backs. The wood is old. You can see the paintings themselves if you only get the lid off. On the other side they’re all gold leaf and saints.”
Unfolding his arms, the mate came over to inspect the panel I was yanking at. “Why would someone use something like that to make a box?”
“They’re selling them. On the mainland. They were stolen. From the camp museum. Please, it will be perfectly clear if we can only pry off the lid.” With the fingers of my good hand under the rim and my elbow against the opposite side of the box, I had leverage. As I spoke, the lid slowly began to separate. A nail creaked out, then a louder creak as two more went.
The mate’s hand thumped down onto the lid, knocking it back into place. “And what’s your involvement with it all?”
His hooded eyes took me in. For the first time that day, I was aware of my appearance: my stupid cap, my dirty bandage. “There’s been a murder,” I said. “It’s complicated. Please, there must be a crowbar. Something. You’ll see.”
The chief mate nodded slowly, then looked up at the distinctive sound of boots on metal stairs.
“That spot is fine,” said a familiar voice. “Let’s get the fucking things moved.”
“There you are,” said the mate. “What are we going to do about this?”
The face that rose above the deck was Kologriev’s. “Anatoly Bogomolov. Fuck your mother. You are fucking persistent.”
The wind blew through my coat. I stepped back and bumped into the mate, who’d maneuvered behind me. Between the two men, the wall of the cabin, and the coffins, I was trapped.
“He knows, Ivan,” said the mate. “You haven’t done much of a job keeping things quiet, have you? How the hell are we going to fix this?”
All of it was surprisingly calm. So often a crisis’s nature does not make itself apparent in the critical scene. No one rais
ed his voice, or made a sudden move. The arrival of a new face had simply launched a new phase of the conversation. I’d been wondering where Kologriev was. Now he was here. It was natural. My heart beat harder, but I thought it was slower.
“How are we going to fix this, Bogomolov?” said Kologriev.
“How did you fix things with Gennady Antonov?” I said.
His eyes flicked over my shoulder to catch the mate’s. “Yeah. Suppose that is how it’s going to be. Don’t know why you should be getting your prick up about it, though. Not like it’s good news for you.” His voice was flat. “We’re all going below deck now.”
“Just a minute,” said the mate. “A hundred men just saw him jump onto this ship. We’re going to have to answer for it if he doesn’t make it off.”
“A hundred men? That’s fine. I told you, my friends in the big office already think Bogomolov here has been making plans to escape. Now everyone’s seen him jumping on a boat headed for the mainland. They’ll thank me for saving the bullet.”
“And what if he has friends of his own?” said the mate. “They radio ahead, and we find someone waiting for us in Kem, wanting to search my hold for your damn boxes of salt.”
“You don’t think I would have radioed ahead before I came here?” I said.
Kologriev’s beady eyes hadn’t released mine the whole time he’d been talking to the mate. Again, the high reediness of his voice struck me, but it was irrelevant. The wide shoulders, the hard body: the man was a door ready to open, with violence on the other side.
“He’s bluffing you, you cunt,” he said to the mate, reacting to some expression I couldn’t see. “The only friend he has is some geriatric cop from Odessa. Neither one has any pull, and I’ve got plans to take care of the old man, too. Don’t wor—”
I drove my head back without warning, trying to catch the mate in the nose. I only managed to hit the side of his chin, but I surprised him. I twisted as he grabbed at me, and we both staggered against the wall of the cabin.