The Yermakov Transfer

by Derek Lambert

  As the sun rose higher the snow on the plain took on a pink tinge. A twist of blue smoke issued from the chimney of the railway station.

  Now the lay-out was plain; pine trees hiding the whole scene from the main line, the branch-line forming a loop after Panhandle station in the direction of the village with the bridge in the middle. There had once been a pathway from the station to the village – like the string of the bow formed by the rail track – and station and bridge were clearly visible from each other.

  Two companies of troops were packed into four hardclass carriages on another branch-line eight miles down the Trans-Siberian awaiting further orders from Brigade H.Q. at Chita.

  The men in the carriage strained their eyes until Pavlov pointed and said: “There it is.” The insect took the shape of a helicopter. It circled the bridge a couple of times, then slanted down so that they could see the pilot and observer staring down.

  Shiller said: “We don’t want him landing too near the bridge. We’ve got to assert ourselves.”

  Pavlov said: “Give me the Very pistol.” He opened a window and fired into the sky. The shell exploded in bright pink flame which hung for a few minutes like a second sun.

  The helicopter veered away at a sharp angle before going into circuit again, a marker for the reinforcements on their way.

  Pavlov shut the window and went down the corridor to the sleeper. Yermakov was sitting up in bed watched by the Planter with a Thompson sub-machine gun with a folding butt, a relic of American aid to Russia in World War II. Yermakov looked up as Pavlov came in. He looked full of menace and authority – or as full as an unshaven, dishevelled man being held at gunpoint can look. He said: “You’re all Jews?”

  Pavlov nodded. “A few half castes.”

  “You’re more ambitious than I gave you credit for.”

  “Thank you,” Pavlov said.

  “Now release me. If you don’t you’ll all be dead within a couple of hours.”

  “If we did we’d all be dead within an hour.”

  “What do you want?”

  Pavlov sat in the chair. To the Planter he said: “Get us some coffee from the larder.”

  “Do you want the gun?” the Planter asked, head cocked inquisitively.

  “It won’t be necessary. Close the door as you go out.”

  Yermakov said: “I want to shave and clean myself up.” There was no hint of fear in his voice.

  “After we’ve had coffee and a talk.”

  Yermakov swung his legs off the bed. His eyes were bloodshot; but he looked no better or worse than he did most mornings. He said: “You’re quite mad. You’re aware of that, I suppose?” He found his tie on the bed and began to knot it.

  “A case for compulsory psychiatric treatment? There are many crazy Jews according to the Kremlin.”

  “But you are crazy.”

  “And the others aren’t?”

  Yermakov shrugged. “I know a madman when I see one.”

  “A fanatic, perhaps. Are the Black Septembrists mad? Are the Israeli guerillas mad when they ride into Beirut knowing that some of them will die?”

  “I’ve lived and worked with madmen,” Yermakov said. “I know.”

  “But who,” Pavlov asked, “is sane?” He watched the helicopter circling. “Your troops will be here any minute,” he said. “I want to explain our demands.”

  “Requests,” Yermakov corrected him, pulling the knot of his tie.

  The door opened and the Planter came in with two cups of coffee. Pavlov told him to fetch the briefcase which Shiller had brought with him.

  They sipped their coffee, watching each other through the steam, until the Planter returned. Pavlov dismissed him and took a sheaf of papers from the case.

  Pavlov said: “I have here the names and addresses of ten Jews I want released, I want them out of the country within forty-eight hours.”

  “It can’t be done,” Yermakov said.

  “Yes it can. We’ve worked out the routes from each city they live in. Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev.… They can all be on planes tomorrow to London, Stockholm and Vienna. All it needs is your authority transmitted through the K.G.B. to OVIR. After all,” Pavlov said, “you don’t usually give the Jews much time to get out when you’ve finally made up your minds.”

  Yermakov blew on his coffee and drank it thirstily. When he had finished he wiped his mouth and said: “Why should we be considerate to deserters?”

  “Not deserters, Comrade Yermakov. Men and women who want to return to their homeland.”

  “Deserters, Comrade Pavlov.” Yermakov paused. “You are Viktor Pavlov, mathematical genius and husband of Anna Petrovna, Heroine of the Soviet Union, aren’t you?” When Pavlov nodded Yermakov remarked: “Then Razin was right.” He ran a metal comb through his hair. “No, Comrade Pavlov,” he went on, “the Jews who want to leave are traitors. We let them go because they have no place in the Soviet Union. Tell me, do all the Jews want to leave America and Britain and go to Israel?”

  “Many of them.”

  “Only a small minority.”

  “What are you trying to prove?”

  “Merely that there is always a minority of dissidents who want to leave the country that has nurtured them, educated them, trained them. It’s just the same in the Soviet Union.”

  “Not quite,” Pavlov told him. “You don’t get called a dirty kike or sheeny in Britain or America.”

  Yermakov raised his hand. “Please, Comrade Pavlov, don’t be naïve. I find naivety repugnant – innocence blighted by stupidity. Are you trying to tell me there’s no anti-Semitism in the West? Are you trying to tell me the way the Negroes are treated in the United States or the Pakistanis in Britain is better than the way we treat the Jews?”

  Pavlov smiled faintly. “You don’t have any coloureds in the Soviet Union. I seem to remember that African students at Moscow University weren’t too happy with their treatment.” He lit a cigarette. “What I am trying to tell you is that the Jews in the West are free – free, Comrade Yermakov – to follow the destiny they choose.” His tone became more brisk. “But we’re not here for dialectics. I want your signature on these documents sanctioning the release of these ten men.”

  Yermakov took the documents and studied them. “Are you sure they all want to leave?”

  “Quite sure. They have all made applications and been refused for the usual reasons – lack of references from their employers, lack of money to buy themselves out, lack of authorisation from relatives.”

  “Who are these men?” Yermakov’s tone was sardonic. “They must have brains or we would have been only too happy to get rid of them.”

  Pavlov said: “It doesn’t matter who they are. They are just Jews who want to go home.”

  “I’m not a fool, Comrade Pavlov – not naïve. They must be very special, these men.” He put the papers beside him on the bed. “Tell me one thing,” he said, “did your wife know anything about this?”

  “Nothing!”

  “I’m glad. But you must remember that, while you hold me, your wife is still in the Soviet Union.” He leaned forward, his features benevolent. “Would you be prepared to let your wife die for your cause? Your wife for ten Jews?”

  Pavlov stood up. He didn’t answer. “You have three hours in which to make up your mind.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then we blow the bridge,” Pavlov said.

  * * *

  Several Zealots including the Pupil, the Poacher and the Physician left during the night, heading for distant villages on cross-country skis. The Painter left the station in the early hours of the morning and headed west, leaving the Prospector in charge. At dawn the Prospector also left the station with his wolf, leaving the prisoners unguarded and running across the snow to the bridge. There were now five Zealots left – Pavlov, the Prospector, the Penman, the Planter and the Pederast; all the rest had quit.

  Bridges, assuming command, knocked the boards from a window, climbed out and opened the do
or for the rest of the prisoners. They stood breathing the iced air watching the helicopter flying up from the east.

  The K.G.B. men stood in a huddle, banging their hands together, trying to reach a decision. One of them pointed at the snow and picked up an automatic pistol dropped during the night.

  Boris Demurin leaned against the wall, his unshaven face bewildered. All night he had sat on the sacks, shaking his head and asking: “Why did it have to happen to me? My last trip. Why didn’t they wait?”

  Bridges gave him a cigarette and said: “You know the Trans-Siberian inside out. Where does this branch line lead to?”

  “I don’t know,” Demurin mumbled. “Leave me alone.”

  Bridges grasped the front of his blouse. “Pull yourself together. You must know where it goes to.”

  Demurin pushed his hand away. “It goes nowhere. A deserted village. All ruins. Then on to other deserted villages, other ruins.” He lit his cigarette with gnarled, shaking hands. “They could have waited. I didn’t want anything to go wrong.” He peered along the snow-covered track, his shoulders lifting a little. “I remember it here when they used to bring the gold out on the old, wood-burning freights. We used to have a lot of flyers in those days. Brodyagt and settlers who used to jump on to the tops of the coaches. It was always adventure in those days. Bandits raiding the trains, students at the controls derailing the engines.…”

  Bridges said: “We’re not short on adventure right now.”

  Demurin’s shoulders slumped again. “They’ve ruined me. Ruined everything. The past, the future.”

  Bridges handed him the pack of cigarettes, saying to Libby: “Let’s go to the village.” He took her arm and they started off towards the pine trees.

  The senior K.G.B. officer shouted after them. “Stay here. No one leaves.” He was the one with the Mongolian features.

  Bridges stopped, turning. “We’re leaving.”

  The K.G.B. officer pointed the automatic. “Come back. The authorities will be here soon.”

  “What authorities? You’re the authorities. Shoot me and you’ll have another international incident on your hands – on top of this mess.” Bridges gestured around. “Shoot me or the girl and you’ll be back at Lubyanka – in the cells.” He took Libby’s arm again. “Come on.”

  They walked on.

  “Will they shoot?” Libby asked, fingers tight on his arm.

  “They might. But I doubt it.”

  “I can feel him taking aim now.”

  “This is the way they shoot them in Lubyanka. You walk down a white-tiled corridor and get a bullet in the back.”

  They reached the pine trees. Bridges turned round. The policemen were following a hundred yards behind.

  “If you’re in the secret police,” Bridges said, “you exist through fear. When you lose your authority it works the other way. They’re scared.”

  “But they’re still behind us.”

  “Follow my leader,” Bridges said. He put his hand over hers.

  They took the short cut to the village, past the pit-head, the loop of the track and the iron bridge to their right, crossing the ravine in a single span attached to stone buttresses on either bank.

  “A beautiful bridge for blowing,” Bridges remarked. “Maybe that’s what they’re going to do.”

  Behind them the five K.G.B. men stopped.

  “Perhaps they’re going to rush it,” Libby Chandler suggested.

  “Only if they’re related to Japanese suicide pilots.”

  The five men walked towards the bridge, black crows against the snow.

  The rear door of the carriage opened and the muzzle of the Gruyanov machine gun popped out like a bird’s tongue. Someone waved a red flag.

  The five black figures marched on and the Gruyanov opened up with its barking cough throwing up a line of snow plumes ten feet in front of them. They faltered. Another burst nearer, the explosions cannoning off the mountains. The five turned and walked back to the wood.

  “They were brave,” Libby said. She was shivering and her fingers were still tight on his arm.

  “Come on,” Bridges said, “before they have a go at us.”

  They ran for the shelter of the pit-head. Beside it stood the wreck of an old wooden machine for getting gold from tailings. Between the pit-head and the railway stood a conical hill of slag. The abandoned place was deceptive in the snow, as though life was merely in deep freeze. They investigated the remains of a shed beside the broken wheels and arms of machinery. Snow had piled into the shed but above its line someone long ago had carved a message.

  Libby examined it. “My Russian doesn’t run to it,” she said. “What does it say?”

  Bridges read slowly. “We came to find gold. Instead we found …”

  “What?”

  “Not in front of an English rose.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Shit,” Bridges told her. He kicked the snow around. “Someone’s been here before us. His foot found a soft object and he picked it up. It was a new fur shapka.

  Bridges looked down the shaft. He dropped a stone down it and, after a long pause, they heard a splash.

  “I reckon they dumped the bodies down there,” Bridges said. Libby leaned against him. “Come on,” he said, “not even Miss Meakin encountered anything like this.”

  When they reached the village the sun was climbing the sky but the snow wasn’t melting. They investigated the store and found that someone had been living there recently. “Some of the hijackers,” Bridges said. He leaned on the battered counter while Libby gazed out of the door at the wooden church, its dome lying in the porch like an onion husk.

  Libby turned. “What are they trying to do, Harry?”

  “Viktor Pavlov is a Jew. I figure they’re all Jews, or at least they’ve got Jewish blood in them. They must be holding Yermakov to ransom. As they’re Jews the price must be the release of Jews. They couldn’t hope to hold out while all the Jews who’ve applied for exit visas get out. So I think they must be demanding the release of certain key men. It would be very interesting to find out who,” he added thoughtfully.

  “But they can’t escape from the bridge.”

  “They could demand a safe passage. Although the safety factor would be zero.”

  “So they’re committing suicide.”

  “Madmen often do. And Pavlov’s as crazy as they come.”

  “Harry,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I knew this was going to happen.”

  “What do you mean you knew?”

  She told him about the conversation she had overheard between Pavlov and Semenov.

  “Did Pavlov know you overheard him?”

  She nodded. “He saw me,”

  “Then you’re lucky to be alive.”

  “I promised not to tell you.”

  “A wise decision,” Bridges said. “I might have told Razin.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” she said. “You knew there was a plot of some sort but you didn’t tell him that night in Irtusk.”

  “I didn’t know enough. All I knew was that Pavlov and the guy they call the Prospector killed a man back in Novosibirsk.”

  He told her about the killing and the shooting at Sverdlovsk. “Stories happen to me,” he said. “Like this one.”

  “Will you send it to your newspaper?”

  “It would never get out.”

  “Then the only solution is to take it out.”

  “Without an exit visa?”

  “You’re hedging,” she said sadly.

  “You’re still looking for a man to admire?”

  “Tell me a woman who isn’t.”

  “Not all that many find them. They’re pretty scarce.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I know.”

  He took her arm and they walked round the decayed village. At the far end they found a small wooden building without a roof and silver birch crowding its walls. Bridges climbed the steps and rubbed the snow away from above
the frame of the door. “Well I’ll be damned,” he exclaimed. “Do you know what this was? A Jewish prayer house.”

  “Do you know what those are,” Libby said pointing to some tracks in the snow.

  “A bear by the look of it,” Bridges told her. “We have two choices: stay here and get eaten by a bear or go back to the K.G.B.”

  “The K.G.B. won’t eat us,” Libby said.

  The Red Army solved their dilemma. They came into the village, dressed in white combat gear, carrying AK 47 assault rifles. A platoon of hooded, weather-toughened soldiers commanded by a lieutenant with pistol drawn.

  They took Bridges and Libby back to the station where there was considerable activity. Troops were clearing the snow and erecting reindeer-skin tents. They had lit fires and the smoke smelled of autumn.

  Bridges and Libby were greeted by a major in uniform – long belted overcoat, leather boots, grey fur hat. His face was polished and healthy, his eyes ice-blue. “Ah,” he said in perfect English, “the wanderers returned. What were you doing – prospecting?” He stared approvingly at Libby. “English?” he asked; and, when she nodded, he said: “I lived in London for a long time. My father was in the Soviet Embassy. I liked it there very much.”

  Libby said: “I had a flat in Kensington not far from the embassy.”

  The major smiled, directing all his attention to Libby. “We’re a long way from Kensington now.” He frowned. “I should lock you up in the station. But if you give me your word you won’t try and escape you can stay out here. Not,” he added, “that’s there’s much point in escaping.” Reluctantly, he turned to Bridges. “You’re American, I believe. Do you give me your word you won’t try and escape?”

  “Sure.”

  The major looked doubtful. The word of a pretty English girl was one thing: the word of Harry Bridges was another. “Very well,” he said after a pause, “I’ll take you at your word.” He returned to Libby. “We’ll have some coffee going soon. Perhaps you’d like to join me? We’re under orders not to do anything at all.” He gazed ruefully at the carriage perched on the bridge. “Just one shell.… But they’re very clever,” he went on. “How would you feel,” he said to Bridges, “if it was the President of the United States up there? They can demand almost anything. But, of course, they’ll get killed in the end.” To Libby he said: “You look like a Siberian girl, except that they’re inclined to be a little plumper than you.” He smiled showing a lot of white teeth. “You have a very good figure.”