Red Icon

by Sam Eastland

  Back in the office ...

  Back in the office on Pitnikov Street, Kirov and Pekkala were planning their next move.

  Having learned from Elizaveta that Stefan Kohl might still be alive, they now realised who they were up against. For the first time, they held the advantage, and they knew they would have to act quickly if they were to have any hope of keeping it.

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ asked Kirov, ‘that we travel all the way to Ahlborn, simply because that’s where the icon was located?’

  ‘I believe we’ll find Stefan Kohl there,’ replied Pekkala.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because that’s where he thinks we will go.’

  ‘You mean he wants us to find him?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Pekkala, ‘because he knows that we still have the icon, and we know that he has come into possession of a chemical weapon which, at all costs, we must prevent him from using again.’

  ‘Even if it means giving up the icon?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pekkala. ‘Sacred though it may be, it is not worth another human life, let alone the thousands it might cost if we hold on to it.’

  ‘And you think that Stefan Kohl will be prepared to make a trade?’

  ‘I think he would do anything to get the icon back.’

  ‘If that is true,’ said Elizaveta, ‘then why doesn’t he simply show up at our door?’

  ‘Because, having tried and failed to steal it, Kohl has lost the advantage of surprise. If Kohl shows his face again in Moscow, he will find himself surrounded and with no means of escape. He will never get out of Moscow alive. I think he has gone back to Ahlborn, because it is the only chance he has left to meet us on his own terms.’

  ‘You mean he can set a trap for us,’ said Kirov. ‘Surely you don’t expect us to walk right into it?’

  ‘As long as we still have The Shepherd, we are safe.’

  ‘You sound as if you believe in the mystical powers of that icon, after all,’ remarked Elizaveta.

  ‘There’s nothing mystical about it,’ answered Pekkala. ‘If he tries to harm us, he might destroy the icon in the process. That’s not a risk he’s going to take.’

  Kirov saw there was no arguing with Pekkala’s logic. ‘I’ll call the Kremlin and let Stalin know about Kohl,’ he said as he picked up the telephone. ‘I’ll also see if Poskrebychev can arrange for transport to Ahlborn. That place must be pretty close to the front line by now. I assume you’ll want to leave right away, Inspector.’

  ‘We should have left hours ago,’ replied Pekkala.

  A few minutes later, Kirov hung up the phone. ‘Poskrebychev says that the Fascists have established a defensive line twenty kilometres to the west of Ahlborn. As of now, there are no reports of enemy troops in the vicinity, but the area is still patrolled by German fighter planes, which have shot down several Russian aircraft. This means that we will have to go by road. Poskrebychev has arranged for military transport to take us there, so Zolkin will have to sit this one out.’

  ‘And the agents Stalin posted outside our building?’ asked Pekkala.

  ‘They are being withdrawn as we speak,’ replied Kirov. ‘Comrade Stalin wants to see us before we leave,’ he added. ‘The Boss has some news and, according to Poskrebychev, we are not going to like it.’

  Down at Zolkin’s garage, Kirov told their driver that he would be staying home.

  In spite of his earlier complaints about the condition of the Emka, Zolkin took the news hard. ‘But what am I to do while you are gone?’

  ‘Look after Elizaveta,’ answered Kirov. ‘You’ll do that, won’t you, Zolkin?’

  At first, Zolkin seemed too surprised to speak, but he quickly returned to his senses. ‘Why, of course!’ stammered the driver. ‘I’ll guard her with my life, Comrade Major.’

  Kirov slapped him gently on the shoulder. ‘I expected nothing less.’

  While they waited for the transport to arrive, Pekkala remembered that he had left something behind. Excusing himself, he made his way up the five flights of stairs. Back in the office, he walked over to the mantelpiece, where he had placed the atropine given to him by Dr Tuxen at the Karaganda morgue. Carefully, he tucked the bulky syringes into his pocket. Although Pekkala hoped they’d never have to use the antidote he knew that sooner or later, for radicals like Stefan Kohl, dying made more sense than living. If the Skoptsy chose to make a martyr of himself, he and Kirov might well be the ones he chose to take with him to oblivion.

  Shortly afterwards, a Russian Army GAZ-67 staff car arrived to pick up Kirov and Pekkala, and the two men were driven to the Kremlin for their meeting with Stalin.

  ‘The results are back from the laboratory at Sosnogorsk,’ he told them. ‘I’m afraid the news is worse than we thought. What killed the prisoner Detlev is a substance they have never seen before. They’re calling it,’ Stalin snatched up the report and read from it directly, ‘ “an organophosphate compound of profound toxicity”. According to them, this stuff is many times more lethal than any of the poison gases used during the last war.’

  ‘Do they have any idea where it might have come from?’

  Stalin shook his head. ‘To our knowledge, the only company engaged in work on organophosphates was IG Farben, in Germany. Fortunately, we have an informant at the laboratory; a man named Otto Meinhardt, who has been keeping us informed of their work. Thanks to Meinhardt, in spite of IG Farben’s attempts to conceal their true intentions behind a bogus programme for developing coal solvents, we learned that they were, in fact, engaged in the production of chemical weapons. At least they were until Hitler gave the order to cancel the project, which was code-named Sartaman. It was shut down last year and Meinhardt saw to it personally that the Sartaman laboratory was dismantled, the samples destroyed or quarantined and all development terminated. According to Meinhardt, the weapon which killed Detlev should not exist. It was known as soman, but it was never put into production because IG Farben was never able to stabilise it.’

  ‘So what we must conclude,’ continued Pekkala, ‘is that somebody managed to stabilise the compound after all.’ Stalin slumped back in his chair. ‘That appears to be the case.’

  ‘But if not by IG Farben then by whom?’ asked Kirov.

  ‘According to Meinhardt, the only person who might have been able to stabilise the compound is the scientist who created it.’

  ‘And who is that?’ asked Pekkala.

  ‘Professor Emil Kohl.’

  ‘Kohl?’ repeated Kirov.

  ‘I thought that might sound familiar to you,’ remarked Stalin. ‘It did not become significant until we learned from you today that the man you might be looking for in connection with the icon has the same last name. We immediately contacted Meinhardt to find out if there was any connection. He confirmed that the two men are, in fact, brothers although Meinhardt says they have been bitter enemies ever since Stefan joined the Skoptsy.’

  ‘And where is Professor Kohl now?’ asked Pekkala.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Stalin confessed. ‘Emil Kohl has disappeared, and we must assume that he is in possession of the weapon he invented. That’s how his brother got hold of it.’

  ‘The two of them must be working together,’ said Pekkala. ‘The question is why, since, by all accounts, they hate each other.’

  ‘War forges strange alliances,’ said Stalin, ‘and whatever the reason for this one, you must find a way to stop the Kohl brothers. Together, they have formed a lethal alliance. One of those men has a Doomsday prophecy and the other has a weapon that could make it a reality.’

  One morning in ...

  One morning in January of 1945, Professor Emil Kohl received two letters. Both were postmarked Ahlborn, dated two weeks apart and written by different people.

  The first was from his father, saying that he had been taken ill and once more pleading for a visit from his older son.

  The second letter, this one written by Stefan, was an announcement of the death of Viktor Kohl and the date set f
or his burial. There was no request for Emil to attend, Stefan having assumed that it was hopeless even to ask.

  So it caught the younger brother by surprise when, on the day of the funeral, Emil showed up at his door.

  ‘I am not here for you,’ were the first words out of Emil’s mouth.

  Even though the brothers had grown apart with the passage of time, they had also grown more similar in appearance. Their thinning hair had been cropped short and both men looked rounder in the chest. Once-prominent cheekbones were now hidden by the fullness of their age. In addition, each brother had independently adopted the curious habit of not looking directly at a person when speaking to them.

  But if it caught either one by surprise to come face to face with this blurred reflection of himself, he made no mention of it.

  Although Emil and Stefan stood side by side at the service, neither one talked to the other. They sang, they knelt, they prayed and they shook hands with a long line of parishioners, but it was as if each man stood alone. It had become a test of wills, to see who could cling longest to the silence that enveloped them. Only after they had accompanied their father’s coffin down into the crypt did they finally begin to talk.

  It was Stefan who spoke first. ‘I can’t undo what’s done,’ he said.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Emil rounded on his brother. ‘No you can’t!’ he shouted, ‘and even if you spent the rest of your life begging for forgiveness, the pain you’ve caused could never be undone.’

  ‘I will not apologise,’ said Stefan. ‘I have nothing to apologise for, least of all to you.’

  ‘Nothing?’ Emil demanded angrily, his voice echoing about the crypt, where the new pine of their father’s coffin seemed to glow in the light of the paraffin lanterns used to light the space. ‘You left me to clean up the mess you made of this family when you wandered off to join that monstrous cult. Even back at school in Krasnoyar, the pressure was on me to live up to our parents’ expectations. You had it easy. They expected nothing from you.’

  Stefan tried to reason with his brother. ‘There’s no point in blaming each other for the different ways in which our parents treated us. They are gone now. All we have left is each other, and if we could just sit down and talk . . .’

  ‘You would not want to hear the things I have to say,’ Emil interrupted.

  ‘Maybe not,’ replied Stefan, ‘but I would rather hear them now than get to the end of my life knowing we might have come to terms and chose instead to wallow in our pride.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ said Emil.

  ‘No!’ Stefan told him. ‘As long as we draw breath, it will never be too late, and I will always be here to help you if I can.’

  That evening, the brothers walked the two kilometres to the railway station in the nearby town of Kottonforst. In the cool evening air, they stood on the platform and shared a cigarette. The burning tip glowed poppy red as each man inhaled the smoke, before passing it back to the other.

  Before long, the train arrived, belching steam and clanking to a stop.

  Two soldiers, home on leave, disembarked. One had made his way from Italy, still wearing the faded sandy-olive cuff title of his service in the Afrika Korps. Another man, bundled in the grey leather coat of a U-boat commander, wandered back and forth along the platform, softly calling the name of his wife.

  ‘Remember what I said,’ said Stefan, as his brother climbed aboard the train.

  That night, fearing an imminent Soviet assault upon the town, German troops arrived in Ahlborn and ordered the villagers to evacuate. Those who could not walk were piled on to trucks. The rest escaped on foot. Before he joined the stream of refugees, Stefan Kohl returned to the crypt, prised open his father’s coffin and placed the icon, still wrapped in its protective cloth, between the dead man’s hands. It was the only place where he felt sure that the The Shepherd would be safe. ‘You owe me that much,’ Stefan whispered to his father’s corpse, before he nailed the coffin shut again.

  Only a few days after returning to the laboratory in his house at Leverkeusen, Emil completed his work on stabilising the soman compound.

  All this time, Emil had been waiting for a call, perhaps from Hitler himself, informing him that he was needed. Now he began to realise that the call was never going to come, that he had been the victim of a hoax, and that this hoax had been his own invention. The dismantling of the IG Farben lab had not been a ruse after all. Hitler had never intended for him to keep the Sartaman Project alive, and the fact that he had done so, in spite of a direct order from the highest authority in the Reich, would virtually guarantee him a death sentence, if ever his work was discovered.

  Emil’s mind see-sawed between the fear that he might, at any time, find himself under arrest, and the dismay that the true potential of his discoveries had not been appreciated, after all.

  This left him with very few options. He could go to Meinhardt, explain his mistake and hope that they showed him some mercy. Or he could destroy all the work he had done on his own and hope no one ever found out.

  Neither one of these seemed very promising.

  It wasn’t long before a third option took shape, one that would allow him not only to save his own life but the Sartaman Project as well.

  His own country had turned its back on him. That much seemed perfectly clear. And their ignorance would cost them dearly.

  The only course of action now, Emil decided, was to turn himself over to the Allies. There, he had no doubt, his achievements would be properly recognised.

  The only question was how.

  Before the war, Emil had kept in touch with numerous chemists in the Soviet Union. He had been a part of several international organisations and had served on committees with men and women whom, thanks to the bungling of politicians, he was now forced to consider enemies. But he had never thought of them that way. Theirs was a community of science, not of political ideals and national boundaries. In spite of this, the war had severed their lines of communication and Emil had no way of getting in touch with them.

  What he needed was someone familiar with Russian culture, who spoke the language and had travelled widely there. Such a person could re-establish contact with his former colleagues. Once they learned what he had to offer, they would surely waste no time bringing him across the lines.

  Where could he locate such a person? He did not even know where to begin. But the more Emil thought about it, the more he came to realise that the answer to this dilemma was his own brother.

  Stefan had said he would always be there to help. This would be his chance to prove it.

  He immediately applied for two weeks’ leave from IG Farben, where his continued employment was little more than a charade, and set out for Ahlborn, carrying a rucksack filled with clothes and a briefcase containing three vials of soman, each one contained within a silver-lined glass tube and sealed with a spring-loaded cap.

  His leave had been readily granted by Meinhardt, who seemed quite happy to know that Kohl would not be glooming around the laboratory and performing tasks which, both men knew, were next to useless in light of Germany’s current situation.

  Knowing that Meinhardt would be in no hurry to have him return, Kohl reckoned that it would be at least a week after his leave ended before Meinhardt sent someone to find him. It would then take the authorities a further couple of weeks to track him to his brother’s house in Ahlborn, by which time, with luck, he would already be gone.

  On the morning of 4 February 1945, having reached the nearby town of Kottonforst by train, Emil managed to find a place on a cart belonging to a farmer heading in the direction of Ahlborn.

  The farmer regarded Emil suspiciously, and seemed to take particular offence at the neatness and good repair of the professor’s clothes. The man’s own wardrobe included wooden clogs and a loosely woven sack coat with two large patch pockets on the front, each one of which was crammed with objects useful to the man, such as a pipe with a well-chewed stem and a pack of Skat cards
. There was also a piece of paper with some phrases written down for him in Russian by a Soviet prisoner he had employed on his farm until, finally acknowledging that the war was lost for Germany, and anticipating the imminent arrival of the Red Army, had allowed the man to escape, but not before instructing the prisoner to write down the words for ‘I am a friend’, ‘Long live Comrade Stalin’ and ‘Don’t shoot. I surrender.’ The prisoner, who had been half-starved by the farmer and made to live in a chicken coop, dutifully wrote down ‘I hate all Russians’, ‘Death to Comrade Stalin’ and ‘Go ahead and shoot me you bastard’ before slipping away from captivity.

  ‘You can ride in the back,’ the man said to Professor Kohl, and then to emphasise his lack of want for company, he spat on the plank next to him, where Emil might otherwise have sat.

  With his suitcase on his lap, Kohl jostled on a pile of mouldy-smelling hay until they reached a crossroads in the woods. A signpost which had once pointed the way to Ahlborn had been snapped in half by retreating German soldiers, in a desperate attempt to lead the Red Army astray in any way they could.

  ‘That way,’ said the man, nodding down one of the roads.

  Emil thanked him and climbed down off the cart.

  ‘You are not from Ahlborn,’ said the man.

  ‘No,’ admitted Kohl.

  ‘Then why go?’

  ‘I have family there.’

  ‘Not any more, you don’t,’ the man told him. ‘The Army took them all away. The Reds are coming, or haven’t you heard? The only people left in Ahlborn now are either dead or those who are insane enough to have returned to their homes.’

  Kohl nodded. ‘That just about sums up my relatives,’ he said.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ grunted the farmer.

  Soon afterwards, Emil arrived at the outskirts of the village. There was little damage to be seen and the solidly built houses and small shops which lined Ahlborn’s only street were all more or less intact. Some of the buildings had holes in their roofs. A few of the doors had been kicked in. As Emil made his way towards Stefan’s house on the other side of town, he held his breath while he stepped around the rotting remains of a dead cow, its bones showing through the tightly drawn black-and-white hide. He was startled to see the dark hulk of a Russian tank parked in a muddy lane, but a second glance at its peeled paint and bare metal, already beginning to rust into a pinkish fuzz, told him the tank had burned out and been abandoned.