“All right,” the lieutenant said, “Let’s hear what you’ve come up with.”
Senior Private Lada Kornikova spoke first, “I’ll tack up my crime scene photos on the board,” she said, referring to the north wall of the office that was covered with corkboard.
She moved aside her Hasselbladski—Kiev 88 model—camera and efficiently placed the photos in an array that showed the room as if one were looking at every wall, the floor, and the ceiling laid out before him. The men all blushed at their quick reaction to the statuesque Nordic beauty as she moved her curvaceous body in quick, graceful moves which allowed momentary stray thoughts. None of them would ever have touched her. They were all protective of the charming bright girl; Lada was their little sister; and perhaps the best detective among them after Lt. Stepanovich; but she was like a fine painting, with her beauty only suggestively hidden under her dumpy uniform. The gruesome scene of the murder was shown in unforgiving clarity of light and color from her excellent photographs, including the impacted sword, the small amounts of blood on the floor, and the considerable amounts in the bathroom.
“We typed the blood, and the blood type was the same as the general’s—B positive—with no other contributor. We questioned every member of the staff; and Georgy, Ivan, and Yuri Alexandreovich are all agreed that no one knows anything or saw anything except for the head nurse, Sister Maria Nikolayovna Ilyushkin, and the floor nurse, Ludmila Mikhailovna Kovalevsky. Yuri questioned the Kovalesky woman. He can tell you what came of that.”
“She was very excitable and very feminine; by that I mean emotional … no disrespect to you, Lada. However, she held to her story that she overheard the man speaking to Head Nurse Ilyushkin in both German and French. He also spoke Russian to her. Ludmila overheard the man saying something to the general to the effect that ‘You don’t seem surprised to see me,’ or maybe ‘You seem surprised to see me,’ which suggested that the two men knew each other.”
Lt. Stepanovich listened intently and took notes but did not have anything to say at that point.
“I talked to the head nurse, Sister Maria Nikolayovna Ilyuskin,” Ivan Viktorovich Lebedinsky said. “I am convinced she knows more than what she is telling, and she might be telling outright lies in some of the particulars she related. She denied speaking French or German to the man. All she would say is that she told the unknown male that he did not have a proper pass to go to the general’s room. He should not even be in the convalescent home at all.”
“So, what excuse was given for his presence?” Lt. Stepanovich asked.
“Maria said that he had a pass from General Lagounov’s longtime aide-de-camp, Colonel Dimitri Sobrieski; so, she got Ludmila to take the man to Gen. Lagounov’s room—and that was the last she saw of the mystery visitor.”
“Did anyone talk to Sobrieski?” Lt. Stepanovich asked.
“Not yet,” Ivan said. “He lives in Pushkin outside of Leningrad. Maybe you remember it better as Detskoye Selo. The name was changed after the October Revolution.”
Trushin nodded.
“We have sent for him. Our dear friends in the KGB have authorized it. Seems they are more than a little interested in our case.”
“How nice for us,” Trushin said almost under his breath.
“He should be here by tomorrow afternoon if our soviet engineering marvel of a fast train doesn’t have an unfortunate malfunction owing to sabotage by the counterrevolutionary cabal that is still here, there, and everywhere, trying to undermine our glorious triumph.”
All of the police officers present in the cramped office turned their heads aside to avoid their sudden smiles from showing too completely for safety.
“I’d like to handle that interview personally,” Lt. Stepanovich said. “What else?”
“Ivan and I dusted for fingerprints, Trushin Vasilyovich,” Yuri said. “The room was full of them. It will take a long time to sort them out, and I am afraid that we will have to ask help from the American FBI to get anywhere.”
“Our new KGB friends won’t like that,” Trushin said.
“No, sir, they won’t. You get to approach them. That’s why you get all the extra rubles and all the glory, Lieutenant,” said Ivan Viktorovich.
Trushin just grumped.
The following morning, Lt. Stepanovich sent underofficer Lebedinsky and five of the brighter young MYC to dig into Gen. Lagounov’s official records. Stepanovich made the call to the number two in the Moscow KGB office and was surprised that he agreed to allow–and even to help in–Trushin’s investigation. Apparently the KGB did not like to have its senior officers murdered and was more than happy to help the MYC find the killer. It would cost Trushin and his MYC something: once they had the perpetrator in custody with sufficient evidence to convict him and anyone who aided him, the KGB would take custody and deal with any questioning, trial, conviction, and sentencing, and would do so out of the public eye. The Soviet Union was a giant records machine, and Stepanovich hated getting bogged down in it. He thought to himself that he would owe Lebedinsky a steak dinner when this was over.
Trushin and Lada interviewed two former officers who served under General Lagounov, intending to learn as much as possible about the dead man’s relationships during his career and whether or not he had cultivated any serious enemies. The first man was Col. Gavriil Davidovich Nabatov.
“Col. Nabatov, let me assure you that you are not under suspicion and you are in no trouble. This is a routine part of an important case the MYC and the KGB are conducting, and you need only answer questions honestly. Once we are satisfied with that, you will be free to go. Do you have any questions, sir?” Lada asked courteously, playing her part of the soft ment.
“I will have nothing to say unless I am questioned by someone of equal rank to me or who outranks me. You certainly are not that person. And, furthermore, I will not be answering any questions before I know fully what is going on and why I am being questioned.”
“I certainly mean you no disrespect, Colonel. However, this is a serious MYC matter, and we have our policies and procedures. The first of which is that I ask the questions, and you answer them. You give the information requested, and I record that information and evaluate it. The second matter of policy is that you have the right to be questioned by the KGB and likely by ranking officers. If you exercise that right, we will have you delivered to the Lubyanka this very morning. What is your choice?”
“My choice is to call your bluff, young lady. Perhaps you should get back to the kitchen or to tending the kiddies where you belong. I am leaving now. I shall report your insolence to my superiors and yours. I suspect you will be singing a different tune by the end of this morning.”
He stood up stiffly and started for the door of the interview room. He looked back to see Lada’s reaction, unaware that he was being observed through a two-way mirror. Lada raised her index finger in a laconic gesture. Col. Nabatov opened the door; and two burly KGB noncoms stepped up beside him, grasped his arms and twisted them around his back, and placed him none too gently in handcuffs.
“Sit,” the larger and uglier of the two sergeants said, and Nabatov was shoved down hard into an uncomfortable straight-back metal chair.
The noncom dialed a number from memory.
He listened then said, “Sergeant Dragnarovich.”
There was a reply which no one but the sergeant heard.
There was a five minute pause during which no one spoke.
Then Sergeant Dragnarovich placed the receiver of the telephone against Col. Nabatov’s ear and said, “KGB Col. Rudolph Vladimirovich Fedorchuck II.”
Col. Nabatov did not speak; but he evidently listened, because his face paled; and he started to sweat. He knew all about the man speaking to him, although he had not met him in person. Fedorchuck was head of the KGB’s Fifth Directorate, responsible for ideology, countersubversion, and the Agitprop Department. He was one of the most powerful men in the Soviet Union, and probably the most universally feared.
Nabatov stared daggers at Lada; but when he returned to his seat in the interview room, he was deferential.
“Now, where we, Colonel…?” she asked.
“I was about to tell you what I know about the unfortunate General Lagounov. Ahem … where shall I start.…? Lieutenant General of Cavalry Grigory Yegorivich Lagounov served the revolution in a Workers and Peasants’ Red Army cavalry unit headed by Gen. Budenny before 1922 when he was just a boy. His first service was during the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledin’s Volunteer Army in the River Don region. He rose rapidly in the ranks owing to his … how shall we say...? particularly effective methods. Lagounov was credited with having come up with the motto of the Cheka troops: “Exhortation, Organization, and Reprisals” which was widely considered to express the necessary discipline and motivation to ensure that the Red Army would achieve tactical and strategic success. His first real command was over the Cheka Special Punitive Brigades which conducted summary field courts-martial and executions of deserters and slackers. That stiffened the backbones of any would-be slackers.”
“And perhaps caused him to have some enemies, Colonel?” Lada asked as if it were merely an aside.
“Not perhaps, Comrade Kornikova. Lagounov was widely known as one of the Great Leader’s men-of-steel. Slackers, deserters, and fifth columnists learned early on to hate him, but to fear him more than that. He was an innovative and determined leader whose record in the Great War was cited by Comrade Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin then and afterwards in the period leading up to the Great Patriotic War.
“You are obviously too young to remember the Great War, Comrade Kornikova; so, allow me to share a bit of pertinent history. During that time, the war became a deadlock of trench warfare and futile—near suicidal—mass attacks. Then Captain Lagounov developed the concept of having selected shock troops attack weak points along the Austrian lines. General Brusilov agreed and put the captain in charge. Lagounov selected the best of the best soldiers and cavalrymen and had them detached from the main army lines. He sent them to infiltrate enemy positions. Then, he would call for short ferocious artillery fire on the weak point so that that point was attacked from both the front and the rear. Often that resulted in a narrow, but important breakthrough. The senior officers opposed him and his tactics because it violated the army’s fixed plans. His men were considered to be no better than mere spies by some of the generals. The shock troops grumbled some about the high rate of casualties they suffered and blamed that on Captain Lagounov. When he learned of their discontent, the captain had them shot in front of the surviving troops as an object lesson. Despite the complaints from above and below, Comrade Iosif Vissarionovich continued to support him; and Lagounov was considered to be untouchable. He was awarded the honor of becoming the youngest officer ever to be named a Cavalier of the Order of the Red Banner for his instrumentality in breaking the cohesiveness of the enemy’s lines.”
“We will need names of men who might have borne Lagounov a lasting grudge and who could still be capable of carrying out an assassination. I want you to prepare such a list for us in as much detail as is possible to be found, Colonel,” Lt. Stepanovich interjected for the first time.
“It will be done,” Col. Nabatov declared.
“Please submit your list to my subordinate, Militsiya Underofficer Ivan Viktorovich Lebedinsky. I expect the list within seventy-two hours.”
“Comrade Lieutenant–with respect–that is an impossible request to fulfil in that period of time. I can assign a team of a dozen–maybe more–of my best technicians and analysts; but just finding such records will take a great deal of time and considerable persuasion. Am I permitted to use Gen. Fedorchuck’s name as the senior authority?”
“You have that authority, Colonel, and to show that I am a reasonable man, you are allowed seven full days to complete your task,” said Lebedinsky.
Lada Kornikova resumed her questioning of the colonel, “Please continue your narrative, Colonel.”
“Ten years after the Great War, Lagounov was elevated to the rank of kombrig [equivalent of brigadier] in the Cheka. Exactly when he was formally transferred to the chekists is uncertain, but not long after the end of the Great War.”
“And in that organization, I presume he created enemies in addition to those he acquired during the war,” Lada said.
“Every chekist did, and many of them were murdered by peasants, successful deserters, and regular army officers who were appalled by the excesses of the secret police. It would be impossible even to number the multitudes of people who hated Lagounov, let alone compose a list of them.”
“Get us the names of some of the most prominent, Colonel,” Trushin ordered.
Nabakov shrugged but nodded his head.
“Again, some history is pertinent. It is really not very useful to separate Lagounov’s involvement with the Cheka, the NKVD, the MVD, the NKGB, the MGB, or finally with the KGB we have today. There were a series of reorganizations; and by and large, it was only the most cruel, unfeeling, and violent of the people—including some women—who survived and advanced in rank. The chekists or any of their later titles had a lot of jobs: they requisioned food for the Red Army troops, tortured political opponents, put down rebellions, quelled riots, conducted summary executions of deserters; and I am quite sure that Lagounov’s last assignment related to policing labor camps. I think he was in charge of releasing the longest-held prisoners—some as late as the mid-fifties.”
“Making enemies by the hundreds all along the way.”
“More like by the thousands—or tens of thousands if you include the families of the victims. They were arrogant in the extreme and took no effort to hide what they were doing. They strutted around in long shiny flowing leather coats and hightop black boots. The chekists had an affectation. They all had amber worry beads that they took pleasure in fingering as they conducted torture and massacres. It was sort of a mark of distinction—an in-group kind of identifier. They laughed at their torture victims and the families, all but daring them to try and resist or to plan revenge. Lagounov used to be particularly open about it. He is was … probably the only man who went to the camps who actually enjoyed the experience.”
“A sadist.”
“Of the first order. No better than Hitler.”
“Is there really anybody left that we might find records about who might hold a murderous grudge, or even some kind of group that could be sponsoring revenge? Come to think of it, Lada, we need to check around to see if there have been any other suggestive murders,” Trushin said.
“I’ll check the databases from outside the Rodina—even outside the satellites—after we get done here,” Lada said thoughtfully.
“He headed up the so-called ‘Special Punitive Department or Extraordinary Commission’ with mass arrests, imprisonments, and executions of presumed enemies of the people—the class enemies like the libertarians, socialists, clergy, bourgeoisie, and anarchists, even people strongly on the left of the communist political spectrum.”
“With hundreds of thousands of potential suspects for us to sift through,” Lada said.
“I’m afraid you’re too conservative, Comrade Kornikova. Just the deserters alone numbered more than three million men, and more than two-thirds of them were arrested. Add to that the numbers of surviving family members and your counts go up to numbers that could populate a medium-sized country.”
“We have to pare down the numbers somehow, Colonel,” said Trushin. “Do you think you could get us into the records of the worst cases, so we would have someplace to start?”
“Actually that is a good idea, becau
se there are records of the Military and Revolutionary tribunals both inside and outside war zones and of the gulags. Strangely enough the commisars were fanatics about keeping records. The secret police shot deserters, shot hostages to force deserters to give themselves up, and tortured people by the hundreds of thousands. I read a report that said that the worst torturers ended up with psychopathic disorders and had to be hospitalized in lunatic asylums. They became alcoholics and drug addicts. The psychiatrists writing the reports tended to trivialize the problem, concluding that it was just an occupational hazard.
“I can get records of the worst kinds of atrocities—which General Lagounov undoubtedly supervised—and maybe you can find a very few survivors but more family members and friends. I have seen records of people being skinned alive, beheadings, beheadings by fixing a man’s body in place then twisting his head on his neck until the head was separated from the body, scalped, impaled on Poles; so, they did not die immediately but suffered agonies, hanged, stoned, boiled, jammed into barrels with spikes studded on the inside and rolled about, tied to posts along the street in winter and covered with water so that they became ice statues, and being tied down while starving rats ate them alive. The government in the last two years has declared such things illegal, and police are allowed access to the records.”
“Colonel, that sounds like a good place to start. Thank you for your service,” Trushin said, and everyone was aware of a significant thawing in the atmosphere.
“I apologize for my attitude at the beginning. I actually want to help, but please do not let my name be known. I will not last a day if you do.”
“You have my word.”
Russian Supper Recipes
Basic Russian Vareniki or Pelmeni Dough (Russian Pierogi)
Ingredients
• For dough:
-1 large egg, 2 tbsp sour cream, ¾ cp water, 1 cp water, 1 cp whole milk,5 cps all-purpose flour, plus about 1 cup more for dusting.
• For the filling: potato and onion, blueberry, cherry, and ground pork and turkey
The Charlemagne Murders Page 32