Stalin's Ghost

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “Granddad is still looking for Stalin. He’s in his own world.”

  Sofia Andreyeva allowed Big Rudi a sip of brandy using the cap of her flask as a cup. “I don’t want to see him in the morning on a slab.”

  “Any vodka?” Big Rudi inquired.

  “I think he’s back in our world.” She said to Rudi, “I noticed you when I was describing the remains. You stood out.”

  “Thank you.” Rudi was flattered.

  “You are a Black Digger, a professional.”

  “Yes.”

  “You dig to make money.”

  “I’m a businessman, yes.”

  “I wonder how much money would you demand to go into those trees tonight?”

  “You couldn’t give me enough.”

  “Why not?” Arkady asked. “Don’t you think the mines are harmless?”

  “Every year a ‘harmless’ mine blows off someone’s leg.”

  “But a professional like you would see the mine.”

  “Maybe.”

  Arkady looked to see Zhenya’s reaction, but the boy was gone. A flap at the back of the tent was untied.

  “May I borrow your flashlight for a moment?”

  Arkady stepped out into the rain, turned on the beam and did a 360-degree sweep of trenches, smoldering campfires, beer cans, mound of skulls, piles of soil. Zhenya was on the field at the edge of the beam’s reach, halfway to the trees. He had his hood up and in his black anorak he would have been invisible except for the reflective trim on his backpack. The reflection got weaker and weaker.

  It occurred to Arkady that when he had so abruptly left Moscow for Tver, Zhenya may have felt abandoned. All the conversations on the phone about monsters may have been a boy hanging on for an invitation that was never issued. Arkady hadn’t even said when he was coming back. And when Zhenya came to Tver was he appreciated or treated like excess baggage? Valuable insights but a little late.

  At night the pines were a solid wall rising from the field, and though the rain eased up the boughs dripped and with every step Arkady sank ankle-deep in damp needles. He followed winks of yellow light to a lamp set in the center of the stand, a clearing five meters across where Urman dug like a stoker while Zhenya sifted. The detective was stripped to the waist and looked like a muscular Buddha except for his shoulder holster and gun. He had already dug a fair-sized hole.

  “Any luck?” Arkady asked.

  “Not yet,” Urman said. “But things will go a lot faster now that I have a partner.”

  Zhenya kept his face a blank. Arkady noticed Urman’s shirt and leather coat neatly folded on a tree root next to Zhenya’s backpack.

  Arkady asked, “Zhenya, have you ever noticed how much a pine forest smells like a car freshener?”

  Zhenya shrugged, not in a mood for humor.

  Arkady asked Urman, “Where is your partner?”

  “Nikolai is going to get the Americans back. I’ll dig up the right remains and we’ll tape for television.”

  “The Americans are gone. In fact, so is Isakov.”

  “He’ll be back and then he’ll get them back.”

  “What do you think, Zhenya?”

  “Like Marat says, if we find the right remains…”

  Urman said, “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Renko, there are a lot of bodies here. It’s a mass grave.”

  A grave where the dead came up for air, Arkady thought. A skull, half-submerged, stared up from the dirt. In the glow of the lamp leg bones resembled candlesticks.

  “It’s also a minefield,” Arkady said. “I don’t see a metal detector or a probe.”

  “We don’t have time for all that. Anyway, there’s nothing left to blow here.”

  “You just didn’t find it.”

  “You’re trying to scare the kid.”

  “Maybe he shouldn’t be here. I’ll stay. If you want, I’ll dig for you.”

  “I’m going to give you a shovel to swing at my head?”

  “Whatever you want, as long as Zhenya goes back.”

  “He doesn’t want to go.”

  Arkady lost patience. “There’s no reason to be afraid of me. Granted, you killed some people, but no one particularly cares about the murders except Ginsberg and me. He’s dead and I’m in Tver, which is much the same thing. Why the urgency?”

  “The people we killed were terrorists,” Urman told Zhenya.

  Arkady said, “You shot them in the back and in the head. You executed them. And the ones you killed in Moscow were your fellow Black Berets.”

  Urman shook his head for Zhenya’s benefit. “Poor man, that bullet really did scramble his brains. Look, Renko, now the kid’s smiling.”

  It was a sickly smile.

  Arkady said, “Zhenya, don’t put on your backpack, just run.”

  Urman stepped out of the hole. “Why should he run and leave his chess set? And what else? Why is the backpack so heavy?” Urman reached into it and pulled out the stripped frame and barrel of a handgun. “Your gun. He brought it for your protection but there never seemed the right moment. In fact, I think that moment has come and gone.” He dropped the pieces back in.

  Arkady felt the conversation gain speed. Or maybe it was that they tossed their last few words aside like unplayed cards.

  “Watch this.” Urman took some casual swings with the shovel, not so much to hit Arkady as to maneuver him to the lip of the hole.

  “Run,” Arkady told Zhenya.

  Urman launched the shovel at Arkady’s chest like a spear, but Arkady ducked as soon as Urman set his feet, and as the shovel sailed by Arkady rose with a butt to the chin that snapped back Urman’s head. “Hit first, keep hitting.” Not bad instructions. Arkady hit Urman in the windpipe and went on pounding him until Zhenya got in between and hung onto Arkady’s arm.

  “Stop fighting!”

  “Zhenya, let go.”

  “No more fighting,” Zhenya said.

  “No more fighting.” Urman had his gun out. “Not for you, old man. This is for Tanya.” Urman hit Arkady in the face with the flat of the shovel; Arkady sucked a tooth back in and felt blood drip from his chin.

  “Now you’re even,” Zhenya said.

  “Not yet.” Urman motioned with his gun for Arkady to get down on his knees. “Hands in back.” He handcuffed Arkady and kicked him facedown into the hole. “This is for me.” The shovel blade came down wide of its mark, however, and Arkady heard the sound of wrestling above. Urman said, “Now you want to attack me? You want to go with him, you little creep?”

  A body fell on top of Arkady. Dirt followed and the scent of pines and the warmth of blood.

  Urman said, “I’ll dig you up in a couple of hours, remove the cuffs and we’ll go find a nice bog for you and your friend. That’s the plan. Otherwise, you know what I hate? Long explanations. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

  Zhenya moaned but he didn’t sound conscious. He might not be until they were covered with dirt, Arkady thought. He twisted his head to breathe and gathered his knees under himself as best he could.

  “Go ahead,” Urman said. “Squirm like a worm, but you’re still buried alive.”

  Urman shoveled vigorously. He believed in a full spade; dirt fell in clumps.

  “Not Zhenya, please,” said Arkady.

  “Who’s going to miss him? I’m doing him a favor.”

  Dirt showered Arkady’s head. When there was no more loose dirt Urman turned and dug new soil. Despite the dirt in his ear, Arkady heard thunder, a motorcycle winding toward the river road, and a mechanical click.

  Urman stopped. He stared at three rusty pressure prongs that had been undisturbed in a bed of old needles until the last shovelful. He took a deep breath as the prongs and a canister the size of a coffee can popped out of the ground waist high, almost near enough to touch. It was packed with TNT, ball bearings, and scrap metal, and all he could say to sum up his life was “Fuck!”

  25

  They returned to Tver, Arkady on the motorcycle, Sofia Andreyev
a and Zhenya in her car. The boy had suffered a concussion when Urman hit him and he was alert but silent. Zhenya had been forced to gather the handcuff key from what was left of Urman. A jumping mine had a lateral blast; at close range it could cut a man in half. As the temperature dropped, rain turned to snow. Zhenya clutched his backpack and stared out the window at passing streetlamps, at flakes dancing by glass, at anything rather than the images in his mind.

  Arkady and Sofia Andreyeva agreed to keep the story simple: Detective Marat Urman ill-advisedly went to a hot site alone in the dark, stuck a spade into the ground, and hit a land mine. Evidence that anyone else was there had been shredded into a million pieces.

  Arkady’s plan was simple too. It was time for him and Zhenya to cut their losses and treat the Tver experience as a high fever or a nightmare. Arkady could pack in a minute and Zhenya carried everything in his backpack. Taking stock, Arkady had lost Eva, traumatized Zhenya and ended his less than illustrious career. How much more damage could a man do?

  Arkady turned onto Sovietskaya Street, the main thoroughfare. The snow melted as it landed and the street had a photographic stillness, a contrast of silvery tram rails, the sheen of wet asphalt and a couple walking beside a wrought iron fence.

  A block farther on at the Drama Theater, Arkady motioned the Lada to pull over and walked back to Sofia Andreyeva while she rolled down her window.

  “Do you usually spit in public?”

  “Of course not, what a question.”

  “There’s a building we passed. Whenever you go by it, you spit.”

  “That’s not spitting, that’s protection against the devil.”

  “The devil lives on Sovietskaya Street?”

  “Of course.”

  “I think I just saw him.” Arkady gave Sofia Andreyeva the key to the apartment. “He’s not alone.”

  They walked along the wrought iron fence, Eva in a coat and scarf, Isakov’s hands plunged in the pockets of an OMON greatcoat. They didn’t seem surprised when Arkady fell in step with them, other than to take a long look at a bruise that colored half his face.

  Arkady offered a one-word explanation. “Urman.”

  “And how is Marat?” Isakov asked.

  “He was digging a hole when he hit a mine. It was a jumping mine. He’s dead.”

  Eva asked, “Where were you?”

  “I was in the hole. So was Zhenya. He’s all right.”

  No one was on duty at the guardhouse at No. 6, although through the bars of the fence Arkady spied a black BMW in the courtyard with a driver dozing at the wheel. Closed-circuit cameras were mounted inside the gate and Arkady thought he made out floodlights on the roofline.

  Isakov said, “You killed Marat? I find that hard to believe.”

  “So do I,” said Arkady. “What is this building?”

  “This was the headquarters of security during the war.”

  “It’s where Nikolai’s father worked,” Eva said. “Tver’s own Lubyanka.”

  The Lubyanka in Moscow was the maw of hell, a monolith the color of dried blood. In comparison, the building at No. 6 was a frosted cake.

  “He was an agent of the NKVD?” Arkady asked.

  “He did his part.”

  “Tell him,” Eva said.

  Isakov hesitated. “Eva is a stickler for the truth. So, my father. I always wondered how he could be in the NKVD and be treated with such contempt by his colleagues. He was old when I was born and by then a drunk, but at least he had been a spy in the war, I thought, and he acted as if he had guarded secrets of the state. He had a skin condition from washing his hands and the more he drank the more often he would leap from the table to wash and dry his fingers. On his deathbed my father said there was one more Polish grave. When I asked what he was talking about he told me he was an executioner. He never spied, he just shot people. He not only shot them, he kept track of where they went. That was his farewell gift to me: one more Polish grave. Two gifts,” he corrected himself. “He gave me his gun too. I found it this morning in a velvet sack, still loaded.”

  Arkady asked Isakov, “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I think it’s safe with you.”

  “I’m cold,” Eva said. “Let’s walk.”

  A civilized stroll in a light snow in the middle of the night. With bonhomie.

  Isakov put his arm over Arkady’s shoulders. “Marat should have eaten you alive. You don’t look that strong and, frankly, you don’t look that lucky.”

  “It wasn’t me; he dug up a mine.”

  “Marat knew better than that. He was a Black Beret.”

  “The elite?”

  “Who else? They sent us down to Chechnya to stiffen the troops. Army officers were too drunk to leave their tents and the soldiers were too scared. They’d call in an air strike if they saw a mouse. If they did go out it was to loot.”

  “What is there to loot in Chechnya?”

  “Not much, but we have a looter’s mentality. That’s why I was a candidate. I want to revive Russia.”

  “You had political plans?” Arkady asked. “Beyond immunity, I mean. You admired Lenin, Gandhi, Mussolini?”

  As Eva crossed to the Drama Theater, she sang the old ditty, “Stalin flies higher than anyone, routs all our foes and outshines the sun.”

  Arkady couldn’t tell whom she was mocking. Snowflakes on her scarf made him aware more snow was falling, which was a return to normalcy. To hell with warm weather.

  Eva returned to her place between the men and put her arms through theirs, the three of them a troika. “Two men willing to die for me. How many women can say that? Will you each claim a half or will you take turns?”

  “It’s winner take all, I’m afraid,” Isakov said. He spotted the motorcycle on the theater portico and placed his hand on the engine. “Still warm. I wondered how you were getting around without being seen. Clever.”

  The neighborhood was not residential; at this hour of night only a few cars were parked on Sovietskaya and no one else was afoot along the dark offices and shops. A terrific shooting gallery.

  Isakov’s mind must have been running in the same direction because he looked across Eva and asked Arkady with a note of idle curiosity, “Do you have a gun?”

  “No.”

  Actually, for once a gun seemed not such a bad idea. A Tokarev would do, but it was in pieces in Zhenya’s backpack.

  “Anyway, no gun could match yours,” Arkady said. “When you think about it, your father’s gun may hold the record for a single handgun killing the most people. A hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred? That makes it at least an heirloom.”

  “Really?”

  “I feel for him. Imagine shooting people one after the other, head after head, hour after hour. The gun gets hot as an iron and twice as heavy and there must be some uncooperative victims. It had to get messy; he must have had work clothes. And the sound.”

  Isakov said, “As a matter of fact, my father had earplugs and he still went deaf. Sometimes he would try to leave the room and they would pour vodka down his throat and push him back in. He was just sober enough to pull the trigger and reload.”

  “He gave his eardrums for the cause. Did the gun ever misfire?”

  “No.”

  “Let me guess. A Walther?”

  “Bravo.” Isakov pulled a long-barreled pistol out of a sack. “My father liked German engineering.” Even in the light of streetlamps the gun showed its nicks. It also looked eager.

  A blue and white militia van cruised up Sovietskaya and slowed alongside Arkady, who expected an ID check at the very least. Isakov tucked the Walther into his belt, showed OMON printed on his jacket and bent his elbow in a drinker’s salute. The van flashed its head beams and rolled away, purring.

  Eva said, “He recognized you. You made his day. You are a hero in their eyes.”

  Not to mention a killer, Arkady thought. People were complicated. Who could say, for example, which way Eva would lean? It was like playing chess and not knowing wh
ich side his queen was on.

  Arkady said, “The fight at the Sunzha Bridge sounds like quite a victory.”

  “I suppose so. The enemy left fourteen bodies and we lost none. There was a raid on an army field hospital earlier that same day. Thank God, we got the message in time.”

  “You were at the bridge when the attack began?”

  “Of course.”

  “You got a message that in a few minutes half the Russian soldiers in Chechnya would cross your bridge to chase the rebels. Did you worry what they would think if they saw your squad of Black Berets eating grapes and lounging with the enemy?”

  “There were some Chechens at the bridge. They turned on us, but we were ready.”

  A reply steeped in humility. Wrong choice, Arkady thought. Outrage and a punch to the mouth was always a safer answer. Of course, Isakov was painting himself a rational man for Eva’s sake. So was Arkady. They were actors and she was their audience. It was all for her.

  By the time they arrived back at the wrought iron fence snow was starting to stick and narrow the bars.

  “I talked to Ginsberg,” Arkady said.

  “Ginsberg?” Isakov slowed for the effort of recollection.

  “The journalist.”

  “I’ve talked to a lot of journalists.”

  “The hunchback.”

  “How can you forget a hunchback?” Eva asked.

  Isakov said, “I remember now. Ginsberg was unhappy because I wouldn’t let him land in the middle of a military operation. He didn’t seem to understand that a helicopter on the ground is nothing but a target.”

  “The military operation was the fight at the bridge.”

  “This conversation is boring for poor Eva. She’s heard the story a hundred times. Let’s talk about rebuilding Russia.”

  “The operation was the fight at the bridge?”

  “Let’s talk about Russia’s place in the world.”

  “Ginsberg took photographs.”

  “Did he?”

  Arkady stopped directly under a streetlamp and opened his pea jacket. Inside was a folder, from which he took two photographs, one behind the other.