The Beast in the Red Forest (10 page)

A faint smile creased Pekkala’s lips as he turned down the lapel of his coat. By the light of bombs exploding in the distance, the emerald-studded badge winked from the darkness.

‘I came here to find you, Inspector, but I should have known you’d track me down instead.’

‘As soon as news reached me of a tall, skinny NKVD officer who had just arrived by plane from Moscow, I set out to meet you. Unfortunately, I was too late to prevent what happened. Can you describe the man who opened fire in the bunker?’

‘It was dark,’ explained Kirov. ‘There had just been an air raid and the electricity had gone out. But I know who it must have been, even if I didn’t see him pull the trigger. The nurse here told me that they recovered three bodies from the bunker. One was Andrich and the other two were partisans. The only other man in that room was a Red Army officer. With a bandage wrapped around his face, he looked as if he’d just been wounded, but I realise now that it was only a disguise. Andrich said the officer had just arrived from headquarters, so he might have been carrying forged papers as well as a stolen uniform. Inspector, do you have any idea why this happened?’

‘There are many blood feuds between the partisans,’ answered Pekkala. ‘It may be that you and Andrich were simply caught in the crossfire. Or it may be that Andrich himself was the target.’

‘But why would anyone want to murder the colonel? After all, he was negotiating a ceasefire.’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Pekkala, ‘because Andrich might have succeeded. He was the only man Moscow trusted who could speak to the partisans. When Andrich’s division was annihilated back in ’41, he took to the forest and joined the partisans, rather than surrender. Two years later, Moscow made contact with his group by dropping leaflets over the forest requesting someone who could act as a representative for the partisans. Andrich volunteered. He knew that somebody would have to speak for the partisan groups still active in this area. The partisans are sick of fighting, whether it’s against the Germans or each other. They just can’t find a way to stop. There is too much hatred among them.’

‘Why are they killing each other?’ asked Kirov.

‘Some groups originally sided with the Germans,’ explained Pekkala, ‘who used them to hunt down other partisans or to commit atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. When the Germans began to retreat, many of those who had taken up arms against the Ukrainians became victims themselves as old scores were settled. This has been a war within a war, Kirov, more bloody than anything I’ve ever seen before. Andrich knew that the only way the killing would cease was if all sides learned to trust each other. It might have worked, too, if Andrich hadn’t been murdered. And the fact that those two partisan leaders also died will only make the situation worse. Those men were all supposed to be under Soviet protection when the attack occurred. If Andrich was indeed the target, then the killer must have known that murdering him would destroy any hope of peace between the partisans and the Red Army. The faith which Andrich worked to build has now evaporated, just as Stalin knew it might. That’s why he recently ordered a brigade of counter-intelligence troops to be transferred to the Rovno garrison.’

The Soviet Counter-Intelligence Agency, known as SMERSH, had been formed by Stalin the previous year as a specialised task force with the NKVD and was responsible for crushing any acts of rebellion in the newly reconquered territories of the Soviet Union. Ruthlessly, they sought out enemy agents who had been recruited by Germany’s spy organisation, the Abwehr, under the control of Admiral Canaris, as well as those partisans, civilians and former POWs, who might have collaborated with the Germans during the years of occupation. Within six months of coming into existence, Counter-Intelligence troops had massacred tens of thousands of Russians, for crimes as vague as selling apples to German soldiers, allowing them to drink from a well or for having been captured in one of the vast encircling attacks that wiped out entire Soviet divisions in the first days of Operation Barbarossa.

The brigade that had been sent to Rovno fell under the Counter-Intelligence Agency’s Anti-Partisan Directorate. This brigade had originally been led by the notorious Commander Danek, whose excesses stunned even the most hardened NKVD members. But Danek had recently been killed under suspicious circumstances. It was rumoured that he had met his end at the hands of one of his own people, although nothing had been proven. The man who took his place, Commander Yakushkin, had been Danek’s right-hand man throughout the war. Since taking control of this SMERSH brigade, Yakushkin’s methods had proved to be even more cold-blooded than those of his former master.

‘Stalin said nothing to me about SMERSH,’ remarked Kirov.

‘Why would he?’ asked Pekkala. ‘Stalin may be hoping for peace, but he is also preparing for war. Commander Yakushkin had orders to wait and see if the partisans could be persuaded to lay down their arms peacefully. But Yakushkin knows only one thing and that is the art of butchery. Now that Andrich is dead, Yakushkin and his troops will soon begin the process of wiping out every partisan band in the whole region. The partisans may disagree with each other about many things, but even the bitterest foes among them will unite against a common enemy, especially if the alternative is annihilation. SMERSH have now become that enemy. The result will be the deaths of countless soldiers and partisans, along with any civilian who gets caught in their path. The only way to prevent it is to prove to Yakushkin that he is being drawn into a plot designed to pit him against the partisans, which would only end in their mutual destruction. Even a killer like Yakushkin doesn’t want that, but first I must persuade him. To accomplish this, Major Kirov, I am going to need your help.’

Kirov opened his mouth to reply, but Pekkala cut him off before he could speak.

‘Think carefully before you answer. Do not forget that Stalin has a price upon my head. That’s why I came here in the middle of the night, so that you can still return to Moscow if you choose, and pretend this meeting never took place.’

‘There’s no need for that, Inspector. The situation has changed. Whatever charges Stalin laid against you have been dismissed. You are forgiven. Stalin told me so himself. He needs you back, Inspector!’

Pekkala was not convinced. ‘One thing I have learned about Stalin is that the man does not forgive. All he does is to postpone his vengeance, but hopefully it will be long enough for me to track down this assassin.’

‘And of course I will help you to do it, Inspector, just as soon as I can get out of here!’

‘Is now soon enough?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Now?’ echoed Kirov. ‘Well, I suppose I . . .’

‘Good!’ Pekkala walked over to the doorway and peered down the hall. He listened carefully. Satisfied that no one was coming, he beckoned to Kirov. ‘Hurry! There is much to be done.’

‘But can’t this wait until morning? Why do we have to leave now?’

‘It’s quite simple, Kirov. When the shooting started in the bunker, you were only an innocent bystander, but as soon as this assassin learns that you are intent on hunting him down, he will come back to finish what he started.’

‘I’ll just put some clothes on!’ whispered Kirov, as he lowering his feet uncertainly to the floor. He wasn’t even sure if he could walk, but a few minutes later, dressed in his still-muddy uniform and with the canvas bag slung over his shoulder, Kirov slipped past the night duty orderly, who had fallen asleep at his desk. Making their way through the deserted kitchen, which reeked sourly of cabbage and boiled fish, the two men made their way out into an alley behind the hospital and set off towards Rovno, where fires from the air raid still painted the low-hanging clouds.

‘You might need this,’ said Kirov, handing over a new Soviet identity book. ‘NKVD made you a replacement, since your last one was burned to a crisp. Fortunately, your picture was still on file. It’s the only one known to exist!’

The pass book was the size of a man’s outstretched hand, dull red in colour, with an outer cover made from fabric-covered cardboard in the manner of an old school text book. The Soviet State seal, cradled in its two bound sheaves of wheat, was emblazoned on the front. Inside, in the top left-hand corner, a photograph of Pekkala had been attached with a heat seal, cracking the emulsion of the photograph. Beneath that, in pale bluish-green ink, were the letters NKVD and a second stamp indicating that Pekkala was on Special Assignment for the government. The particulars of his birth, his blood group and his state identification number filled up the right-hand page.

Most government pass books contained only those two pages, but in Pekkala’s, a third page had been inserted. Printed on canary yellow paper with a red border around the edge, were the following words:

THE PERSON IDENTIFIED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS ACTING UNDER THE DIRECT ORDERS OF COMRADE STALIN.

DO NOT QUESTION OR DETAIN HIM.

HE IS AUTHORISED TO WEAR CIVILIAN CLOTHES, TO CARRY WEAPONS, TO TRANSPORT PROHIBITED ITEMS, INCLUDING POISON, EXPLOSIVES AND FOREIGN CURRENCY. HE MAY PASS INTO RESTRICTED AREAS AND MAY REQUISITION EQUIPMENT OF ALL TYPES, INCLUDING WEAPONS AND VEHICLES.

IF HE IS KILLED OR INJURED, IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY THE BUREAU OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS.

Although this special insert was known officially as a Classified Operations Permit, it was more commonly referred to as a Shadow Pass. With it, a man could appear and disappear at will within the wilderness of regulations that controlled the state. Fewer than a dozen of these Shadow Passes had ever been issued. Even within the ranks of the NKVD, most people had never seen one.

‘I never thought I’d need another one of these,’ said Pekkala, as he slipped the pass book into the inside pocket of his coat.

‘I have brought you something else as well,’ said Kirov, handing the bag to Pekkala.

‘I didn’t realise that we would be exchanging gifts,’ remarked Pekkala, as he undid the wooden toggle on the flap and reached into the bag. Feeling the familiar coolness of the Webley’s brass grip against his palm, a look of confusion spread across his face. He withdrew the weapon from the bag and stared at it, as if he did not quite believe what he was seeing. ‘Wasn’t this destroyed in the fire?’

‘Oh, it was. Believe me. I’d have said it was a hopeless task, trying to repair that gun.’

Pekkala glanced across at Kirov. ‘Then how . . . ?’

‘The miracle of Lazarev.’

‘Ah.’ Pekkala nodded slowly. ‘That explains it.’

‘It was he who helped me to understand those strange modifications Linsky made to your coat.’

‘I wondered if you would figure that out,’ said Pekkala, as he pulled aside the flaps of his coat, revealing a sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun, just as Lazarev had predicted. On the other side, tucked neatly into the loops fashioned by Linsky according to Pekkala’s cryptic instructions, were two rows of shotgun shells.

Kirov nodded at the bag in Pekkala’s hands. ‘There’s a box of bullets in there as well.’

‘And a nice piece of fish!’ exclaimed Pekkala, as he scrounged the dried meat from the bottom of the bag. With a grunt of satisfaction, he tore off a strip with his teeth and chewed away contentedly. ‘I must say,’ Pekkala said with his mouth full, ‘this is quite a treat.’

If a lump of old fish counts as a treat, thought Kirov, I wonder what Pekkala has been living off, out there in the forest. He knew that, in all likelihood, he might never know. The past would be consigned to the catacombs, deep inside Pekkala’s mind, surfacing only when he called out in his sleep, chased across the tundra of his dreams like a man pursued by wolves.

As Pekkala strode along, Kirov struggled to keep pace. ‘Where are we going, Inspector?’ he asked.

‘We must return to the place where you were shot. Valuable evidence may be lost if we do not move quickly, and we must take advantage of the mistakes this assassin has made.’

‘What mistakes, Inspector?’

‘Leaving you alive, for one! By doing so, he left a witness to his crime.’

‘But Inspector, that was no mistake.’

Pekkala stopped in his tracks. ‘You mean he knew you were still breathing?’

‘Yes, Inspector. He saw me lying there. I was wounded, but still conscious.’

‘Why didn’t you shoot him?’

‘Everything had happened so quickly that my gun was still in its holster. I couldn’t get to it. I was completely helpless. I was certain he would finish me off, but he didn’t.’

‘Then he was sending a message,’ remarked Pekkala. ‘The question is, to whom?’

‘That day in the bunker,’ said Kirov, ‘when I asked the partisans if they had seen or heard of you, they spoke of rumours that a Finn was living among the Barabanschikovs, but both of them refused to take me to the Red Forest.’

‘They call it the country of the beast,’ replied Pekkala. ‘And they avoid it at all costs.’

‘So if nobody goes there,’ asked Kirov, ‘how on earth did you find them?’

‘I didn’t,’ answered Pekkala. ‘They were the ones who found me.’

After ambushing the truck that contained the stolen panels of the Amber Room, Pekkala knew that if he carried out his orders and destroyed them, Stalin would allow the blame to fall upon him, rather than accept responsibility himself. By liquidating Pekkala as soon as he returned to Moscow, Stalin would ensure that no word of the mission was ever traced back to the Kremlin.

Reluctant as he was to destroy the panels, Pekkala was certain that if he refused to carry out the order, Stalin would only send another to take his place, and another after that until the grim task had been completed.

Standing amongst the casualties of the battle, who lay strewn across the road amongst spatters of congealed arterial blood, Pekkala realised that he had no choice except to complete the mission, and then to fake his own death, before going into hiding.

After placing his Webley and pass book on the body of a soldier killed in the attack, he removed a flare gun from the driver’s compartment of the truck which had been halted in the ambush. Then he unlatched a 20-litre fuel can from its mountings on the running board and doused the vehicle, as well as the body he had chosen. He poured the last of the fuel on to an armoured car which had been escorting the convoy and which lay upside down in a gulley, its muffler pipes skewed out like antlers on the carcass of a deer.

When everything was ready, Pekkala gathered up a rifle from among the weapons which lay scattered on the ground, then fired one flare into the truck and another into the armoured car.

As a wall of boiling orange flame rose up from the explosions, Pekkala sprinted for the shelter of the trees. It would not be long before the vast column of black smoke was spotted by a squadron of German cavalry who had been sent into the forest to pursue him.

Pekkala kept moving until sunset, when he came upon a cluster of houses which had recently been destroyed. The cavalry had been here. Empty cartridges from Mauser rifles littered the ground. Pekkala went to drink from the well in the centre of the compound, but when he threw down the bucket on its rope, he heard it strike against something hard. As he peered into the darkness, he saw a pair of bare feet floating upside down just below the surface of the water.

Travelling mostly at night, he pressed on through the swamps, wading hip-deep in the tar-black water past peeping frogs whose ball-bearing eyes glinted amongst the reeds. When exhaustion overtook Pekkala, he struggled to dry ground, covered himself with leaves and slept while mist drifted around him like the sails of phantom ships.

In his restless dreams, Pekkala saw himself caught and hanged by the men who were hunting for him now. The grotesque image swung like a pendulum from darkness into view and into darkness once again.

When turquoise banners trailed across the evening sky, Pekkala rose up from his shroud of leaves and continued on his way.

For weeks, Pekkala headed south, keeping to the forests, deserted valleys and roads so seldom travelled that they had all but been reclaimed by the wilderness from which they had been cut. All this time, he was pursued by an enemy whose numbers seemed to grow with every day. From hiding places in the bramble undergrowth, Pekkala watched them riding by, the hooves of their horses sometimes no more than an arm’s length away.

These cavalry men were used to open country, not the stifling confines of the forest and he realised they, too, were afraid.

Ultimately, it was the sheer size of their force which proved to be Pekkala’s greatest ally. He learned to watch for the dust kicked up by their horses and he listened to the plaintive wail of bugles calling from one squadron to another as they meandered lost among the alder thickets. After dark, he glimpsed the orange tongues of their campfires and when it rained and they could make no fires, he smelled the bitter smoke of Esbit cooking tablets used by German soldiers to heat their rations.

Only once did Pekkala come close to being caught, one night when he almost stumbled into one of their encampments. Their shelters had been sturdily built with pine-bough roofs and camouflage rain capes covering the entrances, on either side of a stream. Their horses had been tethered to a nearby tree.

Slipping into the water, Pekkala gritted his teeth against the shock of cold. Moonlight turned the stream into a flood of mercury. He waded hunchbacked through the rustling of current, hoping to pass unnoticed between the dugouts.

Pekkala was just coming level with the German positions when he heard the rustle of a rain cape being thrown back. The horses shifted nervously. Sidestepping into the weeds, Pekkala crouched down among the bristling stalks. Ten paces upstream, a man emerged from one of the dugouts. He walked to the edge of the bank. Moments later, a silver arc reached out into the dark. The soldier leaned back, gazing at the stars, then hawked and spat as he buttoned up his fly. The tiny island of saliva drifted past Pekkala’s hiding place as the soldier returned to his dugout.

Pekkala moved on, deeper and deeper into the wilderness, through storms which thrashed his face with sheets of rain while lightning, like a vast electric spider, stalked the earth. When the rain stopped, he could smell wild grapes on the breeze, the scent so sweet and heavy that it hummed like music in his brain.

Now there were no more horse tracks, or tracks of any kind except those only wild animals could have made.

One warm autumn afternoon, Pekkala passed through a forest of tall red maples. Coppery beams of sunlight splashed through the trees, refracting among the branches until the air itself appeared to be on fire. High above the forest canopy, vultures circled lazily on rising waves of heat. In this place, he came across strange, shallow depressions in the earth. He had seen structures just like this, employed by Ostyak hunters in Siberia. These primitive beds, lined with moss and lichen, had been recently constructed by war parties or groups of hunters moving quickly across the landscape, without time to build proper shelters. This was the work of savages.

Pekkala knew that he was in more danger now than he had ever been before. Although he had escaped the horsemen sent to kill him, there was no hiding from these people, for whom this wilderness was home.

Then he knew it was time to stop running.

After removing the bolt from his rifle, Pekkala buried it, along with the ammunition from the black leather pouches at his waist. Then he set the useless gun against a tree and left it there. Next, he took off the ragged German uniform that he had been wearing as part of his cover for the mission and which by now was little more than rags. Knowing that he would likely be butchered at first sight of the field grey wool, he heaped them in a pile, to which he added the scrolled bark of birch trees, twigs snapped from dead pine trees not yet toppled to the ground and fistfuls of dry, crumbling lichen. With one match, the head of which he had preserved in candle wax, he soon had a fire going.

Pekkala sat naked in front of the blaze, warming his filthy skin.

They came for him soon after dark, just as he had known they would.

Pekkala heard people moving towards him through the darkness. Six he guessed. Maybe seven. No more.

He let them come.

The shadows hauled him roughly to his feet.

‘Where is the bolt for that gun?’ asked a man, pointing at the rifle which Pekkala had dismantled.

‘Take me to whoever is in charge and I will tell you.’

‘I am in charge!’

‘No,’ said Pekkala. ‘You’re just the person he sent.’

The man hit Pekkala in the face.

Pekkala staggered back and then righted himself. He touched his fingers to his lips. The skin was split. He tasted blood.

‘I should kill you where you stand,’ growled the man.

‘Then you would have to explain why you don’t have the bolt for this gun, or the ammunition you will need to use it.’

‘You have ammunition?’

Pekkala nodded. ‘Enough to have killed you if I’d wanted to.’

‘I’ll do as you ask,’ said the man, ‘but you may well regret what you wish for.’

The shadows closed in around Pekkala, but they were hesitant, as if his nakedness defied the rusted edges of their handmade weaponry.

‘Now!’ screamed the man.

Fumbling, they put a sack over Pekkala’s head and dragged him away through the trees.

For several hours, they steered him through the darkness.

Branches clawed against his shoulders and the soles of his feet were cut by roots and stones. When at last the partisans lifted the sack from Pekkala’s head, they did so gingerly, as if unhooding a falcon.

Pekkala found himself in the middle of a small encampment deep in the forest. His gaze fixed upon two old women, their ankle-length dresses plastered with ashes and mud, huddled around a fire and roasting a dog on a spit. Beside the fire lay a small heap of dented pans and pots, like the emptied shells of river clams. The metal spike squeaked as the dog twisted slowly above the embers, teeth bared in a blackened snarl as if to rage at its misfortune.

Clothing, more filthy and ruined than the rags he had burned in the fire, was dumped at his feet. Shivering at the clammy touch of the cloth, Pekkala struggled into a rough linen shirt with wooden buttons and a pair of wool trousers patched across the seat. The garments reeked of old
machorka
, its smell like damp leaves in the rain.

‘Give him some food,’ ordered a voice.

Oblivious to the heat, one of the women took hold of the dog’s right rear leg. With a twisting cracking sound, she wrenched it off. Then she walked over to Pekkala, holding out the leg by its charred paw, steam rising from the splayed meat and the shiny white ball of the hip bone at the end.

Pekkala ripped away a mouthful of the scalding flesh. He had forgotten how hungry he was.

The woman stared at him while he ate, eyes glinting in her puckered face. Then she turned around and walked back to the fire.

A man appeared from the darkness. For a long time, he studied Pekkala, keeping to the edge of the light, his face masked in the shadows. ‘I don’t know who you are,’ he said, ‘but the Germans sent hundreds of men to kill you.’

‘That sounds about right,’ said Pekkala.

‘How in the name of God did you manage to survive?’

‘I’d say it was luck,’ he replied.

‘And I’d say it was more than that,’ replied the man, as he stepped from the shadows at last. His face was surprisingly gentle. He had a rounded chin, a thin and patchy beard and thoughtful brown eyes, which he struggled to focus on his prisoner. He is an intellectual, guessed Pekkala. A man who has learned to survive by something other than brute force. Who would have kept himself clean-shaven if only he could have found a razor. A man who has lost his glasses.

As if reading Pekkala’s mind, the man produced a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, one of the temples replaced with a piece of string, looped them over his ears and continued his observation of the stranger. ‘I am Barabanschikov,’ he said.

‘And my name is Pekkala.’

Barabanschikov’s eyes widened. ‘Then it is no wonder they couldn’t find you. You are supposed to be dead!’

Then the darkness just beyond the firelight began to fill with whispers, swirling through the smoky air like the first gust of an approaching storm.

‘You make them nervous,’ observed Barabanschikov.

‘That was never my intention,’ replied Pekkala. ‘If you let me go, I will leave you my rifle, along with the location of the place where I buried the bolt and ammunition. You won’t ever see me again.’

‘That would be a pity.’ The man held up his hand in a gesture of conciliation, his palm glowing in the firelight. ‘I was hoping you might stay here for a while. Any man who can outrun an army might have skills that we’d find useful in the forest.’

A few snowflakes made their way down through the trees.

‘Winter is coming,’ warned Barabanschikov. ‘For a man to take his chances, out there alone in the snow, is the difference between brave and suicidal.’

Pekkala glanced about him at the ragged assembly of men and women. They had the look of death upon them, as if they knew how little time they had left. Although they did not speak, their eyes pleaded with him to stay. ‘I will remain with you until the ice has melted in the spring,’ he said, ‘but then I must be moving on.’

‘Until the ice has melted,’ agreed Barabanschikov.

He stepped forward and the two men shook hands.

‘I might need that rifle, after all,’ remarked Pekkala.

Barabanschikov reached into his coat, withdrew a sawn-off shotgun and handed it to Pekkala. ‘Take this instead. It strikes me that you are a man who does his killing at close range. A rifle is more suitable to those –’ he jerked his chin towards the men who had brought Pekkala into the camp – ‘who find safety in numbers and distance.’