The Beast in the Red Forest (20 page)

Pekkala had never known where Maximov disappeared to that day, nor had he expected to set eyes on him again, since both men knew that to be seen back in Russia was a virtual guarantee of death.

And yet here he was: filthy, starving and alone.

‘You had better come with me,’ said Pekkala.

Together, the two men set out across the ice towards the dark wall of the forest.

A short time later, they had entered the outskirts of the camp. Small fires burned outside the primitive shelters, known as
zemlyankas
, where the partisans lived. The cold air smelled of pinewood smoke and roasting meat.

Pekkala brought Maximov to the fire in the centre of the camp, where he knew Barabanschikov would be.

‘Where did you find him?’ asked Barabanschikov.

‘Out on the ice,’ replied Pekkala, and he went on to tell the story of his acquaintance with Maximov, from Nagorski’s murder right up until the day he disappeared.

By the time Pekkala had finished, most of the camp had gathered by the fire to listen.

Barabanschikov listened intently, sitting on a tree stump, arms folded and leaning forward so as to catch every word. ‘Well, Maximov,’ he said when Pekkala had finished, ‘I think it’s time you told us where you’ve been since you and the Inspector parted company.’

Maximov explained how he had travelled all the way to the French coast before selling his motorcycle and using the proceeds to purchase a ticket to America. Three weeks later, he had arrived at Ellis Island and from there made his way to New York City.

He had worked in several jobs – as doorman at the Algonquin Hotel, as a longshoreman in Hoboken and as a croupier in an Atlantic City casino before settling down as a chauffeur for the mayor of that town, a profession not unlike the one in which he had been working when circumstances forced him out of Russia.

‘What happened?’ demanded Barabanschikov. ‘Did you commit a crime and have to leave?’

Maximov shook his head. ‘There was no crime.’

‘Problems with a woman, perhaps? A broken heart can send a man to the other end of the earth.’

Maximov smiled. ‘No broken heart.’

Barabanschikov shook his head in confusion. ‘Yet here you are. But why?’

‘I couldn’t just stand by and watch this country get destroyed,’ answered Maximov, staring at the faces which peered back at him from the shadows, their dark eyes wide with curiosity.

A murmur of approval rose from the gathered listeners.

‘Then, for as long as you wish, Maximov, you are welcome here with us,’ announced the partisan leader. ‘But first you must do what every stranger does when they come into my camp.’

‘And what is that?’

‘Empty your pockets!’

Maximov did as he was told, laying out his meagre possessions on the trampled ground.

Only one thing caught Barabanschikov’s attention. It was a little clockwork mouse, with a dented metal shell, a key sticking out of its side and three tiny wheels underneath.

Barabanschikov snapped his fingers at the toy. ‘Give me that.’

Maximov handed him the mouse.

‘You brought this from America?’

‘I did.’

‘Think of all the things you could have carried with you from America,’ Barabanschikov remarked incredulously. ‘A Colt revolver perhaps, or a Bowie knife, or a Hamilton pocket watch. But no. You have brought a clockwork mouse. What is it? A present for somebody?’

‘It is,’ admitted Maximov.

With a grunt of curiosity, Barabanschikov tried to wind it up, listening to the click of the cogs as if he were a safe cracker gauging the tumblers of the lock. But, having done this, he found that the wheels wouldn’t turn. ‘It’s broken! What kind of present is that?’ With a growl of disgust, Barabanschikov tossed the mouse over his shoulder into the dark.

‘Will that be all?’ asked Maximov.

‘Yes,’ Barabanschikov replied gruffly. ‘Now go and get some food and then we’ll find you a place where you can sleep.’

‘You are a soft touch,’ said Pekkala, after Maximov had been led away to eat.

In spite of Barabanschikov’s bluster, Pekkala had never known him to turn anyone away.

Barabanschikov’s reply to this was a long and wordless growl.

‘Perhaps this will cheer you up,’ said Pekkala as he handed over the trout he had caught that afternoon.

‘Ah!’ Barabanschikov took the fish in his outstretched hands. ‘Is there anything finer in the world?’

On the way back to his hut, which was a circular lean-to fashioned out of branches interwoven with vines, which the partisans referred to as a
tchoom
, Pekkala retrieved the broken clockwork mouse and put it in his pocket. The next morning, he returned the toy to Maximov.

By then, Maximov had bathed. His face was clean and he wore a different set of clothes. He took the mouse in his hand as if it was a living thing and slipped it into his pocket.

For several weeks, Maximov remained at the camp and it was during this time that Pekkala explained how he had come to be living among the Barabanschikovs. He found it easy to speak with Maximov. Even though the two men did not know each other well, the experiences they had shared in their days of service to the Tsar gave them a common outlook on the world. This strange communion with the past brought to their conversations a familiarity which would otherwise have taken years to cultivate.

‘I am only passing through,’ Pekkala explained to Maximov. ‘There is someone I must search for.’

‘Who?’ asked Maximov.

‘A woman to whom I was engaged,’ replied Pekkala. ‘She left for Paris, just before the Revolution. I was supposed to meet her there. It had all been arranged. But by the time the Tsar gave me permission to leave, the borders were already closing. I was arrested by Revolutionary Guards as I attempted to pass through into Finland. From there, they sent me to prison. And after that, the Gulag at Borodok.’

‘Does she even know you are alive?’ asked Maximov.

‘That is only one of many questions I must answer,’ replied Pekkala, ‘which is why, as soon as the snow melts, I will turn my back on Russia once and for all.’

‘Then you and I are bound in opposite directions, Inspector.’

‘It seems that way,’ agreed Pekkala.

Winter was ending. The snow began to melt. Often they were startled by the gunshot echo of ice cracking out on the lake. The time of the Rasputitsa was coming. Soon everything would turn to mud.

One morning, the camp awoke to find that Maximov had gone. There had been no warning. No goodbyes. He had simply disappeared.

Troubled by the man’s sudden departure, Pekkala tracked his movements through the half-melted snow to the edge of the lake, where Maximov’s footprints set out across the ice. There Pekkala stopped, knowing it was suicide to continue.

The surface was rotten and unstable. No one who knew anything about the conditions at this time of year would ever have set foot upon it, for fear of falling through into the freezing water beneath. And once beneath the ice, it was almost impossible to find your way back to the surface. Even if you could, it was extremely difficult to climb from the water and make your way from there to firmer ground.

Pekkala scanned the horizon, hoping for a glimpse of Maximov, but there was nothing. He knew that, even if this former soldier of the Tsar survived the crossing of the lake, the chances of him living through this war, with enemies on either side, were slim to none.

But maybe, thought Pekkala, those odds mean nothing to him.

In Siberia, Pekkala had seen men fall into a dream that blinded them to their true limitations, until both the wilderness and the freedom that lay beyond it became more symbol than reality. Out on those ragged edges of the planet, the false promise of how far a person could go upon the power of his dreams alone inevitably proved to be fatal.

Standing at the edge of that lake, Pekkala wondered whether Maximov’s dreams had led him to his death. He doubted if he’d ever know.

Returning to his cabin, Pekkala discovered Maximov’s clockwork mouse resting on a log which jutted from the wall of the hut. It had been left there as a gift.

Pekkala brought the little toy inside the hut, determined to restore it to working condition if he could. By the light of a lamp made from deer fat floating in an old tin can, with a scrap of old shoelace for a wick, he carefully removed the outer shell. It was only then that he realised why the mechanism had been jammed. Placed inside the humped back of the mouse was a diamond as large as a pea, beautifully cut into an octagon. As soon as he removed it from the toy, the tiny wheels began to buzz and spin and the key in the side of the mouse revolved, moving slower and slower, until it finally clattered to a stop. Pekkala held the diamond in his palm, tilting his hand one way and then another, studying the way each facet caught the lamplight. Then he wrapped it up in a dirty handkerchief and tucked it in his pocket.

‘The beast has come to keep me company!’ cried Barabanschikov, when he caught sight of Pekkala later that morning. The partisan leader was sitting on a tree stump beside the smouldering remains of the previous night’s fire.

Pekkala sat down beside his friend.

Barabanschikov picked up a stick and stirred it in the grey dust, turfing up embers still glowing like fragments of amber. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ replied Pekkala.

‘And soon you, too, will be leaving on your journey to the west,’ said Barabanschikov. ‘I have not forgotten our agreement.’

‘I might not be leaving, after all,’ said Pekkala.

The stick froze in Barabanschikov’s hand. Slivers of smoke rose from the blackened wood. ‘I thought that your mind was made up.’

‘It was until Maximov appeared.’

‘What did he say to talk you out of it?’

‘It’s not what he said,’ answered Pekkala. ‘It’s what he is doing that convinced me. He left behind everything that was safe to come back here, even though the only thanks he is likely to get is to be killed by the very people he has come to help.’

‘You’ve been on that same journey all your life,’ said Barabanschikov.

‘There were times,’ admitted Pekkala, ‘when I thought that journey would end here in these woods.’

Barabanschikov slapped him gently on the back. ‘We have managed to survive so far, haven’t we? I am no longer afraid of death, Pekkala, only of squandering the memory of every good thing I have achieved in this life by burying it beneath terrible deeds that I have done to stay alive.’

‘You have saved more lives than just your own,’ Pekkala told him.

‘And will it be enough?’ asked Barabanschikov.

‘There is no judgement that an honest man should fear,’ Pekkala told him.

‘That is an easy thing to say, Inspector, but how can an honest man live in a country whose leaders are not?’

‘The answer,’ replied Pekkala, ‘is to tread softly, to stay alive and to do whatever good you can along the way.’

‘No matter what happens from now on,’ said Barabanschikov, ‘let us promise to live by those words.’

‘I made that promise to him,’ said Pekkala, as the memory of that day faded back into the darkness of his mind.

‘So you
are
coming back to Moscow?’ stammered Kirov.

‘Yes,’ replied Pekkala, ‘and I would have told you so earlier if you’d given me the chance.’

‘But that is excellent news!’ In a moment, Kirov was back on his feet. He slapped Pekkala on the back, raising a haze of dust from the soot-powdered wool of the Inspector’s coat.

Their conversation was interrupted by the tearing sound of heavy machine guns followed, soon afterwards, by the roar and clank of armoured vehicles.

‘Could those be ours?’ asked Kirov.

Pekkala shook his head. ‘There is no Soviet armour in Rovno.’

‘So the enemy has broken through.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Pekkala, ‘which means we need to find a place to hide, if it isn’t already too late.’

Luther Benjamin moved cautiously through the woods, passing through the deserted town of Misovichi on his way to the rendezvous site. He had set out before sunrise that morning, hiking south to clear the combat zone before turning east and crossing into enemy territory. Although he had met with no difficulties so far, Benjamin had been warned by Skorzeny that the cabin was difficult to spot and he was worried that he might miss it altogether in this wilderness. If it had been anyone other than Vasko, Benjamin might have considered turning back before travelling any further.

But Vasko was a friend.

He and Benjamin had gone through training together at the School of Special Weapons and Tactics, located in the Berlin suburb of Zossen, before Benjamin was transferred to the SS, while Vasko was chosen for service in the Abwehr. Of the fourteen men and women in that class, he and Vasko were the only ones still living.

In the case of Luther Benjamin, that was due to nothing more than luck. He had just returned from three months’ recuperation after being injured in a gunfight after his cover was blown in Zagreb and he barely escaped with his life. Although Benjamin had made a full physical recovery, according to the medical report, his mental state was such that the doctor recommended he not be sent on any further missions.

Recalled to duty in Berlin, Benjamin had expected that his tasks would, from then on, be no more arduous than filing reports, but when Skorzeny came to him and explained the mission, Benjamin knew that he couldn’t refuse.

Skorzeny had his doubts as to whether Benjamin was fit for active duty, but he had orders from Canaris to act immediately. Given that Benjamin was the only agent available at the time, it was only a matter of hours before Vasko’s old friend was on his way.

Since then, Benjamin had been travelling with advance units of the 27th SS Grenadier Division ‘Langemarck’, which had been tasked with recapturing Rovno. The Division was made up mostly of Flemish volunteers, whose language, unintelligible to Benjamin, sounded to him like men trying to speak with pebbles in their mouths.

Benjamin did not know how long it would take Vasko to carry out his mission, so he was not unduly alarmed as the days passed with still no message from Skorzeny.