The Beast in the Red Forest (5 page)

What their shuttered minds so stubbornly failed to comprehend was that these jokes, and the cruelty which lay at their core, revealed more about Stalin’s true nature than anything which they might ever wring out of the pages of
Izvestia
.

If they could only have witnessed Pauker, describing to Stalin how, at the trial of Nikolai Bukharin, one of Stalin’s most loyal followers, the accused man had begged the court to notify the Boss as he was led away to be shot, little realising that it was Stalin himself who had ordered the execution. With ape-like gestures Pauker acted out the scene, clawing at the walls and promising to make amends for crimes he had never committed.

Stalin enjoyed it so much that he ordered Pauker to tell the story twice. Each time Stalin wept with laughter, gasping for breath until finally he had waved everyone out of his office. For the rest of the day, fits of giggling exploded from the room as Stalin replayed Pauker’s antics in his head.

But there was no laughter when, soon afterwards, Stalin ordered Pauker himself to be shot against the wall of Lubyanka.

After Poskrebychev’s desk collapsed, and Stalin’s crow-like cackling reached him through the scratchy intercom, something snapped inside him. Poskrebychev did something he had thought he’d never do. He took revenge.

Knowing the fastidiousness with which Stalin monitored his surroundings, Poskrebychev waited until Stalin left for a meeting, then crept into his master’s office and began to rearrange the objects in the room. The chair. The clock. The curtains. The ashtray. He moved them only fractions of centimetres, so that the displacement of each object by itself would have gone unnoticed. But cumulatively, the effect was exactly as Poskrebychev had intended. When Stalin arrived at his office, he was driven almost to distraction by some nameless anxiety whose source he could not comprehend. After the Boss had left, Poskrebychev replaced everything exactly as it had been before, which only added to Stalin’s consternation when he showed up the following day.

For a brief moment, Poskrebychev believed he had committed the perfect act of revenge. Then Pekkala emerged from a meeting in Stalin’s office and, stopping at Poskrebychev’s desk, very carefully moved the black box of the intercom a hair’s breadth to one side. No words passed between them. There was no need. In that moment, Poskrebychev knew he’d been discovered by the only person, he now realised, who could possibly have figured it out.

This was the secret they shared, the value of it measured not only by the fact that it was safe, but that someone aside from Poskrebychev had enjoyed a laugh at the expense of Joseph Stalin. And survived.

Immediately after departing from Linsky’s shop, Kirov drove straight to NKVD Headquarters in Lubyanka Square. But instead of heading up to the fourth floor to visit Elizaveta, as he usually did, this time he made his way down to the basement to consult with Lazarev, the armourer.

Lazarev was a legendary figure at Lubyanka. From his workshop in the basement, he managed the supply and repair of all weapons issued to Moscow NKVD. He had been there from the beginning, personally appointed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the Cheka, who commandeered what had once been the offices of the All-Russian Insurance Company and converted it into the Centre of the Extraordinary Commission. From then on, the imposing yellow-stone building served as an administrative complex, prison and place of execution. The Cheka had changed its name several times since then, from OGPU to GPU to NKVD, transforming under various directors into its current incarnation. Throughout these gruelling and sometimes bloody metamorphoses, which emptied, reoccupied and emptied once again the desks of countless servants of the State, Lazarev had remained at his post, until only he remained of those who had set the great machine of Internal State Security in motion. This was not due to luck or skill in navigating the minefield of the purges, but rather to the fact that, no matter who did the killing and who did the dying above ground, a gunsmith was always needed to make sure the weapons kept working.

For a man of such mythic status, Lazarev’s appearance came as something of a disappointment. He was short and hunched, with pockmarked cheeks so pale they seemed to confirm the rumours that he never travelled above ground, but migrated like a mole through secret tunnels known only to him beneath the streets of Moscow. He wore a tan shop-coat, whose frayed pockets sagged from the weight of bullets, screwdrivers and gun parts. He wore this tattered coat buttoned right up to his throat, giving rise to another rumour; namely that he wore nothing underneath. This story was reinforced by the sight of Lazarev’s bare legs beneath the knee-length coat. He had a peculiar habit of never lifting his feet from the floor as he moved about the armoury, choosing instead to slide along like a man condemned to live on ice. He shaved infrequently, and the slivers of beard that jutted from his chin resembled the spines of a cactus. His eyes, watery blue in their shallow sockets, showed his patience with a world that did not understand his passion for the gun and the wheezy, reassuring growl of his voice, once heard, was unforgettable.

The last time Kirov had seen Lazarev was to hand over the fire-damaged Webley belonging to Pekkala, and which had been brought back from the front line by Rifleman Stefanov as proof of the Inspector’s death. The once lustrous bluing on its barrel had been peeled away by the intensity of the blaze that had devoured the body on which it had been found. The trigger spring no longer functioned. Empty bullet cases appeared to have fused in place inside the cylinder. It was lucky that Pekkala had fired all the rounds. If the cartridges had been loaded, they would almost certainly have exploded in the fire, destroying the weapon completely. Only the brass grips, peculiar to this weapon, seemed to have been unaffected by the blaze and the metal still glowed softly as it had done when Pekkala carried the weapon with him, everywhere he went.

Even though the weapon was so damaged as to be inoperable, regulations dictated that it still had to be delivered to the NKVD armoury for processing.

‘Major!’ exclaimed Lazarev, as Kirov reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘What brings you down here to the bowels of the earth? From what I hear these days, your visits are usually,’ he grinned and aimed a dirty finger at the ceiling, ‘to the lair of Sergeant Gatkina.’

Kirov sighed, wondering if there was anyone in this building who did not know every detail of his romance with Elizaveta. ‘I’m here,’ he said, ‘because I need some advice.’

‘If it’s anything to do with that charming young lady on the fourth floor,’ remarked Lazarev, allowing his hands to settle gently upon the counter top which separated the two men, its surface strewn with gun parts, oil cans, pull-through cloths and brass bristled brushes, coiled like the tails of newborn puppies, ‘then I’m afraid you have come to the wrong place.’

‘I want to know why someone would have certain modifications made to an overcoat.’

‘An overcoat?’ Lazarev screwed up his face in confusion, sending wrinkles like branches of lightning from the corners of his eyes. ‘I’m a weapons man, Major. Not a follower of haute couture.’

‘That much I know already,’ Kirov told him, and he went on to describe the loops and straps which Linsky had built into the coat.

Lazarev nodded slowly as he listened. ‘And you think this has something to do with weaponry?’

‘I believe it might.’

‘What leads you to this conclusion?’

‘The coat in question was made for Inspector Pekkala.’

‘Ah, yes,’ muttered Lazarev, ‘the famous Webley.’

‘But even I can tell that those straps weren’t made for a revolver. I was hoping you could tell me what they are.’

‘Does it really matter now?’ Lazarev drew in a slow, rustling breath. ‘Why can’t you let a dead man rest in peace?’

‘I would,’ replied Kirov, ‘if I believed that he was truly dead.’

Lazarev touched his fingertips to his lips, momentarily lost in thought. ‘I always wondered if they’d really got to him. Since he disappeared, rumours have trickled down to me here in the basement, but it’s hard to know which ones you can believe.’

‘I must follow them all,’ replied Kirov. ‘There is no other way.’

‘Well, I don’t know if this will help you or not, Major, but I know exactly what those straps were made for.’

‘You do?’

‘A shotgun.’

Kirov shook his head. ‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You couldn’t hide a whole shotgun under that coat. It’s too short.’

‘You could,’ insisted Lazarev, ‘if the gun had also been modified.’

‘But how?’

‘It’s an old poacher’s trick. Cut down the stock, saw off the end of the barrel. Rework the hinge so that barrel and stock can be quickly pulled apart and fitted back together. Hang the separate pieces in your jacket, gun on one side, ammunition on the other.’

‘Shotgun shells,’ exclaimed Kirov. ‘Of course! That’s what those loops would hold, but I doubt that Pekkala would have turned his talents to poaching ducks.’

‘Not ducks, Major. My guess is that he’s after bigger prey. Few weapons can do more damage at close range than a shotgun. It is hardly a weapon of precision, but as a blunt and lethal instrument, you’d be hard pressed to find something better.’

‘That still doesn’t explain what he’d be doing with it. We’re in the middle of a war of rifles and machine guns and cannons and tanks. Who would choose a shotgun to fight against weapons like those?’

Lazarev did not hesitate. ‘The answer is partisans. Think about it, Major. The coat you have described to me is not a piece of military uniform.’

Kirov agreed. ‘Except for those modifications, it’s the same kind of coat he always wore.’

‘Now who wears civilian clothes and still carries weapons?’

‘Some members of Special Operations. Pekkala for one.’

‘And except for him, they all carry Tokarev automatics. But the only people out of uniform who are involved in the kind of close-quarter fighting where shotguns are turned into an anti-personnel weapon are partisans. Shotgun ammunition isn’t regulated the way military ammunition is, because people still use it for hunting and the more they can hunt, the less they have to rely on the authorities to feed them. If you’re looking for him, Major, you should begin your search among the partisans.’

‘But there must be hundreds of groups scattered behind the German lines.’

‘Thousands, more likely, and most of them in western Ukraine. Some groups have only a few dozen members. Others are almost as large as divisions in the army. There are bands of Ukrainian Nationalists, Poles, Jews, Communists, and escaped POW’s. And they aren’t all fighting the Germans. Some of these people are so busy fighting each other that they barely have time for the Fascists. And as far as the Germans are concerned, the whole lot of them should be finished off. They give out awards to their soldiers who fight against the partisans. The medal shows a skull with snakes coiled around it. That’s how they think of the partisans; as nothing more than reptiles to be wiped off the face of the earth.’

‘Stalin has ordered me to track down Pekkala, no matter where the journey takes me, but if you’re right, Lazarev, then how on earth do I even begin searching for him?’

‘For that, you’ll need more clues than the one you have found in this coat, but if you do locate the Inspector, you may as well give this to him.’ As Lazarev spoke, he opened a battered metal cabinet, removed an object wrapped in a dirty, oily rag and handed the bundle to Kirov.

Inside, Kirov was astonished to find Pekkala’s Webley. The last time Kirov had seen this gun, it was little more than a charred relic. Now, with its fresh coat of bluing, the Webley appeared almost new. While Lazarev folded his arms and gazed on with satisfaction at his work, Kirov squinted down the barrel, then opened the gun, which folded forward on a hinge. He spun the well-oiled cylinder, and examined with approval the almost gilded finish of the solid brass handles.

‘How did you do it, Lazarev?’ gasped Kirov.

‘For many months now, it has been my secret project.’

‘And what did you plan on doing with it when you finished?’

‘Exactly what I’m doing now,’ he answered. ‘Making sure that the Webley is returned to its proper owner.’

‘So you didn’t believe the stories, either?’

‘About Pekkala’s death?’ Lazarev waved a hand through the air, as if to brush away the words he had just spoken. ‘The day they can find a way to kill the Inspector, I’ll hang up this coat and go home.’

‘I will hand this to him personally,’ said Kirov, tucking the gun inside his tunic, ‘and it won’t leave my sight until then.’ He turned to leave.

‘You are forgetting something, Major.’

Kirov spun around. ‘I am?’

Lazarev slid a fist-sized cardboard box across the counter. A dog-eared paper label, written in English, listed the contents as fifty rounds of Mark VI .455 Revolver ammunition, dated 1939 and manufactured by the Birmingham Small Arms factory. ‘Bullets for the Webley,’ he explained.

‘Where on earth did you find these?’ asked Kirov.

‘The British Ambassador here in Moscow had a rather expensive shotgun made by James Woodward on which the side-lock ejector had broken. Stalin himself referred the Ambassador to me, in order to see if the gun could be repaired. When I had completed the work, the Ambassador offered to pay me, but this,’ he tapped the box of bullets, ‘is what I asked for instead. You can tell Pekkala that there are plenty more where these came from. Now,’ Lazarev held out his hand, palm up, like a man looking to be paid, ‘before you leave, let’s have a look at your own gun, Major Kirov.’

Kirov did as he was told, removing the Tokarev from its leather holster and handing it to Lazarev.

With none of the reverence he had shown to Pekkala’s Webley, Lazarev took hold of the weapon. With movements so fast that they were hard to follow, he disassembled the Tokarev and laid it out in front of him. Over the next few minutes, Lazarev inspected the barrel to check for pitting, tested the recoil spring, the trigger and the magazine. Satisfied, he reassembled the gun and returned it to Kirov. ‘Good,’ said Lazarev.

‘I’m glad you approve,’ replied Kirov.

‘I expect you’ll need that where you’re going. And I hope for your sake that you’re right about one thing if you do ever find Pekkala.’

‘What is that, Lazarev?’

‘That the Emerald Eye wants to be found.’