“Not yet,” admitted Kolchak. “After what happened when I tried to explain things to Ryabov-”
“You mean you
“I tried to!” Kolchak’s voice rose in frustration. “He was the senior officer among the Comitati. I thought I owed it to the man to tell him first. I had imagined that after so many years in captivity, he would be glad to learn that the thieves who had stolen his freedom would pay for that crime with their lives.”
“What happened instead?”
“He told me he wouldn’t go through with it. He didn’t even hesitate. I explained that he could stay behind in China. I said I didn’t care whether he came or not. But that wasn’t enough for Ryabov. He insisted that enough lives had been lost on account of the gold. I told him it was about more than treasure. It was about eliminating Stalin and the Communists. If there is one thing I have learned in my years of exile it is that the only way to get rid of a monster is to create an even bigger monster. After that, it’s just a matter of seeing who bleeds to death first.”
“And what did Ryabov say to that?”
“He said he would refuse to give up the location of the gold. After all, the Comitati were the only ones who knew where it was, since I had left before they buried it. Ryabov told me that the men in Borodok had learned to trust him. Everything they had lived through, he had also endured. Ryabov was certain they would listen to him before they listened to me.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t take the chance that he was right. That night, when he came to the mine, I thought he had come to speak with me, perhaps to try and talk me out of it. I didn’t realize that he was there to meet Klenovkin. He didn’t expect to find me outside that cave where I’d been hiding, deep inside the mine. Tarnowski and the others had warned me to stay put, but I couldn’t stand it, cooped up in there like some animal in a cage made out of stone. So I had taken to wandering those tunnels at night, anything but stay holed up in that cave. That’s when I discovered Ryabov. I could tell he was surprised to see me. I tried again to reason with him, but he told me his mind was made up. He was putting a stop to the escape. I reminded him of how long he had struggled to ensure the survival of our men so that one day they might find their way out of this camp.”
“And what was his reply?”
“He said their freedom, and his own, would not be worth the countless thousands we’d leave butchered in our path.”
At last, the mystery of Ryabov’s death became clear to Pekkala. He realized he had misjudged the murdered officer.
“Pekkala, I did not want to kill him, but when he told me that Klenovkin would be there any minute, thinking perhaps that I would see the situation as hopeless and surrender, I knew I didn’t have any choice except to silence him for good.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a shout from the men who were digging. An arm rose from the smoke, the fist clutching a bar of gold. Tarnowski staggered out, half blinded, and laid the ingot down at Kolchak’s feet. Then he turned and went back to his digging.
Slowly, Kolchak bent down and picked up the bar, whose surface was hidden by a residue of dirt which had leached through the wooden crate over time. Kolchak rubbed it away with his thumb, revealing the double-headed eagle of the Romanovs. Then he glanced at Pekkala and smiled.
“Those men deserve to be told,” said Pekkala, nodding towards Lavrenov and Tarnowski, “and told now.”
“They will be, as soon as they have finished.”
“Have you considered the possibility that they might not want to go through with it?”
“Of course,” replied Kolchak. “That’s why I am telling you first. These men know that you were trusted by the Tsar. If you are with me, they will be as well. Think of it, my friend. We won’t just be living like kings. Kings are what we will
But all Pekkala could think about was the lives which would be lost if he stood by and did nothing. He remembered the Tsar, driven to the brink of madness by the dead from the Kodynka field, the men and women he believed he could have saved whirling in a ceaseless and macabre dance inside the white-walled palace of his skull.
It took both men to raise the first crate from the ground. As they lifted it, the rotten wood gave way. With dull, metallic clanks, ingots tumbled out into the snow. Other crates followed quickly, wrenched from the dirt and dragged clear of the steaming ground.
“Did it not occur to you,” asked Pekkala, “that I might agree with Ryabov?”
Kolchak laughed, certain that Pekkala must be joking. “We are all of us entitled to vengeance, but none more than you, Pekkala.”
“Vengeance has become the purpose of
Kolchak’s smile faded as he grasped that Pekkala was serious. “I trusted you! I broke you out of that prison. I gave you the coat off my back-and this is how you repay me? The Tsar would be ashamed of you.”
“The Tsar is dead, Kolchak, and so is the world in which he lived. You cannot bring it back by spilling blood. If you have your way, the rivers of Siberia will soon be choked with corpses. And if Germany invades in the west, millions more people will die. By the time your vengeance has been satisfied, Russia will cease to exist. Your uncle did not die for that.”
Kolchak’s eyes glazed with rage. “But you will, Inspector Pekkala.”
Almost too late, Pekkala saw the knife. He grabbed Kolchak’s wrist as the weapon flickered past his face.
With his other hand balled into a fist, Kolchak struck Pekkala in the throat, sending him down in a heap onto the trampled snow.
While Pekkala fought for breath, Kolchak raised the blade above his head, ready to plunge it into the center of Pekkala’s chest.
When the two men emerged onto the ice, Gramotin could scarcely believe his good luck. Shielding his eyes with one dirty hand, he strained to make out who they were. Even though their faces were unclear, he could still see the numbers painted in white on their faded black jackets. One of them was 4745. “Pekkala,” he muttered to himself. The other, he decided, must be Lavrenov, since he was neither bald nor the size of Tarnowski.
Lavrenov and Pekkala seemed to be involved in a heated conversation. Pekkala, who did most of the talking, even grabbed Lavrenov by the arm.
With trembling fingers, Gramotin slid back the bolt of his rifle and double-checked that he had a round in the breech.
Now the two men appeared to be arguing.
The next thing Gramotin saw was that Pekkala had drawn a knife. Suddenly, Pekkala struck Lavrenov, who fell in a heap in the snow. As Pekkala prepared to finish off the wounded Lavrenov, Gramotin felt a sudden rush of pity for the man, to have come this far only to be killed by the very person who had convinced him to escape in the first place.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Gramotin lined up the sight, right in the center of Pekkala’s back, and pulled the trigger. The gun stock bucked into his shoulder. After so much time spent with no other sound but his own breathing, he was deafened by the noise of the gunshot. It echoed back and forth between the forest and the cliff, as if guns were firing from all directions. For a moment, Gramotin lost sight of the men, but when he raised his head above the sights, he saw that Pekkala was down and a splash of blood had darkened the snow beside the fallen man.
Lavrenov, meanwhile, had scrambled away into the trees. Gramotin’s mind was in an uproar. His whole body trembled and a cackling, nervous laugh escaped his lips. He had done it. He had killed Pekkala.
This laughter ceased abruptly as it occurred to Gramotin that he needed the inspector’s body as proof of what he had done. Without it, doubt would be cast upon his story. Determined to kill as many of the Comitati as he could, and force the rest to leave Pekkala’s corpse behind, Gramotin began to fire round after round into the smoke. When the rifle’s magazine was empty, he rolled over onto his back and removed a handful of bullets from his bandolier.
As he hurriedly reloaded the rifle, Gramotin heard a noise which, at first, he mistook for thunder-although in the middle of winter that would have been unlikely. Perhaps it is an avalanche, he thought. The mysterious sound
