The sergeant’s screaming ceased abruptly as he gaped at prisoner 4745-the man he could have sworn he had just killed.
And then the train was gone.
Gramotin waited until the Orlik had vanished into the distance. Then, after swearing a silent oath never to mention what he had just seen, he tottered back onto the tracks and kept walking.
Six days later, the Orlik rolled into Moscow’s Central Station.
HIGH ABOVE THE KREMLIN, thunderhead clouds drifted across the pale blue sky.
From his office window, Stalin gazed out across the rooftops of the city. He never placed himself directly in front of the glass. Instead, he leaned into the thick folds of the red velvet curtain, preferring to remain invisible to anyone who might be looking from below.
Pekkala stood in the center of the room, breathing in the honeyed smell of beeswax polish and the leathery reek of old tobacco smoke.
He had been there for several minutes, waiting for Stalin to acknowledge his presence.
Finally, Stalin turned away from the window. “I realize you must be upset. I might have overreacted.”
“You mean by ordering me to be shot?”
“However”-Stalin raised one finger in the air-“you must admit my instincts were right about the gold. Ingenious, Pekkala, allowing yourself to be taken hostage by the Comitati, in order to locate the treasure. A pity those two men managed to escape.”
“A small price to pay.”
“Yes,” Stalin muttered absentmindedly.
“You seem restless today, Comrade Stalin.”
“I am!” he agreed. “Ever since I walked in here this morning, I’ve had the feeling that the world was somehow out of balance. My mind is playing tricks on me.”
“Is there anything else, Comrade Stalin?”
“What? Oh, yes. Yes, there is.” Lifting a file from the stack laid out on his green blotter, he slid it across to Pekkala. “For the successful completion of this case, congratulations are in order. These are your award papers. You are now a Hero of the Soviet Union.”
“That will not be necessary, Comrade Stalin.”
Stalin’s jaw clenched, but then he sighed with resignation. “I knew you wouldn’t take it, and yet I have a feeling you do not intend to leave here empty-handed.”
“As a matter of fact,” said Pekkala, “I do have one request.”
“I thought as much,” growled Stalin.
“It concerns a man named Melekov.”
In the outer office, Poskrebyshev was relishing Stalin’s discomfort.
The previous night he had experienced an epiphany. When it came to him, he was hovering in that space between waking and sleeping, when the body seems to translate itself, molecule by molecule, into that swirling dust from which the universe is made.
The idea appeared in Poskrebyshev’s head so completely that it seemed to him at first as if there was someone else in the room explaining it to him. The drifting of his consciousness halted abruptly. Suddenly wide awake, Poskrebyshev sat up in bed and fumbled about in the dark for a pencil and piece of paper, afraid that if he did not write it down his plan might escape unremembered into the mysterious realm from which it had appeared.
Poskrebyshev had been thinking about the apparently limitless enjoyment Stalin took in humiliating him. He had always assumed that this was simply a thing he was required to endure. There could be no consideration of revenge. Stalin’s sense of humor did not extend to laughter gleaned at his own expense. The only way Poskrebyshev could ever achieve any kind of satisfaction was if Stalin did not know a joke was being played on him.
Which is impossible, he told himself.
It was at this moment that the angels spoke to Poskrebyshev, or if they were not angels, then some other supernatural voice-Lenin, or Trotsky perhaps, calling to him from beyond the grave-since it hardly seemed possible to him that he could have come up with such a brilliant plan all on his own. In its deviousness, it even surpassed the revenge he had taken on Comrades Schwartz and Ermakov, currently residing in Archangel.
Arriving early for work the next morning, Poskrebyshev carefully rearranged the contents of Stalin’s office. Chairs. Carpets. Ashtrays. Pictures on the wall.
As Poskrebyshev was well aware, Stalin liked everything to be in its proper place. He insisted upon it to such a degree of obsession that, the previous week, when a member of the Kremlin cleaning crew had switched his pipe rack from one side of the desk to the other, Stalin had the woman dismissed.
The brilliance of Poskrebyshev’s revenge consisted in shifting these objects only millimeters from their original position. No one looking at them would be consciously aware that anything was out of the ordinary. Subconsciously, however, the cumulative effect would be devastating.
It would not be permanent, of course. When Stalin had gone for the day, Poskrebyshev would put everything back in its proper place. He would do this not to relieve Comrade Stalin of his suffering but to confound him even further as to the source of his anxiety.
Now, as Poskrebyshev eavesdropped on Stalin’s conversation with Pekkala, he experienced a warmth of satisfaction he had never felt before and clenched his teeth to hide the sound of cackling which threatened to burst from his mouth.
A few minutes later, when Pekkala emerged from Stalin’s office, Poskrebyshev busied himself with paperwork. He expected Pekkala to walk straight past without acknowledging him, as most people did. Instead, the investigator paused. Reaching across Poskrebyshev’s desk, he repositioned the intercom a finger’s breadth to the right of where it had been before.
“What are you doing?” asked Poskrebyshev.
“Comrade Stalin seems particularly agitated today.”
Poskrebyshev looked at the ugly black box, as if by force of will he might return the object to its original position. Then, slowly, he raised his head until he was staring at Pekkala. Could he possibly have figured it out? wondered Poskrebyshev. What are you thinking? asked the voices in his head. It’s Pekkala. Of course he has figured it out! A sense of imminent doom surrounded Poskrebyshev, but only for a moment, because he noticed Pekkala was smiling.
“And how is the weather in Archangel today?” asked the inspector.
By the time Poskrebyshev remembered to breathe, Pekkala had already gone.
Melekov had just finished installing a new phone in the commandant’s office. His hands were sticky from the electrical tape he had used to bind the wiring. As he wiped his fingertips on his shirt, Melekov looked around the room. Most of Klenovkin’s possessions had already been stolen by various guards who came to see the bullet hole, almost hidden by the peacock fan of blood which had sprayed across the wall.
Now the bullet hole had been repaired and the blood had been painted over, although, Melekov noted, both were still visible if he stared at the place for a while.
With a few minutes to spare before he had to be back at the kitchen, Melekov sat down in Klenovkin’s chair and put his feet up on the desk. Then, from his trouser pocket, he pulled out a cheese and cabbage sandwich.
Halfway through his first mouthful, the telephone rang, shattering the quiet of the room.
Caught by surprise, Melekov leaped out of his chair, which tipped over backwards and crashed to the floor.
Immediately, the phone rang again, its deafening clatter filling the air.
Melekov snatched the receiver out of its cradle and pressed it to his ear.
“Hello!” called a voice at the other end. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
“Yes …”
“Who are you?” demanded the voice.
“Who are
“This is Vladimir Leonovich Poskrebyshev. I am calling from the Kremlin with a message for somebody named Melekov. Do you know him?”
