“You must leave now!” urged Pekkala.
“I saw what happened,” said Tarnowski, “out there on the pond. Kolchak was going to kill you.”
Pekkala nodded. “If it hadn’t been for that gunman on the cliff …”
“That gunman didn’t shoot the colonel. I did.”
The revelation stunned Pekkala. “But why?” he demanded.
“I heard what he was planning to do,” explained Tarnowski. “I don’t care if Kolchak wanted a fight with Stalin. Unlike you and Captain Ryabov, I have no love for Russia or mankind. This whole country can go up in flames as far as I’m concerned.”
“Then why did you ever become a soldier?”
“Because I was good at it! War was my job, just as police work was yours, and I expected to be paid for doing it. I am owed, Pekkala, not only for the expedition but for every day I spent at Borodok, especially since we never should have been there! If the colonel hadn’t insisted on bringing an entire wagonload of treasure with us when we departed from the city of Kazan, instead of leaving all three wagons behind as we should have done, we could have outrun the Bolsheviks. At least we would have saved ourselves. Instead, I ended up in Borodok, along with the rest of Kolchak’s men. My share of the gold is fair wages for spending half my life in that hellhole. And I’ll be damned if Kolchak was going to spend it on another war.”
“Then take what you can and go now!” pleaded Pekkala.
Tarnowski nodded once. “Very well, Inspector, and thank you. Perhaps one day I’ll see you on the other side.”
Without another word, Pekkala turned and set out across the frozen pond towards the tracks. Behind him, hidden in the canopy of pines, he heard the dull ring of gold bars knocking together. After that came silence.
The train had stopped beside the cliff. The locomotive stamped and snorted, like a bull getting ready to charge. Then it belched out a cloud of steam as the driver released pressure from the engine.
Twenty paces away, Pekkala stood on the tracks, waiting to see what they’d do.
Now a man emerged from the haze. He was tall and thin, with a particular loping stride.
Only when Kirov stood right in front of him did Pekkala believe his eyes. “Kirov!” he shouted.
“Inspector,” said Kirov, trying to hide his astonishment at the sight of Pekkala’s filthy clothes, scruffy beard, and uncombed hair. “Where are the kidnappers?”
“Kidnappers?” asked Pekkala.
“The men who took you hostage when they escaped from the camp.”
“Ah, yes,” Pekkala replied hastily. “They fled when they saw the train coming.” Now Pekkala raised his head and squinted at the top of the cliff. “And where are the soldiers who kept them pinned down?”
“There are no soldiers, Inspector. Only me, and the driver of the train.”
“But
“We did see a man on the tracks, but he ran away when we slowed down. Whoever he was, the train must have scared him off.” Kirov nodded towards Kolchak, whose body still lay sprawled upon the frozen pond. “Who is he?”
“That,” replied Pekkala, “is Colonel Kolchak, the last casualty of a war which ended twenty years ago. And from what I hear, Stalin intends to make a casualty of me as well.”
“That will be true for both of us, Inspector, if we do not bring him the thirteen cases of gold he says are still missing from the Tsar’s Imperial Reserves.”
“Thirteen?”
Kirov nodded. “That’s what he said. Five thousand pounds of it in all.”
Stalin has somehow miscalculated the amount, thought Pekkala. “How did he come up with that number?”
“They had an informant,” explained Kirov. “A groundskeeper at Tsarskoye Selo. He saw Colonel Kolchak departing from the estate and even managed to count the number of crates on the wagons Kolchak brought with him.”
As Pekkala thought back to that night, he suddenly grasped what must have happened. The groundskeeper had not realized that the third cart had broken down. He had only watched the first two carts departing. By the time the third had been repaired, the groundskeeper was already on his way to report what he had seen. Stalin must be under the impression that there were fifty cases in all, when in fact there were seventy-five. There were not thirteen cases missing. There were thirty-eight. Subtracting the three cases that Kolchak used for bribes along his route, that still left thirty-five cases of gold, and not five thousand pounds but more than thirteen thousand.
“Those cases are down there in the woods,” said Pekkala. “I will go and fetch them now.”
“Let me help you, Inspector.”
“No.” Pekkala held up one grubby hand. “As the Tsar once said to me, this is a task I trust to no one else.”
The poor man has been driven insane, Kirov thought to himself, but he smiled gently and rested a hand upon the shoulder of Pekkala’s dirty coat. “Very well, Inspector,” he said comfortingly. “If you insist.”
It took Pekkala two hours to carry the ingots from the forest. In that time, he barely spoke, methodically shuffling back and forth between the train tracks and the clearing.
Kirov and Deryabin watched Pekkala struggling under the weight of the ingots, which he carried three at a time. The only assistance Pekkala accepted was for the two men to take the gold from his hands and stack it inside the train compartment.
“Why won’t he let us help him?” asked Deryabin, when Pekkala had once more disappeared through the reeds and into the clearing on the other side.
“Don’t ask me why he does what he does,” replied Kirov, “because, believe me, I don’t know. Most of the time only Pekkala knows what he is doing, but that was enough for the Tsar, and it is enough for Stalin as well, so it will have to be enough for you and me, Comrade Deryabin.”
When the thirteen cases of gold, three hundred twelve bars in all, had been delivered to the train, Pekkala returned one last time to the frozen pond and dragged the body of Colonel Kolchak to the tracks, leaving a bloody trail through the snow. With Kirov’s help, the two men laid Kolchak inside the tender where the reserves of coal were kept.
The rest of the gold, more than five hundred bars, Pekkala left behind in the forest. In time, the Ostyaks would find it-a gift from the man with bloody hands.
“Inspector,” said Kirov, “we have a long journey ahead of us, but before we go, I have a little gift for you.” From the pocket of his tunic, Kirov removed the Emerald Eye and placed it in Pekkala’s hand.
For a moment Pekkala stared at the badge, which unblinkingly returned his gaze from the safety of his grubby palm. Then, very carefully, Pekkala pinned it to the lapel of his coat.
In the engineer’s compartment, Kirov sat down on the bars, which formed a low bench against the rear wall. He leaned back and folded his arms. “Deryabin!”
“Yes?”
“It is time to go.”
“But where?”
“Still think you could teach those Muscovites a thing or two?”
“Damned right I could!”
Seated on his makeshift throne of gold, Kirov gestured casually towards the west. “Then roll on, Engine Master. We are bound for Moscow. Show us what the Orlik can do.”
Too exhausted to go on, Gramotin stood beside the tracks, crying out in terror and confusion.
The Orlik had caught up with him at last.
Looking down from the engineer’s compartment, Pekkala noticed what appeared to be a person in military uniform, although he could not be quite sure. This wretch’s clothing appeared to be both singed and frozen at the same time. The helpless creature stood with its mouth open, caught up in a cyclone of whirling snow which vortexed around him as if it were a living thing. Whoever it was, Pekkala pitied him for having gone astray in such a wilderness.
As the train passed by, the two men locked eyes. In that moment, each one recognized the other.
“Gramotin!” exclaimed Pekkala.
