Dead Men Living

by the thirty-year-old man’s down-at-the-heel imitation leather shoes and lapel-curled dark gray suit, shiny at the seat and elbows, a clear indication that he had so far failed to establish a private tailoring allowance. He was blond, fresh-faced and when he became enthusiastic, as he did when Natalia outlined the assignment and mentioned Yakutskaya, stammered in his eagerness to get his words out.

“My grandfather is still alive: a Stalinist. He insists the Yakutskaya gulags never existed. That they were an invention of Stalin’s detractors.”

“There are several million people who’d argue against him if they were still alive,” remarked Natalia.

“I want to go!”

“Then you shall,” decided Natalia.

Olga Erzin was Natalia’s choice for the forensic pathologist. The woman had impeccable medical qualifications, five years’ experience of forensic medicine and a weight problem she appeared to be doing little to control. Natalia guessed the woman, whom she knew from personnel records to be the same age as Lestov and like the militia colonel unmarried, weighed close to two hundred pounds.

“It will be extremely uncomfortable,” warned Natalia.

“It’s the chance to become involved in an incredibly unique murder case.”

“Which will attract attention. To you, I mean. We can’t afford any errors.”

“I won’t make any if you don’t,” said the younger woman.

“I don’t understand.” Natalia frowned, surprised at the near impertinence.

“By choosing someone other than me,” said Olga.

After so long-and with so little information from which to judge-Natalia was unsure if any worthwhile forensic evidence would remain and decided initially only to send one scientist, to become team leader if his assessment was that a full scene-of-crime contingent was justified. Natalia was able to extend her age limitchoice, because scientific technicians did not have the access-nor therefore the opportunity-for contorted handshakes in dark alleys. Lev Fyodorovich Denebin was a lugubrious fifty-five years old whose pure white hair rose from his head as if in shock, which he’d never been, whatever the brutality of the crimes he’d investigated. Which, since the KGB control of Moscow had been virtually replaced by the mafia, had been a lot.

Denebin very obviously had that in mind when he said, after Natalia had outlined what she so far knew, “This could be fascinating. Very different.” His voice was blurred from a lifetime’s addiction to tobacco.

“And very difficult,” Natalia warned once more.

“The bastards want us to admit we haven’t got the facilities!” protested Valentin Polyakov.

“They’re going by the book,” suggested Yuri Ryabov, who’d been summoned immediately after the cabinet session that Polyakov had chaired. “Acknowledging the degree of independence we’ve so far achieved.”

“It’s important the British and Americans are coming,” decided Polyakov, his decision quite positive now.

“We can’t question Moscow’s ultimate authority, certainly as far as foreign policy,” said Ryabov.

“I don’t intend to,” assured Polyakov, feeling very satisfied. He was a huge, towering man, his size seemingly made greater by a never-trimmed spade beard, which, ironically for a man who despised everything Russian, was allowed to grow fully down to his chest in the Russian style of a man of deep religious orthodoxy, which he wasn’t. Polyakov looked intently at his police commissioner. “But they don’t have the power of life or death, like they had in the past; like they had over my father and your father and everyone else’s forefathers. Here, now, I’m in charge. And here’s what we’re going to do. We show every consideration and help to whoever London and Washington send in. I want everyone they come into contact with to understand that. I’ll actually receive them ….” He stopped, one idea following the other. “But we won’t include the Russians. You understand what I’m saying?”

“I think so,” said the militia commissioner, uncertainly.

“But don’t make it too obvious, for your part,” continued the chief minister. “I want you as part of whatever investigation team Moscow sends. At all times. It’s essential publicly to appear a joint investigation, not a Moscow take over. And that’s how I want our response to read: that we’re inviting their assistance.”

Ryabov shifted, his uncertainty growing. “Why, exactly?”

“Because I’m going to ensure we’re the focus of world attention,” announced Polyakov, who was given to cliche in his attempt to appear statesmanlike.

“Moscow has asked for details of what was recovered from the bodies. And photographs,” reminded Ryabov.

Polyakov smiled, pleased with the way he’d worked everything out. “Moscow comes to us, on our terms. They wait until they get here to see what there is.”

“All right,” accepted the police chief, uncomfortably.

“You realize how fortunate we are, having the media contacts we have in Canada?”

“Not really,” Ryabov frowned.

“You will,” promised Polyakov.

Alexei Popov’s replacement as Natalia’s deputy was a taciturn, sleek-mannered, sleek-featured Georgian. The deputy interior minister had outmaneuvered an unsuspecting Natalia to get Petr Pavlovich Travin appointed, making it obvious that after the Popov debacle the Interior Ministry felt it necessary to have their own watchdog as close to the top of her department as possible, which was in no way a guarantee of Travin’s honesty or integrity: an enshrined legacy of communism, maybe even inherited by them from the tsars, was that poachers made the best gamekeepers.

Travin listened, wordless and expressionless, while Natalia talked and still didn’t immediately speak when she’d finished and Natalia, who’d first met Charlie as his KGB debriefer when Charlie had staged a false defection, identified the familiar trick of extended silence to lure more from someone being interrogated. With that awareness came curiosity that Travin might already consider himself entitled to interrogate her. Finally the man said, “I expected to be involved from the very beginning: selecting the Russian team with you. I might have had some suggestions.”

The burly, mustached man did consider himself her equal-if not more-Natalia recognized. Stressing the demand in her voice, Natalia said, “You will be in charge, from here, of overall liaison, between us and the British and Americans. We expect-in fact it’s been politically decided we want- them to go to Yakutsk.”

“What is the chain of command?” demanded Travin, virtually in open challenge.

“Mine is to Dmitri Borisovich Nikulin, the president’s chief of staff. Yours is to me. It’s imperative from the outset that there are no misunderstandings between us. I hope there won’t be.”

“So do I,” said Travin, insolently.

How many times had she already said and thought those words? wondered Natalia. And how many times was she going to repeat them in the immediate future? She said, “The most important thing for you to understand is that whatever the outcome, no blame or error should attach to our people.”

“I’ve understood that already,” assured Travin.

“That’s good.”

It was only when Natalia was redrafting for the third time her bureaucratically necessary memorandum to Dmitri Nikulin-with copies to everyone else in the planning group-that she accepted the first version had been quite adequate and that she was stupidly delaying her return to Lesnaya and Charlie.

“I’m on my way,” she said into the telephone.

“There’s a lot to talk about,” said Charlie.

“I know.”

“It’s an opportunity!” insisted Vitali Novikov.

“How? Why?” asked his wife.

“There’ll be foreigners: American and English.”

“What good will they be?” demanded Marina.

“I don’t know, not yet. But I’ll find a way.”

“Vitali Maksimovich! You’ve tried so hard for so long. Nothing works!”