bled but still the smell remained, as if those corpses lay about the floor right beside his bed.
Pekkala crouched down. Reaching out, he touched Nagorski’s fingertips, his own hand forming a reflection of the one which lay submerged beneath the muddy water. The image of Nagorski returned to him, blustery and sweating in the interrogation room of the Lubyanka prison. There had seemed to be something indestructible about him. Now Pekkala felt the cold skin of the dead colonel radiating up through his arm, as if his own life were being drained out through his pores. He pulled his hand away and rose, forcing his thoughts to the work that lay ahead. “Who are you two?” he asked the men.
“I am Professor Ushinsky,” explained the one with the gray hair. “I am responsible for developing armaments here at the facility. And this”—he gestured to the man in the brown coat—“is Professor Gorenko.”
“I am the drive-train specialist,” explained Gorenko. He kept his hands inside his pockets. His shoulders were trembling with the cold.
“How did this happen?” asked Pekkala.
“We aren’t sure.” Gorenko tried to wipe some of the mud from his coat but succeeded only in smearing it into the wool. “This morning, when we reported for work, Nagorski said he would be working on number 3.” With knuckles blue from cold, he rapped on the side of the tank. “This is number 3,” he said.
“The colonel said he would be working by himself,” added Ushinsky.
“Was that unusual?”
“No,” replied Ushinsky. “The colonel often carried out tests on his own.”
“Tests? You mean the tank is not finished yet?”
Both men shook their heads.
“There are seven complete machines at the facility. Each one has been equipped with slightly different mechanisms, engine configurations, and so on. They are constantly being tested and compared to each other. Eventually, we will standardize the pattern. Then the T-34 will go into mass production. Until then, the colonel wanted to keep everything as secret as possible.”
“Even from you?”
“From everyone, Inspector,” replied Gorenko. “Without exception.”
“At what point did you realize that something had gone wrong?”
“When I stepped outside the main assembly plant.” Ushinsky nodded towards the largest of the facility buildings. “We call it the Iron House. It’s where all the parts for the tanks are stored. There’s so much metal in there, I’m surprised the whole structure hasn’t sunk beneath the ground. Before I went outside, I’d been working on the final drive mechanism. The single straight reduction gears have armored mountings at each side of the tail …”
As if he could not help himself, Gorenko’s hands drifted up to the chest of his coat and began scraping once more at the mud embedded in the cloth.
“Will you stop that!” shouted Ushinsky.
“It’s a brand-new coat,” muttered Gorenko. “I only bought it yesterday.”
“The boss is dead!” Ushinsky grabbed Gorenko by the wrists and pulled his hands away. “Can’t you get that into your thick skull?”
Both men appeared to be in shock. Pekkala had seen behavior like this many times before. “When did you realize that something had gone wrong?” he asked patiently, trying to steer them back on track.
“I was out smoking my cigarette—” said Ushinsky.
“No smoking in the factory,” interrupted Gorenko.
“I can do this by myself!” shouted Ushinsky, jabbing a finger against Gorenko’s chest.
Gorenko staggered backwards and almost lost his footing. “You don’t have to be like that!” he snapped.
“And I noticed that number 3 was half sunk in the mud,” continued Ushinsky. “I thought—look what the colonel’s gone and done. He’s buried the machine. I assumed he had gotten it stuck on purpose, just to see what would happen. That’s the kind of thing he’d do. I waited to see if he could get it out of there, but then I began to think that something might have gone wrong.”
“What gave you that idea?” asked Pekkala.
“To begin with, the engine wasn’t running. Nagorski wouldn’t have cut power to the motor under those circumstances, not even for an experiment. The whole tank could sink into this mud. If water flooded the engine compartment, the entire drive train could be ruined. Even Nagorski wouldn’t take a chance like that.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. The turret hatch was open, and it was pouring. Colonel Nagorski would have closed the hatch. And, finally, there was no sign of him.”
“What did you do then?”
“I went in and fetched Gorenko,” said Ushinsky.
Gorenko took this as a sign that he could speak at last. “We both went out to take a look,” he explained.
“First we checked inside the tank,” Ushinsky said. “It was empty.”
“Then I spotted the body lying under the tracks,” added Gorenko. “We ran and found Captain Samarin, the head of security. We all came back to the tank and Samarin told us to stay here.”
“Not to touch anything.”
“Then he went to call the ambulance.”
“And we’ve been here ever since,” said Gorenko, hugging his arms against his chest.
“Shouldn’t we get him out from under there?” Ushinsky was staring at the colonel’s hand, which seemed to tremble in the wind-stirred puddle at their feet.
“Not just yet,” replied Pekkala. “Until I have examined the area, no evidence can be disturbed.”
“It’s hard to think of him like that,” muttered Gorenko. “As
The time would come, Pekkala knew, when Nagorski’s body would receive the respect it deserved. For now, the dead man was part of an equation, along with the mud in which he lay and the iron which had crushed out his life. “If Nagorski was here by himself,” Pekkala asked, “do you have any idea how he could have ended up beneath the machine?”
“We’ve been asking ourselves the same question,” said Ushinsky.
“It just doesn’t seem possible,” Gorenko chimed in.
“Have you been inside the tank since you got here?” asked Pekkala.
“Only to see that it was empty.”
“Can you show me the driver’s compartment?”
“Of course,” replied Gorenko.
At the opposite end of the tank from where Nagorski’s body had been pinned, Pekkala set his foot on one of the wheels and tried to lift himself up on the side of the tank. He lost his balance and with a groan of frustration fell back spread-eagled into the water. By the time he emerged, Gorenko had gone around to the front of the tank and put his foot up on the fender. “Always board from the front, Inspector. Like this!” He scrambled up onto the turret, opened the hatch, and dropped down inside.
Pekkala followed, his soaked coat weighing on his back and his ruined shoes slipping on the smooth metal surfaces. His fingers clawed for a grip as he moved from one handhold to another. When he finally reached the turret hatch, he peered down into the cramped space of the compartment.
“How many people fit in here?”
“Five,” replied Gorenko, looking up at him.
To Pekkala, it didn’t look as if there was even enough room for himself and Gorenko, let alone three other men.
“Are you all right, Inspector?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” Pekkala lied.
“Well, then,” said Gorenko. “Down you come, Inspector.”
Pekkala sighed heavily. Then he clambered down into the tank. The first thing he noticed, as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, was the smell of new paint mixing with the odor of diesel fuel. Cramped as it had appeared from above, the interior space seemed even smaller now that he was inside it. Pekkala felt as if he had entered a tomb. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He had struggled with claustrophobia ever since he was a child,
