It took Pekkala a moment to understand that this object was an iron pipe. It had been sawed through on a diagonal so that the end was like the needle of a huge syringe. The pipe had then been bound with vines to the trunk of a bent sapling; the weight of Samarin’s foot had loosed it.
The grenade was only a diversion, drawing their gaze away from the real danger hidden in the leaves.
The sharpened pipe had struck Samarin square in the chest. Its force had thrown him back against the stump. The rotten wood had exploded and now, from that throne of dust, a rabble of shiny black ants, pincer-tailed earwigs, and wood lice streamed out in confusion. The insects swarmed over Samarin’s shoulders, migrating frantically down his arms and out along the walkways of his fingers.
Samarin was still alive. He stared straight ahead, a look of resignation on his face. Then something happened to his eyes. They became like those of a cat. And suddenly he was dead.
Through shredded clouds, beams of sunlight slanted among the trees so that the air itself appeared like molten copper. The rain had stopped.
“Where the hell is Maximov?” asked Kirov. “Why didn’t he help?”
“Too late now,” replied Pekkala. “Whoever that man was, we have lost him.” As he stared once more at the place where the man had disappeared, it occurred to him that they might not have been chasing a human at all, but something supernatural, a creature that could drift above the ground, oblivious to the traps, drawing around itself the million tangled branches of the trees to vanish in the air.
The two men walked over to Samarin.
There was no gentle way to pry him loose. Pekkala set his boot against the dead man’s shoulder and wrenched the bar out of his chest.
Together, Kirov and Pekkala carried Samarin’s body back to the road. There they found Maximov waiting just where they had left him.
Maximov stared at the body of Samarin. Then he raised his head and looked Pekkala in the eye, but he did not say a word.
Kirov could not contain his anger. He stalked over to Maximov, so that the two men were only an arm’s length apart. “Why didn’t you help us?” he raged.
“I know what’s out there in those woods,” replied Maximov. His voice betrayed no emotion.
“He knew!” Kirov pointed at the body of Captain Samarin. “He
Maximov’s head turned slowly, until he was looking at Samarin’s corpse. “Yes, he did.”
“What’s the matter with you?” yelled Kirov. “Were you afraid to take the risk?”
At this insult, Maximov seemed to shudder, as if the ground were trembling beneath his feet. “There are better ways to serve your country, Comrade Commissar, than by throwing your life away at the first opportunity.”
“You can settle this later,” said Pekkala. “Right now, we have company.”
An army truck with NKVD license plates was coming down the road. The canvas covers were battened down. As it passed, the driver glanced out the side window, caught sight of Samarin, then turned to say something to someone in the passenger seat.
The truck pulled up in front of the facility. Armed men wearing the blue and red peaked caps of NKVD Security troops jumped down onto the muddy ground and took up positions around the buildings.
An officer emerged from the cab of the truck. It was only when the officer began walking towards them that Pekkala realized it was a woman, since she wore the same clothes and caps as the men, hiding the curve of her hips and her chest.
The woman stopped in front of them, surveying the filthy disarray of their clothes. She was of medium height, with a round face and wide green eyes. “I am Commissar Major Lysenkova of NKVD Internal Affairs.”
Pekkala had heard about this woman. She was famous for her work within the NKVD, for which most of her colleagues despised her. Commissar Lysenkova had the unenviable task of investigating crimes inside her own branch of service. In the past two years, over thirty NKVD men had gone to their deaths after being convicted of crimes investigated by Lysenkova. Within the close-knit ranks of the NKVD, Pekkala had never heard a kind word said about her. He had even heard a rumor that she denounced her own parents to the authorities, and that her whole family ended up in Siberia as a result.
Given the reputation that preceded her, Pekkala was surprised at how Lysenkova appeared in person. Her tough reputation did not seem to match the gentle angles of her face, and the clothes she wore would have been too small for him by the time he was twelve years old.
“Which one of you is Pekkala?” she asked.
“I am.” Pekkala felt the stare of her luminous green eyes.
“What has happened here?” demanded Lysenkova, flicking a finger towards Samarin’s corpse.
Pekkala explained.
“And you failed to catch this person?”
“That is correct.”
“I am curious to know,” she continued, “how you managed to arrive at the crime scene before me, Inspector.”
“When we set out for this place,” replied Pekkala, “the crime had not yet been committed. But now that you are here, Commissar Lysenkova, I would appreciate whatever help you can give us.”
The green eyes blinked at him. “You seem to be confused, Inspector, about who is in charge of this investigation. This facility is under NKVD control.”
“Very well,” said Pekkala. “What do you intend to do now?”
“I will examine Colonel Nagorski’s body myself,” replied Lysenkova, “to see if I can determine the exact circumstances of his death. In the meantime, I will send guards out to patrol the main road, in case this runner makes it through the woods.”
“What about Nagorski’s family?” asked Pekkala.
“His wife and son live here on the compound,” said Maximov.
“Do they know what has happened?” Lysenkova asked.
“Not yet,” replied the bodyguard. “There is no phone at the house and no one has been out there since the accident.”
“I will break the news to them,” said Pekkala, but even as he spoke, he wondered where he would find the words. His trade was with the dead and those who brought them to that place, not with those who had to go on living in the wake of such disaster.
Lysenkova considered this for a moment. “All right,” she replied. “And report back to me when you’re done. But first”—she nodded towards Samarin—“you can bury that.”
“Here?” Kirov stared at her. “Now?”
“This is a secret facility,” she answered. “Everything that happens here is classified, including who works here and who has the misfortune of dying in this place. Have you ever heard of the White Sea Canal, Major?”
“Of course,” replied Kirov.
Designed to link the White Sea and the Baltic, a distance of over two hundred kilometers, the canal had been dug in the early 1930’s almost entirely by convict laborers using primitive tools in some of the harshest conditions on earth. Thousands had perished. In the end, the canal proved too narrow for the cargo ships it had been designed to carry.
“Do you know what they did with the prisoners who died on that project?” Without waiting for a reply, Lysenkova went on. “Their corpses were sunk into the wet cement which made up the walls of the canal. That’s what happens to secrets in this country, Major. They get buried. So do as I tell you and put him under the ground.”
“Where?” asked Kirov, still unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Here in the road, for all I care,” snapped Lysenkova, “but wherever it is, do it now.” Then she spun on her heel and left them.
“I guess the rumors about her are true,” said Kirov, watching Lysenkova as she strode back to the truck.
Maximov turned his head away and spat.
“Why didn’t you pull rank on her, Inspector?” Kirov asked Pekkala.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” replied Pekkala. “The fact that she is here at all means there is more going
