exists. All he wants to do is see this country burn.”
“Then let it burn,” replied Maximov. “I am not afraid.”
Hearing this, Pekkala was consumed by rage. He lunged at Maximov, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and heaving him across the room.
Maximov crashed against the far wall of the mess hut and slumped down with a groan.
“Have you stopped to think that you are not the only one who will go down in flames?” Pekkala shouted. “Kropotkin doesn’t care who lives or dies! That’s the difference between you and him. There are people you care about who will suffer even more than you. Yelena, for example. And Konstantin. He is already under arrest.”
“Listen, Pekkala,” growled Maximov, massaging the back of his head. “He had nothing to do with the Guild. You had no right to arrest him for a thing he did not even know about.”
“I arrested him,” said Pekkala, “because he murdered his father.”
Maximov froze. His face turned suddenly pale. “What?”
“Who do you think killed Colonel Nagorski?”
“I don’t know! It wasn’t us. That’s all I knew for sure. It might have been any number of people. Almost every one who met Nagorski ended up hating the bastard. But it couldn’t have been Konstantin!”
“How did you expect him to react after you wrote him that letter?”
“What letter? What the devil are you talking about?”
“The one you sent him on his birthday, telling him his parents were about to split up.”
“Have you lost your mind? I never wrote him any letter and even if I did, I wouldn’t have told him such a thing. That poor boy was already close to the breaking point. Why would I want to make things any worse for him, especially on his birthday?”
“Then how do you explain this?” Pekkala walked across to where Maximov was still slumped against the wall and held up the page in front of him.
Maximov squinted at the letter. “That’s not my writing.”
“Then whose is it? And why would they sign your name to it?”
“I—” Maximov’s face was a mask of confusion. “I don’t know.”
“Who else knew about the breakup besides you and the Nagorskis?”
“What could be gained …?” asked Maximov. Then suddenly he shuddered. “Let me see the letter again!”
Pekkala handed it to him.
Maximov stared at it. “Oh, no,” he whispered. Slowly, he raised his head. “This is Kropotkin’s writing.”
“What did you tell him about the Nagorskis?”
“Only that I didn’t want them involved. I knew that Nagorski and his wife were splitting up. They had been trying to keep it a secret. Konstantin was already on edge. I knew that once he realized what was going on between his parents, it would destroy his whole world.”
“Did Kropotkin know about the affair with Lev Zalka?”
“No,” replied Maximov. “Only that Nagorski was divorcing his wife.”
“After what you told him, Kropotkin must have guessed that the boy might try something like this. That way, he could not only steal the T-34 but also get rid of the man who invented it.”
“But how did Konstantin get hold of a gun?”
“Nagorski’s PPK was found in his possession. He fired it at me earlier this evening. The thing is, Maximov— the person he was trying to shoot was you.”
“Me? But why would he do that? He knows I would never do anything to harm him or his mother.”
“I believe that you care for them, Maximov, and if you hadn’t shown up drunk, you might have been a little more convincing. Instead, all you managed to do was terrify them.”
“What will they do to him now?” Maximov asked, dazed by what he had heard.
“Konstantin is guilty of murder. You know what they will do to him.”
“Kropotkin swore to me he’d keep them out of it …” whispered Maximov.
“Then help me stop him,” said Pekkala. “Kropotkin has betrayed you, and whatever you think of me, that’s not a thing I ever did.”
Maximov shuddered again. Then, finally, he spoke. “If I help you, you will see to it that Konstantin does not get sent to jail. Or worse.”
“I’ll do what I can for the boy, but you are guilty of murder and treason, not to mention trying to blow my head off—”
“I need no help from you, Pekkala. Just do what you can for Konstantin.”
“I promise,” said Pekkala.
Maximov seemed about to speak, but then he paused, as if he could not bring himself to give up Kropotkin, no matter what the man had done to him.
“Maximov,” Pekkala said gently. Hearing his name spoken seemed to snap him out of it.
“Kropotkin is heading for some place called Rusalka on the Polish border. It’s in the middle of a forest. I could show you on a map. How do you plan on stopping him?”
“One tank can be stopped by another,” said Pekkala. “Even if it is a T-34, we could send in a whole division to stop him.”
“That is exactly what Kropotkin would want you to do. The sudden arrival of troops in a quiet sector on the border is bound to be misinterpreted by the Poles. And if fighting breaks out, even if it is on our side of the border, Germany will have no trouble seeing that as an act of aggression.”
“Then we will have to go in there alone,” Pekkala told him.
“What? The two of us?” Maximov laughed. “And supposing we do track him down? What then? Will you just knock on the side of the tank and order him to come out? Pekkala, I will help you, but I am not a miracle worker —”
“No,” interrupted Pekkala. “You are an assassin, and for now, I am glad of that fact.”
LEAVING A GUARD IN CHARGE OF MAXIMOV, PEKKALA WENT TO FIND Gorenko in the Iron House.
Gorenko and Konstantin sat side by side on a couple of ammunition crates, like two men waiting for a bus. The handcuffs hung so loosely on Konstantin’s wrists that Pekkala knew the boy could have let them slip off without any effort at all if he had chosen to.
“Is there anything that can destroy a T-34?” asked Pekkala.
“Well,” said Gorenko, “it all depends …”
“I need an answer now, Gorenko.”
“All right,” he replied reluctantly. “There is a weapon we have been working on.” He led Pekkala to a corner of the building and pointed to something which had been covered with a sheet of canvas. “Here it is.” Gorenko removed the canvas, revealing a long wooden crate with rope handles and a coat of fresh Russian army paint, the color of rotten apples. “No one is supposed to know about this.”
“Open it,” said Pekkala.
Down on one knee, Gorenko flipped the latches of the crate and lifted the lid. Inside was a narrow iron tube. It took Pekkala a moment to realize that this was actually some kind of gun. A thick, curved pad at the end was designed to fit into the user’s shoulder, and another pad had been attached to the side, presumably to shield the user’s face when the gun was put to use. In front of these, he could see a large pistol grip, and a curved metal guard protecting the trigger. The weapon had a carrying handle about halfway up the tube and a set of bipod legs for stabilizing it. Attached to the end of the barrel was a squared-off piece of metal, which Pekkala assumed must be a muzzle-flash hider. The whole device looked crude and unreliable—a far cry from the neatly machined parts of his Webley revolver or the intricate assembly of Nagorski’s PPK.
“What is it?” asked Pekkala.
“This,” replied Gorenko, unable to conceal his pride in the invention, “is the PTRD, which stands for ‘Protivo Tankovoye Ruzhyo Degtyaryova.’ ”
“You have no imagination when it comes to names,” said Pekkala.
“I know,” replied Gorenko. “I even have a cat named Cat.”
Pekkala pointed at the gun. “That will stop a tank?”
Gorenko reached for a green metal box which had been fitted into the wooden case. “To be precise, Inspector,” he replied, lifting the lid of the box and taking out one of the largest bullets Pekkala had ever seen, “this
