Shadow Pass (26 page)

“Did Konstantin ever accompany his father to the facility?”

“No,” she replied. “That was one of the few things my husband and I agreed upon. We did not want him playing around where there were weapons being built, guns being fired and so on.”

“This argument you had about the birthday. How did it resolve itself?”

“Resolve?” She laughed. “Inspector, you are being far too optimistic. Our arguments were never resolved. They simply ended when one of us couldn’t take it anymore and got up to leave the
room. In this case, it was my husband, after I had accused him of forgetting Konstantin’s birthday altogether.”

“Did he deny it?”

“No. How could he? Even Maximov sent Konstantin a birthday card. What does that tell you, Inspector, when a bodyguard takes better care of a young man than his own father does?”

“This was the only thing you argued about?”

“The only thing in front of Konstantin.”

“You mean there was more?”

“The truth is,” she said with a sigh, “my husband and I were splitting up.” She looked at him, then looked away again. “I was having an affair, you see.”

“Ah,” he said softly. “And your husband found out about it.”

She nodded.

“How long had the affair been going on?”

“For some time,” she replied. “More than a year.”

“And how did your husband find out?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He refused to tell me. By then, it really didn’t matter.”

“With whom did you have the affair?” asked Pekkala.

“Is this absolutely necessary, Inspector?”

“Yes, Mrs. Nagorski, I’m afraid it is.”

“With a man named Lev Zalka.”

“Zalka!”

“That sounds as if you know him.”

“I spoke to him this morning,” replied Pekkala, “and he didn’t tell me anything about an affair.”

“Would you have mentioned it, Inspector, if you could have avoided the subject?”

“Is that why he stopped working on the project?”

“Yes. There were other reasons, small things which could have been put right, but this was the end of everything between
them. Afterwards, my husband wouldn’t even allow Zalka’s name to be mentioned at the facility. The other technicians never knew what had happened. They just thought it was a difference of opinion about something to do with the project.”

“And what about Konstantin? Did he know about this?”

“No,” she replied. “I begged my husband not to mention it until the project was completed. Then we would move back to the city and find different places to live. Konstantin would be going off to the Moscow Technical Institute to study engineering. He would live in the dormitory there, and he could come and see me or his father whenever he wanted.”

“And your husband agreed?”

“He did not tell me that he disagreed,” she replied, “and that was as much as I had hoped for, under the circumstances.”

“This morning,” said Pekkala, “my assistant and I ruled out Zalka as a suspect, but after what you’ve told me, I’m no longer sure what to think.”

“Are you asking me if I think Lev killed my husband?”

“Or that he ordered it, perhaps?”

“If you knew Lev Zalka, you would never think that.”

“Why not?”

“Because Lev never hated my husband. The person Lev hates is himself. From the first day we began seeing each other, I knew it was destroying him inside.”

“And yet you say this lasted for over a year.”

“Because he loved me, Inspector Pekkala. And, for what it’s worth, I loved him, too. A part of me still does. I was never strong enough to finish things with Lev. It was my great weakness and it was Lev’s as well. I was almost relieved when my husband found out. And what Lev does to himself now, those medical experiments he endures, he does out of guilt. He will tell you that it is so he can carry on his research, but the man is just bleeding to death.”

“Are you still in contact with him?”

“No,” she said. “We could never go back to just being acquaintances.”

There was the sound of a door opening at the back of the dacha. A moment later it closed again.

Pekkala turned.

Konstantin stood in the kitchen. In his hand, he carried an iron ring on which three trout had been skewered through the gills.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Nagorski, “Inspector Pekkala is here.”

“I wish you would leave us alone, Inspector,” replied Konstantin as he laid the fish on the kitchen counter.

“I was just about to,” said Pekkala, rising to his feet.

“The inspector is looking for your father’s gun,” said Mrs. Nagorski.

“Your mother says he kept it on his bedside table,” added Pekkala, “or in the pocket of his coat. Did you ever see the gun anywhere else?”

“I hardly ever saw that gun,” the boy replied, “because I hardly ever saw my father.”

Pekkala turned to Mrs. Nagorski. “I’ll rely on you to search the house. If the gun turns up, please let me know immediately.”

Outside the house, she shook his hand. “I’m sorry for the way Konstantin spoke to you,” she told Pekkala. “I’m the one he’s angry with. He just hasn’t gotten around to admitting it yet.”

I
T WAS LATE IN THE DAY BY THE TIME
P
EKKALA RETURNED TO THE OFFICE
. He had stopped to refuel the Emka, which took him out of his way, and the mechanic at the garage had persuaded him to change the oil and radiator fluid. He then discovered that the radiator needed replacing, by which time most of the day had gone.

“We should probably change the fuel gauge as well,” said the mechanic. “It appears to be sticking.”

“How long will that take?” asked Pekkala, already at the end of his patience.

“We’d have to order the part,” explained the mechanic. “You’d need to leave it here overnight, but there’s a cot we keep in the back …”

“No!” shouted Pekkala. “Just get me back on the road!”

When the repairs had finally been completed, Pekkala returned to the office. He was halfway up the stairs when he met Kirov coming down.

“There you are!” said Kirov.

“What’s the matter?”

“You just had a call from the Kremlin.”

Pekkala felt his heart clench. “Do you know what it’s about?”

“They didn’t tell me. All they said was to get you over there as soon as possible. Comrade Stalin is waiting.”

“He is waiting for me?” muttered Pekkala. “Well, there’s a change.”

Together, the two men returned to the street, where the Emka’s engine was still warm.

“I
T’S OVER
!”
SHOUTED
S
TALIN
.

They were walking down a corridor towards Stalin’s private study. Staff officers and clerks in military uniform stood to the side, backs against the wall and staring straight ahead, like people disguised as statues. As if taking part in this elaborate game, Stalin ignored their existence.

“What is over?” asked Pekkala.

“The case!” Stalin replied. “We have the man who killed Nagorski.”

From offices on either side came the sounds of typewriters, the rustle of metal file cabinets opening and closing, and the murmur of indistinct voices.

“You do?” Pekkala was unable to hide his surprise. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t received the final report. All I can tell you is that we have a man in custody and that he has confessed to killing Nagorski, as well as trying to sell information on the Konstantin Project to the Germans.”

As they reached the door to the waiting room, two guards, each armed with a submachine gun, clicked their heels together. One guard opened the door with a flick of his hand so that Stalin passed through into his study without even breaking his stride.

The three clerks, including Poskrebyshev, rose sharply from their chairs as Stalin entered. Poskrebyshev moved towards the study door, in an attempt to open it for Stalin.

“Get out of the way,” barked Stalin.

Without any change of expression, Poskrebyshev stopped in midstride, turned, and went back to his desk.

Inside the study, Stalin closed the door and broke into a smile. “I must say, Pekkala, I am taking some pleasure in the fact that this was one case you were unable to solve.”

“How did you catch this man?” asked Pekkala.

“That woman brought him in, that NKVD major you thought might prove useful.”

“Lysenkova?”

“That’s her. She got a call from someone at the Nagorski facility who was able to identify the killer.”

“I knew nothing about this,” said Pekkala. “We had agreed that Major Lysenkova would keep me informed.”

Stalin made a vague grumble of surprise. “None of that matters now, Pekkala. What matters is that we have the man who did it.”

“What about the White Guild and those agents who were killed?”

“It looks as if that might be a separate matter,” replied Stalin.

“May I speak to this man?” asked Pekkala.

Stalin shrugged. “Of course. I don’t know what kind of shape he is in, but I assume he can still talk.”

“Where is he being held?”

“At the Lubyanka, in one of the isolation cells. Come.” Stalin rested his hand on Pekkala’s shoulder and steered him towards the tall windows, which looked out over the empty parade ground below. Stalin stopped a few paces short of the window itself. He never took the risk of being seen by someone outside. “Within a matter of months,” he said, “you will see T-34 tanks parked end to end down there, and it won’t be a minute too soon. Germany is now openly preparing for war. I am doing everything I can to buy us time. Yesterday I halted all patrols along the Polish border, in case of accidental incursions into their territory. Any movement by us beyond our own national boundaries will be interpreted by Germany as an act of aggression, and Hitler is looking for any excuse to begin hostilities. These measures cannot prevent what is inevitable. They can only delay it, hopefully long enough that the T-34’s will be waiting when our enemies decide to attack.”

Pekkala left Stalin staring out the window at the imaginary procession of armor.

Down on the street, Kirov was pacing back and forth beside the Emka.

Pekkala came running out of the building. “Get us over to the Lubyanka as quickly as you can.”

M
INUTES LATER, THE
E
MKA ROARED AROUND THE CORNER OF
Dzerzhinsky Square and into the main courtyard of the Lubyanka prison. Even though it had not snowed in weeks, piles of filthy snow left over from the winter were still plowed up into the corners where the sunlight failed to reach. On three sides of the courtyard, walls rose several stories high. Windows stretched along the
ground floor, but above that were rows of strange metal sheets, each one anchored with iron pins a hand’s width from the wall, hiding whatever lay behind them.

A guard escorted them inside the prison. He wore a bulky greatcoat made of poor-quality wool dyed an irregular shade of purplish brown and a bulky, fur-lined hat known as a
ushanka
. Pekkala and Kirov signed in at the front desk. They scrawled their names in a huge book containing thousands of pages. The book had a steel plate covering everything except the space for them to write their names.

The man behind the desk picked up a phone. “Pekkala is here,” he said.

Now another guard took over from the first. He led them down a series of long, windowless, dimly illuminated corridors. Hundreds of gray metal doors lined the way. All were closed. The place stank of ammonia, sweat, and the dampness of old stone. The floors were covered with brown industrial carpeting. The guard even wore felt-soled boots, as if sound itself was a crime. Except for the padding of their feet upon the carpet, the place was absolutely silent. No matter how many times Pekkala came here, the silence always unnerved him.

The guard stopped at one of the cells, rapped his knuckles on the door and opened it without waiting for a reply. He jerked his head, indicating that they could go inside.

Pekkala and Kirov entered a room with a tall ceiling, roughly three paces long by four paces wide. The walls were painted brown up to chest height. Above that, everything was white. The light in the room came from a single bulb set back into the wall above the door and covered with a wire cage.

In the center of the room was a table, on which lay a heap of old rags.

Between Pekkala and this table, with her back to them, stood
Major Lysenkova. She wore the NKVD dress uniform—an olive-colored tunic with polished brass buttons and dark blue trousers with a purplish-red stripe running down the side tucked into black knee-length boots.

“I told you I was not to be disturbed!” she shouted as she turned around. Only then did she realize who had entered the room. “Pekkala!” Her eyes widened with surprise. “I was not expecting you.”

“Evidently.” Pekkala glanced at a figure huddled in the corner of the cell. It was a man, wearing the thin beige cotton pajamas issued to all prisoners at Lubyanka. The man’s knees were drawn up to his chest and his head lay on his knees. One of his arms hung limply at his side. The shoulder had been dislocated. The other arm was wrapped around his shins, as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible. Now, at the sound of Pekkala’s voice, the man lifted his head.

The side of his face was so puffed with bruises that at first Pekkala could not identify him.

“Inspector,” croaked the man.

Now Pekkala recognized the voice. “Ushinsky!” He gaped at the wreckage of the scientist.

Major Lysenkova lifted a sheet of paper from the desk. “Here is his full confession, to the crime of murder and of intending to sell secrets to the enemy. He has signed it. The matter is closed.”

“Major,” said Pekkala, “we agreed that you would take no action without informing me first.”

“Don’t look so surprised, Inspector,” she replied. “I told you I had learned what it takes to survive. I saw a chance to get myself out of that mess and I took it. Whatever agreement you and I had has been canceled. Comrade Stalin does not care who solved this case, just that it has been solved. The only people who care are you”—she glanced at Kirov—“and your assistant.”

Kirov did not reply. He stood against the wall, staring in disbelief at Lysenkova.