The front room was similarly lit and empty but for a large framed painting of a white country house, which hung drunkenly askew on the wall to his left. Most of the floorboards had been cut from the floor, leaving what looked like a series of runs for the rats.
The back room was completely dark, so he decided to risk a match.
The flare revealed a hundred square feet of functioning civilization: a bed, a chair, a table bearing books, an oil lamp, and a crust of bread. There was a threadbare carpet on the floor and heavy curtains pulled across the window.
McColl lit the lamp and started to search.
It took about twenty minutes—a notebook and papers were stashed beneath a loose floorboard. He doused the lamp and left the same way he’d arrived, dropping into the darkened alley behind the row of houses and emerging back onto Bogoslovski Street. Thirty minutes later he was back in his room at the Hotel Lux, the door wedged shut, his find spread across the bed. Suvorov had possessed seven sets of false identity papers.
The notebook contained a series of messages, coded on the left-hand pages, decoded on the right. The last of these was longer than most. McColl read it through twice, then sat staring into space, stroking his lower lip with his little finger. It was more than a little unnerving to see the order for his own elimination written out in black and white, particularly when the writer was supposedly on the same side.
Not that he had a side anymore, but the bastards at Five didn’t know that.
McColl had been surprised and vaguely amused by Cumming’s original request to check on a Five operation in Russia. What sort of idiots spent their time and energy on supposed enemy soil plotting against their own compatriots? It had seemed absurd, still did. He’d agreed to come only because of Brady’s involvement.
And because it got him out of Wormwood Scrubs.
So. What was Five planning? It had to be something unusually important—or unusually sordid—for Kell’s people to declare open season on the Service. Or to even consider using someone like Brady.
But what?
He went back to the earlier messages in the notebook. Most of the recent ones concerned an operation styled “Good Indian.”
He remembered Ruzhkov reporting that Brady’s Indian comrades were not enamored of Gandhi. Could that be what they and Five had in common?
What was that phrase that the US general had coined? That the only good Indian was a dead one?
Komarov had imagined that there were about ten libraries still functioning in the city; there turned out to be more than fifty. Since the spring they had been rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the civil war, their book stocks preserved with a fanaticism that Dzerzhinsky would struggle to match. Maslov, of course, found only irritation in the unexpected scope of the search, but Komarov, staring out of his office window at the fierce summer rain sweeping across the courtyard, felt rather pleased; on any list of civilization’s prerequisites, he thought, public libraries would come higher than most. It was a sign that the revolution could be normalized, that the best of the past would still have a place in the new society.
It took his men slightly over thirty-six hours to track down Brady’s library.
Both women on duty that afternoon remembered the American comrade, and yes, he had been consulting books on India and Central Asia: accounts of journeys, of the Russian conquest of Turkestan; historical and political studies of the British Empire in India; even some ancient histories of the general area. He’d always been most courteous.
“They’re headed for India then,” Maslov said as the car carried them back to the M-Cheka offices. It was still raining, but with none of the morning’s vigor.
“Apparently,” Komarov muttered.
“Then our job is over. It’s just a matter of alerting Tashkent and the Frontier Cheka.”
Komarov wondered if Maslov had any idea how long the relevant frontier was. “Perhaps,” he said mildly.
A message was waiting on his desk: the train carrying Marusya Dzharova had finally reached Samara. The two men went up to the wireless telephone room and waited patiently while the operator connected them with the Volga city. Once established, the line was remarkably clear: Vitaly Kozorov, the chairman of the Samara Cheka, sounded as if he might be in the building next door.
“She’s not a hundred percent sure, but she thinks they’re all headed for Tashkent,” he told them. He went over exactly what the woman had said.
“Thank you, comrade,” Komarov said. “Hold on to her until you hear from me, will you?”
“That seems to clinch it,” Maslov said with evident satisfaction.
Komarov wasn’t listening. He had just put two and two together—the interpreter turning up from Tashkent, conveniently speaking both Urdu and English, just as the foreign agent had disappeared. Tall and dark and wearing a shabby suit.
The man had shaved off his beard.
It might conceivably be a coincidence, but that didn’t seem likely and wouldn’t be hard to check. Once Maslov was gone, Komarov summoned Sasha. “Get onto Tashkent,” Komarov told him, “and find out if they’ve heard of Nikolai Davydov. He claims to be a party member. And Sasha,” he added as the young man headed for the door, “keep this between the two of us.”
Alone again, Komarov walked across to his window and stared out at the empty yard. The people involved in this affair seemed connected in so many ways. Brady and Piatakov’s wife had known each other before she met Piatakov, but had obviously fallen out years before—it was Brady who had come to the Cheka in 1918 to report her being in touch with a known English agent.
Could that have been Davydov? There was no reason to think so. Three years had passed, and according to Piatakova—whose loyalty to the revolution seemed beyond question—her former lover had already quit the British Secret Service when she saw him back then. The alternative version—that she had been a spy for all that time—seemed preposterous. But he supposed it was possible.
Whoever Davydov was, unless Komarov was much mistaken, the man was involved in this business in some way or another. As for the renegades, they were on their way to India, a bunch of crazed Quixotes intent on torching English windmills.
He would get permission from Dzerzhinsky to go after them and—assuming Davydov wasn’t who he said he was—take both him and Piatakova along for the ride, one as his interpreter, the other as the only person who could, in the absence of any photographs, identify Piatakov and Shahumian. And he would watch them both like a hawk for any telltale signs of a common purpose.
The clerk replaced the desk telephone and swung open the bookcase, allowing Komarov into the short secret passage that led through to Felix Dzerzhinsky’s office. The Vecheka chairman was sitting behind his huge desk, looking, as usual, as if he’d been working for days on end. The eyes glittered; the cheeks were flushed; his gesture of welcome seemed stiff with fatigue.
“Success?” he asked expectantly.
“Up to a point,” Komarov said, taking the opposite seat. He ran through the history of the investigation, concluding with the news from Samara.
“Yuri Vladimirovich, you’ve been enjoying yourself,” Dzerzhinsky said with mock disapproval.
“I’m afraid I have.”
“How effective are these men, do you think?” Dzerzhinsky asked after a pause.
“Very, I should say. Though they did make a mess of the depot robbery.”
“Bad luck, perhaps,” Dzerzhinsky suggested. “But they seem like enemies we could well do without.” He tapped his pen on the desk. “Enemies,” he repeated, as if he was testing the concept’s viability. “I’m not at all sure the commission in Tashkent will be able to stop them. Yakov Peters doesn’t have the manpower, and without photographs . . .”
“I agree.”
“We could just let them go,” Dzerzhinsky mused, leaning back in his chair. “A group of seasoned revol
utionaries, some of whom fought with great distinction against the Whites, now carrying the banner of world revolution south into India . . . I could write the eulogy myself. And they’d be out of our hair.”
Komarov smiled. “All true,” he agreed. “But they’re also renegades and murderers.”
“And they wouldn’t be out of our hair,” Dzerzhinsky went on morosely. “They’ll do something in India, probably something dramatic enough to get the English screaming mad. Then we’ll either have to disown them, and look like liars or imbeciles, or say nothing at all, and look like we’re breaking the treaty. Bad propaganda either way.” He stared gloomily at the ceiling, then looked at Komarov. “I’m just rehearsing Zinoviev’s arguments for him. If that was all, I’d let them go, and to hell with the English. But it isn’t, is it?”
“We can’t afford renegades anymore,” Komarov said.
“Exactly. While our survival was in doubt, the Chekas had to act as an instrument of victory. But now that we’ve won, our only possible justification is to serve as an instrument of justice. And we must be seen to be so. I want these men caught.”
Komarov nodded.
“You must go after them, in person. They have a few days’ start, but that means nothing with the state the railways are in. And, as I remember it, traveling with false papers tends to slow a man down.” He smiled at the memory. “Take Maslov and however many men you think you need.”
“I’d like to take Piatakova.”
Dzerzhinsky looked surprised, then vaguely amused.
“She has some influence over her husband, and she can recognize two of the other men involved. We have no pictures of them,” Komarov added in explanation. “But she won’t be willing, and she has powerful friends.”
Dzerzhinsky offered up one of his famous sardonic smiles. “Not as powerful as mine,” he said, standing and shaking Komarov’s hand.
The latter could still see the smile as he walked back through the building; like a Soviet version of the Cheshire cat’s, it seemed to hang in the corridors of the Vecheka headquarters, a comment on all it surveyed. Komarov felt sorry for its owner and knew that he was also feeling sorry for himself. “A time to kill, a time to heal,” he murmured. Or all the killing would have been for nothing. He felt his right hand twitch and put it in his pocket. Why did the body take the mind so literally?
As he walked back down Bolshaya Lubyanka to the M-Cheka building he recalled the occasion two New Years ago when Dzerzhinsky had drunk far too much at a Kremlin celebration, buttonholed several party leaders, and insisted on being shot for spilling so much blood. The luminaries in question had been patronizing, embarrassed, angry, anything in fact but understanding. Komarov had been furious with them and all the other fools who thought that signing death warrants entailed no emotional cost. He still was.
Maslov was a convenient scapegoat. “Kazan Station,” Komarov barked at the young Ukrainian. “Arrange for an extra coach on the next Tashkent train. If it’s leaving today, then tell them to hold it. But don’t use the telephone. Sort it out at the station, and there’ll be less chance of a foul-up. And get hold of that interpreter with the Indian delegation—tell him he’s coming with us and should be ready at a moment’s notice. We need an interpreter and someone who knows Tashkent,” he explained, noticing Maslov’s look of confusion. “And this man’s both. I’m off to the Zhenotdel.”
The stroll to Vozdvizhenka Street proved enjoyable, the interview less so.
“You must be joking,” Caitlin Piatakova said when he told her what was required.
“This is not a comic situation, comrade,” Komarov said. They were alone in one of the upstairs rooms, but he guessed that some of her colleagues had their ears pressed to the walls.
“You expect me to travel to Turkestan, at a moment’s notice . . . It can take a month to get there and back. I have work to do, Comrade Komarov. Party work. Important work. No, I will not ‘accompany’ you.”
Komarov ran a hand through his hair. He would have preferred voluntary cooperation. “Does it not concern you, Comrade Piatakova, that your husband is doing his best to create difficulties for our party?”
“Of course it does,” she said coldly. “But I am not his keeper. The Zhenotdel,” she added caustically, “is not an organization for keeping husbands to the party line.”
“The Zhenotdel,” he said quietly, “is doing a great deal of work in Turkestan. Oh yes,” he said, acknowledging her look of surprise, “we do notice the odd development here and there whenever we have time off from persecuting poets. For example, at your conference two weeks ago, several women from Turkestan walked onto the platform and tore off their veils for the audience. There was an argument on your executive committee as to whether this constituted genuine agitprop or was merely a cheap theatrical gesture. You supported the former proposition. There is also much anxiety at the moment as to whether Kollontai’s involvement with the Workers’ Opposition is damaging the Zhenotdel.”
“And is it?” she asked. “Damaging—”
“Of course it is. Even in our party most people find it difficult to separate the cause and the person.”
“Are you trying to frighten me, comrade?” she asked.
“No, I am not. I am trying to show you that the Chekas are not full of fools who have nothing better to do than find ways of wasting your time. This is an important matter, comrade. If your presence were not necessary, I would not be here.” And how true was that? he wondered, even as he said it.
She looked far from mollified. “If I accept that—and I suppose I must—what you’ve just told me about the problems the Zhenotdel faces makes it all the more crucial that I remain in Moscow.”
Komarov was beginning to wish he’d sent Maslov to collect her. “Perhaps,” he said, “but this is not a request. Like any member of the party, you are subject to party discipline. I understand your reluctance, and I sympathize with your position, but you must come with us. And if for any reason this business keeps us away for more than a couple of weeks, there must be Zhenotdel work to do in Turkestan.”
She gave him a furious look and slowly shook her head, but offered no further protest. She would, he thought, be angry for quite some time.
Komarov had been back in his office for a few minutes when Sasha appeared in the doorway, a bemused expression on his face.
“Tashkent knows nothing of an interpreter named Nikolai Davydov. Or of any local party member with that name. The only Davydov in their records is a retired soldier who grows fruit just outside the city. He’s almost sixty and has no children.”
Komarov nodded. “Don’t mention this to anyone else.”
“No, comrade.” Sasha turned to leave, but his curiosity wouldn’t let him. “So who is the Davydov here in Moscow?”
“A good question.”
“You’re not going to have him arrested?”
“Not for the moment. I think he’ll be more useful free.”
Once Komarov had left, Caitlin sat there fuming for several minutes, then went to tell Fanya what had happened.
“We guessed,” her friend said. “We couldn’t hear everything he said, but we didn’t really need to. Are you going to ask Kollontai to use her influence?”
“I’m not sure she has that much at the moment,” Caitlin said. “And what she has she should probably save for a better cause.” She gave Fanya a rueful smile. “I always wanted to see Turkestan, and now it seems I shall.”
“As part of a Cheka hunting party,” Fanya noted.
“I know, but that was the reason I stopped arguing with him. If they do catch Sergei, I might be able to help him if I’m there. Not that he’ll thank me.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Whenever the Cheka and the railways decide. Which could be an hour from now, so I’d better go home and pack some clothes.”
McColl was dozing on hi
s bed when the thunderous knock on the door woke him with a heart-sinking start. Fearing the worst, he opened the door and had his fears confirmed. Two hard-faced young Chekists pushed him back into the room, their pistols gleaming in polished holsters. It was the imperial throne room all over again, only this time it was him they had come for.
“Get your things,” one Chekist said curtly. “You’re coming with us,” he added superfluously.
One glance told McColl that questions, let alone protests, would fall on the deafest of ears. But as he obeyed their single instruction, he also found hope in the thought that captured spies were probably not invited to pack for a future.
All he had with him were a change of clothes and a couple of books, and once these were in the suitcase, the Chekists hustled him downstairs and out. The looks he received from fellow guests—sympathetic and sternly judgmental in almost equal parts—were hardly reassuring.
A car was waiting at the hotel entrance, a young and unfamiliar driver behind the wheel, an unsmiling Maslov sitting beside him. The two Chekists who’d collected him from his room loaded McColl into the rear seat and smartly stepped back. They obviously knew the driver, whose breakneck departure took no account of the lake created by that morning’s torrential rain and succeeded in drenching several less prescient passersby. Curses fading in its wake, the Russo-Balt headed up Tverskaya Street.
“Where are we going?” McColl asked, trying to sound like a man among comrades.
“You’ve been reassigned,” Maslov told him. “The deputy chairman has urgent business in Tashkent, and he’s asked for you as his interpreter.”
“Asked” was probably not the right word, McColl thought, but he still felt a whole lot better than he had five minutes earlier. Tashkent might prove a problem, but there was no obvious reason for Komarov to check his bona fides when they got there, and he knew the city well enough from the months he’d spent there on Secret Service business in the summer and autumn of 1916. “What about the Indian delegation?” he asked Maslov, thinking a query would be expected.
The Dark Clouds Shining Page 15
