Eye of the Red Tsar

by Sam Eastland

“Are you sure?” As it traveled down the mine shaft, Anton’s voice was amplified as if through a megaphone.

  Pekkala glanced back to where the tunnel entrances had been sealed off. “Yes. Quite sure.” Even if Alexei had survived the fall, he would not have been able to make his way into the tunnels, and with his hemophilia the young man would certainly have died of his injuries.

  Up at the top of the shaft, the two men held a whispered conversation. Their words grew harsh, the sound like a hissing of snakes.

  “We’re bringing you up,” shouted Anton.

  A moment later, the Emka’s engine growled into life.

  “Take hold of the rope,” called Anton. “Kirov will back up slowly. We’ll pull you up.”

  Light flickered on the walls, like ghosts emerging from the rock.

  He gripped the rope.

  “Ready?” asked Anton.

  “Yes,” replied Pekkala.

  The engine revved and Pekkala felt himself lifted slowly towards the surface. As he rose, he glanced down at the bodies, laid out side by side. The mouths gaped wide, as if in some terrible and silent chorus.

  Keeping a firm grip on the rope, Pekkala walked his way up the sheer walls of the mine shaft. Finally, when he was almost at the top, Anton waved to Kirov and the car came to a halt. Anton reached down. “Take hold,” he commanded.

  Pekkala hesitated.

  “If I’d wanted to kill you,” said Anton, “I would have done it before now.”

  Pekkala released one hand from the rope and clasped his brother’s forearm.

  Anton hauled him to the surface.

  While Kirov coiled the rope, Pekkala walked over to the car and leaned against the hood, arms folded, lost in thought.

  Anton offered him his flask of Samahonka.

  Pekkala shook his head. “You realize that there are two investigations now. One to find who killed the Romanovs and one to find the prince. He might still be alive.”

  Anton shrugged and took a drink himself. “Anything’s possible,” he muttered.

  “I will help you to find Alexei’s body,” continued Pekkala, “but if it turns out he’s alive, you’ll have to find someone else to track him down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I will not deliver Alexei to you so you can assassinate him or throw him in prison for the rest of his life.”

  “I have something to tell you.” Anton dropped the flask back in his pocket. “It might help you change your mind.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  “Listen,” said Anton, “don’t forget we have been chasing rumors for years now that some of the Romanovs might have survived. We were well aware that the rumors might actually be true. It is Comrade Stalin’s intention to offer amnesty to any of the Tsar’s immediate family who can be found alive.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” rasped Pekkala.

  “I’ve told you before that it was never Moscow’s intention to kill all of the Romanovs. The Tsar was to be put on trial and, yes, he would have been found guilty and, yes, he almost certainly would have been executed. But there was never any mention of wiping out his entire family. They were to be used as bargaining tools. They were too valuable a resource simply to kill them.”

  “But Moscow already announced that the entire family were killed!” said Pekkala. “Why would Stalin acknowledge that he had made a mistake? It would make more sense for him to kill the Prince, rather than admit that he had lied.”

  “Perhaps one of the guards took pity on Alexei. Perhaps he was saved from execution and hidden away until he could be smuggled to safety. If that was the case, there would have been no lie. Moscow could say they had simply been misinformed. For Stalin to let Alexei live means that we are no longer afraid of our past. The Romanovs will never rule this country again. There will never be another Tsar. Alexei no longer stands as a threat, and that is why Alexei is worth more to us alive than dead.”

  Kirov had finished loading the tow rope into the car. He slammed the trunk and walked over to the brothers. He said nothing, but it was clear he had been listening.

  “What do you think?” Pekkala asked him.

  At first, Kirov seemed surprised to have been asked. He thought for a moment before he replied. “Alive or dead, Alexei is just another human being now. Just like you and me.”

  “The Tsar would have wanted that for his son,” said Pekkala, “as much as he wanted it for himself.”

  “Well?” Anton reached out and tapped his brother on the arm. “What do you say?”

  In spite of his instinctive mistrust, Pekkala could not deny that an offer of amnesty was an important sign. Only a government confident in itself could make such a gesture to a former enemy. Stalin was right. The world would take notice of that.

  Pekkala felt himself swept along by the possibility that Alexei might still be alive. He tried to stifle it, knowing how dangerous it was to want a thing too much. It could cloud his judgment. Make him vulnerable. But, at that moment, with the smell of the dead still bitter in his lungs, his hesitation was outweighed by the duty he felt to the Prince.

  “Very well,” he said. “I will help you to find Alexei, one way or the other.”

  “Where to now, boss?” asked Kirov.

  “The Vodovenko asylum,” Pekkala told him. “Obviously that madman is not as crazy as they think he is.”

  Although they were now within sight of Sverdlovsk, its gold-painted onion dome church rising above rooftops in the distance, they settled on a route which bypassed the main road into town and continued due south towards Vodovenko. On the outskirts of the town, they stopped at a fuel depot to requisition more gasoline.

  The depot was little more than a fenced enclosure, inside which stood a hut surrounded by a barricade of dirty yellow fuel drums. The gate was open and when the Emka pulled in, the station manager emerged from the hut, wiping his hands on a rag. He wore a set of blue overalls, torn at the knees and tattooed with grease stains.

  “Welcome to the Sverdlovsk Regional Center for Transportation,” he announced without enthusiasm as he shuffled over to them through puddles rainbowed with spilled gasoline. “We’re also the Regional Center for Contact and Communication.” The manager pointed towards a battered-looking phone nailed to the wall inside the hut. “Would you like to know the title they gave me to run this place? It takes about five minutes to say the whole thing.”

  “We just came for some fuel.” Anton pulled a stack of brick-red-colored fuel coupons from his pocket. He flipped through them rapidly, like a bank teller counting money, then handed some over.

  Without even glancing at them, the manager tossed the coupons into a barrel of old engine parts and oily rags. Then he turned to a fuel drum which had a pump attached to the top of the barrel. He worked the hand pump to pressurize the fuel drum, lifted the heavy nozzle, and began filling the Emka’s fuel tank. “Where are you men going? Not many people pass through here by car. They all take the train these days.”

  “To the Vodovenko Sanitarium,” replied Kirov.

  The manager nodded grimly. “Which route are you taking?”

  “The road which runs south goes straight to it,” Kirov replied.

  “Ah,” whispered the man. “An understandable mistake, seeing as you’re not from around here.”

  “What do you mean ‘a mistake’?”

  “I think you’ll find that road is … ah … not there.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Anton. “I saw it on the map.”

  “Oh, it exists,” the manager assured him. “Only”—he hesitated—“there is no land to the south.”

  “No land? Have you completely lost your mind?”

  “Do you have your map with you?” asked the manager.

  “Yes.”

  “Then take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean,” he said.

  With the manager standing beside him, Anton spread his map out on the hood of the car. It took him a moment of staring at the chart
before he had his bearings.

  “There’s the road,” said Anton, tracing his finger along it.

  Now the manager dabbed one diesel-greasy finger at a large white space south of the town, through which the dark blue vein of road became a dotted line.

  “I didn’t notice that before,” said Anton. “What does it mean?”

  From the look on the manager’s face, it was clear that he knew but had no intention of saying. “Go around,” he said, pointing to another road which meandered to the south and then looped around, eventually trailing into Vodovenko.

  “But that will take days!” said Anton. “We don’t have the time.”

  “Suit yourself,” replied the manager.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” asked Pekkala.

  The manager lifted another fuel can and placed it in Pekkala’s arms. “Take this with you, just in case,” was all he would say.

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN THEY ARRIVED AT THE EDGE OF THAT emptiness on the map. They came upon a roadblock made from a tree trunk set across the road at waist height, supported on either side by two X-shaped wooden structures. A small hut had been built beside the road.

  A guard stood in the middle of the road, holding out his arm for them to stop. In his other hand, he held a revolver attached to a lanyard which hung around his neck. His ears were pressed back close against his skull, giving him a predatory look. On his collar he wore the red enameled rectangles of an officer.

  Another man dozed in the darkness of the hut, arms folded and head lolling.

  Pekkala noticed that beyond the roadblock, the fields were green and cultivated. In the distance, the thatched rooftops of a village seemed to glow in the midday sun.

  Anton had seen it too. “According to the map,” he said, “that village does not exist.”

  Kirov stopped the car but kept the engine running.

  The officer stepped over to his window. “Out,” he snapped. “All three of you.” By now the second guard had emerged from the hut. He had wide, deep-set eyes and a dark beard which straggled across his face. He buckled on a gun belt and joined his companion at the car.

  While Anton, Pekkala, and Kirov stood by the roadside, the two guards searched the vehicle. They opened the fuel containers and sniffed the liquid inside. They inspected the cans of army ration meat. They pawed through the coils of bristling hemp rope. Finding nothing, the first guard finally addressed himself to the three men. “You are lost,” he said.

  “No,” replied Kirov. “We are on our way to Vodovenko.”

  “I am not asking you if you are lost. I am telling you.”

  “Why is there nothing on the map?” asked Anton.

  “I am not allowed to answer that question,” the officer said. “You are not even permitted to ask it.”

  “But how do we proceed?” Anton asked. “This is the only road heading south.”

  “You will have to turn around,” said the officer. “Go back the way you came. Eventually, you will reach a crossroads. From there, you can go north. And then”—he rolled his hand in the air—“after some hours, you will find another road heading east.”

  “Hours?” shouted Kirov.

  “Yes, so the sooner you get started …”

  Anton rummaged in the pocket of his tunic.

  As he did this, the second guard reached slowly down and undid the flap on his gun holster.

  Anton removed a sheaf of orders typed on thin, waxy paper, grayishly transparent, the last one signed at the bottom with ink which had soaked through the page. “Read this,” he said.

  The officer snatched the papers. He glanced at each of the three men in turn.

  The Emka’s engine burbled patiently, filling the air with a smell of exhaust.

  The second guard leaned over the officer’s shoulder, reading the orders Anton had given them. He made a faint choking sound. “The Emerald Eye,” he said.

  One late September afternoon, Pekkala was summoned to the Catherine Palace, which was on the grounds of the Tsarskoye Selo estate.

  Pekkala arrived late. That afternoon, in Petrograd, he had testified at Grodek’s trial. The hearings lasted longer than expected. By the time the tribunal had released Pekkala from the witness stand, he was already overdue.

  He guessed that the Tsar would not have waited up, but would already have returned to his quarters for the night. Without any way to confirm this, and with no idea what the Tsar wanted, Pekkala decided to make his way to the palace. In his two years as the Tsar’s Special Investigator, he had often been summoned without knowing the purpose of his visit until after he arrived. The Tsar did not like to be kept waiting. He was a man of disciplined habits, his days rigidly scheduled between meetings, meals, exercise, and time with family. Anyone who upset this balance was not dealt with kindly.

  To Pekkala’s surprise, the valet who met him as he entered the Catherine Palace explained that the Tsar had waited after all. The next surprise came when the valet told him the Tsar was expecting him in the Amber Room.

  The Amber Room was unlike any other place on earth. Pekkala had heard it described as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Few people outside the immediate family were allowed inside. It was not a large room, a little over six paces wide by ten paces long and the height of two tall men. Nor, in comparison with other rooms in the Catherine Palace, did it have the most spectacular view from the windows which lined one of its walls. What made the room remarkable was the walls themselves. Covering them from floor to ceiling were panels inlaid with over half a million pieces of amber. Wooden mosaics on the floor mirrored this dizzying collage of fragments, and a glass case in the corner contained trinkets made from the fossilized sap—cigar cases, music boxes, hairbrushes, an entire chess set whose pieces were carved from amber.

  When light poured through the windows, the walls would glow as if they were on fire, radiating heatless flame from somewhere deep inside. At moments like this, the amber appeared to be like a window into a world of perpetual sunset.

  In spite of finding himself so often surrounded by the priceless possessions of the Tsar, Pekkala did not covet them. He had grown up in a house where beauty had been found in simplicity. Tools, furniture, and cutlery were appreciated for their lack of frivolousness. To Pekkala, so much of what the Tsar owned struck him as merely impractical.

  Pekkala’s lack of interest in such wealth confused the Tsar. He was used to people being jealous, and the fact that Pekkala didn’t envy him troubled the Tsar. He would try to interest Pekkala in the ivory and ebony inlay of a desk, or a damask-barreled set of dueling pistols, even going so far as to offer them to Pekkala as gifts. Pekkala usually refused, accepting only small tokens and then only when the Tsar would not take no for an answer. In the end, it was the Tsar who envied Pekkala, and not the other way around, not because of what the younger man had, but because of what he did not need.

  But the Amber Room stood apart from all the other treasures of the Tsar. Even Pekkala could not deny the spell it cast on those who saw it.

  As he passed through the White and Crimson Dining Rooms, Pekkala noticed a tall man in military uniform emerging from the Amber Room. The man closed the door behind him and, with a spring in his step, strode through the Portrait Gallery.

  As the man approached, Pekkala recognized the close-tailored uniform and slightly bowlegged gait of a cavalry officer. The Major’s face was thin and accented by a rigid waxed mustache.

  He walked right past Pekkala without so much as a greeting, but then he seemed to change his mind and he stopped. “Pekkala?” he said.

  Pekkala turned and raised his eyebrows, waiting for the man to identify himself.

  “Major Kolchak!” said the man, his voice louder than it needed to be in the gallery’s confined space. He held out his hand. “I’m glad we have a chance to meet.”

  “Major,” said Pekkala and shook his hand. He did not want to offend the man by admitting that he’d never heard of him before.

  “You are expected, I be
lieve.” Kolchak nodded towards the Amber Room.

  Pekkala knocked at the door and walked into the room.

  Without the sunlight through the open windows, the amber walls seemed mottled and dull. In the half-light, the polished surfaces made the walls appear wet, as if he had stumbled into a cave and not a room inside the Catherine Palace.

  The Tsar sat in a chair by the window. Beside the chair stood a small table, on which a candle burned in a holder. The holder was shaped like a dog howling up at the moon, with the candle clenched in its teeth. Two books lay neatly stacked beside the candle.

  Only in that sphere of the candle’s reach did the amber seem to glow. The Tsar himself appeared more like an apparition, floating in the darkness. On his lap was a stack of documents—a common sight, since he acted as his own secretary. This meant that, in spite of his fastidiousness, the Tsar was often overwhelmed with paperwork.

  “You met Major Kolchak?” asked the Tsar.

  “Briefly,” Pekkala replied.

  “Kolchak is a man of great ingenuity. I gave him the unusual task of protecting my private financial reserves. In the event of an emergency, he and I have arranged to hide them in a place where, God willing, they will not be found until I need them.” The Tsar lifted the stack of documents and let them fall with a slap to the floor. “So,” he said. “You are late.”

  “I apologize, Excellency,” said Pekkala, and was about to explain why when the Tsar cut him off.

  “How was the trial?”

  “Long, Excellency.”

  The Tsar gestured towards the two books. “I have some things for you.”

  Now that he looked more closely, Pekkala realized they were not books at all but wooden boxes.

  “Go on and open them,” said the Tsar.

  Pekkala lifted up the first box, which was smaller than the one below. Opening it, he caught his first glimpse of the emblem which was to become his trademark in the years ahead.

  “I have decided,” said the Tsar, “that the title of Special Investigator lacks …” He twisted his hand in the air, like the claw of a barnacle sweeping through an ocean current. “Lacks the gravitas of your position. There are other Special Investigators in my police force, but there has never been a position quite like yours before. It was my grandfather who created the Gendarmerie and my father who established the Okhrana. And you are my creation. You are unique, Pekkala, and so is that badge you will wear from now on. I noticed, as others have done, that certain silvery quality to your gaze. I have never known anything like it. One might think you suffered from a type of blindness.”