Dead Men Living

by Brian Freemantle

  It had been Novikov’s idea that they meet at the town’s museum, but the man wasn’t there when Kurshin dismissively dropped him off, so Charlie went inside. The museum was far more a monument to Russian persecution of Russian than Charlie had expected, whole rooms given over to photographs and paraphernalia recording the establishment of the vast penal colony. The photographs were almost uniformly of lines of dead-eyed, despair-crushed, barely human figures, the bechained walking dead, men, women and even children. It was from a variety of the pictures that Charlie believed he’d answered one question and gotten a pointer to another.

  The gulags were regimented, haphazardly wire-fenced, with corner-placed watchtowers, some tilted like the subsiding buildings of today. There were lists of the minimally subsistence diets upon which the exiles and prisoners had been expected to survive, and occasional names, particularly of political figures purged during and even after the Stalin era. Charlie was intrigued several times to see a photograph of a gaunt-featured man with the same name as the chief minister with whom he had an appointment the following day.

  Charlie was standing in front of an exhibition of prison camp equipment—chain-linked manacles, hand and ankle cuffs, actual posts against which prisoners were tied for execution, punishment whips and guard batons—when the tall, thin doctor found him.

  “What you expected?” asked Novikov.

  “Far more.”

  “Still want to go for a drive?”

  “As much as ever.”

  They were driving north again, Charlie recognized. Deciding after the family encounter it was safe to try to guide the conversation, Charlie said, “What was your father’s supposed crime?”

  “Just being a doctor,” said Novikov, simply. “Doctors were regarded as dangerous intellectuals, especially those who weren’t members of the Communist Party, which my father refused to join.” He snorted a laugh. “Being a doctor got him sent here and then saved him. Once he arrived, he only had to live in Gulag 98 for a few months. Even when he was inside, he didn’t have to do any manual labor in the mines. That’s why he trained me. Made me study basic forensics, later. That again was for necessity, to make myself as indispensable as possible. I can’t ever return permanently to Moscow, of course. Anywhere else in Russia, for that matter.”

  “Why not?” Charlie frowned.

  “The system,” said Novikov. “People sent here were automatically stripped of their citizenship: lost their Russian nationality. So have their descendants. You need established residency in a Russian city to be allowed to leave here and you can only get that by getting away from here to establish residency. Which you can’t do without an internal passport, which none of us is allowed to hold. We’re imprisoned here as effectively as anyone in Stalin’s day.”

  “So everyone who ever came here was known: recorded somewhere?” The town was falling away in the semidarkness, more moonscape stretching out in front of them.

  Novikov nodded, recognizing the reason for the question. “In theory. Somewhere in Moscow, I suppose.”

  “What about here? Were there registers?”

  “Again, in theory. Aleksandr Andreevich asked the chief minister after the bodies were found. Polyakov said there weren’t any archives, not any longer. That they’d been destroyed when we got our limited autonomy. And don’t forget millions were sent here. Died here. It would have needed a warehouse as big as Yakutsk itself.”

  After the previous day there was no love lost between this man and Olga Erzin. No need, then, to circumvent. “Anything from today’s examination?”

  The pathologist shook his head. “She tried to get me to agree that some grazes on the woman’s hands and on the American’s right forearm were defense injuries, where they tried to fight off whoever killed them. But I wouldn’t. It doesn’t fit, with the close range at which they were shot in the back, not the front, of the head. I believe they’re scratches from pitching forward into the grave. Frozen as it was, it would have been like hitting concrete.”

  Charlie thought so, too. It led perfectly to one of the questions he believed he’d virtually resolved. “The restraint bruising, to the wrists and ankles? It’s very even, isn’t it? And totally encircling, without any interruption. Normal handcuffs wouldn’t leave a band like that, would they? There’d have been gaps.”

  Novikov regarded him curiously. “I suppose so,” he allowed, doubtfully. “There could have been some sideways lividity, joining up the gaps. What’s the significance?”

  “In the museum photographs the wrists are completely enclosed by a U-shaped band that goes under the wrists. The encirclement is completed by the straight bar that slots in at the top to be ratcheted down tightly to grip every part of the wrist.”

  “I still don’t understand the importance.”

  “It would be the sort of prison equipment available at Gulag 98, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Novikov agreed at once. “Of course it would.” Just as quickly he said, “I understand things were found at the grave?”

  “What?” demanded Charlie, questioning instead of answering.

  “I don’t know,” said the other man. “When he came to collect the woman on their way back, Lestov said Lev Fyodorovich wanted to use what laboratory facilities I have. I had to warn them I didn’t have much.” He hesitated. “I thought you might know what it is he wants to examine or test.”

  “Denebin wouldn’t say,” said Charlie, moving easily on to his other query. “Have you managed to establish the weight of the bullets?”

  Novikov smiled. “There’s a slight variation between them. The one that killed the Englishman was ten grams, the one I recovered from the American—which was more damage—was just over nine. Does that tell you anything?”

  “It might, if there was the third bullet for comparison,” said Charlie. And he was sure there was. The uncertainty was whether Denebin would admit to finding it.

  “There!” said Novikov, abruptly pointing through the gloom.

  The gulag emerged like a mirage, at first a skeletal outline. It seemed a long time before they were able to distinguish buildings on the left of the approach road from the mine on the right. That was brightly lit, with two descent shaft derricks.

  “Gold,” identified Novikov. “There’s three, quite close together. We won’t be able to stop. As it is, my registration will be logged. There are diamond and gold mines about thirty kilometers farther on.”

  As they slowed, a straggled line of men emerged from the camp of single-story wooden shacks elevated from the ground. Some had their hands on the shoulders of the man in front. All walked head down, scuffling in jangling ankle manacles, crossing to the mine. They all wore uniforms padded against a cold that didn’t exist. All the guards were armed. One began waving Novikov’s car on urgently.

  “Convicts?” queried Charlie.

  Novikov nodded. “It will be the afternoon shift. The mines are worked twenty-four hours.”

  Charlie was concentrating on the camp. The huts were in regimented lines, five to a line. Charlie counted thirty. There were two control towers like those he’d seen in the photographs in the museum. Charlie frowned, knowing he should be aware of something but unable to decide what. Then he said, “Wire! There’s no wire.”

  “There rarely is. Look where we are: what this place is. Where is there to run? People tried, of course. Still do. They’re never chased. It isn’t worth the effort. The locals find them frozen to death when the snow melts. That’s why run aways are called ‘snow drop.’”

  The cemetery was on the far side of the camp, what appeared to be hundreds of lines of uniformed crosses. They were close enough for Charlie to see there were no names, just numbers.

  “So this is what it was like?”

  “No,” said Novikov. “This is civilized—humane—by comparison.”

  Charlie had just finishing spraying the room with insecticide, after another meaningless conversation with the Moscow embassy, when Miriam’s knock came at his door.
Charlie thought he kept any reaction from showing when she entered the room, but he wasn’t sure. His own hands and arms were swollen from bites, but the woman’s face was ballooned, hamster-cheeked and bumped and very red, despite whatever cream she’d smeared upon it. There were still isolated globules she hadn’t properly rubbed in.

  “Meet the bride of Frankenstein.” Her skin was so stretched it was difficult for her to speak. “You don’t need me to tell you I’m not coming down for dinner tonight.”

  “No,” accepted Charlie.

  “You’ve been playing quite a game,” she accused. “The consensus is you’re a no-hoper.”

  “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion.”

  “It’s not mine,” she said. “Saul filled me in before I left Moscow: it’s been fascinating watching you. That’s why I haven’t interfered.”

  As fascinating as it’s been watching you, reflected Charlie. “Don’t read too much into it.”

  “I’ve come to warn you.”

  For a reason, guessed Charlie. “What?”

  “Our calls to Moscow are being monitored.”

  There’s a clever girl, thought Charlie. “Who told you?”

  “Ryabov, trying to get into my pants. They know you’re not getting anywhere.”

  It had to be getting pretty crowded inside Miriam’s pants, thought Charlie: there wouldn’t have been room for him even if he’d been interested. “How about you? You got anything that gives any sort of lead?”

  Miriam started to shake her head but abruptly stopped, wincing at the discomfort. “Lestov says there was something in the grave: that he’ll tell me when he finds out. And I’ll tell you, obviously. The locals haven’t got a clue. They just want to get rid of us. According to Ryabov, the Russians aren’t going to be included in tomorrow’s meeting and he thinks Polyakov is planning what he regards as a coup, but Ryabov doesn’t know what it is.”

  She was wrapping up her eagerness very well, Charlie decided. For his own amusement he said, “Not sure I like being used.”

  “You haven’t said what you’ve picked up,” prompted the woman.

  “A lot of isolated bits, nothing making any sort of sense, any picture,” avoided Charlie. “I need to get back, start putting the picture of the man to work. There are a lot of checks that have got to be made with that. And I don’t just want to get the body and its organs back to London, for our own pathologist. There’s the uniform, too, for forensic tests.”

  “I thought you had more,” said the woman, disbelievingly.

  “Nothing crystallized yet.”

  “We are working together on this, aren’t we, Charlie?” pressed Miriam. “I mean, Washington and London have agreed?”

  “What I get, you’ll get. Trust me.”

  “That’s what I’ve got to do!” agreed the girl. “Learn to trust you.”

  “Perhaps things will pick up tomorrow.”

  Miriam said, “I’d like to think so.”

  When it did, neither of them was happy.

  12

  Charlie was totally trapped. Miriam, too. He experienced every feeling, beginning and ending with the same numbed, disbelieving fury. There was a lot of that in between, too. He was furious at being tricked—and at not anticipating it—and at not being sure what, if anything, was salvageable—and perhaps most of all at his helplessness because Charlie Muffin hated most of all being in a situation over which he had absolutely no control. So a lot of the anger was directed at himself.

  There’d been no warning, although maybe he should have suspected more from Commissioner Ryabov’s hotel foyer announcement that the Russians were excluded from the meeting with the Yakutsk chief minister, wrongly assuming that to be the “something funny” the militia commander had warned Miriam about. Charlie had withdrawn to the sidelines of the inevitable argument from the Moscow homicide detective, uncertain whether to try to force Novikov’s hand by announcing his return to Moscow after the formal release of the body, which was the purpose of the meeting to which he and Miriam were going. He’d actually checked the availability of late afternoon and evening flights.

  There had been no indication, either, from their initial reception by Valentin Ivanovich Polyakov. The full-bearded, towering chief minister had greeted them with handshakes, samovar tea and cakes in what had to be the only room in the government complex not in imminent danger of collapse. He’d said he appreciated the cooperation there appeared to have been with the Yakutsk force and in return Charlie and Miriam had promised its continuation after their return to Moscow, from where a lot more inquiries needed to be made. And Polyakov had agreed at once to the bodies and the possessions being returned to Britain and America. He had, declared the Yakutsk leader, already officially informed London and Washington and had the necessary papers prepared and ready. Even more prepared—an indication Charlie missed—he summoned a photographer to record the documentation formally being handed over. Charlie was speculating again about the last evening flight when Polyakov rose unexpectedly from behind his ornately carved desk in what Charlie first thought to be in dismissal but instead said, “Now perhaps you’d be good enough to come with me?”

  Charlie followed, imagining a courtesy meeting with the rest of the local ruling assembly, smiling in expectation at the murmur of people when Polyakov thrust open linking doors to a larger room. Charlie later decided, when he saw the video, that the fatuous grin froze on his face as rigidly—and almost as terrorized—as those of the murder victims.

  The lights from the television cameras that recorded his expression made it difficult for Charlie to see the extent of the press conference. From the immediate North American-accented questions, against which Polyakov held up his hands, Charlie finally realized the surprise that Ryabov had told Miriam about was a press contingent flown in certainly from Canada and probably from the United States as well. And knew how the media leaks that Cartright had warned of had come about.

  Charlie had spent his entire operational life trying always to be as amorphous as the graveside mist and until this appalling, stomach-dropping moment had succeeded. So shocked—bewildered—was he by the abrupt exposure that for perhaps the first time in that operational life Charlie’s mind went completely blank, momentarily refusing to function. He was conscious of Polyakov (“the conniving, manipulative bastard!”) thanking the Canadian and American media for flying in at such short notice and the inconvenience and of being introduced, with Miriam, by name (holy shit, no!) as he was herded toward a table to sit upon a raised dais behind a hedge of microphones. Yuri Vyacheslav Ryabov and Aleksandr Andreevich Kurshin were already seated, waiting. Able at last to focus, Charlie saw translation booths along the left side of the room and that a lot of the waiting journalists—close to thirty, he guessed, as well as two television teams—wore earphones.

  It was at that moment, in reality only a hiatus of seconds, that Charlie began to function, to try to assess and calculate: and from whichever and whatever way he considered it, he reached the same conclusion. It was an absolute fuckup. And worsening by the second, steered inexorably toward further and greater disaster by Valentin Polyakov.

  The Yakustkaya chief minister had achieved his lifetime’s ambition, gaining an international audience to denounce successive Russian leaders who perpetuated what Stalin had begun by turning an entire country into a penal colony. At last, declared Polyakov, there was going to be the opportunity for the world to be made aware, after half a century, of the crimes against humanity exceeding those of the Holocaust. Six million Jews had perished in that attempted genocide. Double that number had been worked to death and put to death in the Siberian gulags. To Charlie’s fidgeted discomfort, Polyakov inferred the two lieutenants (“brave, fearless agents”) had been murdered because they had discovered the secrets of Yakutskaya (“a secret terrible enough to have destroyed war time alliances”).

  At this point Polyakov gestured to either side of him, to include Miriam and Charlie. “Now, after so long—too long—two mor
e brave, fearless agents have come to this godforsaken country, to rediscover and expose secrets Russia even now would prefer kept hidden. Now, at last, the world will eventually be told the truth.”

  It was a disaster, Charlie recognized. An utterly unparalleled, irrevocable disaster. His cover, always the paramount consideration, was blown. Which did not create the physical, life-threatening danger it once would have, but as bad on every other level. None of which was the most important consideration. His new creed, the doctrine constantly preached, was never, under any circumstances, to become involved in a diplomatic incident. And here he was—they were—by association, by sitting beside a ranting xenophobe, denouncing Russia and by so doing causing not a diplomatic incident but an inevitable, devastating diplomatic sensation. Beyond that—worse than that—even : it was, potentially, personally devastating. This was of recall and dismissal magnitude: the collapse of the house of cards. As things were between them at the moment, he didn’t think Natalia would bring Sasha to London. She’d virtually said so. And it was immaterial whether he was dismissed or resigned from the department. He’d be refused residency permission to remain in Russia.

  The immediate barrage of questions, in English, were all directed at Charlie and Miriam, too many and too quick at first to isolate one from the other. Charlie didn’t wait properly to hear, desperate to limit the damage. It was, he insisted, important to stress that it was neither an American nor English investigation. He and his FBI colleague were observers on a joint inquiry being conducted by a Moscow murder squad working with the local militia. To the visible face-hardening from Polyakov, earphoned for the translation from English, Charlie said the Moscow team—to which Polyakov had studiously not referred—was kept from the conference by continuing inquiries. Charlie spoke accepting that his qualifications would be overwhelmed by the carefully prepared drama of the chief minister’s claims but was not, at that moment, addressing the media. He was talking to whoever later examined the transcript at whatever inquiry there would unquestionably be to decide his future.