Archangel (Mass Market Paperback)

by Robert Harris

  'Everything.'

  'That's your decision,' said Blok, and left.

  Suvorin had always preferred to look ahead rather than to live in the past: something else he admired about the Americans. What was the alternative for a modern Russian? Paralysis! The end of history struck him as an excellent idea. History couldn't end soon enough, as far as Feliks Suvorin was concerned.

  But even he could not escape the ghosts in this place. After a minute he got to his feet and prowled around. Craning his head at the high window he found he could see up to the narrow strip of night sky, and then down to the tiny windows, level with the earth, that marked the old Lubyanka cells. He thought of Isaak Babel, down there somewhere, tortured into betraying his friends, then frantically retracting, and of Bukharin, and his final letter to Stalin ('I feel, toward you, toward the Party. toward the cause as a whole nothing but great and boundless love.~ I embrace you in my thoughts, farewell forever . . .') and of Zinoviev, disbelieving, being dragged away by his guard to be shot ('Please comrade, please, for God~ sake call Josef Vissarionovich...')

  He pulled out his mobile phone, tapped in the familiar number and spoke to his wife.

  'Hi, you'll never guess where I am . . . Who's to say?' He felt better immediately for hearing her voice. 'I'm sorry about tonight. Hey, kiss the babies for me, will you ...? And one for you, too, Serafima Suvorina...

  The secret police was beyond the reach of time and history. It was protean. That was its secret. The Cheka had become the GPU, and then the OGPU, and then the NKVD, and then the NKGB, and then the MGB, and then the MVD, and finally the KGB: the highest stage of evolution. And then, lo and behold!, the mighty KGB itself had been obliged by the failed coup to mutate into two entirely new sets of initials: the SVR - the spies - stationed out at Yasenevo, and the FSB - internal security - still here, in the Lubyanka, amid the bones.

  And the view in the Kremlin's highest reaches was that the FSB, at least, was really nothing more than the latest in the long tradition of rearranged letters - that, in the immortal words of Boris Nikolaevich himself, delivered to Arsenyev in the course of a steam bath at the Presidential dacha, 'those motherfuckers in the Lubyanka are still the same old motherfuckers they always were'. Which was why, when the President decreed that Vladimir Mamantov had to be investigated, the task could not be entrusted to the FSB, but had to be farmed out to the SVR - and never mind if they hadn't the resources.

  Suvorin had four men to cover the city. He called Vissari Netto for an update. The situation hadn't changed: the primary target - No. 1 - had still not returned to his apartment, the target's wife - No. 2 - was still under sedation, the historian - No. 3-was still at his hotel and now having dinner.

  'Lucky for some,' muttered Suvorin. There was a clatter in the corridor. 'Keep me informed,' he added firmly, and pressed END. He thought it sounded like the right kind of thing to say.

  He had been expecting one file, maybe two. Instead, Blok threw open the door and wheeled in a steel trolley stacked with folders - twenty or thirty of them - some so old that when he lost control of the heavy contraption and collided with the wall, they sent up protesting clouds of dust.

  'That's your decision,' he repeated.

  'Is this the lot?'

  'This goes up to sixty-one. You want the rest?'

  'Of course.

  HE couldn't read them all. It would have taken him a month. He confined himself to untying the ribbon from each bundle, riffling through the torn and brittle pages to see if they contained anything of interest, then tying them up again. It was filthy work. His hands turned black. The spores invaded the membrane of his nose and made his head ache.

  Highly confidential

  28 June 1953

  To Central Committee, Comrade Malenkov

  I hereby enclose the deposition of the cross examination of prisoner A. N. Poskrebyshev, former assistant to J. V. Stalin, concerning his work as an anti Soviet spy. The investigation is continuing.

  USSR Deputy Minister of State Security,

  A. A. Yepishev

  This had been the start of it - a couple of pages, in the middle of Poskrebyshev's interrogation, underscored in red ink almost half a century ago, by an agitated hand: Interrogator: Describe the demeanour of the General Secretary in the four years, 1949-53.

  Poskrebyshev: The General Secretary became increasingly withdrawn and secretive. After 1951, he never left the Moscow district. His health deteriorated sharply, I should say from his 70th birthday. On several occasions I witnessed cerebral disturbances leading to blackouts, from which he quickly recovered. I told him: "Let me call the doctors, Comrade Stalin. You need a doctor." The General Secretary refused, stating that the 4th Main Administration of the Ministry of Health was under the control of Beria, and that while he would trust Beria to shoot a man, he would not trust him to cure one. Instead I prepared for the General Secretary herbal infusions.

  Interrogator: Describe the effect of these health problems upon the General Secretary's conduct of his duties.

  Poskrebyshev: Before the blackouts commenced, the General Secretary would sustain a workload of approximately two hundred documents each day. Afterwards, this number declined sharply and he ceased to see many of his colleagues. He made numerous writings of his own, to which I was not permitted access.

  Interrogator: Describe the form of these private writings.

  Poskreybshev: These private writings took various forms. In his final year, for example, he acquired a notebook.

  Interrogator: Describe this notebook.

  Poskrebyshev: This notebook was of an ordinary sort,

  which might be bought in any stationers, with a black oilskin cover.

  Interrogator: Which other persons knew of the existence of this notebook?

  Poskrebyshev: The chief of his bodyguard, General Vlasik, knew of it. Beria also knew of it and asked me on several occasions to obtain a copy of it. This was not possible, even for me, as the General Secretary confined it to an office safe to which he alone possessed the key.

  Interrogator: Speculate as to the contents of this notebook.

  Poskrebyshev: I cannot speculate. I do not know.

  Highly Confidential

  30 June 1953

  To USSR Deputy Minister of State Security, A. A.Yepishev

  You are instructed to investigate the whereabouts of the personal writings of J. V. Stalin referred to by A. N.

  Poskrebyshev as a matter of supreme urgency and using all appropriate measures.

  Central Committee,

  Malenkov

  Cross-examination of prisoner Lieutenant-General N.S. Vlasik 1 July 1953 [Extract]

  Interrogator: Describe the black notebook belonging to J. V. Stalin.

  Viasik: I do not remember such a notebook.

  Interrogator: Describe the black notebook belonging to J. V. Stalin.

  Viasik: I remember now. I first became aware of this in December 1952. One day I saw this notebook on Comrade Stalin's desk. I asked Poskrebyshev what it contained, but Poskrebyshev could not tell me. Comrade Stalin saw me looking at it and asked me what I was doing. I replied that I was doing nothing, that my eye had merely fallen upon this notebook, but that I had not touched it. Comrade Stalin said: "You as well, Vlasik, after more than thirty years?" I was arrested the following morning and brought to the Lubyanka.

  Interrogator: Describe the circumstances of your arrest.

  Viasik: I was arrested by Beria, and subjected to numberless cruelties at his hands. Beria questioned me repeatedly about the notebook of Comrade Stalin. I was unable to tell him details. I know nothing further of this matter.

  Statement of Lieutenant A. P. Titov, Kremlin Guard 6 July 1953 [Extract]

  I was on duty in the leadership area of the Kremlin from 22:00 on 1 March 1953 until 06:00 the following day. At approximately 04:40, I encountered in the Passage of Heroes Comrade L. P. Beria and a second comrade whose identity is not known to me. Comrade Beria was carrying a small case or bag.
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  Interrogation of Lieutenant P. G. Rapava, NKVD 7 July 1953 [Extract]

  Interrogator: Describe what happened following your departure from J. V. Stalin's dacha with the traitor

  Beria.

  Papaya: I drove Comrade Beria to his home.

  Interrogator: Describe what happened following your departure from J. V. Stalin's dacha with the traitor Beria.

  Papaya: I remember now. I drove Comrade Beria to the Kremlin to enable him to collect material from his office.

  Interrogator: Describe what happened following your departure from J. V. Stalin's dacha with the traitor Beria.

  Papaya: I have nothing to add to my previous statement.

  Interrogator: Describe what happened following your departure from J. V. Stalin's dacha with the traitor Beria.

  Papaya: I have nothing to add to my previous statement.

  Interrogation of L. P Beria 8 July 1953 [Extract]

  Interrogator: When did you first become aware of the personal notebook belonging to J. V. Stalin?

  Beria: I refuse to answer any questions until I have been allowed to express myself before a full meeting of the Central Committee.

  Interrogator: Both Vlasik and Poskrebyshev have confirmed your interest in this notebook. Beria.' The Central Committee is the proper forum in which all these matters should be addressed.

  Interrogator: You do not deny your interest in this notebook.

  Beria: The Central Committee is the proper forum.

  Highly Confidential

  30 November 1953

  To USSR Deputy Minister of State Security, A. A. Yepishev,

  You are instructed to bring the investigation into the anti-Party criminal and traitor Beria to a rapid conclusion, and to move this matter to trial.

  Central Committee, Malenkov, Khrushchev

  Interrogation of L. P. Beria 2 December 1953 [Extract]

  Interrogator: We know that you took possession of the notebook of J. V. Stalin, yet you continue to deny this matter. What was your interest in this notebook? Beria: End it.

  Interrogator: What was your interest in this notebook? Beria: [The accused indicated by gesture his refusal to co-operate]

  Highly confidential

  23 December 1953

  To Central Committee, Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev

  I beg to report that the sentence of death by shooting imposed on L. P. Beria was carried out today at 01:50.

  T. R. Falin,

  Procurator General

  27 December 1953

  Judgement of the People's Special Court in the case of Lieutenant P. G. Rapava: 15 years' penal servitude.

  Suvorin couldn't bear the filth of his hands any longer. He wandered the empty corridor until he found a toilet with a sink where he could wash himself down. He was still in there, trying to get the last of the dust out from under his fingernails, when his mobile phone rang. In the silence of the Lubyanka it made him jump.

  'Suvorin.'

  'It's Netto. We've lost him. No. 3.'

  'Who? What're you talking about?'

  'No. 3. The historian. He went in to eat with the others. He never came out. It looks as though he left through the kitchens.'

  Suvorin groaned, turned, leaned against the wall. This whole business was spinning out of control.

  'How long ago?'

  About an hour. In defence of Bunin, he has been on duty for eighteen hours.' A pause. 'Major?'

  Suvorin had the phone wedged between his chin and shoulder. He was drying his hands, thinking. He didn't blame Bunin, actually. To mount a decent surveillance took at least four watchers; six for safety.

  'I'm still here. Stand him down.'

  'Do you want me to tell the chief?'

  'I think not, don't you? Not twice in one day. He might begin to think we're incompetent.' He licked his lips, tasting dust. 'Why don't you go home yourself, Vissari? We'll meet in my office, eight tomorrow.

  'Have you discovered anything?'

  'Only that when people go on about "the good old days" they're talking shit.'

  ' He rinsed his mouth, spat, went back to work.

  BERIA was shot, Poskrebyshev released, Viasik got a sentence of ten years, Rapava was sent to Kolyma, Yepishev was taken off the case, the investigation meandered on.

  Beria's house was searched from attic to cellar and yielded no further evidence, apart from some pieces of human remains (female) that had been partially dissolved by acid and bricked up. He had his own private network of cells in the basement. The property was sealed. In 1956, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs asked the KGB if it had any suitable premises which might be offered as an embassy to the new Republic of Tunisia, and, after a final brief investigation, Vspolnyi Street was handed over.

  Vlasik was interrogated twice more about the notebook, but added nothing new. Poskrebyshev was watched, bugged, encouraged to write his memoirs and, when he had finished, the manuscript was seized 'for permanent retention'. An extract, a single page, had been clipped to the file:

  What went through the mind of this incomparable genius in that final year, as he confronted the obvious fact of his own mortality, I do not know. Josef Vissarionovich may have confided his most private thoughts to a notebook, which rarely left his side during his final months of unstinting toil for his people and the cause of progressive humanity. Containing, as it may do, the distillation of his wisdom as the leading theoretician of Marxism-Leninism, it must be hoped that this remarkable document will one day be discovered and published for the benefit...

  Suvorin yawned, closed the bundle and put it to one side, grabbed another. This turned out to be the weekly reports of a Gulag stool-pigeon named Abidov, assigned to keep an eye on the prisoner Rapava during his time at the Butugychag uranium mine. There was nothing of interest in the smudged carbons, which ended abruptly with a laconic note from the camp KGB officer, recording Abidov's death from a stab wound, and Rapava's transfer to a forestry labour detail.

  More files, more stoolies, more of nothing. Papers authorising Rapava's release at the conclusion of his sentence, reviewed by a special commission of the Second Chief Directorate - passed, stamped, authorised. Appropriate work selected for the returning prisoner at the Leningrad Station engine sheds; KGB informer-in-place: Antipin, foreman. Appropriate housing selected for the returning prisoner at the newly built Victory of the Revolution complex; KGB informer-in-place: Senka, building supervisor. More reports. Nothing. Case reviewed and classified as 'diversion of resources', 1975. Nothing on file until 1983, when Rapava was briefly re-examined at the request of the deputy chief of the Fifth Directorate (Ideology and Dissidents).

  Well, well...

  Suvorin pulled out his pipe and sucked at it, scratched his forehead with the stem, then went searching back through the files. How old was this fellow? Rapava, Rapava, Rapava -here it was, Papu Gerasimovich Rapava, born 9.9.27.

  Old, then - in his seventies. But not that old. Not so old that even in a country where the average male life expectancy was fifty-eight and falling - worse than it had been in Stalin's time - not so old that he need necessarily be dead.

  He flipped back to the 1983 report, and scanned it. It told him nothing he didn't know already. Oh, he was a tight one, this Rapava - not a word in thirty years. Only when he reached the bottom, and saw the recommendation to take no further action, and the name of the officer accepting this recommendation did he jolt up in his chair.

  He swore and fumbled for his mobile, tapped out the number of the SVR's night duty officer and asked to be patched through to the home of Vissari Netto.

  THEY SETTLED ON three hundred, and for that he insisted on two things: first, that she drove him there herself and, secondly, that she waited an hour. An address on its own would be useless at this time of night, and if Rapava's neighbourhood was as rough as the old man had implied it was ('it was a decent block in those days, boy, before the drugs and the crime. . .9 then no foreigner in his right mind would go stumbling around there alone.


  Her car was a battered, ancient Lada, sand-coloured, parked in the dark street that led to the stadium, and they walked to it in silence. She opened her door first and then reached across to let him in. There was a pile of books on the passenger seat - legal textbooks, he noticed - and she moved them quickly into the back.

  He said, Are you a lawyer? Are you studying the law?'

  'Three hundred dollars,' she said, and held out her hand.

  'US.'

  'Later.

  'Now.'

  'Half now,' he said, cunningly, 'half later.'

  'I can get another fuck, mister. Can you get another ride?'

  It was her longest speech of the night.

  'Okay, okay.' He pulled out his wallet. 'You'll make a good lawyer.' Jesus. Three hundred to her, after more than a hundred at the club - it just about cleaned him out. He had thought he might try offering the old man some cash, this evening, as a downpayment for the notebook, but that wouldn't be possible now. She re-counted the notes, folded them carefully and put them away in her coat pocket. The little car rattled down to the Leningradskly Prospekt. She made a right into the quiet traffic, then did a U-turn, and now they were heading out of the city, back past the deserted Dinamo stadium, north-west, towards the airport.

  She drove fast. He guessed she wanted to be rid of him. Who was she? The Lada's interior offered him no clues. It was fastidiously clean, almost empty. He gave her profile a surreptitious look. Her face was tilted downwards slightly. She was scowling at the road. The black lips, the white cheeks, the small and delicately pointed ears below the lick of short black hair - she had a vampirish look: disturbing, he thought again. Disturbed. He still had the taste of her in his mouth and he couldn't help wondering what the sex would have been like - she was so utterly out of reach now, yet fifteen minutes earlier she would have done whatever he asked.