“Was anyone else at dinner?”
“An engineer colonel. Pavel Korin.”
“And how long did it take the thallium to kill Petrov? Any idea when he ingested it? Or how?”
“A matter of hours. He took it himself.”
“You suppose. Did anybody visit him at his apartment after dinner?”
“No.”
“Does his building have a concierge? A guard?”
“He was asleep. It’s in his witness statement.”
“So we have no way of knowing if anyone came or left during the night?”
Efremov sighed wearily.
“Petrov took his own life, Vasin. People usually do that alone.”
“Did he leave a note? Can we visit his apartment?”
“Your memory really is terrible, Major. General Zaitsev just told you that it was impossible. Too radioactive.”
“He said the same about seeing the body. Yet here we are.”
“You may look at the investigator’s photographs.”
“I will. But did you see the apartment yourself?”
Efremov’s icy face registered a twitch of emotion.
“I did, as it happens.”
“And what did you see?”
“Blood and radioactive…Efremov seemed to search for a more delicate word but decided against it. “Radioactive vomit. Everywhere.”
“And where was Petrov?”
Efremov struggled for a moment, torn between distrust and a desire to talk.
“Come on, old man. We’re on the same side.”
“Petrov was tangled in his sheets. He’d ripped them into shreds. And he’d torn the pillow apart with his teeth. There was even blood up the wall.”
“Sounds like a pretty horrible way to die.”
Efremov shuddered involuntarily but said nothing for a long moment.
“Maybe he deserved it.”
“Deserved it?”
Efremov summoned another glacial smile.
“Right. Enough chitchat.” The adjutant’s voice had become brisk and official. He tugged his tunic straight and looked at his watch. “Registry should be ready for you now. Let’s get you buried in that paperwork.”
“Before you bury me…”
Efremov’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I need to send a telegram, internal and secure. To my boss.”
Secure naturally meaning—to be immediately shown to Zaitsev.
“Telegram?”
“It’s time to check in with Moscow. Procedure. My chief likes to keep his finger on the pulse. Unless you’d rather I didn’t, of course.”
“Of course.”
Vasin knew that just four words would probably do the trick. REQUEST IMMEDIATE INTERVIEW ADAMOV. If he had learned anything in his year at Special Cases, it was that General Orlov possessed an almost supernatural knack of making some of the most powerful men in the USSR jump to his will. General Zaitsev be damned. Within hours, Vasin guessed, some mighty voice of authority would be on the line instructing the Professor to make time. Now.
IV
Petrov’s file weighed heavily in Vasin’s lap. The dead scientist’s file picture was a professional studio portrait, the face cast in a dramatic half-shadow like that of a star from Mosfilm. Petrov wore his good looks lightly, a half smile on his lips. A face from a magazine: curly light hair, large blue eyes, a chiseled jawline. A face that nobody had smacked, certainly. The eyes ready to crinkle into an expression of earnest devotion. A lover’s face.
Zaitsev and his men had been thorough. The file contained Petrov’s complete personal records: forty pages of references and checks going back with clockwork regularity for each of the six years that he’d been in Arzamas. Party meetings attended and dues paid, formal reports from Party instructors. And before that his Young Communist League records and a pile of letters of recommendation from university supervisors. The letterheads bloomed with red stars and laurel wreaths.
Vasin’s practiced eye caught what wasn’t there. There were no denunciations from colleagues or snide notes from superiors in the file, no phone or mail intercepts. None of the usual fragments of office gossip or petty resentments that usually found their way into the kontora. The KGB, it seemed, had no eyes or ears inside the senior circles of the Citadel. As far as the kontora was concerned, the Institute was smoothly sealed behind a high, closed wall of silence.
It had been Major Efremov who had conducted most of the interviews with Petrov’s colleagues in the days after his death. The language of the transcripts was a familiar high officialese, for the most part a dense wad of meaninglessness. But one witness stood out: Dr. Vladimir Axelrod, Petrov’s laboratory colleague and, by his own admission, personal friend.
EFREMOV O. P. (MAJOR, GUGB/AZ16): Comrade Doctor Axelrod, kindly present your estimation of the deceased’s mental state in his final days.
AXELROD V. M.: My observation was that Dr. PETROV exhibited no behavior that could be described as out of the ordinary.
Q: How frequently did circumstances afford you the opportunity to assess the mood and behavior of the deceased?
AXELROD V. M.: We saw each other on a daily basis when we were working on the same project. In the final days of his life this was the case. We also had frequent social intercourse with other comrades from the Institute.
Vasin rubbed his eyes and swore quietly. The formality of such records had always infuriated him, squeezing out the words’ life and casting every subject into a predetermined role, the contrite criminal, the helpful citizen.
Q: Are you aware of any circumstances, professional or personal, that may have caused Comrade PETROV’S mind to be unusually stressed or disturbed?
AXELROD V. M.: We are all in a state of professional stress due to the urgency and importance of Project RDS-220.
On the page, fiercely typed out in triplicate, the investigator and his subject spoke like amateur actors declaiming lines from some archaic play. And yet, of all Petrov’s colleagues, only Axelrod had been summoned for a second interrogation, this time with General Zaitsev personally. The tone of the next interview was more brutal. Zaitsev knew precisely what he needed from his subject.
ZAITSEV O. V. (M-G GUGB/AZ16): Are you aware of any persons who may have introduced subversive influences into Dr. PETROV’S life?
AXELROD V. M.: I know of no such subversive influences.
Q: He was known to read foreign literature of a nihilistic nature. Who pressed such psychologically unhealthy material on to PETROV?
AXELROD V. M.: I know nothing of Dr. PETROV’S literary influences. But he received his books in the same way as all of us. By special post from the Library of the Academy of Sciences, or from our institutes, or from our families. Most likely, PETROV’S father sent it to him. I suggest you ask the Comrade Academician. I understand that he is a man of wide interests.
A mistake on Axelrod’s part, Vasin saw immediately, to try to crack a joke with a man like Zaitsev. He could imagine the General’s meaty face flushing at the young man’s insolence.
Q: Answer the question. Did you supply him with any subversive or foreign literature?
AXELROD V. M.: In July of this year I lent the deceased a copy of BEING AND NOTHINGNESS by JON POL SARTR (SP??), a French progressive.
Q: And what is the nature of this book?
AXELROD V. M.: It is a philosophical work of the existentialist school. The author asserts that an individual’s existence is prior to his essence. He is concerned with proving that free will exists.
Q: Has this book been approved by competent authorities for the Soviet reader?
AXELROD V. M.: It is not a banned book, as far as I know.
Q: Answer the question. Has it been appr
oved for general reading?
AXELROD V. M.: No.
Q: Because its content is subversive or anti-Soviet?
AXELROD V. M.: I cannot comment on what is and is not approved for the general reader or why. We are privileged here at Arzamas to have unrestricted access to foreign periodicals and literature because we need this material for our scientific work.
A spirited riposte. But between the lines Vasin’s interrogator’s eye could read, long before Axelrod saw it, the goal toward which Zaitsev’s questioning was leading, steady as a tractor plowing a furrow.
Q: Did PETROV read much restricted foreign literature?
AXELROD V. M.: None of us have much time to read for leisure.
Q: Nonetheless, you would confirm that he was interested in such foreign philosophies? When he could, he read them?
AXELROD V. M.: He was interested.
Q: Therefore he was under the influence of the Frenchman SARTR (SP?)?
AXELROD V. M.: In a sense, yes.
Q: And you would confirm that in the weeks before his death PETROV’S social activities had reduced significantly?
AXELROD V. M.: All our activities have been significantly reduced by the RDS-220 program.
Q: But you confirm this to be PETROV’S case?
AXELROD V. M.: Yes.
Q: You can also confirm that he was showing signs of stress? Sleeping irregularly?
AXELROD V. M.: You could say the same for all of us at this time.
Vasin turned the page. Zaitsev had set up every part of his theory as carefully as a billiard trickster positioning his balls. Now he sank them, one by one.
Q: Comrade Doctor. You clearly failed to spot the signs of mental disintegration in your comrade in the days and weeks before his death. Do you feel remorse?
AXELROD V. M.: Naturally we all felt shock and remorse at Dr. PETROV’S death.
Q: You personally felt remorse?
AXELROD V. M.: I felt remorse.
Q: You have confirmed that the deceased was under considerably increased work pressure. You have also said that his sleeping became erratic, his social life dwindled. Do you wish to deny or confirm these statements?
AXELROD V. M.: I confirm.
Q: Furthermore, you have said that PETROV was in the habit of studying foreign philosophical literature of a nihilistic nature that is not considered suitable reading for the general Soviet public. You have said that at least some of this material he received from you. You deny or confirm this?
AXELROD V. M.: I confirm.
Q: Would you accept the formulation that in your Communist enthusiasm for your vitally important work for the Motherland you may have overlooked difficulties your Comrade PETROV was experiencing in his personal or interior life?
AXELROD V. M.: I accept it.
(Signed) AXELROD V. M.
(Signed/Interrogation conducted by) Major General ZAITSEV O. V.
(Signed/Interrogation witnessed by) Major EFREMOV O. P.
Vasin knew he wouldn’t have to read Zaitsev’s final report. The General’s theory had been neatly laid out in the Axelrod interrogation. Petrov, in the official opinion of the KGB, had been driven to take eight thousand times the lethal dose of thallium by a deadly combination of overwork and French existentialism.
V
Vasin stretched wearily at his desk in the kontora’s registry. Outside the windows the light was draining from the gray sky. He closed the files and tapped his notes into a neat stack. He was hungry. But when he caught sight of Efremov bustling through the double doors with thunder in his face, he knew that the cafeteria would have to wait.
“Vasin?”
“That’s me.”
“Listen, I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, or who it was that your people called, but…”
“The Professor is ready for me? That’s what you came to say? You’re kind.”
Vasin stood briskly, folded his papers into his tunic pocket, and smiled at Efremov’s obvious discomfiture. A familiar enough scene: the local officer on the case realizing with ill grace that he’s not master in his own house. He hadn’t been expecting flowers. “Never hurts to give the little jerks a little jerk,” Orlov had advised Vasin. “They need to know who’s in charge.” Orlov had himself in mind.
A kontora Volga sedan awaited them. The driver pulled a blithe U-turn across the central reservation and raced the car across the darkening town toward the Professor’s home.
VI
The Adamovs lived in a handsome pre-Revolutionary building that overlooked the monastery on the far side of the Savva River. The facade was decorated with plaster caryatids and nymphs, their ancien régime voluptuousness rendered saggy by thick coats of Soviet paint. A single angry eye peeked from the concierge’s booth in the hall, but was evidently satisfied by Vasin’s and Efremov’s uniforms. As they ascended the stone stairs, Vasin noticed that this place had none of an apartment building’s usual cacophony: no noisy radios or raised voices, children’s shrieks or slamming doors.
On the second floor, Efremov tugged a brass bellpull. After a long pause the heavy door swung open. At first Vasin thought that a boy had opened it. But it was a young woman with pale, close-cropped hair. She wore a pair of checked trousers, cut fashionably short, and a loose sweater. Her eyes were set wide apart, and her body was long-waisted and thin, like an elegant weasel’s. She exuded an icy glamour.
The young woman leaned her head on the door and gripped the handle with both hands. She said nothing, but her eyes shone with an unnatural brightness.
“Excuse the disturbance. I believe I have an appointment with Professor Adamov?” Vasin stammered a little under the intensity of the young woman’s stare. “Major Alexander Vasin.”
“One second.” She spoke in a whisper. She crossed the wide hallway, swaying unsteadily, leaving the two KGB men standing at the open door. He heard a murmur, and then Adamov’s voice.
“Come.”
Adamov sat at the head of a dining table of dark wood surrounded by high-backed chairs with carved arms. The young woman took her place beside the Professor. An elegant, old-fashioned lamp that hung over the table illuminated empty plates and the two diners’ hands, but left their faces in shadow. Adamov eyed his visitors with unconcealed distaste.
“Comrade Majors. Sit.”
Vasin took the chair to Adamov’s left, leaving Efremov to settle at the far end of the table. Vasin felt that he had wandered into some kind of interrogation scene from a historical film. In the half-light, Adamov’s face looked cadaverous. Next to him the girl sat poised and motionless, as if posing for a portrait.
“Professor Adamov, thank you for seeing me. It has also been explained to me very clearly that your work is of the utmost national importance.”
“I protest this waste of my time, especially at this critical juncture in the fate of our nation. But when I receive a call from a member of the Politburo, I have no choice but to obey. So. Quickly. Fyodor Petrov.”
“Exactly, sir. Was there anything about his behavior in his last days that seemed strange to you? Did you notice any signs of distress?”
“I noticed nothing amiss. I have already spoken of this to your colleague. Him.”
Adamov gestured down the table at Efremov as though indicating an inanimate object.
“I have read your statement. Perhaps you would describe your relationship with Petrov to me?”
“Petrov was one of my most promising assistants. He had a good mind. Our relationship was perfectly correct and professional. He will be missed.”
“So Petrov was generally well liked?”
A pause.
“Everybody loved Fedya.” The young woman uncurled herself and leaned forward into the light.
Her voice was low and slurred. “Everyone. Just. Loved. Fedya Petrov. Especially my husband.”
Tension snapped like an electric spark down the table. The woman was young enough to be the Professor’s daughter. Vasin watched her face tighten into a little smile. Mascara was starting to run from one eye. The whine of a boiling kettle rose from the kitchen.
“Maria.” Adamov spoke firmly, as if to a child. “Would you bring us some tea, please?”
She stood, abruptly, and stalked out of the room.
Adamov turned back slowly to Vasin.
“Continue.”
“How long did you know Petrov?”
“Have you spoken to the boy’s father? Our esteemed Comrade Academician Arkady Vasilyevich Petrov?”
“I have, sir. I spoke to the Academician two days ago in Moscow.”
Vasin thought of Petrov senior, slumped and weeping under his dripping dacha eaves a few days before. A plump man, punctured by grief.
“So doubtless Arkady Vasilyevich told you that we have known each other a long time. Since Fyodor was a boy, in fact.” A tremor entered Adamov’s voice. “You see, his father and I were colleagues, once. Back in the thirties. The heroic days.”
His voice was bone-dry, like papers being taken down from dusty shelves.
“Are you still on good terms with Academician Petrov?”
“Very good.”
“And his son Fyodor Arkadiyevich came here to work for you….”
“In 1955. You will surely see that in the files. Please, Major, let us spare each other the pro forma questions.”
Maria returned with a tray laden with clinking china. It seemed to take all her concentration to pour out three cups of weak tea. She passed them to Vasin, Efremov, and Adamov with great formality, then resumed her place in silence.
“Tell me about the safety procedures in your laboratories.”
“Speak to Dr. Vladimir Axelrod, if you must. He is aware of the technical aspects of the work he did with Petrov. He will be at his post tomorrow.”
Black Sun Page 4
