Black Sun

by Owen Matthews

  He broke into a sprint.

  “Axelrod! Stop!”

  Pushing Masha aside, Vasin burst through the door. An axe came flying within millimeters of Vasin’s face and connected squarely with the nape of Axelrod’s neck, a few paces in front of him. The blow knocked the skinny scientist into a stack of files and buried him in an avalanche of sliding paper. As Vasin lurched back to avoid the blow, he recognized Korin’s broad back and shoulders carried through half a turn by the swing of the axe. Korin was a powerfully built man and recovered quickly. Almost without pausing to size up his next target, he raised the weapon again and swung it with all his force at Vasin’s head. Vasin ducked, by instinct, and the heavy steel sang past his ear.

  “Korin! You lying bastard.” Vasin glanced around him. He sensed, rather than saw, a great, dimly lit space, as large as the calutron lab. Behind him, blocking his escape route, was Masha. She had turned to bolt the doors to the lab shut behind them.

  Adamov’s voice, coming from somewhere in the gloom, was reedy with alarm.

  “Pavel! Have you gone mad?”

  Vasin’s hand went to his waistband and fumbled with the unfamiliar Makarov. He turned to face his attacker.

  In front of him, Korin went down into a crouch, the heavy fire axe in his left hand and the fingers of his right poised to gouge the eyes. Korin had a feral look that Vasin had seen in some criminals, the look of a man ready to do more hurt than he needed to. And Vasin had seen that fighting pose before. The hovering crouch of the urka, the convict, before a knife fight. Too late, Vasin remembered the next move. A scything kick that knocked his legs from under him and sent the ceiling lights spinning away with a sickening suddenness. As he fell he saw Adamov’s face, pale, aghast, flash through his field of vision. The back of Vasin’s skull connected with the floor, and his head exploded in stars.

  V

  Vasin came to in a dark world that rang with pain. He lay on a cold concrete floor, alone. His hands had been tied, quite expertly, behind his back with a rough strip of cloth that chafed his wrists. White light burst through his head when he tried to lift his face from the floor, and he could taste blood in his mouth. In his line of vision he saw the bases of steel filing cabinets, the legs of stacked office chairs, and a scattering of small black balls the size of peas. He seemed to be in some kind of side office that was divided from the main laboratory by a row of windows. One leg was bent painfully under him. Mercifully, his legs were not tied, and he was able to roll from his side onto his back. His whole body seemed to be trembling at low frequency, a hideous vibration that grew slowly and made his skull ring with pain. But when, with an effort, he lifted his head from the floor, Vasin realized that the rumble came not from inside his body but from the outside. It was the whine of a large machine, spooling up into motion.

  Vasin managed to scrabble along the floor a little way. He felt something squashing under his shoulder blades, releasing the unmistakable smell of animal shit. Vasin recognized the sour, farmyard smell from the day he’d visited Axelrod and his calutron. This must be the laboratory of the little German doctor they’d brought from the concentration camps. Vasin remembered his nervous greeting as he followed his wagonload of crushed goats down the corridor.

  Vasin managed to reach a wall of filing cabinets and work his way into a sitting position. The rumbling had grown louder and was now joined by the audible whine of an accelerating flywheel. He rolled over onto all fours and got to his feet, the back of his head a mass of fiery pain. The only light in the vast space beyond the glass-walled office came from a series of lamps that illuminated a kind of raised console bordered by steel-boxed, dial-studded controls. Three figures were huddled under the lights, talking animatedly in hushed voices. Unmistakably, Masha’s blond bob, Adamov’s bald head, and Korin’s shaggy gray locks. He could hear nothing of what they were saying.

  Vasin saw the shadowy outlines of an array of machines in the hall. There was a vast steel ball as large as a tramcar that reminded him of a deep-sea diving bell in one of Nikita’s science books. Behind it stood a pair of gigantic steel arms, like bowed-down oil derricks. The increasing whine came from somewhere in the darkness beyond.

  His head still ringing, Vasin made his way unsteadily over to a table that stood before the window. Working blind, he began to rub the knots on his aching wrists back and forth against the desk’s corner. His bindings only got tighter. Cursing, he looked back to the conspirators around the console, his face illuminated in the light for a brief moment. Masha glanced over in his direction at the same second.

  Vasin ducked back down into the shadow. But the voices in the hall had stopped. He heard quick footsteps approaching across the echoing hall. A key rattled in the lock, and the office door opened. Masha appeared, backlit in the doorframe. She was carrying Vasin’s Makarov.

  “You can stand up, Sasha. I see you.”

  Vasin straightened up, reeled giddily, found his balance by leaning on the edge of the table.

  “Everything’s fine,” Masha called back to Adamov and Korin.

  She backed against the open door and placed one foot flat against the wood. She looked girlish, except for the gun she held loosely by her side.

  “How’s your head? Korin didn’t mean to…”

  “Hurt me? Think he did actually.”

  “I mean—you know.”

  Masha puffed out her cheeks. She raised her pistol hand to scoop back a lock of stray hair behind her right ear.

  “I’m sorry you got hurt. Really. It wasn’t meant to be like this.”

  “I told your husband that I would not bring him here like a lamb to the slaughter. He gave his word.”

  “Axelrod’s just one man. This is about more than that.”

  “Just tell me that Axelrod is alive.”

  “Yes. Axelrod is still with us.” Masha’s voice had become suddenly hard.

  Their eyes met. Vasin felt suddenly swept by a regret for what could have been, the refuge Masha could have given him. So she really was one of them. The knowledge of her deception ached as much as his throbbing head. Masha’s stare was defiant, as if to appeal for his support in some argument she was conducting within herself.

  “None of this was my idea, Vasin.”

  “Not your idea, to use me? For information?”

  “You came into my life. On the roof of the Kino. You saved me.”

  “I can see you’re grateful. What do you do to people who piss you off? Actually, I know. You stick a knife in their ribs. If that was even true.”

  Masha’s face pivoted, pinched with anger, toward the light for a moment before she composed herself and leaned forward.

  “Poor innocent Vasin.” Her voice was an angry whisper. “When will you stop being a child? Everything I told you was true.”

  She wiped her face with her sleeve, the dull gleam of the Makarov’s butt catching the light.

  “I did like you, Vasin. I do. I’m not that good a liar. There. Believe me if you like.”

  “But you used me. To find out what I knew.”

  “Yes. But only because it turned out that you knew things.”

  “You’re going to tell me Adamov put you up to it.”

  “Some women are actually capable of rational thought independent of their husbands. Might be news to you. I knew that you came here to find out who poisoned Fedya. It was dangerous. To Adamov. To the project.”

  “You knew who killed Petrov all along.”

  Masha looked away.

  “You sat at the table while Petrov drank poison. You must have been within a meter of him. Probably poured his tea yourself. God knows, you had the motive. Petrov betrayed you. You wanted him dead.”

  Masha closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the door. She gulped, her long neck reflecting the light.

  “Y
es. I did pour the tea. And yes. I did know what Korin was planning to do. I knew it would be the last time I would see Fedya. It wasn’t easy. For what it’s worth. But I didn’t want him dead. Not for myself.”

  “Sounds like you were eager enough to help. Was it Adamov who told you about the plan? Korin?”

  “Adamov didn’t know. I listened to their conversations around the table. I knew what Petrov was to them, how dangerous his ideas were. So when Korin privately told me that something radical had to be done, I agreed. The method was Korin’s idea. He didn’t want to put me in danger by keeping me in the dark about what he was going to do. As for the rest…as for you…we just made the calculations. Just like Adamov taught me to do.”

  “And you calculated that you needed to keep me close.”

  Masha puffed out air by way of answer. Her eyes avoided Vasin’s.

  “Was I right that you were in love, Sasha? A little bit?”

  “Enough to spill secrets. That’s true.”

  “Ah.”

  “Masha. Listen to me. Your husband promised me that he would persuade Axelrod. That’s why I agreed to go get him. I didn’t agree to bring him to his death.”

  “No. No, you wouldn’t.”

  “But you knew all along?”

  “You think I know everything, don’t you? I thought that Korin would let Adamov at least try to talk to him. But Korin is a man of action. He believes destiny guides his hand.”

  Masha stared at him, then with her habitual abruptness of movement stood up straight.

  “One last thing. In the bathroom of your apartment. When you kissed me…”

  Behind his back, Vasin continued working the knot with quiet determination against the corner of the desk. He could finally feel it getting looser. Just a couple of minutes more.

  “Guess you’ll never know, will you, Sasha?”

  She sniffed violently, and once more rubbed her face with her gun hand.

  “Careful with that thing. It’s loaded.”

  “I know it’s fucking loaded. Patronizing asshole. I was top in marksmanship at my institute. Korin used to warn Adamov I’d shoot the cap off his head if he got me angry. I can handle myself.”

  The knot finally came free. The cloth that had bound him so painfully had been, he realized as it unraveled, his own woolen tie. Vasin clenched and unclenched his hands to get the blood flowing again.

  “If only I had a cap. But I lost it. Off the roof of a cinema.”

  Masha grinned, despite herself, with genuine warmth. Vasin smiled back, willing this moment of simple complicity never to end.

  Three seconds. Four. His left hand shot forward, seizing her right wrist. With his other hand Vasin cupped the back of her head and forced it forward, twisting her into a sudden headlock. A movement he’d routinely flunked at training school, executed with a wholly unexpected perfection. Her hand, the finger on the trigger, was now closed in his. Muffled in the side of his coat, Masha tried to scream, but her shouts were drowned by the rising din of the engine.

  Vasin squeezed the pistol out of her sweating grip. Defeated, she seemed to relax, her hand dropping around his waist in a bizarre parody of an embrace.

  Vasin shifted his weight around Masha so that he could step out of the doorway when he released her. He was ready for her to spring at him like a banshee when he loosed his grip on her head. Instead she only slumped backward, rubbing her neck.

  “Shit.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  Vasin was outside the doorway now, keeping her covered with his pistol.

  “Vasin, please. None of this was Adamov’s idea. It was all Korin. And me.”

  “Put your hands on your head.”

  “Or you’ll shoot me?”

  “If I have to.”

  She tossed her head contemptuously.

  “No. You won’t.”

  Both of them knew she was right. Nonetheless she obeyed him, placing each hand on her head with exaggerated formality, like a teacher demonstrating the move to a class.

  “Now walk in front of me. Slowly. And keep quiet.”

  Masha started briskly across the machine hall, though she kept her hands in place.

  In the dim light that came from the control console, Adamov and Korin looked gaunt and pale as figures from a church mural. Their debate had reached some kind of resolution and they stood together in silence, contemplating the controls before them.

  “Sorry, Korin,” Masha called out with forced brightness. “He got loose. I think he’s got some questions for you.”

  The two men looked up in alarm as Masha and Vasin approached. Coming closer, Vasin saw that Adamov’s already gaunt face had become a pale mask of shock.

  “What have you done with Axelrod?”

  “First put the gun down,” Korin said. “Then we talk.”

  “You must be joking.”

  “Lower it, at least. Masha, come here.”

  Without looking back to see if Vasin had complied, Masha walked over to join her husband. She did not touch Adamov, or look at him, but merely stood very close. Korin leaned over the controls and turned a dial.

  “Stop, Colonel. Whatever you’re doing. Stop it.”

  But Vasin could not summon enough power into his voice to command the likes of Korin. The dull noise rose to a deafening thrum as the electric engine revved up to full power.

  “Where is Axelrod?”

  Korin pulled himself to full height to face Vasin.

  “I’m unarmed. See?”

  Korin opened the battered sheepskin flier’s jacket that he was wearing over his uniform and slipped it off his shoulders. There was no holster on his belt. He raised his hands and twisted them back and forth, like a magician, demonstrating that they were empty.

  “God damn it. Answer the question. What have you done with Axelrod? And switch that noise off. Or I’ll put a round right into those controls.”

  “Vasin, be calm.” Adamov’s voice was rasping and dry, but its volume cut through the din. “Your gun will not save Axelrod now. But now there is nothing to be done for him. It is decided.”

  “It is decided? You are going to kill him.”

  “He was a promising young man. Believe me, if there had been a way…”

  “Is that what you meant by persuasion, Professor? A fire axe to the back of the head.”

  The two old men exchanged a glance. Adamov’s was cold and judgmental. Korin looked down, either chastened or exasperated.

  “I did not authorize the Colonel to raise his hand against Axelrod,” Adamov said. “But he did. And now there are no longer any other possible courses open to us.”

  “You think you can batter a prominent scientist to death and there won’t be any questions? You think another murder will help keep your secret safe? And what about me? You plan to make me disappear too?”

  “Nobody will batter anybody to death, Major. And do not forget what we are doing here. You seek the truth; today we do the work of the Lord.” Korin spoke firmly, with the emphatic authority of a commander under fire giving orders to a bickering platoon.

  “Trying to persuade Axelrod to keep quiet would have been a waste of time,” Korin continued. “And time is exactly what we do not have. Tonight Dr. Vladimir Axelrod will commit suicide. And you, Vasin, the last person to be seen with him, up there at the turnstiles, you will report on his desperate state of mind as you left him here.”

  Korin’s face, up-lit by the dials of the console, had an air of demoniacal conviction.

  “Why on earth would I testify to such a thing?”

  Now Masha answered.

  “Because you believe, Vasin. You know why Fedya had to die. It’s all a calculation. That’s why you are here. You know why nobody can ever find out. Y
ou became one of us the moment you went to fetch Axelrod.”

  “I didn’t bring Axelrod here so that Korin could murder him.”

  Masha’s gaze was cool and level.

  “Adamov and I didn’t come here to kill him either. And yet here we are. When you live with wolves, you howl like a wolf.”

  As Masha spoke, Korin retreated slowly from the console. The bright light released him into the shadows, and his figure moved closer to Adamov.

  “Stop moving, Korin. Shut down that bloody din.”

  The old man said nothing, but stood stock-still in the half darkness. Vasin saw the whites of all their eyes suddenly focus on something over his shoulder. Keeping his gun trained on Korin, Adamov, and Masha, Vasin glanced behind him.

  The four-meter-high steel sphere dominated the hall. Vasin remembered what Axelrod had said: “In this cellar, we separate streams of atoms. In that cellar, Mueller explodes farm animals.” In the front of the chamber was a circular pressure door, like on a submarine. And in the center of the door was a single window. The interior of the giant ball was illuminated in ghostly red light. And in the light a face had appeared.

  Vladimir Axelrod.

  Blood was running down one of his temples, and he stared through the thick glass as though from the other side of life. He began to batter the steel, but no sound escaped the hermetically sealed ball. On either side of the apparatus a pair of enormous pistons, each the size of a car, were slowly rising into the air.

  “Korin! What the hell are you thinking? Adamov! Masha! This is madness.”

  “Not madness, Vasin. You know this has to be done.”

  “It’s murder. Stop.”

  Korin and Adamov did not move, but continued to stare as though mesmerized at the pleading face. Masha had put her hands over her eyes and turned away.

  Vasin ran over to the steel sphere, stuffing his pistol into his pocket as he sprinted. Nobody made any move to stop him. The circular wheel sealing the door spun with surprising ease. Vasin rolled the bolts all the way open and pushed at the hatch. It did not budge, but a tiny squealing hiss from inside the door mechanism told him that air was escaping the infernal machine. Some kind of pressure differential was sealing the door shut from inside. He straightened from his efforts to open the hatch to face the window. The terror that Vasin saw in Axelrod’s eyes was naked and desperate. Again he shouted and banged with the palms of his hands on the glass, transported by panic. But nothing could be heard. Vasin noticed that the young man was now bleeding from both ears.