by James R Benn
“Do you have any idea by whom?” If he knew who’d sent that message from London, I’d know who the Soviet spy was within British intelligence.
“No, but it matters little. Anyone who came into contact with the West is tainted, so I was not surprised. What did surprise me is being brought out for this investigation.”
“And a chance at freedom,” I said.
“Life, yes. Freedom, in the sense you understand it, I will never know,” Sidorov said, his voice low and wistful. “But after what I have seen, that will be enough.”
“How many died on the road?” I asked.
“I saw hundreds buried,” he said. “There must be thousands. Tens of thousands. It is a very long road.”
Sidorov had given me fair warning. I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to be sent back. It looked like Siberia had aged him a decade in ten months. His pale skin was withered, his posture stooped, his hands raw and rough.
But there was still a spark there. A dangerous spark, if anyone got in his way. I knew that much from England. Kiril Sidorov had blood on his hands. He’d committed murder. Not your routine NKVD killing in the line of duty—if such brutality could be called duty—but cold-blooded and personal. For his own gain.
For all that, he did show some honor at the end. He confessed in order to spare a woman he loved. We had him dead to rights, or close enough, but when he saw a chance to spare her, he talked and shouldered all the blame. So he wasn’t the worst human being in the world, except if you’d been one of his victims.
The British government had been about to request that the Soviets allow him to be arrested. Because of the nature of his crimes, there was a chance they’d waive diplomatic immunity. But Winston Churchill intervened directly. For the sake of the war effort and allied unity, Sidorov was let go, returned to Red Mother Russia with a cover story about being injured during a Luftwaffe attack.
I wasn’t too happy with that, but who disobeys Winston?
As a matter of fact, I had driven Sidorov to the airfield and seen him off. In his mind, we parted on decent terms. Perhaps not friends, but opponents who understood each other. Grudging respect and all that bullshit.
He didn’t suspect a thing.
I knew there was a Soviet spy somewhere within MI-5, Great Britain’s counterintelligence service. Sidorov had dropped a lot of hints which pointed in that direction. I just didn’t know who it was. But that didn’t matter. When I’d returned to London, I informed the MI-5 committee involved in the case that Sidorov had agreed to spy for us. I gave them a recognition codename and told them he wanted a lot of money.
I had hoped someone in that room was the mole, and that they’d taken the bait.
Today was the first time I knew they did.
Glancing at Sidorov, I had to remember his victims, because he damn sure looked like one himself. Justice isn’t always pretty.
Chapter Eight
I gave Sidorov the nickel tour of the crime scene. Black and Maiya hovered about, avoiding the bloodstains and paying more attention to each other than to us.
“Major Black,” Sidorov said, raising his voice to get Black’s attention. “Nothing is missing, you are quite sure?”
“Nothing,” Black said. “We did a full inventory.”
“Very odd,” Sidorov said, giving me a sideways glance. “Two men are murdered here, in front of gold and other valuables. A small fortune on the black market. If such a degenerate form of capitalism existed within the Soviet Union.”
“What does that tell us?” I said, opening one box and checking the packs of morphine syrettes. solution of morphine tartrate, 1.5CC. “Not even the morphine was touched. It would have been simple to slip some of these into a pocket and slap on one of those money belts. Why didn’t the killer take advantage?”
“Perhaps we need to check paperwork,” Sidorov whispered. “Compare the previous inventory with Major Black’s and calculate in any recent deliveries.”
“Put that back,” Black said, grabbing the kit from my hands and returning it to storage. “You can check all you want, but you’ll find everything’s in order. Major Drozdov won’t be happy about your lack of trust, I’m sure.”
“He will applaud it, I am certain,” Sidorov said. “The only way to truly trust is to be constantly suspicious. Otherwise you invite deception. You have nothing to be concerned with, do you, Major Black?”
Black didn’t say anything, except to order us out of the room. He locked the doors and stormed off, Maiya a few paces behind him. He jumped into his jeep and started the engine, looking expectantly at her. Sidorov said something in Russian and she nodded, reluctantly, and got in with Black, who drove off without a word.
“I told her Black was a possible suspect and she should spend time with him, then report back to me,” Sidorov said. “To us, I mean. Now, what next?”
“Let’s find out if anyone did an autopsy,” I said. “Ask the guards where the medical unit is.” Sidorov spoke to a soldier and we got in the jeep. There was a base hospital near the main entrance, a solid mile away.
“You are handling it all wrong, you know,” Sidorov said, settling back in the passenger seat. “Your request to search for your sergeant. Is it the same large fellow from London?”
“Yeah, Sergeant Michael Miecznikowski. Big Mike.”
“Ah. A Pole. That complicates things.”
“He’s an American,” I said, deciding to keep mum about Kaz coming to us the long way ’round. “What’s the right way to do it?”
“General Belov can do very little,” Sidorov said, watching as a pair of Soviet Yak-9 fighters lifted off from a grass runway. “He is an air force general who commands this base, but he has no control over rear-area troops. It is the NKVD that maintains rear-area security. Their internal troops guard factories, railway lines, bridges, any important installation.”
“I should ask Major Drozdov then?”
“Not yet. Let us come up with something to offer him. A clue, to symbolize our progress,” Sidorov said.
“I forgot to mention it when Black stormed off, but the officer in charge of guarding the warehouse was transferred to the front near Krakow, along with his entire platoon,” I said. “Big Mike and the others bailed out near Kozova.”
“You would pass close to Kozova on the way to the Krakow front,” Sidorov said as I pulled over in front of a large wooden building marked with a red cross. “Let us hope the doctors can tell us something useful.”
I knew that meant digging up some dirt on an American. Half of me kept my fingers crossed for just that while the other half felt like a traitor.
Sidorov asked around and we finally found our way down a corridor to a ward where a dozen beds lined each side of the room. Most of them were filled, a few with injured or wounded men who looked like they’d be up and about soon. Other patients were swathed in bandages, tended to by nurses as their groans and moans filled the room.
“Doktor Mametova?” Sidorov said, standing back as a woman spoke in hushed tones with a nurse. She was stout and gray-haired, with bags under her eyes, and a splash of blood across her white coat. She held up a hand. When she was done speaking to the nurse, she motioned for us to follow into the next corridor, a scream from one patient sending us on our way.
Her office was spartan, shelves filled with paperwork and files. A window looked out onto bombed-out buildings with scorched doorways. We sat and she began speaking with Sidorov.
“Doktor Mametova heard of our investigation,” he told me. “She has been waiting for someone to come by. She did the autopsies.”
“Are the bodies in the morgue?” I asked, even though Black had told me otherwise. He could have gotten that wrong or been lying.
“No, they were taken away,” Sidorov said after a back-and-forth. “But she does have something to show us.”
Doctor Mametova dug through a
desk drawer and came up with two small envelopes, a handwritten note scrawled on each. She opened them and two misshapen slugs tumbled out.
“This is Kopelev,” Sidorov said, holding up one bullet. “From a Tokarev automatic, 7.62mm.”
“And this must be from Sergeant Morris,” I said, fingering the remnants of a .45 caliber round. “Were they wearing their personal weapons when she saw the bodies?”
“Yes,” Sidorov said. “She does not know what happened to them. Both bodies were taken away the next day.” He said he’d ask about exact cause of death.
She got up and walked behind us. She pushed my head forward and pressed the tips of her fingers against the back of my neck, then said something that sounded like Russian for bang.
“No other marks or wounds,” Sidorov said. “There is nothing else she can tell us.”
I watched as Doctor Mametova walked back around her desk and sat down with a heavy sigh. She looked exhausted. So exhausted I couldn’t tell if she was holding anything back.
“How many doctors are there here?” I asked, keeping my eyes on her.
“Four,” Sidorov said after she’d answered. “The base hospital treats both Russians and Americans, although Americans are sent for further treatment to Tehran as soon as they are able. They also provide medical care for any Soviet forces in the area. Quite overworked, in her opinion.”
“What are all the injuries in that ward? The patients seemed to be in a lot of pain,” I said.
“The usual,” Sidorov reported. “A fuel tank exploded. Several have burns. Accidents, on the ground and in the air. One pilot with shrapnel in his legs. All Russians.”
“Russians in pain,” I said, nodding for him to ask about that.
“Morphine is in short supply,” he said, as the doctor shook her head sadly. “Her patients suffer as a result.”
Sidorov and I looked at each other. There was a stock of morphine under lock and key down the road. Did the shortage have anything to do with the killings?
I tried to flash a thank-you smile at the doctor, but she was too tired to notice. Usually it worked wonders, but maybe something was lost in translation, or drowned out by the shouts coming from the ward. Doctor Mametova shot out of her chair, shoving Sidorov aside as she spoke.
“Changing bandages on the burn victims, she said,” Sidorov told me, wincing at the terrible sounds.
“I have an idea,” I said. “An experiment.”
Sidorov thought a moment, listening to the cries from the ward. Then his eyes brightened. “You wish to see how easy it would be to steal a set of keys for the warehouse. Purely as an exercise to assist in our investigation.”
“Da,” I said, tossing out the one word of Russian I was sure of. “Then we talk to Drozdov about a road trip.”
“Perhaps,” Sidorov said. “If we are not shot first.”
As we left, I had to remind myself that Sidorov was a killer himself and not to be trusted. I was beginning to like the guy, now that we were on the same team, sort of.
And that was dangerous.
Chapter Nine
“Major Black,” I said, knocking on his office door at the operations center. I half expected to see Maiya sitting on his desk, legs crossed and eyelids fluttering. But he was alone with a stack of files. It was hardly the image of a dashing OSS secret agent.
“Enter.”
“I wanted to apologize, sir. I didn’t mean any disrespect about the morphine supplies,” I said, as contritely as I could manage.
“It is a sad fact of investigations, Major,” Sidorov added. “One must question everything, even the most mundane of matters and the most trusted of men.” He was laying it on nice and thick, which was fine. It was hard to go too far when lavishing praise to get what you wanted out of a guy.
“Well, okay,” I guess that does make sense,” Black said. He was sounding magnanimous, which was something I’d found people enjoyed. Give them an inch of repentance and they’ll give you a mile of permission. “What do you need? I have all the supply reports here.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of a couple of file cabinets behind him. It looked like a full day’s work right there.
“Well, actually we have another question, sir. Something’s come up about the keys, and we need to understand where all the duplicates are kept, and who has access,” I said.
“You have a lead?” Black asked.
“It is too soon to tell, Major. But you will be the first to know, yes?” Sidorov said, giving Black a wink and a hint that we’d come to him before Drozdov. I could tell he liked that.
“Glad to see you’re already making progress,” Black said, lapping up the subservience. “How can I help?”
“Please show us where you keep your keys to the warehouse and the storage room,” I said. “Then we’ll move on to Bull. General Dawson, I mean.”
“Sure. I carry the key to my desk everywhere. It’s the only one,” Black said. He took out a key from his pocket and unlocked the top drawer. Inside was a set of keys on a ring. He took that and unlocked the file cabinet behind him, withdrawing two keys on a chain from a file folder. “I only take these out when I need them. I checked as soon as the bodies were found, and they were right here.”
“Layers of security,” I said, glancing at the lock on the desk drawer. “Smart.”
“Major Black, one other question,” Sidorov said. “Were both victims found with their sidearms?”
“Yes,” Black said. “Morris always wore his. Too bad he didn’t get a chance to use it.”
“I don’t think he ever saw it coming, Major,” I said. “Where is his weapon now?”
“Check in with Transport Command over at the south runway, where all the C-47s are. Lieutenant Reed was his CO and should have his gear. Morris’s personal effects went back with his body, of course.”
We thanked Black for his cooperation and walked down the hall to Bull’s office.
“It would be simple to pick the lock on that desk,” Sidorov whispered.
“Right. But there were no scratches on the lock. A professional lock picker wouldn’t leave a mark, but anyone else probably would,” I said.
“Which leaves us with the possibility of a skilled criminal,” Sidorov said, “or the weak link.”
“The key he keeps with him at all times,” I said. “Which isn’t possible. What with showering and sleeping, it probably sits out in plain sight in his quarters.”
“And accessible to any visitor he may entertain,” Sidorov said.
“Speak of the devil,” I said, as Maiya walked out of an office down the hall. “Why don’t you speak with her and I’ll talk with Bull.” Sidorov agreed and went off to catch Maiya while I went to see Bull.
“Billy, take a load off and tell me what you’ve been up to,” Bull said, leaning back in his chair and setting down a magnifying glass. Photographs littered his desk. Bomb damage and reconnaissance shots.
“Checking into who has access to warehouse keys,” I said. “You keep yours secure, I assume?”
“Right here,” Bull said, kicking something under his desk. “Cast iron floor safe. Small, but weighs a ton. My boss, General Hampton, has one as well.”
“Combination?”
“Yep. Only Hampton and I know them. The safes were brought in via Tehran, in case you’re wondering. They’re not Russian.”
“Major Black has less secure storage,” I said.
“Well, the OSS doesn’t necessarily think things through,” Bull said. “Like cooperating with the NKVD. I wouldn’t trust those bastards with a plug nickel.”
“Bull, you’re cooperating with the Russians too,” I said, smiling so he wouldn’t take offense.
“There’s a difference between strategy and working directly with the NKVD. They slaughter their own people on the slightest pretext. Watch your back, Billy. Kiril Sidorov is ex-NKVD.�
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“Yeah. I’m being careful,” I said. Bull wasn’t in the know about what had transpired in London, and I left it that way. “What do you know about a shortage of morphine at the base hospital?”
“I’ve heard that,” he said. “Belov told me it was due to counterrevolutionary forces disrupting the flow of supplies. Disorganizers of the rear and the enemy’s ally is the exact phrase he used. Their supply of morphine comes from the Kyrgyz province on the Chinese border, and a lot can happen between there and here. It could be a poor poppy harvest, sabotage, or theft, who knows? Anything that goes bad is always because of reactionaries or counterrevolutionaries, so it’s never actually anyone’s fault. Or the fault of the Soviet system, God forbid. Why do you ask?”
“I’m just trying to find some sort of motive or purpose behind the murders. You’ve seen the morphine in the storage room where the two men were killed?”
“Yes, and I’ve checked the inventory reports. Nothing’s missing,” Bull said.
“That’s the oddest thing of all, so far at least. All those valuables, and nothing was taken,” I said. “It’s like that dog in the Sherlock Holmes story.”
“What dog?” Bull asked.
“In ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’ Holmes investigates the abduction of a famous racehorse taken from his stall in the middle of the night. Holmes draws the police inspector’s attention to ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’ The inspector doesn’t see the importance, because the dog was quiet all night.”
“And that’s the curious incident?” Bull said.
“Exactly. I want to know who got in there and if the killer went in with someone or alone. But the important thing is to understand what anyone was doing in the warehouse at all. There’s plenty of secluded spots to shoot people around here and leave their bodies. Why do it in such a high-profile area? They were guaranteed to be discovered pretty quickly.”
