Archive 17 (18 page)

The man who was dragging him wore a dark hat and a coat which came down below his knees. Both were civilian garments. It occurred to Braninko to inform him that only government personnel were allowed in Archive 17.

What is wrong with me? Braninko wondered. His stomach felt
strangely empty and he experienced a terrible thirst, as if he were lost in a desert.

At last the dragging stopped. The man let go of Braninko’s feet and the professor’s heels struck the floor hard.

Braninko was relieved to be lying still. He felt dizzy and sick. He glanced at his palm and realized he was covered with blood. Only now did it dawn on him that he had been shot. Tugging at the buttons of his vest, he pulled the cloth away and saw the deep red marks of two bullet holes punched through the fabric of his shirt.

The man turned around and looked at Braninko. He was narrow-faced, with a black mustache tinged gray along the edges. He wore thick corduroy trousers and a short double-breasted wool coat.

Although such clothes were common in the streets of Moscow, Braninko had no difficulty identifying this man as a member of NKVD. It was not the clothes, but how the stranger wore them—with no regard for comfort, all the buttons fastened, and the lapels stitched into place, rather than being allowed to rest naturally against the collarbone.

“Who are you?” As the professor spoke, a thread of bloody saliva trickled from his mouth.

“My name is Kornfeld,” replied the man. Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped the perspiration from his cheeks. “You are heavier than you look, old man.”

“Why have you done this to me?”

“It is my job.”

“But what have I done to deserve it?” Braninko had trouble breathing, as if someone were kneeling on his chest.

“The only thing I can tell you is that you have upset someone very important.”

“The Blue File,” whispered Braninko. “Is that what this is about?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“I was helping with an investigation.”

“I have no interest in what you were doing.”

“The man I was helping is Inspector Pekkala, and you will answer to him for what you’ve done to me—you and whoever sent you on this butcher’s errand.”

From the pocket of his coat, Kornfeld removed a Browning automatic pistol. “You may be right, Professor, but he will have to find me first.”

“Oh, he will find you,” Braninko replied angrily, “and sooner than you think. By the time you leave this building, the Emerald Eye will be upon you.”

Kornfeld did not appear to be listening. Instead, he busied himself with checking the number of rounds in the Browning’s magazine.

Observing the casual efficiency of his executioner, Braninko abandoned all hope. The old man gazed around the room, his eyes flickering across the faces of the statues which had kept him company all these years. He thought about the papers on his desk, which still needed sorting, and of his cat, on the windowsill at home, watching for him to return, and of all the important and unfinished business of his life which swirled around him like a cloud of tiny insects, then suddenly scattered and lost all meaning. Reaching into the blood-drenched pocket of his vest, Braninko removed a spindly iron key and held it out towards the man who was about to kill him. “Please lock the door on your way out.”

Kornfeld took the key from Braninko’s outstretched hand. “Of course,” he said. Then he shot the old man twice in the head and left his body lying on the floor.

On his way out, Kornfeld locked the door behind him. With unhurried steps, he crossed the street, pausing only to drop the key down a storm drain before he disappeared into the chaos of the Bolotnia Market.

T
HAT MORNING BEFORE DAWN, ONE
of the camp’s generators had caught fire, sending a cloud of thick, oily smoke unraveling into the clouds. The snow that fell from the sky was tinged with soot, adding to the sense of desolation hanging over the Valley of Krasnagolyana.

Arriving at the kitchen, Pekkala discovered that Melekov had left the freezer door open. Pekkala called Melekov’s name, but there was no reply.

He must have gone to watch the generator burn, thought Pekkala.

Knowing that Melekov would soon return, and unable to resist the temptation of helping himself to the best food in the camp, Pekkala slipped into the freezer.

By the light of the single bulb, hanging like a polyp from the metal ceiling of the freezer, Pekkala surveyed the bowls of offal, like coils of slippery orange rope, the white bricks of tallow fat, and the huge and severed tongues of cows. At the back of the freezer, four pig carcasses hung from gaff hooks, their skin like pink granite and glittering with frost.

At that moment Pekkala heard someone enter the kitchen—the creak of the spring on the outer door and then the gunshot slam of the inner door being closed.

Realizing he was trapped, he darted to the end of the freezer and hid behind the pig carcasses. On his way he yanked the dirty pull string of the light. The freezer was plunged into a coffin-like darkness, but seconds later the sharp glare of a flashlight burst like an explosion in the cramped space.

Pekkala glimpsed the unmistakable silhouette of Melekov. He immediately began to calculate how much trouble he might actually be in. He hadn’t actually eaten anything, so perhaps Melekov would let him off. He could say he found the door open and went in to see if any food had been taken. It was a flimsy excuse, but the only
one he could come up with. It would all depend on what mood Melekov was in. He might laugh it off, or he might decide to make life difficult.

Knowing there was still a chance he could escape detection, Pekkala remained silent while Melekov’s footsteps scuffed slowly across the concrete floor and the flashlight beam played across the carcasses, making them seem to twitch as if there was still life in them.

Pekkala’s lungs grew hot as the air in them became exhausted. He could only last a few more seconds before breathing out, at which point Melekov would surely see his breath condensing in the cold.

He heard another footstep, then another. Just when Pekkala had made up his mind to step out into the open and surrender, he heard a dull thump and, in the same moment, the blade of a long butcher knife pierced the meat of the carcass next to him. The point jammed to a halt against the pig’s ribs, only a hand’s width from Pekkala’s throat. Then the knife disappeared again, back the way it came, like a metal tongue sliding into a mouth.

“Melekov!” shouted Pekkala, still blinded by the flashlight and holding up his hands to shield himself. “It’s me!”

“You walked into my trap,” snarled Melekov.

“This was a trap? For me? But why?”

Melekov’s only reply was a bestial roar. He raised the butcher knife, ready to strike again.

Pekkala jumped to the side, crashing into a shelf as the blade glanced off the wall, leaving a long silver stripe through the frost. Bowls of food tumbled from the racks. Jars of pickled beets smashed in eruptions of ruby-colored juice and cans of army-issue Tushonka stew clattered across the floor.

Snatching up one of the heavy cans, he hurled it at the silhouette.

Melekov howled with pain as the can struck him full in the face. The flashlight fell from his grasp.

Pekkala dove to grab it, turning the beam on his attacker.

With one hand, Melekov covered his face. Blood poured in ribbons from between the fingers. His other hand still gripped the knife.

Intent on disarming the cook, Pekkala grabbed a frozen pig’s heart off the shelf and pitched it as hard as he could.

The rock-hard knot of meat bounced off Melekov’s face. With a wail of pain, he tumbled back among the bowls of guts and dropped the knife.

By the time Melekov hit the ground, Pekkala had already snatched up the weapon. “Why on earth are you trying to kill me?” he demanded.

“I figured it out,” groaned Melekov.

“Figured what out?”

Melekov clambered up until he was resting on his knees. Dazed from the fight, his head bowed forward, as if he were a supplicant before the slaughtered pigs. “Klenovkin is going to give you my job.”

“I don’t want your damned job!”

“It doesn’t matter what you want or do not want. In this camp, Klenovkin decides our fates. And where will I be if he throws me out? This isn’t like Moscow, where a man who loses his job can walk across the road and find another. There are no other jobs for me here. I’m too old to be a guard. I have no training for the hospital. If Klenovkin wants to replace me, I’ll have no place to go.”

“Even if I did want the job, did you ever stop to think that Klenovkin could never hand it to a prisoner? Dalstroy wouldn’t let him. The company would never trust a convict with their food.”

“I didn’t think of that.” Melekov raised his head sharply. “None of this was my idea.”

Pekkala threw the knife away across the floor. “Just get up!”

Gingerly, Melekov dabbed his fingers against his nostrils. “I think you broke my nose,” he muttered bitterly.

“Whose idea was this, Melekov?”

Reluctantly, the cook shook his head. “If I tell you …”

“Give me the name,” growled Pekkala.

“Gramotin,” he replied in a whisper.

Pekkala breathed out slowly. “Did he say why?”

Melekov shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. From now on, my life’s worth even less than yours, and yours wasn’t worth much to begin with.”

Pekkala realized that the time was fast approaching when he would either have to leave this camp or risk becoming the subject of his own murder investigation.

In the meantime, Ryabov’s death remained unsolved.

That thought sent a familiar shudder through his bones.

This was not the first time Pekkala had failed to close a case.

Pekkala and the Tsar stood on a balcony outside the Alexander Palace. It was an early-summer day, the sky powder blue and pollen lying luminous and green upon the puddles of a rainstorm from the night before
.

“A man has been found dead,” said the Tsar. “He was a courier for the Turkish embassy.”

“Where was the body found?” asked Pekkala
.

“It was pulled from the water just beneath a bridge over the Novokislaevsk River, north of Moscow
.

“Their ambassador asked for you by name. Given the value of our relationship with that country, I could hardly refuse.”

“I will begin immediately.”

“Of course, but do not exhaust yourself with this inquiry.”

Pekkala glanced at the Tsar, trying to fathom the meaning of his words
.

“What I am telling you,” Nicholas Romanov explained, “is that this is ultimately a matter for the Turks to unravel. It is not our job to oversee their diplomats. Look around, see what you can find, and then move on.”

Pekkala’s preliminary inspection of the body revealed no marks which would suggest a violent death. The dead man was fully clothed but did not
appear to have drowned. Pekkala quickly ruled out suicide, since the drop would not have killed or even injured him
.

Every day, during that first week of the investigation, Pekkala returned to the bridge and stood looking down into the water as he attempted to compose in his mind not only the reason for this man’s death but the questions which might lead him to the answer
.

He stood among fishermen, who dangled bamboo poles above the water, smoked their pipes, and talked about the body. They had been the first to find it and barraged Pekkala with questions about the case
.

But Pekkala had questions of his own. “Could the body have drifted here from somewhere upstream?” he asked
.

“This is a lazy old river,” one of them replied. “Somebody threw him off the bridge. Where he fell is where he sank and where he sank is where we found him.”

“Do you fish here every day?”

“This time of year we do. Carp, pike, dace. They’re all down there in those weeds.”

“Then they knew you would find him. In fact, somebody wanted you to find him.”

“Unless,” suggested another fisherman, “they didn’t know the area and were just getting rid of the body.”

Pekkala shook his head. “This was done by a professional. The dead man is a message. But about what? And to whom?”

“That would be your job, Inspector,” said the fisherman
.

After one week, without explanation, the Tsar called Pekkala off the case and did not assign a new investigator to take over
.

Ever since, Pekkala had been haunted by his failure to arrest the killer. He felt an obligation to the victim, as if they’d formed a partnership between the living and the dead. Since that day, like stones in his pockets, he had carried the unanswered questions of that murder
.