Snow Wolf (47 page)

"I can't say we have, Major."

"Did you serve during the war?"

"With the Fifth Kursk."

"Infantry?"

"Yes, sir."

"Really? You knew Colonel
Kinyatin?"

Stanski pretended to think for a moment,
then shook his head. "I was only with the Kursk for three months before I
was transferred. I'm afraid I never heard of the man."

Zinov shivered from the cold and
interrupted again. "Really, Major, the poor fellow and his wife have had
their honeymoon plans upset as it is. You can see he's a genuine officer. Are
you going to make a fool of yourself and arrest him or are we all to just stand
here and freeze to death?"

The major gave Zinov a withering stare,
then looked at Anna and Stanski again, as if still unable to make up his mind.

"A question, Captain. What's your
wife's month of birth?"

"Sir?"

"Her month of birth. A simple
question."

Stanski smiled faintly. "July. A man
could hardly forget that, especially being just married, sir."

"You seem a little old to be just
getting married, Captain."

"Sir?"

"is this your first marriage?"

Stanski shook his head and looked as if
he was suitably hurt. "No, sir. My first wife died in the war. Really,
sir, is this all necessary?"

Lukin hesitated for a long time, then
slowly handed back the two sets of papers. "My apologies for the delay.
You may proceed. Have a pleasant trip, Captain. You too, madam. And you,
Colonel,"

"About damned time too," said
Zinov, puffing a breath of steaming air.

They all climbed back into the car. As Stanski
slid in beside Anna in the back and threw the woollen blanket over their legs,
he felt her hand reach for his and grip it very tightly, her fingers digging
painfully into his flesh. He felt her shaking and there was sweat dripping
inside his own shirt despite the cold, his heartbeat hammering in his ears.

As the Emka moved off and rattled over
the cobbles, Zinov was muttering angrily to himself in the front. "Those
Moscow types think they run the damned show." He growled venomously,
"And don't you worry, Major Lukin, you jumped-up little shit. I'll see to
you when I get to Leningrad. You've no fucking respect for senior rank."

As he kept on cursing, Stanski glanced
back through the rear window.

The KGB major stood staring after the
car, a faint look of uncertainty clouding his face.

Stanski turned back. The major had been
clever, asking harmless questions, but questions that could have told him a
lot. Somehow, by the look on his face, he was still not completely convinced.
Stanski tensed and shivered as the Emka rounded the next corner.

Anna whispered in the darkness of the
cab, "What's wrong?"

"I think someone just walked over my
grave."

It was just before nine when Lukin
returned to the Tondy bar racks.

Kaman was waiting with a sheaf of papers.
He looked exhausted.

"Some more reports for you, Major.
Still definitely no sign of the man and woman, I'm afraid." He placed the
papers on the table. "You think at this stage we're wasting our
time?"

Lukin fixed him with a stare. "On
the contrary. I want the operation continued and expanded."

Kaman sighed. "Has the major
considered that these people could have been killed when they parachuted into
Estonia? Parachutes sometimes fail. Perhaps we should be searching the
countryside for bodies?"

"One death from an unopened
parachute I can accept, but not two. The order stands. Widen the net to include
up to fifteen kilometers beyond the town center. Every house, inn and shop in
the town is to be thoroughly searched."

"But that will take days!"

"You have twelve hours."

"Major, what you're proposing will
include a quarter of the population of Estonia!"

Lukin rounded angrily. "I don't give
a damn. Just do it. And quickly, man!"

"Yes, Major." Kaman saluted and
left, closing the door.

Lukin ran his hand through his hair in
exasperation. He had been harsh on the captain-the man looked as tired as him
self-but too much was at stake. The roadblocks and check points and the
checking of the hotel registers should have, yielded something.

But nothing. Not even a suggestion that
the man and womai were in Tallinn.

The man and the woman ought to be
somewhere out there It was ridiculous. With so many checkpoints something
should have turned up by now.

He thought of the captain and his young
wife at the Tower. Something odd about him he couldn't quite figure. He was
sure he had seen the man's face somewhere before. The remark had been no ploy,
like some of the other questions. where had he seen him?

The captain's wife was attractive but
hardly beautiful. The make-up had spoiled her face. A little too heavy. Maybe
it was deliberate? The man had said they were on their honeymoon She should
have been happy. She didn't look too happy, just anxious. Or was it his
imagination?

But the man had shown no sign of fear,
just bemusement Lukin had found it hard to decide about him.

The question he had asked him about his
wife's birthday had influenced his decision, but only just. He had once caught
a couple of German agents in Kiev who had been traveling as man and wife. A
husband always remembered his real wife's birthday and the German had faltered
too long, then finally made a run for it before he was caught. But the captain
this morning had known.

Still, the couple were borderline, and he
should have checked their story. The colonel's statement that he had known his
passengers personally had swung it in their favor.

But what really bothered Lukin still was
the man's face. He was certain he remembered him from somewhere. something
about him that seemed oddly familiar. But he was too trouble( too stressed, and
memory worked best when the mind was at peace, not tired and in turmoil. It
would come to him eventually, but right now, even though he racked his brain,
it wouldn't.

He picked up the photographs of the woman
and the man known as the Wolf. He looked down at them for a long time. The
Wolf's picture was really too blurred to be useful and had been taken from too
great a distance. Another thing kept bothering Lukin-the fact that there were
two pages missing from the man's file. Perhaps Beria had his reasons for
withholding the pages, but Lukin felt somehow less than trusted. It was as if
his path were being made deliberately more difficult.

Pasha was right. It was usual that an
investigator be given access to all information concerning a case.

The photograph of the woman showed her
with no make-up, her hair cropped short and her face gaunt. There were obvious
dark circles under her eyes from stress or lack of sleep, or both.

Lukin tried to imagine what she would
look like with more flesh on her cheekbones and her hair longer and wearing
makeup. Impossible, really. A woman could completely change her appearance with
cleverly applied make-up. Still, instinct told him something wasn't right. And
the checkpoints had turned up no other likely suspects.

He picked up the phone and quickly dialed
Kaman's extension.

"Lukin here. I want a Captain Oleg
Petrovsky checked out immediately. See if he's with the 14th Armored at
Leningrad. Get onto his commanding officer, or whoever's next in line. I want
details from his personal file. Background, marriage, and so on. And verify if
the division is planning winter maneuvers at Novgorod. Have them call me."
Kaman said, "Who is he?"

"Never mind that for now, just do
it. And phone the local air force commander and have a helicopter stand by in
case I need it. If he quibbles, put him onto me. And find out where a KGB
colonel named Zinov was staying in Tallinn."

Lukin replaced the phone. There was still
plenty of time to stop the Emka before it reached Leningrad. The drive took
five hours, so that left Lukin the best part of three.

He checked his watch. Nine A.M. With
luck, the information should be back from the Leningrad Divisional Headquarters
within ten minutes.

February 27th 1953 9::15 A.m.-6:30 P.m.

Estonia.

February 27th They took the main highway
to Kivioli, then once past the town followed the coast road for Leningrad.

Brightly painted fishing boats lay
rotting on the shoreline, abandoned nets like giant spider's webs. The skies
were clear but off to the west a mass of threatening snow clouds hovered above
the frozen Baltic.

It was over three hundred kilometers to
Leningrad, five hours on the highway, but once they left Kivioli the roads were
clogged with military traffic. A long column of tanks and trucks trailed jets
of muddy slush in their wake as they moved westwards, and Zinov had to drive
slowly until they reached the coast.

"Good to see Stalin still likes to
let the Baits know that we're in business," commented Zinov. "Smoke,
anyone?"

Stanski accepted a cigarette. As Zinov
handed back his lighter, he said casually, "I must say, that major back in
Tailinn seemed very uncertain about you."

Stanski smiled. "I must have a
suspicious face, Colonel."

Zinov laughed. "Well, if you had
been enemy agents you certainly would have picked the wrong traveling companion
in a KGB colonel."

After another hour there was almost no
traffic apart from occasional peasants on horses and donkeys and carts and
Zinov made up for lost time.

They passed squalid Estonian towns and
villages, and here and there the ruins of houses dotted the countryside, still
deserted since the war, charred buildings and derelict cottages with their
roofs caved in. Rusted, scavenged hulks of German Panzers and artillery pieces
were still decaying, lying abandoned in open fields.

As they passed through a deserted village
Stanski and Anna saw that the timber houses had been recently razed to the
ground and the local church gutted. Two black paint strokes on a sign had
obliterated the village name.

"A couple of months ago that was a
thriving village," Zinov remarked. "Until some partisans decided to
blow up an ammunition dump in a nearby barracks. The local commander shot all
the men and had the women and children sent to Siberia. Drastic, but then
drastic measures are sometimes called for, I think you'll agree, Captain?"

"Of course."

Zinov turned back and smiled. "These
crazy partisans think we can be defeated. But they're wrong. Like that madman
Hitler and that fool Napoleon. Do you know the famous monument in Riga? On one
side it reads: "In 1812 Napoleon passed this way to Moscow with two
hundred thousand men.' On the other side it reads: "In 1813 Napoleon
passed this way from Moscow with twenty thousand men.' Zinov laughed.

They passed Narva half an hour later and
Zinov suggested they stop and stretch their legs before they pressed on to
Leningrad.

"We'll have some food and vodka.
Nothing like a little refreshment and fresh air to clear the head."

Stanski glanced at Anna. Something about
the major at the checkpoint in Tallinn had made them both uneasy and unwilling
to delay getting to Leningrad.

He said to Zinov, "Perhaps we ought
to press on?"

"Nonsense, we've plenty of time. We'll
be in Leningrad in under two hours. There's a perfect spot up ahead. I
sometimes stop there for a break."

It was still dark, a gray twilight and
the moon out, as Zinov turned off the highway minutes later and drove along a
forest road. Either side narrow lanes led off into the woods and after a
hundred meters they dipped over a rise and came out in a clearing beside a
small frozen lake.

The view over the lake was really rather
beautiful, the towering birch trees along the shoreline sugared prettily with
snow, and there was a sense of peaceful isolation after the highway.

Zinov climbed out and said to Stanski,
"Splendid, isn't it?

Get the vodka and food, man, it's in the
trunk. There's some smoked eel and bread. I bought it from Flinn. I'm sure your
wife's hungry."

Stanski went around to the trunk and
removed a picnic basket. As he turned back he heard a small cry from Anna and
saw Zinov grab her savagely by the hair, his pistol pointed at her head.

"Put your hands in the air," he
ordered Stanski. Zinov's face looked stern and he was suddenly all business.
"Undo your pistol belt very slowly. And I mean slowly. Then throw it over
here. You do as I say or the woman gets a bullet in the head."

"What's going on? Is this some kind
of joke?"

Zinov's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Something's not right with you two. That major back in Tallinn, he was
right. You're both enemy agents."

"Colonel, this is nonsense,"
Stanski said reasonably. "Our papers were in order at the checkpoint. Put
the gun away. You're making my wife nervous." Zinov said sharply,
"Shut up. I've listened to your accents. Neither of you are from
Leningrad. I've lived there all my life. The woman here, she's from Moscow, but
you, I can't figure you Out. A little while back something else occurred to me.
Last night you told me you were with the 17th Armored. But you told the major
at the checkpoint you were with the 14th. Perhaps you'd care to explain?"