Sam Eastland - The Beast in the Red Forest

Kirov drifted in and out of sleep. The fever had broken and now his discomfort centred on the livid purple scar beneath his collarbone. He found it difficult to lie in any one position for long and each time he moved, the pain would jolt him awake.

With a moan, Kirov rolled on to his back. His eyes flickered open and the darkness took shape around him — the light bulb in the ceiling, the crack in the bottom left pane of the window, through which he saw the sky punctuated by the flash of high explosives in the distance.

That was when he realised there was someone standing right beside his bed.

This time, there could be no doubt.

It was Pekkala.

For a moment, Kirov was too stunned to speak. Even though he had believed all along that the Inspector could have survived, he had always been guided more by faith than certainty. Now, at last, Kirov’s mind was no longer shackled by doubt. ‘I knew it!’ he shouted. ‘I knew they couldn’t kill the Emerald Eye!’

Pekkala responded by slapping his hand over Kirov’s mouth. ‘Quiet!’ he hissed. ‘Are you trying to wake the dead as well as the living?’

Kirov blinked at him in silence until Pekkala finally removed his hand.

‘How did you know I was in Rovno?’ asked Kirov.

‘The clues I left with Linsky,’ explained Pekkala, speaking so matter-of-factly that it was as if no time at all had passed since the two men parted company. ‘I knew they’d lead you here eventually.’

‘So you really were in Moscow!’

Pekkala patted his new coat. ‘And I did not leave Moscow empty-handed.’

‘But why did you wait so long?’

‘I came as soon as the German army pulled out of this area,’ explained Pekkala. ‘Before that, it was not possible to travel.’

‘But why leave clues for me to follow you out here?’ demanded Kirov. ‘Why didn’t you simply come to the office?’

‘You were being watched,’ explained Pekkala.

‘Watched?’ Kirov remembered the feeling of uneasiness which had pursued him almost to the point of madness. ‘By whom?’

‘From the look of them,’ answered Pekkala, ‘I’d say they were NKVD Special Operations.’

‘Our own people?’

‘Stalin knew that his best chance of catching me was if I came back to look for you. That’s why he had you followed.’

Now it all began to make sense. ‘And why every assignment I’ve been given since you disappeared has kept me in Moscow. He wanted to make sure you could find me.’

‘But Stalin grew tired of waiting. That’s why he finally allowed you to leave the city, hoping you’d lead him to me.’

‘All this time,’ Kirov muttered angrily, ‘I have been nothing more than bait in a trap.’

‘There’s a way around every trap,’ said Pekkala, ‘and my way around this one was Linsky. For several days, I had been shadowing the same people who were following you. They had staked out the office, your apartment, even your friend Elizaveta. But they had no one watching Linsky. I knew he would recognise who placed the order, even if I didn’t leave a name. I gambled that, as soon as Linsky realised I was still alive, he’d find a way to get in touch with you, and for you to pay a visit to a tailor would not arouse the suspicions of NKVD. In the meantime, I couldn’t stay in Moscow. It was too risky. So I left behind that tobacco pouch, trusting that the tanner’s mark inside would lead you here to Rovno.’

‘There was one other clue, Inspector.’

‘Oh, yes? And what was that?’

‘Your pass book and your gun were found on that body at the site of the ambush, but the emerald eye was missing.’

A faint smile creased Pekkala’s lips as he turned down the lapel of his coat. By the light of bombs exploding in the distance, the emerald-studded badge winked from the darkness.

‘I came here to find you, Inspector, but I should have known you’d track me down instead.’

‘As soon as news reached me of a tall, skinny NKVD officer who had just arrived by plane from Moscow, I set out to meet you. Unfortunately, I was too late to prevent what happened. Can you describe the man who opened fire in the bunker?’

‘It was dark,’ explained Kirov. ‘There had just been an air raid and the electricity had gone out. But I know who it must have been, even if I didn’t see him pull the trigger. The nurse here told me that they recovered three bodies from the bunker. One was Andrich and the other two were partisans. The only other man in that room was a Red Army officer. With a bandage wrapped around his face, he looked as if he’d just been wounded, but I realise now that it was only a disguise. Andrich said the officer had just arrived from headquarters, so he might have been carrying forged papers as well as a stolen uniform. Inspector, do you have any idea why this happened?’

‘There are many blood feuds between the partisans,’ answered Pekkala. ‘It may be that you and Andrich were simply caught in the crossfire. Or it may be that Andrich himself was the target.’

‘But why would anyone want to murder the colonel? After all, he was negotiating a ceasefire.’

‘Perhaps,’ answered Pekkala, ‘because Andrich might have succeeded. He was the only man Moscow trusted who could speak to the partisans. When Andrich’s division was annihilated back in ’41, he took to the forest and joined the partisans, rather than surrender. Two years later, Moscow made contact with his group by dropping leaflets over the forest requesting someone who could act as a representative for the partisans. Andrich volunteered. He knew that somebody would have to speak for the partisan groups still active in this area. The partisans are sick of fighting, whether it’s against the Germans or each other. They just can’t find a way to stop. There is too much hatred among them.’

‘Why are they killing each other?’ asked Kirov.

‘Some groups originally sided with the Germans,’ explained Pekkala, ‘who used them to hunt down other partisans or to commit atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. When the Germans began to retreat, many of those who had taken up arms against the Ukrainians became victims themselves as old scores were settled. This has been a war within a war, Kirov, more bloody than anything I’ve ever seen before. Andrich knew that the only way the killing would cease was if all sides learned to trust each other. It might have worked, too, if Andrich hadn’t been murdered. And the fact that those two partisan leaders also died will only make the situation worse. Those men were all supposed to be under Soviet protection when the attack occurred. If Andrich was indeed the target, then the killer must have known that murdering him would destroy any hope of peace between the partisans and the Red Army. The faith which Andrich worked to build has now evaporated, just as Stalin knew it might. That’s why he recently ordered a brigade of counter-intelligence troops to be transferred to the Rovno garrison.’

The Soviet Counter-Intelligence Agency, known as SMERSH, had been formed by Stalin the previous year as a specialised task force with the NKVD and was responsible for crushing any acts of rebellion in the newly reconquered territories of the Soviet Union. Ruthlessly, they sought out enemy agents who had been recruited by Germany’s spy organisation, the Abwehr, under the control of Admiral Canaris, as well as those partisans, civilians and former POWs, who might have collaborated with the Germans during the years of occupation. Within six months of coming into existence, Counter-Intelligence troops had massacred tens of thousands of Russians, for crimes as vague as selling apples to German soldiers, allowing them to drink from a well or for having been captured in one of the vast encircling attacks that wiped out entire Soviet divisions in the first days of Operation Barbarossa.