Sam Eastland - Archive 17

“I was right about you,” said Pekkala. “You didn’t come back for these men. You came back for the gold, and the reason they are free is because they are the only ones who knew where to find it. They believed in the oath you swore to them.”

“The oath was to the mission !” Kolchak howled.

“The mission failed. It’s over.”

“Not yet, Pekkala. I know I can’t bring back the Tsar, but I can use his treasure to build a new country, one that is not founded on the values of his enemies.”

“With yourself as emperor?” Before Kolchak had time to answer, Pekkala continued. “You may have calculated the cost of this new country in gold bullion, but what about the cost in human life?”

“I will not lie to you,” Kolchak replied. “We have many scores to settle with those who fought against my uncle in the winter of 1918 when he was trying to liberate this country. Even those who stood by and did nothing will receive the punishment they deserve. Thousands will die. Maybe tens of thousands. Numbers do not matter. What matters is that they are swept aside until all that remains of them is a footnote in the history books.” He gripped Pekkala’s arm. “Blood for blood! Those are the words on which the new Siberia will be founded.”

Pekkala pointed at the trees, where Lavrenov and Tarnowski were still digging. “What about those two men who have remained loyal to you? Have they learned about this plan of yours? All I heard them talk about was building mansions for themselves in China. Do they know you are leading them straight back into another war?”

“Not yet,” admitted Kolchak. “After what happened when I tried to explain things to Ryabov-”

“You mean you told Ryabov?”

“I tried to!” Kolchak’s voice rose in frustration. “He was the senior officer among the Comitati. I thought I owed it to the man to tell him first. I had imagined that after so many years in captivity, he would be glad to learn that the thieves who had stolen his freedom would pay for that crime with their lives.”

“What happened instead?”

“He told me he wouldn’t go through with it. He didn’t even hesitate. I explained that he could stay behind in China. I said I didn’t care whether he came or not. But that wasn’t enough for Ryabov. He insisted that enough lives had been lost on account of the gold. I told him it was about more than treasure. It was about eliminating Stalin and the Communists. If there is one thing I have learned in my years of exile it is that the only way to get rid of a monster is to create an even bigger monster. After that, it’s just a matter of seeing who bleeds to death first.”

“And what did Ryabov say to that?”

“He said he would refuse to give up the location of the gold. After all, the Comitati were the only ones who knew where it was, since I had left before they buried it. Ryabov told me that the men in Borodok had learned to trust him. Everything they had lived through, he had also endured. Ryabov was certain they would listen to him before they listened to me.”

“And you believed him?”

“I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t take the chance that he was right. That night, when he came to the mine, I thought he had come to speak with me, perhaps to try and talk me out of it. I didn’t realize that he was there to meet Klenovkin. He didn’t expect to find me outside that cave where I’d been hiding, deep inside the mine. Tarnowski and the others had warned me to stay put, but I couldn’t stand it, cooped up in there like some animal in a cage made out of stone. So I had taken to wandering those tunnels at night, anything but stay holed up in that cave. That’s when I discovered Ryabov. I could tell he was surprised to see me. I tried again to reason with him, but he told me his mind was made up. He was putting a stop to the escape. I reminded him of how long he had struggled to ensure the survival of our men so that one day they might find their way out of this camp.”

“And what was his reply?”

“He said their freedom, and his own, would not be worth the countless thousands we’d leave butchered in our path.”

At last, the mystery of Ryabov’s death became clear to Pekkala. He realized he had misjudged the murdered officer.

“Pekkala, I did not want to kill him, but when he told me that Klenovkin would be there any minute, thinking perhaps that I would see the situation as hopeless and surrender, I knew I didn’t have any choice except to silence him for good.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a shout from the men who were digging. An arm rose from the smoke, the fist clutching a bar of gold. Tarnowski staggered out, half blinded, and laid the ingot down at Kolchak’s feet. Then he turned and went back to his digging.

Slowly, Kolchak bent down and picked up the bar, whose surface was hidden by a residue of dirt which had leached through the wooden crate over time. Kolchak rubbed it away with his thumb, revealing the double-headed eagle of the Romanovs. Then he glanced at Pekkala and smiled.

“Those men deserve to be told,” said Pekkala, nodding towards Lavrenov and Tarnowski, “and told now.”

“They will be, as soon as they have finished.”

“Have you considered the possibility that they might not want to go through with it?”

“Of course,” replied Kolchak. “That’s why I am telling you first. These men know that you were trusted by the Tsar. If you are with me, they will be as well. Think of it, my friend. We won’t just be living like kings. Kings are what we will be !”

But all Pekkala could think about was the lives which would be lost if he stood by and did nothing. He remembered the Tsar, driven to the brink of madness by the dead from the Kodynka field, the men and women he believed he could have saved whirling in a ceaseless and macabre dance inside the white-walled palace of his skull.

It took both men to raise the first crate from the ground. As they lifted it, the rotten wood gave way. With dull, metallic clanks, ingots tumbled out into the snow. Other crates followed quickly, wrenched from the dirt and dragged clear of the steaming ground.

“Did it not occur to you,” asked Pekkala, “that I might agree with Ryabov?”

Kolchak laughed, certain that Pekkala must be joking. “We are all of us entitled to vengeance, but none more than you, Pekkala.”

“Vengeance has become the purpose of your life, Kolchak, but not of mine.”

Kolchak’s smile faded as he grasped that Pekkala was serious. “I trusted you! I broke you out of that prison. I gave you the coat off my back-and this is how you repay me? The Tsar would be ashamed of you.”

“The Tsar is dead, Kolchak, and so is the world in which he lived. You cannot bring it back by spilling blood. If you have your way, the rivers of Siberia will soon be choked with corpses. And if Germany invades in the west, millions more people will die. By the time your vengeance has been satisfied, Russia will cease to exist. Your uncle did not die for that.”

Kolchak’s eyes glazed with rage. “But you will, Inspector Pekkala.”

Almost too late, Pekkala saw the knife. He grabbed Kolchak’s wrist as the weapon flickered past his face.

With his other hand balled into a fist, Kolchak struck Pekkala in the throat, sending him down in a heap onto the trampled snow.

While Pekkala fought for breath, Kolchak raised the blade above his head, ready to plunge it into the center of Pekkala’s chest.

When the two men emerged onto the ice, Gramotin could scarcely believe his good luck. Shielding his eyes with one dirty hand, he strained to make out who they were. Even though their faces were unclear, he could still see the numbers painted in white on their faded black jackets. One of them was 4745. “Pekkala,” he muttered to himself. The other, he decided, must be Lavrenov, since he was neither bald nor the size of Tarnowski.