Jason Overstreet - Beneath the Darkest Sky

MR4 Labor Camp - Kirovsk, Russia

May 11, 1939

COLONEL ZORIN’S YOUNG ASSISTANT, OSIP, HAD PICKED ME UP AT the Leningrad station right on time. From there we had gotten into a white Ford Coupe. And now, with the long drive behind us, we approached MR4 Labor Camp once again.

Seven days earlier, Stalin had actually replaced Maxim Litvinov with Vyacheslav Molotov. Bobby had rushed to tell me, reiterating that it had been done for the very reason we’d suspected, Litvinov being Jewish. Now it was surely only a matter of time before Germany and the Soviet Union had their important sit-down. My work had paid off, and in Stalin’s eyes, this single piece of information had probably warranted my having been used.

Osip drove me up to Zorin’s barracks and the two of us entered. We found him sitting at his desk doing nothing but staring down as if he were daydreaming. Another young guard was sitting in a chair against the wall to his left.

“The Interpreter is here,” said Osip.

“Come and sit,” said Zorin. “Both of you.”

“How is my family?” I bravely asked as we sat.

“How is mine?” he said, his Russian words filled with anger, his jaw clinched.

“They are fine, Colonel Zorin. So far!”

“I will just say that yours haven’t died yet,” he said.

“And they better not, Colonel.”

“Your son is in the hospital as we speak. He is having the same problems with his lungs.”

“I figured as much,” I said.

“They are giving him lots of strong syrup.”

“Keeping him knocked out is not treatment,” I said.

His look suggested he wanted to stand and slap me.

“This is my other assistant, Roman,” said Zorin, looking to his left at the young guard. “Only myself, Osip, and Roman are privy to this sensitive undertaking.”

“What would the Kremlin do if they knew you were being blackmailed?” I said.

“They can’t know,” he said.

“They’d execute you and you know it.”

“Let me worry about that.”

I looked at Osip and Roman. “And you trust these two?”

“They have been with me since they were sixteen. I trust them more than anyone on this planet. They understand my predicament. Besides, you filthy blacks aren’t worth losing my precious family over.”

“Just know that if they try anything stupid, hurt any of us, my men in Riga will even the score. They are far less compassionate than I. More like you!”

He shuffled around in his chair, uncomfortable with the pinch he was in.

“Your instructions were very clear,” he said. “I immediately cabled the Kremlin when I received your last briefcase and told them that you were demanding to return to MR4 in order to see your sick son before continuing to spy in Berlin. Of course they cabled back and said it was okay.”

“Even if they hadn’t,” I said, “you still would have sent Osip. We just would have had to work the plan differently. But this makes it cleaner. I’m assuming you informed the Kremlin that I intend to return in three days, on the fourteenth?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then that is when you will tell them how sick my boy has become. That is when you will tell them that I am unwilling to return without my entire family. They will balk at that and then you will offer to execute us.”

“Yes,” he said. “They love for me to execute people, especially ones who make impossible demands, and in your case, especially someone who they’ve already used up. I mean, I’m certain they would love to squeeze some more out of you, but once they know you are serious about demanding your family’s release, they’ll give me the go-ahead to put all four of you in the graves.”

“I’m assuming you will be informing your briefcase man, Dieter, that I’ve been executed.”

“He will come to know this soon enough. Yes.”

“I’m also guessing that Lovett Fort-Whiteman is here now,” I said. “He was due to be transferred in early May.”

Zorin stuck out his lower lip and then cracked a bit of an evil-looking smile.

“Not everything the Kremlin has been telling you is true,” he said. “When they told you that they’d tracked your comrade down in Magadan, and that he was alive, they lied. He was sent to the Kolyma gold mines right after you left back in November. But he only lasted a little over a month. He died on January 13th of this year. According to his official death certificate, he had apparently starved to death and was found frozen with no teeth. But… I have no more details other than those I’m afraid.”

Learning that Lovett was dead came as a massive slug to my gut. But I sat up straight and glared back at him. I just swallowed deep and didn’t allow myself to feel anything yet. I had to stay present and focused and strong. I couldn’t let him see an ounce of weakness. He was trying to hurt me one last time, his constant smile signaling how much he was delighting in this news.

“So, you see, Interpreter,” he said, putting his hands together at his chin and tapping his fingers together, “your good comrade has been dead the entire time you’ve been in Berlin. He was only alive in your mind.”

He looked at Roman and Osip, and they all half smiled.

“Let’s just hope,” I said, “that your lovely mother stays alive… both in your mind and in reality.”

He paused. I could sense him trying to figure out one last possible way of getting out of this trap I had him in. But in talking to his mother, I’d been able to sense how much he loved her. All of these men like Zorin and Stalin exhibited no feelings when it came to murdering people, unless, of course, it was their own family members.

“I want you to know,” he said, “that both Osip and Roman will be with you the entire time and will have guns on them. You and your family will be searched and have no way of defending yourselves during the trip.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I brought my suitcase and have my suits, but did you have the fine clothes made for my family like I asked for in the letter?”

“Yes. When you arrive at the hotel in Riga and check into a room, only then are you to phone your men. And Osip will be listening. What hotel will it be?”

“That part you don’t get to know. That’s part of the deal. Your men get to pick a room and check in under a name I won’t be privy to, but I get to select the hotel.”

Three days later, at around 10:00 p.m., my family stood near a freshly dug pit. It was the latest in a long line of others that had been covered up already, thousands of dead zeks having been buried underneath them. This pit was large enough for several people. All four of us stood there knowing what the plan was. Zorin was going to be the man who shot each of us. He would do so while two guards and another high-ranking officer bore witness. The only other witnesses would be Osip and Roman, and they were also the only two people besides Zorin and my family who knew that Zorin would be using blank cartridges.

We had been driven to the massive graveyard in the white Ford Coupe, Osip behind the wheel. Roman had driven an identical beige Coupe behind us, while Zorin and his witnesses had been in a black sedan leading the way. The graveyard was situated about a mile from the main camp. More zeks than we could even begin to imagine had been driven out here and executed by Zorin on far too many occasions. We could smell death all around us.

I had been able to be with Loretta and the children the entire time since I’d arrived from Berlin. Zorin had put us all in a private room. The emotions had been overwhelming to say the least. They looked terrible, their spirits completely broken, their bodies even more withered—Loretta and Ginger’s hair having grown back only a bit. And they had barely said a word, too tired and broken to even imagine that my plan might work. We must have spent that entire first day together just holding one another and crying and resting, particularly James, whose breathing issue wouldn’t relent.