Martin Smith - Stalin’s Ghost

“The people we killed were terrorists,” Urman told Zhenya.

Arkady said, “You shot them in the back and in the head. You executed them. And the ones you killed in Moscow were your fellow Black Berets.”

Urman shook his head for Zhenya’s benefit. “Poor man, that bullet really did scramble his brains. Look, Renko, now the kid’s smiling.”

It was a sickly smile.

Arkady said, “Zhenya, don’t put on your backpack, just run.”

Urman stepped out of the hole. “Why should he run and leave his chess set? And what else? Why is the backpack so heavy?” Urman reached into it and pulled out the stripped frame and barrel of a handgun. “Your gun. He brought it for your protection but there never seemed the right moment. In fact, I think that moment has come and gone.” He dropped the pieces back in.

Arkady felt the conversation gain speed. Or maybe it was that they tossed their last few words aside like unplayed cards.

“Watch this.” Urman took some casual swings with the shovel, not so much to hit Arkady as to maneuver him to the lip of the hole.

“Run,” Arkady told Zhenya.

Urman launched the shovel at Arkady’s chest like a spear, but Arkady ducked as soon as Urman set his feet, and as the shovel sailed by Arkady rose with a butt to the chin that snapped back Urman’s head. “Hit first, keep hitting.” Not bad instructions. Arkady hit Urman in the windpipe and went on pounding him until Zhenya got in between and hung onto Arkady’s arm.

“Stop fighting!”

“Zhenya, let go.”

“No more fighting,” Zhenya said.

“No more fighting.” Urman had his gun out. “Not for you, old man. This is for Tanya.” Urman hit Arkady in the face with the flat of the shovel; Arkady sucked a tooth back in and felt blood drip from his chin.

“Now you’re even,” Zhenya said.

“Not yet.” Urman motioned with his gun for Arkady to get down on his knees. “Hands in back.” He handcuffed Arkady and kicked him facedown into the hole. “This is for me.” The shovel blade came down wide of its mark, however, and Arkady heard the sound of wrestling above. Urman said, “Now you want to attack me? You want to go with him, you little creep?”

A body fell on top of Arkady. Dirt followed and the scent of pines and the warmth of blood.

Urman said, “I’ll dig you up in a couple of hours, remove the cuffs and we’ll go find a nice bog for you and your friend. That’s the plan. Otherwise, you know what I hate? Long explanations. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Zhenya moaned but he didn’t sound conscious. He might not be until they were covered with dirt, Arkady thought. He twisted his head to breathe and gathered his knees under himself as best he could.

“Go ahead,” Urman said. “Squirm like a worm, but you’re still buried alive.”

Urman shoveled vigorously. He believed in a full spade; dirt fell in clumps.

“Not Zhenya, please,” said Arkady.

“Who’s going to miss him? I’m doing him a favor.”

Dirt showered Arkady’s head. When there was no more loose dirt Urman turned and dug new soil. Despite the dirt in his ear, Arkady heard thunder, a motorcycle winding toward the river road, and a mechanical click.

Urman stopped. He stared at three rusty pressure prongs that had been undisturbed in a bed of old needles until the last shovelful. He took a deep breath as the prongs and a canister the size of a coffee can popped out of the ground waist high, almost near enough to touch. It was packed with TNT, ball bearings, and scrap metal, and all he could say to sum up his life was “Fuck!”

They returned to Tver, Arkady on the motorcycle, Sofia Andreyeva and Zhenya in her car. The boy had suffered a concussion when Urman hit him and he was alert but silent. Zhenya had been forced to gather the handcuff key from what was left of Urman. A jumping mine had a lateral blast; at close range it could cut a man in half. As the temperature dropped, rain turned to snow. Zhenya clutched his backpack and stared out the window at passing streetlamps, at flakes dancing by glass, at anything rather than the images in his mind.

Arkady and Sofia Andreyeva agreed to keep the story simple: Detective Marat Urman ill-advisedly went to a hot site alone in the dark, stuck a spade into the ground, and hit a land mine. Evidence that anyone else was there had been shredded into a million pieces.

Arkady’s plan was simple too. It was time for him and Zhenya to cut their losses and treat the Tver experience as a high fever or a nightmare. Arkady could pack in a minute and Zhenya carried everything in his backpack. Taking stock, Arkady had lost Eva, traumatized Zhenya and ended his less than illustrious career. How much more damage could a man do?

Arkady turned onto Sovietskaya Street, the main thoroughfare. The snow melted as it landed and the street had a photographic stillness, a contrast of silvery tram rails, the sheen of wet asphalt and a couple walking beside a wrought iron fence.

A block farther on at the Drama Theater, Arkady motioned the Lada to pull over and walked back to Sofia Andreyeva while she rolled down her window.

“Do you usually spit in public?”

“Of course not, what a question.”

“There’s a building we passed. Whenever you go by it, you spit.”

“That’s not spitting, that’s protection against the devil.”

“The devil lives on Sovietskaya Street?”

“Of course.”

“I think I just saw him.” Arkady gave Sofia Andreyeva the key to the apartment. “He’s not alone.”

They walked along the wrought iron fence, Eva in a coat and scarf, Isakov’s hands plunged in the pockets of an OMON greatcoat. They didn’t seem surprised when Arkady fell in step with them, other than to take a long look at a bruise that colored half his face.

Arkady offered a one-word explanation. “Urman.”

“And how is Marat?” Isakov asked.

“He was digging a hole when he hit a mine. It was a jumping mine. He’s dead.”

Eva asked, “Where were you?”

“I was in the hole. So was Zhenya. He’s all right.”

No one was on duty at the guardhouse at No. 6, although through the bars of the fence Arkady spied a black BMW in the courtyard with a driver dozing at the wheel. Closed-circuit cameras were mounted inside the gate and Arkady thought he made out floodlights on the roofline.

Isakov said, “You killed Marat? I find that hard to believe.”

“So do I,” said Arkady. “What is this building?”

“This was the headquarters of security during the war.”

“It’s where Nikolai’s father worked,” Eva said. “Tver’s own Lubyanka.”

The Lubyanka in Moscow was the maw of hell, a monolith the color of dried blood. In comparison, the building at No. 6 was a frosted cake.

“He was an agent of the NKVD?” Arkady asked.

“He did his part.”

“Tell him,” Eva said.

Isakov hesitated. “Eva is a stickler for the truth. So, my father. I always wondered how he could be in the NKVD and be treated with such contempt by his colleagues. He was old when I was born and by then a drunk, but at least he had been a spy in the war, I thought, and he acted as if he had guarded secrets of the state. He had a skin condition from washing his hands and the more he drank the more often he would leap from the table to wash and dry his fingers. On his deathbed my father said there was one more Polish grave. When I asked what he was talking about he told me he was an executioner. He never spied, he just shot people. He not only shot them, he kept track of where they went. That was his farewell gift to me: one more Polish grave. Two gifts,” he corrected himself. “He gave me his gun too. I found it this morning in a velvet sack, still loaded.”