Sam Eastland - Eye of the Red Tsar A Novel of Suspense

“A mango,” repeated Pekkala, struggling to recall if he had ever heard that word before.

“It’s a fruit of some sort,” said the Tsar.

“Pekkala has no time for mangos.” Alexei was trying to make him smile.

“Unless”-Pekkala held up a finger-“it is guilty of a crime.”

“A crime!” laughed the Tsar.

Pekkala held out his hand for the mango, and when the Tsar had given it to him, Pekkala pretended to examine it closely. “Suspicious,” he muttered. “Deeply suspicious.”

Alexei rocked back in his chair, delighted.

“Well, then,” said the Tsar, playing along, “it must pay the ultimate price. There’s only one thing to be done.” He opened the drawer to his desk and pulled out a large folding knife with a stag-horned handle.

The Tsar freed the blade, which locked with a sharp click. Taking the fruit in one hand, he proceeded to slice open the luminous skin, revealing a vivid orange flesh inside. Carefully, he cut into the mango. Keeping the slice pinned between the flat edge of the blade and the side of his thumb, he offered one to Pekkala and to his son and then took one for himself.

In silence, the three of them chewed.

The cold sweetness of the fruit seemed to jump around in Pekkala’s mouth. He could not repress small grumbling noises of appreciation.

“Pekkala likes it,” said Alexei.

“I do,” agreed Pekkala. Looking out over the Tsar’s shoulder, he watched snow falling on the grounds of the palace.

They finished the mango.

The Tsar wiped the knife blade on the red handkerchief and then returned the knife to his desk. When he looked up to meet Pekkala’s gaze, the Tsar’s face had hardened into that expression which always came to him when the troubles of the outside world intruded.

He had already guessed that reports of the bomb blast in Petrograd were true. And even if the Tsar did not know who had been killed, he had no doubt that someone loyal to him had met their end. It was as if he could actually see the splintered body of Minister Orlov, whom he would later learn had died in the attack, so torn apart that almost the entire length of his spine lay like a white snake beside the dead man’s rib cage.

These attacks were growing more frequent.

No matter how many terrorist plots were uncovered, there always seemed to be others which slipped through the wire undetected.

“I do not wish to discuss the recent unpleasantness in Petrograd,” said the Tsar. It was more of a request than a command. In a gesture of fatigue, he rested his face in his hands, kneading his fingertips into his closed eyelids. “We’ll sort it out later.”

“Yes, Excellency.”

Oblivious to the real reason for Pekkala’s visit, Alexei was still smiling at him.

Pekkala winked

Alexei winked back.

Pekkala backed up three paces, turned, and headed for the door

“Pekkala!” the Tsar called.

Pekkala stopped and turned again and waited.

“Don’t ever change,” said the Tsar.

“Ever!” shouted Alexei.

When Pekkala left the Tsar’s study, he closed the door behind him. Just as he was doing this, he heard Alexei’s voice.

“Why does Pekkala never smile, Papa?”

Pekkala paused. He did not mean to eavesdrop, but the question had caught him by surprise. He did not think of himself as a man who never smiled.

“Pekkala is a serious man,” he heard the Tsar reply. “He views the world with gravity. He does not have time for the games which you and I enjoy.”

“Is he unhappy?” asked Alexei.

“No, I don’t think so. He just keeps to himself how he feels.”

“Why did you choose him to be your special investigator? Why not just choose another detective in the Okhrana or the Gendarmerie?”

Pekkala glanced up and down the empty corridor. Laughter came from distant rooms. He knew he should move on, but the question Alexei had asked was one he’d often asked himself, and it seemed to him that if he did not learn the answer now, he never would. So he stayed, barely breathing, straining to hear their voices through the thick slab of the door.

“A man like Pekkala,” said the Tsar, “does not realize his own potential. I knew that the first time I set eyes on him. You see, Alexei, it is necessary for people in our walk of life to understand with a single glimpse the character of those we meet. We have to know whether to trust someone or to keep them at arm’s length. What a person does matters more than what they say. I saw Pekkala refusing to jump his horse over a barbed-wire fence which some sadist of a drill instructor had constructed, and I watched how he behaved when the sergeant was dressing him down. And you know, he did not show a trace of fear. If I had not been there to witness it, that sergeant would have had Pekkala expelled from the ranks for insubordination. And it wouldn’t have mattered to Pekkala.”

“But why not?” asked the boy. “If he didn’t want to be in the regiment…”

“Oh, but he did, only not on those terms. Most of those cadets would simply have sacrificed the horse and done as they were told.”

“But isn’t it important,” asked Alexei, “to be obedient no matter what?”

“Sometimes, yes, but not for what I had in mind.”

“You mean, you chose him because you thought he might not do as he was told?”

“What I needed, Alexei, was a man who could not be threatened or beaten or corrupted into surrendering his sense of what was right or wrong. And that will never happen to a person like Pekkala.”

“But why not?”

“Because it would not occur to him. Men like that, Alexei, are fewer than one in a million. When you find them, you will know them at first sight.”

“Why would he choose to do the job he does? Do you think he enjoys such a life?”

“It is not a question of enjoying it or not. He is built for it, like a greyhound is built for running. He does the thing he was put on this earth to do, because he knows that it matters.”

As he listened to the Tsar, Pekkala was reminded of his father, doing the job which no one else would do. There had been times in the past months when Pekkala felt overwhelmed by the extraordinary coincidences which had led to him working for the Tsar. Now, hearing those words, what had once seemed the result of impossible randomness appeared to him almost inevitable.

“Did you really need someone like him?” asked Alexei.

“It is an unfortunate truth that the Okhrana is filled with spies. So is the Gendarmerie. The two branches are spying on each other. We send spies into the ranks of the terrorists. We even create spy rings which appear to be working against us, but are in fact controlled by the government. There is no end to the deception. When people reach a point where they do not expect to be ruled by leaders they can trust, that country is headed for ruin. With this going on, Alexei, what the people needed was one person they knew they could depend on.”

“Even more than you, Papa?”

“I hope not,” replied the Tsar, “but the answer is yes, all the same.”

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” KIROV ’S VOICE RICOCHETED DOWN THE MINE shaft.

Looking up, Pekkala glimpsed the silhouettes of Anton and Kirov, looking like paper cutouts as they leaned over the hole.

“I’m fine,” he stammered.

“Is it who we thought?” asked Anton.

“Yes, but one of them is gone.” Until now Pekkala had considered only three possibilities-one: that there would be no bodies; two: that bodies would be there but they would not be the Romanovs; and three: that the Romanovs would indeed be found dead at the bottom of that mine shaft. Pekkala had not factored in the chance that one of the Romanovs would be missing.