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

“What on earth is out there?” asked Kirov. His face had turned pale.

“You will know that soon enough,” replied the officer, “but there is still time to change your mind.”

“We don’t have time,” said Anton.

“Very well,” said the guard, nodding. He turned to his partner. “Fetch some of the apples,” he said.

The second man disappeared inside the hut and reappeared carrying a wooden box, which he set on the hood of the car. Inside, nestled on a padded black cloth, were half a dozen perfect apples. He handed one to each of the men.

It was only when Pekkala felt the apple in his hand that he realized it was made of wood which had been carefully painted.

“What is going on?” asked Kirov.

“When you drive through the town,” said the guard, “you must hold these apples in your hands as if you are about to eat them. Make sure they are seen. The apple is a sign to those people in the town that you have been cleared to pass through. You will be shot if you do not do exactly as I say.”

“Why can’t we just talk to them?” Kirov tried again.

“No more questions,” said the officer. “Just make sure they see the apples in your hands.”

The two guards lifted the heavy beam blocking the road.

Kirov drove the Emka past the barricade.

Pekkala stared at the apple. There was even a little green leaf hand-painted beneath a wooden stem.

They passed fields dazzling yellow with sunflowers. Far out in green tides of barley, they could make out the white headscarves of women standing on carts and gathering baskets handed up to them by men down on the ground.

“Those baskets are empty,” muttered Kirov.

When they entered the village, they found it bustling with people. The place looked clean and prosperous. Women carried babies on their hips. Shop windows were piled with loaves of bread and fruit and slabs of meat. The village bore no resemblance at all to the muddy streets and miserable inhabitants of Oreshek.

As they were driving by, a cluster of men and women spilled out of the meeting hall. They were foreigners. Their clothes and hairstyles were those of Western Europeans and Americans. Some carried leather satchels and cameras. Others had notebooks open and were scribbling in them as they walked.

Leading the group was a small man with round glasses and a dark suit which, by the length of the jacket and the wide sweep of its lapel, was clearly Russian in origin. He smiled and laughed. He gestured first one way and then another, and the heads of the foreigners swayed back and forth, following his outstretched hands as if caught in a trance by the swing of a hypnotist’s watch.

“Journalists,” whispered Anton.

The man in the dark suit turned away from the flock he was leading and stared at the car as it drove by. Once his back turned to the journalists, the smile sheared off his face. It was replaced by a menacing glare.

Anton waved, the wooden apple clenched in his fist.

Raising a small camera to his eye, one journalist snapped a picture of the car as it sped past.

The other journalists bent forward, craning their necks like birds to get a glimpse inside the vehicle.

The man in the suit spun back to face the journalists. As he turned, the smile reappeared on his face like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

Pekkala stared at the people milling about in the street. They all appeared so happy. Then he caught the eye of a man sitting by himself on a bench, smoking his pipe. And there was nothing but fear in his gaze.

A railway station stood on the other side of the town. The single track ended in a siding and a turnaround, so that the engine could go back the way it had come in. The train had been readied for its return journey, wherever that was. Black curtains covered the windows of the two carriages, whose olive green sides were trimmed with navy blue paint. The side of each carriage was emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, surrounded by a large red star.

Four men who had been sitting on the edge of the platform, legs dangling down towards the tracks, suddenly jumped to their feet when they saw the car approaching, grabbing brooms and sweeping the platform busily. Their sweeping paused as they gaped at the car’s occupants. The men appeared confused. They were still staring at the car as it sped out of sight towards the second roadblock.

The road dipped down into a hollow, where they suddenly came up against another heavy wooden beam straddling the road.

Kirov jammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop.

More guards were waiting for them.

“Did you stop in town?” asked the man in charge.

“No,” replied Kirov.

“Did you speak to anyone?”

“No.”

Kirov held out his wooden apple. “Do you want this back?” he asked.

The apples were collected. When the barricade was lifted, Kirov hit the pedal so hard the wheels of the Emka spun in the dirt.

Emerging from the hollow, Pekkala looked back and saw now why that location had been chosen. From the train tracks, the roadblock was invisible, in case any of the foreigners managed to get a look past the black curtains hiding their view. He wondered what story the authorities had cooked up for keeping the windows covered. He wondered, too, if the journalists from the West believed what they were being shown.

Beyond, the land returned to the way it had been before-with fields gone fallow, rows of dead fruit trees clawing the sky with leafless skeleton branches, and houses whose roofs drooped saddlebacked from neglect.

Suddenly, Kirov swerved off the road.

The two brothers collided and swore.

As soon as the car had come to a stop, Kirov got out and walked into the field, leaving his door open. He stood there, staring out across the empty countryside.

Before Pekkala could ask, Anton began to explain. “After the Revolution, the government ordered all of the farms to be collectivized. The original landowners were either shot or sent to Siberia. The people who were left in charge did not know how to run the farms, so the crops failed. There was a famine. Five million people died of starvation.”

Pekkala breathed out through his teeth.

“Maybe more than five,” continued Anton. “Exact numbers will never be known. When word of the famine reached the outside world, our government simply denied it. They have built several of these model towns. Foreign journalists are invited to tour the country. They are well fed. They receive gifts. They see these model villages. They are told that the famine is a fabrication of anti-Soviet propaganda. The location of these villages is secret. I didn’t realize this was one of them until we reached it.”

“Do you think those journalists believed what they were seeing?” asked Pekkala.

“Enough of them do. People can sympathize with the death of one person, five people, ten people, but to them a million deaths is only a statistic. As long as there is doubt, they will choose what is easiest to believe. That is why you and your Tsar didn’t stand a chance against us in the Revolution. You wanted too badly to believe that the human capacity for violence has limitations. The Tsar went to his death believing that because he loved his people, they would love him back. And look where it has gotten you.”

Pekkala said nothing. He looked down at his hands and slowly clenched them into fists.

When Kirov returned to the car, Pekkala and Anton were both surprised to see that he was smiling.

“Glad to see you looking so inspired,” sneered Anton, when Kirov had them on the road again.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Kirov replied cheerfully. “Don’t you understand the genius in what we saw back there? We were taught at the Institute that sometimes it is necessary to portray the truth in a different light.”