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

“So you do not believe anyone survived?”

“If they had,” replied Kropotkin, “I think we would have heard from them by now. Of course, there is one other possibility.”

“And what is that?”

“That the Tsar had received another offer of escape.”

“But the only messages getting through to the Tsar from outside came from you.”

“I don’t mean from outside. I mean from inside the Ipatiev house.”

“You mean the Cheka?”

“Maybe they planned to kill him while he was trying to escape, just like they did with the Grand Duke Mikhail.”

Pekkala shook his head. “The Tsar was not killed while trying to escape.”

“Then perhaps someone in the Cheka guards really did intend to rescue him.”

“To me,” said Pekkala, “that seems almost impossible.”

“Do you really find it so incredible that someone would go to such lengths to keep the Tsar alive?” asked Kropotkin. “After all, your own survival is nothing short of miraculous.”

“Yours as well,” added Pekkala. “The Communists must have suspected you of collaborating with the Whites. And yet they still made you their chief of police in Sverdlovsk.”

“The Reds needed someone who could keep the peace,” explained Kropotkin. “At the time, they couldn’t afford to be picky. Since then, they have not seen fit to get rid of me. But that day will come. The only way to have a future in this country is to have no past. That is a luxury neither you nor I possess, and sooner or later we will pay the price for it.”

“What will you do when they decide that they no longer need you, Kropotkin?”

Kropotkin shrugged. “My line of work might change, but the things I care about, the things for which I am prepared to risk my life, will not.”

“To the people running this country, that makes you a dangerous man.”

“Not half as dangerous as you, Inspector Pekkala. I am a man of flesh and blood. I can be made to disappear without a trace. But getting rid of you”-Kropotkin smiled-“now that would take some doing.”

“You talk as if I’m bulletproof,” said Pekkala, “which, I can assure you, I am not.”

“Not you,” replied Kropotkin, aiming a finger at Pekkala, “but that.”

Pekkala realized Kropotkin was pointing at the emerald eye badge, visible now since the soaked lapel of his coat had been turned up. “Even though your life can be snuffed out in an instant, the Emerald Eye is already the stuff of legend. It cannot simply be dismissed out of hand, and the truth is, they do not want to dismiss it. They need you, Pekkala. They need your legendary incorruptibility-just as the Tsar did before them. Most legends have the luxury of being dead, but as long as you remain alive, you are as dangerous to them as you are valuable. The sooner you are gone, the safer they will feel.”

“Then they will not have long to wait,” Pekkala told him. “As soon as this case has been solved, I am leaving the country forever.”

Kropotkin sat back in his chair. He tapped the end of a pencil against his thumbnail. “I hope that is true, but what they have in you, they will not want to lose. They will do everything they can to keep you here, where they can still control your fate. If they succeed, everything you have worked for will be lost and you and I will find ourselves on opposite sides in this war.”

“I have no wish to become your enemy,” said Pekkala.

Kropotkin nodded. “Then, for both our sakes, let us hope that when the time comes you will make the right choice.”

Days went by, while Pekkala lingered in his cell, waiting for the interrogations to begin.

Food was delivered once a day through a sliding panel just beneath the peephole. He received a bowl of salty cabbage soup and a mug of tea. Both the bowl and the mug were made of such soft metal that he could crumple them in his fist as if they had been made of clay.

After the food was taken away, two guards escorted him to a toilet. One guard stood in front and one behind. Only the guard behind him spoke. “If you step to the left. If you step to the right.” The guard did not finish his sentences. He did not have to. Instead, he reached from behind and tapped the cold metal barrel of a gun against Pekkala’s cheek.

The guard in front started walking and Pekkala felt a gentle push from the guard behind.

Thick gray carpet covered the prison floors. The guards’ boots were soled with felt. Except for the quiet commands issued by the guards, the silence at Butyrka was complete.

They led him down a windowless corridor, lined with doors, to a room with a hole in the middle of the floor and a bucket of water set beside it.

Minutes later, he was on his way down the hall again, bare feet padding on the carpet. He stumbled back into his cell.

He couldn’t sleep. All he could do was slump into a kind of semiconsciousness. His knees, crunched against the door, grew permanently numb. He lost all feeling in his feet.

He had not been prepared for the waiting. It grated on his nerves until his whole mind had frayed like the tatters of a flag left flapping in a hurricane.

With no glimpse of the outside world, he soon lost track of how long he had been in the prison.

Using his thumbnail, Pekkala made a small groove in the wall to show when the food came. He noticed other scratches on the walls, similar to his own, which also seemed to have been made with a fingernail. There were several different sets, one with over a hundred marks. The sight of that filled him with dread. He knew he could not last a hundred days in this cell.

On what he imagined was his twenty-first day at Butyrka, the guards escorted Pekkala to a different room, in which there were two chairs, separated by a small metal-topped desk.

He had been naked since his first hour at the prison, but now one of the guards handed him a set of beige-colored pajamas made from thin, musty-smelling cotton. The bottoms had drawstrings at the ankles but not at the waist. From then on, one of Pekkala’s hands was constantly occupied with holding up his trousers.

The guards left, closing the door behind them.

A minute later, an officer entered the room, carrying a small briefcase. He was of medium height, with a pocked and freckled face, yellowy-green eyes, and a tangle of thick black hair. Although his uniform fitted him, he did not seem at ease in it, and Pekkala guessed he had not been wearing it for long.

The officer opened the briefcase. From it, he removed Pekkala’s Webley, which he had been carrying at the time of his arrest at Vainikkala. The man held up the gun, examining it carefully. His thumb accidentally touched the button for loading the Webley and the barrel of the gun folded forward suddenly, exposing the chambers of the cylinder. The officer was startled and almost dropped the gun.

Pekkala had to stop himself from lunging forward to catch it, to keep the Webley from falling to the floor.

The officer caught the gun just in time. Hurriedly, he replaced it in the briefcase. The next thing he removed was the emerald eye. With the badge resting on his fingertips, the man tilted it back and forth so that the gemstone caught the light. “Your enemies call you the monster of the Tsar.” The man replaced the badge inside the case. “But you do not look like a monster to me.” Lastly, he removed Pekkala’s book. He flipped through it, staring without comprehension at the words of the Kalevala. Then he dropped that, too, back where he had found it.

He cleared his throat several times before he spoke again. “Did you know that Finland has declared its independence from Russia?”

Pekkala had not known. The news shocked him. He wondered how his father, such a loyal supporter of the Tsar, must be feeling.