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

The next thing Pekkala knew, Kirov was dragging him out of the room. The front door had been blown open. Out in the street the cobblestones were scattered with debris. Whole tree branches lay in the road, the leaves curled into burned black fists.

When they reached the kitchen, Anton was there.

The two men lifted Pekkala up onto the table.

Pekkala tried to sit up, but Anton held him down.

A wet cloth smeared across his face.

Anton was saying something, but he couldn’t hear a thing.

Then Kropotkin was there, his mop of blond hair sticking out from under a police cap.

Finally, like a radio whose volume was slowly being turned up, Pekkala’s hearing began to return. He pushed aside the wet cloth, now soaked in blood, heaved himself off the table, and staggered down the hallway towards the road. His face itched. He scratched at his cheeks; his fingers came away with tiny pieces of glass embedded in them.

“You have to lie down,” Kirov insisted, following him.

Pekkala ignored him. He reached the street and stopped.

Where Mayakovsky had been standing, there was only a black circle on the stones. Above, in the shattered branches of the trees, hung shreds of the old man’s clothing.

Kirov seized him by the arm. “We should go inside.” His voice was gentle and persistent.

Pekkala stared at the scorched leaves, at the broken glass and shattered masonry. His toe nudged against something. He looked down and saw what looked like the broken handle of a white pottery jug. He picked it up. The surface was hard and slippery. A moment went by before he realized that it was a piece of Mayakovsky’s jaw.

“Let’s go,” Kirov said.

Pekkala looked at Kirov as if he could not recall who he was. Then he let himself be led back inside the house.

Kirov spent the next half hour picking shards of glass from Pekkala’s face with a needle-nose pliers. They glittered in their tiny nests of blood.

Kropotkin stood in the corner of the room, glancing nervously in Pekkala’s direction. “Is he well enough to talk yet?” the police chief asked.

“I can talk,” Pekkala replied.

“Good,” Kropotkin said. “Listen to me. I have offered you a police guard until we can get this cleared up, but this Cheka man”-he pointed at Anton-“says it’s not necessary.”

“We don’t know who planted that bomb,” said Anton.

“Well, it wasn’t me, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Kropotkin’s face grew red.

“I told them we should never have come back,” said Anton.

“He’s right.” Kirov ’s voice cut in. “We won’t need a guard.”

“And why not?” demanded Kropotkin.

“Because we are leaving first thing in the morning. We’ll head to Moscow and make our report. Then, if they’ll let us, we’ll return, this time with a company of soldiers.”

“That will take too long.” Pekkala stood up. “We haven’t found what we are looking for.”

Kirov rested his hands on Pekkala’s shoulders. “No. What we were looking for found us instead. You warned us this might happen, and it did.”

“We weren’t prepared enough,” said Pekkala. “We’ll take more precautions next time.” He walked to the front room. Sunlight glimmered off pieces of broken glass, making the floor look as if it was scattered with patches of fire. The neat pile of ashes he had been collecting had blown across the floor like the shadow of a tornado. The wallpaper was ripped as if by the claws of a giant cat. He walked over to something embedded in the wall. As he wrenched it from the plaster, he realized it was the bowl of Kirov ’s pipe. The force of the blast had driven it like a nail into the wall.

Pekkala turned to find Anton standing in the doorway.

“Please,” his brother pleaded. “We have to leave.”

“I can’t,” replied Pekkala. “It’s too late now.”

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, HE WOKE FROM A SLEEP IN WHICH HE could not breathe.

Kirov was leaning over him, a hand over Pekkala’s mouth and nose. He pressed a finger to his lips.

Pekkala nodded.

Slowly, Kirov removed his hand.

Pekkala sat up and gasped in a breath.

“There’s someone in the house,” Kirov whispered.

Anton was on his feet. He had already drawn his gun. He stood in the doorway to the hall, peering into the shadows. “In the basement,” he told Pekkala and Kirov.

Pekkala felt a tremor run through him at the thought of something alive down there in the dried blood and the dust. He drew the Webley from its holster.

Pekkala moved sideways as he descended to the basement, his bare feet gripping the wooden steps, which creaked as his weight settled on them.

Behind him, Kirov carried one of the lanterns.

“Don’t light that until I tell you,” whispered Pekkala. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Pekkala could hear nothing except the rasp of breathing from Anton and Kirov. Then, unmistakably, he caught the sound of someone crying. It was coming from the room in which the murders had taken place.

Now that his eyes were adjusting to the darkness in front of him, Pekkala could see the door was open.

The crying continued, muffled, almost as if it was coming from inside the walls.

Pekkala sucked in the musty air. Moving to the doorway of the old storage room, he peered inside and could make out the stripes of the wallpaper, but it was almost too dark to see anything else. The broken plaster looked like a sheet of dirty snow upon the floor.

The sound came again, and now he glimpsed a shape in the room’s far corner. It was a person, huddled and facing the wall.

Anton stood beside Pekkala. His eyes were shining in the dark.

Pekkala nodded and the two brothers rushed across the room, feet kicking up the debris.

The figure turned. It was a man, on his knees. His crying rose to a terrible wail.

“Shoot him!” shouted Anton.

“No! Please, no!” The man cowered at Pekkala’s feet.

Anton pressed the gun against his head.

Pekkala knocked it aside and grabbed the stranger by the collar of his coat. “The lantern!” he shouted to Kirov.

A match flared. A moment later, the soft glow of the lantern spread across the walls.

Pekkala yanked the man off his knees, forcing him onto his back.

The lantern swung in Kirov ’s grip. Shadows pitched and rolled across the bullet-spattered walls.

The man held his clawed hands over his face, as if the light would burn away his skin.

“Who are you?” demanded Pekkala.

“Move your damn hands!” shouted Kirov.

Slowly, his fingers slid away. The man’s eyes were tightly shut, his face unnaturally pale in the lamplight. He had a broad forehead and a solid chin. A dark mustache and a close-cropped beard covered the lower part of his face.

Pekkala pushed Kirov ’s arm aside, so that the lantern was no longer in the man’s face.

At last, the man’s eyes flickered open. “Pekkala,” he murmured.

“My God,” whispered Pekkala. “It’s Alexei.”

“HOW CAN YOU BE SURE?” HISSED KIROV.

He had walked with Pekkala out into the courtyard, while the man remained behind, guarded by Anton.

“It’s him,” Pekkala said. “I know.”

Kirov took Pekkala by the arm and shook him. “The last time you saw Alexei was more than ten years ago. I’m asking you again-how can you be sure?”

“I spent years with the Romanovs. That’s why the Bureau of Special Operations brought me here, so I could identify them whether they were alive or dead. And I’m telling you that is Alexei. He has his father’s chin, his father’s forehead. Even if you’ve only seen pictures of the family, there’s no mistaking that he is a Romanov!”