Джозеф Файндер - The Moscow Club

The twelve Politburo members, the ten candidate members, and the four Americans were accompanied by five security officers from the MVD, dressed, like the others, in heavy woolen coats and karakul or sable hats, with large red ribbons pinned to their left breasts.

It was nine-fifty-seven.

There is no elevator in the mausoleum itself; the group climbed the interior staircase, which led to the outside parapet of the tomb. They filed up the stairs and around to the front. Gorbachev and the President of the United States, the foreign minister and the Secretary of State took their assigned positions in the center of the line, before the five microphones.

At ten o’clock exactly, the Spassky Tower bells rang, followed immediately by a loud, metallic, recorded voice that proclaimed: “Glory to the great Lenin! Glory! Glory! Glory!”

And with a chorus of cheers from the thousands of assembled spectators, the ceremony had begun.

10:25 a.m.

For a moment, the MVD guard almost laughed. He saw a small, bespectacled middle-aged woman running toward him, waving her hands, shouting something. The militsiyoner stood with nine of his comrades at the entrance to Red Square by the red brick Historical Museum.

Now he could make out what she was shouting: “You must stop this! There is going to be a bomb! You must help!”

The man grabbed the middle-aged woman just as she tried to break through the barricade. “How did you get this far?” he asked her roughly, shoving her away. “Get out of here before you get killed.”

“No!” Sonya said. “I need to talk to someone in charge. It’s important – you have to listen!”

The militsiyoner was tapped on the shoulder by one of the KGB guards. “What is it, comrade?”

“This crazy woman keeps shouting something.”

“Let me talk to her.” He approached the woman. “Tell me what the problem is.”

“There’s a bomb in the mausoleum. It might go off any minute. I’m not crazy. Listen to me!”

“Come with me,” the guard said. “I want you to talk to my commander.” He pulled her by the elbow toward the far side of the Historical Museum, signaling to his comrades that it was all right, and brought her to the narrow passageway between two buildings. “Now, tell me what you’ve heard.”

“Oh, thank God,” Sonya said, and then she saw that the KGB guard had drawn his revolver and was pointing it at her chest. “No, please–”

She looked plaintively at him, then felt a flash of anger. Please, God, save me , she thought. Save me, save Yakov, save Stefan.

Please don’t shoot.

She stared, unable to speak, shaking her head slowly.

And the guard fired, once, into her heart. The noise of the shot was drowned out by a momentary crescendo of the marching music that came from Red Square.

At exactly eleven o’clock, the valve timer on the small tank of propane that sat in the center of the arsenal beneath Lenin’s mausoleum clicked, and the gas began to jet forth with a hiss that filled the room.

11:02

Ilya M. Rozanov, a Kremlin Guard, would have greatly preferred to be out there, in front of the mausoleum, taking part in the changing of the guard. But he had done his time a few months ago, changing the guard in the dark of night, marching in the bitter cold and standing ramrod-straight before the tomb’s entrance for almost an hour and not flinching.

It was too bad he could not have had that proud assignment today. It was the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the biggest holiday of the year, when all of Russia – all of Stavropol, his home town – would be watching Lenin’s mausoleum on their TV sets. And the world, too: for the first time ever, the news said, the President of the United States of America would join the Politburo atop the tomb to pay honor to the Revolution.

But there were worse assignments than patrolling the back of the mausoleum.

It even had its thrills. He was able to see the members of the Politburo emerge from the bowels of the mausoleum and march around to the front to take their places on the reviewing stand. He even thought he might have glimpsed the American President!

True, he had hoped to see them walk right by him, through the door in the Kremlin wall, past all the graves, but for some reason they had chosen to take the underground route. Still, he was able to make out some of the dignitaries standing in the Important Persons area on either side of the tomb.

The Kremlin Guard, of which this man was a member, was sometimes known straight-facedly as the Palace Guard, the Okhrana. In their smart, well-pressed blue uniforms and karakul hats, they were the cream of the crop, the guards in the position of highest trust in the nation’s capital.

It was bitter cold, and Rozanov would have liked to warm up in the basement arsenal of the mausoleum when his shift ended, but for some curious reason the arsenal had been off-limits for the last few days.

There had been a lot of talk about it, and his superior officer, the Kremlin commandant, who was a KGB man, was furious. Why in hell had Pavlichenko gone and done such a thing as ordering the arsenal closed? Security precautions, Pavlichenko had said! But his boss, the Kremlin commandant, had lasted through four KGB chiefs and far more general secretaries, and he resented this intrusion into what he considered his domain. The arsenal was always in use on these state occasions – for gathering and giving orders, for storing ammunition, all that sort of thing. And now the guards had to gather to receive their orders outdoors, next to the Kremlin wall. It was unheard of.

But the guard cared for one reason: it meant that the only place he could warm his hands was in the bathroom several levels below ground, under the mausoleum. An inconvenience. The politics of it he couldn’t care less about.

He waved at another guard to signal that the next shift was up, and he walked to the back door of the mausoleum. He could hear the endless speech of whoever was talking, followed by the unison cheers, echoing in the square.

And then, as he entered the mausoleum and walked toward the staircase that went down to the bathroom, he noticed something peculiar. The odor of gas: an overpowering stench. The farther down the stairs, the stronger the smell got. It seemed to be coming from the arsenal, and he wondered if anyone else had sensed it. It smelled like the sort of gas that was highly flammable.

In front of the arsenal’s closed doors stood a guard brought over from the KGB, not one of the Palace Guard.

“Hey,” Rozanov called to the KGB mannequin. “You smell that?”

The guard turned, took note of Rozanov’s uniform, and ventured: “You think it’s poisonous? I’ve smelled it for the last ten minutes or so.”

“Gas,” Rozanov said, coming closer. “It’s coming from inside there.” He pointed.

“Stay back,” the guard said, suddenly menacing.

“It’s probably poisonous,” Rozanov said. “Could kill you. Let’s take a look.” He came closer still.

“Back,” the guard said. “My orders are not to let anyone in.”

“Look, comrade,” Rozanov said more stiffly. “Your orders are not to stand there like a moron if there’s a gas leak.”

The guard seemed to consider this.

“Let’s take a look. Who knows, you find a gas leak, you get a commendation. Maybe a promotion, right? Pavlichenko admires a little initiative in times of crisis.”

The guard relented. “All right, but quick. Someone else could come by, and I’m dead. Our orders are to shoot anyone who enters the room on sight.” He turned around and slowly unlocked the double metal doors. “Shoot first, ask questions later,” he elaborated unnecessarily.