Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

But Pekkala smiled at him, to show that there was nothing to forgive.

For a second longer the two men watched each other, coils of smoke rising lazily between them.

Then Kirov closed his eyes and slept again.

Now he climbed to his feet and hauled on the crumpled coat which had served him as a groundsheet in the night. The rumble of the tanks became a constant in his ears. They appeared to be coming from the east and heading for Berlin, but they could just as easily have been retreating German forces as advance units of the Red Army, so he decided to stay where he was, hidden from the road, until he knew one way or the other.

Hoping to track down Pekkala, Kirov ventured away from the stone ring of the campfire and began to wander through the woods. Morning sunlight, flickering down through the first leaves of the spring, dappled the earth on which he trod. As he clambered across the trackless ground, Kirov thought back to the day in Siberia he had parked his car at the end of a dirt logging road and went to find the legendary Inspector in order to tell him he was needed once again. It seemed so distant now, like memories stolen from a man who had lived long before him.

Eventually, Kirov arrived back the campfire, hoping they might have returned. But except for the suitcase, there was still no sign of the Inspector, or of Lilya.

A great uneasiness began to spread across his mind.

The sound of the tanks was louder now. Kirov could make out the rumble of individual engines and the monstrous squeaking clatter of tracks.

Perhaps they are out on the road, thought Kirov, and he looked down at the suitcase, thinking he should pick it up and join them. He took hold of the case, lifted it up and was startled by the fact that it felt empty except for a single object rattling about inside. Kirov dropped to one knee and opened the case. It contained only a clunky dynamo torch, engraved with the words ‘Electro-Automate’.

Now his gaze was drawn to the fire, where something lay among the ashes. Reaching into the grey dust, he picked it out and saw that it was the remains of Lilya’s hairbrush. The varnish on the brush had all been burned away and only neat lines of holes remained of where the bristles had been anchored. But that wasn’t the only thing. Now that he looked, he could see the frail teeth of a zip, twisted by the flames, and glass buttons melted into shapes like tiny ears. He realised that it all belonged to clothes that she had been carrying with her in the suitcase.

‘Why would she do such a thing?’ Kirov wondered aloud, still staring at the campfire, as if the carbonised remains of all these things might somehow call out to him in reply.

Tucking the torch into his pocket, Kirov made his way out to the road, hoping to find their tracks in the dirt before the fast-approaching tanks obliterated every trace of movement in their path. But there was nothing to tell him which way they might have gone.

Struggling to gather his thoughts, Kirov pressed his hands against his face. As he did so, his fingers brushed against some unexpected object, pinned beneath the collar of his coat. Fumbling, he undid the clasp and removed what had been fastened there.

It was the emerald eye.

‘Mother of God,’ whispered Kirov, as he finally grasped what his fears had been whispering to him.

Overwhelmed, he did not even dive for cover when the first tank rumbled into view.

It was a Soviet T-34. Red Army soldiers clung to the distinctive sloping armour, their faces, guns and uniforms all swathed in a coating of dirt. The men stared at Kirov as the tanks rolled by. One of them split his earth-caked face, revealing a set of broken teeth.

More tanks followed, raising the dust until Kirov could barely see the iron monsters, even though he could almost reach out and touch them.

When the column had finally passed, he walked out into the middle of the road.

‘Pekkala!’ Kirov called into the forest.

Then he waited, counting the seconds, but no sound returned to him except the rustle of wind through the leaves.

Finally, he turned towards the east and started walking.

One week later, Kirov stood before his master at the Kremlin.

On Stalin’s desk lay the dynamo torch that Lilya had left in the suitcase. The day before, as soon as he arrived in the city, Kirov had handed it over to the Lubyanka armoury, along with the Hungarian pistol he’d been issued.

‘What is that doing here?’ asked Kirov.

‘We found a roll of film inside.’

Kirov thought of the number of times he had almost thrown it away on his journey back to Moscow. Although it barely worked, he had kept it because it was better than nothing, and because regulations required him not to abandon any useful equipment acquired while in enemy territory.

Now Stalin shoved across the desk a stack of newly printed photographs. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Look.’

Kirov leafed through the images before him, but all he could make out was a tangle of lines, forming shapes which made no sense, and German words, all of which appeared to be abbreviated, whose meanings were all lost to him.

‘What you see there,’ Stalin explained, ‘are details of a missile guidance system which might have won Germany the war if they had managed to build it in time. If only it could have been ours.’

‘But surely now it is,’ said Kirov.

‘Yes and no,’ replied Stalin.

‘What do you mean, Comrade Stalin? Are the details incomplete?’

‘Oh, no, Major Kirov. It’s all there. Unfortunately, we have just learned that a certain General Hagemann was recently captured by American forces in Austria and he was carrying an identical set of plans, which he promptly handed over to his captors. Since our marriage of convenience with the Allies will soon be coming to an end, the fact that we both now possess the same technology more or less cancels things out. Nevertheless, you are to be congratulated for returning with such valuable information,’ and then he added, ‘even if it was by accident.’

Kirov felt his heart sink.

‘Along the way, however, you appear to have lost something of great value to me.’

There was no need for Stalin to elaborate.

Kirov wanted to explain how Pekkala and Lilya had simply disappeared while he was sleeping, and even though that might have been the truth, it would never have passed for an excuse. ‘I could try to find him,’ he suggested faintly. ‘If you give me some time, Comrade Stalin . . .’

Stalin laughed. ‘Do you know how many lifetimes that would take? If we ever see Pekkala again, it will be at the time and place of his own choosing and not ours.’

Kirov bowed his head, knowing that Stalin was right. He guessed how things would play out now. The drive to Lubyanka in the back of a windowless lorry. The walk to the cellar down the winding stone staircase towards the dome-shaped cells, which he would never reach, because the guard escorting him would put a bullet in the back of his head just as he reached the bottom of the stairs. Kirov bowed his head and waited for sentence to be passed.

Just then, he heard a rustling sound.

Glancing up, Kirov saw that Stalin was holding out to him a single sheet of paper. It was old, discoloured and dog-eared at the corners, as if it had passed through many hands before arriving on the master’s desk.

In the upper left-hand corner, neatly printed in blue ink, was the hammer and sickle seal of the Soviet Union, surrounded by two sheaves of wheat, like hands at prayer. The document, dating back to June of 1929, had been issued by the Central Committee of Prison Labour for the Region of Eastern Siberia. It stated that Prisoner 4745, a tree-marker in the valley of Krasnagolyana, was assumed to have perished of natural causes in the winter of 1928. His body had not been recovered. It was signed by someone named Klenovkin, commandant of the camp at Borodok.