Milton Lesser - He Fell Among Thieves

Skinner looked at the man earnestly. “I have no place to go, Tuman. I’d cast my lot with you, if you’ll have me. Especially if it means meeting people who know that countersign you tried to get from me.”

“It sure could mean that,” Tumanov admitted. “But first for a samovar of good hot tea to warm the bones.”

He led Skinner into a restaurant, humming Meadowlands in his deep, booming voice.

“JUST WHO are you?” Tumanov demanded, after the tea had been served.

Skinner shrugged. “In Poland recently I asked a girl of Pinsk why her people dwell in the Pripet—”

“By Peter, then! You are a member of the Polish underground!”

Skinner shrugged. “I didn’t say that. I might be. But I didn’t say. Why don’t you let it go at that, Tumanov? If you oppose the regime, as I think you do, why not merely say I am on your side?”

“Nikolay Mironov of Tula, eh? What’s the main street of Tula?”

“Lenin Avenue. They used to call it Trotsky Avenue, before what happened in Mexico—”

“All right. And who heads the Tula Soviet?”

“Search me. I haven’t been, in Tula since before the war.”

“Who—never mind! You have your answers ready. Comrade Nikolay, I can see that. Still I would like a dozen kopek for every mile between Tula and where you really come from.”

A waiter brought pipes and a pouch of what the Germans would have called ersatz tobacco, and selecting his own, Skinner gave the man half a dozen kopek. He tamped the bowl full, lit up, then said to Tumanov: “Wherever I came from, I am here in Moscow for a purpose.”

“Aren’t we all! What is yours, Nikolay?”

“The government has ceased to worry its head about the manufacture of atomic weapons. Why?”

“Ahh,” Tumanov sighed, “that is indeed a good question. We of the underground would like to know the same thing in order to pass it along through the proper channels. But all we hear are wild-eyed rumors. Thus-and-so is happening beyond the Ural Mountains, thus-and-so has struck the mining regions in the Erz, Commissar Beria has decided thus-and-so….”

“In other words, you don’t know.”

“Correct. We’ll find out one day, I think. But then it might be too late for the Americans, for the British, for the French—for everyone else. Of one thing I am sure, Nikolay: something strange occurred in the Urals, maybe east of the Urals, on the steppes of Siberia where already the Winter winds are howling. It is something which can shatter the current balance of power in the world. But don’t ask me what, because I don’t know. I think maybe that truck-load of laborers are now on the first leg of a journey which will take them east of the Urals, for there are rumors that masses of equipment must be moved here to Moscow before the Winter snows make the roads impassable. Do I make sense?”

“Uh-huh. Go on.”

“There’s no place else to go. That’s all I know. We have workers who even now try to extract the information. Workers who—Nikolay, why don’t you join us? Together, perhaps…”

Skinner emptied his pipe in a large bronze ashtray, placed the pipe down on the table, stood up. “Lead on,” he said, smiling. He thanked the fates which had brought him together with this great gangling creature, Tuman Tumanov. Awful, rough sledding here in Moscow without him….

SONYA DOLOHOV extended her hand and Skinner took it, shaking hands with the girl eagerly. “So you’re the underground leader here in Moscow?”

A very beautiful woman, she smiled almost languidly. “No one said that.”

“I say it. We had to pass along more signs and countersigns to get to you than I knew existed.”

The girl shrugged. her shoulders. “We’ll let that pass. Tuman, you said he wanted to join us?”

“That is what I said, Sonya.”

“I take it then that you vouch for him?”

“Yes.”

“Who recommended him to you?”

“No one. I merely met him in a labor truck, and—”

“Fool!” Sonya backed away as if she had been struck. “One day your impetuosity will get us all into trouble. What do you know of this man?”

“Why, nothing.”

Skinner knew this would be different, not like a buxom peasant lass in Poland at all. And certainly he couldn’t expect to work alone in Moscow. He started to say something, but the girl raised her hand for silence.

“Your name is Mironov, eh? Where are you from, Mironov?”

Tumanov said, “Tula, he says.”

“Will you let him talk?”

Wordless, Skinner showed his papers.

“Then it is Tula, eh Mironov?”

“No, but thoses forgeries would fool everyone from the Secret Police to the Underground, I see.”

“All right, then, where are you from?”

“A week ago I walked the streets of another national capital—Washington D.C.”

“Washington!” This was Tumanov.

Sonya seemed unimpressed. “I heard him. He said Washington, but can he prove it?”

“No,” said Skinner, “not really. I wouldn’t make much of a Secret Agent if I carried a little badge which said U.S.A., would I?” He unbuttoned his shirt, reached into the holster and withdrew his .45. He handed it to Sonya. “Does this look Russian?”

“N-no. I can read a little English. It says ‘Colt .45.’ Colt, an American gun, true enough. What’s your real name, Mironov?”

“Nick Skinner. But don’t call me that—get into the habit, it’s Nikolay Mironov.”

“Umm-mm,” Sonya mused. “An American gun, and when asked his name he didn’t offer something stereotyped like Smith or Jones…. Very well, Mironov. I have made up my mind.”

SKINNER waited, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked at Tumanov, but the old man stared back at him helplessly. Whatever the decision, then, it was the girl’s to make and if negative, she might decide to do with him what Natasha had done with the Red soldier.

“You have more ammunition?” Sonya demanded.

Skinner nodded.

“Give it to me.”

Wordless, he unbuttoned his shirt all the way, removed the two cartridge belts, placed them on a table.

The girl opened his .45 removed all the shells but one from the cylinder. “Here,” she said, handing him the weapon. “Twirl it.”

He spun the cylinder, waited.

“What would you do if I asked you to play a little game of Russian roulette to show your good intentions, Mironov?”

A nice game, Russian roulette, Skinner thought. A lovely game. You took a gun with only one bullet, twirled the cylinder, placed the snout against your temple and pulled the trigger. The odds were distinctly in your favor, but odds have been known to go awry.

Skinnier toyed idly with his pistol. “I’d tell you to go to hell. I’m not going to do anything like that to satisfy your damned vanity.”

She smiled. “All right. I wasn’t going to ask you.”

Tumanov eased his lanky frame against a wall, giving vent to a loud sigh.

Then the girl spoke again: “Everything appears to be in your favor, Mironov. I think an M.V.D. operative from Lubianka Street, acting without the initiative of a Westerner, would have accepted the game, taking his chances with Russian roulette. Wait, let me finish. That still doesn’t mean I accept you for what you declare yourself. Then I’d play the part of the buffoon, don’t you think?

“I offer an alternative, Mironov. We give you a job to do, you do it. Then—we’ll see. How does that sound?”

“I have my own work. I didn’t come here on any sight-seeing tour. But I guess if that’s whit you want, that’s what I do.”

“Good. Sleep here, tonight if you like. Tumanov has his quarters downstairs, and I’m sure he’ll have a bed for you. Tomorrow, precisely at noon, an M.V.D. courier will cross Lunatcharsky Square, on his way to Lubianka Street. He will carry a briefcase, Mironov. You will bring me that briefcase.”