Daniel Yarosh - The Death of Hercules - A DocuNovel

“This way”, Andreev said, pointing with his finger from under a black cape, another one of his pompous affectations.

“Really,” Bliumkin replied curtly.

They walked past coffee houses and bakeries whose smells would have tempted Andreev on most other days. But Bliumkin walked with a deliberate pace. In fact, his stomach was a little queasy this morning, and he was not interested in eating.

They rounded the corner and faced Bolshaia Lubyanka, the ancient castle which was now the feared headquarters of Cheka. As they approached, Andreev waived to the Red Guards lounging about the entrance, who nodded back. Did Bliumkin notice a snicker of contempt? No matter, they were on official business. Andreev spoke briefly with the only military-looking men who seemed to be working, and they entered the very old brick building. Down a hall and to the left, Andreev led with the swagger of a man who had been here before. They entered a small office crammed with two desks and a wall of cubby holed cabinets.

“Is Riuvsky here?” Andreev demanded. Of course he wasn’t, and Andreev knew that.

“No, he’s not yet been in today” the clerk replied. He himself had just arrived and was once again overwhelmed by the paper bureaucracy handing down Cheka punishments and plea notes from the outside seeking news of its victims.

“But he must be. He told me to meet him here,” Andreev replied.

“Well, he hasn’t come in. Perhaps he’s down with the Commandant.”

“The Commandant?”

“Yes, the Commandant. That old fart is always having Ivan do his dirty work.” The clerk turned back to his papers.

“Where is the Commandant’s office?” Andreev said more politely, now.

“Down the hall, at the end, the big office on the right.”

“Which hall? The one with the green line?”

“Come on,” the clerk said with impatience. “I’ll take you there. Yes, yes, we’ll find out if Ivan Ileyanovich has come in today!” he said with disgust.

“I’ll wait here” the youthful Bliumkin chirped, but neither the clerk nor Andreev seemed to notice.

As soon as the two left the room, Bliumkin rushed to the unoccupied desk of Riuvsky and began to frantically sift through the papers scattered about. Riuvsky had reluctantly said it would be here. Yes, here it was! The official notepad of the Cheka secret service. Bliumkin sat down and carefully printed his message, struggling mightily to control the shaking of his hand.

“ My messenger has a matter of great importance that I must communicate with you only in person. Please receive my courier to hear what I must say concerning the relations between our two countries.” He signed it with the name of General Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, the head of the Cheka, who reported only to Vladimir Lenin. He neatly folded the note and put it in his pocket. With a little more sifting, he found a requisition pad. Here he wrote a requisition for a car and driver. He scribbled the signature.

In a moment he heard voices down the hall. “I can’t be responsible for Riuvsky. You’ll just have to come back.”

“It’s a matter of importance”

“It will have to wait.”

“Very well,” Andreev said as he came to the office. “Come now”, he summoned Bliumkin, as if he were a pet dog. Bliumkin rushed out of the office without even a thank you or good day.

At the front door, Bliumkin showed the requisition to the motor pool captain, while Andreev stood with his arms folded across his chest, looking impatient. With only a brief glance at a form he had seen so often, the captain called on the phone. In a few minutes a black car with a gaunt and elderly driver pulled up to the front. Andreev and Bliumkin got in.

“The German Embassy at Denezhny Pereulok”, Andreev commanded. Since the spring peace treaty, the Germans had renovated the massive and beautiful Berg Mansion in the heart of Moscow, and it had just recently opened as the official diplomatic office. It was virtually the only new construction in all of Moscow.

Bliumkin and Andreev left the car standing at the front gate, and approached the guard standing between the two enormous stone pillars of the portico entrance. Bliumkin took the folded note from his pocket and conspicuously handed it to Andreev, who handed it to the guard. Since the guard could not read Russian, he called into the Embassy. In a moment, a white-haired man in a dark suit strode from the door. He snatched the note from the hand of the guard and read the note, twice.

“What sort of matter is this?”, he asked Andreev.

“I am here with a message from the General. It is only for the Ambassador.”

“Is it now…” He looked again at the note on official Cheka stationary. Of course he knew who Dzerzhinsky was. But why would Cheka communicate directly with the Ambassador? This had never happened. But it was a personal note and was too sensitive to be written down. He could telephone to confirm, but this would destroy the clandestine approach and Dzerzhinsky might deny it. Maybe it was something that Dzerzhinsky needed the ambassador to know, but that Lenin wouldn’t tell him. A defection? A coup d’état? He couldn’t take the chance of turning away such a rare opportunity for the German government to look behind the scenes of the Revolution.

“Come with me.” He led them into the embassy hall, lit by a massive crystal and brass chandelier suspended by three brass chains from a painted and carved plaster ceiling. Bliumkin snickered to himself in contempt. This was precisely the wrong thing to bring into Russia at this time. Didn’t they understand?

“Wait here,” the German representative said, and pointed to two burgundy leather chairs on either side of a gold-gilded stand with inlaid enamel top. He left the room, and Andreev and Bliumkin sat. They did not look at each other. Andreev looked about the room, at the portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the wooden archway carved into a coat of arms, the leather-topped desk with polished gold-plated telephone. Bliumkin stared at his shoes.

In a few minutes the representative appeared again at the door. “The ambassador will see you, but please come directly to the point. He is very busy today.”

Andreev nodded and the two rose and followed the representative through the door and down the hall past a marble staircase. He opened double doors and seated behind a massive mahogany desk was Count Wilhelm von Mirbach, the German ambassador to Russia. His hair was grey and cut short. Below his nose was a bristly mustache that framed his mouth all the way down to his chin. His bushy eyebrows were drawn together in a glare. The representative stood at the door as the Russians entered. He remained. Andreev slowly turned and stared at him by the door and then looked at Mirbach, who nodded, and the aide withdrew, closing the doors behind him.

Not a word was spoken. Bliumkin immediately drew a pistol from his back belt, took a step forward and fired. Mirbach was struck in the right shoulder and fell back in the chair, but he drew his left hand to the wound, and was clearly not dead.

“Idiot!”, Andreev yelled, and immediately turned to bar the door. Bliumkin sprinted to get around the desk, and Mirbach scrambled to get out of his chair. Bliumkin slipped on the carpet and went down to one knee as Mirbach staggered around the other side of the desk, bracing himself with his wounded arm. He put out his left arm in a stiff-arm gesture and bore down on Andreev. Just before he reached the frozen Russian, Bliumkin aimed his pistol again and fired. The bullet entered Count Mirbach’s skull in the back and exited between his eyes, narrowly missing Andreev.

“My God!” cried Andreev.

They heard pounding on the heavy doors. Andreev and Bliumkin flattened themselves on either side of the entry. Bliumkin drew a grenade from his coat pocket, pulled the pin and pitched it under Mirbach’s desk as the doors flew open. The guards had just enough time to focus on Count Mirbach’s skull bleeding into the Persian rug before the explosion blew them back through the open doorway. The crouching Andreev and Bliumkin were partially protected by the open doors, but the blast flung a shattered lamp stand into Bliumkin’s shin, breaking his tibia just below the knee.