Daniel Yarosh - The Death of Hercules - A DocuNovel

Popov’s wife was still wearing her nightgown and clutched her young daughter in her arms. Her son stood before her, rubbing his eyes and cowering before Captain Kikulsky. Zalmund, Tad, Miro and Lenish stood in a circle around them with their pistols drawn. Kikulsky loudly interrogated her in his Polish-accented Russian about the whereabouts of her husband and his associates, although he knew she had no idea. He told her she lied when she denied that they harbored counter-revolutionaries in her apartment. She sobbed uncontrollably.

“Please, please,” she begged, but she hardly could be understood.

Kikulsky turned to the son, who was quiet with tears streaming down his cheek. “On your knees,” he commanded.

Popov’s son knelt in the middle of the street, with his hands over the back of his head. He was shaking. “The punishment for treason to the Revolution is death! You can tell that to Nickolai Popov!” Kikulsky screamed. He put the gun to the back of the young boy, with the barrel between the boy’s clutched fingers, and pulled the trigger. There was a lout retort, a soft flat sound and the boy pitched forward onto the already red-stained pavement.

The five men returned to the car. They rode in an angry silence back to the Kremlin. Zalmund was agitated.

Of course, he thought, it was cruel. But in fact, the whole family could have been eliminated. It was a merciful solution, to offer Popov a chance for rehabilitation. He still had a wife and one child. But upon his return Zalmund said nothing to Deena. He was ashamed.

Lenin summoned the Latvian rifles from barracks outside Moscow. They were battle-hardened troops and not Russian, so they had no scruples about shooting large numbers of people in Moscow. They took up positions in support of the Red Army around the Bolshoi Theater, bringing with them heavy artillery which they pointed at the draped windows and marble balconies. Zalmund was sent there as security for the Cheka commanders who restrained the Latvians. The LSR were poorly armed. The only movement was an emissary in a plain wool overcoat who occasionally entered and returned from the building.

After seven hours, word reached the Cheka commanders that General Dzerzhinsky had been released from the Pokrovskii barracks. The LSR guarding the Bolshoi Theater withdrew, and the Red Army retook the hall. Zalmund entered the building with the Cheka commanders, his gun drawn, hungry and a stubble of beard on his chin.

Exhausted LSR delegates struggled down the halls to the front door like those leaving an over-extended party at dawn. Except that they were herded by Latvians with drawn rifles shouting in foreign tongues.

“Search the boxes!” one commander screamed, pointing to the five tiers of the auditorium.

Zalmund looked through the luxury seating on the mezzanine level. He found a couple, sound asleep, the man slumped on the cushioned seat and the woman curled up on the floor. He awakened them with a not-so-gentle kick, and without a word he motioned to the door with the barrel of his automatic. They slowly rose, and grabbing their coats, they too joined the evacuation.

The LSR delegates were not immediately released, but they milled about the plaza at the entrance to the Bolshoi, across from the Neglinka River, under the gaze of the Red Army. Zalmund followed his Cheka commander, with fifty Latvian riflemen behind him. They goose-stepped in an infantry line, cutting through the LSR crown and separating about two hundred delegates against the stone wall of the Theater. When the Latvians drew their rifles, their intent was all too clear. Zalmund held his revolver at shoulder height, pointing into the crowd. His hand barely trembled.

“The fury of the people is thrown against the vermin, the rebels and the traitors to the revolution of the workers and peasants!” the Commander screamed, the veins bulging from his neck. Zalmund spotted before him, just to the left, the man and woman he had rousted from the mezzanine box. If only he had let them sleep.

The Latvians didn’t wait. A shot was fired into the crowd from Zalmund’s right, and then a frantic fuselage poured into the huddled delegates. One after the other fell, exposing a new line to the Latvian rifles. As the rising sun burned the through the fog to warm a new day, two hundred LSR members lay executed on the Bolshoi portico.

In the middle of August, the influenza outbreak spread quickly in Moscow, taking many of the young in a matter of a few days. It may have been that the older residents had survived the milder epidemic of 1889, and now carried some immunity. But for those now under 35, the sudden fever and wet cough was a well-known prelude to a cruel and quick death. The month before the same epidemic of “Spanish flu” in England killed 200,000.

Zalmund and Lenish spent many more evenings in the outdoor cafes, nursing a beer or vodka. The common wisdom was that the flu came from cramped indoor living conditions and bad air, so this seemed the best protection.

“I was at Lubyanka yesterday,” Lenish remarked. “It stinks like an open wound.” Zalmund nodded. “They have a special section, there, I found out. More like a hotel, with a cell to yourself. They call it solitary, but most of the others would take that punishment, I’ll tell you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, and guess who is there. Those bastards Bliumkin and Andreev.”

“Really,” Zalmund nodded.

“Does it surprise you? That they are still alive?” Lenish asked.

“I suppose once you are an assassin for the Revolution, you can make a mistake. Point your pistol at the wrong man. You can be forgiven,” Zalmund said.

“And Spiridonova?”

“Yes?” Zalmund let Lenish go on.

“She’s in a two-room apartment in the back hall of the Kremlin. Probably knitting, writing letters and taking tea.”

“You think… maybe?” Zalmund answered.

“It was the crazy LSR that followed her, they paid the price for Spiridonova’s talk. She was always full of the worst lying trash.” Lenish glanced around quickly to see if anyone might have heard this potential indiscretion.

“I heard a crazy thing today,” Zalmund said to change the subject.

“Yes?” Lenish took the bait. Zalmund took a long drink from his beer for dramatic effect.

“These guys were driving our Leader, Comrade Lenin back from a rally at some steel plant. You know he is so paranoid, they have to take a different route every time. Well, these guys told me that Lenin has been all over town recently, and they were running out of routes to get him back. So, this time they took a road out by the black-market shops on the West side. You know.”

“No-oooo,” Lenish looked incredulously at Zalmund.

“Yes! As they turn a corner, out from behind a stack of chicken coops jump these bandits with Kalashnikov rifles and fixed bayonets. Bayonets on the end of their rifles!”

“I would have shit my pants.”

“They probably did. You know what they wanted?” Zalmund asked.

“No.”

“Jewelry, gold. Rings.”

“Rings?”

“Yes, rings. They robbed Comrade Lenin. He had only a few rubles. Among them they could barely come up with meal money,” Zalmund snickered.

“And that was it?”

“That was it. They were satisfied they got what they could and let them go.”

“They had no idea who it was?”

“Not at all. Don’t you think they would have taken our leader hostage if they knew?”

The lawlessness of Moscow, combined with the success of the White Russians near Archangel, further fueled the paranoia of the Bolshevik leadership. Those who were enemies only a few weeks before were now allies. Many of the LSR were rehabilitated, and the door to Bliumkin’s cell in Lubyanka was left open. A car waiting at the gate took him to a safe house, from which he disappeared the next day. Spiridonova easily engineered an escape from her Kremlin jailers, and she continued her radical terrorism on the frontier. Commander Nickolai Popov, who had been removed from command of the Pokrovskii barracks, was now put in charge of a special Cheka unit for anti-crime enforcement in Moscow.