Child 44 (6 page)

The neighbours were a retired couple in their seventies who lived with their married son, his wife and their two children. A family of six in two rooms, not an unusual ratio. All six of them were sitting in their kitchen side by side with a junior officer standing behind them for the purpose of intimidation. Leo could see that they understood that they were all implicated in another man’s guilt. He could see their fear. Dismissing this observation as irrelevant–he’d been guilty of sentimentality once already–he walked up to the table.

—Anatoly Brodsky is a traitor. If you help him in any way even by saying nothing you will be treated as an accomplice. The pressure is on you to prove your loyalty to the State. There is no pressure on us to prove your guilt. That, right now, is taken for granted.

The elderly man, the grandfather, no doubt a savvy survivor, was quick to offer every piece of information he had. Copying Leo’s choice of words, he claimed the traitor had gone to work that morning a little earlier carrying the same case as usual, wearing the same coat and hat. Not wishing to seem uncooperative the grandfather offered opinions and suggestions as to where this traitor could be, all of which Leo sensed were nothing more than desperate guesswork. The grandfather concluded by saying how much everyone in their family disliked and mistrusted Brodsky as a neighbour and how the only person who liked him was Zina Morosovna, the lady living downstairs.

Zina Morosovna was aged somewhere in her fifties and trembling like a child, a fact she was trying unsuccessfully to hide by smoking. Leo found her standing beside a cheap reproduction of a famous Stalin portrait–smooth skin, wise eyes–hung prominently over her fireplace. Perhaps she thought it might protect her. Leo didn’t bother to introduce himself, or show his identity card, cutting straight to the chase in an effort to disorient her.

—Why is it you’re such good friends with Anatoly Brodsky when everyone else in this building disliked and mistrusted him?

Zina was caught off guard; her sense of discretion blunted by her indignation at this lie:

—Everyone in this building liked Anatoly. He was a good man.

—Brodsky is a spy. Yet you call him good? Treachery is a virtue?

Realizing her mistake too late, Zina began to qualify her comment.

—All I meant was that he was very considerate with the noise. He was polite.

These qualifications were stuttering and irrelevant. Leo ignored them. He took out a pad and wrote down her ill-chosen words in large visible letters.

HE
WAS
A
GOOD
MAN

He wrote clearly so that she could see exactly what he was writing: he was writing off the next fifteen years of her life. Those words were more than enough to convict her as a collaborator. She’d receive a lengthy sentence as a political prisoner. At her age she had little chance of surviving the Gulags. He didn’t need to say any of these threats aloud. They were common currency.

Zina retreated to the corner of the room, stubbed out her cigarette and immediately regretted it, fumbling for another.

—I don’t know where Anatoly has gone but I do know that he has no family. His wife was killed in the war. His son died of tuberculosis. He rarely had any visitors. As far as I could tell he had few friends…

She paused. Anatoly had been her friend. They’d spent many nights together, eating and drinking. There was a time when she’d even hoped that he might fall in love with her but he’d showed no interest. He’d never got over the loss of his wife. Caught up in her recollections she glanced at Leo. He wasn’t impressed.

—I want to know where he is. I don’t care about his dead wife or his dead son. His life story doesn’t interest me unless it’s relevant to where he is right now.

Her life was in the balance–there was only one way to survive. But could she betray a man she loved? To her surprise the decision took less deliberation then she would’ve expected.

—Anatoly kept himself to himself. However, he did receive and send letters. Occasionally he left them with me to post. The only regular correspondence was addressed to someone in the village of Kimov. It’s somewhere north of here, I think. He mentioned that he had a friend there. I don’t remember the name of the friend. That’s the truth. That’s all I know.

Her voice was choked with guilt. While no outward display of emotion could ever be taken at face value Leo’s instincts told him that she was betraying a confidence. He ripped out the incriminating page from his note-book and handed it to her. She accepted the sheet as payment for a betrayal. He saw contempt in her eyes. He didn’t let it bother him.

The name of a rural village to the north of Moscow was a tenuous lead. If Brodsky was working as a spy it was much more likely he was being sheltered by the people he was working for. The
MGB
had long been convinced there was in existence a network of safe houses under foreign control. The idea of a foreign-funded traitor falling back on a personal connection–a collective farmer–ran contrary to the notion that he was a professional spy. And yet Leo felt sure this was a lead he should pursue. He brushed the discrepancies aside: his job was to catch this man. This was the only clue he had. Equivocation had already cost him.

He hurried to the truck parked outside and began rereading the case file, searching for something which might connect with the village of Kimov. He was interrupted by the return of his second in command, Vasili Ilyich Nikitin. Aged thirty-five, five years older than Leo, Vasili had once been one of the MGB’s most promising officers. Ruthless, competitive, he harboured no loyalties to anyone except the
MGB
. Leo privately considered those loyalties to be less about patriotism and more about self-interest. In his early days as an investigator Vasili had signalled his dedication by denouncing his only brother for making anti-Stalinist remarks. Apparently the brother had made a joke at Stalin’s expense. He’d been drunk at the time, celebrating his birthday. Vasili had written up the report and the brother had been given a twenty-year labour sentence. That arrest had worked in Vasili’s favour until the brother escaped three years later, killing several guards and the camp doctor in the process. He was never caught, and the embarrassment of this incident hung around Vasili’s neck. If he hadn’t strenuously helped in the search for the fugitive his career might not have survived. Instead it survived in a much weakened state. With no more brothers left to denounce, Leo knew his deputy was on the lookout for some other way of getting back in favour.

Having just finished his search of the veterinary practice, Vasili was apparently pleased with himself. He handed Leo a crumpled letter which, he explained, he’d found caught behind the traitor’s writing desk. All other correspondence had been burnt–as it had been in the apartment–yet in his hurry the suspect had missed this one. Leo read it. The letter was from a friend telling Anatoly he was welcome to stay with him at any time. The address was partially smudged but the name of the city was clear: Kiev. Leo folded the letter and handed it back to his deputy.

—This was written by Brodsky. Not a friend. He wanted us to find it. He’s not heading to Kiev.

The letter had been hastily written. The handwriting was inconsistent, poorly disguised. The content was risible and seemed solely intended to convince the reader that the writer was a friend to whom Brodsky could turn in an hour of need. The address was deliberately smudged to prevent a quick identification of the genuine occupant and so proof of the letter’s forgery. The location of the letter–dropped behind the desk–seemed staged.

Vasili protested the letter’s authenticity.

—It would be negligent not to fully investigate the Kiev lead.

Though Leo had no doubts about the letter being a forgery he wondered if it wouldn’t be shrewd to send Vasili to Kiev as a precautionary measure, to protect against any possible allegation that he’d ignored evidence. He dismissed the idea: it didn’t matter how he conducted the investigation, if he failed to find the suspect his career was over.

He returned his attention to the file. According to the records, Brodsky was friends with a man called Mikhail Sviatoslavich Zinoviev, who had been discharged from the Red Army suffering chronic frostbite. Near death, several of his toes had been amputated: he’d been nursed back to health and given a discharge from military service. Brodsky had performed the operation. Leo’s finger ran along the document, searching for a current address.

Kimov.

Leo turned to his men, catching Vasili’s sour expression.

—We’re leaving.

15 February

The roads out of Moscow were covered with icy mulch and despite the truck’s tyres being fitted with snow chains their speed had rarely risen above twenty-five kilometres per hour. Wind and snow gusted around them with such ferocity it seemed as if they had some personal stake in Leo not reaching his destination. The windscreen wipers, attached to the roof of the front cabin struggled to keep even the smallest patch of window clear. With visibility less than ten metres the truck pushed forward. It was nothing less than desperation on Leo’s part to attempt a journey in these conditions.

Hunched forward with maps spread across his lap, Leo was seated beside Vasili and their driver. All three of them were dressed as though they were outside–coats, gloves, hats. The steel cabin with its steel roof and steel floor was heated only by the residual warmth from the rattling engine. But at least the cabin offered some protection from the weather. In the back his nine heavily armed agents travelled in no such luxury. The ZiS-151 trucks had tarpaulin roofs which cold air and even snow whipped through. Since temperatures could fall to minus thirty, all rear compartments of the ZiS-151s were fitted with wood-burning stoves bolted to the floor. These pot-bellied contraptions were able to warm only those within touching distance of them, forcing the men to huddle and regularly rotate position. Leo had sat there many times himself: after every ten minutes the two nearest the stove reluctantly moved away from the heat, relegated to the coldest position at the furthest ends of the benches while the rest of the team shuffled up.

For the first time in his career Leo could sense dissent among his team. The reason wasn’t the discomfort or the lack of sleep. His men were used to tough conditions. No, there was something else. Perhaps it was the fact that the mission could have been avoided. Perhaps they had no confidence in the Kimov lead. Yet he’d asked his men for their confidence before and he’d been given it. Tonight he felt hostility, resistance. Aside from Vasili he wasn’t used to it. He pushed the thoughts aside. Right now his popularity was the least of his concerns.

If his theory proved correct, if the suspect was in Kimov, then Leo thought it likely that he’d be on the move at first light, whether on his own or aided by his friend. Leo was taking a chance betting that they’d get to the village in time. He’d decided against deploying the local militia stationed at Zagorsk, the nearest major town, since they were in his opinion amateurish, ill-disciplined and undertrained. Even the local
MGB
divisions weren’t to be trusted with such an operation. Already alert to the fact he was a wanted man, Brodsky was unlikely to surrender. He might fight to the death. He needed to be taken alive. His confession was of paramount importance. Furthermore his escape had embarrassed Leo personally and he was determined to make amends, determined that he should be the one to make the arrest. This wasn’t merely a matter of pride. Nor was it merely that his career depended upon success. The consequences ran deeper than that. Failure in such a high-profile espionage case might result in claims that Leo had deliberately sabotaged the investigation. Failure to recapture the suspect would further implicate him. His loyalty would be called into question.

Check on Those we Trust.

No one was exempt from that rule, not even those who enforced it.

If Brodsky wasn’t in Kimov, if Leo was wrong, then Vasili would be the first in line with a testimonial detailing how his superior officer disregarded the promising Kiev lead. Sensing his weakness, others in the directorate, like animals circling a wounded prey, would almost certainly come forward to denounce him as a poor leader while Vasili positioned himself as Leo’s logical successor. In the hierarchies of the State Security, fortunes could change overnight. For both men much depended upon the location of this traitor.

Leo glanced across at his deputy, a man both handsome and repulsive in equal measure–as if his good looks were plastered over a rotten centre, a hero’s face with a henchman’s heart. There were just the tiniest visible fractures in his attractive facade, appearing at the corners of his mouth, a slight sneer that, if you knew how to interpret it, hinted at the dark thoughts lying beneath his good looks. Perhaps sensing that he was the subject of attention, Vasili turned and smiled a thin, ambiguous smile. Something pleased him. Leo knew immediately that something must be wrong.

He checked the map. With a population of less than a thousand, Kimov was a speck of dust on the Soviet canvas. He’d warned the driver not to expect any road signs. Even at fifteen kilometres per hour this village would appear and disappear in the time it would take to change gear. Yet as Leo ran his finger over the road markings he began to suspect that they’d missed their turning. They were still travelling north when they should be travelling west. Since it was nearly impossible to take any kind of bearings based upon the surrounding landscape he calculated where they were in terms of kilometres. They were too far north. The driver had overshot the mark.

—Turn around!

Leo noticed that neither the driver nor Vasili seemed surprised by the request. The driver mumbled:

—But we didn’t see the exit.

—We’ve missed it. Stop the truck.

The driver gently slowed, pumping the brake in short bursts in order to avoid sliding on the ice. The truck came to a gradual stop, Leo jumped out and in blizzard conditions began to direct the driver through an awkward U-turn, the ZiS-151 being almost as wide as the road. The turn was halfway complete, with the truck at right angles to the road, when the driver seemed to ignore Leo’s instructions, reversing too far and too fast. Leo ran forward banging on the door but it was too late. One of the back tyres ran off the road. It was spinning uselessly in a snow drift. Leo’s anger was tempered by his growing suspicions regarding this driver, who seemed to exhibit an improbable level of incompetence. Vasili had organized the truck, the driver. Leo opened the cabin door, shouting over the wind: