‘No internal passport?’
‘He said that had already been confiscated by the NKVD on a previous security check. It’s what the NKVD termed “open arrest”, since there’s very little you can do in Soviet Russia without an internal passport.’
‘That’s convenient. And the NKVD men? What papers did they have?’
‘The usual NKVD cloth-bound identity booklets. And in the driver’s case his licence, his Komsomol Party ID book, some transit coupons, and a certificate for carrying a gun.’
‘I hope you kept those documents,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid the originals were destroyed in a fire with a lot of other documents,’ said Voss. ‘I think one of the officers was called Krivyenko.’
‘Destroyed?’
‘Yes,’ said Voss. ‘Not long after we moved into our billet at Grushtshenki there was a mortar attack by partisans.’
‘I see. That was very convenient, too. For Dyakov.’
‘I expect I have photographs of those at the Abwehr offices in Smolensk,’ said Von Gersdorff. ‘It’s standard practice for the Abwehr to keep a photographic record of all captured NKVD documentation.’
‘Does Dyakov know that?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘No time like the present,’ I said. ‘Shall we take a look?’
On the drive to the army Kommandatura I had some more questions about Dyakov.
‘How did he come to meet the field marshal, for God’s sake?’ I asked.
Von Gersdorff cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘I’m afraid that’s my fault,’ he said. ‘You see I handled the interrogation. I questioned him to see what he could tell us about the NKVD. The trouble with that Commissar Order was that we never got any good intelligence, and to have one of their own prisoners was about the next best thing. He was actually very helpful. Or so it seemed at the time. During the course of this interview Dyakov and I got talking about what kind of game there is to hunt around here.’
‘Of course,’ I said lightly.
‘I was hoping for some deer, but Dyakov told me that all of the deer had been killed by local hunters for food the previous winter but that there were still plenty of wild boar about and if I was interested he could show me where all the best spots were and even organize a drive for us. I happened to mention this to Von Kluge, who as you know is a very keen hunter, and he got very excited at the prospect of shooting wild boar in Russia – at his estate in Prussia there are several drives like that a year. I hadn’t seen him quite so happy since we captured Smolensk. A boar hunt was duly organized, for several guns – the field marshal, the general, myself, Von Boeselager, Von Schlabrendorff and other senior officers – and I have to say it was very successful. I think we got three or four. The field marshal was delighted, and almost immediately he ordered another drive, which was equally successful. After that, he decided to make Dyakov his Putzer, since when there have been more shoots, although lately the wild boar seem to have disappeared – I think we shot them all, quite frankly – which is why the field marshal now goes after wolves, not to mention hare and rabbit and pheasant. Dyakov seems to know where all the good spots are. Voss is right; I think it’s much more likely the fellow was a local poacher.’
‘Not to mention a murderer,’ I said.
Von Gersdorff looked sheepish. ‘I could hardly have known something like that would happen. In many ways Dyakov is a very affable sort of chap. It’s just that since the field marshal took him under his wing he’s become a law unto himself and insufferably arrogant, as you witnessed for yourself the other night.’
‘Not to mention a murderer,’ I repeated.
‘Yes, yes, you’ve made your point.’
‘To you,’ I said. ‘But if it’s going to stick I’m going to need more than a damned stripper clip. So let’s hope we find something in the Abwehr files.’
The Abwehr office in the Smolensk Kommandatura overlooked a small garden that was planted with vegetables and faced onto the windows of the local German foreign ministry. Beyond that you could see the jagged crenellations on top of the eastern Kremlin. On the wall of the office was a map of the Smolensk Oblast and a larger one of Russia, with the front clearly marked in red and uncomfortably nearer than I had previously supposed. Kursk – which was where German armour was now grouped before the Red Army – was only five hundred kilometres to the south-west of us. If Russian tanks broke through our lines, they could reach Smolensk in just ten days.
A young duty officer with an accent so astonishingly upper-class that I almost laughed – where did they get these people? I wondered – was on the telephone and quickly concluded his conversation when we appeared in the door. He stood up and saluted smartly. Von Gersdorff, whose manners were normally impeccable, went straight to the filing cabinets without bothering to introduce us and started to hunt through the drawers.
‘What was that you were saying about the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto, Lieutenant Nass?’ he murmured.
‘The reports from Brigadier Stroop indicate that all resistance has ended, sir.’
‘We’ve heard that before,’ he said. ‘I’m amazed the resistance has lasted so long. Women and small boys fighting the furious might of the SS. Mark my words, gentlemen, this won’t be the last we hear of it. In a month’s time the yids will still be coming up from their crypts and their cellars.’
Finally he found the file he was looking for and laid it on a map table by the window.
He showed me the photographs of the documents found on the dead NKVD men and on Alok Dyakov.
‘The propiska found on Dyakov tells us nothing,’ I said. ‘There’s no photograph and it could belong to anyone. At least anyone called Alok Dyakov.’
I spent the next few minutes staring closely at the pictures of the two NKVD identity cards – one in the name of Major Mikhail Spiridonovich Krivyenko and the other in the name of Sergeant Nikolai Nikolayevich Yushko, an NKVD driver.
‘Well, what do you think?’ asked Von Gersdorff.
‘This one,’ I said, showing the two men the picture of Krivyenko’s identity card. ‘I’m not sure about this one.’
‘Why?’ asked Voss.
‘The right-hand page is clear enough,’ I remarked. ‘It’s not so easy to be sure without the original document in my hands, but the stamp on the picture page on the left looks suspiciously faint on the bottom right-hand corner photograph. Almost as if it’s been taken off something else and stuck on. Plus the circumference of the stamp seem slightly out of line.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Voss. ‘I hadn’t noticed that before.’
‘It would have been better if you had noticed it at the time,’ I said, pointedly.
‘So what are you saying, Gunther?’ asked Von Gersdorff.
‘That maybe Dyakov is really Mikhail Spiridonovich Krivyenko?’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But just think about it for a minute. You’re a major in an NKVD car with a prisoner when you realize that the Germans are probably just a few miles down the road – that you’re going to be captured at any moment, which means an automatic death sentence for NKVD officers. Don’t forget that Commissar Order. So what do you do? Perhaps you shoot your own driver and then force your prisoner – the real Alok Dyakov – to undress and put on your NKVD uniform. Then you put on his clothes and murder him, too. You take the picture from Dyakov’s internal passport and use it to replace the one on your own NKVD identity card. They were found near a farm, so maybe he could have used some egg white to stick the picture down. Or maybe some grease off the axle, I don’t know. Then you destroy your own picture and the real Dyakov’s internal passport – you can maybe get away with one fake document but not two. Next you drive the GAZ off the road and make things look like an accident. Your last action is to handcuff yourself to the handrail and wait for rescue as Alok Dyakov. What German could argue with a man who had been such an obvious prisoner of the NKVD? Especially a man who speaks good German. Almost automatically you would be less suspicious of him.’