“And what is that?”
“They call it the Red Coffin, Inspector.” Ushinsky’s voice was drowned out by the tank, as Gorenko fired up the engine.
Pekkala and Ushinsky stood back. The tracks spun, spraying a sheet of muddy water. Then the treads found their grip, and the T-34 began to crawl up the sides of the crater. For a moment, it seemed as if the whole machine might slide backwards, but then there was a crash of gears and the tank lurched out of the hole. When it reached level ground, Gorenko set the motor in neutral, then switched off the engine again.
The cloud of exhaust smoke unraveled into the sky, and the silence which followed was almost as deafening as the sound of the engine itself.
Gorenko climbed out and jumped down to the ground, his mud-smeared lab coat flapping behind him like a pair of broken wings. He joined Pekkala and Ushinsky at the edge of the pit. In silence, the three men stared down into the trough’s churned-up water.
The crater’s surface was goose-fleshed with raindrops, obscuring the surface of the water. At first, they could not see the body. Then, like a ghost appearing through the mist, the corpse of Colonel Nagorski floated slowly into view. Rain pattered on his heavy canvas coat, which appeared to be the only thing holding his body together. The broken legs trailed like snakes from his misshapen torso. With the bones snapped in so many places, the limbs seemed to ripple, as if they were reflections of his body instead of the actual flesh. His hands had swollen obscenely, the weight of the tracks having forced the fluids of his body into its extremities. The pressure had split his fingertips wide open, like a pair of worn-out gloves. Some curvature of the soft ground had preserved half of Nagorski’s face, but the rest had been crushed by the tracks.
Ushinsky stared at the corpse, paralyzed by what he saw. “It’s all ruined,” he said. “Everything we worked for.”
It was Gorenko who moved first, sliding down into the crater to retrieve the body. The water came up to his chest. He lifted Nagorski in his arms. Staggering under the weight, he returned to the edge of the pit.
Pekkala grabbed Gorenko by the shoulders and helped him out.
Gently, Gorenko laid the colonel’s body on the ground.
With the body stretched out before him, Ushinsky seemed to wake from his trance. In spite of the cold, he took off his lab coat and laid it over Nagorski. The drenched cloth molded to the dead man’s face.
Now Pekkala caught sight of a tall man standing at the edge of the proving ground, half obscured by veils of rain which swept across the space between them. At first, he thought it might be Kirov, but on second glance he realized the man was much taller than his assistant.
“That’s Maximov,” said Ushinsky. “Nagorski’s chauffeur and bodyguard.”
“We call him the T-33,” said Gorenko.
“Why is that?” asked Pekkala.
“Before Nagorski decided to build himself a tank,” explained Ushinsky, “we say he built himself a Maximov.”
Just then, from somewhere among the drab buildings of the facility, they heard a shout.
Captain Samarin ran to the edge of the proving ground.
Kirov was close behind him. He yelled to Pekkala, but his words were lost in the rain.
As suddenly as they had arrived, Samarin and Kirov disappeared from view, followed by Maximov.
“What the devil’s happened now?” muttered Ushinsky.
Pekkala did not reply. He had already set off through the mud, heading towards the facility. Along the way, he sank up to his knees in craters of water, and once he lost his footing and stumbled with arms outstretched beneath the surface. For a moment, it seemed as if he might not reappear, but then he rose up, gasping, hair matted by silt, mud streaked across his face, like a creature forced into existence by some chemical reaction in the dirt. Having scrabbled up the slope, he paused to catch his breath at the edge of the proving ground. He glanced back towards the tank and saw the two scientists by the shattered body of Nagorski, as if they did not know where else to go. They reminded Pekkala of cavalry horses, standing on the battlefield beside their fallen riders.
He caught up with Kirov and the others on the road which led out of the facility.
“I saw someone,” explained Samarin. “Hiding in one of the supply buildings, where they keep spare parts for the vehicles. I chased him out onto the road. Then he just vanished.”
“Where are the other security guards?” asked Pekkala.
“There’s one stationed out at the gate. You saw him when you came in. There are only four others and they’re guarding the buildings. That is the protocol Colonel Nagorski put in place. In the event of an emergency, all buildings are locked and guarded.”
“If this work is so important, why are there so few of you guarding this place?”
“This isn’t a jewelry shop, Inspector,” replied Samarin defensively. “The things we guard here are as big as houses and weigh about as much. You can’t just put one in your pocket and make off with it. Colonel Nagorski could have had a hundred people patrolling this place if he’d wanted it, but he said he didn’t need them. What worried the colonel was that someone might run away with the plans for these inventions. Because of that, the fewer people wandering around this facility, the better. That’s the way he saw it.”
“All right,” said Pekkala, “the buildings are sealed. What other steps have been taken?”
“I put in a call to NKVD headquarters in Moscow and asked for assistance. As soon as I confirmed that Colonel Nagorski had been killed, they said they would dispatch a squad of soldiers. After I sent you out into the proving ground, I received a call that the doctors had been intercepted and ordered to return to Moscow. The soldiers will be here soon, but for now it’s just us. That’s why I fetched these two.” He gestured towards Kirov and Maximov. “I need all the help I can get.”
Pekkala turned to Maximov, ready to introduce himself. “I am—” he began.
“I know who you are,” interrupted Maximov. The bodyguard’s voice was deeply resonant, as if it emerged not from his mouth but in vibrations through his massive chest. As he spoke to Pekkala, he removed his cap, revealing a clean-shaven head and a wide forehead which looked as solid as the armor of Nagorski’s tank.
“This man you saw,” began Pekkala, turning back to Samarin. He was curious as to why they had decided not to pursue him.
“He’s gone into the woods,” said Samarin, “but he won’t last long in there.”
“Why not?”
“Traps,” replied Samarin. “During the construction of the facility, Colonel Nagorski disappeared into those woods almost every day. No one was allowed to follow him. He dragged in slats of wood, metal pipes, rolls of wire, shovels, boxes nailed shut so that no one could see what was in them. No one knows how many traps he built. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Or what kind of traps, exactly. And where they are—nobody knows that either, except Colonel Nagorski.”
“Why go to all that trouble?” asked Kirov. “Surely—”
“You did not know Colonel Nagorski,” interrupted Samarin.
“Is there really no map of where these traps were placed?” Pekkala asked.
“None that I’ve ever seen,” replied Samarin. “Nagorski hammered small colored disks into some of the trees. Some are blue, others red or yellow. What they mean, if they mean anything at all, only Nagorski knows.”
Squinting into the depths of the forest, Pekkala could make out some of the colored disks, glimmering like eyes from the shadows.
A sound made them turn their heads—or, rather, a series of muffled thumping sounds, somewhere lost among the trees.
“There!” shouted Samarin, drawing his revolver.
Something was running through the woods.
The figure moved so swiftly that at first Pekkala thought it must be some kind of animal. No human could move so quickly, he thought. The shape appeared and disappeared, bounding like a deer through the brambled thickets which grew between the trees. Then, as it leaped across a clearing, Pekkala realized it was a man.