“I am.” Pekkala felt the stare of her luminous green eyes.
“What has happened here?” demanded Lysenkova, flicking a finger towards Samarin’s corpse.
Pekkala explained.
“And you failed to catch this person?”
“That is correct.”
“I am curious to know,” she continued, “how you managed to arrive at the crime scene before me, Inspector.”
“When we set out for this place,” replied Pekkala, “the crime had not yet been committed. But now that you are here, Commissar Lysenkova, I would appreciate whatever help you can give us.”
The green eyes blinked at him. “You seem to be confused, Inspector, about who is in charge of this investigation. This facility is under NKVD control.”
“Very well,” said Pekkala. “What do you intend to do now?”
“I will examine Colonel Nagorski’s body myself,” replied Lysenkova, “to see if I can determine the exact circumstances of his death. In the meantime, I will send guards out to patrol the main road, in case this runner makes it through the woods.”
“What about Nagorski’s family?” asked Pekkala.
“His wife and son live here on the compound,” said Maximov.
“Do they know what has happened?” Lysenkova asked.
“Not yet,” replied the bodyguard. “There is no phone at the house and no one has been out there since the accident.”
“I will break the news to them,” said Pekkala, but even as he spoke, he wondered where he would find the words. His trade was with the dead and those who brought them to that place, not with those who had to go on living in the wake of such disaster.
Lysenkova considered this for a moment. “All right,” she replied. “And report back to me when you’re done. But first”—she nodded towards Samarin—“you can bury that.”
“Here?” Kirov stared at her. “Now?”
“This is a secret facility,” she answered. “Everything that happens here is classified, including who works here and who has the misfortune of dying in this place. Have you ever heard of the White Sea Canal, Major?”
“Of course,” replied Kirov.
Designed to link the White Sea and the Baltic, a distance of over two hundred kilometers, the canal had been dug in the early 1930’s almost entirely by convict laborers using primitive tools in some of the harshest conditions on earth. Thousands had perished. In the end, the canal proved too narrow for the cargo ships it had been designed to carry.
“Do you know what they did with the prisoners who died on that project?” Without waiting for a reply, Lysenkova went on. “Their corpses were sunk into the wet cement which made up the walls of the canal. That’s what happens to secrets in this country, Major. They get buried. So do as I tell you and put him under the ground.”
“Where?” asked Kirov, still unable to believe what he was hearing.
“Here in the road, for all I care,” snapped Lysenkova, “but wherever it is, do it now.” Then she spun on her heel and left them.
“I guess the rumors about her are true,” said Kirov, watching Lysenkova as she strode back to the truck.
Maximov turned his head away and spat.
“Why didn’t you pull rank on her, Inspector?” Kirov asked Pekkala.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” replied Pekkala. “The fact that she is here at all means there is more going on than we realize. For now, let’s just see where she leads us.” He turned to Maximov. “Can you take me to Nagorski’s wife?”
Maximov nodded. “First we’ll bury Samarin, and then I’ll take you there.”
The three men carried the body a short distance into the woods. Lacking a shovel, they used their hands to claw a grave out of the soft, dark earth. Half an arm’s length from the surface, the hole filled with black liquid seeping from the peaty ground. They had no choice but to lay Samarin in it, arms folded across his chest, as if to hide the tunnel through his heart. The black water swallowed him up. Then they packed the spongy earth on top of his body. When it was done and they climbed to their feet, picking the dirt from under their fingernails, there was barely a trace to indicate that a man had just been buried there.
When Maximov went off to fetch his car, Kirov turned to Pekkala. “Why don’t we start by arresting that bastard?”
“Arrest him?” asked Pekkala. “On what charges?”
“I don’t know!” spluttered Kirov. “What about cowardice?”
“You seem to have made up your mind about him very quickly.”
“Sometimes a moment is all it takes,” insisted Kirov. “I’ve seen him before, you know. He was sitting at the table that day I went into Chicherin’s restaurant to find Nagorski. I didn’t like the look of him then and I like him even less now.”
“Did you stop to think that maybe he was right?”
“Right about what?”
“About not running into those woods. After all, why did you run?”
Kirov frowned, confused. “I ran because you ran, Inspector.”
“And do you know why I ran,” asked Pekkala, “in spite of the warning Samarin had given us?”
“No,” shrugged Kirov, “I suppose I don’t.”
“Neither do I,” replied Pekkala. “So it is only luck that we are standing here instead of lying in the ground.”
Maximov’s car appeared from behind one of the buildings and made its way towards them.
“I need you to keep an eye on Lysenkova,” Pekkala told Kirov. “Whatever you learn, keep it to yourself for now. And keep your temper, too.”
“That,” muttered the young major, “I cannot promise you.”
WITH PEKKALA IN THE FRONT PASSENGER SEAT, MAXIMOV DROVE along a narrow road leading away from the dreary facility.
“I am sorry about my assistant,” said Pekkala. “Sometimes he does things without thinking.”
“Seems to me,” replied Maximov, “that he is not the only one. But if you are worried about my feelings, Comrade Inspector, you can save yourself the trouble.”
“Where are you from, Maximov?”
“I have lived in many places. I am not from anywhere.”
“And what did you do before the Revolution?”
“The same as you, Inspector. I made a living for myself. I managed to survive.”
Pekkala studied the blur of trees flickering past. “That’s two questions you have avoided.”
Maximov hit the brakes. The tires locked and skidded. For a moment, it looked as if they were going to end up in the ditch, but they came to a stop just before the car left the road. Maximov cut the engine. “If you don’t like me avoiding your questions, maybe you should stop asking them.”
“It’s my job to ask questions,” said Pekkala, “and, sooner or later, you will need to answer them.”
Maximov glared at Pekkala, but as the seconds passed, the anger went out of his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “The only reason I’ve survived as long as I have is by keeping my mouth shut. Old habits die hard, Inspector.”
“Survival has been difficult for all of us,” said Pekkala.
“That’s not what I hear about you. People say you’ve lived a charmed life.”
“Those are merely stories, Maximov.”
“Are they? I just saw you walk out of those woods without so much as a scratch.”
“I was not the only one.”
“I’m sure Captain Samarin would take comfort in that, if he was still alive. You know, when I was a child, I heard that if a Russian goes into the woods, he becomes lost. But when a Finn steps into the forest”—he touched his fingertips together and then let them drift apart, like someone releasing a dove—“he simply disappears.”
“Like I told you. Just stories.”
“No, Inspector,” he replied. “There’s more to it than that. I have seen it for myself.”
“What have you seen?” asked Pekkala.