All this time, the bartender Niarchos had been looming over the young man, his dark eyes narrowed into slits. But now, at the sight of this telegram, which looked to him so frail that it might at any moment evaporate into smoke, Niarchos began to grow nervous.
By now, Chicherin had finished reading the telegram.
“I need that back,” said the young man.
Chicherin did not reply. He continued to stare at the telegram, as if expecting more words to materialize.
Kirov slipped the flimsy paper from between Chicherin’s fingers and set off across the dining room.
This time, Chicherin did nothing to stop him.
Niarchos stepped out of the way, his huge body swinging to the side as if he were on some kind of hinge.
On his way to the table of Colonel Nagorski, Kirov paused to stare at various meals, breathing in the smells and sighing with contentment or making soft grunts of disapproval at the heavy-handed use of cream and parsley. Arriving at last beside Nagorski’s table, the young man cleared his throat.
Nagorski looked up. The skin stretched over the colonel’s cheekbones looked like polished wax. “More pancakes for the blinis!” He slapped his hand down on the table.
“Comrade Nagorski,” said Kirov.
Nagorski had turned back to his meal, but at the mention of his name he froze. “How do you know my name?” he asked quietly.
“Your presence is required, Comrade Nagorski.”
Nagorski glanced towards the bar, hoping to catch the eye of Niarchos. But Niarchos’s attention seemed completely focused on polishing tea glasses. Now Nagorski looked around for Chicherin, but the manager was nowhere to be seen. Finally, he turned to the young man. “Exactly where is my presence required?” he asked.
“That will be explained on the way,” replied Kirov.
Nagorski’s giant companion sat with arms folded, gaze fixed, his thoughts unreadable.
Kirov couldn’t help noticing that although Nagorski’s plate was loaded down with food, the only thing set in front of the bald giant was a small salad made of pickled cabbage and beets.
“What makes you think,” began Nagorski, “that I am just going to get up and walk out of here with you?”
“If you don’t come willingly, Comrade Nagorski, I have orders to arrest you.” Kirov held out the telegram.
Nagorski brushed the piece of paper aside. “Arrest me?” he shouted.
A sudden silence descended upon the restaurant.
Nagorski dabbed a napkin against his thin lips. Then he threw the cloth down on top of his food and stood up.
By now, all eyes had turned to the table in the corner.
Nagorski smiled broadly, but his eyes remained cold and hostile. Digging one hand into the pockets of his coat, he withdrew a small automatic pistol.
A gasp went up from the nearby tables. Knives and forks clattered onto plates.
Kirov blinked at the gun.
Nagorski smiled. “You look a little jumpy.” Then he turned the weapon in his palm so that the butt was facing outwards and handed it to the other man at the table.
His companion reached out and took it.
“Take good care of that,” said Nagorski. “I’ll be wanting it back very soon.”
“Yes, Colonel,” replied the man. He set the gun beside his plate, as if it were another piece of cutlery.
Now Nagorski slapped the young man on the back. “Let’s see what this is all about, shall we?”
Kirov almost lost his balance from the jolt of Nagorski’s palm. “A car is waiting.”
“Good!” Nagorski announced in a loud voice. “Why walk when we can ride?” He laughed and looked around.
Faint smiles crossed the faces of the other customers.
The two men made their way outside.
As Nagorski walked by the kitchen, he saw Chicherin’s face framed in one of the little round windows of the double swinging doors.
Outside the Borodino, sleet lay like frog spawn on the pavement.
As soon as the door had closed behind them, Nagorski grabbed the young man by his collar and threw him up against the brick wall of the restaurant.
The young man did not resist. He looked as if he’d been expecting this.
“Nobody disturbs me when I am eating!” growled Nagorski, lifting the young man up onto the tips of his toes. “Nobody survives that kind of stupidity!”
Kirov nodded towards a black car, its engine running, pulled up at the curbside. “He is waiting, Comrade Nagorski.”
Nagorski glanced over his shoulder. He noticed the shape of someone sitting in the backseat. He could not make out a face. Then he turned back to the young man. “Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Kirov. Major Kirov.”
“Major?” Nagorski let go of him suddenly. “Why didn’t you say so?” Now he stood back and brushed at Kirov’s crumpled lapel. “We might have avoided this unpleasantness.” He strode across to the car and climbed into the rear seat.
Major Kirov got in behind the wheel.
Nagorski settled back into his seat. Only then did he look at the person sitting beside him. “You!” he shouted.
“Good afternoon,” said Pekkala.
“Oh, shit,” replied Colonel Nagorski.
INSPECTOR PEKKALA WAS A TALL, POWERFUL-LOOKING MAN WITH broad shoulders and slightly narrowed eyes the color of mahogany. He had been born in Lappeenranta, Finland, at a time when it was still a Russian colony. His mother was a Laplander, from Rovaniemi in the north.
At the age of eighteen, on the wishes of his father, Pekkala traveled to Petrograd in order to enlist in the Tsar’s elite Finnish Legion. There, early in his training, he had been singled out by the Tsar for duty as his own Special Investigator. It was a position which had never existed before and which would one day give Pekkala powers considered unimaginable before the Tsar chose to create them.
In preparation for this, he was given over to the police, then to the State Police—the Gendarmerie—and after that to the Tsar’s Secret Police, who were known as the Okhrana. In those long months, doors were opened to him which few men even knew existed. At the completion of Pekkala’s training, the Tsar presented to him the only badge of office he would ever wear—a heavy gold disk, as wide as the length of his little finger. Across the center was a stripe of white enamel inlay, which began at a point, widened until it took up half the disk, and narrowed again to a point on the other side. Embedded in the middle of the white enamel was a large round emerald. Together, these elements formed the unmistakable shape of an eye. Pekkala never forgot the first time he held the disk in his hand, the way he had traced his fingertip over the eye, feeling the smooth bump of the jewel, like a blind man reading braille.
It was because of this badge that Pekkala became known as the Emerald Eye. The public knew little else about him. His photograph could not be published or even taken. In the absence of facts, legends grew up around Pekkala, including rumors that he was not human, but rather was some demon conjured into life through the black arts of an arctic shaman.
Throughout his years of service, Pekkala answered only to the Tsar. In that time he learned the secrets of an empire, and when that empire fell, and those who shared the secrets had taken them to their graves, Pekkala was surprised to find himself still breathing.
Captured during the Revolution, he was sent to the Siberian labor camp of Borodok, where he tried to forget the world he’d left behind.
But the world he’d left behind did not forget him.
After seven years in the forest of Krasnagolyana, during which time he lived more like a wild animal than a man, Pekkala was brought back to Moscow on the orders of Stalin himself.
Since then, maintaining an uneasy truce with his former enemies, Pekkala had continued in his role as Special Investigator.
DEEP BENEATH THE STREETS OF MOSCOW, COLONEL ROLAN NAGORSKI sat on a metal chair in a cramped cell of the Lubyanka prison. The walls were painted white. A single lightbulb, protected by a dusty metal cage, lit the room.