As the two men disappeared into Stalin’s office and the door closed quietly behind them, the residue of fear in Poskrebyshev’s brain was still too powerful to let him feel relief.
STALIN, SITTING AT HIS DESK in a leather-backed chair, carefully stuffed his pipe with honey-colored shreds of Balkan tobacco.
There was no chair on the other side of the desk, so Pekkala had to stand while he waited for the man to complete his ritual.
During this time, the only sound in the room was the dry rustle of Stalin’s breathing as he held a match over the pipe bowl and coaxed the tobacco to burn. Once this had been accomplished, he waved the match and dropped the smoldering stick into a brass ashtray. The soft, sweet smell of the tobacco drifted about the room. Finally, Stalin spoke. “I am sending you back to Siberia.”
The words struck Pekkala like a slap in the face. At first, he was too shocked to reply.
“Although not as a prisoner,” continued Stalin. “Not officially. There has been a murder in your old camp. Borodok.”
“With respect, Comrade Stalin, there must be murders in that place every day of the week.”
“This one has caught my attention.” Stalin seemed preoccupied with the ashtray, moving it from one side of his desk to the other and then back to its original place. “Do you remember Colonel Kolchak?”
“Of course I remember him!”
Stalin’s words threw Pekkala back to a dreary, rain-soaked night in March of 1917, just before the Tsar stepped down from power.
He was woken by the sound of horses passing on the gravel road outside his bedroom window. During his years as Special Investigator for the Tsar, Pekkala had lived in a small cottage on the grounds of the Imperial estate, known as Tsarskoye Selo, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. Living near the old Pensioners’ Stables, Pekkala was used to the noise of horses moving by, but not at this time of night.
Peering through the curtains, Pekkala glimpsed a shadowy procession of wagons, three in all, each one weighed down by wooden boxes with rope handles which resembled ammunition crates. He counted twenty-five boxes on each wagon.
One of these wagons had split a wheel, dumping its cargo. Now soldiers milled about, stacking the heavy boxes at the side of the path. Others were busy trying to remove the wheel so they could rig it with a spare.
Pekkala opened the door and stepped out into the dark.
“There you are!” said a voice. “Sorry to have woken you.”
Pekkala turned to see a man wearing a close-tailored uniform and moving with the slightly bowlegged gait of a cavalry officer. His face was fierce and thin and dominated by a rigidly waxed mustache. Pekkala instantly recognized Colonel Kolchak, a man whose social standing in the ranks of Russian nobility, combined with an utter ruthlessness of character, had won him favor with the Tsar.
Finding Kolchak here, amid all of these boxes, Pekkala suddenly realized what he was looking at. Now that the Revolution had begun, the Tsar’s gold was being evacuated to a place of safety. The task had been given to Colonel Kolchak, who, in the company of fifty handpicked men, would transport the treasure to Siberia.
Kolchak’s orders, Pekkala knew, were to follow the route of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and link up with his uncle, Alexander Vassileyevich Kolchak, an admiral in the Tsar’s Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok, who would then take charge of the gold. The admiral was forming an army of anti-Bolshevik forces. Rumors swirled that he planned to declare independence for the whole of Siberia.
The order to begin transporting the gold should have been given weeks, if not months before, but Pekkala had seen for himself that, in spite of all the warning signs that the Revolution would soon overwhelm them, the Romanovs had chosen to believe such a thing was impossible. Now, Revolutionary Guards were in control of St. Petersburg: It was only a matter of time before they advanced on Tsarskoye Selo.
“Heading out?” asked Kolchak, as he shook Pekkala’s hand.
“Soon,” replied Pekkala. “All I have to do is pack my bag.”
“Traveling light,” remarked Kolchak. He was trying to sound jovial, but the anger at this delay penetrated his voice.
“Not so for you,” replied Pekkala, as he glanced at the wagons.
“No indeed,” sighed Kolchak. With a sharp command, he sent the two good wagons on ahead, remaining behind to oversee the repair of the third.
Another hour passed before the broken wheel had finally been replaced. As two soldiers heaved the crates back onto the wagon, one of the rope handles broke. The box slipped from their hands, spilling its contents of gold ingots onto the ground.
“Damn you!” Kolchak shouted at the soldiers. Then he turned to Pekkala. “I am supposed to bring all this to the other side of the country. How can I possibly accomplish my task if these carts can’t even make it off the grounds of the Imperial estate?”
“You have much work ahead of you,” agreed Pekkala.
“What you are witnessing,” Kolchak said brusquely, “is final proof that the world we know is coming to an end. Men like us must now look to our own survival.”
As the last wagon trundled away into the dark, Kolchak climbed back onto his horse. “We must learn to be patient,” he told Pekkala. “One day we shall have our vengeance for what these bastards are about to do with everything we love. This fight isn’t over, Pekkala.”
“AND DO YOU REMEMBER what became of the Kolchak Expedition?” asked Stalin.
“I do,” replied Pekkala. “Almost as soon as the expedition was under way, Kolchak learned that an informant had betrayed him to the Bolsheviks. Guessing that Kolchak would head for the territory held by his uncle, the Bolsheviks sent their own cavalry to intercept the expedition before it reached Siberia. Once Kolchak realized that he was being followed, and since the wagons which transported the gold were slowing down his progress, he decided to leave the gold behind in the city of Kazan as he passed through there on his way to Siberia. The gold was later removed from its hiding place by the anti-Bolshevik forces of the Czechoslovakian Legion, who were also on their way to Vladivostok.”
Stalin nodded. “Go on.”
“In the winter of 1918, Czech Legion troops under the command of General Gaida had joined with the admiral’s White Russian Army. In the spring of 1919, they launched an offensive against the Reds from their base in Siberia.”
“But the offensive stalled out, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” agreed Pekkala, “and by November of that year, the admiral was forced to abandon his capital at Omsk. All through that winter, Czech and White Russian troops retreated east towards Vladivostok. There they hoped to board ships which would take them out of the country. They had captured a number of trains, some of them specially armored, and were traveling along the Trans-Siberian Railroad. By January of 1920, they were still nowhere near the coast. Seeing that his situation was hopeless, Admiral Kolchak stepped down from power. From then on, he was placed under the protection of the Sixth Czechoslovakian Rifle Regiment, under General Janin. The Czechs became responsible for the safety of the admiral as they continued their journey to Vladivostok.”
“And what happened then?”
“You know what happened, Comrade Stalin. Why are you asking me now?”