“Sunny, don’t you understand?” protested the Tsar. “Pekkala’s loyalty is not to me.”
“Well, don’t you think it should be?”
“Pekkala’s duty is to the task I gave him,” replied the Tsar, “and that is where his loyalty belongs.”
“His duty—” began the Tsarina.
The Tsar cut her off. “Is to find out the truth of whatever matter I place before him, however unpleasant it might be to hear it. Such a man strikes fear into the hearts of those who are sheltering lies. And I wonder, Sunny, if our friend is not more worried for himself than he is for the well-being of the court.”
“You cannot say that, my love! Our friend wishes only for the good of our family, and of our country. He has even sent you a gift.” There was a rustling of paper.
“What on earth is that?”
“It is a comb,” she replied. “One of his own, and he has suggested that it would bring you good fortune to run it through your hair before you attend your daily meetings with the generals.”
Pekkala shuddered at the thought of Rasputin’s greasy hair.
The Tsar was thinking the same thing. “I will not take part in another one of Rasputin’s disgusting rituals!” he shouted, then strode out of the room and into the hallway.
There was nowhere for Pekkala to go. He had only one choice—to stay where he was.
The Tsar was startled.
For a moment the two men stared at each other.
Pekkala broke the silence, saying the first thing that came into his mind. “How are your boots, Majesty?”
For a moment, the Tsar just blinked in surprise. Then he smiled. “The English make wonderful shoes,” he replied, “only not for human beings.”
Now the Tsarina appeared in the doorway. She wore a plain white floor-length dress, with sleeves which stopped at the elbows and a collar that covered her throat. Tied around her waist was a belt made of black cloth, which had tassels at the end. Around her neck, suspended on a gold chain, she wore a crucifix made of bone which had been carved by Rasputin himself. She was a severe-looking woman, with a thin mouth that turned down at the edges, deep-set eyes, and a smooth, broad forehead. Pekkala had seen pictures of her just after she was married to the Tsar. She had seemed much happier then. Now, when her face was relaxed, lines of worry fell into place, like cracks in a pottery glaze.
“What do you want?” she demanded of Pekkala.
“His Majesty asked me to report to him at four p.m. precisely.”
“Then you are late,” she snapped.
“No, Majesty,” replied Pekkala. “I was on time.”
Then the Tsarina realized he must have heard every word she had said.
“What news of Grodek?” asked the Tsar, hurriedly moving to a new topic.
“We have him, Majesty,” answered Pekkala.
The Tsar’s face brightened. “Well done!” The Tsar slapped him gently on the shoulder. Then he walked away down the hall. As he passed his wife, he paused and whispered in her ear. “You go and tell that to your friend.”
Then it was just Pekkala and the Tsarina.
Her lips were dry, the result of the barbiturate Veronal, which she had been taking in order to help her sleep. The Veronal upset her stomach, so she had resorted to taking cocaine. One drug led to another. Over time, the cocaine had given her heart trouble, so she began taking small doses of arsenic. This had tinted the skin beneath her eyes a brownish green and also caused her sleeplessness, which put her right back where she had started. “I suffer from nightmares,” she told him, “and you, Pekkala, are in them.”
“I do not doubt it, Majesty,” he replied.
For a moment, the Tsarina’s mouth hung slightly open as she tried to grasp the meaning of his words. Then her teeth came together with a crack. She walked into her room and closed the door.
“YOU ASK FOR PROOF THAT THE T-34 HAS BEEN COMPROMISED?” asked Stalin. “All right, Pekkala. I will give you proof. Two days ago, a German agent tried to purchase design specifications of the entire Konstantin Project.”
“Purchase them?” asked Pekkala. “From whom?”
“The White Guild,” replied Stalin.
“The Guild!” Pekkala had not heard that name in a long time.
Some years before, Stalin had ordered the formation of a secret organization, to be known as the White Guild, made up of former soldiers who had remained loyal to the Tsar long after his death and were committed to overthrowing the Communists. The idea that Stalin would create an organization whose sole purpose was to topple himself from power was so unthinkable that none of its members ever dreamed that the whole operation had been controlled from the start by the NKVD’s Bureau of Special Operations. It was a trick Stalin had learned from the Okhrana: to lure enemies out of hiding, persuade them that they are taking part in actions against the state, and then, before the acts of violence could take place, arrest them. Since the White Guild had been in existence, hundreds of anti-Communist agents had met their deaths by firing squad against the stone wall of the Lubyanka courtyard.
“But if that’s who they were dealing with,” Pekkala told Stalin, “you have nothing to worry about. You control the Guild. It is your own invention, after all.”
“You are missing the point, Pekkala.” Stalin scratched at the back of his neck, his fingernails rustling over the smallpox scars embedded in his skin. “What worries me is that they even know the T-34 exists. The only time a secret is safe is when no one knows there is a secret being kept.”
“What happened to the German agent?” asked Pekkala. “May I question him?”
“You could,” replied Stalin, “but I think you would find it a very one-sided conversation.”
“I see,” said Pekkala. “But at least we were successful in preventing the enemy from acquiring the information.”
“That success is only temporary. They will come looking again.”
“If they are looking,” said Pekkala, “then perhaps you should let them find what they think they’re searching for.”
“That has already been arranged,” said Stalin, as he put a fresh cigarette between his lips. “Now go back and question him again.”
IN THE FOREST OF RUSALKA, ON THE POLISH-RUSSIAN BORDER, A dirt road wandered drunkenly among the pines. It had been raining, but now bolts of sunlight angled through the misty air. On either side of the road, tall pine trees grew so thickly that no daylight could penetrate. Only mushrooms sprouted from the brown pine needles carpeting the ground—the white-speckled red of Fly Agaric and the greasy white of the Avenging Angel, so poisonous that one small bite would kill a man.
The sound of hoofbeats startled a pheasant from its hiding place. With a loud, croaking squawk, the bird took to the air and vanished into the fog.
From around a bend in the road appeared a rider on a horse. He wore a uniform whose cloth was the same grayish brown as the hide of a deer in the winter. His riding boots glowed with a fresh coat of neat’s-foot oil, and the brass buttons of his tunic were emblazoned with the Polish eagle crest. In his left hand the man carried a lance. Its short, pig-sticker blade shone brightly as it passed through the pillars of sunlight. Both horse and horseman looked like ghosts from a time long before the one in which they had materialized. Then more men appeared—a troop of cavalry—and these had rifles slung across their backs. They moved in beautiful formation, two columns wide and seven deep.