Eye of the Red Tsar

39

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, HE WOKE FROM A SLEEP IN WHICH HE could not breathe.

Kirov was leaning over him, a hand over Pekkala’s mouth and nose. He pressed a finger to his lips.

Pekkala nodded.

Slowly, Kirov removed his hand.

Pekkala sat up and gasped in a breath.

“There’s someone in the house,” Kirov whispered.

Anton was on his feet. He had already drawn his gun. He stood in the doorway to the hall, peering into the shadows. “In the basement,” he told Pekkala and Kirov.

Pekkala felt a tremor run through him at the thought of something alive down there in the dried blood and the dust. He drew the Webley from its holster.

Pekkala moved sideways as he descended to the basement, his bare feet gripping the wooden steps, which creaked as his weight settled on them.

Behind him, Kirov carried one of the lanterns.

“Don’t light that until I tell you,” whispered Pekkala. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Pekkala could hear nothing except the rasp of breathing from Anton and Kirov. Then, unmistakably, he caught the sound of someone crying. It was coming from the room in which the murders had taken place.

Now that his eyes were adjusting to the darkness in front of him, Pekkala could see the door was open.

The crying continued, muffled, almost as if it was coming from inside the walls.

Pekkala sucked in the musty air. Moving to the doorway of the old storage room, he peered inside and could make out the stripes of the wallpaper, but it was almost too dark to see anything else. The broken plaster looked like a sheet of dirty snow upon the floor.

The sound came again, and now he glimpsed a shape in the room’s far corner. It was a person, huddled and facing the wall.

Anton stood beside Pekkala. His eyes were shining in the dark.

Pekkala nodded and the two brothers rushed across the room, feet kicking up the debris.

The figure turned. It was a man, on his knees. His crying rose to a terrible wail.

“Shoot him!” shouted Anton.

“No! Please, no!” The man cowered at Pekkala’s feet.

Anton pressed the gun against his head.

Pekkala knocked it aside and grabbed the stranger by the collar of his coat. “The lantern!” he shouted to Kirov.

A match flared. A moment later, the soft glow of the lantern spread across the walls.

Pekkala yanked the man off his knees, forcing him onto his back.

The lantern swung in Kirov ’s grip. Shadows pitched and rolled across the bullet-spattered walls.

The man held his clawed hands over his face, as if the light would burn away his skin.

“Who are you?” demanded Pekkala.

“Move your damn hands!” shouted Kirov.

Slowly, his fingers slid away. The man’s eyes were tightly shut, his face unnaturally pale in the lamplight. He had a broad forehead and a solid chin. A dark mustache and a close-cropped beard covered the lower part of his face.

Pekkala pushed Kirov ’s arm aside, so that the lantern was no longer in the man’s face.

At last, the man’s eyes flickered open. “Pekkala,” he murmured.

“My God,” whispered Pekkala. “It’s Alexei.”