He Fell Among Thieves

CHAPTER III

“JUST WHO are you?” Tumanov demanded, after the tea had been served.

Skinner shrugged. “In Poland recently I asked a girl of Pinsk why her people dwell in the Pripet—”

“By Peter, then! You are a member of the Polish underground!”

Skinner shrugged. “I didn’t say that. I might be. But I didn’t say. Why don’t you let it go at that, Tumanov? If you oppose the regime, as I think you do, why not merely say I am on your side?”

“Nikolay Mironov of Tula, eh? What’s the main street of Tula?”

“Lenin Avenue. They used to call it Trotsky Avenue, before what happened in Mexico—”

“All right. And who heads the Tula Soviet?”

“Search me. I haven’t been, in Tula since before the war.”

“Who—never mind! You have your answers ready. Comrade Nikolay, I can see that. Still I would like a dozen kopek for every mile between Tula and where you really come from.”

A waiter brought pipes and a pouch of what the Germans would have called ersatz tobacco, and selecting his own, Skinner gave the man half a dozen kopek. He tamped the bowl full, lit up, then said to Tumanov: “Wherever I came from, I am here in Moscow for a purpose.”

“Aren’t we all! What is yours, Nikolay?”

“The government has ceased to worry its head about the manufacture of atomic weapons. Why?”

“Ahh,” Tumanov sighed, “that is indeed a good question. We of the underground would like to know the same thing in order to pass it along through the proper channels. But all we hear are wild-eyed rumors. Thus-and-so is happening beyond the Ural Mountains, thus-and-so has struck the mining regions in the Erz, Commissar Beria has decided thus-and-so….”

“In other words, you don’t know.”

“Correct. We’ll find out one day, I think. But then it might be too late for the Americans, for the British, for the French—for everyone else. Of one thing I am sure, Nikolay: something strange occurred in the Urals, maybe east of the Urals, on the steppes of Siberia where already the Winter winds are howling. It is something which can shatter the current balance of power in the world. But don’t ask me what, because I don’t know. I think maybe that truck-load of laborers are now on the first leg of a journey which will take them east of the Urals, for there are rumors that masses of equipment must be moved here to Moscow before the Winter snows make the roads impassable. Do I make sense?”

“Uh-huh. Go on.”

“There’s no place else to go. That’s all I know. We have workers who even now try to extract the information. Workers who—Nikolay, why don’t you join us? Together, perhaps…”

Skinner emptied his pipe in a large bronze ashtray, placed the pipe down on the table, stood up. “Lead on,” he said, smiling. He thanked the fates which had brought him together with this great gangling creature, Tuman Tumanov. Awful, rough sledding here in Moscow without him….

SONYA DOLOHOV extended her hand and Skinner took it, shaking hands with the girl eagerly. “So you’re the underground leader here in Moscow?”

A very beautiful woman, she smiled almost languidly. “No one said that.”

“I say it. We had to pass along more signs and countersigns to get to you than I knew existed.”

The girl shrugged. her shoulders. “We’ll let that pass. Tuman, you said he wanted to join us?”

“That is what I said, Sonya.”

“I take it then that you vouch for him?”

“Yes.”

“Who recommended him to you?”

“No one. I merely met him in a labor truck, and—”

“Fool!” Sonya backed away as if she had been struck. “One day your impetuosity will get us all into trouble. What do you know of this man?”

“Why, nothing.”

Skinner knew this would be different, not like a buxom peasant lass in Poland at all. And certainly he couldn’t expect to work alone in Moscow. He started to say something, but the girl raised her hand for silence.

“Your name is Mironov, eh? Where are you from, Mironov?”

Tumanov said, “Tula, he says.”

“Will you let him talk?”

Wordless, Skinner showed his papers.

“Then it is Tula, eh Mironov?”

“No, but thoses forgeries would fool everyone from the Secret Police to the Underground, I see.”

“All right, then, where are you from?”

“A week ago I walked the streets of another national capital—Washington D.C.”

“Washington!” This was Tumanov.

Sonya seemed unimpressed. “I heard him. He said Washington, but can he prove it?”

“No,” said Skinner, “not really. I wouldn’t make much of a Secret Agent if I carried a little badge which said U.S.A., would I?” He unbuttoned his shirt, reached into the holster and withdrew his .45. He handed it to Sonya. “Does this look Russian?”

“N-no. I can read a little English. It says ‘Colt .45.’ Colt, an American gun, true enough. What’s your real name, Mironov?”

“Nick Skinner. But don’t call me that—get into the habit, it’s Nikolay Mironov.”

“Umm-mm,” Sonya mused. “An American gun, and when asked his name he didn’t offer something stereotyped like Smith or Jones…. Very well, Mironov. I have made up my mind.”

SKINNER waited, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked at Tumanov, but the old man stared back at him helplessly. Whatever the decision, then, it was the girl’s to make and if negative, she might decide to do with him what Natasha had done with the Red soldier.

“You have more ammunition?” Sonya demanded.

Skinner nodded.

“Give it to me.”

Wordless, he unbuttoned his shirt all the way, removed the two cartridge belts, placed them on a table.

The girl opened his .45 removed all the shells but one from the cylinder. “Here,” she said, handing him the weapon. “Twirl it.”

He spun the cylinder, waited.

“What would you do if I asked you to play a little game of Russian roulette to show your good intentions, Mironov?”

A nice game, Russian roulette, Skinner thought. A lovely game. You took a gun with only one bullet, twirled the cylinder, placed the snout against your temple and pulled the trigger. The odds were distinctly in your favor, but odds have been known to go awry.

Skinnier toyed idly with his pistol. “I’d tell you to go to hell. I’m not going to do anything like that to satisfy your damned vanity.”

She smiled. “All right. I wasn’t going to ask you.”

Tumanov eased his lanky frame against a wall, giving vent to a loud sigh.

Then the girl spoke again: “Everything appears to be in your favor, Mironov. I think an M.V.D. operative from Lubianka Street, acting without the initiative of a Westerner, would have accepted the game, taking his chances with Russian roulette. Wait, let me finish. That still doesn’t mean I accept you for what you declare yourself. Then I’d play the part of the buffoon, don’t you think?

“I offer an alternative, Mironov. We give you a job to do, you do it. Then—we’ll see. How does that sound?”

“I have my own work. I didn’t come here on any sight-seeing tour. But I guess if that’s whit you want, that’s what I do.”

“Good. Sleep here, tonight if you like. Tumanov has his quarters downstairs, and I’m sure he’ll have a bed for you. Tomorrow, precisely at noon, an M.V.D. courier will cross Lunatcharsky Square, on his way to Lubianka Street. He will carry a briefcase, Mironov. You will bring me that briefcase.”

Skinner nodded grimly, reached for his cartridge belts.

“Wait,” Sonya told him. “Forget about those. Leave your gun behind as well. If they catch you, those things won’t make you look much like Nikolay Mironov of Tula, will they? Tumanov will give you a knife. Tumanov loves his knives, and he has a wonderful collection. Good night.”

After the girl left through an inner door, Turnanov set a samovar to boil on the stove. “Smile, my friend,” he said. “For a moment I thought she would have you killed.”

Skinner frowned. “How did she know about the courier?”

“A remarkable woman, Sonya. Sometimes she lets the men of Lubianka Street make love to her, and you’d be amazed how they talk. Ahh, the tea is boiling!”

NOON. Lunatcharsky Square with its crowds of people. A crisp, chill autumn day which both remembered summer and foretold winter.

At eleven-fifty-nine, Skinner had arisen from his bench, crossing the Square to where Lubianka Street enters it, waiting there with Tumanov’s knife taped under his shirt against his chest. Noon….

The courier strode briskly through the Square, looking neither to right or left, but straight ahead, his uniform neat, the brass buttons polished, the holster hanging freely at his side. In his left hand he carried a bulging brown briefcase, swinging it carelessly with the motions of his stride. He brushed past Skinner close enough to reach out and touch him. But Skinner did the reaching out.

He grabbed the courier’s shoulder, spun him around, pulled the knife free of its tape at the same time, hiding it in the crook of his arm from anyone who might pass. “Smile,” he said. “Smile or I’ll slit your throat.”

The courier smiled.

“Now, keep smiling.” A man and a woman walked by, wheeling a baby carriage. “Beautiful day, isn’t it, Josef?” Skinner asked the courier, pricking the man’s chest just above his heart, with the knife.

“Q-quite beautiful. Comrade.”

“I see you’re on time, Josef. Thank you. Now, please give me the briefcase and your holster.”

“Yes, Comrade,” said the courier, unfastening the holster and giving it to Skinner.

“Now, the briefcase…”

The man started to comply, but suddenly he swung the briefcase around from his left side. It gathered momentum, struck Skinner’s face squarely, staggering him. He heard the knife clatter to the sidewalk, juggled the holster for a moment trying to remove the pistol.

Something pile-drived against his stomach, forcing all the air from his lungs. He doubled over, half-aware of a curious crowd gathering. Then he fell.

He still clutched the holster, tore the gun from it now, rolled over. A booted foot stamped down, the heel crushing his wrist against the sidewalk, pinning it there helplessly and throwing the pistol from his fingers.

He scrambled away on his hands and knees, tried to rise, but a wave of nausea rolled up from his stomach, bringing a reeling, spinning sensation to his head. The courier kicked out with his foot again, and Skinner tried to ward off the blow. Partially, his forearm deflected it, but the square toe of the boot crashed against his jaw, its force hardly diminished. He flipped halfway over, then fell on his face.

Something pounded against his head—hard blows which pushed his bloody face down on the sidewalk. The noise of the crowd found a hole and buried itself, and all Skinner heard, until he heard nothing, was the ringing in his ears….

“GOOD AFTERNOON, Colonel Rashevsky.”

“My Commissar looks cheerful.”

“Indeed I am, Boris. Indeed I am.” Laurenti Beria lit a cigarette, twisting his lips to let the smoke out through a corner, of his mouth. “Vishinsky informs me that the foreign office nears completion of its work with Project X.”

“Satisfactory completion, my Commissar?”

“Yes. It believes everything Vishinsky and his crew have told it. How can it doubt, not having any other criteria on which to base its judgment?”

“Is it ready to cooperate?”

“I would say so. I very definitely would say so. It is developing a fast hatred for the Western world.”

Rashevsky licked his thick lips. “Then what remains?”

“Nothing much. We must next convince it to use its tremendous scientific powers against the West, to rid the world of evil and make us ready for a new era. That will be comparatively simple, now that the first task nears its successful end. Rashevsky, you will find some vodka in the top drawer of my desk. I think this calls, for a celebration. Careful, careful, you’ll upset the flowers. Yes, in that drawer…”

Rashevsky opened the drawer, removed the half-full bottle and two glasses. At that moment, a phone rang. Beria crossed to the desk, picked up the receiver. “Yes? Oh.” He held his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s for you, Boris.”

“For me? Hello. Yes, this is Colonel Rashevsky. What? Is that so? Is that so? Of course. Naturally. I’ll be right down.”

“Well?” Beria demanded.

“Urgent,” Rashevsky said, opening the door, “An as yet unidentified man attempted to waylay our courier as he crossed the Square. You know, Commissar, the courier who was bringing the written transcript of your talk with the Foreign Office?”

“Did they kill the man?”

“No,” Rashevsky growled, rubbing his hands together, “Better yet. They’ve captured him. He’s in the detention room right now.”

“Fine. Fine! Be gentle, Boris, but be persuasive. If you have any trouble, feel free to call on me. Perhaps you can forget all about Sonya Dolohov. Perhaps we begin to crack the Underground right now.”

Rashevsky grunted thank you under his breath. He’d make up for his feelings of guilt with this Underground agent who waited in the detention room. Sometimes, Boris, he thought, you talk too much. If you hadn’t told Sonya how swiftly the M.V.D. can work, if you hadn’t demonstrated with the courier who would cross Lunatcharsky Square, this would not have happened. He smiled, remembering the glorious evening, remembering Sonya’s lovely white skin, her languid smile, her kisses. Well, as it turned out, no harm had been done, and it was worth it….

“YOU, GET up!”

A soldier prodded Skinner to his feet, gave him a glass of water which he drank gratefully,

A huge, heavy-set man with a bull neck and sensuous face entered the room, his uniform thoroughly be-medaled. Said the soldier: “This is Colonel Rashevsky. You will answer his questions, Comrade.”

Rashevsky! Skinner almost choked on his water. These Russians believed in going whole-hog at the drop of a hat. In the Pentagon, Rashevsky was known as the number two man of the M.V.D., right behind Laurenti Beria himself.

“Gently,” Colonel Rashevsky, chided in his booming voice. “Gently. Would you like to leave Lubianka Street alive, Comrade?”

“I don’t blame you. I—bah!” Abruptly, Rashevsky knocked the glass of water from Skinner’s hand, grabbed the American’s shirt up high near his throat and tugged. “I like this way better, much better. You’ll talk—or—”

Someone entered the room, a smaller man, dark, swarthy, rather handsome.

“Ah, Boris,” he shook his head sadly. “I followed you because I suspected something like this would happen. What do you think we are, the old Nazi Gestapo? Primitive barbarians?”

For all its strength, Rashevsky’s booming voice was fawning. “I tried, my Commissar. Really I did. I started in the prescribed way. ‘Would you like to leave Lubianka Street alive?’ I said. But I thought—”

“You thought! Truly, Boris, why don’t you leave that to me? Here, I tell you what. You may sit and watch while I demonstrate the proper technique on this frightened young man here. But I’m a busy man, Boris, and I will give you this one demonstration only.”

FRIGHTENED young man—yes! Skinner felt like hell, weak, dizzy, his face swollen and bloody. On top of that, he’d had one minute with Colonel Rashevsky of the M.V.D. But Rashevsky rapidly assumed the role of a mere hatchetman. In his place now, enigmatic Laurenti Beria. Molotov, they told you in Washington, might be a yes-man for Stalin. Vishihsky, the same. But not Beria. Beria had a mind of his own, and Beria was the second most dangerous man in Moscow, if not the first….

“…Comrade,” Beria was saying, “what my aide started to say was true. Despite what you hear, you can leave this building alive. How does that sound to you?”

“It sounds fine.”

“What’s your name, young man?”

“Mironov, Nikolay. Here are my papers—”

“I don’t have to see your papers. I believe you know your name. Where are you from?”

“Tula.”

“Tula—a beautiful little city! What brought you to Moscow?”

“Work. I sought work.”

“Did you find it?”

“Yes—no!”

“That’s an interesting answer. Did you find it?”

“Yes. A man said he would pay me a hundred rubles if I took him that briefcase.”

“What man?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t he have a name?”

“He failed to tell me.”

“You’re lying.”

“He failed, to tell me.”

“Where did you say you’d meet her?”

“Not her. Him. A man, like I said.”

“My mistake. Where?”

“In Lunatcharsky Square. On a bench.”

“Near the fountain?”

“Yes, near the fountain.”

“Strange, there’s no fountain in the Square. What fountain did you have in mind?”

“No fountain. Just in the Square.”

“When?”

“12:15.”

“A shame. The tune is long past. What did they look like?”

“Who?”

“The men.”

“One man, just-one. Short, heavy, nondescript.”

“Nondescript, I see. Did you know the contents of the briefcase?”

“No.”

“Their point of origin?”

“No.”

“Where was it being taken?”

“I wasn’t told.”

“Do you know what treason is?”

“Of course I know.”

“And what you did—was that treason do you think?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re no fool, Mironov. It was treason. Now, did the man have a name?”

“I said no.”

“Where were you educated, Mironov?”

“In Tula.”

“At the University?”

“Yes. At the University.”

“Peculiar. Tula has no University. What did you study at this University which doesn’t exist, Nihilism?”

“I…”

“Let me see’ your papers now.”

Beria lit a cigarette, blew smoke in Skinner’s face. “Umm-mm. Tula, all right. Why did you say at the University?”

“I thought you’d like me better if I was educated.”

“Why are you free to travel in Russia and Poland?”

“I’m a transient laborer.”

“I can read. Why? What can you do?”

“A—lot of things. They gave me the visa in Tula.”

Beria took the knife from a guard. “I take it this was yours.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get it?”

“The man gave it to me.”

“Why did you agree to his proposition?”

“Money. I needed money.”

“What did he look like?”

“You asked me that.”

“What did he look like?”

“Short, heavy—”

“I know. Nondescript. Do you know who I am?”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Do you know?”

“I think you are Commissar Beria.”

“Beria, that is who I am. I will talk with you again, Mironov. Guards, take him to Quarters C, please.”

Beria was speaking in earnest whispers with Colonel Rashevsky when they led Skinner from the room.

“TUMAN! Tuman, you idiot! You see, Mironov did not return.”

“Perhaps he’s been caught.”

“I doubt it.” Sonya paced back and forth for a moment, then put her coat on. “Tuman, this could mean trouble. If he works for the M.V.D. he knows who we are. I will have to warn our—no! I might be followed. Tuman, you’ve made a mess of things.”

The old man sipped his tea noisily. “I still don’t think so, Sonya. I believe Mironov told the truth. I believe they have him in Lubianka Street even now, if he’s alive. I intend to find out.”

“Ridiculous, Tuman! But if you insist, I have a better way. When Rashevsky calls, I will permit him to take me out. Men, bah! After I speak with Rashevsky, I’ll find out just how wrong you are.”

“Or right,” said Tumanov, sipping his tea.