Red Moth

It was the middle of the night

It was the middle of the night when Pekkala arrived at the Kremlin.

Poskrebychev was still at his desk. He jerked his head towards the double doors. ‘The Boss is waiting.’

Stalin’s room was dark, except for the lamp at his desk. The Boss sat in his red leather chair. In front of him lay an ashtray, overflowing with crumpled cigarette butts. Another one, still burning, lay wedged between his fingertips. ‘I heard what happened to Kovalevsky.’

‘Let me go after them‚’ said Pekkala. ‘Let someone else arrest Engel. Give me a week and I’ll track down whoever murdered Kovalevsky.’

‘I don’t care who murdered Kovalevsky.’ Stalin inhaled deeply. The tip of the cigarette glowed fiercely in the gloom.

‘But I do!’ Pekkala exploded. ‘Kovalevsky was my friend!’

‘What would your friend say about the thing you’ve just proposed?’

‘He would say nothing. He’s dead.’

Stalin sat forward suddenly‚ grinding out his cigarette into the hammered brass ashtray. ‘Exactly! He does not care who killed him. He does not care whether revenge comes now or later or if it never comes at all. The dead do not seek vengeance. That is a curse the living heap upon themselves.’

‘I am seeking justice, not vengeance.’

‘I wonder if you know the difference any more.’

‘Without Kovalevsky, the mission-’

Stalin slammed his fist on to the desk. ‘The mission has already begun! We must assume that whoever killed Kovalevsky was either sent by the traitor in our ranks or else is the traitor himself. I agree with you that finding this person is important, but not enough to call you off the case. That is why I am assigning the task to Major Kirov. He will remain here in Moscow and investigate Kovalevsky’s murder, while you and Lieutenant Churikova pursue Engel.’

In spite of the fact that Kirov would be sorely missed‚ Pekkala knew that Stalin had made the right decision to divide the team‚ in order that both Engel and his accomplice here in Moscow could be pursued simultaneously.

‘A plane has been allocated to bring the two of you from Moscow to an airfield near the front‚’ continued Stalin. ‘Once you arrive, you will be handed over to Glavpur, Military Intelligence. They will do what they can to see you through the German lines. I know what I am asking of you, Pekkala. Even with Kovalevsky’s help, this would have been the most difficult task I had ever set before you. But we can beat them, Pekkala, because they have already made a fatal mistake.’

‘And what was that?’

‘When they shot Kovalevsky, they did not kill you, too.’ With his elbows on the desktop, Stalin folded his hands together, fingertips pressing down on knuckles. ‘When you return to Moscow with your prisoner, you will have done more than simply help to stop the robberies of Gustav Engel and his kind. Your actions in the coming days will fill their hearts with doubt and fear, because they will know that nowhere is safe for them and that, even when our country appears on the verge of collapse, we are still striking back in any way we can.’

‘What if Engel has already discovered the amber?’

‘That depends,’ replied Stalin. ‘If they decide to leave the panels where they are, your orders are to leave them untouched until such time as we can reclaim the ground we have lost. But if you discover that the Fascists have chosen to move those panels to some location of their own, in spite of the damage it might cause, in order to parade the Amber Room before the world as a symbol of our defeat, then I am ordering you to destroy it.’

‘But Comrade Stalin,’ he finally managed to say, ‘you just declared the Amber Room to be an irreplaceable State treasure. Now you are telling me to destroy it?’

‘We must be prepared to sacrifice everything,’ Stalin replied, ‘or else face oblivion. From now on, the only way we can survive is to hold nothing sacred. Besides, I’ll wager that your distaste for the Tsar’s garish displays of wealth is no less strongly felt today than it was when you were in his service. Wouldn’t you secretly welcome the chance to rid this world of such a monument to human excess?’

‘Human excess has many monuments, Comrade Stalin, the gulag at Borodok for one. But even if you were correct in my opinion of the Amber Room, exactly how do you expect me to destroy it?’ asked Pekkala.

‘When the time comes,’ Stalin replied, ‘you will be provided with the means.’

‘And Lieutenant Churikova? Does she know about this order?’

‘She will when you tell her. But you must move quickly, Pekkala. Rather than give this traitor another chance to strike at us again, I have decided to move up the start time for the operation.’

‘By how much?’ asked Pekkala. ‘I thought we still had three days to plan the mission.’

‘Your plane leaves in less than twelve hours.’

In the outer room, Poskrebychev leaned across his desk, his ear almost touching the dust-clogged mesh of the intercom speaker.

At Pekkala’s mention of the gulag at Borodok, which must have struck Stalin like a back hand across the face, Poskrebychev had held his breath, waiting for the eruption of Stalin’s volcanic rage. Poskrebychev had always been mystified by Pekkala, and had never made up his mind whether to respect the Emerald Eye for his suicidal forthrightness or to pity him for the price Poskrebychev felt certain that the Finn would some day have to pay for all his insolence.

But yet another moment passed in which Stalin’s anger failed to ignite, as Poskrebychev felt sure it would have done with anyone other than Pekkala. He wondered if the fairy tales he’d heard as a child, in which the Finns were always vanishing, or casting spells to change the weather, or communing with the spirits of the forest, might have some truth in them. Surely, thought Poskrebychev, Stalin must have been bewitched.

As he heard the door handle turn, Poskrebychev sat back in his chair and busied himself with paperwork.

Pekkala swept by, accompanied by the creak of his double-soled boots and the rustle of his heavy corduroy trousers.

The two men did not exchange words.

Only when Pekkala had gone by did Poskrebychev raise his head. Glancing at the broad shoulders of the Inspector, he wondered if the truth might be simpler than he’d thought. Perhaps what it boiled down to was the fact that Stalin needed Pekkala too much, and so endured a frankness which, Poskrebychev had no doubt, would have cost him his life if he had ever dared to speak those words himself.