Snow Wolf (57 page)

One moment it seemed she was being choked
by the KGB man and the next she was here. But everything in between was a blur.
Where was Stanski?

Was he dead? Alive? In another cell?

The anxiety consumed her. She remembered
the scream beyond the cell door. Had she been dreaming or had the scream been
real? Perhaps it was Stanski? She felt totally confused and helpless, a
terrible fear gnawing in her stomach which made her feel ill.

Her left shoulder was stiff and her mouth
felt dry and her body weak. She looked at her shoulder.

A dressing had been applied, the bandage
so tightly wrapped that it cut painfully into her flesh. She tried to move her
arm and felt a sharp pain stab through her shoulder to the base of her back.

She cried out in agony.

She guessed her shoulder had been
dislocated when the KGB major threw himself on top of her in the forest. She
remembered the sharp pain when he landed, as if a bone had broken. Then she noticed
a small red welt in the soft flesh of her arm where a hypodermic had punctured
skin. They had put her to sleep.

As she went to drag her legs over the
edge of the bed and sit up she heard the scream again, followed by a tortured
cry that rang through the corridor outside.

She shuddered, and the pain stabbed
through her again.

Where was she? What was happening? Who
was screaming?

She heard the clatter of boots outside, a
key being inserted in the lock, then the metal door creaked open on its hinges.

Two men in black KGB uniforms stood
there. They crossed to the bed and gripped her roughly by the arms, jerked her
up. The pain shot through her shoulder in agonizing waves.

As they dragged her from the cell she
blacked out.

When she opened her eyes she was sitting
on a chair in a room with black steel bars on the windows.

The room was bare and functional. Green
walls and a wooden table and two chairs facing each other. The table was
fastened to the floor with steel brackets. The metal door in the far wall had a
small grille and a tiny peephole.

She felt sick with fear and she could
still feel the waves of pain in her shoulder.

Watery sunlight flooded in through the
window. Beyond the glass she heard the sound of engines starting up and moving
off, gears crunching, and far off the faint hum of traffic.

She pushed herself painfully from the
chair and went to the window.

There was a large cobbled courtyard
below. She counted seven floors on the opposite side of the building, and there
were bars on all the windows. A dozen or more trucks and cars were parked in
one corner of the courtyard, and a half-dozen motorcycles were sheltered in a
corrugated shed. Men crossed the courtyard busily, some in civilian clothes and
carrying reams of papers, others in black KGB uniforms.

Her heart sank. As she turned away from
the window the door opened suddenly.

The KGB man stood there. He wore his black
uniform with major's shoulder boards and carried a manila file under his arm,
but there was something different about his false hand this time. In place of
the leather glove was a metal hook. He locked the door with a key from a chain
in his pocket and put the folder on the table.

"How are you feeling?"

The voice was soft, inquiring, and when
she didn't reply Lukin removed a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from his
tunic pocket and placed them on the table. He pulled up the chair opposite and
sat.

"Please, sit down. Cigarette?"

Again Anna didn't reply and Lukin lit a
cigarette and glanced at her shoulder. "My fault, I'm afraid. You've got a
nasty dislocation a physician had to reset. Nothing's broken but it's going to
take a couple of days before the pain goes away." He smiled faintly and
tapped his own arm. "Quite a pair of walking wounded, aren't we,
Anna?"

Now that she saw him close up the man
looked exhausted. There were swollen dark rings under his eyes, the strain and
tiredness making him look older.

"Sit down, please."

She sat facing him.

"Even though we've met before
perhaps I should introduce myself formally. My name is Major Yuri Lukin. I'm
sorry you were hurt. I had hoped it wouldn't come to that. Can I get you
something? Tea? Coffee?

Water? Some food?"

"I'm not hungry, or thirsty."

"That's impossible. You haven't
eaten or drunk anything in almost twelve hours. If you think by accepting my
offer it would seem like a sign of weakness, you're being foolish, I assure
you." When she didn't reply, Lukin said, "As you wish."

There was another scream from somewhere
far away, the sound of a dull crack, as if a human skull was being struck
against a wall. Lukin's eyes flicked to the door, a look of distaste on his
face. He sighed and stood up. "I know what you're feeling, Anna. Fear.
Anxiety. Confusion." He glanced at her shoulder, then back at her face.
"Pain is the easist and least part of it. Do you know where you are?
Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow. You passed out when I made you cough up this."

Lukin took the cyanide pill from his
breast pocket and held it up. "I managed to stop you crushing it just in
time."

She looked at the pill, then turned her
face away. "How long have I been here?"

"You were brought in late last
night, by military transporter. I'm afraid it's not the most pleasant of
places, with a deservedly bad reputation." He paused, and said without
humor, "Some call it the First Circle of Hell, and perhaps they're
right."

He dropped his cigarette on the floor and
crushed it with his shoe, then opened the file on the table and flicked through
the pages.

"I've been studying your file.
You've had quite a life, Anna Khorev. A lot of pain. A lot of grief. So many
tragedies. Your parents' deaths. Your husband's trial." He paused.
"Not to mention everything that happened afterwards. And now this."

Anna looked at Lukin in amazement and
said suddenly, "How ... how do you know who I am?"

"We've known you were involved in
this for a long time. Even before you landed on Soviet soil. You and Stanski
both."

Anna started to speak, but she felt so
shocked the words wouldn't come.

Lukin said, "Anna, if you help me by
telling me everything you know, it will be easier on both of us."

She looked at him steadily. "I have
nothing to tell you."

"Anna, there are people here who
could make you talk. People who would take pleasure in hurting you. Take
pleasure in hearing your screams. Raping you. Torturing you. I am not one of
those people. But I've seen their work and it's not pleasant. And if you don't
talk to me, they will make you talk, please believe that." Anna didn't
reply. Lukin said, "I know Stanski came to kill Stalin."

She looked up at Lukin suddenly, her face
deathly white. Lukin continued to look at her. "I believe you were simply
used by the Americans to help him get to Moscow, to pretend to be his wife and
hence avoid arousing suspicion. But Stanski's mission has already failed. Last
night he escaped, but he can't have gone far. And most certainly one of our
patrols will hunt him down and find him. In the meantime, you may as well help
me by telling me all you know. Who your contacts were when you landed in
Estonia. Who were meant to be your contacts in Moscow and en route. I want to
know how you were trained and by whom. And everything you can tell me of Stanski's
plan to kill Stalin. Help me answer those questions and I will do my best to
help you in return."

For a long time she stared at Lukin, the
enormity of what he had said still ringing in her ears. "I know Stanski
came to kill Stalin." Lukin said, "I can help you by pleading for
mercy when your case comes to trial."

There was a look of resignation on her face
and she didn't reply.

He said quietly, "Anna, you're
either being very brave or very obstinate, but I have a job to do. To find Alex
Stanski dead or alive and arrest whoever else is involved in this
mission."

He picked up the folder and put it under
his arm. "I'm going to give you a little time to reconsider. For your sake
I hope you will talk to me, rather than the others. I really don't want to see
you hurt any more than you have been."

He picked up the cigarettes and lighter
from the table. As he stood there a moment Anna looked up at him. There was
something in the soft brown eyes which seemed to suggest compassion, the way he
looked at her and called her by her first name, but she dismissed the thought
from her mind.

He crossed the room and unlocked the
door. As she went to step out, he looked back at her.

"I'll have some food and water sent
to you. We've a lot to talk about and you'll need to keep up your
strength." He paused. "May I ask you a personal question, Anna?"

"What?"

"Are you in love with Stanski?"

She didn't answer.

Lukin stared at her for a moment, then
the door clanged shut.

Only when she heard his footsteps fade
beyond the door did she bury her face in her hands.

There was a message on the desk to call
Beria's Kremlin office rgently. Lukin ignored the message and pushed it aside.

He had sent a report that morning. No
doubt Beria would have some sharp comments on how he had allowed the Wolf to
escape, but right now he felt too exhausted to worry about it.

The pain in his stump came and went in
short, savage bursts. He looked at his hand; the primitive metal hook would
have to do for now. He picked up the telephone and dialed the operations room.
Pasha Kokunko answered.

"How did the interrogation go?"
The Mongolian sounded tired. He had been up all night manning the telephones
and communications equipment in the operations room.

"Not too good. Can you come over
here, Pasha?"

"I'm on my way."

Lukin put the receiver down. He rubbed
his eyes and felt the tiredness take hold, flooding his body. The woman had
been unconscious in the military transporter to Moscow, despite the llyushin
aircraft's buffeting in bad weather, out cold from the sedative she had been
given. But he had slept for less than ten hours in almost three days. He felt
exhausted, the words in the file a blur now. There was a cup of steaming coffee
on the desk and he picked it up, sipped and swallowed.

The woman's capture had been a small
victory, but really the whole business had been a defeat. The Wolf had escaped.
And Lukin didn't like the look he had seen on her face when he questioned her.
He knew from experience the kind who talked under interrogation and she wasn't
one of them. There was a firm resignation in her face that was almost a death
wish.

She was afraid, of course, but everyone
imprisoned in the Lubyanka was afraid. He sensed that if he tried to cajole her
into talking it wouldn't work. He decided the best approach with a woman like
her was honesty. There was another way that might make her talk and he
shuddered thinking about it.

But he had to find the Wolf.

Where was he? Out there somewhere. But
where? An order had gone out to army, militia, and KGB commanders within a
two-hundred-kilometer radius of the forest to mount patrols and checkpoints in
case he had evaded the dragnet. But so far nothing had turned up, despite a
search lasting through the night. If the Wolf had escaped and was headed toward
Moscow, it made Lukin's job more difficult. There were so many places a man
could hide in a densely populated city.

As he sat there, he again thought about
the two missing pagi in the Wolf's file. Why had Beria not allowed him to see
then What was in there that could be so secret? Something occurred to him. It
was well known in Dzerzhinsky Square that He secretly despised Stalin, and
ultimately wanted to succeed hit If the Wolf achieved his goal, that might play
into Beria's hands. Perhaps he really wanted to impede Lukin's efforts? there
was some clue in the missing pages which might be Lukin, then it was a
dangerous game he was caught up in. The simplest way was to ask Beria for the
pages and see what happened, but even that might be courting trouble.

The door opened and Pasha entered. His
uniform was crumpled and his eyes bloodshot.

Lukin said, "You look like you've
been sleeping in a ditch.

Pasha rubbed his neck and grinned.
"No, just one of those bunks divisional stores stuck us with-a ditch would
probably be more comfortable."

"Any more word from the patrols and
checkpoints?"

"They still haven't found him. But
something has to turn up soon-he can't have vanished off the face of the earth.
So the woman didn't talk?"

"Not yet. I want you to arrange
something for me." He wrote a phone number on a slip of paper, handed it
across, at explained to Pasha what he wanted him to do. Pasha looked unhappy.
"You're sure about this, Yuri?"

"I'm afraid so. Beria wants to see
me, and he's going to want results fast."