The Red Coffin (30 page)

‘Fire,’ said Pekkala.

A stunning crash filled the air. Two bright red flashes spat from the side of the T-34’s turret, followed by a puff of smoke. When the smoke had cleared, Pekkala could see a patch of bare metal where the bullet had struck, obliterating half of the white number. He lowered the binoculars. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

It was Gorenko who replied. ‘The bullet struck at an angle and was deflected.’

Kirov still lay on the ground, his mouth open and eyes wide, stunned by the concussion of the gun. ‘I think I broke my jaw,’ he mumbled.

‘You hit it, anyway,’ replied Pekkala.

‘It doesn’t matter whether you hit it or not,’ said Gorenko. ‘The shot must be perfect in order to penetrate the hull. The armour at that point is seventy millimetres thick.’

‘Look, Professor,’ said Kirov, lifting another bullet from beside the gun. ‘What happens to one of those machines if it is fired on in battle?’

‘That depends,’ Gorenko replied matter-of-factly, ‘on what you’re shooting at it. Bullets just bounce off. They won’t leave any more of a dent than a fingerprint on a cold slab of butter. Even some artillery shells can’t get through. It makes a hell
of a noise, but that’s better than what happens if a shell gets through the hull.’

‘And what does happen if a shell gets through?’

Gorenko took the bullet from Kirov’s hand and tapped the end of it with his finger. ‘When this round hits a vehicle,’ he explained, ‘it is travelling at 1012 metres per second. If it gets inside, the bullet begins to bounce around.’ He turned the bullet slowly, so that it seemed to cartwheel first one way and then another. ‘It strikes a dozen times, a hundred, a thousand. Everyone inside will be torn to pieces, as thoroughly as if they had been cut apart with butcher knives. Or it will strike one of the cannon shells and the tank will explode from the inside out. Trust me, Inspector Kirov, you do not want to be in a tank when one of these comes crashing through the side. It shreds the metal of a hull compartment into something that looks like a giant bird’s nest.’

‘Try it again,’ said Pekkala.

Once more, Kirov fitted the gun stock against his shoulder. He slid back the breech, ejected the empty cartridge and placed a new round into the chamber.

‘This time,’ said Gorenko, ‘aim for the place where the turret joins the chassis of the tank.’

‘But that gap can’t be more than a couple of centimetres wide!’ said Pekkala.

‘We did not design this machine,’ said Gorenko, ‘so that what you are trying to do would be easy.’

Kirov nestled the side of his face against the cheek pad. He closed one eye, baring his teeth. His toes dug into the ground.

‘Whenever you’re ready,’ said Pekkala.

The words were not even out of his mouth when a bolt of flame shot out of the end of the gun. The air around them seemed to shudder.

When the smoke cleared from around the tank, another stripe of silver showed at the base of the turret.

Gorenko shook his head.

In the distance, the squat shape of the T-34 seemed to mock them.

‘It’s useless,’ muttered Pekkala. ‘We will have to think of something else.’

Kirov climbed to his feet and slapped the dirt off his chest. ‘Maybe it’s time we called in the Army. We’ve done everything we can do.’

‘Not everything,’ said Gorenko.

Both men turned to look at him.

‘Even Achilles had his heel,’ said the Professor, reaching into his pocket and pulling out another cartridge for the PTRD. But this one was not like the others. Instead of the dull metal of tungsten steel, the bullet gleamed like mercury. ‘This is a mixture of titanium tetrachloride and calcium,’ explained Gorenko. ‘It was invented by a man named William Kroll, only a few years ago, in Luxembourg. There is less than a kilo of the stuff in existence. Ushinsky and I obtained some for our experiments.’ He tossed the bullet to Kirov. ‘I have no idea what will happen. It has never been tested before.’

‘Load the gun,’ said Pekkala.

At the next shot, there was no red flash. Instead, a small, black spot appeared in the side of the turret. They heard a faint crackling sound, but that was all.

‘Nothing,’ muttered Kirov.

‘Wait,’ replied Gorenko.

A moment later, a strange bluish glow outlined the T-34. Then the turret of the tank rose into the air, hoisted on a pillar of flame. A wave of concussion spread out from the machine, flattening the grass. When the wall struck Pekkala, he felt as if he had been kicked in the chest.

The turret spun slowly in the air, as if it weighed nothing at all, then fell to earth with a crash that shook the ground beneath their feet. Thick black smoke billowed from the guts of the machine. Now more explosions sounded, some deep like thunder and others thin and snapping as the ammunition detonated in the blazing machine.

Kirov stood up and slapped Pekkala on the back. ‘Now you’ve got to admit it!’

‘Admit what?’ Pekkala asked suspiciously.

‘That I’m a good shot! A great shot!’

Pekkala made a quiet, grumbling noise.

Kirov turned to Gorenko, ready to congratulate him on the success of the titanium bullet.

But Gorenko’s face was grim. He stared at the wreckage of the T-34. ‘All this work bringing them to life,’ he murmured. ‘It’s hard to see them killed that way.’

The smiles faded from their faces, as they heard the sadness in the old professor’s voice.

‘How many more of those titanium bullets have you got?’ asked Pekkala.

‘One.’ Gorenko pulled the other bullet from his pocket and placed it in Pekkala’s open hand.

‘Can you make others?’ said Pekkala.

‘Impossible.’ Gorenko shook his head. ‘What you hold in your hand is all the titanium left in the country. If you miss with that, you will have to resort to something altogether more crude.’

‘You mean you have something else?’ asked Kirov.

‘It is a last resort,’ sighed Gorenko. ‘Nothing more.’ He disappeared back into the assembly building. A moment later, he reappeared carrying what looked like a wicker picnic basket. He set it down in front of the investigators and lifted the lid. Inside, separated by two wooden slats, were three wine bottles. The bottles had been sealed with pieces of cloth instead of corks. These hung down over the lip of each bottle and were held in place by black plumber’s tape wound several times around the glass.

Gorenko removed one of the bottles and held it up. ‘This is a mixture of paraffin, petrol, sugar, and tar. The cloth stopper on each bottle has been soaked in acetone and allowed to dry. To use this, you light the cloth, then throw the bottle at the tank. But your throw must be very precise. The bottle must land on the top of the engine grille compartment. There are vents on the grille, and the burning liquid will pour down on to the engine. It should set the engine on fire, but even if it doesn’t it will melt the rubber hoses connected to the radiator, the fuel injection, and the air intake. It will stop the tank …’

‘But only if I can get close enough to throw that bottle on to the engine,’ said Kirov.

‘Exactly,’ replied Gorenko.

‘For that, I practically have to be on top of the machine.’

‘I told you it was a last resort,’ said Gorenko, as he replaced the bottle in the wicker container.

Before they parted company, Gorenko pulled Pekkala aside.

‘Can you get a message to Ushinsky?’

‘Depending on how this mission goes,’ replied Pekkala, ‘that is a possibility.’

‘Tell him I’m sorry we argued,’ said Gorenko. ‘Tell him I wish he was here.’

They had been driving for twenty-four hours. Kirov and Pekkala worked in three-hour shifts as they travelled towards the Polish border. Maximov sat in the back, his hands cuffed tightly together.

It was Kirov who had insisted on the cuffs.

‘Are you sure that’s necessary?’ asked Pekkala.

‘It’s standard procedure,’ replied Kirov, ‘for the transportation of prisoners.’

‘I don’t blame him,’ said Maximov. ‘After all, I’m not helping you because I have decided that you’re right. The only reason I’m here is to save the life of Konstantin Nagorski.’

‘Whether I trust you or not,’ said Kirov, ‘is not the thing that’s going to change Kropotkin’s mind.’

It was spring now, a season which, at home in Moscow, Pekkala noticed only in the confined space of Kirov’s window boxes, or stuffed into tall galvanised buckets in the open-air market in Bolotnia Square or when the Yeliseyev store set out their annual display of tulips arranged in the shape of a hammer and sickle. But here, it was all around him, like a gently spinning whirlwind, painting the black sides of the Emka with luminous yellow-green dust.

They were fortunate to have missed the time known as the Rasputitsa, when snow melted and roads became rivers of mud. But there were still places where their route dis appeared into lakes, reappearing on the far bank and stubbornly unravelling across the countryside. Out in the middle of these ponds, tilting signposts seemed to point the way into a universe below the water’s edge.

The detours cost them hours, following paths which did not exist on their maps and even those which did exist sometimes ended inexplicably, while according to the map they carried on like arteries inside a human body.

On their way, they flew through villages whose white-picket-fenced gardens flickered past them as if in the projection of a film.

They stopped for fuel at government depots, where the oil-soaked ground was tinted with rainbows. Half-hidden behind heaps of rubber tyres left to rot beside the depot, the milky purple blossoms of hyacinth cascaded from the hedges. The scent of them mingled with the reek of spilled diesel.

Depots on the Moscow highway were a hundred kilometres apart. The only way fuel could be obtained from them was with government-issued coupons. To prevent these coupons from being sold on the Black Market, each one was made out to the individual to whom they were issued. At each depot, Kirov and Pekkala checked to see whether Kropotkin had cashed in any of his coupons. They turned up nothing.

‘What about depots off the highway?’ Pekkala asked one depot manager, a man with a fuzz of stubble on his cheeks like a coating of mould on stale bread.

‘There are none,’ replied the manager, removing his false teeth and polishing them on his handkerchief before replacing them in his mouth. ‘The only way to get fuel is from these depots or through the local commissariats, who issue it for use in farm machinery. If the driver of a heavy truck tried to requisition fuel from a commissariat, he would be turned down.’

Kirov held up the bundle of fuel coupons which the manager had given him to inspect. ‘Could any of these have come from the Black Market?’

The manager shook his head. ‘Either you have a pass book allowing you to requisition fuel for government use, as you do, or you have coupons, like everyone else. Now, if you have coupons, each one has to be matched up with the identity card and driving licence of the person requisitioning the fuel. I’ve been doing this job for fifteen years and, believe me, I know the difference between what’s real and what is fake.’

While the manager filled up their car, Pekkala opened the Emka’s boot and stared at the short-wave radio provided by Gorenko. It was the same type to be used in T-34s, enabling them to communicate with artillery and air support groups out of normal radio range at the front. If the mission was successful, they could use it to transmit a message to an emergency channel monitored by the Kremlin before the forty-eight-hour deadline was up. Otherwise, as Stalin had promised, thousands of motorised troops would be dispatched to the Polish border.

Beside this radio lay the ungainly shape of the PTRD. The more Pekkala stared at it, the less it looked to him like a weapon and more like a crutch for some lame giant. He kept
the titanium bullet in the pocket of his waistcoat, fastened shut with a black safety pin.

‘Leave it,’ said Kirov, closing the lid of the boot. ‘It will be there when we need it.’

‘But will it be enough?’ asked Pekkala. The thought that they might already be too late to prevent Kropotkin from driving the tank into Poland echoed through Pekkala’s mind.

At some point in their eighteenth hour on the road, Kirov fell asleep at the wheel. The Emka slid off the highway and ended up in a field planted with sunflowers. Fortunately, there was no ditch, or the Emka would have been wrecked.

By the time the car had stopped moving, its side and windshield were coated with a spray of mud and the tiny pale green tongues of baby sunflower leaves. Without a word, Kirov got out of the car, went around to the back door and opened it. ‘Get out,’ he said to Maximov.

Maximov did as he was told.

Kirov unlocked the cuffs. Then he held out his hand towards the empty driver’s seat.

With Maximov at the wheel and the two investigators pushing with their shoulders against the rear cowlings, they eased the Emka out of the mud and back on to the road.

High above them, vultures circled lazily on rising waves of heat. All around was the smell of this landlocked world, its dryness and its dustiness sifting through their blood, as spiced as nutmeg powder.

From then on, they drove in shifts of two hours each. By the time they arrived at the Rusalka, all three of them had reached the point of exhaustion where they could not have slept even if they’d wanted to.

On the map, the forest resembled a jagged shard of green glass, hemmed in by white expanses indicating cultivated fields. It straddled the Soviet and Polish border, marked only by a wavy dotted line.

The Rusalka lay approximately 200 kilometres due east of Warsaw. Only a handful of villages existed on the Russian end of the forest, but there were, according to Pekkala’s map, several on the Polish side.

Pekkala had studied it so many times that by now the shape of it was branded on his mind. It was as if by knowing its outline he might be better prepared for whatever lay inside its boundaries.