Five targets, eight rounds. Yagoda called out directions. Target four, left shoulder. Target one, base of the skull. Target three, heart. Target five, base of the skull…
Five precise hits, three close.
Yagoda announced luncheon, and the three NKVD officers ate and drank until sundown, when Yagoda ordered his driver to bring Arkady and Kostya back into Moscow. In the car, Arkady had murmured in Kostya’s ear. Well done, Little Tatar, well done.
How to explain that afternoon with Yagoda without incriminating Arkady?
Boris placed his tea on his desk. —I’m sure Yagoda hid his depravities well, Konstantin, but you did visit him, at his Butovo dacha?
Admit it. Confess. No doubt it’s all in that dossier. —I did. Myself, and Arkady Dmitrievich.
— Balakirev. He is so proud of you. So what did you think of the Tokarev? Many officers prefer it to the Nagant, eight rounds to seven, faster to load, lighter recoil, easier to shoot.
Only if you’re an ape who uses his fists before his mind. —The first weapon I ever held was a Nagant. I’ll stay with it.
— I prefer the Nagant, myself.
Kostya nodded. How many more tests?
Boris sipped his tea. —Tell me what you like about the Nagant.
— Well, it’s easy to clean. It fits well in my hand, the curving lines. The heavy trigger pull leaves no doubt, and the recoil feels like a kiss for a job well done. The Nagant looks like a weapon. The Tokarev looks like a deck of cards glued to a piece of pipe and painted black.
— I agree, with all my heart.
Dizzy, Kostya exhaled gently, telling himself not to hold his breath like that. Then why, he wanted to ask Boris, did you call me in here? Why mention Yagoda? Why threaten me with my past?
Why-why-why, Arkady had said, mocking him. Ever since you came back from Spain, you’ve acted the foolish pochemuchka, always asking questions.
Boris sighed, rubbed his temples. —In times of emergency, the work becomes so strenuous. I have a problem, Konstantin Arkadievich, and it might snarl your day.
— Please, tell me how I can help.
— I need a man who can shoot.
Yury Stepanov, early for his appointment with Boris Kuznets, meandered from Garage Number One to the basement shooting range. Boris expected a report on progress at Laboratory of Special Purpose Number Two, and Yury, thanks to the slack discipline of Dr. Efim Scherba, had little to say. Angry with Efim, and dreading Boris, Yury wished he could drink. Instead, he decided to shoot.
The racket of barrage pressed on his ears; other officers had the same idea. Sometimes gunfire interrupted an interrogation. When this happened, Boris liked to point out, the noise assisted.
So loud. It never seems so loud to me when I fire my gun.
Then again, Yury falsified his practice records.
The officer closest to Yury stood before a target, cap off, face stubbled, head bowed, grip on his lowered Nagant slack.
Him, like this?
As Kostya brushed something from his face, Yury took a few steps back, staying out of his line of sight. Kostya lifted his arms and took aim, the Nagant not an extension of his body but his body an extension of the Nagant. Four holes already tore the practice target, a figure of man, his back to the shooter: three holes in the skull, one near the heart.
Yury smirked. So tense, dear Kostya?
Kostya fired the remaining three rounds, and Yury winced at the speed. The target, tattered now where the head met the neck, fell apart.
Pale, Kostya strode to a little table holding a bowl of ammunition, a pencil, and a clipboard heavy with forms. He made a note, signed his name, reloaded, tucked the cardboard box of shells back together to keep it tidy, holstered his Nagant, and rubbed his left shoulder.
Yury shook his head. Good with the paperwork, Nikto. So good that you signed in my car for me. Thrown together again, are we?
In NKVD classes, Yury had struggled with grades, often a distant tenth or worse to top students Misha Minenkov and Kostya Nikto. Despite his assertions that they together made a perfect trio, Kostya and Misha would never drink or socialize with him. Misha would draw caricatures, clever and pointed, often cruel, of classmates and instructors and show them to Kostya, who’d then struggle to suppress a giggle. Several times Yury caught sight of some of these caricatures, caught sight by design, he now knew — himself, sketched in humiliating poses and captioned as Little Yurochka. After graduation, Yury found himself assigned to an undesirable rural outpost, hundreds of kilometres away from Moscow. It took him fifteen years and several backstabbings of colleagues to get back to the city, and he intended to stay. He’d not expected the unpleasant sight of Kostya Nikto already wearing a senior lieutenant’s insignia while Yury remained a sergeant. Even thinking of it now, Yury wanted to kick something. Everyone treated Kostya like an ascending angel, and life looked so easy for him. His languages, his memory, his shooting — how could one man have so many gifts?
Oddly, no one spoke of Misha Minenkov. Yury decided he should discover why.
Then he noticed Kostya staring at him. For a moment, just a shred of a moment, something new shone in Kostya’s big eyes. A plea. Help me.
Yury took another step back and collided with a wall.
Kostya blinked a few times, then rubbed his eyes and temples. When he lowered his hands, his eyes seemed alert, even feral. Normal, Yury thought.
Then Kostya noticed Yury and nodded to him as he strode for the stairs. —Stepanov.
— Nikto.
A charwoman, young and willowy, hair hidden beneath a scarf, retrieved the ruined practice target and hung up a new one. As she swept the floor, collecting the burnt scraps of paper into a hinged dustpan needing oil, scrapes and squeaks filled Yury’s ears. Irritated, he gave a little snort. The charwoman looked up then, noticed Yury’s stare, and flinched. He bowed in apology and sought the stairs that would guide him up out of the basement and to the office of Boris Kuznets.
Even angels fall, Comrade Senior Lieutenant Nikto.
Even angels fall.
Six storeys up, no fire escape, and no balcony.
Grateful for the fresh air, the slight twitch of the breeze, and the distant scent of a river, much like the Thames yet also very different, Temerity peered out the front room window. She noticed three other women in the facing blocks of flats also staring out windows or leaning on the rails of their balconies, regarding the world with anxious boredom. A thin voice called, reminding someone of work shifts and metro schedules. One by one, each woman turned away from her window or balcony and retreated inside.
Temerity switched her attention to the metro station, Vasilisa Prekrasnaya. She reached out her hand and pretended to touch it.
So close.
She turned away from the window walked to the kitchen. The floor creaked at every step of her bare feet.
Find the shoes.
Once more, she checked the locked door, the stenka, the bathroom, the kitchen, every cupboard, shelf, and drawer.
A well-stocked flat; a well-stocked prison.
She studied the knife she’d threatened Kostya with, snorted, put it back.
Efim had locked his bedroom door: no access there.
In Kostya’s bedroom, she wrenched open the stiff doors to the tiny closet, finding another pair of knee-high leather boots, lined for winter, and a pair of men’s black shoes. She stretched to reach the shelf, and she knocked a spare uniform cap and a furry winter hat to the floor. Her hand also brushed dust balls and what felt like a book, and she jumped, jumped again, got it: a 1936 Moscow telephone guide with the pragmatic if slightly intimidating title Directory for All Moscow. Telling herself the directory would be useful, Temerity placed it to one side and then examined the clothes hanging on the rod. Uniform pieces, light overcoat, a winter coat, each marked with insignia, two pairs of civilian trousers, and three white shirts. Far off to the left, in the shadows, hung a woollen winter coat, faded navy blue and too small for this Kostya Nikto, and one long black leather coat, too big.