At the edge of the trees, they came upon a man peering through a pair of large scissor-shaped artillery binoculars which had been set up on a tripod. Vines were woven around the legs to mask the tripod’s shape. The man wore a baggy pea-green smock camouflaged with brown splotches, like drops of vinegar in olive oil. Methodically, he scooped roasted sunflower seeds out of his trouser pocket and squeezed them into his mouth. Fragments of chewed shells littered the ground at his feet.
The sergeant tapped the camouflaged man on the arm. The two of them spoke for a moment. Then the man looked back at Pekkala and, with leather-gloved hands, waved him to approach. He had the look of a Frontovik — a man who had been fighting a long time. It was the eyes that gave away a Frontovik — never still, always glancing nervously from side to side. Over the years, Pekkala had encountered many such men, veterans of the Great War. Unable to settle back into civilian life, they had turned instead to crime. Too often, these men found themselves cornered in the back streets of Moscow and staring down the barrel of a Webley.
The Frontovik took off one leather glove and shook Pekkala’s hand. ‘Leontev,’ he said, ‘Captain. Glavpur.’
From far across the valley came the tearing sound of heavy machine guns and the hollow boom of tanks firing.
‘How close are we to the Catherine Palace?’ asked Pekkala.
Leontev gestured to the binoculars. ‘See for yourself.’
Pekkala set his brow against the greasy Bakelite eyepieces. What he saw startled him. There, in the distance, he could make out the rooftops of Tsarskoye Selo. At the edge of the Alexander Park, he spotted the White Tower and the Children’s Pavilion. Smoke was rising from behind the Pensioners’ Stable.
‘Are any Red Army troops still on the grounds of the estate?’ asked Pekkala.
‘None who are still breathing,’ replied Leontev. ‘The Germans’ main assault force has already moved on from there.’
‘Where are they headed?’
‘Straight for us,’ Leontev told Pekkala. ‘We are expecting an attack just after dark. The Fascists will move along the main road which cuts across this ridge. Once the attack has begun, we will take advantage of the confusion to get you through the lines.’
‘How?’
‘It has all been arranged,’ was all that Leontev would say, as he went back to peering through the binoculars.
A soldier wandered past, carrying a handful of nettles in a black handkerchief. He crouched by a smouldering fire. The cruciform bayonet of his Mosin-Nagant rifle balanced on two forked sticks. Suspended from the bayonet was a battered mess kit filled with boiling water. As the soldier sprinkled in the nettles, their serrated, pale green leaves folded away into steam.
The evening sky turned periwinkle blue as the landscape dissolved into shadows.
‘I can see them now,’ said Leontev.
Peering into the twilight, Pekkala glimpsed the lumbering hulks of tanks as they moved across the floor of the valley, squads of infantry fanned out behind them.
‘It’s time.’ Leontev tapped Pekkala on the arm and the two men made their way down through the trees towards the whitewashed house.
Churikova and Stefanov were already there, waiting in the trampled mud of the farmyard.
Setting the steel-shod toe of his boot against the door, Leontev shoved it open, leaving the dent of hobnails pock-marked on the paint.
The three of them followed him in.
Inside the house, Leontev took down a kerosene lantern from a nail by the door. After lighting it, he trimmed the wick. A warm glow spread around the sparsely furnished room, glancing off the blackened metal buttons of Stefanov’s tunic, each one of them emblazoned with a crossed hammer and sickle.
On the kitchen table, Leontev laid out a map of the Leningrad Sector.
At first, the tangle of roads and towns and thumb-print contours of the land confused Pekkala, but like a person whose eyes were growing used to the dark, familiar names slid into focus — Kolpino. Tosno. Vyrica. Volosov.
‘Here is our position,’ explained Leontev, edging his dirt-smeared thumb along a ridge which cut across the map. ‘Our mortars will fire upon the Fascists as they begin to climb the ridge. There is a small cart path to the north. It’s not on the map, so I don’t believe they are aware of it. If you follow that track, you should reach the Catherine Palace by morning. We will get you some clothes from those prisoners we picked up. Once you are beyond the lines, if anybody asks, you can tell them you’re heading back with the wounded.’
Stefanov thought of the injured Russians he’d seen streaming away from the front — on stretchers, on borrowed bicycles, slumped on the shoulders of their friends — any way they could move, towards dressing stations so crowded that they would have to wait hours before some doctor even looked at them. ‘Comrade Major,’ he pleaded, ‘I barely speak a word of German.’
‘Our intelligence reports that there are also Belgians, Danes, Dutch and Finnish volunteers among the advancing troops. Just pretend that you are one of them.’
‘But I don’t speak their languages either!’
‘Neither do most of the Germans,’ replied Leontev, ‘and do not stay one minute longer than you have to. As soon as you have your prisoner, get back as fast as you can. You will be soldiers returning to the front. No one will get in your way if you are heading towards the fighting. Once you have passed through our lines, dispose of your German uniforms as quickly as you can. Then find yourself some Russian clothes and notify Glavpur. .’
A series of muffled gunshots made them jump.
Leontev pushed back the sleeve of his camouflage smock and squinted at his watch. ‘As soon as the mortars open up, we will send you on your way. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Not for some time,’ replied Pekkala.
From the pocket of his coat, Leontev produced a handful of dark bread cakes known as sukhavi. He handed them around.
Working their jaws, Pekkala and the others ground the flinty biscuits into paste, leaving a taste like campfire smoke in their mouths.
There was a quiet knocking on the door. Two soldiers walked in, laden down with pieces of German uniform. Boots, belts, shirts. Even underclothes. Behind him came another man, laden with Mauser rifles and two Schmeisser sub-machine guns gathered from the battlefield. After depositing the clothes and the weapons in a heap upon the floor, the soldiers saluted and left.
Then Stefanov watched as three dead Germans were dragged through the open door by their arms into the muddy street. In the darkness, their stripped bodies looked obscenely white. The soldiers pulled the corpses across the street and out into a field of barley. The executed men, their faces branched with blood, vanished into the shifting grain.
By the time Kirov
By the time Kirov reached NKVD headquarters, he was drenched in sweat. He had run the whole way, having left behind the Emka at his office. Waving his pass book in the face of the guard at the entrance, he clattered down the stairs to the armoury and found Captain Lazarev in the middle of his lunch. Scattered among weapons parts, cleaning rods and loose rounds of ammunition lay a slice of raw potato, a piece of dried fish and a jar of sauce made from raisins and sour cream.
‘Ah!’ Lazarev held out his arms and waggled his fingers, like a child waiting to be picked up. ‘What have you brought me now?’
Kirov untied his handkerchief bundle and presented the gun fragment to Lazarev. ‘It was in a drain, just up the street from where the shooting took place.’
With a sweep of his arm, the Chief Armourer cleared a space on the cluttered counter top, jumbling bullets and dried fish into a heap. He fixed his gaze upon the revolver and wiped his sour-cream-smeared fingertips across the chest of his grimy shop coat. Slowly, he reached down, picked up the barrel and squinted at the tiny symbols etched in a circle across the back end of the cylinder.