Pekkala paused. ‘Then how do you know it is him?’
From his pocket, Malashenko brought out the soft-pointed bullet Vasko had given him and held it out towards Pekkala. ‘I found this.’
Pekkala examined the bullet. ‘The same kind that was used to kill Andrich and Yakushkin.’
‘But you must come now, Inspector,’ Malashenko said urgently, ‘before someone else stumbles across the body.’
‘For once,’ said Kirov, ‘I agree with Malashenko.’
‘You go instead, Kirov,’ ordered Pekkala. ‘Find Zolkin and his Jeep and get there as fast as you can. Malashenko, you will show them the way.’
‘Shouldn’t you come too?’ blurted Malashenko, afraid that Vasko’s plan had suddenly begun to unravel. ‘You are the Inspector, after all.’
‘You will find the major every bit as capable,’ Pekkala assured him. ‘I have to find Barabanschikov, before this victory celebration turns into another massacre.’
‘But, Inspector. .’ Malashenko’s lips twitched as he hunted for the words which might change Pekkala’s mind.
‘Come along!’ Taking Malashenko by the arm, Kirov made his way back towards the motor pool, where Zolkin was still rejoicing at the survival of his beloved Jeep.
As Malashenko allowed himself to be led away, the lustre of the gold was already fading from his mind, replaced now by the fear of what Vasko would do to him when Pekkala failed to arrive.
The two men piled into the back of Sergeant Zolkin’s Jeep. Following Malashenko’s instructions, they drove east out of Rovno for several kilometres, before turning off the main road and continuing over a muddy trail, passing stacks of mildewed logs, readied long ago for transport to the mill, but left to rot instead.
The condition of the road grew worse and worse until at last it disappeared altogether in a large deep puddle. With water seeping into the footwells, Zolkin knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the air intake flooded, cold water poured into the hot engine and the cylinder head cracked from the sudden change in temperature. Then they would not only be stranded but the Jeep would likely be beyond repair.
‘We’ve gone as far as we can go,’ he announced. ‘You’ll have to continue on foot,’ Carefully, he backed up until the Jeep was once again on dry ground.
Kirov and the partisan waded through the deep puddle, leaving Zolkin to guard the Jeep.
Malashenko glanced about warily, knowing that Vasko must be somewhere close by.
‘Why are you so nervous?’ Kirov asked him. ‘The man’s dead, after all.’
‘If you knew what else was in these woods,’ replied Malashenko, ‘you’d be plenty nervous, too, Commissar.’
After a few minutes of tramping along the muddy path, they arrived at the cabin, which was so well-hidden that Kirov might have walked right past if Malashenko hadn’t told him where it was.
‘The body is in there?’ asked Kirov, as they approached the door.
‘Yes,’ replied Malashenko, ‘and I hope you have got a strong stomach.’
Inside the cabin, they found the body still slumped in the chair, which was tilted back against the wall. The severed head lay on the floor beside it.
Kirov reached up to the ceiling and plucked a strand of wire which had become embedded in the wood. ‘It looks to me as if he was preparing an explosive device and it went off by mistake. But who was it for?’
Malashenko shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Kirov, turning his attention to the dog tag still fastened around the dead man’s neck by a braided piece of string. Kirov removed the tag, scraped away the blood and examined the dull zinc oval.
‘SS,’ muttered Kirov. Only now did he understand who had been behind the attack on Colonel Andrich. He also understood why. The result of an all-out war between the Red Army and the partisans would have been chaos, giving the German army ample opportunity to retake the territory they had lost in this region. Kirov wondered if the agent had known how close he had come to succeeding.
As he paced nervously around the cabin, Malashenko caught sight of a Walther P38 pistol lying underneath the iron legs of the stove. It had belonged to Luther Benjamin and had been thrown there by the explosion. One of its reddish-black Bakelite grips had been cracked in the blast, but it was otherwise in good condition.
For men like Malashenko, weapons of that quality were hard to come by. When the major’s back was turned, he picked up the gun and stuck it in his belt.
By now, Kirov had turned his attention to the severed head, hoping to recognise the man from that night in the bunker, but much of the soft tissue — the ears, mouth and nose — had been blackened or burned away entirely by the explosion. This, combined with the fact that the man had been wearing a bandage on his face when he came to the bunker, forced Kirov to reach the conclusion that there was no chance of making a positive identification.
‘We should go,’ said Malashenko, peering out of the broken window into the maze of trees which lay beyond the cabin.
‘What is wrong with you?’ demanded Kirov. ‘If you can’t stand the sight of what’s in here, then go and wait outside until I have finished my search.’
‘You’ve seen enough,’ said Malashenko. ‘Now can’t we just get out of here?’
‘I’ll only be a few more minutes,’ said Kirov, trying to calm him down. ‘You can wait outside.’
Leaving Kirov to rummage through the gore, Malashenko stepped out of the cabin. Maybe Vasko has already gone, he thought to himself. Later, he knew, he would be miserable about the gold but, for now, all he wanted was to leave this place.
Then a figure appeared from the shadows, almost lost among the dark pillars of the trees.
It was Vasko. He gestured for Malashenko to join him.
Warily, the partisan approached, until the two stood face to face.
‘Where is Pekkala?’ Vasko whispered angrily.
‘He stayed behind in Rovno!’ Malashenko hissed in reply. ‘He sent that commissar instead. I swear there was nothing I could do.’
‘That’s not what we agreed. You still want that gold, don’t you?’
‘But how on earth can I persuade him?’
‘I leave that to you, Malashenko. Reason with Pekkala. Beg him. Bring him at gunpoint if you have to, or I swear it will be you that I come looking for.’ With those words, he stepped back into the forest and disappeared.
In the cabin, Kirov had turned out the dead man’s pockets, in which he found a German infantry compass, a wood-handled pocket knife and a cigarette lighter engraved with the word ‘Zagreb’.
Malashenko came and stood in the doorway. He looked pale and sick. ‘Satisfied?’ he asked.
‘All right.’ Kirov took one last look at the blood-spattered walls. ‘Let’s get back to Rovno and tell Pekkala what we’ve found.’
‘Gladly,’ replied Malashenko.
With feet freezing in their sodden boots, the men returned to where Zolkin waited with the Jeep. Soon they were on their way to Rovno, jolting along over the potholed road.
*
After a short search, Pekkala caught up with Barabanschikov at the wreckage of the Jagdpanzer, where the partisan leader was supervising the removal of a machine gun from the driver’s compartment. Through the open hatch in the front hull, one partisan handed out gleaming brass belts of ammunition to another man, who gathered them like a dead snake in his arms and carried them away to Barabanschikov’s truck.
‘I see that you’ve wasted no time in gathering the spoils of battle,’ said Pekkala.
‘With any luck,’ replied Barabanschikov, ‘we won’t need them for much longer.’
‘The commander of the garrison would like to offer you his thanks.’
‘All I ask in return,’ replied Barabanschikov, slinging the belt over his shoulder, ‘is that we be allowed to get on with our lives. For that, you can tell him, every partisan in this region is prepared to lay down his arms.’