Komarov ran a hand through his hair. He would have preferred voluntary cooperation. “Does it not concern you, Comrade Piatakova, that your husband is doing his best to create difficulties for our party?”
“Of course it does,” she said coldly. “But I am not his keeper. The Zhenotdel,” she added caustically, “is not an organization for keeping husbands to the party line.”
“The Zhenotdel,” he said quietly, “is doing a great deal of work in Turkestan. Oh yes,” he said, acknowledging her look of surprise, “we do notice the odd development here and there whenever we have time off from persecuting poets. For example, at your conference two weeks ago, several women from Turkestan walked onto the platform and tore off their veils for the audience. There was an argument on your executive committee as to whether this constituted genuine agitprop or was merely a cheap theatrical gesture. You supported the former proposition. There is also much anxiety at the moment as to whether Kollontai’s involvement with the Workers’ Opposition is damaging the Zhenotdel.”
“And is it?” she asked. “Damaging—”
“Of course it is. Even in our party most people find it difficult to separate the cause and the person.”
“Are you trying to frighten me, comrade?” she asked.
“No, I am not. I am trying to show you that the Chekas are not full of fools who have nothing better to do than find ways of wasting your time. This is an important matter, comrade. If your presence were not necessary, I would not be here.” And how true was that? he wondered, even as he said it.
She looked far from mollified. “If I accept that—and I suppose I must—what you’ve just told me about the problems the Zhenotdel faces makes it all the more crucial that I remain in Moscow.”
Komarov was beginning to wish he’d sent Maslov to collect her. “Perhaps,” he said, “but this is not a request. Like any member of the party, you are subject to party discipline. I understand your reluctance, and I sympathize with your position, but you must come with us. And if for any reason this business keeps us away for more than a couple of weeks, there must be Zhenotdel work to do in Turkestan.”
She gave him a furious look and slowly shook her head, but offered no further protest. She would, he thought, be angry for quite some time.
Komarov had been back in his office for a few minutes when Sasha appeared in the doorway, a bemused expression on his face.
“Tashkent knows nothing of an interpreter named Nikolai Davydov. Or of any local party member with that name. The only Davydov in their records is a retired soldier who grows fruit just outside the city. He’s almost sixty and has no children.”
Komarov nodded. “Don’t mention this to anyone else.”
“No, comrade.” Sasha turned to leave, but his curiosity wouldn’t let him. “So who is the Davydov here in Moscow?”
“A good question.”
“You’re not going to have him arrested?”
“Not for the moment. I think he’ll be more useful free.”
Once Komarov had left, Caitlin sat there fuming for several minutes, then went to tell Fanya what had happened.
“We guessed,” her friend said. “We couldn’t hear everything he said, but we didn’t really need to. Are you going to ask Kollontai to use her influence?”
“I’m not sure she has that much at the moment,” Caitlin said. “And what she has she should probably save for a better cause.” She gave Fanya a rueful smile. “I always wanted to see Turkestan, and now it seems I shall.”
“As part of a Cheka hunting party,” Fanya noted.
“I know, but that was the reason I stopped arguing with him. If they do catch Sergei, I might be able to help him if I’m there. Not that he’ll thank me.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Whenever the Cheka and the railways decide. Which could be an hour from now, so I’d better go home and pack some clothes.”
McColl was dozing on his bed when the thunderous knock on the door woke him with a heart-sinking start. Fearing the worst, he opened the door and had his fears confirmed. Two hard-faced young Chekists pushed him back into the room, their pistols gleaming in polished holsters. It was the imperial throne room all over again, only this time it was him they had come for.
“Get your things,” one Chekist said curtly. “You’re coming with us,” he added superfluously.
One glance told McColl that questions, let alone protests, would fall on the deafest of ears. But as he obeyed their single instruction, he also found hope in the thought that captured spies were probably not invited to pack for a future.
All he had with him were a change of clothes and a couple of books, and once these were in the suitcase, the Chekists hustled him downstairs and out. The looks he received from fellow guests—sympathetic and sternly judgmental in almost equal parts—were hardly reassuring.
A car was waiting at the hotel entrance, a young and unfamiliar driver behind the wheel, an unsmiling Maslov sitting beside him. The two Chekists who’d collected him from his room loaded McColl into the rear seat and smartly stepped back. They obviously knew the driver, whose breakneck departure took no account of the lake created by that morning’s torrential rain and succeeded in drenching several less prescient passersby. Curses fading in its wake, the Russo-Balt headed up Tverskaya Street.
“Where are we going?” McColl asked, trying to sound like a man among comrades.
“You’ve been reassigned,” Maslov told him. “The deputy chairman has urgent business in Tashkent, and he’s asked for you as his interpreter.”
“Asked” was probably not the right word, McColl thought, but he still felt a whole lot better than he had five minutes earlier. Tashkent might prove a problem, but there was no obvious reason for Komarov to check his bona fides when they got there, and he knew the city well enough from the months he’d spent there on Secret Service business in the summer and autumn of 1916. “What about the Indian delegation?” he asked Maslov, thinking a query would be expected.
Maslov didn’t bother to answer.
McColl leaned back in the seat and let his body relax. It had turned into yet another beautiful day. The golden cupolas hung like decorations in the clear blue sky; the pastel buildings were brightly reflected in the puddles that had gathered in the hollows of unrepaired pavements and streets. The long line of tree stumps down the center of the boulevard reminded McColl of how lovely the city had been before the usual sources of fuel ran out.
On Kamergersky Street a crowd spilling out of an old church caused the Cheka driver to snort with derision and mumble something insulting. Most of the worshippers stopped on the steps as the car drove by; like a cat on a wall watching a dog pass below, they were not so much anxious as ready to be so.
“Mother wants to know how long you’ll be gone,” the driver said, revealing himself as Maslov’s brother.
“Tell her I’ve no idea,” Maslov said.
“You don’t sound very keen on this trip.”
Maslov grunted. “I don’t even know why we’re going. As far as I can see, it’s a job for our men in Tashkent.”
“It’s just you and Komarov going?”
“And our interpreter here. And the wife.”
“Komarov’s?”
Maslov laughed. “No, Piatakov’s. The American woman who works for the Zhenotdel. She knows Brady too.”
In the back seat, McColl’s heart skipped several beats.
“Why are you taking her along?” the brother asked.
“Who knows? I sometimes think Komarov fancies her.”
“A looker, is she?”
“I suppose so. I don’t imagine she’d be much fun.”