Читать книгу The Yermakov Transfer - Derek Lambert, Derek Lambert - Страница 10

CHAPTER 2

The first stop was Yaroslovl. Trans-Siberian No. 2 pulled in sharp at 14.02 Moscow time. But it wasn’t until Sharia, which they reached on time at 20.22, that the first Zionist agent boarded the train.

He was a stocky man with a white face and a scar beside his mouth. He wore a black overcoat, fur boots and a sealskin hat.

He stood near a stall where blunt-faced women wearing blue scarves round their hair sold food from a canvas-covered pushcart. Meat pastries, fried chicken and fish, icecream and beer.

As the train slid into the station the agent whose name was Semenov clapped his gloved hands together. Cold or nerves or both.

The Trans-Siberian hadn’t yet reached the snow. But the air was sharp with frost glittering on the platform. It was almost dark.

In the lighted window of the special coach he saw Yermakov’s face. The glass had misted-up so that the outlines were blurred; it reminded Semenov of a face masked with a stocking.

Framed in a window of coach 1251, Semenov saw the face of Viktor Pavlov. He shivered inside his warm overcoat and took a white handkerchief from his pocket. Pavlov’s face faded.

Before the train stopped K.G.B. officers dropped off like commuters late for work. They lined up the waiting passengers and began to check their papers. Local militia who had already done the job protested but they were pushed aside; it reminded Semenov of the airport scene at the time of the abortive skyjack when Moscow and Leningrad security officers fought each other.

Semenov was fourth in line. He handed his papers to a brusque K.G.B. man. The K.G.B. officer glanced at them, smiled slightly and said softly: “Welcome aboard, Comrade.”

Semenov the Policeman, a member of the K.G.B. with the best cover of all the Zealots, nodded and climbed into a carriage. The cover also enabled him to carry a gun.

* * *

Standing beside Pavlov in the corridor, was Stanley Wagstaff, the trainspotter from Manchester. His mind was a filing cabinet of railway statistics and trains were his substitute for the hungers that affected other men; if his wife ever wanted to divorce him she would have to cite a locomotive.

For twenty years Stanley Wagstaff had saved for this trip. He knew the Trans-Siberian’s history, every station, every class of locomotive.

He pointed into the gathering darkness and said to Pavlov: “See those over there?”

Pavlov looked, dimly seeing the silhouettes of old black steam engines with coal cars; they looked like a herd of elephants shouldered close to each other.

“There’s fifty of them,” Stanley Wagstaff informed him. “Sad, isn’t it? A graveyard.”

“Very,” said Pavlov. He saw Semenov signal with the handkerchief and leaned back against the wall.

“Did you know,” Stanley asked, “that Russia has the widest gauge in the world?”

Pavlov shook his head; Stanley thought he detected a man eager to have his ignorance repaired.

“Yes,” Stanley continued, his voice assuming authority and importance, “it’s five feet unlike the standard gauge of 4 ft. 8½ inches used in Europe and America. Whistler – you know, the painter’s father – recommended it. A lot of people reckoned they had a bigger gauge to stop trains being used by invading armies.” He paused, waiting for reaction; but there was none. “In fact it worked the other way. It’s much easier for an enemy to re-lay one line on a broad gauge than it is for the Russians to widen an enemy gauge. They found that out when they attacked the Poles in the Civil War.”

The train began to move out of the station. Stanley spotted a stationary engine, whipped out his notebook and recorded its number, JI 4526. “An old L class freight locomotive,” he said. “I wonder what it’s doing here.”

The stranger didn’t seem to care. He was staring out of the window at the dark countryside moving by. A strong, dark man filled with some inner intensity. But not for trains. Stanley Wagstaff persevered a little longer.

“Next stop Svecha,” he informed the stranger. “We arrive at 22.14 and leave at 22.30.” His earnest face broke into a grin and he said in his North Country voice: “And I bet it’ll be on time with his nibs back there.”

“Who?”

“His nibs. The bloke from the Kremlin.”

“Ah,” the stranger said. “Yes, we’ll be on time all right.” He spoke good English with a slight accent.

“Perhaps,” Stanley Wagstaff suggested, “you’d care to join me in the restaurant car? I could tell you quite a lot of history about the Trans-Siberian.”

The stranger shook his head. “Some other time.” He squeezed past Stanley. “This could be quite an historic trip,” he said, tapping Stanley’s notebook. “Keep that handy.” He opened the door of his compartment and went in.

Stanley sighed. The alternatives were the American journalist who didn’t look a likely candidate for swapping railway stories, the English girl – women were usually frigid on the subject of trains, regarding them almost as rivals – and the Intourist woman with whom he had already crossed swords.

Stanley had been telling the three of them how much the Trans-Siberian owed to the Americans and British. He had started with the American railroad engineer Whistler, then progressed to Perry McDonough Collins, from New York, the first foreigner to propose a steam railway across Siberia. “He arrived with red pepper in his socks to keep out the cold and changed horses 210 times crossing Siberia. He offered to raise 20,000,000 dollars by subscription but the Russians turned it down.”

The Intourist girl said: “Soon the lights will be going off. We must prepare for bed.”

Stanley then recalled Prince Khilkov, Minister of Communications, during the construction of the line. “Did you know he was called The American because he learned all his stuff in Philadelphia?”

The Intourist girl stood up. “Perhaps the Americans have a lot to thank the Soviet people for.”

Harry Bridges said from his top bunk: “They have – they bought Alaska from Russia for one cent an acre.”

The Intourist girl said: “Tomorrow we reach Sverdlovsk where a Soviet ground-to-air missile shot down the American U-2 spy plane piloted by Gary Powers.”

“We get there at 14.00 hours,” Stanley Wagstaff chipped in. “Named after Jacob Sverdlov who arranged the execution of Nicholas II and his family on July 17, 1918. In those days it was called Ekaterinburg.…”

“Mr. Wagstaff,” said the girl, “it is my job to explain the route.…”

“Then you’re lucky I’m in your compartment,” Stanley said. “I can help you quite a bit.” He consulted a pamphlet. “We leave Sverdlovsk at 14.18. It’s 1,818 kilometres from Moscow,” he added.

“It’s time to get undressed,” the girl said.

It was the moment Libby Chandler had been anticipating with some trepidation. Liberated as she was, she wasn’t happy about undressing in front of three strangers; but, oddly, it was the thought of the Russian girl that worried her more than the men.

Bridges said: “Okay, Stanley and I will wait in the corridor while you girls get changed.”

Libby Chandler took out her pyjamas. The Russian girl was already stripped down to her brassiere and panties. Her body was on the thick side, but voluptuous. Libby thought she might put on a nightdress and remove her underwear beneath it. She didn’t. She unhooked the brassiere revealing big firm breasts; then the panties came off showing a thatch of black pubic hair.

She glanced down at Libby and smiled. “Hurry up,” she said, “or the men will be back while you’re undressed.” She seemed completely unconcerned about her nakedness. She stood there for a few moments and Libby smelled her cologne – all Russian cologne smelled the same.

“Perhaps,” Libby Chandler said, “there would be more room if you got into bed first.”

The girl shrugged. “As you wish.” She pulled on a pink cotton nightdress, climbed into her bunk and lay watching Libby as she manoeuvred herself into her pyjamas feeling as if she were undressing in the convent where she had been educated, where one’s anatomy was not supposed to be visible to anyone – even God.

* * *

When Viktor Pavlov entered his compartment after meeting Stanley Wagstaff in the corridor he found that the breezy stranger, Yosif Gavralin, who had arrived last had occupied his berth. He looked up as Pavlov came in and said: “Hope you don’t mind. It was difficult climbing up there.” He slapped his thigh under the bedclothes. “A hunting accident.” Pavlov who knew there was nothing he could do said he didn’t mind, but during the night he dreamed a knife was coming through the mattress, sliding between spine and shoulder blade.

* * *

By 22.00 hours on the first day, the two K.G.B. officers had searched the next three cars to the special coach attached to the end of the train. They had re-examined the papers of every passenger and attendant, they had removed and replaced panelling, checked luggage and taken two Russians into custody in a compartment like a cell guarded by armed militia. The Russians had committed no real crime; but there were slight irregularities in their papers and the police couldn’t afford to take chances; they would be put off the train at Kirov.

They started on the fourth coach. They took their time, apologising for getting passengers out of their beds, knowing that this was the best time to interrogate and search. They were very thorough and, although they were in civilian clothes, they looked as if they were in uniform – charcoal grey suits with shoulders filled with muscle, light grey ties almost transparent and wide trousers which had become fashionable in the West. One had a schoolboyish face, the other was shorter with slightly Mongolian features.

“Quite trendy,” said a young Englishman on his way to Hong Kong, pointing at their trousers.

“Your papers, please,” said the officer with the schoolboy features. He stared at the young man’s passport photograph. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me. Who do you think it is? Mark Phillips?”

The other policeman examined the photograph. “It doesn’t look like you.”

Fear edged the young man’s voice. All he had ever read and ridiculed was coming true. “I’ve got my driving licence,” he said. He looked suddenly frail in his Kings Road nightshirt, his long hair falling across his eyes.

The first officer said: “We’re on a train not in a car. When did you have this photograph taken?”

“When I left school.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Two years.”

The one with the Mongolian face stared hard at the photograph. Finally he said: “You weren’t quite so trendy – is that the word? – in those days.” He handed the passport back to the young man.

Outside in the corridor the two officers smiled at each other.

Before they entered the next compartment they were overtaken by Colonel Yury Razin who was in charge of the whole security operation. He was a big man, a benevolent family man, a professional survivor who had once been close to Beria and retained his rank even after Stalin and his stooges had been discredited; to maintain his survival record he allowed none of his paternal benevolence to affect his work.

The two junior officers stopped smiling and straightened up. One of them made a small salute.

The colonel was holding the list of names marked with red crosses. “Any luck?”

“Two doubtfuls,” said the shorter of the two. “We wouldn’t have bothered with them normally. Minor irregularities in their papers.”

Colonel Razin nodded. He had soft brown eyes, a big head and a blue chin which he shaved often. During the Stalin era he had been involved in fabricating charges against nine physicians – the infamous “Doctors’ Plot” exposed in Pravda on January 13, 1953. Six of the accused were Jews and they were charged with conspiring not only with American and British agents but with “Zionist spies”. One month after Stalin’s death Moscow Radio announced that the charges against the doctors were false. Colonel Razin, the survivor, who didn’t see himself as anti-Semitic – merely an obedient policeman – helped indict those who had fabricated the plot.

He rubbed the cleft in his chin, which was difficult to shave, and prodded the list. “Leave the next compartment to me.”

The two officers nodded. They didn’t expect an explanation, but they got one.

The colonel said: “This man Pavlov. I know him. He’s given information against Jewish agitators in the past. A brilliant mathematician. Married to Anna Petrovna, heroine of the Soviet Union. Odd to find him on the train today?”

The two officers looked at each other. Finally one of them asked: “Why’s that, sir?”

The other said respectfully: “He’s got authorisation from the very top – from Comrade Baranov – and a letter from the State Committee of Ministers for Science and Technology.”

Razin silenced them. “I know all that. And he’s going to meet his wife in Khabarovsk.” He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “He and I are old friends. I’ll talk to him.” He blew out a lot of smoke. “But it’s odd just the same.” He didn’t enlighten them any more.

He opened the door and switched on the light.

Pavlov wasn’t surprised to see him: he wouldn’t have been surprised to see anyone. He shaded his eyes and said: “Good evening, Comrade Razin.”

“Good evening,” Razin said. “A pleasant surprise.”

“Pleasant,” Pavlov said. “But surely no surprise?”

The Tartar general glared down from the top bunk. “What now? What the hell’s going on?”

Razin said: “You must excuse me, General. I am only doing my duty. We have a very important guest on board.”

The general’s wife stuck her head out from beneath her husband’s berth. Her hair was in curlers and there was cream on her face. Her chest looked formidable. She said: “You’re surely not suggesting …”

Colonel Razin held up his hand. “I wouldn’t dream of suggesting anything. You and your husband are well known to us. But there are others in the compartment.”

The general and his wife stared at the breezy stranger and Pavlov knew that a small charade was about to be acted.

Colonel Razin said: “Can I see your papers, please?”

The stranger sighed and reached for his wallet. A smell of embrocation reached Pavlov: the stranger had been working on his cover – but he had forgotten to limp when he first arrived.

Colonel Razin thumbed through the papers while he addressed Pavlov: “I understand you’re meeting your wife in Khabarovsk.”

Pavlov, head on his hand, nodded. “First I have some business in Novosibirsk and Irkutsk.”

“You’re not the only one.”

“I know,” Pavlov said. “I hope to hear the speeches.”

“Do you, Comrade Pavlov? Do you indeed?” He handed the stranger’s papers back to him with a perfunctory “Thank you.” To Pavlov he said: “We must meet and have a drink for old-time’s sake. In the restaurant car, perhaps, at eleven tomorrow morning?”

“That would be fine,” Pavlov said.

“Are you making the whole journey?”

‘I’m leaving the train at Khabarovsk. I presumed you knew that, Colonel.”

Razin looked annoyed: he didn’t like to hear his rank used. Particularly in the presence of a general. Even if his status was superior when the chips were down.

Pavlov asked: “Don’t you want to see my papers?”

“It won’t be necessary. The husband of a Heroine of the Soviet Union shouldn’t suffer the indignity.”

He bowed as if he were in uniform, a Prussian officer’s bow. “Good-night, ladies and gentlemen. Pleasant dreams.”

After he had closed the door the general’s wife asked: “Is it true that your wife’s a heroine … ?” Her voice sounded as if her mouth was full of food.

Pavlov said: “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

He lay quietly listening to the soporific sound of wheels on rails – the 5 ft. gauge! Could anything go wrong before the plan was actually put into action? With the appearance of Colonel Razin one more imponderable had been used. He worried about it for an hour, then fell asleep. By that time it was 1.13 a.m. Moscow time and they were just leaving Kirov at the beginning of the second day of the journey.

* * *

The special coach was a mixture of styles. A functional office, two soft-class sleeping compartments for guards and staff, a K.G.B. control room with radio and receiving equipment for the microphones planted on the train, a cell, a larder and two compartments knocked into a large deluxe sleeper with mahogany panelling, thick pink drapes, a chair made of buttoned red satin, a Chinese carpet, washbasin and mirror with frosted patterns round the edge, a mahogany table and chair, and a bed with pink plush curtains controlled by a gold cord with a tassel.

Despite the luxury, the Kremlin leader couldn’t sleep. He lay alone, guarded in the corridor by two armed militia. It was always at night that the power left him to be replaced by doubt. He was sixty-six, entering the period of self-appraisal when the past presents itself for assessment. He saw the faces of those whom he had executed; he remembered the way he had hacked his way to absolute power. And he tried to equate it all with achievement: the prestige of the Soviet Union, the fear it struck into the bowels of other powers; the standard of living of the people. When he concentrated – when he recalled the tyranny of Tsarist days, the twenty million lost in World War II, the massive injustices of the Stalin era – the equation sometimes worked.

It was for these searching reasons – and the fact that a younger man was snapping at his heels in the Kremlin hierarchy – that he had decided to make the journey across Siberia. To see for himself the “heroic achievements” which his writers monotonously inserted into speeches until they had no impact at all and to re-affirm his popularity. But tonight he wasn’t so sure that it had been a good idea. He felt as if the train was plunging him into bloodshed and oppression. He thought of the camps on the steppes where enemies of the State still languished; he felt that when he looked out of the windows at the dark shadows that he was seeing his conscience drift past.

He turned to the diminishing future. He wished there was a God who would understand; but he had helped to banish him from the land.

He reached towards the table, a bulky figure in striped pyjamas, not impressive now during the naked small hours of the morning, and found his sleeping pills. He took one, held it on his tongue and washed it down with a draught of Narzan water. It burned for a moment in his stomach; then he slept to awake a leader once more.

* * *

The train nosed through the night, an express only in name, but inexorable with its steady speed, bumping a little but hardly swaying.

Soon it would reach the Urals, the gateway to Siberia. Near the Chusovaya River it passed a striped post, the boundary between Europe and Asia; on this boundary, at a point known as the Monument of Tears, the exiles used to bid farewell to their families before marching, manacled, into Siberia where the law was the three-flonged plet, where home was a sod hut and work was a mine sunk in perm frost. They had died by the thousand but millions had survived, the Russian way. And, with commuted sentences as the incentive, they helped to build the great railway carrying Train No. 2.

In the 1890s, five million were estimated to have travelled east to start new lives. There was another exodus between 1927–39; then, during World War II, as the Germans drove deep into European Russia, another 10½ million – the greatest evacuation in history.

When dawn broke the train was burrowing through valleys over which, it was said, there wasn’t a patch of blue sky without its own eagle.