Birth of an Assassin Read online

  “Yes, you’re right, Andrei,” he said, but whatever the cost he had every intention of leveling the score.

  Because of the treacherous conditions they arrived at Kapotnya much later than expected. Wherever the Jew was, Otto could only hope he had endured the same disadvantages.

  After stamping his way into the police station, he found a young sergeant at the desk. “I’m here to see Officer Glebski,” Otto said, and clouds of misted air expelled from his mouth.

  The desk sergeant looked up. “Oh yes, sir, you must be Captain Mitrokhin. Please, come this way.”

  The sergeant took Otto to an office at the back of the building, empty except for a large wood burner in the corner and three chairs gathered round it. Two soldiers sat huddled up. One, presumably Glebski, had his neck heavily wrapped in bandages and a face drawn and gaunt. His sunken eyes were crazy-paved with red lines, and bloodshot in the corners. The other soldier stood and saluted.

  “Officer Glebski’s throat is badly injured. He can’t talk, so maybe I can translate for him, sir.”

  “Thank you, that won’t be necessary,” he said, and concentrated on Glebski. “Your conduct is commendable, Officer Glebski. I’m here because I need to know if the bastard in this picture and the man who assaulted you are one and the same.”

  Otto showed Glebski a photograph. Glebski looked at it and his eyes went like saucers. He nodded furiously, too furiously, both hands reaching to his throat. Otto beamed – he was on the right track.

  “I hope you get him, sir,” the assistant said.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll get him.”

  He put a hand under Andrei’s arm and eased him from the room.

  “This was the Jew without doubt. Now let’s hope we have the same luck in Serpukhov and Tula. If we do, we’ll have a line on him, Andrei. We’ll have that bastard.”

  “Otto, you’re getting too involved. Someone else can as easily…”

  “Andrei… we’ll handle it.”

  *

  Another arduous trail brought them to the front of the Hotel Sachi in Serpukhov. In the lobby, a man approached.

  “I’m the manager here. Are you Captain Mitrokhin?”

  No time for pleasantries. “Yes, I believe someone who called himself Mayakovski stayed here?”

  “Yes, this way,” he said.

  He took Otto to reception and showed him the entry in the register.

  Otto sighed. “The real Adrik Mayakovski has been murdered, probably by the man impersonating him.” He took out the photograph. “Was this him?”

  The manager studied it. “Well, it’s very like him, in fact it probably is, but then… I don’t know; there are differences.”

  “What, you think there’s a chance it might not be him?” Hopes faltered.

  “No, no, I’m not saying that, but the man had a very dark growth of facial hair. Not much more than thick stubble, but enough to make it difficult to be definite.”

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Yes, his left eye and cheek were yellowed from bruising, enough to change his looks from this. And the man in the picture has his head shaven. The one staying here had short, thick hair.”

  The bruises, the stubble, his hair had grown a little, it was him all right, but he had to be sure. He took a pencil from the desk and shaded the picture to fit the manager’s description.

  “And what about now: is this more like him?”

  “Oh yes, definitely, that’s your man. He doesn’t look it, but he’s a mean…”

  “Yes… I know him. Thanks for your help, Comrade, it’s appreciated.” He turned to Andrei. “We have the Tula sighting to follow up, but we’ll have to take lodgings there. With the snow like it is, we’ll be lucky to make it before dark.”

  And he was right. The snow got heavier, so much so that the car skidded and swerved. The snow banks ploughed from the main road were all that stopped them going into a ditch. No damage done, but it frustrated Otto.

  “Fuck! Out of the car, Andrei, I’ll drive the final lap.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They swapped seats, and he used the back of his leather glove to scrape the soft ice from inside the window.

  “Look up or down, everywhere is white. You need a break before we cause some real damage. Rest your eyes.”

  They got directions to the mayor’s residence in Tula. Dark already, but they went straight over to show him the photographs.

  “Yes, that’s definitely your man,” he said. “If you catch up with him go carefully, he could be dangerous.”

  “You say you saw him at the bus station. Did you see which bus he caught?”

  “Didn’t need to, he told me he was on his way to Belgorod,” Attaturk said.

  Otto felt his face scrunch in surprise. “What, he just told you?”

  “After I stopped him bullying a vendor at the bus depot, I asked him his intentions.”

  “And he told you he was going to Belgorod?”

  “Yes, he seemed to get agitated when he found out I was the mayor.”

  In the car, Otto shook his head, it didn’t feel right. “I don’t like it, Andrei. Kornfeld has almost as much experience as us. I don’t know, seems a little bit too much information. The trail he’s left is too easy. I mean, would he really be this clumsy?”

  “You know him best, Otto, but for me, if I was on the run from a death squad, maybe I wouldn’t be as clever as I am in the field.”

  “I suppose… yes, probably,” he agreed, but wasn’t convinced.

  They took rooms in the best hotel in Tula. Otto shaved and showered, but couldn’t shake the Jew from his mind. What was he up to, leaving a trail like that? Whatever it was he must… he froze and his mind went into a spin. A trap, the little fuck was setting him up for a hit. He would lure him into an ambush and kill him. But just as quickly the fear subsided. No, Kornfeld couldn’t know who would follow up the trail. Otto could have sent any of his subordinates to check out the leads.

  No, the Jew had gone into a blind panic, as Andrei had suggested… or was he laying a false trail to cover his true destination? Reconsider. Would he try contacting Petrichov? No, Otto had told him that the general had washed his hands of him when he was in interrogation. He’d believe his ties were cut there. So, if he’d left the clues intentionally, then he wanted his pursuers to think he was going south – but if not, where? Not west, too much military checking identification; and it would be the same if he headed for Leningrad. Would he go east again, as he had with his family? True enough, he could pick up the River Volga at a lower point and bypass Saratov, but that would mean longer on Soviet soil than he’d want. Then if he played a double bluff, he would carry on south through the Ukraine. East or south, either way would lead him to the Black Sea. And as a soldier, Otto would also choose one of those routes.

  So, he was headed for the Black Sea. Before he left Tula, Otto would arrange extra manpower on every river jetty south of Volgograd and a red alert at all Black Sea ports. The mayor told him the Jew was going to Belgorod, so he would take Andrei there and check it out.

  Chapter 38

  Minsk, Belarus

  The journey from Smolensk left the snow in its wake. Jez left the railway station and was greeted by a crisp, dry cold that brought life back to a body weary of travel. Military presence seemed low, safe enough for the meantime, but he had an uneasy feeling it wouldn’t last.

  The Hotel Sofia on Masherov Avenue looked suitable for his needs, but first he would walk the Svislach River embankment, to make sure he hadn’t picked up security interest at the station. A bitter, cold breeze swept across the surface of the water. A light flurry of snow came from nowhere. Not long now till the small ice floes would bob like white rocks on the frigid river. He shivered and moved on.

  Happy he hadn’t been followed, he went back to Masherov Avenue. On the way, snow changed to sleet and then to hail. The wind picked up, came at him horizontally, and the hard pellets battered into his face.
By the time he entered the hotel lobby he looked like an iceman. The girl at the reception desk smiled sympathetically.

  “I’d like a room for a couple of nights, maybe more. Do you have vacancies?” he asked.

  “Oh yes, sir, we’re rarely full at this time of year. Could I have your name, please?”

  “What? Oh yes, of course. Glebski, Ivan Glebski.”

  He would enter KGB headquarters as Sergeant Mayakovski, but if he had to run, Glebski would be his bolthole.

  The receptionist wrote the name and turned the register to him for signature. “I need your ID please, sir.”

  He gave her Glebski’s papers and dropped his head to sign the book. The girl had put them back on the counter by the time he’d lifted his gaze, so had barely glanced at the photograph. Security people often hung around hotel foyers, but today, this one was empty.

  Upstairs, exhaustion struck. He locked the door and leaned heavily against it. The room was simple, but clean, walls painted in magnolia, a single bed in the corner with a reading lamp screwed above the headboard, a small pine bedside chest and a tallboy wardrobe opposite. He crossed the brown, stone floor tiles and sat on the bed. Firm but comfortable, suddenly an early night cried out.

  *

  The next day he rose fresher than he’d felt for some time. After breakfast he left the hotel and caught a trolleybus on Storozhevskaya Street in search of the KGB headquarters on Skoriny Avenue. Now he stood on that street, looking across to the impressive white pillar-fronted building, and his frame tightened.

  He would need the KGB staff there to patch him through to General Petrichov in Moscow, but if they held a sheet on him he’d be arrested immediately. If that happened, another escape would be impossible. They’d nail him to the floor rather than lose sight of him again.

  “I need to speak to the officer in charge of security,” he said to a soldier in the building foyer.

  “And who are you? What is it concerning?” he asked with stern intonation.

  Jez dry swallowed. “I’m Sergeant Adrik Mayakovski, an Osnaz operative working out of KGB headquarters in Moscow. I’m not at liberty to give you details of why I’m here. It’s a confidential matter.” He kept fingers and toes crossed in the hope that Mayakovski’s name hadn’t reached Belarus.

  “If you wait there, Sergeant, I’ll see if Captain Makovich is available. In the meantime, please… sit.” Now he’s Comrade Friendly.

  An oil painting of workers hung between two couches pushed up against the wall. He made himself comfortable on one of them and looked up at the picture: a group of men proudly staring up at the hammer and sickle on a red flag that had been hoisted to the top of a pole and floated mid-air. Jez had never considered KGB establishments welcoming and thought the presence of such furnishings out of place. Moscow held no such pretences.

  While he waited, nerves jangling in anticipation, he couldn’t hold his worries over the safety of the situation. But the soldier returned, relaxed – so far…

  “Captain Makovich can see you now, Sergeant,” he said.

  Jez followed the sentry to a ground-floor office towards the back of the building; an office that could best be described as dark and dingy.

  “Good morning, Sergeant Mayakovski, I’m Captain Makovich, the duty officer. How can I be of help?”

  “Captain, I’m in transition on a covert mission from Moscow and I need a secure line to speak with my commander. I need to do it quickly or my situation could be compromised.”

  “No problem, Sergeant, who is your commander?”

  “Petrichov, General Michel Petrichov, he’s stationed in the Kremlin.”

  Makovich raised his eyebrows. “You’re working directly for top brass? Must be important.”

  “Yes, sir, it is.”

  The captain asked his switchboard to contact the general in Moscow and to transfer the call through to his office. The phone rang. Makovich answered with a short, polite, introduction, then handed the phone to Jez and left. He lifted the receiver tentatively to his ear.

  “General Petrichov?” he asked. “It’s me, Mayakovski.” A secure line didn’t necessarily stop unauthorized ears from listening in.

  A heavy sigh whistled down the line. “Yes, I know who it is and every time a report comes in on you, you seem to have dug a deeper hole for yourself. But now I have to confess to being intrigued. How could you possibly have the nerve to call me after letting me down in such a way?”

  He sounded close to hanging up. If Jez couldn’t intrigue him further in the next few sentences, he’d be finished.

  “Please, General, if you’re willing to listen I can prove Lieutenant Kornfeld’s innocence. I would’ve thought he’d shown enough loyalty for that,” he said, immediately regretting the latter.

  “Kornfeld’s loyalty became suspect when he smuggled his family from the Soviet Union.”

  “You knew about that?” Shock waves rippled as he reeled at the declaration. Had they made a public broadcast and he’d missed it? “I still think his claims deserve to be listened to, General.”

  Another sigh, “I’m listening.”

  Jez told his story, referring to himself as a third party.

  “And verification that Kornfeld and Sharansky worked together on the case,” he concluded, “will come from the Korbet family. Rula Korbet was one of the – no, as I told you earlier, Rula was the only girl to escape.”

  Silence followed, except for the drone of a conversation drowned out by a hand held over the phone.

  “Give me two days, Mayakovski, and call me back. Be sure it’s two days from now, exactly at this time. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, General,” he said.

  Jez hung up and looked up Captain Makovich. He would need permission to carry out the same procedure in two days.

  He left and took a trolleybus to the metro station, a tram to the outskirts of the city, and then traveled back to the city centre by metro. By the time he reached the embankment he was satisfied he hadn’t been followed and returned to the hotel.

  He stayed in his room for two days and performed physical workouts, trying to take his mind off things, but the worries wouldn’t quit nagging. What if Mitrokhin had already got to the Korbets and killed them, then set the scene to make it appear that he’d done it? What if the proof wasn’t enough to satisfy Petrichov? What if the Korbets had let the visit go over their heads and forgotten his name and what he looked like? What if the Minsk KGB had since received a Wanted sheet on him? If any these ‘ifs’ materialized, Viktor’s death would remain unavenged and he’d be finished.

  Worry begat worry and, finally, the dreaded time came for him to visit KGB headquarters again. He stood in Skoriny Avenue staring blankly over to the building, until the time of day forced him to move.

  Inside, relief came in the shape of Captain Makovich. He stood in the forum, smiling.

  “Ah, Sergeant Mayakovski, you made it. Wait in my office. I’ll get the switchboard to contact Moscow.”

  They waited a couple of minutes and the captain answered the transferred call. Again, he made a little polite conversation and handed the phone to Jez before he left.

  “Mayakovski here,” Jez said.

  “I’ve sorted out an operative that we both trust, but that person can’t be with you for at least another two days. So, beginning in two nights’ time, at eight o’clock, I want you to be in a bar on Vitebskaya Street. It’s called the Rakovski Brovar and it’s the only bar in Minsk that brews its own beer, so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding it. The intelligence officer will arrive and go to a table in the open air area for exactly one minute before going back inside to order a drink. It will be enough time for recognition and for both of you to make sure no one is watching. The operative will be there on one of the next three nights. If you don’t show, we’ll consider you’ve run and we will abandon the operation. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, General, I understand. I’ll be there. But just for confirmation, the first of the three
nights begins in two days from now?”

  “That is correct. Are there any further questions?”

  “No questions, sir.”

  The general hung up and Jez returned command of the office to Captain Makovich.

  “Thank you, Captain, I appreciate your indulgence.”

  “Glad to be of assistance. I only wish I knew what was going on. It all seems very intriguing.”

  Jez smiled, thanked him again, and left.

  Somebody he trusted, he thought as he walked to the trolleybus stop. But he trusted no one. General Petrichov said he’d been intrigued, the captain said he was intrigued, and now – he was intrigued. Who could it be? The trolley ride ended, and he followed the same evasion tactics he’d used coming and going from the hotel: trolley, metro, tram, and then a walk along the embankment. He entered the hotel from the rear and found the lobby empty, other than the receptionist. She smiled sweetly and handed him his room key.

  Chapter 39

  With two days to kill he decided to lie low, only leaving the room to eat. He spent his time exercising: sit-ups; press-ups, feet on bed; press-ups, feet on floor; movement to stretch every muscle of his anatomy; press-ups from handstands against the wall; single-handed press-ups, fingertip press-ups and then body crunches, till he could do no more. He’d take a short break and start again.

  Then the first of the three nights came and he felt nervous facing the unknown. He bathed in the communal bathroom at the end of the hall and wallowed in the warm water. After drying and dressing, he studied his face in an old wood-framed mirror. The remains of the bruising had gone, his beard was thick and his black hair longer than it had ever been. Even his Momma would have trouble recognizing him.

  On Vitebskaya Street, he walked past the tavern and checked the security of the area – no one around. A hunted caution came naturally, and he realized that the mistakes he’d made during the investigation were partly because he hadn’t realized he’d been the prey.

  At ten to eight, he found a quiet table in the corner of the bar and watched and waited. Just after nine o’clock, he drained the contents of his glass and left. The following night he sat at the same table and again finished his drink just after nine and left. On the third night, the door opened at exactly eight. Eagerness straightened his back, but it was a woman. Petrichov had said it would be someone he trusted, but he couldn’t bring to mind a woman he’d worked with, let alone trusted. He nearly went back to staring into his beer, but she went through to the open-air tables.