The Prince of the Soviets

37. THE PLOT AGAINST STALIN

Alov could not bring himself to tell Dunya about the results of the purge, and Valakhov was not at home; he had been sent out of town on an urgent mission.

The following day, Alov surreptitiously observed his wife, convinced that her feminine intuition would tell her something terrible had happened to him, but she showed no signs of having sensed anything. Or then again, perhaps she had known all along? Was she in cahoots with Babloyan?

Alov knew that everything was over for him. He would never find another position now. Who would associate with a pariah who had been expelled from both the Party and the OGPU? In his mind, he went through all his acquaintances, wondering if he could ask any of them for help, but he could think of no one. The only person who had always helped him and never expected anything in return was Galina.

When Dunya came back from work, the solicitous neighbors were quick to let her know that her husband had been lying about at home all day. Only then did she realize Alov had been dismissed from his post. However, to his surprise, she was not in the slightest bit dismayed at the news.

“I’m glad you’re not working at the Lubyanka anymore,” she said.

“Are you out of your mind?” yelled Alov. “Don’t you understand? We don’t have enough money to live on. We’ll be evicted from this apartment, and we won’t be able to rent even a corner of a room on your miserable wages.”

Dunya took out a small cloth purse from her shopping bag and held it out to Alov. Inside was a brand new banknote, bearing the portrait of an elderly man with a prominent forehead.

Alov had only ever seen a hundred-dollar bill once before in his life—when he had been shown the contents of Klim Rogov’s wallet.

“Did Babloyan give you this money?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“Yes,” replied Dunya. “And there’s no need to stare at me like that. It’s payment for my performance on the anniversary of the October Revolution.”

Now, Alov understood what had happened. Rogov must have used the foreign currency to bribe Babloyan, and Babloyan had handed the note on to Dunya.

Alov was lying in wait for Diana Mikhailovna when she came out of work.

Finally, she appeared from the gate. Alov ran up to her and grabbed her sleeve.

“Help me, for God’s sake! Could you check the number of a banknote against the list given to Oscar Reich?”

Diana Mikhailovna stared fearfully at her former boss. “I don’t know if I’m allowed.”

“Please! I helped you when you needed work. Don’t you remember?”

She agreed in the end to check the number and went back inside the building. Fifteen minutes later, she came out again.

“Yes, that’s one of ours,” she said.

Overcome by emotion, Alov kissed her hand. “I’ll be indebted to you till the day I die. Now tell me, what’s happening with Rogov?”

“They let him out today.”

“What? Who let him out?”

“It was Drachenblut who signed the order. He said the charges were fabricated. Rogov was just the victim of slander by some scoundrel.”

Alov clutched at his head. So, that was it! Babloyan had had Alov expelled from the Party simply to get his crony out of prison. Babloyan must have made a deal with Drachenblut, agreeing to support him during the purge and creating an alliance against Yagoda. And as Alov might have objected to their plan, they had sacrificed him like a pawn in a game.

But why had Drachenblut agreed to such a deal, Alov wondered. After all, his former boss had been adamant about locating the money stolen from Reich. And he knew that the registered banknotes had been found in Rogov’s wallet.

Suddenly, Alov felt his blood run cold. But maybe Drachenblut didn’t know about the banknotes, he thought. Not if I didn’t include it in the report!

On that day, Alov’s damned illness had made it impossible to work; he must have neglected to fill out the necessary papers and then forgotten all about it.

Alov took his leave of Diana Mikhailovna and ran back to the gate. He had to speak to Drachenblut urgently.

At first, Drachenblut refused point blank to speak to Alov, but then he relented.

“What is it?” he demanded gruffly when Alov came into his office.

“Why did you let Rogov go?” asked Alov, trembling all over.

“Comrade Stalin invited Rogov for an interview. That doesn’t happen to just anyone.”

Alov clutched at his chest. “But Rogov was planning an assassination attempt! He won over Babloyan and used him to get close to Comrade Stalin.”

Then Alov told Drachenblut of the hundred-dollar bill and of the money that had been found in Rogov’s wallet.

“I didn’t manage to finish the report,” Alov said, “because I was sick. But you saw for yourself the portrait of Comrade Stalin with a hole in his forehead. It was a prearranged signal!”

It turned out that Drachenblut had seen nothing of the sort. He had only read Elkin’s testimony. The envelope containing the postcards had turned up on the following day.

“We have to save Comrade Stalin!” cried Alov. “All Rogov has to do is to smuggle in some poison powder into Stalin’s office inside a button or a fountain pen and scatter it before he leaves. Surely you know that?”

Drachenblut summoned Eteri Bagratovna. “Find out the time of Rogov’s interview at the Kremlin!” he ordered.

A few minutes later, the secretary reported back that the meeting with Stalin was scheduled to take place at seven o’clock. It was now already half past six.

Cars were dispatched to Chistye Prudy and to the Kremlin visitors’ pass desk.

Alov sat fidgeting nervously while Drachenblut smoked one cigarette after another, every now and again picking up the phone to make a call. “Have you found him yet? No? For Chrissakes!”

At 7:30 p.m., a call came in from the Kremlin to say that Comrade Stalin had canceled the meeting with the correspondent from the United Press as he had not turned up.

“I don’t understand,” Alov kept saying. “Was Rogov so delighted to be let out of jail that he went on a drinking spree? How could anyone fail to turn up to a meeting with the Comrade Stalin?”

Drachenblut ordered an investigation of Rogov’s friends and acquaintances and a search of the city hospitals, stations, and local bars. Rogov was to be found, dead or alive.

At half past eight, the message came in that he had flown out of the Moscow.

“What do you mean ‘flown out’?” Drachenblut roared at his secretary.

“He got on a plane,” answered Eteri Bagratovna calmly. “He left for Berlin this afternoon. His documents were in order.”

Alov jumped to his feet. “We need to tell Comrade Stalin everything. He needs to know that Babloyan is taking bribes—” Alov caught Drachenblut’s icy stare and fell silent.

“Calm down,” said Drachenblut. “We can’t touch Babloyan. If we start a scandal now, Yagoda will get involved, and he’ll almost certainly work out what’s going on with the money from union fees paid overseas.”

Alov slumped weakly back onto his chair. How could he have been such a fool? He might have guessed!

OGPU agents working abroad were paid in foreign currency, and as they used it to pay their union dues, large sums of currency were piling up in foreign bank accounts. Drachenblut and Babloyan must have agreed to appropriate the money for themselves, meanwhile transferring the payments back to the state in devalued rubles, which were worth only half the official exchange rate.

All senior Soviet officials were like servants stealing from their employer’s storerooms. They would strike up deals to make it easier for them to steal and then go to the boss to report on each other in an attempt to keep their enemies from the feeding trough. This was the substance of their “struggle for a bright future.”

“You know, Alov, we were maybe a bit hasty to expel you from the Party,” said Drachenblut thoughtfully. “I can see you’re a reliable employee and a vigilant agent. We’ll send you out to Cuba to carry on the good work.”

Alov understood everything. His superior was prepared to turn a blind eye to any crimes committed by Babloyan and Rogov. Meanwhile, Alov, as an unwanted witness to those crimes, was to be dispatched abroad to keep his mouth shut.

Drachenblut picked up the telephone receiver. “Put me on to the administrative department of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs.

“Ah, good evening, Comrade Fyodorov. We need to send one of our men to Havana. Do we have a position as commandant? No? Well, then he can be a registrar. I’ll send him to you with a note from me, and you get him settled in, all right?”

He hung up the phone and turned to Alov. “You were dreaming about having your own room, weren’t you? Now you’ll have one with a view of the sea and palm trees. And take that woman of yours along too so she doesn’t make a nuisance of herself here.”

“So, you’re just going to let Rogov and Kupina go?” said Alov in a faint voice.

“Don’t worry about them,” said Drachenblut. “We’ll find them all right.”

Klim realized it was madness to take Tata away with him. What would Nina say when she found out he had decided to adopt another child, and the child of his former lover at that? Tata would run them all ragged with her awful character, but Klim could not bring himself to abandon her to her fate. If it had not been for Galina, the OGPU woman with the red hair would have maimed him for life.

They were in luck: there were seats left on the plane, and they passed through passport control and customs without incident.

A young airport employee led Klim and the girls out on to the airfield where a bright red blunt-nosed plane stood waiting.

“Isn’t it pretty?” cried Kitty in delight. “Just like a model plane!”

It was true; the airplane looked like nothing more than a toy. It was difficult to believe that this shed with wings would actually be capable of taking off.

Klim cast an anxious glance toward Tata, but thankfully, she said nothing.

At that moment, Friedrich jumped down from the cockpit. He was wearing a leather coat and a helmet with earphones.

“Good Lord!” he said when he saw Klim. “You’re still alive! And who are these young ladies?”

“These are my daughters.”

Friedrich looked nonplussed. “Ah well, you can tell me everything later. Let’s go into the cabin. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. First stop—Smolensk, then Kaunas, then Konigsberg. And after that, it’s just a short hop to Berlin.”

In the cabin were four leather armchairs with headrests. There were hooks for coats on the walls and rolled-up blinds at the rectangular windows with rounded corners. In the back end of the plane, behind a barrier, various crates and suitcases were being loaded noisily. Every time a new piece of baggage was thrown on board, the plane would shudder and rock.

“It’s going to be noisy,” Friedrich told Klim. “Don’t forget to put in your earplugs. You’ll find them in the pocket in the sides of your seat. And if you get sick, use the paper bags.”

Tata and Kitty sat in an armchair together and spent a long time fiddling with the belt, trying to work out how to fasten it.

“Aren’t you afraid of flying?” asked Tata.

Kitty shook her head. “No.”

Lucky thing, thought Klim, sighing to himself. He was struggling to suppress a sense of dread. He had read so many reports of plane crashes in the papers!

The door flew open, and another passenger came on board.

“Oh, I see I won’t be flying alone!” he exclaimed in English, catching sight of Klim.

It was Oscar Reich. He was red in the face, his coat was undone, and his hat askew.

“I’m delighted to see you,” he said to Klim. “Are these your children? They’ll have a rough time of it, I’m afraid. These planes bounce you about terribly. I would never get into a plane for the life of me if I didn’t have urgent business to attend to.”

He put his briefcase under the seat and banged on the wall that separated the cabin from the cockpit. “Hey, Friedrich! Have you had the heating fixed? I almost froze to death last time I flew with you.”

A man with a shaved head appeared in the doorway.

“Yefim, come in and sit down,” Oscar patted the seat next to him. “You and I are flying with these young ladies today.”

Klim forced himself to shake both men by the hand. What bad luck to have to fly with Reich for company! He was glad, at least, that it would be noisy during the flight, so there would be no need for conversation.

“Ready everyone?” called Friedrich from the cockpit. “Off we go then!”

They reached Smolensk without mishap, not counting a sudden fit of tears from Tata, who had remembered that she had forgotten her father’s ashtray at home and that she had not said goodbye to her cat, Pussinboots. It had suddenly hit her that she was leaving Moscow forever and would never be able to go back home.

When the plane took off again, it began to bounce about horribly, and Tata was immediately sick. Kitty was frightened and began to cry, and Klim, at a loss as to what to do, tried to calm first one and then the other.

Oscar and Yefim screwed up their faces and moved their legs away squeamishly from the remains of Tata’s breakfast.

During refueling at Kaunas, Tata hid in the ladies’ lavatory, declaring that she would not get back into the plane for anything in the world. Klim was forced to carry her out—to the horror of the polite Lithuanian ladies in the queue.

“I’ve been kidnapped!” Tata yelled, bucking like a crazed calf.

Klim set her down on the ground. “Tata, look at me. Please, for goodness’ sake, don’t make my life even more complicated! I can’t leave you here. We’ve already crossed the border. If Kitty and I leave without you, where would you go?”

“I hate airplanes,” sobbed Tata.

Klim was sorely tempted to leave her with the Lithuanians. He understood the problem: Tata had had a difficult childhood, she had lost her mother, and now, she was flying to some unknown destination with a stranger—and a stranger she didn’t trust, at that.

Perhaps a Soviet orphanage would not have been such a bad option after all for Tata, he thought.

He took her hands and squeezed them tight. “I owe a huge debt to your mother. I promise I’ll look after you just as I look after Kitty. Just as long as you trust me, everything will be all right.”

Klim had already enough on his plate. There was a dull ache in his chest, and he was afraid it might be something serious. He was not enjoying being bounced around for hours in a small plane side by side with his worst enemy. And on top of that, only the day before, he had been held in a cell and subjected to torture. But none of this was likely to make Tata come to her senses. It was useless to expect any compassion or understanding from her.

She only calmed down eventually when Klim reminded her that it was a Young Pioneer’s duty to be strong and brave at all times.

“We’re going to Germany now,” he said sternly. “A capitalist country. We might face all sorts of dangers and deliberate provocations. I’m entrusting Kitty to your care. Whatever happens, you must make sure you get her to safety.”

Tata dried her eyes and nodded quickly. “All right. I understand.”

Klim gave Tata five Deutsche marks and a piece of paper with Seibert’s address written on it. “Show this to no one. This is the address of our coconspirators’ apartment. You can always go to them if you need help. Are you ready for the fight?”

“Always prepared!” said Tata, giving the Pioneer salute.

It is better this way, thought Klim. If he had a heart attack, at least the girls would be able to find their way to Nina.

A brief item had appeared in the Berliner Tageblatt stating that the timber being used to build German railway sleepers was produced in Soviet labor camps. Not long after this, a cable from Seibert had arrived in Moscow: “Stop stalling on counter-propaganda. Questions being asked about the provenance of Russian timber. Unforeseen consequences likely.”

Gritting his teeth, Drachenblut had allocated an additional budget of ten thousand dollars and ordered Oscar Reich to fly out to Germany immediately.

Oscar had hoped to get to Berlin before nightfall, but on arrival in Konigsberg, Friedrich announced that his plane had developed engine noise, so they would be taken on by a German plane that was flying out the next morning.

Klim and the two girls set off for the airport hotel while Oscar and Yefim went to the Soviet Consulate.

All this time, Oscar’s thoughts had been dwelling constantly on Nina. How could some commoner have managed to trick him into believing she was a baroness? He should have handed her over to the OGPU straight away instead of putting himself at risk, creating a jealous scene. If Nina had been just a little stronger, she could have smashed his skull with that starter handle.

It was clear from Elkin’s testimony that Nina Kupina was in Germany. What if she decided to go to the press and tell the newspapers about the private life of the famous Mr. Reich? It was essential he found Nina and got rid of her!

But it was no easy task to locate a young lady who had arrived in Germany on a false passport. In Moscow, all you had to do was go into some establishment and show your OGPU credentials, and immediately, you would find out everything you needed to know. But in Berlin, it was difficult even getting a list of guests from a hotel. And how many such hotels were there in this city with its population of millions?

The Soviet consul, a fussy, stout man with dark eyebrows, took Oscar and Yefim into an office with pale wooden walls.

“Take a look at the message that just came in,” he said.

He handed Oscar a diplomatic cable stating that on November 13, 1928, a dangerous criminal by the name of Klim Rogov—the husband and accomplice of Nina Kupina—had fled the USSR.

“But we were on the same plane with him!” cried Oscar and began to read the cable aloud: “Rogov is to be captured immediately and returned to the USSR. If it is impossible to take him alive, destroy him. His departure will demonstrate our utter defeat and constitute a serious blow to the reputation of the Soviet Union. Deploy all possible means to achieve this mission.”

“Our plane has broken down—otherwise, we could have ordered Friedrich to turn back,” muttered Yefim and turned to the consul. “We need to arrest Rogov immediately. How many free men do you have?”

The consul shook his head. “There’s no one I can call on.”

“There’ll be no end of trouble with the kids,” said Oscar, frowning. “Let’s get to Germany and seize him there. He’ll probably go straight to Kupina, so we can take the two of them together. Wire the envoy’s office in Berlin and have them send their men to the airport. Then we’ll take Kupina and Rogov to Hamburg and put them on a Soviet ship. They won’t get away from us after that.”