The Twelfth Department (23 page)

“What’s going on here?” Korolev asked the guard, who shrugged his shoulders

“I’m not the person to ask about such things, Comrade Captain.”

“Well, who is?”

“We just guard the gate, Comrade Captain. Maybe ask inside.”

“Guard it from who?”

“Enemies, I suppose.” Although the fellow looked like he was none too sure what an enemy might look like.

“What happened to the men who were guarding the gate on Monday?” Korolev asked, a possibility beginning to occur to him.

“I wouldn’t know, Comrade Captain. This is the first time I’ve ever been here. I hoped the Comrade Lieutenant might be able to tell us what time we’ll be relieved.”

When Dubinkin explained he couldn’t help them, the guard said his farewells and they saw him open his hands as he approached his comrade, as if to say—the new arrivals know nothing either. Which was true enough, Korolev thought.

One of the workers told them a man called Danilov was in charge and directed them into the main building where he assured them they’d find him easily enough. They followed the sound of conversation along a long, oak-lined corridor to what must have been an office but which now stood empty, only the shadows on the carpet indicating where furniture had once rested—and now the carpet was itself in the process of being rolled up by three men. One of the men, a broad-shouldered fellow in a blue shirt, damp with sweat, was telling the others what to do.

“Comrade Danilov?”

“What’s it to you?” He rose to his feet, looking at them without enthusiasm. But the surly manner disappeared when Dubinkin showed him his identification card.

“I’m sorry, Comrade Lieutenant,” the man said. “I thought you might be—well—I don’t know quite what I thought. I’m Danilov, right enough.”

“What’s going on here?” Korolev asked, stepping over the carpet the two other men were continuing to roll up, apparently oblivious to their presence.

“We’re moving the place. We’re to have it finished by tomorrow—a big task, I can tell you. But we’re up to it.”

Korolev looked to Dubinkin who was nodding his sympathy to the foreman. Behind them the carpet was lifted on to shoulders and then taken from the room, heading for the courtyard. The men’s footsteps sounded loud on the now-bare floorboards.

“Where to?” Korolev asked.

Danilov looked to Dubinkin for permission to answer. It seemed he was under the mistaken impression that Dubinkin was one of those who’d ordered the institute’s relocation at a moment’s notice. Korolev had to hand it to the Chekist, as Dubinkin gave his permission with a measured nod—he thought on his feet.

“We drive the trucks up Leningradsky Chaussée to a warehouse. Other drivers take them from there. As instructed.”

“Other drivers take them from there?” Korolev asked.

“It’s secret business. That’s all we need to know.” Danilov turned to Dubinkin. “We’re to tell no one what we’ve seen. Or what we’re doing. That’s understood, of course, Comrade Lieutenant. That’s why I wasn’t sure when you came in.”

“And what about the people? The people who worked here?” Korolev asked.

Danilov shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t help you, Comrade. There was no one here when we arrived yesterday.”

Dubinkin glanced at Korolev with a look that could only be described as meaningful. And, Korolev, despite his bemusement, took the hint. Danilov had clearly been told only what he needed to know—which wasn’t much. But if anyone was going to get what he knew out of him, it was going to be Dubinkin.

“We’ll just look around,” Dubinkin said. “We’re expecting to meet someone here. All the paperwork’s gone already, I take it.”

“Paperwork, Comrade? We haven’t seen any paperwork—it must have been your lads did that. There were some of them packing up their own trucks when we arrived.”

“Excellent. Remind me which warehouse you’re driving to at the moment—we have two up there. We may have to make a change.”

Danilov gave him the address and then Dubinkin delicately questioned the man without seeming to. As it turned out, the location of the warehouse was the only useful piece of information he had.

*   *   *

They left Danilov to his work and walked farther down the corridor, opening the door to what had once been Azarov’s office. Their footsteps echoed on more bare floorboards. Everything had been taken from the room, except a portrait of Stalin. He looked down at them benevolently.

“This is where I met Shtange,” Korolev said. “His desk was just there.”

Dubinkin walked to the window, looking out as a truck’s engine started.

“Where do you think they’re taking everything?” Korolev asked him. “After the warehouse. And what about the people who worked here—where have they gone?”

“Somewhere we’re not meant to find them, I suspect. Although we’ll do our best, of course. I suspect Colonel Zaitsev was concerned that the security of the institute’s work might have been compromised.”

Dubinkin spoke in a resigned monotone that told Korolev the Chekist considered any hope of locating the missing institute forlorn at best.

“But there’s an investigation going on into the death of two men. Surely Colonel Rodinov can just order Zaitsev to take us to the people we want to talk to.”

Dubinkin made a noise that might have been a laugh if there’d been any humor in it.

“The only person who might be able to order Zaitsev about is Ezhov. And even then, it might have to go higher. Zaitsev’s an important man and dealing with him is a delicate business—I can’t say any more than that.”

Korolev looked around him, thinking that if an entire institute could disappear, just like that, with no explanation required—then where did that leave a Militia detective?

They walked through the building, from offices to meeting rooms, from operating rooms down deserted corridors to what looked like hospital wards, storage rooms, a canteen. Everywhere was empty or being emptied.

“What do you make of these?” Korolev asked, gesturing toward a metal door. He’d noticed that each area was divided from those adjoining it by two sets of metal doors, each with eyeholes and locks so that moving from one side to another would require both sides to cooperate.

“I imagine they segregated each area,” Dubinkin said. “That way no one knew everything that was going on. Almost like a cell structure, so that infiltration or treachery could only have a limited effect. And perhaps to make sure information wasn’t shared—that people only saw what was in front of them and never the bigger picture.”

“Yes,” Korolev said. “Shtange said something similar. That only the professor had known everything that went on in the institute.”

They walked out into the courtyard, standing silent among the busy workers, none of whom paid them much attention. Men were loading one truck with small metal bed frames.

“I understand the professor didn’t restrict his research solely to adults,” Dubinkin said.

Korolev said nothing, his attention drawn by the two long concrete buildings he’d seen on his first visit. They looked like massive bunkers more than anything else. Thick iron shutters were bolted into the walls where windows should be.

“Shall we have a look?”

They walked over and Dubinkin pushed at the massive door of the nearest of the two buildings. To Korolev’s surprise, it swung inward smoothly, only the slightest sound coming from its oiled hinges. The Chekist ran a finger along the edge of the door with what seemed to be admiration—it had been heavily sound-proofed with felt on the inside, even though it was already a good six inches thick.

“I’ve seen this kind of sound-proofing before.”

So had Korolev—he’d made a brief unwilling visit to the Lubyanka the year before and seen just the same felt applied to some of the doors. And when Dubinkin found the electricity switch, he recognized the circular metal light shades that ran along the narrow central passage. It was cool inside the building but, then again, unless he was wrong, it was a place where the sun had never shone.

Korolev said nothing as he followed the Chekist past the heavy cell doors that lined each side of the corridor. All of them were open.

“Look in here,” Dubinkin said, peering into one.

The room was as dark as a pit. There was nothing in it—not a bed, nor a basin, nor a chair. Not even a bucket for a man’s necessary activities. The walls were painted black—as was the floor. Korolev looked round for a light fitting inside the cell. But there was none to be found.

“Put a man in here for a few days and he’ll tell you whatever you want him to,” Dubinkin said, and to judge from his voice, his view of such measures wasn’t necessarily negative. “But he won’t like you for it. Or ever be the same, I shouldn’t think.”

The next three cells were identical—but the fifth was a complete contrast. Here the walls and the floor were painted a glossy white and its high ceiling, ten feet up, was thick glass. Korolev flicked a switch and the room lit up like the inside of a light bulb.

“I wonder what they did about the heat—from the lights,” Dubinkin said.

Always the pragmatist, Korolev thought to himself.

“I don’t think they cared much about the poor devils’ comfort,” he said. “There’s not even a bench for them to lie on, let alone a cot.”

“Yes, I wondered about that. And do you see, in this cell there’s an eyehole. Not in the other ones—probably no point, given they’d have been pitch-black.”

They went through the entire building—there were some cells no bigger than a standing coffin, while others had the same dimensions as the others they’d seen, except that the ceiling was so low a prisoner would have to crawl around on his hands and knees. In the basement there were cells that were really sealed swimming pools, with the entry point in the roof and metric measurements on the wall—calibrated to the centimeter. By the time they’d finished their inspection, Korolev was profoundly depressed.

“What do you make of it?” Dubinkin asked.

“I make nothing of it,” Korolev said. “I’ve seen nothing.”

He looked along the corridor—they’d cleaned the place up, but there was still that smell of urine, sweat, and fear—the acrid tang of a prison.

“It does make you wonder though.” Dubinkin sounded contemplative, as if an interesting thought had occurred to him. “If they’d wanted to keep us out of here, they could have. Easily. We’d have needed a tank to get through that door if it had been locked. So why was it left open?”

A message, perhaps? Aimed at a Militia detective exhausted past the point of knowing what it was intended to mean? No, that wasn’t right. He knew what it meant all right. It meant keep your damned nose out of our business, Korolev, or face the consequences. He took one last look at the consequences and walked back out into the heat of the sun.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Korolev’s legs felt tired as he climbed the stairs to Shtange’s apartment, but his soul felt wearier still. His visit to the institute had him asking questions he generally tried to avoid. What kind of revolution had it been now that the State had ended up making a science out of breaking its citizens down and building them up again? And for what? So that they could all think the same, feel the same, chant the same name at the same time—Stalin’s name, no doubt. How had it happened? He’d thought the Revolution had been intended to give the people freedom from oppression, not build establishments like the institute. Sometimes it was hard to believe that there was any good left in Soviet power, and that was the truth of it.

“Are you all right?” Slivka asked as he entered Shtange’s apartment. The bloodstained carpets had been removed and the floorboards creaked underfoot.

“A missing son, no sleep, and an investigation that’s as likely to end up with me in the cells as the killer. I’ve had better days. Is there any news?”

“About the case?”

“Yuri first, if you’ve heard something.”

“Yasimov came by,” she said and then paused. It didn’t look as if Yasimov had brought good news.

“What did he have to say?”

“He thinks he picked up Yuri’s trail at Kievsky Station—still in the company of the two boys. You know about them?”

“Yes. And?”

“He’s pretty sure they got on a tram but he lost track of them after that. He said he was going to go to the depot to talk to the drivers—see if any of them remembers anything. But for the moment, the trail’s gone cold.”

Korolev nodded and picked up the phone, asking to be put through to the apartment building in Bolshoi Nikolo-Vorobinsky. The shared phone was in the hallway and the elderly Lobkovskaya, of the batlike ears, picked it up.

“It’s Korolev. Any sign of him?”

There wasn’t. He thanked the old lady for her time and wondered where his son could possibly be.

“There was something else,” Slivka said, when he’d hung up. “Yasimov said he was pretty sure there were other people looking for Yuri. And not our people. Whoever they were, they left some frightened people behind them.”

Korolev sat down, thinking it through. What if the men were Zaitsev’s? “I’m sorry,” Slivka said, reaching a hand out to him. He did his best to smile.

“What about you—any progress?” he said, deciding to ignore for the moment the fear for his son that bubbled in his stomach. He’d go out and look for him as soon as he was finished here, and if the Lord was willing, he’d find him.

Slivka smiled back—not a joyful smile but one that said they’d get through this together. He found it comforting.

“I’ve been chasing round Moscow, and you’ll be surprised to hear I haven’t met one person yet who’s had a good word to say about the dear professor.”

“I don’t like him myself,” Korolev said. “It was inconsiderate of him to be murdered in such an inconvenient way. And, yes, I’ve been hearing the same things—and that he denounced people to the Organs—a lot of them. What did you find out about him up at the university?”

“All this is reading between the lines, because—well—because people still don’t like to talk about him.”

“Go on.”

“One—he wasn’t much of a scientist; the implication is he got to where he was by telling bigwigs what they wanted to hear, by blaming his failures on others on the one hand and by taking credit for their achievements on the other. Although no one said that straight out.”