Siberian Red

Security Troops.
    There was also a third man‚ a barely human figure, cowered naked in the corner. The man’s body was a mass of electrical burns and bruises.
    This man was Colonel Kolchak.
    The sentence was read out by Commissar Dzhugashvili, the same man who had been responsible for Pekkala’s weeks of interrogation.
    In the final seconds of his life, Kolchak called out to Pekkala. ‘Inform his majesty the Tsar that I told them nothing.’
    Before the last word had left his mouth, the NKVD men opened fire. The concussion of the gunfire was stunning in the confined space of the cell. When the shooting finally stopped, Dzhugashvili stepped forward, stuck the barrel in Kolchak’s right eye and put another bullet into Kolchak’s head.

It was Dzhugashvili who sat before Pekkala now.
     
     
    It was Dzhugashvili who sat before Pekkala now. Joseph Dzhugashvili, who had changed his name to Stalin – Man of Steel – as was the fashion of the early Bolsheviks.
    ‘You know, Pekkala, memory can be deceiving. Even yours.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Stalin puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. ‘The man you thought was Colonel Kolchak, the man I also thought was Kolchak, turns out to have been an imposter.’
    Although Pekkala was surprised to hear this, he knew it did not lie beyond the bounds of possibility. The Tsar himself had half a dozen look-alikes, who took his place at times of danger and who, in some cases, paid for that occupation with their lives. For someone as important to the Tsar as Colonel Kolchak, it did not seem unlikely that a double had been found for him as well.
    ‘What does this have to do with the murder at Borodok?’
    ‘The victim was a man named Isaac Ryabov; a former captain in the Imperial Cavalry and one of the last survivors of the Kolchak Expedition still in captivity at Borodok. Ryabov approached the Camp Commandant with an offer to reveal the whereabouts of Colonel Kolchak in exchange for being allowed to go free. But somebody got to him first.’
    ‘Ryabov might well have known where Kolchak was hiding twenty years ago, but the Colonel could have gone anywhere in the world since that time. Do you honestly think Ryabov’s information was still accurate?’
    ‘It is a possibility which I cannot afford to overlook.’ Stalin removed his pipe and laid it in the ashtray on his desk. Then he sat back and touched his fingertips together. ‘Do you suppose Colonel Kolchak has ever forgiven the Czechs for handing over his uncle to be executed?’
    ‘I doubt it. From what I knew of Kolchak, forgiveness did not strike me as being one of his virtues. Personally, I think the Czechs had no choice.’
    ‘I agree,’ nodded Stalin. ‘But as far as Colonel Kolchak is concerned, the legion’s job was to protect his uncle, not to mention the gold. Whether every last one of them died fulfilling that duty would be irrelevant to a man like him.’
    ‘And how do you know what he thinks?’
    ‘I don’t. I am only telling you what I would think if I were Colonel Kolchak. And I am also telling you that when a man like Kolchak gets vengeance in his brain, he will set fire to the world before he can be satisfied.’
    ‘Even if Kolchak can be found,’ said Pekkala, ‘surely he does not pose a threat. He is only one man, after all.’
    ‘I take no comfort in that. One person can still be dangerous. I know, because I am only one man and I am very dangerous. And when I see in another man those qualities which I also recognise within myself, I know that I cannot ignore him. You and I have a strange alliance, Pekkala. In our thinking, we are opposites in almost every way. But the one place where our ideas intersect lies in the struggle for our country to survive. It is the reason you did not die that day in the basement of Butyrka prison. But Kolchak is not like you. And that is why I put him to death, or attempted to, anyway.’
    ‘If this is simply a vendetta against a man you tried and failed to kill, send one of your assassins to find him. I could be put to better use on other cases.’
    ‘You may be right, but if my instincts are correct that Kolchak poses a threat to this country . . .’
    ‘Then I will bring him to justice,’ interrupted Pekkala.
    ‘And that is why I’m sending you instead of somebody else.’ As Stalin spoke, he slid Ryabov’s file across the desk towards Pekkala. Inside that folder would be every scrap of information Soviet Intelligence had managed to accumulate on Ryabov