Siberian Red

place.
    Except it wasn’t the truth. It was a lie, but one that Pekkala had believed.
    There was only one catch. For the Tsar’s plan to work, Pekkala would have to be caught.
    It was the Tsar who had provided Pekkala with the means of escaping the country – forged papers, rail tickets, even the route he should take to avoid capture. But Pekkala never made it. At a small railway station on the Russo-Finnish border, with freedom almost within his grasp, Pekkala had been hauled off a crowded train by Bolshevik Revolutionary Guards. From there, he had begun his journey to Butyrka prison, and eventually to Borodok.
    He had always wondered how the Revolutionary Guards singled him out so effectively. Now he knew.
    The only way the Tsar could have guaranteed that Pekkala would be arrested was by revealing the information of his escape route to the enemy.
    In this way the Tsar and his family would be spared the same fate as Pekkala. There would be no point in interrogating the Romanovs for information which they didn’t have.
    The facts were inescapable.
    The Tsar had betrayed him, his most trusted servant, who in return had trusted the Tsar with a devotion far beyond the value of his life.
    It was an ingenious and intricate plan. Not surprisingly, the Tsar had calculated almost every detail, but the one thing he had not anticipated was that Kolchak might actually be caught. Or that the members of the Romanov family might be herded to the city of Ekaterinburg and, on a sultry August night in 1918‚ butchered in the basement of the Ipatiev House.
    The knowledge that the Tsar had, in those final days of their acquaintance, offered him up as a sacrifice, struck Pekkala like a hammer to his skull.
    ‘Well,’ demanded Klenovkin, ‘do you have your answer?’
    ‘I have an answer,’ replied Pekkala. ‘But it was not the one I’d been expecting.’
    As soon as Pekkala had left the room, Klenovkin began to pace around the room, like a cat trapped in a cage. He had read the telegram as soon as it came through but wasn’t able to make head or tail of it. And what did Pekkala mean, wondered the Commandant, when he said it wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting? Klenovkin could not help but fear the worst. Pekkala was refusing to accept his theory about the Comitati. ‘And who else is there to accuse, but me?’ he asked himself. Already, in feverish dreams, he had found himself before a board of inquiry, accused of Ryabov’s murder. To this imaginary jury, he had pleaded his case, but was always found guilty.
    ‘It’s time I took matters into my own hands,’ he muttered to himself. Seating himself at his desk, Klenovkin took out a piece of paper and furiously scribbled down a note.
    *
     
    Professor Braninko had fallen asleep as he sat at his desk, consolidating dusty files for the archives.
    A banging on the metal door startled him awake. He breathed in sharply, rose stiffly to his feet and straightened his tie as he walked towards the door.
    The knocking came again.
    Braninko knew who it was. Major Kirov had come to return the file he borrowed. In the brief time he’d spent with Kirov, Braninko had been impressed by the young officer’s willingness to listen to the outbursts of an old man who had no one else to talk to except the unblinking statues of old generals and politicians. Before Kirov, there had been no visitors for several weeks and, after he left, there were unlikely to be others for a while.
    As he made his way towards the door, the knocking continued.
    ‘I heard you the first time,’ muttered Braninko, but he was not angry. In fact, he was looking forward to seeing Kirov again. Of course, it would not be appropriate to appear too enthusiastic. He would maintain his usual reserve, but this time, he decided, he might at least offer the Major a cup of tea. He had a kettle in the back room, and a few old tin cups, which he hoped were clean enough to use. As he opened the door, Braninko was trying to remember if he had any sugar left to sweeten the tea. He had just enough time to realise that the person outside was not Kirov before the air seemed to catch fire all around him.
    The next thing Braninko knew, he was lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the archive. Someone had seized his ankles and was dragging him across the floor towards the back of the building. He could not understand what was happening. The only clear thought in the old professor’s head was that it felt undignified to