Siberian Red

room.
    As soon as Klenovkin read the telegram, he sent for Gramotin.
    While he waited, Klenovkin paced around his study, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. For the first time in as long as he could remember, something was going his way. This would, he knew, be the springboard to greater things. The meteoric rise he had always imagined he would make through the ranks of the Dalstroy Company had finally begun.
    At last, Gramotin appeared.
    ‘Read this.’
    ‘Liq . . .’ The telegram trembled between Gramotin’s fingers as he struggled to pronounce the words. ‘Liquiday. Liquidate.’
    ‘Idiot!’ Klenovkin snatched the message back and read it out himself. ‘Now,’ he said, when he had finished, ‘do you understand what must be done?’
    ‘Yes, Comrade Klenovkin. First thing in the morning?’
    Klenovkin paused. ‘On second thoughts, wait until he has finished his breakfast duties.’
    ‘So we can keep him working to the very end.’
    ‘My thoughts, exactly, Sergeant.’
    Gramotin nodded, impressed. ‘Dalstroy will be proud of you.’
    ‘Indeed they will,’ agreed Klenovkin, ‘and it’s about time, too.’
    *
     
    The old guard, Larchenko, sat in his chair by the door, chin on his chest, lost in sleep. His rifle stood propped against the wall.
    Nearby, Pekkala lay in his bunk, haunted by the death of Savushkin. He inhaled the musty, used-up air of dreaming men and listened to the patient rhythm of their breathing.
    Unable to sleep, Pekkala climbed out of his bunk and walked over to the window. His felt boots made no sound as they glided across the worn floorboards. With the heel of his palm, he rubbed away the frost that had gathered on the inside of the glass.
    Soon it would be dawn.
    Pekkala had made up his mind to lie low when the breakout began. As Kolchak had said, they would not wait for him if he was delayed in the confusion.
    There had been no time to reflect upon his brief meeting with the Colonel. He continued to be baffled by the Colonel’s choice to return, in spite of the overwhelming risks involved. At the same time, Pekkala felt a surge of guilt that his own faith in this man had not matched that of the soldiers he had left behind in Siberia. Pekkala was glad that the magnitude of the Comitati’s endurance would at last be repaid with their freedom.
    And as for Stalin, he decided, the payment for his treachery would be the knowledge that Kolchak had slipped from his grasp yet again, along with the last of the Imperial Gold reserves. When the time came, Pekkala decided, he would simply deny that he had known anything about Kolchak’s plans.
    Although Pekkala had solved the murder of Ryabov, it troubled him that he had never learned the motive for Ryabov’s betrayal of the Colonel. He realised now that he might never know. Whatever Ryabov’s purpose, he had taken his reasons to the grave.
    With shark-grey clouds hanging on the red horizon, Pekkala made his way over to the kitchen as usual in order to prepare the breakfast. It was so quiet out on the compound that Pekkala began to wonder if the escape had already taken place. The oven was on and the bread was baking inside. Melekov was nowhere to be seen. He often went back to his quarters for an extra half-hour of sleep, leaving to Pekkala the job of removing the loaves just before the kitchen opened for breakfast. When the bread was done, Pekkala took the pans from the oven and tipped the paika rations out into the battered aluminium tubs from which they would be served.
    He had just completed this task when Melekov burst into the kitchen. ‘You have to get out of here!’ he hissed. ‘They’re going to kill you.’
    ‘Who is?’ demanded Pekkala.
    ‘On Klenovkin’s orders, you are to be shot, as soon as the prisoners have gone to work this morning.’
    Pekkala wondered if Klenovkin had found out about the escape. If that was true, he would not be the only one to die. ‘Who told you this?’ he asked.
    ‘Gramotin did. Only a few minutes ago.’
    ‘Damn it, Melekov! Did you not stop to wonder if this might just be another of his lies?’
    ‘He said that orders had come in from Moscow last night. Klenovkin even showed him the telegram. Stalin himself wants you dead!’ Pekkala’s mind was racing. If Stalin had indeed ordered the execution, his only hope of survival would be to escape with the Comitati. Even if the telegram was just a story concocted by Gramotin, Pekkala knew he would be dead before the lie had been