Free The Beast in the Red Forest by Sam Eastland Page A

the less the two men had to do with each other the better, at least for the present. And now, here was Poskrebychev, bounding through the Kremlin and shouting out his name as if everyone in Russia knew their secret.
    Poskrebychev skidded to a halt in front of Kirov. He tried to speak but was so winded that at first he could not even talk. Instead, he held up one finger, nodded, then bent over and rested one hand upon his knee while he struggled to catch his breath. In his other arm, he continued to clutch the package he’d brought with him. ‘I have something for you,’ he gasped, still staring at the floor.
    ‘Something for me?’
    Poskrebychev nodded, wheezing.
    A woman passed by on her way to the records office, carrying a bundle of files. She eyed them suspiciously and then hurried on her way.
    Kirov smiled at her and patted Poskrebychev on the shoulder, as if they were the best of friends. Then he lowered himself, until his lips were almost touching Poskrebychev’s ear. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he whispered, his teeth clenched in a skull-like grin. ‘Are you trying to get us both killed?’
    With a final gasp, Poskrebychev righted himself. His face was a liverish red. ‘From Linsky,’ he announced, shoving the parcel into Kirov’s hands. ‘Your new tunic, Major.’
    Kirov had forgotten all about it. ‘Well,’ he said, flustered, ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
    ‘Just bring him back,’ whispered Poskrebychev. ‘That will be more than enough.’

Letter found November 1st, 1937, wrapped around stone at entrance of US Embassy, Spano House, Mokhovaya Street, Moscow.
    (Postmark: none.)
    Dear Ambassador Davies,
    I sent a letter to you in July of this year, regarding the arrest of my husband, William H. Vasko, of Newark, New Jersey, by Russian police at our home in Nizhni-Novgorod, where he was employed as a foreman at the Ford Motor Car factory.
    I came to the Embassy several times to see if you had replied to my letter, but was told by your secretary, Mr Samuel Hayes, that you had no comment on the matter.
    I cannot believe this is true.
    Ambassador, my husband has been missing for almost five months and during that time I have received no word as to his whereabouts or even the crime he is supposed to have committed. In August, my children and I were told to vacate our house in order to make way for a new family of workers and since then we have been living at a homeless shelter here in Moscow.
    I would like to return to America but I have no money and our passports were taken from us when we first arrived in the Soviet Union. We were told we’d get them back but it never happened.
    I now believe that we are being followed and I do not dare approach the Embassy in person.
    Ambassador Davies, I appeal to you as an American citizen to help me and my son and daughter.
    Sincerely,
    Betty Jean Vasko

  
    The following day, out of a gently falling rain, a two-seater Polikarpov UTI-4 roared down on to a grass strip runway which ran beside the railway tracks, a few kilometres northwest of Rovno. The Polikarpov, normally used as a training aircraft, had been pressed into service earlier that day when Kirov, in his perfectly fitted new tunic, had interrupted a young pilot’s first day of flight instruction. Shortly after Kirov had transmitted instructions to the newly established Red Army garrison in Rovno that he would require transport upon his arrival, the Polikarpov had taken off towards the west, the pilot instructor still protesting loudly through the headphones and the student standing by himself on the runway, watching as the plane rose up into the clouds.
    At the edge of the runway stood the ruins of a building which had once housed the ground controller. All that remained of it now was a silhouette of ash, and the smell of the damp, burned wood filled Kirov’s lungs as he walked towards a mud-splashed American Willys Jeep, one of thousands sent to Russia as part of the Lend-Lease