City of Ghosts by Ben Creed (most important books of all time txt) 📕

into sight. It was lurching from side to side. The left-back wheel was flat and it was limping along as Vronsky tried to control it.

I got lucky with my shot. The thought had only just crossed his mind when Vronsky and the ZIS disappeared into an unlit tunnel. Seconds later, Rossel followed, hoping to get close enough to do some damage with the snowplough.

Now he was no more than a metre behind, but Vronsky had accelerated. Sparks burned orange and blue as he hit first one wall of the tunnel, and then the other, in an effort to escape.

Rossel matched him, got to touching distance, close enough to see the back of Vronsky’s head through the glass panel of the cabin.

Then a searing light made Rossel throw up an arm to shield his eyes.

Another truck, another car? Something right in front of them. Blinded, he stamped on the brake. The snowplough rocked from side to side and made a screeching sound as it began to slide. He heard a crash up ahead, just as the light vanished, and as he thundered on he saw the astounded face of a uniformed MGB soldier manning a searchlight and realised Vronsky had turned sharply and smashed through the outer security gate of Beria’s dacha.

Rossel stamped on the accelerator again and barged into the back of Vronsky’s truck but his own vehicle was starting to protest. Bolts popped – spat into the trees that lined the driveway, as the caterpillar tracks sheared away. Glass shattered as a chunk of metal took out the windscreen. Rossel’s forehead smashed into the driver’s mirror. Blood began to flow. Vronsky’s truck shuddered to a stop just before the snowplough lurched sideways and ended its journey in the back of the composer’s ZIS.

Rossel scrabbled for the passenger door handle and leapt down into knee-deep snow. As he did so, Vronsky fell out of his vehicle. Rossel launched himself at the maestro, put both hands around his throat, used the full weight of his body to drag him down onto the ground. One punch – one single blow – was all he was allowed. Then he heard the safety catches come off the PPSh submachine guns and the familiar shouted command:

‘Ruki vyerkh! Ruki vyerkh! Hands up!’

Rossel staggered to his feet and obeyed.

45

Vronsky’s huge arms stretched skyward. Rossel stood no more than a metre behind. The maestro looked as though he were ready to conduct the final act of one of his own operas, and was pausing to build tension and anticipation among an admiring Kirov audience instead of six MGB officers holding PPShs. They were fanned out, three to each side of the drive, and aiming directly at Vronsky and Rossel.

About twenty metres behind them was a set of stone steps that rose into the elegant private residence, shining in the blaze of lights that the security guards had trained on the scene. Off to one side stood the birch trees that shielded the elite dacha from view. On the other, its icy surface glittering in the moonlight, was Lake Ladoga. At the top of the steps, Kalashnikov slung over one shoulder, was Colonel Sarkisov.

Half a minute later, Beria appeared and stood next to him. The minister glanced to his left and right, taking a moment to familiarise himself with the unexpected turn of events. He looked unperturbed, as if he were about to inspect a troop of particularly unpromising young recruits lined up in some provincial town square. Then he took off his glasses and used a small cloth to polish them. Satisfied, he slipped them back on again and, followed by Sarkisov, began to walk down the steps towards Vronsky and Rossel.

Vronsky was standing just in front of Rossel. Something about Beria’s unruffled composure had unnerved the maestro. He turned his head a little so he could talk out of the side of his mouth.

‘Arrest me.’

The composer’s normal deep baritone had become a tremulous whisper. ‘Arrest me, Lieutenant. Murder is a militia matter. Not something that should be of any interest to the ministry of state security. I still have friends in the highest echelons. I will arrange for you to be promoted. What do you want to be? A captain? A major? Arrest me, for God’s sake, Rossel. The militia have jurisdiction here . . .’

The composer’s voice trailed away. Beria was standing directly in front of them. ‘You wish to see me, Comrade Vronsky?’

‘To warn you, Lavrentiy. I was coming to warn you.’

‘Really, am I in some kind of trouble?’

Rossel, his arms in the air, snorted. Beria’s gaze settled on the lieutenant.

‘Ah, yes. The man who likes jokes. What is it this time, Lieutenant?’

Blood still trickling down his forehead from the collision with the driver’s mirror, Rossel looked back.

‘I don’t think the maestro can be feeling well, Comrade Minister. He just asked me to arrest him and then claimed, if I did, he would get me promoted to the rank of major. Of course, his assessment of my current situation and job prospects does not fully align with my own.’

Beria’s expression was a study in stony-faced restraint. Then a grin began to spread from one side of the minister’s sallow face to the other, and – shoulders shaking – he began to laugh. No one else dared join in.

After a minute or so, the chortling subsided into silence. Beria took out the cloth again but this time gave his glasses only a cursory wipe before nodding at Sarkisov who – taking a club from a deep pocket in his greatcoat – stepped behind Vronsky and swung it. The composer dropped to his knees.

Beria popped his spectacles back on and stared at Vronsky.

‘I never used to like it,’ he said.

Vronsky reached back to the crown of his head and then gazed uncomprehendingly at the blood on his palm.

‘Like what, Lavrentiy? Like what?’

‘That stupid name you gave me: Thanatos – Death. There was always a certain intellectual bourgeois condescension in the way you used to pronounce it.