MPO Captain Malkov had ordered a roundup of all informers, including those listed in the GRU files.
He was surprised. The informers were not helpful. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to be, but apparently they knew nothing. They could be forced to talk, of course, but then all you got was rubbish. An informer would tell you it was the bishop or his grandmother behind the munitions sabotage in order to save his own skin. Whoever was behind the nerazorvavshiesya— “dud”—rockets and shells being sent to the Yumashev—and who knew how many other ships? — had planned it very carefully, as the duplicated serial numbers attested to. Malkov also suspected that several heretofore helpful informants had gone mute, after being bitten by the bug of Baltic nationalism that had broken out ever since Baba Gorbachev—”Auntie Gorbachev”—and his stupid “liberalization” policy.
Watching the swarm of gulls over Tallinn’s Number Three dock, the birds diving and rising above the giant gray gantries screeching so loudly that his driver did not hear him telling him to stop, Malkov marveled at the principle of internal organization that must be in operation to prevent the birds from colliding with one another. Malkov’s small, two-cylinder car was flanked by four armored personnel carriers. This much force he knew might not be necessary, but better to arrive with too much man too little. Nothing focused the mind more effectively than a.50 machine gun. For some, the stocky, brutish build of the captain and his rough informality were enough to make them feel intimidated, the joke on the docks being that Malkov had been chosen for his looks more than for his brains. Others said that becoming an MOP chief made you look like that anyway.
The simple fact that Malkov’s car stopped ten yards farther on than he had intended meant that a dirty-boiler-suited riveter, his huge riveting gun slung over his shoulder like a small, silver lamb as he headed toward the tool shed, and his apprentice, who walked with him, were selected as hostages rather than two other men farther back who were just coming on shift. The captain’s maritime troops had already sealed off the docks, and he had ordered two Pauk-class patrol Corvettes to pry the harbor fifty meters offshore in the event that anyone trying to evade questioning might attempt to swim farther down the docks. When the 230 workers, all but 21 of them men, had been assembled, the captain mounted a weather-worn dais used for new launches from the Tallinn yard. The gulls were increasing in number as more fish boats came in from the gulf, the birds’ screeching now so loud, the captain was obliged to ask an NCO to fetch a megaphone from one of the armored personnel carriers forming themselves in a semicircle around the workers. A row of troops from the APCs flanked the dais near the edge of the wharf, where crates of ordnance were awaiting shipment.
“I will be brief,” said the captain. “Sabotage has been committed against the Soviet navy — the navy which protects your children from imperialist aggression.” He heard someone in the crowd making a guttural coughing noise, getting ready to spit.
“I want information,” Malkov told them, switching from Russian to fluent Estonian. “Now! I should tell you we have Mustamäe Apartments surrounded.”
There was a murmur, a sudden shift in the crowd. The captain’s inference was clear.
“Come here!” the captain ordered the riveter and his apprentice. Reluctantly, a marine trooper pushing them with his rifle, the two men walked up the four steps to the dais, the apprentice stepping over a puddle from the rainfall dumped by an early morning shower that had washed the air so clean that for a while the rusting, polluted aspect of the docks had taken on a clean, sparkly look. It was all illusion. The riveter looked at the captain defiantly; the apprentice tried to do likewise but was clearly afraid that if he did so, he would be shot on the spot.
“The first choice of hostages,” said Malkov, indicating the two men, “has been from the docks. Future hostages will be taken from Mustamäe.” He looked at the sullen crowd of workers, his eyes seeming to take in every stare and turn it back on itself. “I will be in the dockyard office.” With that, he walked down the four steps of the dais and, passing through the flank of troopers, nodded to the NCO, handing him back the megaphone. His car started up and a volley of shots rang out, blowing the riveter and apprentice off the dais.
The crowd of workers were stunned, surged angrily, then, under a long burst of machine-gun fire from the armored personnel carriers, stopped, yelling and screaming at the Russian troops, their voices mingling with the screeching of the gulls, several of which had also been hit by the machine-gun bursts, their lifeless bodies tumbling down through the gantries. Here and there, feathers fluttered like bloodied snow, eventually to fall softly on the wind-ruffled harbor.
At Mustamäe they were already loading the trucks now that the lists of whose family lived where had arrived from the docks. Priority in the roundup was being given to teenagers, as Malkov knew from his experience as an MOP officer in Riga that the elderly were not worth the trouble. They were easier to round up at the beginning but prone to die on you in the cells, which only stiffened resistance among the workers rather than weakened it. Younger hostages were by far the best bet.
An MPO corporal returned to apartment 703. On his copy of the list, it said, “Family Jaakson.” When she opened the door, the woman, Malle Jaakson, remarkably well preserved for her age, he thought, was wearing spectacles and had a book in her hand. “You told us,” the corporal said, glancing down at his clipboard, “that Edouard Jaakson was at school.”
“He isn’t,” the MPO corporal said.
Either the woman had been telling the truth and the boy had left for school early, then hopped it, or he was in the apartment. The corporal brushed past her, through to the small nine-by-nine living room, his head turning, his concentration absolute as he checked the four small rooms of the apartment.
Another Hitler, Malle thought. She had been gripping the book so tightly, she could feel her fingers going numb from the lack of circulation.
The corporal stopped and looked back long and hard at her. She blushed; the man’s eyes were not accusing but rather roving over her trim figure, ill defined beneath a loose-fitting, rust-red cardigan but obviously more alluring to him for that. Instinctively she pulled the cardigan closed about her as if to shut out his view. Immediately she realized it had been the wrong thing to do, as if she were in fact showing herself off. Even worse, it might occur to him that she was trying to divert his attention. But then, if she could divert his attention—
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Real coffee?” the corporal asked, his surprise total. Like most of the troops, he was clearly fed up with drinking the bitter ersatz stuff made from barley and chicory.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t care for the artificial kind either. But I have some tea. I imagine you must be tired. You could do with a cup, I expect.”
“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, Mrs. Jaakson.”
She smiled nervously as she picked up the kettle. “Is that a Ukrainian accent I detect?” she asked as if she liked it.
“You can tell?” Though she had not turned around from the gas stove, she sensed from his tone that he was pleased. She could feel him relax, as if the very air had changed, and heard him unbuckle his webbed belt as he sat down at the table. Filling the kettle, she could see outside that the troopers were still surrounding the building, some trucks, packed with civilians, leaving, and others, empty, arriving. But even the line of soldiers seemed more relaxed, their circle around the apartments sagging in places, confident now that no one had gotten out who shouldn’t.
“Have you been posted in Tallinn for long?” she said lightly, turning up the gas, the stove’s yellowish-blue circle of fire hissing softly, comfortingly.
“In Tallinn,” he said, “a year. I like it. You can buy more things here. Not so good now, of course.”
“No,” she said, reaching for the tea and spooning it out carefully into the pot. She thought she heard a noise, possibly from the bedroom, and feeling herself stiffen with alarm, rather than let him see her reaction, took her time replacing the lid on the tea jar and putting it back on the shelf above the gas ring. She heard the noise again and quickly turned the tap full on, topping up the kettle, though it was already half-full, not daring to look at him for fear he might see the alarm in her eyes. “You have a family?” she asked, concentrating on the kettle.
“Yes,” said the corporal, “I’ve been married now for three — four years. My wife’s name is Raza.”
The noise sounded again, like the rustle of a curtain.
“You must miss your family.”
“I have no children. But yes, I miss my wife.”
“Yes.”
When she turned to face him, she gasped, almost dropping the kettle — his erection purple, swollen and rising like some huge fat earthworm, the most disgusting thing she had ever seen. He nodded toward the bedroom with a crooked grin. “I’ll take the boy off the list,” he said. She was transfixed.
“I don’t care if he’s joined the Lesnye Bortsy za Svobodu,” he said, meaning the Forest Freedom Fighters. “Or with relatives, whatever. I’ll take him off the list.” He paused. “But you must be nice. Like you enjoy it, yes?”
Stunned, Malle lifted the kettle, which was so heavy it splashed, almost extinguishing the gas ring, making a loud, steaming noise.
“I can’t hear you,” he said.