Designated Targets

Khrushchev did. After all, they had known each other for years. A few years anyway, which counted for something in the charnel house known as the Soviet Union. It was Beria who had warned him off his friendship with Yezhov, just before the perverted little monster had been snatched up and fed into the meat grinder. Why, that made him closer to the NKVD chief than poor Blokhin over there, who had once served loyally under Yezhov, and nearly died for it.

As Beria squatted beside him and motioned for one of the guards to step off Khrushchev’s arm, the fallen Communist felt something that was akin to love well up within his breast. It was suddenly very important that he make a gesture of good faith for his old friend.

What did it matter what had passed between them? He didn’t care that he had been made to lie in his own excrement while Blokhin and Beria beat him on the soles of his feet with iron bars. He did not care that they had tied him to a chair and beaten his legs until they were black masses, then returned to beat the bruises so that it felt like boiled water had been poured over them. It was no longer even a concern that Beria had gouged out his eye with a gloved thumb, and then crushed the ruined eyeball as it hung on his cheek.

He didn’t shudder as he recalled the memory. He had seen worse, and had ordered worse things done.

“What is it I’m to sign?” he croaked.

“You forget?” asked Beria. He seemed disappointed. “It is your confession. That you worked as a German agent to undermine the defense of the Southwestern Front.”

Khrushchev’s thoughts moved as slowly through his mind as a child’s balloon in the air of a hot summer’s day. He recalled the rout and encirclement at Kharkov only dimly. It was from his past life. Before Lubianka.

“I do not remember so well, Lavrenty Pavlovich,” he confessed. “But I am quite certain I was not a German agent.”

Beria smiled, a gesture that fell on Khrushchev like a shaft of spring sunlight. “It matters not. Will you do me this favor anyway? Will you sign this for me? For the Vozhd?”

Sinking deeper into narcotic lassitude, Khrushchev was ashamed of himself for quibbling. With a great effort he took the confession in the broken claw of his free hand. The weight suddenly came off his other arm, and a fountain pen appeared. He could not concentrate sufficiently to read the document, but he had seen enough of them over the years. He knew it mattered not.

His signature was barely legible, and he smeared blood on the paper.

A dreamy, almost happy indolence had taken hold of Khrushchev.

“Fascinating,” Beria said quietly as he turned to leave.

Khrushchev felt himself forever tottering on the edge of blessed sleep, but he never quite tumbled over. With a great effort he managed to rouse himself to speak. “Tell me, Lavrenty Pavlovich,” he croaked at Beria’s retreating back. “When your time comes, will you be able to withstand the pain?”

The NKVD chief stopped and turned, regarded Khrushchev with the flat curiosity of a viper sizing up a small meal. “This is my time,” he replied. “It has already come.”

Blokhin moved to bar the door, and the two guards hoisted Khrushchev up by the arms. He knew without being told what was about to happen. He would be taken from the cell and placed in a Black Crow, driven a short distance to the killing house in Varsonofyevsky Lane and into the courtyard where stood a low, square building. The floor was concrete, just like his cell. It sloped down slightly toward one wall constructed of thick wooden logs. Taps and hoses were provided to wash away the blood. He would be placed against the wall and shot in the back of the head by Blokhin, who personally undertook the most important executions. Then his body would be placed in a metal box and driven to a nearby crematorium. Most likely his ashes would later be dumped in the mass grave at the Donskoi Cemetery.

He didn’t care. Nothing mattered any longer. Not Stalin. Not Beria. Certainly not the Party or the revolution, or the tens of thousands he had sent to be killed by men like Blokhin. As they dragged him down the narrow, damp corridor he could raise neither self-pity nor hope, anger nor terror. Nothing really interested him.

Not even the odd sight of a woman in a naval uniform with a British insigne sewn onto the shoulder. She was being dragged, unconscious, out of a cell three doors down from his. At first he thought the woman had been beaten black and blue like him, but then he realized she was dark-skinned. However, her swollen, battered face did testify to a number of savage assaults, such as he had endured.