Child 44 Read Online Free PDF Page A

assassinations–they were clandestine raiders.
    Leo had enjoyed the independence of his operations, although he was careful to keep that observation to himself. He liked the fact, or perhaps just the impression, that his fate had been in his hands. He’d flourished. As a result he’d been awarded the Order of Suvorov 2nd Class. His level-headedness, military success, good looks and above all his absolute and sincere belief in his country had resulted in him becoming a poster boy–quite literally–for the Soviet liberation of German-occupied territory. He and a gaggle of soldiers from a patchwork of divisions were photographed surrounding the burning wreck of a German panzer, guns in the air, victory on their faces, dead soldiers at their feet. In the background, smoke rose from smouldering villages. Destruction and death and triumphant smiles–Leo, with his good set of teeth and broad shoulders, was ushered to the front of the photograph. One week later the photograph had made the front page of
Pravda
and Leo was being congratulated by strangers, troops, civilians, people who’d wanted to shake his hand, embrace him, this symbol of victory.
    After the war Leo had moved from OMSBON into the NKVD itself. That progression had seemed logical. He hadn’t asked any questions: it was a path lain down by his superiors and he’d walked it, head held high. His country could have asked anything of him and he would’ve readily agreed. He would’ve run Gulags in the Arctic tundra of the Kolyma region had they asked him. His only ambition was a general one: to serve his country, a country that had defeated Fascism, a country that provided free education and healthcare, that trumpeted the rights of the workers around the world, that paid his father–a munitions worker on an assembly line–a salary comparable to that of a fully qualified doctor. Although his own employment in the State Security force was frequently unpleasant he understood its necessity, the necessity of guarding their revolution from enemies both foreign and domestic, from those who sought to undermine it and those determined to see it fail. To this end Leo would lay down his life. To this end he’d lay down the lives of others.
    None of this heroism or military training had any relevance today. Here was no enemy. This was a colleague, a friend, a grief-stricken father. And yet, even so, this was an MGB protocol and this father in mourning was the subject. Leo needed to tread carefully. He couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by the same feelings that were blinding Fyodor. This hysteria was putting a good family in danger. If left unchecked the groundless chatter about murder could grow like a weed, spreading through the community, unsettling people, making them question one of the fundamental pillars of their new society:

    There is no crime.

    Few people believed this absolutely. There were blemishes: this was a society still in transition, not perfect yet. As an MGB officer it was Leo’s duty to study the works of Lenin, in fact it was every citizen’s duty. He knew that social excesses–crime–would wither away as poverty and want disappeared. They hadn’t reached that plateau yet. Things were stolen, drunken disputes became violent: there were the
urki
–the criminal gangs. But people had to believe that they were moving towards a better state of existence. To call this murder, was to take a giant step backwards. Leo had been taught by his superior officer, his mentor Major Janusz Kuzmin, about the trials of 1937 where the accused had been briefed by Stalin that they had:

    Lost faith

    Enemies of the Party were not merely saboteurs, spies and wreckers of industry, but doubters of the Party line, doubters of the society which awaited them. Applying that rule, Fyodor, Leo’s friend and colleague, had indeed become an enemy.
    Leo’s mission was to quash any unfounded speculation, to guide them back from the brink. Talk of murder had a natural drama