The Margin of Evil! (12 page)

'
The state is pressing for the death penalty in this case! Nothing less will do!'

Georgii thought that the State Prosecutor was doing an excellent job in firing-up the rabble.
When Putinov had finished his speech he sat down. The crowd were baying for more. The chairman of the bench lent forward and gestured to Radetzky to speak. But the mob was in no hurry to hear Georgii Radetzky. The chairman shouted for silence and the spectators grudgingly acquiesced.

Georgii stood up and moved to the centre of the court.
He looked around him. Behind him sat 'The Bench'. In front of him sat Putinov, behind the prosecutor sat the mob. Georgii surveyed the scene that confronted him. He looked from right to left. Whilst he was looking, something caught his eye. A young boy was winking at him and next to him was a young girl clutching a teddy bear. It was Anna and Pyotr and they stood right in the midst of the mob, they were shouting and clambering like everybody else. Georgii took in a deep breath and then started.

'
Comrades we are here to do two things. The first is to judge, the second is to pass sentence on these boys. But the one thing we are not going to do is all be party to a, grave, grave, miscarriage of justice ... And I would like to remind Comrade Putinov that this is the New State not the 'Old' one. This courtroom is where justice rightly prevails over wrong. Not the other way around.'  Georgii paused, there was silence and you could have almost heard a pin drop. Even state prosecutor Putinov was listening intently. He carried on, Georgii knew he was on a roll, 'These two, Ivan Azarov and Artem Sobolev are not street hoodlums. They are hard working boys. One works at the abattoir, the other at a mortuary. They are not Besprizorniki. Like any other boys they like to have a bit of fun; since when has fun been outlawed? Yes, they were throwing horse dung around; yes there was a mysterious man wearing a bowler hat, who spoke in a foreign accent, who instructed them to humiliate the visiting foreign dignitary. Yes the foreigner overreacted,' Georgii turned around and faced the bench,' but I think that if I could appeal to the better nature of the court and the 'Comrades' gathered here, these two boys are wholeheartedly sorry for what they have done, and they do beg for the clemency of the 'Peoples Court.'  Georgii's masterstroke came next and he pointed towards some seated gentleman sitting at the back of the courtroom.'  Remember, the eyes of the world are upon us!'

'
Thank you Comrades Radetzky and Putinov.'  The chairman banged his gavel and then said, 'The court will now go into recess in order to decide sentence. Court will reconvene in one hour,' Ivan and Artem were taken down to the cells to await the verdict. Georgii went along with them. They sat in silence. Artem was the first to break it.

'
What do you think will happen to us, Comrade Radetzky?' he said.

'
It's impossible to say. Depends on what mood they're in!'

The
re was a knock on the cell door and a voice instructed them to return to the courtroom. They took their seats at the front of the court and waited for the bench to return. The bench returned.

'
Ivan Azarov and Artem Sobolev stand.'  The two boys stood. 'It is the decision of this court that you are taken to a place of execution one week from today and shot.'  The crowd let off an almighty roar of approval.

So much for Georgii
's role. He was stunned. He looked over at the two boys who just stared into space. The guards were busy manhandling them to their feet. Georgii looked over to where State Prosecutor Putinov was. He was being congratulated and feted for winning yet another case, for the state, by all his hangers on and fair weather comrades.

Georgii sat there and felt sick, he sat down and started to think.
When he had finished, he knew exactly what he had to do. He needed to call in a favour, and Auguste Gerhardt was the one that was going to grant it. The court was readying itself for the next case. One thing was for sure he was not hanging around for that one. Might as well shoot the lot, he thought as he went down to see the two boys. In the long run it would make life a lot easier. He told them that he would see them tomorrow in Lefortovo. With that he left the farce that was 'The Peoples Court.'

The Militsya station was busy; it was rumoured that a group of
'White' assassins were roaming the streets. Units were dispatched here there and everywhere to find them. As was usually the case they were never in sight, and always just around the corner. Georgii laid low just in case Trofimov sent him off on another Wild Goose chase. He picked up the telephone and phoned Gerhardt at the Kremlin. He was at a meeting. Damn Georgii thought, he put the receiver down and then dialled the operator's number. He told the operator that the call could not wait. The switchboard put him on hold. He waited and waited and then a voice said, 'Just putting you through.'

'
Georgii, meet me in my Kremlin apartment in one hour. I cannot talk right now; I've really got to go.'  Then Gerhardt hung up. Georgii placed the receiver back on its hook and then slid out via the back. Once on the street he made a beeline for the Kremlin. The walk would take him about an hour and Georgii decided that he was going to take the river route.

The Moskva River winds its way through Moscow in a serpentine way.
As far as Georgii was concerned the riverbank walks were his favourite. It did not matter what the time of year was, Georgii always liked to walk by the side of The Moskva. As he walked along he remembered how, in the past, he had loved to come and sit on the riverbank and watch the river traffic going up and down. As a child he used to imagine himself stowing away on a barge en route for the Caspian Sea. As a teenager he would walk along the bank and watch the pretty Muscovite women showing off their summer apparel to chaperones and lovers. Life was so vibrant down by the water's edge. Not anymore, revolution had seen to that. The once immaculately kept walkways had long since fallen into disrepair. Traffic on the river had all but ceased and the beautiful women now walked along the Thames and Seine embankments. The river's edge was now all but deserted.

A voice came out of the shadows.
'Excuse me, Georgii Radetzky might I have a word?'

Georgii turned to face the voice.
A gentleman walked out of the shadows. He was about average height; he was wearing a black bowler hat and a long tweed coat. The coat was very much in the fashion of the Edwardian Teddy boy. To the one side he held an umbrella with a gloved hand; the other hand was in his pocket. Georgii knew exactly who the man was. The man perfectly fitted the description of the foreign agent provocateur.

'
I'm in a hurry, I can't really stop.'

'
That's alright, I'll walk with you. I think you might want to listen to what I have to say,' the smartly dressed man said.

Georgii stopped and said.
' And what exactly do you have to say? Why should I listen, and why are you pointing a concealed weapon at me; why should I have anything to do with a man who, through an innocent enough prank, has condemned two naive boys to death!?'

'
Everything and nothing Comrade Radetzky ... I'll be upfront with you Mr. Radetzky I've been watching you for quite a while. From a safe distance of course, but I have made sure that no harm comes your way; you could say that I've been your Guardian Angel.'

'
I don't need any Guardian Angels! I need ...'

Georgii stopped.
The man had now pulled out a revolver on him and police intuition told him that this man meant business.

'
But I think you do. My government has instructed me to ask you if you would like to work for us? End of story. A simple yes or a no will do ... that's all I ask. If it's no I'll kill you right now. If its yes, and it can only be that, we can then talk business ...'

Further up the path there was movement, Georgii looked and saw a detachment of Red Guards walking towards them.
He looked over to where the man with the bowler hat had been standing. He was gone.

Then a voice came out of the darkness,
'I'll be in touch!'

'
Look forward to it,' Georgii thought. The guards marched past him, and he continued his journey to the Kremlin.

On arrival he was taken to Comrade Gerhardt
's apartment. The rooms were situated in the part of the Kremlin reserved for the party elite. Georgii wondered how Auguste had managed to wangle his way in here. The door opened and his mentor ushered him in.

'
Drink Georgii? I've got whisky, vodka and gin here.'

'
Whisky. Not too heavy on the water.'

He looked around the room.
It was dimly lit and there was a fireplace over on the far side. In front of it there were two winged chairs.  In one of the chairs someone was sitting discreetly smoking a cigarette, but Georgii could not make out who the person was. Whilst he adjusted his eyesight he noticed that there was third person standing by the window.

'
There is someone here that would very much like to meet you ... Georgii meet Comrade Trotsky,' Gerhardt said.

Still wary of their last meeting, Georgii Radetzky shook hands with
'The Genius' of the revolution and then took a seat.

'
Comrade Radetzky, I have heard so much about you from Auguste here. In a country full of incompetents and wasters, it is so reassuring to meet a true expert in his chosen field of detection,' Trotsky said.

'
Thank you very much for the compliment Comrade Trotsky,' Georgii said.

'
Georgii, I'm sorry to hear about the two boys,' Gerhardt said.

'
That's why I'm here Auguste. I'll get to the point ... Can you commute the sentence; can you pull a few strings? After all you have asked favours of me.'

'
I'll see what I can do. Now, Comrade Trotsky and I are really glad that you have come here tonight. In fact, I was going to send for you anyway. We have a proposition for you.'

'
Comrade, we live in a time where events move fast and sometime things don't go to plan. Take the death of Comrade Sverdlov; who could have foreseen that? As I'm sure you are well aware, my attention, and that of Lenin's, has been elsewhere of late,' Trotsky paused and then carried on, 'Whilst we have been focusing on fighting the Civil War, others, within these walls have tried to take advantage of the situation.  Sverdlov had been investigating a small cabal within the party and was about to denounce one of their number to 'The Central Committee.'  But he died, and very conveniently, the dossier he was working on disappeared. Without that report there can be no denunciation. We need to have that information before we can proceed,' Trotsky said.

'
So you want me to recover the file. Am I permitted to know who this cabal is?' Georgii said.

'
Yes and no ...'  Gerhardt said.

Trotsky interrupted,
'I suspect that the file has either been destroyed or it's in a very safe location. Now we believe that your recent covert investigations into the death of Isaak Goldstein and this group called 'The Kevshor's', might be linked in with the disappearance of Sverdlovs report.'

'
Georgii, we are not speaking in riddles, but for security reasons we have to be vague. We have to be! What I would like you to do is to carry on discretely with your investigations ...'  Gerhardt said.

Then a tall man stepped forward,
'It's imperative that this investigation is conducted with the utmost discretion. Because, if we are right, the person we suspect is not only cunning, but potentially a dangerous enemy. There is a cancer within these walls Georgii and, if it remains unchecked, it could spell disaster for all of us.' Georgii recognised the speaker as none other than the much feared Felix Dzerhinsky
[12]
, Head of the Cheka.

Trotsky interrupted again,
'But do not record anything, do not write anything down.'

'
Then what's the point of the investigation? Surely you need to present some kind of evidence at the end of the day,' Georgii Radetzky said.

'
Leave that to us! We'll cross that river when we get to it. Now the two boys, we will commute the death sentence to say ... ten years hard labour!'  Trotsky said.

'
Is that the best that you can do?'  Georgii said.

'
Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. You have to send out a strong signal to others; that we – 'The Bolsheviks' – mean business,' Trotsky said.

'
But they're innocents!'

'
That is all we can do Georgii.  On the other matter. My advice to you, and I know how resourceful you can be get in, or someone into, the ranks of these Georgian Black Marketeers. Find out all you can. We'll be in touch,' Gerhardt said.

With th
at they all said their goodbyes and Georgii Radetzky left. On the way home he thought about the day's events. The 'Kangaroo-Court', and State Prosecutor Putinov's momentary triumph. Where did he think he was; The Old Bailey? The timely appearance, of the man in the bowler hat, who had apparently been watching him from a distance for quite some time. He was probably watching him right now. It was for the best that he told no one about this strange encounter. Georgii thought that whoever he was, he was bound to meet up with him again, hopefully later rather than sooner. Anyway, first thing in the morning, he would go over to Lefortovo and break the news to the boys. Georgii hoped that they would greet any news as good news.