The Obedient Assassin: A Novel (19 page)

T
he sheet of lightning flickered off and on, a canopy of white that gathered itself into a bolt, unfolding, one joint after another, a long finger jutting down to stab the city. The windshield blades thumped methodically as the rain splashed softly against the undercarriage of the Buick, the headlights probing the dark street, drops of rain falling at a slant.

“Hijo le!”
said Ramón as the thunder cracked.

“It's letting up,” said Eitingon. “It won't last much longer.”

“Yes, and a good thing.”

They were driving slowly through a slum where water stood in the streets. At the edge of the headlights, a man scurried along, hugging the buildings in an attempt to stay dry. “That's the place,” Eitingon said as the man disappeared into a tenement.

“Should I come in with you?”

“No. That's not necessary.”

Ramón watched Eitingon go into the building, then drove on to the intersection of Cuba and Chile streets. Dousing the lights and killing the engine, he got out and pulled his gray fedora down as he climbed the steps of a tenement. The long narrow hall smelled of kerosene and garbage. The murmur of voices came through the thin wooden door. When Ramón tapped on the door, the room fell silent. Fear. Caution. The door opened a crack, and a Spaniard looked out.
“David me mandó,”
said Ramón.

“Sí, sí, pasale! Pasale!”

The poverty of the room was plain, a cot with a dirty bare mattress pushed against one wall, a torn paper shade hanging over the window, a flimsy table, a sardine can filled with cigarette butts. Two men got up from their game of dominoes, a third from the cot. From the next room came the hush of women and children herded out of sight. Ramón took off his fedora and gabardine raincoat, then passed around his pack of Lucky Strikes.

“David has been here?” he asked.

“Yes, with Pujol.”

Ramón made an effort at conversation, but the distance was too great between him and the men. War refugees, they had lost everything in Spain and had nothing in Mexico. Ramón was a boss, a rich guy in fine clothes driving a car, riding above the fray.

The men smoked their cigarettes in awkward silence, then, as if a tourniquet had been released, the domino players went on in low voices among themselves. “Now the French will get fucked in the ass by Hitler,” said one, indulging in a bit of schadenfreude.

“Yes, but Hitler will fuck the French then leave. Franco will never stop fucking Spain.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance as the storm left the valley. Time passed with the minute clicks of dominoes, the sound of water dripping from the eaves. The men's anxiety kindled Ramón's. He didn't want to think about what was about to happen, about Sheldon opening the gate or Alfred and Marguerite asleep in their beds.

A car stopped in front of the tenement just before two. Doors opened and slammed. Men's voices filled the street.

“Es el Packard de David,”
one of the Spaniards reported from the torn window shade. Moments later they heard the knock at the door and a voice ordered,
“Abra la puerta!
Es la policia!”

One of the men tried to open the door a crack but fell back as Siqueiros pushed his way in, disguised as an army officer. He wore a major's tunic, a visored cap, jodhpurs, riding boots, dark glasses, and a fake mustache. Antonio Pujol and the Arenal brothers followed, carrying cardboard suitcases.

“Muchacos, como me queda?”
Siqueiros demanded, pirouetting one way then the other like a fashion model. Boys, how does it suit me?

“Muy bien!”
the men cheered with relief.
“Se queda muy bien!”

Siqueiros was having a fine time. He was a hero to the men—a soldier, a revolutionary, an internationally famous muralist—and they were off on a lark. Siqueiros opened the suitcases and started passing out arms and uniforms as if it were Christmas.

B
y the time they reached Coyoacán, the clouds had opened on a pale white moon floating in a ring of haze. With Eitingon and four of the other men in the Buick, Ramón parked on Calle Abasola, a block back from the compound. There was no movement on the street. He could see the shape of the eucalyptus tree looming above the compound walls until the collective heat of the men began to fog the Buick's windows.

At ten till four, they eased out of the car, quietly shutting the doors. Jacques opened the trunk so that the men in army uniforms could get their weapons—a machine gun, rifles, a knapsack of thermos bombs. A dog close by began to bark, then another on Churubusco, and a third on Viena. Dodging puddles of water, Eitingon, bearlike in his trench coat and homburg, led the way, staying close to the walls.

A chill in the early morning air made Ramón shiver. He told himself that he was on a night raid in Spain, but with all of the planning and all of the waiting this was worse. He knew who was on the other side of the wall and what was about to happen. Even so, he felt a jolt of fear when he saw policemen emerging from the shadows on Calle Viena.

Eitingon held the two squads at the corner, waiting as Siqueiros and his men came sneaking from the opposite side of the compound along the front wall. When Siqueiros reached the policeman's hut, he stood up straight and walked in, followed by two of his men. He switched on a flashlight. There was a murmur of voices in the hut, then Siqueiros came out.

“Drunk as dogs,” he whispered, swaggering up to Eitingon in his major's uniform. “They think they're under arrest. In a moment, they'll be bound and gagged.”

“Ready?” Eitingon asked, taking Ramón by the arm.

Eitingon had chosen two of the men to accompany Ramón. One would crouch on each side and slam through the door the moment the iron bar was moved.

Ramón felt Eitingon's hand moving him into place. “If it's not Sheldon,” the Russian whispered, “don't let them see your face.”

As Ramón tapped softly on the metal door, he pictured the American sitting in the chair, paging through a magazine. He heard movement, then Sheldon's voice at the door. “Who's there? Is someone there?”

“Sheldon, it's me.”

“Frank! What are you doing out there?”

“My car broke down. Let me in!”

The slot for the peephole opened and the floodlight came on. Sheldon's eyes moved from side to side, then, seeing Ramón, he snapped the electric lock. “Just a minute,” he called, as he moved the iron bar out of the way.

When the heavy door began to open, the two men burst through, springing upon Sheldon, pinning his arms. He looked as if he were about to laugh—this had to be a joke—until a hand clapped over his mouth. Then, panicking, his eyes moved from side to side, trying to see his captors, until, bewildered and betrayed, they settled upon Ramón.

Ramón leaned close—close enough to smell Sheldon's breath, his skin and hair. “Sheldon, do what they say, and they won't hurt you. Do what they say, and everything will be all right.”

The young American began to struggle as he was dragged out of the way and more men in uniform started pouring through the door.

Eitingon took Ramón's arm. “All right, let's get out of here.”

Ramón and Eitingon walked quickly toward the car, listening to the muffled sound of running on the opposite side of the wall. The machine guns opened fire, shattering the morning stillness with a long and violent roar that stopped with a resounding silence. Voices called back and forth. A single shot was fired. Another. Then the dogs in the neighborhood began to howl.

N
atalia Sedova woke to a shattering roar, a concussion of noise, heat, and fire, bullets flying from every side of the room, the thud of lead popping the plastered walls, the sting of sand, the smell of sulfur. Her husband moaned at her side, trying to surface, to break the narcotic web of his sleeping pill.
They have come
, she thought.
What we have dreaded for so long has finally begun. Stalin's men have come to kill Trotsky.

Struggling beneath sheet and blanket, she pushed her husband off the bed beside the wall and slid on top, shielding his body with her own. They lay so close, she felt him wake as the torrent of machine-gun fire rained down. Squirming, she pushed closer, pressing them into that angle between floor and wall.
Seva was in the next room. Stalin had killed both her sons, and now Seva!

The silence came suddenly, waves of shock ringing out into the stunned night. Outside, voices in Spanish and English called back and forth across the patio. “Keep down! Keep down!” shouted one of Trotsky's guards.

“If you keep out of this, you will be all right,” an assailant shouted, then sprayed the front of the guards' quarters with machine-gun fire.

Her frail body trembling, she heard a scrabbling at the door to Seva's room, followed by a whump of explosion that sent flames leaping as the room filled with smoke. Seva screamed when an exterior door opened to his room, then they heard footsteps coming, boot heels ringing on the wooden planks. From beneath the bed, Natalia Sedova watched the door to Seva's room swing open, flames flickering on the riding boots.

They knew what was coming. The executioner would switch on the light and yank back the covers. That was procedure. He wouldn't leave until he saw that the job was done. He would shoot them where they cowered on the floor.

The assassin approached, the boots coming to the edge of the bed, so close they could have reached out and touched them. But rather than switch on the light and rip the covers from the bed, he fired four rapid shots from a revolver into the mattress—the bullets hitting the floor beside them—then turned and walked out of the room.

Voices called back and forth in the garden. Men were running.
“Vamonos! Vamonos! Ya! Ya! Vamonos!”
a Mexican shouted.

They were retreating, heading for the garage. Car doors opened and slammed. Someone started the Ford. Another driver started the Dodge. The big garage door rumbled open.

“Seva!” Natalia Sedova whispered urgently. She knew her grandson was dead in the next room. She imagined the carnage outside on the patio, the bodies of their friends riddled with bullets, the blood.

Wedged into the corner, they listened as the Dodge pulled out of the garage followed by the Ford. The transmissions shifted from first to second, the gears winding out as they drove away. Natalia Sedova and Trotsky lay in stunned silence. A wave of tremendous violence had crashed upon them but somehow they had survived.

“Marguerite!” Seva's voice called out, high and sweet. “Alfred!”

Natalia Sedova gasped. “They're alive! Seva! The Rosmers! They're alive.”

“Come!” Trotsky said, helping Natalia Sedova up. Turning on the light, he could see blue smoke hanging in the air and the ravaged plaster walls.

“My God! My God! My God!” Natalia Sedova moaned in Russian. In her nightgown, her gray hair falling down her back, she picked up a rug from the floor and threw it over the flames. Trotsky put on his robe and slippers and got a pistol from the nightstand. He tried the door to his office, but it had been jammed from the outside. Imagining his Stalin manuscript in flames, he shouted for help and banged on the door.

Their faces ashen, all but trembling, Jake Cooper, the big burly guard from Minnesota, and Otto Schüssler opened the door from the office.

“Where's the boy?” Trotsky demanded. “Is he injured?”

“A bullet grazed his ankle. Marguerite and Alfred have him.”

Trotsky walked out onto the patio, where he saw the Rosmers huddling over the boy.

“He's fine,” Marguerite said in French. “A little nick.”

“Seva?” He touched the boy's shoulder.

Seva nodded bravely.

“What about everyone else?”

“No one else is injured. But Sheldon's gone.”

“What happened?”

“They had us pinned down in our rooms,” Schüssler answered. “They set up a machine gun by the eucalyptus tree. Someone turned on the patio light so they'd fire if we stuck our heads out.”

Two more of the guards, Charles Cornell and Harold Robins, appeared, joining the others on the patio. The two Mexican women who worked in the house peered out from their quarters, their eyes wide with terror. Dogs all around the compound howled while the neighbors pretended to sleep.

“Where's Sheldon?” Trotsky demanded.

“Gone,” Robins answered. “He was behind the wheel of the Dodge.”

“Who had guard duty tonight?”

“Sheldon was at the gate.”

“Who else? Who was on the wall?”

“After midnight, just Sheldon. I've had the crud all week and had to get some sleep. We're stretched pretty thin, boss.”

“How'd they get in?”

“They didn't break down the door or come over the wall.”

“Sheldon let them in.”

“Was he one of them?” wondered Cooper. “An inside job?”

“Sheldon?” Trotsky repeated. “He's been here for weeks. He could have killed me with much less trouble. What about the police out on the street?”

“They're bound and gagged out in the guardhouse,” said Cornell.

“You let them go?”

Cornell shook his head.

“Well, go out there! Let them go!”

The young men looked at each other, one to another. None of them had been to war. “Boss, there's that corn patch across the road. There could be a machine gun in there.”

“No! They left. We heard them drive away. It's over.”

The men balked, afraid to move.

“You can't leave those men tied up. If you don't let them loose, I'll go out there and do it myself.”

He put his arm around Natalia Sedova. “The boy is fine. We all survived. Soon the police will be here.”

He walked to the trunk of the big eucalyptus tree where brass casings glinted in the damp grass. It was obvious what had happened. Stalin had sent the GPU to kill him. The GPU had made its play and failed miserably.

“Should we have tea?” Natalia Sedova was wondering aloud.

“Tea or something. We'll be up all night with the police here.”