Red Moth by Sam Eastland Page B

the building and finally the rumble of the Emka as its engine sprang to life.
    For a moment, Pekkala stared longingly at a chair in the corner. Two years before, Pekkala had salvaged the chair off the street after spotting it lying in the snow outside the Hotel Metropol. Before the Great War, the hotel had been famous as a meeting place for gamblers, spies and black market millionaires. Pekkala himself had often met there with the former Moscow Bureau Chief of the Okhrana, a fleshy man named Zubatov. Although Zubatov had been forced out of his position in 1903 by Interior Minister Vyachyslav von Plehve, he continued to work for the Okhrana as a field agent. He often smuggled himself into neighbouring countries with the help of a shadowy branch of the Okhrana, known as the Myednikov Section, who specialised in infiltrating foreign Intelligence networks. Using a variety of disguises and forged identities, Zubatov would hunt down any plots which might endanger the life of the Tsar. Rarely did he return without news of some conspiracy. His paranoia proved infectious, and it wasn’t long before he had convinced the Tsarina to order the construction of hidden passageways within the Catherine and Alexander Palaces. These tunnels emerged in groves of trees outside the buildings themselves or even beyond the grounds of the estate. But it did not stop there. At Zubatov’s urging, secret hiding places were built in all the residences at Tsarskoye Selo. Behind invisible doors, staircases carved out of the bedrock led to rooms deep beneath the ground. In these tomb-like chambers, members of the Romanov family, and anyone who worked for them, could vanish from the guns and knives of those who might come to do them harm.
    Pekkala returned to the estate one evening to find the Tsar’s horse tied to a fence post outside his cottage and the Tsar himself emerging from the front door.
    ‘Pekkala! I have left you a present inside.’
    ‘That is very kind of you, Majesty.’
    The Tsar smiled. ‘You might not think so when you see where I have left it.’
    ‘It’s not in the cottage?’
    ‘It’s underneath the cottage,’ replied the Tsar, untying the horse and climbing into the saddle, ‘in your own private sanctuary from the madmen of this world.’
    Pekkala did not reply.
    ‘I know how you feel about confined spaces,’ the Tsar told him, ‘and that you have no intention of going down into that hiding place if you can help it.’
    ‘That would be correct,’ replied Pekkala.
    ‘So, as a reward, or call it a challenge if you like, I have gone down there myself and left you a bottle of my finest slivovitz plum brandy. All you have to do is go and get it.’
    The construction of these hideaways did little to quell Zubatov’s fears.
    Although many of Zubatov’s contemporaries believed him to be paranoid, the Okhrana had learned that it was better to err on the side of caution, in case the failure to report a legitimate threat would recoil upon their heads.
    Inevitably, word would reach the Tsar.
    Then the Tsar would summon Pekkala.
    ‘Go to Moscow,’ he would say. ‘See what Zubatov has dreamed up this time.’
    Zubatov insisted that all his meetings take place face to face, since he did not trust the phone system. As head of the Okhrana, Zubatov had tapped every phone exchange in the country, so there was good reason for his lack of faith.
    ‘Will I find him at the Metropol?’ asked Pekkala, his eyes glazing at the thought of another long train ride from St Petersburg.
    ‘Of course,’ replied the Tsar. ‘That’s the only place where he feels safe, although I’m damned if I know why.’
    ‘It’s because the anarchists also meet there, Excellency. They like the food too much to blow it up and Zubatov is convinced they are planning to turn it into their headquarters some day.’
    The Tsar laughed. ‘I know what you think of Zubatov, Pekkala, but please don’t judge him too harshly. After all, he’s only trying to save my