24

Smolny Institute
Petrograd, Russia Morning,
July 15, 1918

Mozger sat at his desk, trying to get through the mountain of paperwork that had piled up over the past week. As head of the Petrograd Soviet, he remained a constantly busy man who would often sleep in his office rather than go home to his tiny apartment. The other members of the soviet respected and feared him. He lived the life of the consummate Bolshevik, the new party man. Zinoviev himself actually resented Mozger, for he felt he should have been given the honor of heading the Petrograd Soviet. Trotsky agreed with Zinoviev, but it appeared that Mozger had allied with Stalin and those two continued, in Zinoviev’s opinion, to maneuver to get closer to Lenin. Mozger couldn't care less what Zinoviev thought. All he cared about was the party.

His thoughts that morning were interrupted by his secretary, who announced, “Your guest, Comrade Malinovsky has arrived.” Mozger instructed her to escort the man into his office.

“Comrade Mozger! What an honor and delight to see you again after all of these years!” As he spoke these words, he approached Mozger and vigorously shook his hand. Mozger smiled at him and invited him to sit down. Malinovsky reveled in the thought of how good it felt to be back in the party’s good graces. “Comrade Lenin no doubt wired you that I would be arriving?”

“Indeed he did, comrade, indeed he did.”

“Excellent. He told me that you would have important work for me here in Petrograd, working in the soviet. I can’t tell you how excited the prospect of that makes me.”

Mozger got up and walked around his desk to him. Sitting on the edge of his desk right in front of Malinovsky, he smiled and then suddenly lashed out with a vicious kick to his guest’s groin. Malinovsky collapsed to floor, crying out in pain. “Comrade,” he gasped, “what are you doing?” A wave of nausea swept over him.

Mozger leaned over him, grabbed him by the hair with his left hand and slapped him across the face with his right. “What am I doing? What am I doing, you ask? I’m beginning to administer justice to a traitorous pig! To a cunning, devious enemy of the party! To a man I suspected all along was an Okhrana agent!”

“No, comrade, you’re wrong. Please, that is a lie. Comrade Lenin himself sent me here to you!”

“Comrade Lenin was duped by you for years. I had warned him about you, but he wouldn’t listen.” He kicked Malinovsky in the ribs and then continued. “You miserable piece of shit. Don’t you know that we’ve read the entire contents of the Okhrana’s files. Your treachery is outlined there as clear as day. So don’t lie to me and tell me you are as innocent as driven snow. I know you are a traitorous bastard and so does Lenin. The party has been on to you for quite some time. You stupid imbecile, don’t you realize that Lenin sent you to me so I can kill you?”

Mozger sat down in a chair and watched Malinovsky slowly get up and finally sit in the chair facing him.

Malinovsky tried to catch his breath as tears streamed down his face. In a low voice he said, “You know comrade, I’ve spent nearly three years in a German prisoner of war camp. Isn’t that enough atonement for my sins? I wish nothing else for the rest of my life except to serve the party. Can’t you forgive me for my past transgressions? Please, I beg of you!”

Mozger remained impassive and simply replied, “No.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“The penalty for treason is death. I’m going to have you taken out back and shot when we’re done with our business here.”

Malinovsky’s head dropped into his hands, and he cried openly. His shoulders shook rhythmically as he wailed loudly. Mozger allowed him to cry for nearly two minutes before saying, “It’s time.”

“Wait!” insisted Malinovsky, looking up at Mozger. “I have information, very important information that the party needs to know. That Comrade Lenin himself needs to know! Let us make an arrangement of sorts. I give you the information, and you let me live. I’ll leave Russia, I swear, and you’ll never see me or hear from me again. Please, Comrade Mozger, I beg of you!”

Mozger sighed with disgust. “You miserable, pathetic wretch. What information could you possibly have that I could give a damn about?”

“Please comrade, trust me. You’ll want to knowwhat I have to offer.”

Mozger stood up and slapped him hard across the face. “Tell me this priceless information right now, and I’ll decide if it’s worth letting you live. Do you understand me?”

Sobbing again, Malinovsky began in almost a whisper. “The man they call Moryak, he’s not who they think he is. He is an agent of the British who was sent here years ago.”

“What?” shouted Mozger. “You are one crazy bastard, do you know that? Moryak is a national hero! Is that your priceless information? I should put a bullet in your head right now!” He pulled his Nagant M1895, the favorite sidearm of the Bolsheviks, from his belt and held the barrel against Malinovsky’s forehead.

“Please, Comrade Mozger, hear me out,” he implored. “I was working for the Bolsheviks back in 1905, and it is true I was also an informer to the Okhrana. I freely admit that now. Anyway, I was contacted by this British agent named Reilly. He was fluent in Russian and could easily pass for a Russian himself. He paid me to assist him on some mission that the British had designed to kidnap the Tsar and spirit him out of Russia. He had with him another undercover agent, but the mission never was attempted and the other agent was arrested. I thought they hanged him. That other agent is the same man that is now known as Moryak. I’m certain it’s the same man.”

“How hell can a man who was hanged be alive today? Do you realize how incredibly stupid your story sounds? An authentic Russian hero is actually a British agent who was executed years ago! If that’s your precious information that you were counting on to keep you alive, you are sadly mistaken, my friend.”

“I tell you, Comrade Mozger, I can see it in his eyes. Those serious, angry eyes. I don’t know how it can be, but I tell you it is the same man! Have you ever seen Moryak’s eyes?”

“Interestingly, even though we’ve communicated often, we’ve never actually met. Our schedules have never permitted it.”

“Please, comrade, I beg of you! I’ve given you this valuable information — ”

“You’ve given me nothing but a fantastic, ridiculous story!” He walked over to his door and called out to his secretary. “Have Goretsky sent in!” Within a minute, the man he sent for arrived and Mozger instructed him. “Comrade Goretsky, take this man in the back,” he said, pointing at the crying Malinovsky, “and shoot him, now!”

* * *

For the rest of the morning, Mozger couldn’t concentrate. Something continued to eat away at him. Something that Malinovsky had told him. His story he had told about Moryak was preposterous. It amazed Mozger that he actually thought that it might save him. Still, something continued to bother him, and Comrade Mozger just couldn’t let go of the thoughts in his head. It all centered on that year he had mentioned, 1905. So many changes had occurred that year. It was the year that he had made the commitment to devote himself totally to the Bolsheviks, the year he forsook his prior life. Many other important events also occurred that year. He couldn’t let go of these nagging thoughts and felt he had to find out things for himself. As he left the office, he informed his secretary that he would be going to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

The Peter and Paul Fortress once again continued to do a bustling business only now the prisoners were enemies of the new Bolshevik government. Mozger knew this because he had been personally responsible for sending many of the current prisoners there. One particular prisoner had Mozger’s interest that morning, and he prayed that the man was still alive. He would possibly have the answers that he sought. Upon arrival, he told the guards that he had to see the People’s Jailer immediately. Without any hesitation, the guards escorted Comrade Mozger to the office of the People’s Jailer, who in spite of his lofty title, was basically the warden of the old prison. In fact, he utilized the same office that all of the past wardens had used for over a century.

“Comrade Mozger, to what do we owe this honor?” greeted the People’s Jailer ebulliently. You should have called first, I would have arranged — ”

“Thank you, Comrade Jailer,” Mozger interrupted, “but I don’t have the time. I need to know. The warden of this prison under the Tsar, how long was he the warden? It was quite some while, as I recall.”

“Yes, it was about twenty years, I believe.”

“Is he still alive, here?”

“Yes, of course, comrade. We don’t necessarily kill everyone, you know,” he replied, somewhat amused with that witticism.

“Good! Take me to him immediately.”

“Of course, comrade. Whatever you wish. They say that he is quite depressed now. I suppose going from jailer to jailbird can do that to someone.” The People’s Jailer erupted into laughter as the two of them left his office.

The People’s Jailer led Mozger down a dank, dark corridor. Finally, they stopped at a cell, and the People’s Jailer unlocked the door and opened it. “Come back for me in fifteen minutes,” instructed Mozger. He then walked into the cell and saw the solitary occupant lying on his side on the cot. Mozger walked up to him and shook him, saying, “I am Comrade Mozger, head of the Petrograd Soviet. You were the Tsar’s warden here all of those years, correct?”

The man in the cot didn’t answer so Mozger kicked him in the small of his back and the man blurted out, “Yes! Yes, I was.”

“Turn around and face me now!” ordered Mozger. The man complied and sat up now with a forlorn expression on his face. He appeared to be in his sixties and also appeared to be in ill health. Every few seconds he would have a mild coughing spasm. “Tell me, in 1905 you had a prisoner here from the Potemkin mutiny, do you remember?”

“That was so long ago, what does that matter?”

Mozger grabbed the prisoner by the throat and said, “It matters to me! Now, do you remember him?” Unable to speak, the former warden just nodded. “Good,” said Mozger, releasing the man’s throat. “Tell me, whatever happened to him?”

The warden looked apprehensively at his tormentor and replied, “Well, he served in a labor camp for a decade and is now the famous Moryak, right? Everyone seems to know that.”

Mozger removed a switchblade knife from his pocket and opened the blade. He placed the point right under the man’s chin until the blade drew blood. “Listen to me and listen well. Nothing else is going to happen to you for what you may have done in the past. I’m not interested in punishing you further for whatever you might have done back then, but I do need to know if the man you sent to that prison camp was the man who led the Potemkin mutiny. If you don’t answer me honestly, I will shove this blade upward and skewer your brains. I hope I’m making myself clear.”

The terrified warden could barely breathe as the tip of the knife blade stung his skin. Finally, he whispered, “No, he’s not the same man. The man who I sent to the prison camp was some sort of undercover agent from England, I think. He was convicted of trying to kill the Tsar, or some other nonsense like that.”

“Whatever happened to the mutineer?”

“Please, put down the knife, and I’ll tell you what I can recall!” Mozger slowly dropped the blade, and the warden breathed a sigh of relief. He swallowed and then cleared his throat before continuing. “The mutineer, I had him hung in the British agent’s place. I sent the British agent to the labor camp in the place of the mutineer.”

“Why would you do such a thing?” asked Mozger, getting a very uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“I don’t remember exactly. I think he had killed a guard whom I wanted killed, and I thought I would reward him and spare his life — if you call being sent to a Tsarist labor camp sparing one’s life.”

“What was the British agent’s name? This is important.”

The warden didn’t answer at first. Finally he said “I’ll be honest you; I can’t remember. Only that it was an Anglo-sounding name. I’m sorry.”

“So you know who this one they call Moryak actually is then?”

With his head down, he softly replied “Yes, I suppose I do, but the secret is safe, given the fact that — ” Mozger suddenly grabbed the man’s hair and then jerked his head up. With one fluid motion of his right hand, he took his knife and slashed the warden’s throat. As blood spurted from his carotid arteries, the warden collapsed with a look of shock in his eyes. He fell forward against Mozger, who pushed him off of himself and onto the floor. A large pool of blood soon formed around the dead prisoner’s head. Mozger cleaned the blade off on the warden’s prison blouse and walked out of the cell just as the People’s Jailer had arrived for him. “Take me back to your office immediately,” he ordered.

Back at the office, Mozger sat down and asked, “You have kept the archives of all of the prison’s intake photographs, correct?”

“Yes, we have them all.”

“Good, bring me the archive books from June through December of 1905.” Within a half-hour, ledgers from those seven months were on the desk in front of him. Mozger ordered the People’s Jailer out of the office and began to open the ledger dated June 1905. Organized with six entries to a page, each entry had a name, along with front and side-view face photographs. The far right-hand column of each entry listed “crimes charged with.” He tried to remember the real name of the Potemkin mutineer. After a few minutes, it came back to him — Matushenko! Something like Anatoly Matushenko, he recalled. After a few minutes, he found him. The man had been sent to Peter and Paul Fortress at the end of that June.

The photographs of Anatoly Mantushenko did not look familiar to him. That didn’t surprise him, for he had never actually met Moryak face to face. It would be the other prisoner that would give him the answers to his questions. The other man who had been arrested that fall. Mozger decided to start with September. He scanned every entry, not certain of the name he was looking for. He focused in on the crime that each man had been charged with. He scanned every entry for September, but found nothing that interested him.

He next opened the ledger from October. It amused him greatly when he found an entry in the middle of the month for “Leon Trotsky” along with his photographs. Your day is coming, soon, Comrade Trotsky, he thought to himself. Shortly after that, he stopped at an entry when he noticed that the crime that the prisoner had been charged with was listed as “foreign conspiracy to assassinate the Tsar.” This had to be it! He looked over at the name, an Anglo-Saxon name: Brian Anderson. He then gazed at the front and side view photographs, and his heart nearly stopped. His worst fears had been realized.

There was no doubt in his mind that the pictures were of his good friend from so many years ago, a United States naval officer named Stephen Morrison! He had no doubt! He had been the one sent to the labor camp at Solovetsky Island and then assumed the life of the one called Moryak. As soon as Malinovsky told him his tale, he had developed the uneasy feeling that this might possibly be the case. It was the year, 1905, that triggered his paranoid suspicions. His good friend Stephen Morrison had just died in October of that year in an industrial shipyard accident, he had learned. The one non-Russian person that he truly admired in the world was gone, and he took the loss very badly. The whole story of his death seemed so improbable to him at the time, and he never quite believed it. He had been convinced there was some sort of cover-up involved. True, he was a paranoid at heart, but he just couldn’t accept the fact that his admired friend had died in such an undistinguished manner. He was actually depressed for months afterward. It was only his work for the Bolshevik party that kept him focused. Hearing Malinovsky’s tale threw a switch in his mind. This British agent had been arrested in St. Petersburg at the very moment he later learned that his good friend had perished! That was quite a coincidence, a little too much for such a skeptic such as himself. Things didn’t happen this neatly in reality. He didn’t believe in coincidence. He had to know for certain. Now he did know, and he felt sick to his stomach.

He looked back at the photographs and put his fingers on them. “Stephen,” he said in a soft voice, “I believed in you so much. I had such hopes for you.” His mind drifted back to the times that he and Stephen had traveled across Russia so many years before. Those were such good times. It tore at his heart to think of them again after so many years. It was a lifetime ago. He was not the same man he was then. He had attempted to erase from his memory banks all thoughts of his prior life. He then tore the two photographs out of the ledger and closed it. He stacked the seven ledgers in monthly order on the desk and proceeded to walk out of the office. As he approached the entrance to the prison, the People’s Jailer saw him and ran after him. “Comrade Mozger,” he asked breathlessly, “did you find what you were looking for?”

Without turning to look back at him, he answered “No, I didn’t. But thank you anyway, comrade. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

Mozger went directly back to his office at the Smolny Institute, his mind going over and over the meaning of what he had just discovered. As he walked past his secretary, he instructed her that no calls be forwarded in to him and that no visitors be admitted. “What about your scheduled appointments this afternoon?” she asked.

“Cancel them all,” he barked at her as he entered his office and closed the door behind him. He locked the door, went to his desk, and sat down. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the two pictures of Stephen Morrison and placed them on the desk in front of him. As he did, he noticed that his hands trembled. His heart pounded rapidly as he thought of the ramifications of what he had just learned. What alternatives did he have? He was a Bolshevik, the one they called the “ultimate party man” behind his back. He would have to inform Lenin and the rest of the Politburo. The man they knew as Moryak was a spy, a traitor who must be liquidated, for the good of the country. It galled him to think of how many times he criticized Lenin for being too gullible and trusting, yet here he was with the knowledge that a former close friend was an enemy spy! The thought of this dilemma continued to nauseate him.

He thought of his friend from years back as he gazed at the photographs and of the correspondence that they had over the many years. He had so much hope for his friend. He had been convinced that Morrison would be a man who could change the world. Back then, when he was called Yuri Kodarov, he dreamt that a just workers’ society would evolve in Russia and that America would be a strong ally in their cause. And it would be Stephen Morrison, no doubt a future admiral in the United States Navy, who would be the link between the two great countries. Oh, how he had admired his friend!

He began to rationalize to himself. Of course, I never met Moryak face to face. How could I possibly know? It was Lenin and that stooge Trotsky who were so enamored with him all along. They really had been responsible, not me. He proved to be the vigilant one who discovered the treachery of Moryak. I am, he reassured himself, the ultimate party man, the one who dedicated himself to the party and had no life at all outside of the party. I should not be the one who should bear any blame in this sordid affair. That conclusion seemed crystal clear.

He laid his head in his hands and actually began to weep. Such ambivalent emotions tugged at his soul. For years, he had never experienced feelings of conflict about anything in life. Now, he broke down and cried uncontrollably for several minutes. When he finished, he stopped and abruptly sat straight up. What am I doing? How dare I show emotions, or worse, let emotions factor into my life. I have no emotions! I had excised them from my life when I swore my life and loyalty to the Bolsheviks. Bolsheviks, true Bolsheviks, have no emotions. They are for the weak. I am the ultimate party man. I am Rakhmetev, the embodiment of the revolutionary man. He suddenly knew what he had to do.

Reaching into his desk drawer, he withdrew some stationary and envelopes. At first, he crafted a short telegraph message to Lenin. He now realized that Moryak, who had assumed control of the Romanov family in Ekaterinburg, had likely maneuvered himself into that job, probably to attempt a rescue and try to deliver the Romanovs to the White Army. He composed a short telegram that got right to the point:

MORYAK A DOUBLE AGENT WORKING FOR ALLIES STOP
MUST BE NEUTRALIZED IMMEDIATLEY STOP
EVIDENCE UNDENIABLE STOP PROOF WILL ARRIVE
ON NEXT TRAIN FROM PETROGRAD STOP MOZGER

He folded the message and then placed it into an envelope. Next, he began writing a letter to Lenin, explaining the accusations of Malinovsky concerning Moryak. He decided that he would not go into his past association with Stephen Morrison; it was irrelevant to the issue. He explained his suspicions after Malinovsky’s confession and also detailed his visit to the Peter and Paul Fortress. He described the details of the failed 1905 British mission that he had gleaned from the prison records. He reassured Lenin that the Tsar’s warden, the only other person who knew the real identity of Moryak, had already been killed. Like he himself, his letter showed no emotion. He simply signed it “Mozger” and then folded it neatly, placing it into another envelope. Before sealing it, he inserted the two photographs of Stephen Morrison. He then called out to his secretary to send for Goretsky.

Goretksy promptly arrived, somewhat out of breath from running up the stairs. “How did your prior assignment go?” asked Mozger.

“Perfectly, Comrade Mozger. The prisoner cried like a girl all the way to the end. It was a pleasure to finally shut him up with a bullet!”

“Good, very good. I have another task for you, Comrade Goretsky. This is a vital assignment, you understand.” He handed the man the two envelopes. “Take this one to the telegraph office and have it sent immediately. Take the transcription tape from the clerk and burn it immediately. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, comrade.”

“Good. This other envelope needs to be hand-delivered to Lenin himself at the Kremlin. Only to Lenin. Now, there is a train leaving for Moscow this evening. You will be on this train and make sure that this message gets to Lenin. Are my instructions clear?”

“Yes, comrade!” Goretsky replied enthusiastically.

“Good then! Be gone now and close the door on the way out.”

After the door closed, Mozger arose, walked over to it, and locked it again. He slowly walked back to his desk and seated himself. Taking time to arrange everything neatly on his desk, he reached into his belt and removed his pistol. Placing it on the desk, he looked at it admiringly. He loved the Nagant M1895. It spoke power and authority. In his career, he had used it not infrequently to send enemies of the party to justice. How appropriate, he thought. He picked the weapon up with both hands and pointed it toward himself. Inserting the barrel into his mouth, he placed both of his thumbs on the trigger. Using his right index finger, he cocked back the hammer. With slow, deliberate pressure, he pressed his thumbs against the trigger. He wanted to savor the moment. He wanted no pity, only absolution for his momentary weakness of several minutes ago. His last thought before the bullet shattered his brain was of Stephen Morrison.