Snow Wolf

As they shuffled past me, my mind was onfire with excitement.

My heart pounded in my chest as I touchedhis shoulder and asked the question in Russian. "Major Lukin'? Major Yurilukin?"

The old man started and his watery eyeslooked up to study my face.

For a time he seemed undecided aboutsomething, then he glanced over at his wife, before replying to my question ina frail voice.

"I'm sorry, sir. You're mistaken. Myname is Stefanovitcli."

The couple walked on. I started to saysomething then, remembering the name, Stanski's family nai-the, but I wasstruck dumb. I saw the couple step into one of the black cars parked nearby anddrive off down the narrow cemetery track before the red taillights disappearedin a mist of snow. Was it Yuri Lukin?

Perhaps. I like to think he hadn't reallydied as A

But it was all such a long time ago. Ihad found my own truth. I had resurrected my ghosts and now it was time to burythem.

I took one last look at the three graves,then turned and walked back toward the cemetery gates.

AUTHOR'S NOTE Although the exact date andtime ca

To this day the exact circumstances ofhis death remain a mystery.

Some sources claim he was poisoned by agirl friend, whose gloating at Stalin's deathbed is well recorded, but theclaim has never been proven.

Stalin's immediate family claimed that hehad almost certainly been killed, and had not died of a cerebral hemorrhage aswas widely reported, and that the true circumstances of his death were coveredup for reasons of state security.

There are historically recorded factsthat point to an answer that supports this view.

Some months before Stalin's death, theCIA had been receiving reports of the Soviet leader's worsening mental health.

Stalin was displaying alarming signs of adeep psychological disturbance, and the CIA was also aware of Stalin's almostmanic wish to perfect the hydrogen bomb ahead of the U.S.and acutely aware ofthe fact that the Soviets were ahead in their research, and that Stalinintended a "final solution to the Jewish problem," on a par with Hitler's.

All these were serious and troublingsigns, especially at the time of a dangerous Cold War. And the likelihood ofwar, as those who lived during the period will recall, both in America and theSoviet Union, was both very real and very threatening.

Was Stalin assassinated to prevent thesituation from worsening?

There were numerous intended plots tokill him. So far as history records, all failed, or never materialized. Buthistory rarely records or reveals its true secrets. What is true is that theCIA had already sent a number of agents with military training to Moscow at thetime of Stalin's death. It also seems likely that the CIA would at least haveconsidered such a plot. And almost immediately after his demise, the KGBunleashed an unexplained and savage program of assassination against topanti-Soviet immigrant leaders who were working with the CIA.

Former senior CIA officers, responsiblefor such missions during the period, remain curiously tight-lipped, even forvery elderly men long since retired. Nor to this day will they reveal theidentities of those they dispatched, invoking the fact that certain details ofthe period remain top secret, and claiming that some of the agents are stillalive and living in Russia to this day.

So what exactly happened on the night of1-2 March at Stalin's dacha seems destined to remain a mystery.

It is known that his last days prior tothat eventful night were spent in seclusion, heavily guarded, apparentlyfearful for his life, and with strict instructions to his guards that all thebig wooden log fires in the dacha be kept lit, just as the Russian hunters andshepherds of old kept fires burning to keep away wolves. And on pieces of paperStalin drew, obsessively, pictures of a wolf with sharp fangs.

But one very remarkable incident, neverfully explained, is confirmed fact.

In the early hours of 2 March, afterStalin was reported to have been taken seriously ill, several members of hisguard at the Kuntsevo villa witnessed the bodies of two men being removed fromthe grounds. Both had apparently died from bullet wounds.

Rumors spread within the KGB itself aboutthe mysterious incident, but not until many months later was an officialinternal explanation offered.

The two men, the KGB report claimed, werebodyguards of Stalin's, so overcome with grief at their leader's certain demisethat they had shot themselves.

Stalin certainly incited awe in many ofhis unsuspecting countrymen, but those closest to him who witnessed his ragesand his incredible malice, who knew too well his evil crimes, lived in fear ofhim and breathed a deep collective sigh of relief when he died.

The names of the two alleged bodyguardswere not divulged, nor was any further explanation offered. The matter wasfirmly closed and the file on the incident destroyed.

The two men who died were buried in a Moscow cemetery.

To this day their graves remain.

Curiously, they each bear a namelessheadstone.