The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

  She stood with her chin up and a strand of black hair falling over her eyes. As they gossiped, calling her a Gypsy, a foreigner, and a terrible musician, her teenage years flashed into her mind and she recalled all the sleepless nights when she had stayed up late reading books on Soviet Azerbaijan, where her father was born. The people were different there, in the Land of Fire. She loved them. The local women, like many of the girls standing in front of her, whispered that she belonged in Baku; they insisted she was a child of the East, a Muslim.

  Ayna worked up a smile. A child of the East? Was that so wrong? The women in town were ignorant, she thought. No matter how hard they tried, there was no tearing her apart. She had seen a painting of the princess-poet Natavan. Her grandmother always said she looked just like her. Beautiful.

  She made no reply to them, rather walked away from the childish insults and stepped tentatively toward the church. She felt a vague sense of angst. It was tempting to race home and lock the door. And why not? Her presence was always frowned upon at the church: for being the daughter of a Muslim, and for other reasons, personal matters that she refused to admit were true. Life was much, much safer at home. She took another step toward St. Nepomuk’s high double-doors, then started into a trot.

  If anyone, Father Sudek would have answers. He would know what to do . . .

  She pushed through the crowd gathered at the entrance. “Did you hear the Soviet jets?” she asked the street musician. The MiGs had been roaring in the gray sullen sky all morning long. “Can you believe what has happened?” Without waiting for an answer, she jostled her way into the two-hundred-year-old building, made the sign of the cross, and then skirted along a side aisle, whispering a friendly hello to the veteran as she passed.

  All eyes were on Father Sudek. “My friends,” he was saying, “the reports on the radio are true. At midnight last night, in an unprovoked act of violence, the army of the Soviet Union invaded our country.”

  There were mutterings, boos, and hisses.

  She pinched her slender frame into a pew next to the brawny Josef Novak.

  “We have had decent relations with the Russians for many years,” Josef said. His forehead was sweating and there was pastry flour powdered on his gray muttonchops. “How could this happen?”

  “There have been wars since the days of Tiberius and the crucifixion,” the priest explained. “War is the evil of man. It’s senseless to kill. Why, I ask. Why would a man want to harm another man? I can’t answer this question. However wars have one thing in common──wars always come to an end.”

  “Amen,” someone said.

  “If anything, we must stand for peace.”

  “Except there are Russian tanks in Prague.” Ayna said. “Tanks in Pilsen. Tanks in Ostrava. Tanks in Liberec.”

  “Unfortunately, this is true.”

  “And Russian soldiers have taken hold of Wenceslas Square,” she added.

  Father Sudek clasped his hands piously. “Our mayor is stuck in Prague. He has seen the chaos firsthand. The situation, he says, is ‘tense.’ A citizen was shot outside of the Central Committee building.”

  Ayna had a flash of her teenage son Jiri. He was still sleeping and unaware of the invasion. She felt her stomach sink. “On the radio, they say our generals refuse to fight the invaders. Is this true?”

  “Yes, Ayna.”

  “But why?”

  The priest stepped away from the pulpit. “The president, having the best interest of Czechoslovakia in mind, has ordered the army to stay confined to the barracks. Why, you ask? It’s simple. To prevent our troops from being slaughtered.”

  Sascha Boyd, a student at the university in Prague, stood and pumped a fist. His fiery red hair made him easy to spot in the crowd. “Confined to the barracks?” he said. “That sounds more like submission. And submission, for those blind to the reality we face, doesn’t pay.”

  Father Sudek sighed. “We have been overwhelmed by force. The Soviet Army is joined by soldiers from Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany. It’s pointless to fight them.”

  “Then foreigners simply waltzed into our country,” Sascha said. “And to whose melody do they march? Russia’s Tchaikovsky? Poland’s Chopin? Germany’s Strauss? How is this defending the homeland?”

  “Technically speaking, Richard Strauss was West German,” someone blurted. “Born in Munich.”

  There were grumblings.

  Ayna felt sweat dripping down her chest and fanned herself with a prayer sheet. The mood of the people was getting uglier by the second. With trembling fingers, she moved the strand of hair from her eyes and looked at the bewildered faces: farmers, shopkeepers, the librarian, the locksmith, the barber. Would they stand together? Or bow to the Russians?

  “The Kremlin has deceived us,” Josef said, banging his fist on the back of the pew. Ayna leaned away and gave him room to vent. “For years they promised peace. ‘Comrades and fellow citizens,’ they said, ‘we swear to guard the interests of the workers. Long live the Democratic Socialist Czechoslovakia.’ All lies.”

  “This is Prague’s war,” someone bellowed. “Josef, you and Sascha are only asking for trouble.”

  People shuffled in the pews.

  Father Sudek replied, “We must carry on peacefully with our lives. If confronted by the foreign soldiers, turn your cheek the other way. Humility. This is our best weapon.”

  “Here. Here.” voices concurred.

  “In any event,” Father Sudek went on, speaking over Sascha’s disruption as he exited the church in a fluster, “Mayor Zdenek Seifert assures me the Russian troops can’t possibly occupy our land for any significant length of time.”

  Ayna said, “They have come to squash the reforms. What of free speech? We have worked hard for these liberties. The Russians will eventually take over the press. They will turn it into a machine of lies. Just like they did in the old days.”

  People murmured with a mix of dread and disbelief. Many worried the government was in shambles. Most nodded eagerly each time the priest called for restraint.

  Father Sudek raised a hand. “Sooner or later the invaders will take their machine guns and go home. We endured Hitler’s occupation twenty-five years ago. It was only a matter of time before the Germans retreated with their tails between their legs.”

  “But those were intolerable years,” Josef reminded the priest. “The Nazis were madmen. They forced people into labor camps, into the coal mines, into the tank factories. Before retreating to Berlin, they took our art and burned our fields.”

  People shook their heads and shuddered with the awful memories.

  “Yes, Josef. I remember, too.”

  The church, with its high-coffered ceiling and stone floor, reverberated with the sound of troubled voices, each person shouting over the next.

  Ayna sat with her head buried in her hands, her eyes closed, trying to make sense of their words. The last time she felt this scared was two years ago, when the secret police ransacked the homes of several neighbors and arrested the manager of the cinema house for tax evasion. She had come here for answers, not for bickering among friends and neighbors. She grunted with frustration. The discussion had degenerated into an upheaval between the handful of people who wanted to fight the Russians and the rest of them who were angry but believed it was best not to provoke the soldiers.

  Josef placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid. You’re safe here in the hills.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Ayna’s voice wavered with emotion. “Nevertheless, I’m worried for my family. For Jiri.”

  “Your son will be safe.”

  “But will the Russians come here?”

  “To our small village? No.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “Because there’s nothing in our harmless village except for this squabbling parish, a few misled communists, and some chickens.”

  “When you put it like that, it’s hard to disagree with you.”

  “Consider us f
ortunate.”

  “Oh, how so?”

  “Terror doesn’t strike twice. The Germans dealt us a heavy blow during the war. It couldn’t possibly happen again.” He looked at her calmly. “It’s the law of nature.”

  “Maybe so, nevertheless I have a sick feeling in my stomach.”

  “Besides,” Josef went on, “we have always been productive citizens. Sow the fields. Sell the goods. Train more workers. Even in my bakery, everything runs like clockwork. What could the Russians possibly want with us?”

  First Act: Fear

  AND THEY CAME . . .

  Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.

  ARISTOTLE

  Colonel Grigori Dal had left Moscow on a four-engine turboprop AN-12 transport during the first hours of the invasion, landing at the airport in Prague shortly after agents secured the terminal. With four soldiers under his command, including three prison guards from the Ukraine’s Odessa Military District and a hardened Russian sergeant, he climbed into a GAZ utility truck and led his team in secrecy out from the city. There was only light traffic as they entered the agricultural countryside. News of tanks in Prague kept most Czechs locked inside their homes.

  “I know this country like the back of my hand,” he told Sergeant Major Dmitry Gurko, who drove the truck. “After the war, as a newly commissioned officer, I helped lead the effort to expel the ethnic Germans from the rural towns, first putting them in internment camps, later sending them to East Germany.”

  “It remains among your finest achievements,” Gurko said.

  “Given the Nazi atrocities, I forced them to walk past the bodies of Jews, victims of starvation at the hands of SS troops. Like many comrades, I was disturbed, then angered by what we found upon liberating this country. I wanted them to see for themselves what the Thousand Year Reich had done.”

  “For this, and for your medals, you have earned the respect of our men.”

  An eight-wheeled BTR-60 armored personnel carrier made of welded steel and capable of carrying up to sixteen fully equipped soldiers stuck close behind them. It was occupied by the three Ukrainians, Privates Mazur, Potapov, and Horbachsky. They had been handpicked for the mission, plucked from the prison system, where they were responsible for securing the most notorious inmates in the U.S.S.R., including Brezhnev’s sworn enemies.

  “The Ukrainian guards hold the key to our success,” Dal said gravely. “We must ride them hard in the coming weeks. They are skilled with handling political prisoners and military criminals, but inexperienced with the sensitivities associated with keeping common civilians in order.”

  “I will be on them,” Gurko said. “Like flies on shit.”

  By sunrise the two military vehicles had exited the main road and driven into an orchard, arriving at an 18th century château at the base of the rugged Drahanska Highlands. It was home to the influential Lugosi family and the doorway to the largest prostitution ring in Central Europe.

  Dal looked at his watch: 8:35 a.m. In five minutes the Ukrainian soldiers would fan out and eliminate enemy targets outside the château. He left the truck, walked across the gravel driveway and entered the mansion.

  A guard wearing a double-breasted suit greeted him at the foyer.

  “Get your boss,” Dal said impatiently. “We have little time to waste.”

  After the guard hurried away, Dal grabbed his cigarettes and struck a wooden matchstick. The photographs on the wall made him feel nostalgic. They showcased an impressive Who’s Who of Moravian politics since the 1930s: former presidents, Party secretaries, army brass, prominent mayors, and ministers. The family ties to Czech communist officials ran deep.

  Yet many photos were recent additions to the wall and wre unfamiliar to him. He rubbed the back of his neck. What had happened to the photographs of the brave men who once stood side by side with Joseph Stalin? Much had changed since the death of his friend Ernst Lugosi, the family patriarch who had succumbed to cancer over the winter. The heroic wartime images of the old man had been taken down and replaced by various snapshots of his oldest son, Andres Lugosi, the so-called “boss” and new Moravian crime czar.

  Pathetic, he thought. The photos showed boys, not men, wearing expensive designer clothes, a collection of their fast German sports cars, and wild parties fueled by decadence and drug abuse. The 1960s had ushered in too much social change in the Western countries──changes creeping closer and closer to home. The photographs spoke of a spoiled rock & roll generation, of a youth movement lacking respect.

  “Ah, look at this,” he whispered, shaking his head at a staged photo-op between Andres Lugosi and the German Socialist Unity secretary. Dal dropped his cigarette butt onto the plush carpeting and ground it with his boot. The photo was a complete mockery, meant to impress, to somehow solidify the young Lugosi’s sudden rise to the family helm.

  He heard the door handle click and glanced over his shoulder. Sergeant Gurko stepped into the foyer with an army duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “The men are on the move,” Gurko said. “It’s only a matter of minutes before the perimeter is secured.”

  Dal nodded. “They will enjoy shooting their new PB pistols,” he said. “The state-of-the-art silencers are an assassin’s best friend.”

  “They spoke fondly of the weapons.”

  “From what I understand, a skilled shooter can get off thirty rounds a minute with a PB.”

  “Impressive. However they won’t need that many bullets. The château is weakly defended.”

  “Yes, as I expected it would be.”

  “But there is an unforeseen twist.”

  “Twist? What do you mean?”

  “Lugosi’s guards are mostly teenage boys.”

  “Teenagers?” Dal asked with surprise.

  “Sixteen years old.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Seventeen at most.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I saw them,” Gurko explained, “While I was pissing in the garden. They were smoking cigarettes near the garage. You’d be hardpressed to find an ounce of discipline among them.”

  Dal had made secret arrangements with the local police to have most of Lugosi’s security team arrested in the days leading up to the invasion, leaving only a handful of guards to protect the grounds. He had no idea teenagers would be involved in the day’s mess and felt somewhat remorseful. “Easy pickings,” he said, thinking what must be done, must be done. “Anyway, comrade, you didn’t piss on the roses in the garden, did you?”

  “The roses? No. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I helped Ernst Lugosi plant those rose bushes many years ago. They are Galicia, a species of rose first cultivated by the Greeks after the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC. I have always appreciated the ancients for their accomplishments, particularly in the arts. Those stunning roses are dear to my heart. Before we leave the château, I want to snap a few photographs to show my wife.”

  “I assure you, comrade colonel, I didn’t urinate on the roses.”

  The Moravian guard returned and interrupted their conversation. “Andres Lugosi has finished his swim,” he said. “And he is ready to make the deal with you for the prisoner-of-war.”

  “Excellent.” Dal cracked his knuckles. “Then the rumor is true, you have our man?”

  “Yes. We have him. We have the American.”

  The guard led them down a grand hallway, past a series of Habsburg busts and baroque paintings, to an indoor pool room that reeked of chlorine. He motioned for them to enter the room, then stood with a taunting stance at the door, his jacket open to expose the CZ-52 pistol at his hip.

  “Security is lax,” Dal told Gurko. “No pat down for our weapons.”

  “The elder Lugosi must be turning over in his grave.”

  The loaded Makarov pistol in Dal’s chest holster felt snug against his rapidly beating heart. “Then again, I suppose they have some rationale for trust. I am like an uncle to Andres Lugosi.”

  “As you say, ‘easy pickings.’”
/>
  They proceeded along the rectangular pool. Plastic cups, a beach ball, and a woman’s bra floated in the shallow end of the water. A Silesian groundskeeper was straining the debris with a net. A master gardener, Dal appreciated how the Silesian had cared for the rose bushes along the exterior of the château for the last ten years.

  “There was a party last night,” Gurko said, pointing to a cluster of vomit chunks in the water. “I imagine a party with many pretty women.”

  “Shame we were not invited. I love a party.”

  “Me too. Especially a party with hookers.”

  Dal gazed out the wall of French windows. A series of red brick steps led to a lush lawn, flower beds, and a Japanese fish pond. He recalled his last visit with Ernst Lugosi, after the cancer had been diagnosed, and remembered how they had discussed caring for the prized koi. It was his dying wish that his sons care for the fish after he passed.

  “Well, well, well, look who’s here . . .” Andres Lugosi’s voice shot into his head with a jolt. Dal looked over his shoulder and watched Lugosi enter the pool room with three thugs, each armed with a World War II-era Mosin-Nagant carbine. “You must be wondering what happened to the fish?”

  “The koi are gone?”

  “Dead . . .” Lugosi declared, plopping his bony frame in a rattan chair, and then depositing a briefcase on the table next to him. He was a gaunt man, thinned by a nagging heroin addiction, with greased hair swept back over his ears. “The fish were annoying. Always wanting more food. Always demanding more and more of my time.”

  “How unfortunate,” Dal sneered. “Concerning the koi, your father had hoped─”

  “To hell with my father. And his damn fish. Like a woman, the little fish bastards could never be satisfied.”

  Dal attempted to meet Lugosi eye to eye, but the young crime boss was intimidated and glanced at the floor. “Speaking of women, how is your lovely mother?”