by Ian Slater
He had no idea that Robert, now opening the door, holding up a fifth of Vodka, felt exactly the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nefski drew the blackout curtains but not because of any imminent threat of an air raid on Port Baikal. The blizzard sweeping down the 390-mile-long lake, though abating, was still wrapping Irkutsk, further west from Port Baikal at the mouth of the outflowing Angara River, in thick, protective sheets of white. It would make even instrument flying for the Americans difficult, if they were so foolhardy as to try anything — particularly over the heavily defended eastern perimeter of the lake.
In any event, Nefski welcomed the overcast for another reason: the room assigned him by the local authorities for the interrogation was on the ground floor of the old Port Baikal library, and, as such, anyone passing by could see in unless the drapes were closed. And the room was stuffy, overheated, the result of the ample electricity produced by the hydroelectric dam further up the ice-free stretch of river that flowed westward toward Irkutsk. He wanted a cold room, for cold, hunger, isolation had, in Nefski’s long experience of interrogating prisoners, been the most reliable trinity when it came to extracting information. Given his choice, he’d choose isolation above everything else, and for this reason he’d regretted having put her among the other prisoners during the withdrawal from Khabarovsk; it had broken her weeks of solitary. While she hadn’t been allowed to speak to the other prisoners on the train, their very presence and the fact that the Siberians were retreating from Khabarovsk had given her new hope, her wild, defiant eyes fiercer than ever on the edge of starvation, stoking her fire of resistance.
Nefski pushed away the gooseneck lamp the corporal here at Port Baikal had turned on Alexsandra in his usual inept attempt to equal Nefski’s record for “confessions.” Not wanting to show she was grateful in any way, she shifted her head only slightly, as if the bright light had not been at all uncomfortable. Nefski waited — he had no intention of hurrying it. That was the problem with so many interrogators, like the buffoon of a corporal who was now ogling the Jewess from his post by the closed door. The younger KGB recruits wanted everything done yesterday — all the information to come at once, in a torrent. On the other hand, the Zampolit had a point: time was pressing.
Though he knew she didn’t smoke, Nefski offered her a cigarette to demonstrate goodwill — the fact that he was willing to be civil about it. Or else. He was determined not to let a woman — a Jew at that — put it over him, for though he was a full colonel, having distinguished himself in the regular army’s Maskirovka, or camouflage, units from which he’d gone on to KGB border-troop rank and then to Khabarovsk, he was laughed at behind his back because of his wife. He knew the corporal and other junior NCOs enjoyed their jokes at his expense around their samovar of a morning. They called her the “T-85.” There was no such tank, the eighty-five centimeters, or thirty-four inches, said to be the size of her neck. With a neck like that, it was said that she was worth two 152-millimeter howitzers. Just let her loose in the Thirty-first’s spearhead and let her run at tanks. It would be the end of the Americans.
It wasn’t funny to Nefski. In his late fifties, his sexual appetite hadn’t abated, but his wife’s had. She had become more interested, it seemed, in the Japanese and Chinese delicacies that he had been able to “acquire” from ship’s captains whose vessels had docked at Vladivostok. He had thought of using the promise of the expensive clothes and other bric-a-brac he could weasel or threaten from the merchantmen of the ports in his old jurisdiction, and it might have bought him her favor. But she was so enormous, so off-putting, he had ceased trying, encouraging the worst of the rumors he’d overheard, namely that he couldn’t do it anymore because he’d lost it — that search parties had failed to find it in her taiga.
Nefski’s face reddened at the very thought of the humiliation he was suffering. No one, of course, would dare hint at his nickname of “Limp Dick” to his face. If they had, he would have had them shot on “corruption” charges — he had enough evidence among his “forbidden imports.” Or he could have sent them to one of the perms, the far-flung Siberian labor camps that had been reopened after Gorbachev’s idiot regime.
He drew heavily on his Winston, the thought of having his detractors put in a shizo, the four-by-eight punishment cell, more and more appealing. No blankets, with a hard fir plank for a bed and the steel-grated light that was left on twenty-four hours a day. If they broke the forty-watt bulb — another month. Then let them joke about Colonel “Limp Dick.” He felt his erection throbbing. Like him and the corporal, the Jewess was perspiring heavily in the overheated room, her sackcloth prison dress sticking to her like wet brown paper, her nipples tantalizingly outlined but not clearly visible, sweat trickling down the alabaster whiteness of her throat, disappearing between her breasts, her dress also clinging to her thighs. The comparison between her and his wife was like that between two entirely different species. “Whom,” he asked her quietly, “did you give the photographs to at Irkutsk?” He was staring at her, the bluish-gray cigarette smoke wafting idly above him before being caught in the sultry currents of the stuffy room.
“What photos?” she shot back innocently.
“Not their actual name,” he said amicably. “I don’t expect that. A description of who it was. Man? Woman? How old?”
“I don’t know anything about photographs.”
Nefski indicated the small, narrow, black bench by the door, where overdue borrowers of state-approved books had once sat obediently before being summoned by the librarian to give good reasons why they should not be fined. “Tie her down,” he told the corporal. “On her back.”
She sat up rigidly, the hatred in her eyes shot through with fear.
Nefski called in two more guards. It was astonishing how strong even half-starved prisoners were when their fear overtook them. Besides his subaltern needing help, Nefski reasoned that with three other men as witnesses, it would put an end to Colonel “Limp Dick” talk.
She fought violently as they tussled with her. She didn’t scream, not once, but was huffing and puffing like a dumb animal who knew instinctively it was destined for the chopping block.
“No,” said Nefski, “leave her head free.” He would pull her long, black hair down behind her with one hand, kissing her neck and squeezing her breasts with the other. Suck them.
After they tied her down, her breathing became even more rapid as she made futile attempts to loosen the binding tape. Nefski took the long pair of scissors from a plastic stand on the blotter and, walking over, straddled the bench. Looking down at her, he took the scissors and slit the dress open. The three other KGB men were fixed where they stood by her saturnine beauty, the subaltern so aroused he was squeezing his tongue hard between his nicotine-blackened teeth. Nefski tossed the scissors back on the desk, spat into his right hand, and wiped his hand between her legs, then did it again and again until he thought she would be wet enough. He undid his belt and unzipped his fly, letting his trousers fall down to the bench as he lowered himself onto her. She started to whimper, and he slapped her hard, snapped his fingers for one of the men’s handkerchiefs, and stuffed it in her mouth. As he entered her they saw her stiffen, but Nefski only pushed harder, and the subaltern, trembling with envy, saw his chief’s eyes close in ecstasy, one hand clasping one of her breasts, the other wrapped in her hair, jerking her head down hard on the bench.
After, breathless, exhausted, he stepped back, almost stumbling, telling the others it was their turn for sverkhurochnye chasy— “overtime.” It was a good joke, he thought, and, more importantly, it would assure their silence.
None of them knew the rape would change the course of the war.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Pulling on Siberian uniforms taken by Freeman’s forces from Siberian militiamen captured in Khabarovsk, the twelve-member S/D, as the SAS/Delta team was designated in Freeman’s HQ, were lost in clouds of steam rising from the long-nozzled de-icing hoses spra
ying the rotors of the two Super Sea Stallion choppers. The Stallions, their crews also in Siberian uniforms, would carry the team seven hundred miles, skimming over the vast taiga, in a nap-of-the-earth flying mission that would take them to Tankhoy on the southeastern shore of the lake, twenty-seven miles across from Port Baikal, the latter situated on the ice-free outflow of the Angara River.
The rotors of the two escorting Cobra attack helicopters-dwarfed by the Super Stallions, much larger at 99 feet long — were already cutting into the softly falling snow. David Brentwood would have preferred a smaller-silhouette chopper, but the big Stallions had a range of 480 nautical miles, each powered by three T64-GE-416 turboshaft engines. Strong enough to lift a 150-millimeter howitzer and the gun’s five-ton truck, each of them could certainly carry four of the three-man Arrow vehicles Freeman had insisted on for the mission; above all the big choppers could carry hefty extra fuel tanks.
As important as any of its other attributes, the Stallion could be refueled in flight from a KC-130 tanker so that by using additional drop tanks for the seven-hundred-mile run in and partway out, it would be able to be refueled in the air on its way back, beyond the deadly AA missile and gun batteries around the lake. In addition, the chopper had a remarkable 27,900-foot ceiling and also had two.50 caliber machine guns mounted starboard and port beneath the engines’ cowling, which two of the S/D could handle if necessary.
Though it wasn’t snowing heavily, the snow was bothering the pilots of the two attack Cobras more than the Sea Stallion crews, who had already done a lot of bad-weather flying in “pickup and deposit” rescue missions after, and sometimes during, the Baikal-launched missile attacks, taking litters of wounded to MASH units, and in some cases flying them as far back east as Khabarovsk. One of the Cobra pilots in particular seemed spooked, grumpily ordering his weapons officer/copilot to double-check that all red tapers had been taken from the sixteen Hellfire antitank missiles. The copilot had already done so, but the pilot thought the de-icing steam had momentarily obscured the ground crew who in turn might not have seen his thumbs-up signal. Meanwhile the seven crew members flown in from the USS Reagan to join Robert Brentwood, bringing the team up to twenty men, were adjusting their S/D-issued, extremely-cold-weather gear.
Freeman shook hands with every man, including the four chopper crews who were going on the mission.
“Remember now, engineers have assured us that the noise of the Snowcat Arrows is similar to the kind of engines the Sibirs use on their snowmobiles, so the noise in itself shouldn’t draw undue attention. And as you can see, we’ve spent all night painting your transport in snow/gray Siberian camouflage pattern. So what more could you want?”
If anyone laughed, no one could hear it over the rotors of the Sea Stallion coughing to life. “If for any reason,” Freeman continued, his voice in competition with the choppers, “you can’t rendezvous after—” He meant if the choppers were unable to fly. “—remember, just keep heading northeast. Once you’re in the taiga on the east side of the lake, we’ll lock on to your location transmitters. That’ll tell us where you are within a thousand meters. And if, God forbid, you should go down, going in or coming out, deploy away from the craft. We’ll home in on the ‘bipper’ as fast as we can but I repeat, don’t stay with the chopper, no matter how tempting.”
Freeman looked up into the falling snow.”And as I told you last night, your pilots will exit our area by flying due south, then east toward Tankhoy on the east side of the lake in order to avoid any more antichopper mines the bastards might have sown directly ahead of Second Army. We’re sweeping and grading for them now, but it’ll take twenty-four hours.” The general paused. “Anyway, all this is purely academic at this stage, gentlemen. I’ve every confidence you’re not going to be spotted. Good luck!”
Aussie Lewis’s tone was easy, typical of SAS/Delta veterans who, while not contemptuous of authority, were certainly not intimidated by it. “General, you think this newly painted red star’ll get us in more trouble than it’s worth?” He gestured toward the nearest Sea Stallion. “Attract friendly fire?”
“All forward observers — including air and ground units-have been ordered not to fire on any chopper in our area for the next half hour. You’ll be out of our fire zone after that.”
“Siberians don’t have anything that looks like a Sea Stallion, do they?” asked Aussie.
“No,” admitted Freeman, “but the Cobras’ll be out front, and their silhouettes are second cousin to the Siberians’ Havoc attack helos. By the time any of ‘em spot you, the Cobras will already have spotted them.”
“Right,” said Aussie enigmatically as he grasped the cold, stiff handle of the Haskins M-500 sniper rifle case and boarded the first Sea Stallion. “Duck hunting is it, Aussie?” asked Choir as they buckled up.
“Yeah,” answered Lewis, his mood more buoyant after a night’s sleep, and reassured by the fact that the falling snow would help screw up the enemy radar.
David Brentwood and his brother were silent, both knowing they were sharing responsibility, not only for the men under their command, but for a mission that, like Freeman, they understood could turn the tide for the U.S. Second Army and win the Siberian war.
From now on the choppers were on radio silence.
“S’truth,” said Aussie, his mood changing abruptly, “these bloody things make a racket.”
No one among the other five S/D men aboard Stallion One-David Brentwood, Choir, and the three Delta men, O’Reilly, Lawson, and Salvini — or the four submariners, including Robert Brentwood, said anything, all occupied by their own thoughts.
“Jesus!” said Aussie. “We’re not going to a bloody funeral, you blokes. Lighten up! Anybody want a fag?” he asked. He offered a packet of filterless cigarettes.
“Bad for your lungs,” said Choir disinterestedly.
“Oh, spare me,” rejoined Aussie. “Where the hell you think you’re—” He stopped, nudging David Brentwood and nodding toward one of the four submariners, the sonarman called Rogers from the Reagan. The man had his eyes closed tightly, head down, lips moving in prayer. “Say one for me, sport,” said Aussie.
“Hush,” said Choir with an edge that David Brentwood hadn’t heard in a long time, S/D volunteers being chosen for their ability to get on with one another in situations that would have other men at one another’s throats.
“Sorry, mate!” said Lewis, lighting his cigarette. “Sure you don’t want a fag?”
Rogers smiled and said something, but beneath the rumbling roar of the Sea Stallion’s three engines, Aussie couldn’t hear him.
* * *
After flying thirty miles south-southwest of the Second Army for a distance of seventy miles above the frozen Shilka River, where the outside temperature was minus forty degrees Centigrade, the four choppers swung southeast for the five-hour run over the vast, white landscape of birch, pine, and beech taiga to Tankhoy on the southeastern side of the 390-mile-long, banana-shaped lake. Here they would deplane for the final forty-five-mile east-west run from the southernmost tip of the lake around to Port Baikal situated on the southwestern end.
* * *
They were two hours into the flight, the taiga a whitish blur beneath the haze of the falling snow, when Choir heard the high-toned alarm sounding, the weapons officer saying something that ended with “… locked on.” Stallion One pitched so violently that Aussie almost lost his grip on the sniper rifle case. One of the submariners, walking back from having relieved himself, was thrown to the floor, sliding as the Stallion yawed hard to port. They heard a soft thump, barely discernible beneath the roar of the turboshaft.
“Splash one Havoc!” said the copilot on the internal radio. “Way to go!”
“What’s going on?” asked a sickly-faced Rogers. Robert Brentwood handed him another brown paper bag.
“One of our Cobras got the bastard!” announced the Stallion’s copilot excitedly.
“Hey! Hey!” two of the four submariners said, celebr
ating, as if suddenly brought to life by the information, their hands meeting in high fives.
“Brilliant!” said Aussie, lighting another cigarette, his tone killing any excitement in the cabin as surely as any missile. “So much for our fucking camouflage.”
“They don’t know where we’re going,” said David Brentwood, trying to reassure the submariners. “We could be reconnaissance choppers out looking for the forward units of their Thirty-first. Anyway, target’s a long way off.”
“That’s what worries me, sport,” said Aussie, electing to take the most negative implication of David’s observation.
“Not like you, Aussie, is it?” said Choir, surprised. “To be fretting so.”
“Hey, why don’t you take a flying—”
“Knock it off!” said David. “We’ll be okay. We’re all a bit edgy. Only natural.”
“Like All-Bran!” said Aussie, winking at Robert Brentwood and Rogers. “You blokes got all the Russia stuff down pat?” He meant the instructions above the various dials in the midget subs that would be written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“Yes,” answered Rogers, head back hard against the fuselage now, eyes half open, a drooling, seasick look about him.
“More than we need,” said another submariner. “You get us to one of those GSTs, and we’ll take her down.”
“No problem,” said Aussie easily, his mood swing uncharacteristic of him and something David Brentwood didn’t like. “Hey, Brentwood!” Aussie shouted across at Robert. “You know Russki?”
