by Ian Slater
Nefski lit a cigarette, and soon Alexsandra could smell the strong, pungent Turkish tobacco, the interrogation room filling with swirling brownish smoke. She inhaled as much of it as she could.
“Don’t think the fact that you’ve been fraternizing with our pilots will help you,” Nefski told her, still ostensibly watching the trolley car. Before she could stop herself, Alexsandra had suddenly looked up, and Ilya knew the information was correct, and it all slid into place for him. She had been buying protection from officialdom through her pilots. Or so she had thought.
“Well, well,” said Ilya. “And who would your pilot be, Alexsandra?”
She fell silent again.
“Maj. Sergei Marchenko,” said Nefski, without turning around.
Nefski told Ilya to inform the guards it was time for her meal. Ilya lifted the phone and advised the guardhouse. As he put the phone back down, he had new respect for Nefski. Marchenko had obviously come all this way on a twofold mission: as Moscow’s heavy — to “urge” the locals to get to the bottom of the sabotage — but also to show for the record that he himself had interrogated the girl. It had been so brief that in Ilya’s eyes, it could hardly be called an interrogation at all, but it would allow the general to say he’d personally questioned her, showing no favoritism, even though his son had been seen in her company.
What his assistant admired most about Nefski was that while it would have been so easy for Nefski to do a deal, to protect the Marchenko name, he had stood firm. If the Jew had thought she’d compromised the KGB by making it with the son of one of the Supreme Soviet commanders, then she had made a serious mistake.
The phone jangled. Ilya answered it and, cupping the mouthpiece, told Nefski that the kitchen said her meal was ready. Should they bring it up to the office?
Alexsandra looked surprised. Since when did the KGB provide room service?
“It depends,” answered Nefski. He beckoned to her, as a father to a child. “Come,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” And she walked slowly toward the window.
Down below in the high-wall quadrangle of the prison’s exercise yard, she saw her three brothers: Ivan, Alexander, and Myshka—”little Michael”—who had just turned twelve. “Little Mike” because he so loved bears and, like the Yakuts, had always believed that if you shot one of the great beasts, save in self-defense, God would punish you. He looked so tiny, the drab khaki prison jacket and bulky trousers making him look even more diminutive. A guard stood near them, an officer, from his shoulder boards. A moment later she saw a squad of nine men in gray infantry caps, their earflaps down, which somehow made it even more ominous, Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders, their boots crackling on the frozen snow, and the banana-shaped magazines of the rifles painted in winter-white camouflage pattern. Her attention to such details was an escape from what she knew was happening. Either the three brothers had not seen her or had been told not to look up, trudging out in the foot-deep snow, looking straight ahead, hands behind their backs, making them look strangely like holy men. It was only when they stopped and were told to face the wall that she saw they were handcuffed. Ivan, the oldest, and Alexander, the next oldest, had marched out together but not in unison, their footprints scattered. Myshka, on the other hand, had taken pains not to disturb the snow but to walk as precisely as he could in his older brothers’ footsteps. He had always believed it was bad luck to be the first to disturb virgin snow.
“Who told you to do it?” Nefski asked calmly, his arm about her rigid shoulders. He could feel her trembling; her arms and neck muscles were going into spasm, her skin covered in goose pimples. Nefski shifted his arm down about her, gently rubbing her buttock. “There’s no need for all this, eh, Alexsandra? It only causes trouble for everyone.”
She lowered her gaze to the windowsill. Nefski told her brusquely to look up, ordered her to look out through the frost-edged glass, down at the prison yard, at her three brothers, and she knew Nefski had done such things many times before. The officer was now pushing the brothers against the wall, his boots kicking theirs as far apart as possible.
“Well?” Nefski asked her. “Tell me a story, Alexsandra. A true story.” Her face was white as the snow, and taut, the blood draining from her cheeks.
“You look kosher,” he laughed. “Well—?” The officer down in the quad looked up at Nefski, and the colonel lifted his finger. The officer roughly jerked Michael away from the wall, turned him about, and ordered him to look up. He seemed confused.
“Well, I’m waiting,” Nefski told her.
Tears were streaming down her face.
“The oldest one,” Nefski said. “Ivan. Did he—?” She waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t.
“You see,” he told her, “you have brought it to this. You. You and your brothers. Traitorous Jews. All of you. But I will spare them, Alexsandra — if you tell me what I wish to know.”
“Neskazhi im!”—”Don’t tell them!” It was Ivan screaming up at her, his voice barely audible from behind the high, closed windows. The officer shouted, his voice echoing from the stone walls. A guard stepped forward, driving the Kalashnikov’s butt into Ivan’s stomach. As Ivan fell, the officer kicked him hard on the back, keeping him down in the snow.
“You bastard!” she shouted at Nefski.
Nefski opened the window and made a sign to the officer, and a squad of six of the nine guards marched Alexander and Myshka back toward the cells. The officer had drawn his pistol. Now Nefski knew that Alexsandra finally understood her lover’s name wouldn’t protect her — or her brothers.
“She’s tough,” Nefski said to Ilya in mock admiration, while lighting a second cigarette from the first. It was starting to get dark, the jagged ice at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers now silhouetted like black daggers as it broke up the dying sunlight. The officer in the courtyard, his foot still on Ivan, looked up at Nefski again, waiting.
“Well?” Nefski asked Alexsandra. “What’s it to be?”
She said nothing, her gaze below transfixed, her knees shaking.
Nefski dropped his hand. The officer fired at point-blank range. She screamed, hands leaping to her face, then turned to attack Nefski, but Ilya held her, dragging her back into the chair. Nefski turned his back on her and walked to the window, smoking his cigarette. Two guards entered to return her to the cell.
“Next time,” Nefski told her without turning around, “it will be the second oldest, Alexander, and then Myshka.”
With her screams reverberating down the stairwell, she was taken away. Ilya asked Nefski when they would try again with Alexsandra. Nefski said nothing.
“Do you think she’ll crack?” Ilya asked him.
“Possibly.” He paused to draw heavily on the cigarette. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
David and his driver, Parkin, had arrived in Bouillon, where Lili’s parents lived, only minutes before the first salvo of long-distance Russian SS-11s crashed into the ancient town. The SS-11s, designated “rockets” by NATO, rather than “missiles,” with their nuclear warhead connotation, made a strange shuffling noise in the air. The first rocket had exploded high up on the spur of Ardennes woodland upon which the ancient castle of Bouillon sat, overlooking the confluence of the two flood-swollen arms of the Semois River that embraced the ancient Walloonian town.
David had come to tell the Malmédys about Lili, but within minutes, people were rushing for shelters, Parkin and David finding themselves separated, calling out, agreeing to meet back at the Humvee parked outside the Café Renoir. Soon they lost sight of one another, Parkin finding himself carried by the crowd into a shelter holding about sixty people. Mostly locals, they went out of their way to make Parkin feel welcome, telling him, as if it were somehow a comfort, that the Russians launched their rocket attacks only in bad weather when Allied bombing of their launch sites was limited, and that the Russians were not really trying to hit Bouillon but the Fabri
que Nationale small-arms complex north of Liege and Allied supply depots that had been identified by SPETS dropped behind Allied lines into the Ardennes. The CEP — circular error of probability — one of the elderly Bouillonese told him, was plus or minus two hundred meters, “well over,” the man explained to Parkin slowly in English, “how do you say, monsieur — over ‘alf a mile, eh? Bah! The Russians cannot hit anything.”
“Then, monsieur,” said another elderly gent, “why are we in here?”
They had to remain in the shelter for over an hour, and with the sharp splitting sounds of wood exploding in the Ardennes and the earth-shuddering thumps of hits on Bouillon, Parkin, pushing his schoolboy French to its limit, asked if anyone knew of Monsieur Malmédy and where he lived.
“C’est moi,” came a friendly voice in the crowded shelter. All Parkin could see was a beret and a hand. There followed a rattle of French that Parkin didn’t have a hope of understanding. He was grateful his French was so poor. He had no desire to tell the old gentleman. That was Lieutenant Brentwood’s job, and Parkin was praying Brentwood had made it to a shelter.
When the “all clear” sounded, even before Parkin helped the frail Monsieur Malmédy up the stairs to street level, they could hear a commotion. People were pouring out of the shelters, but suddenly all movement seemed to cease, many standing with mouths agape — like stunned mullet, thought Parkin. A huge cloud of dust and smoke obliterated the castle, its eastern ramparts no more than an avalanche of smoking rock and debris that had cut a great swath out of the forest beneath the castle, some of the rubble having taken out a dozen or so trees and houses along the esplanade. Fire trucks were already screaming across both bridges, and over the river they could see trees near the railway station aflame, despite the drizzling rain. Parkin looked about for the Humvee, relieved to see it still there, but Brentwood was nowhere in sight. “Bloody hell!”
“Pardon?” asked Monsieur Malmédy.
“Where are the other shelters?” Parkin asked him, gesticulating back to the one they had just emerged from, but Malmédy was unsure of what he meant, another man helping out, pointing to the white office building off to their right. Parkin indicated to Malmédy that he should follow him. Malmédy hesitated.
“Lili,” said Parkin.
“Ah!” the old man happily exclaimed, and graciously motioned Parkin to go before him.
Bloody hell, thought Parkin. He thinks I’m taking him to Lili. Parkin looked about for Brentwood but couldn’t see him. Surely he couldn’t be far from the Café Renoir. Policemen were already on duty on the nearest of the two bridges, stopping outgoing traffic from the old part of the town to allow an ambulance, its siren blaring, to pull out of the congested line leading from the rail station.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Deep in the Montana missile silo, it didn’t matter whether it was night or day. Only the clock told Melissa Lange and her co-team member, Shirley Cochrane, that it was 1730 hours. Having received the command, Melissa sat in the high-backed, red upholstered chair, slid it forward on its glide rails and buckled up, waiting for Shirley. When Melissa heard the click, she began the litany. “Hands on keys. Key them on my mark. Three — two — one — mark.” Both watched the clock, its long, white second hand having passed zero and now sweeping to ten seconds before 1731.
“Light on,” confirmed Shirley. “Light off.” The second ten seconds passed, both women tense. “Hands on keys,” instructed Melissa.
“Hands on keys,” came Shirley’s confirmation.
“Initiate on my mark. Five, four, three, two, one. Now, I’ll watch the clock.”
“I’ve got the light,” said Shirley. “Light on. Light off.”
“Release key,” ordered Melissa.
“Key released.”
They waited for the launch code to come in, their one-crew key-turn having initiated only one “vote” in the launch process. The ringing, indicating “launch message coming through,” sounded like an old telex chattering inside a metal box. They were now on “standby,” requiring another vote from another LCC — launch control center — in order to go to “strategic alert,” the yellow lights changing to white as they moved from the “key release” waiting mode to “launch-fire-release” mode, after which the five nuclear warheads would be sent streaking toward their targets, their “infinity” delay shifting to a ten-second delay from target, each of the two women praying for the ILC — inhibit launch command’—to be activated instead of the “valid” word/numeral message for Armageddon.
They began to relax, waiting for the instructor to call it off and tell them it was a drill. Suddenly there was a high-pitched electronic tone and a man’s even, modulated voice above a sizzle of static. “Charlie… Tango… Papa… Sierra… Oscar. Stand by. Message follows.” Then came the repeat, “Message follows.”
Both women, heads bent, pencils poised, waited, then they began to copy. “Victor… November… Uniform… Oscar… Charlie… Tango… Hotel… X-ray… Sierra… Papa… Papa… Lima… Two… Seven… November. Foxtrot… Echo… One… Lima. Acknowledge.”
“Copied,” said Shirley, her voice without a quaver. “I see a valid message.”
“I agree,” confirmed Melissa. “Go to step one checklist. Launch keys inserted.” Both women unbuckled, went to the midpoint “red” box. As Melissa and Shirley each took out her respective round, red-tagged brass key, their eyes did not meet. Both returned to their consoles, flipped aside the plastic safety cover, inserted the keys, and then buckled up once more in their seats. “Ready,” said Melissa.
“Ready.”
“Okay, hold it!” said the instructor. “It’s a drill.” Melissa felt her whole body sag, then she sat up briskly again so as not to show it.
“Shirley,” said the instructor. “What’s the matter with your chair? You wasted three seconds back there.”
“Don’t know sir. Strap won’t reach…”
“Give it play. Let the strap run back and pull it right out again. Just like you do in your automobile.”
Shirley gave the strap more play. This time the buckle clicked in.
* * *
“Damn belt,” Shirley complained to Melissa as the door of the silo elevator shut silently and they began to rise. “Happens to me all the time.”
“I’ve had the same problem. Something wrong with that seat,” said Melissa. “The guide rails. Don’t worry, they’ll fix it. Wasn’t your fault. You were cool as a cucumber down there.”
“Oh yeah?” said Shirley, slipping into her cheeky Harlem accent. “Were you?”
Melissa thought for a second, wondering if the elevator was bugged. Would they do that? She looked across at Shirley and shook her head.
Shirley burst out laughing. “I wet my pants, honey.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence, relieved the drill was over but still too tense to come down from the adrenaline high.
* * *
As the air force van slowed to drop them off at their shared bungalow, Shirley’s boyfriend, a junior lieutenant from the silo complex HQ, was waiting in his car, its exhaust blowing clouds of steam high into the frozen air, and Melissa could feel the steady thump, thump, thump of the stereo as she got out of the base van, the frigid blast of air hitting her like a sheet of ice.
“Hi,” she heard Shirley call out to the boyfriend. “Come on inside!”
He shook his head, sliding the window down a fraction. “Kiloton’s in there. Doing some repair work. Didn’t think I should go in. Anybody knows you gave me a key—”
“Well,” said Shirley, walking over to his car, “you can come in now, can’t you?”
He looked anxiously at his watch. “We’re gonna miss that movie.”
“Okay,” Shirley called out, “give me a couple of minutes.”
Already inside, Melissa saw the jack-of-all-trades repairman known on the base as “Killerton.” He turned around, his bodybuilder’s torso threatening to burst the coveralls, a clump of chest hair so promine
nt, it made her look away.
“Didn’t think anyone’d be home,” said Killerton, grinning, his smile immediately suggestive, a shock of black hair as dark as that on his chest, Melissa noticed. Melissa shook the snow off her boots, still shivering and not knowing quite what to say to the repairman, not that there was anything unusual about him being there. Base personnel often requested repairs, and the workmen were issued a key. Happened all the time. She didn’t have to say anything to him. Just fix the damn ceiling tile and roof.
“Requisition,” said Killerton, holding up the pink slip from his toolbox for Melissa to see.
Shirley came in, snowflakes racing after her. “Hi, Killer. Didn’t see your truck.”
“Round the back.”
“You fix that sucker?”
“Workin’ on it. You got a leak, all right, coming right through the flashing.” He indicated the spot with a full-sized hammer that looked like a toy in his hands.
“Uh-huh,” commented Shirley, uninterested, taking off her parka.
“Can’t see it from there,” he said, looking over at them.
“Well, I tell ya, Killer,” said Shirley, “I’m not into roofs, man.” She disappeared into the bathroom. “Show Melissa.”
“Don’t bother,” Melissa said quickly. “I’m not into roofs either.” Shirley was calling out from the bathroom, “ Lissa— you and Stacy coming to the movie?”
“Rick’s probably still on his solo.”
“So? Give him a call. If you two are still talking, that is.”
Melissa didn’t answer, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Killerton with a grouting gun, testing the nozzle against his hand, wiping the putty off on his coveralls as Melissa dialed Stacy’s bungalow. Outside, the wind was picking up, throwing peppercorn-sized snow hard against the panes. No answer from Stacy’s bungalow.
“He’s not there,” Melissa told Shirley.
“Come with us, then.”
