by Robert Adams
He turned his head and called, “Harrigan, grab a pair of handcuffs and come back here.”
In that short moment, Betty looked up at Milo and said, in Russian, “You know, despite everything, I think I really did love you, my love.” She closed her mouth, then crunched something between her teeth, and a split second later, her entire body stiffened spasmodically. Her spine arched, higher, higher, until only her shoulders and heels were touching the ground. Unbearable, bestial noises issued from her mouth, then her body slammed back to the hard ground, her breath came out in a long, ragged gasp, and her blue eyes began to glaze over.
Barstow cursed himself, feelingly, for several minutes.
Some hours later, in his office, with a cigar going well and the whisky poured, he said, “Milo, I’m sorry as hell about putting you through all this just past, but I had no choice, no options, in the matter.”
Milo just sat silent and listened. Not the reek of Barstow’s strong cigar, not the peat-smoke odor of the whisky could make him stop smelling the odor of bitter almonds that had arisen from Betty’s slack mouth when he had lifted her body to place it in the ambulance. In a part of his mind, he still was waiting to awaken from this long, detailed, horrible nightmare.
“Milo, we knew that there were two ringers in the operation, but we had no idea who, only that one was a man and one a woman. They or rather their superiors, must have learned of this assignment of mine before even I knew just why I was being brought back Stateside. I had no inkling that I had been infiltrated until a week or so before I set you up in the small compound.
“Originally, as you must have guessed, the intention had been to house and feed and interview the subjects out here, where we were better set up for it. Then, when I was apprised that a Russky team was in my unit, I decided that it was just too risky to do it all in the preplanned way.
“Now, the only things that were known about the ringers was that they had both been in my Munchen operation—for what purpose we’ll never know. It was known that at least one of them had been a sleeper in the United States even before our entry into the war. A full-steam investigation narrowed the list of suspects, here, down to Ned, Hugo, Judy, Buck, Betty and you, Milo. So it was you six I sent to the small compound, along with enough others to make it appear normal, of course. I might’ve handled it better had I had a bit more time. Maybe then we wouldn’t’ve lost Herr Gries, Ned and Vasili.”
“Ned?” asked Milo. “Vasili? They’re dead?”
Barstow nodded grimly. “Yes. Hugo apparently shot them both just before he went to meet Tatiana Nikolayev … our Betty.”
“When did you find out it was Betty?” said Milo dully.
“Just yesterday,” replied Barstow. “The soldier who drove our mess steward over to pick up stores has been careless from time to time in making contacts with someone over on that base. When he was given two silenced pistols, he was observed, and immediately he was back on the road headed here, the person who gave him the pistols was picked up by our people and taken away. Fortunately for us, he had a very low pain threshold, so we had most of the scheme before that day was done, but he also had a weak heart and he died on us before we got every jot and tittle out of him.
“We had sent the two men you knew as Herr Hizinger and Herr Gries through in the normal way, along with a real, if nearly useless, Nazi bureaucrat who had been a midlevel paper shuffler with the rocket projects—that is, Herr Faber. Both Hizinger and Gries were born in Germany, and both lived there until the late 1930s, so it was thought that they could give convincing performances as ex-Nazis, and they were schooled and coached at some length about the proper responses to questions thrown at them by the three doctors. They did convince the learned doctors, I presume?”
“Oh, yes,” said Milo, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Dr. Smith was jubilant—he assured me that Hizinger and Gries were the greatest thing since sliced bread. So Betty and Hugo meant to kidnap them, eh? How did they expect to get them to Russia, though?”
Barstow steepled his fingers and looked at Milo through them and the thick cloud of blue-gray cigar smoke. “I would not be at all surprised if there isn’t a Russian submarine cruising or lying somewhere just east of Hampton Roads, in Chesapeake Bay or even over in the James River or the York. A group of heavily armed men was to be waiting up the road to eliminate any pursuit, and a large, fast automobile was parked on a shoulder of Route 60, ready to receive Tatiana, Hugo, Hizinger and Gries. They would then have been driven to where a fast boat was moored. And we don’t know any more than that, that’s when the man we got most of the rest out of died. But we’ll get more—four out of the six we ambushed back up the road there were taken alive and are more or less sound.
“That we weren’t able to take Hugo or Tatiana alive is a blow, and I can only blame myself for not checking her mouth thoroughly before I turned my back on her for even an instant. I should’ve known better. She knew we’d break her, one way or the other, before we gave her to anybody else, and she knew she had a lot to hide, so she did her duty, the only thing she could do under the circumstances; she was a good operative, that one.”
“How is Judy?” asked Milo. “Betty … Tatiana said she’d poisoned her.”
Barstow nodded. “She did—she shared with Judy a small box of chocolates that you had supposedly given her last night. Judy, of course, had no slightest reason to suspect anything was amiss and ate two of the things right after her breakfast. Then when she got sick, she was too sick to tell anybody, even Buck. But the doctors over at the base hospital say that she’ll be fine in a few days, a week at the outside—they got her in time.
“But back to you, Milo. You’re some kind of fine shot to’ve been able to shoot out both rear tires of a moving vehicle with a strange weapon.”
“It wasn’t me that did it, sir.” Milo shook his head. “I did try, but I either missed or those twenty-twos just couldn’t make the grade against those heavy-duty truck tires. It was the WAAC sergeant, Stupsnasig, with a thirty-eight caliber Smith & Wesson she carries inside her brassiere.”
Barstow just stared, almost dropping his cigar from between his teeth. “Brunhild shot out the tires, you said, with a thirty-eight caliber revolver she carries where?”
“She has a stiff linen holster stitched inside her brassiere, she told me, sir. She carries a hammeriess round-butt thirty-eight Smith & Wesson Terrier in the holster, apparently, at all times.”
“Did she happen to mention why, Milo?” asked Barstow.
“To safeguard her virtue, sir. She has a very low opinion of the motives of men,” said Milo.
Barstow chuckled. “Her opinion is probably sound. But she’s the last one I’d expect to need a thirty-eight snub to safeguard her body and virtue. God, man, that woman is bigger—and no doubt stronger, too—than half the men in the Army of the United States of America!”
He chuckled again, then added, “Nonetheless, I’m glad as hell that the beefy battleaxe had the gun and the skill to use it so efficiently. She’s a staff sergeant, right? Yes, well, I’ll bump her up to tech, and I’ll put a nice letter in her 201 file, too.
“As for you, Milo—“
“General,” Milo interrupted, “in the morning, you’ll have on your desk a letter from me resigning my commission. I’ve fought my first and my last skirmish in this new war of yours. I made it all through one war and I’m just sick and tired of seeing blood, of smelling fear, of watching people I know die. I have a promise to an old friend to fulfill, and I mean to fulfill it… if I can. At any rate, I want to get back to a life that doesn’t include shooting men and getting shot at for a living, that’s all.”
“But good God, man,” expostulated Barstow, “you’re a Regular, not just some damned homesick draftee. What kind of career do you think there’ll be for a fucking infantry officer in civilian life? Or do you intend to be a gentleman farmer, live on the Stiles fortune and raise thoroughbreds, up in Loudon County?”
Milo arose. “
Whatever I do, general, it will sure as hell beat watching a young woman die of cyanide under a clear blue sky, and it will beat the hell out of loading her body into an ambulance. I don’t give a shit who she really was or what she really was; she loved me and I was beginning to fall in love with her and I’ll be a damned long time forgetting her and the fact that it was your new dirty little undeclared war that parted us and killed her. You can admire Tatiana Nikolayev all you wish for being a ‘good spy’ and suiciding at the right time. But I’ll mourn Betty, if you don’t mind … and even if you do … sir.”
“Sit back down, Major Moray. That’s an order!” Barstow’s voice crackled with authority, and instinctively, Milo obeyed.
Then, in a warmer, more conversational tone, Barstow said, “Milo, if you have to blame someone for the woman’s demise, you are more than welcome to blame me. I think my shoulders are tough enough to bear that cross, too. So far as this ‘new war’ is concerned, however, you will continue to be a soldier in this war even as a civilian, because this war is one that will probably last far longer than did the last, more open war.
“Milo, Russian Communism is a devil’s brew of politics and something very akin to religion to its adherents. It bears many of the aspects of a proselytizing Christian religion—Padre recognized that fact early on, and that’s where his twisted little mind began to build his fables about the Pope being in a secret compact with Stalin—and now that the Nazis and Fascists are out of the road, it is going to start steam-rollering its way around the world . . , unless we are able to throw up a few roadblocks here and there, that is. And our job is not going to be made any easier by the fact that our current president and his predecessor both are admirers of Josef Stalin and have come to harbor a large number of men who more than just admire that red-handed butcher in some high places in our government.
“It will be up to us to try in every conceivable way to hold back the international Red tide until we can sufficiently inform the American people of the dangers—both foreign and domestic—that confront our nation and persuade them to vote out the elected officials who are soft on Communism, then pressure the new administration into rooting out the Red vipers now nesting in Washington.
“If we succeed in our purpose quickly enough, there will be at least hope for a world at peace and the war just concluded with Japan, Germany and all the rest will have been fought to some purpose, our dead will not have given their lives in vain. But if we are slowed, thwarted for even a few years, there will be one small, bloody war after another, in one small country after another, all fomented by the Communists as they attempt to take over the entire world. If that scenario plays for very long, the only end will be us versus them —the United States of America against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—and I cannot be at all certain that we would win such a war, even with our new bomb as a weapon.
“So go to your buddy’s widow, Milo. Marry her, settle down and sire children and breed horses and enjoy your life. Judging by your service record, you’ve earned such a life if anyone ever has. But, Milo, you might also pray every night that we succeed in all our aims, and quickly, else the world in which your children live may not be a very nice place.
“Don’t waste time writing me letters. I’ll see to the beginnings of your processing out, never fear.”
Chapter V
When all of the senior menfolk of the Guardian People were in their places along each side of the long, ancient table in the conference room of the Southern Shrine, old Mosix, the eldest of the priests, arose and spoke, saying, “Looters have come. The Shrine of the Arcade has been violated, stripped of many of its Holy Things.”
There was a concerted groan compounded of outrage and pure horror from the men to whom he spoke. But before any could speak, the old man raised one withered hand.
“Wait. That was the worst, but there is more. The tracks indicate that those who defiled the Shrine of the Arcade were only three men who rode in on horses. But several of the smaller Shrines have also been violated and stripped of many, many of the Holy Things we all were born to protect inviolate. Those who did these other infamies were more numerous and equipped with horse-drawn carts to bear away the Holy Things that they had looted from the Shrines.”
“Which Shrines, High Priest?” demanded the man at the other end of the table, Wahrn Mehrdok, the recently reelected captain of the Guardians of the Shrines of Nohshan, his big, horny farmer’s hands clenched at his sides.
“The Shrine of the Deer, the Shrine of the Bull and the Shrine of the Two Snakes. They surely are most truly the demons called looters, for they heavily loaded two carts with Holy Things and they bore other Holy Things away on their horses’ backs,” replied old Mosix, going on to say, “True, there are not too many Guardians of the prescribed ages—seventeen winters to forty-five winters—to go against these looter demons, but then do they number no more than the tracks did indicate, the score and two Guardians should be quite enough to take them and regain the Holy Things they stole and slay them for their crimes, their blasphemous activities. Verily do the Sacred Scriptures say that the Shrines and the Holy Things that they contain are not to be disturbed by anyone, that any who do so or make to do so are criminals, sinners. These demons have assuredly sinned and the Scriptures also attest that the wages of Sin is Death.”
“Just how many are there, High Priest?” asked the captain.
“The tracks showed six or seven, captain, one of them appearing to be either a woman or a young boy. They headed to the northwest after their desecrations. Two and twenty Guardians should be—”
“Twelve or even ten should be enough, High Priest. Are we all to eat next winter, work must still be done in the fields, lest the irrigation ditches silt up on us, and then consider where we’d be.”
“But our Sacred Duty—“ began the priest.
“Our Sacred Duty first of all requires that we be around to do it, Mosix,” the reelected first sergeant of the Guardians, Kahl Rehnee, interrupted him. “And the captain is right about the ditches, you know that good as I do. This just ain’t good farming country, never was and never will be, neither. It’s either too much water or not enough … mostly, not enough. It’s plenty now, but when the lake out there comes to go down like it will soon now, the creek will go down too and we’ll be back to raising the water out of it a bucket at the time to keep the ditches all running and the crops all growing right.
“Mosix, it all boils down to just what I said and my daddy used to said afore me: thishere country is damn good for growing grass, but it’s pisspoor for growing anything else nowadays, no matter what it was like way back when, before the Great Dyings and all; the onliest way to be sure of living year to year without doing the kind of backbreaking, man-kiliing work we and our daddies and grandfolks have had to do is to stop trying to farm a place that is next thing to impossible to farm and start breeding stock, hunting game and foraging for wild plants that folks can eat and that can grow without being watered and nursed by folks. I knows you don’t like to hear it from me just like you didn’t like to hear it all from my daddy, but that still don’t stop it all from being true.”
The captain nodded, and there was a mutter of general agreement around the table, only the older priest and the two younger ones who stood behind his chair not joining in the consensus.
Mosix shook his head. “And have any of you thought just what would soon happen if you did such a folly? Why all too soon, you would have hunted out, foraged out, and the enlarged herds would have grazed out this entire area. Then what would you do?”
This time it was the captain who spoke. “Move on, Mosix, move on to a place where there still was grass and food plants and game, that is what.”
“Blasphemy!” hissed Mosix from betwixt worn, yellowed teeth. “To think to hear such wicked blasphemy from the lips of the very captain of all the Guardians! I would never have believed such a thing could have come to pass had I not heard it with my own two ears! Have you no shame, t
hen? Must you flaunt the dishonor your mind spawns, Wahrn Mehrdok, even while the very looters we are here to keep from the Shrines are at work desecrating and bearing off cartloads of the Holy Objects that your honorable forebears did the duty of protecting?”
“Priest,” said the captain, “your problem is plain— you wish us all to be as stubbornly, as stupidly fanatic as are you. Think you that you are the only living man who can read the journals of our ancestors, then? During the time of the Great Dyings, a man—man, mind you, no god—whose title was ‘governor’ sent our many-times-greatgrandsires here to prevent riot or looting in this town and the surrounding lands. There was a captain and two undercaptains, there was a man called first sergeant, several others also called sergeant and forty-seven others called various things, many of which terms do not seem to mean anything anymore. The gang of them were called a company and they belonged to a larger gang called a battalion which itself belonged to an even larger gang called a regiment and this largest gang was called the Missouri National Guard.
“About half of those men sent as Guardians of the town and lands died in the Great Dyings, as too did most of the folk hereabouts. A few more of the Guardians left to seek after their own dear kin, in other places, and even fewer ever came back, all telling tales of horror—of miles of countryside and of whole big towns in which no living man or woman or little child still lived, of pet dogs and cats and wild animals gorging on rotting bodies lying all unburied in any direction a man might look, of the pitiful few who had lived running and hiding alone and lunatic or banding together to loot and kill and rape and torture and mutilate and enslave.
“Those few of a few who came safely back, Priest, helped those who had remained to decide that it were best to stay here, safely away from the lunacy and barbarism and death that stalked the land and slunk through the corpse-clogged streets of the towns, elsewhere in the plague-blighted and desolate state that had been home.
