Road of Bones

by James R Benn

  “And if Stalin objects?” I asked, watching Black over the rim of my cup as I savored another gulp.

  “You’re a dead man if you push it,” Black said.

  “Even Americans?” I asked.

  “Bull said there was a lot of Russian ground out there,” Black said, gesturing with one hand toward the window and the ruined buildings across the street. “He’s right. Good farmland, soft earth, easy for digging shallow graves.”

  “These guys are our allies, right?” I asked.

  “Paranoid allies,” Black said. “But their paranoia is based on real fears. The Communists have long memories. They remember that after the First World War, America sent over thirteen thousand soldiers to fight against them, along with a lot of British, French, and other troops.”

  “I never heard of that,” I said.

  “That’s because we have short memories, and the whole attempt to intervene in the Russian Civil War was a massive failure. It was a quarter century ago, which is yesterday in this country. You might not know about it, but every good Marxist is well aware America tried to defeat their glorious revolution, and given another chance, would try again.”

  “So what the hell are you doing here, working with the NKVD?” I asked.

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Black said, giving an apologetic shrug. “We’re coordinating activities and exchanging information. Our networks in Eastern Europe need to be aware of what each agency is up to, otherwise we could end up working at cross purposes.”

  “Sounds logical,” I said, going for another sandwich, trying to fuel my body. I was exhausted. The massive adrenaline rush from the bombing raid across occupied Europe was crashing down on me, but I needed to stay focused. I needed to find a way to navigate this strange place and get the hell out of Station 559 and search for Big Mike.

  “Major Black is our resident specialist on Russia,” Bull said. “He speaks the language, so he’ll be with you when you meet with Belov. Strictly a courtesy visit, but it will be good to have him confirm what Maiya translates.”

  “I’m not fluent,” Black said, “but I can tell if she’s translating you correctly.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?” I asked, feeling there was more going on here than I could grasp.

  “If she feels you’re going off into uncharted waters, she’ll muddy them,” Black said. “It’s easier that way, see? Then Belov isn’t forced to concern himself with things that might upset Moscow.”

  “Or the local NKVD,” I said.

  “Right. You’re getting the hang of how things work,” Black said.

  “How’d you get to be such an expert on the Russians?” I asked, washing down the last of the sandwich with coffee. Bacon grease and caffeine were my best friends right now.

  “I majored in Russian literature at Yale,” Black said, beaming at his academic prowess. “You?”

  “Last time I was in a college classroom it was Cambridge, 1939, arresting some Harvard punk for dealing cocaine,” I said. “You?”

  “Sorry,” Black said, sounding sorrier that I wasn’t a college boy than for assuming I was.

  “Let me guess,” I said to him, leaning in close. “Your old man works on Wall Street and was pals with Wild Bill Donovan. One of his anointed recruited you and you got your commission without going through basic training. Am I close?”

  “My father doesn’t work on Wall Street. It’s Philadelphia, and he’s the head of a medical supply firm. Mister Donovan is a family friend, so you got the rest right,” Black said. “No wonder you were a cop.”

  “Doesn’t take a cop to know Donovan recruited from the cream of high society,” I said. “That’s why they say OSS stands for Oh-So-Social.”

  “Okay, fellows, you can stand down now,” Bull said. “Cut the crap, and that’s an order.”

  Black and I made up as he handed me a wad of rubles for anything I might need to buy or anyone I might need to bribe. Cash has a way of sealing friendships.

  There was a knock at the door, and Maiya entered. General Belov was ready for me.

  “Captain William Boyle, reporting as ordered, sir,” I said, standing tall and issuing a snappy salute to General Belov. He rose from behind a paper-strewn desk and flicked back a salute. His face was like a slab of granite with five o’clock shadow. His uniform was slathered with medals that clinked quietly as he strode forward and spoke in Russian.

  “The general does not like your appearance,” Maiya said. “He says other Americans wear their dress uniforms well, but you come to him like rumpled enlisted man. The general is quite particular about this.” That last bit was whispered for my benefit.

  “I apologize to the General,” I said. “Tell him I have just come from dropping bombs on Germany and have shot down a fascist fighter plane. There was no time to change uniforms.”

  Belov laughed when she translated that. I glanced at Black, who gave an approving nod.

  “Good, the general says. But he also says to find the murdering hooligan who killed Lieutenant Ivan Kopelev, and to wear the proper uniform as you do so,” Maiya explained.

  “And the American victim,” I said. I waited a few seconds then gave her a nod. She finally spoke up and Belov responded with an angry growl.

  “That is your concern. His concern is justice for Kopelev. You must find his killer. No excuses will be tolerated.”

  “When will the Russian investigator arrive?” I asked.

  When Maiya finished, Belov looked to another officer seated at a desk in the corner of his office, a service cap with a blue band lying in front of him. NKVD. His face was pinched and thin, his cheekbones high and decorated with a scattering of scars. He had startlingly icy blue eyes that drilled me from beneath dark brows. They exchanged a few sentences, and Belov nodded to Maiya.

  “He is coming a long distance,” she said. “He will arrive early tomorrow.”

  “I have also come a long distance. My sergeant’s bomber was shot down,” I said. “Thirty miles northwest of Kozova. Parachutes were seen. Can the general organize a search effort? I need my sergeant to assist in the apprehension of Lieutenant Kopelev’s killer.”

  “The Red Army will search for the men,” Maiya said, her eyes glancing at the NKVD man who lit a cigarette. “We are diligent in searching out foreigners who wander near the front lines.”

  “Five parachutes,” I said. “That means five men. Alive.”

  “The general thanks you for your information,” Maiya said. “Now we go.”

  She hadn’t translated that last bit. But by the flicker in the NKVD man’s eyes, he’d understood. And he didn’t like it one bit.

  “Who’s the spook in the corner?” I asked Black out in the hallway.

  “Major of State Security Pavel Drozdov. My counterpart in the joint OSS-NKVD Mission. He’s charged with overseeing the investigation,” Black said. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your barracks.”

  “Wait, I thought the guy coming tomorrow was their investigator,” I said, following Black out the front door.

  “He is. Drozdov is the overseer. He handles the politics,” Black said.

  “Drozdov is the guy who makes sure everything comes out okay,” I said.

  “The Soviets like happy endings,” Black said. “The brave Communist who prevails over fascist invaders and reactionary Westerners. Think of Drozdov and his NKVD pals as storytellers. The guys in the red hats always win. Come on, your room is in that next building.”

  “Never mind that, show me the crime scene,” I said.

  “You sure? You’ve had a rough day,” Black said.

  “I’m sure. Just you and me, no Maiya and no Drozdov,” I said.

  “You Cambridge boys work fast,” he said.

  “Boston,” I corrected him. “The only reason I ever went to Cambridge was to arrest people.”

  “Okay, if you
insist. Sure you don’t want to clean up first? It’s almost chow time,” Black said, stopping and glancing at his watch.

  “I’m not hungry, and I have no idea what time it is,” I said. “We left England at dawn and must have gone through two or three time zones.”

  “It’s 1735 hours,” Black said.

  I adjusted my watch, setting it ahead. I was already losing time on this case.

  Chapter Five

  “This place is huge,” I said, as Black drove the jeep to the warehouse where the murders had taken place. We passed rows of tents pitched next to ruined brick buildings, then more new one-story wooden buildings and open-sided hangars where Soviet aircraft, including biplanes, were being repaired.

  “Yeah, the Luftwaffe used it for a regional headquarters, then did their best to destroy it when they retreated. The warehouse is one of the few places they didn’t get. It had two five-hundred-pound bombs hidden under it, ready to be set off by radio waves, but something must’ve gone wrong. It’s sturdy, so that’s why we use it to store valuable supplies.”

  “How valuable?” I asked, as Black stopped for two Russian trucks to cross at an intersection. I watched as one of the biplanes started, its engine spouting blue exhaust smoke. It coughed, then conked out.

  “Hard to figure in this country,” Black said, crossing the intersection. He stopped in front of a two-story brick building. “I mean, there’s a lot of bartering. Cigarettes, liquor, prophylactics, Spam, all those things have value. But there’s no money in it. What are you going to buy with rubles, anyway? They’re no good outside the USSR and there’s damn little you’d want to buy in any Soviet store. If you could find one.”

  “Then what are they guarding?” I asked, nodding in the direction of two guards at the warehouse door.

  “The barn door. After the horse bolted,” he said. Black led the way, a key ring dangling from one hand as he returned the salutes of the Russian guards with the other. He unlocked the heavy metal door which creaked on its hinges as he opened it.

  “Wait a second,” I said, studying the lock. “How many people have keys to this place?”

  “I do. General Dawson does, and the American commander’s office has a spare. Far as I know, that’s it for us. The Russians? I have no idea. I know Drozdov has one,” Black said.

  “The NKVD guy?”

  “Yeah. We’re both responsible for a section of this warehouse.”

  “This lock is new,” I said, studying the shiny mechanism.

  “Right. Barn door once again,” Black said. “Come on.”

  Inside, he switched on lights. Bare bulbs hung from the ceiling illuminating shelves of supplies and pallets groaning under the weight of crates stacked to the ceiling.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  “The usual military supplies, Russian and American. Foodstuffs, spare parts, ammunition, blankets, that sort of thing. Everything needed for home away from home for our boys. Upstairs is where we found the bodies.”

  “Who’s we?” I asked as I followed Black up the wooden steps.

  “Drozdov and me. Inventory,” he said, by way of explanation. He flicked a switch at the top of the stairs.

  Up here, the ceiling was lower and the shelves less well stocked. A wall divided the room, with a solid metal door that matched the one downstairs. Black opened it up and gestured for me to enter.

  “The bodies were found in here?” I asked. He nodded.

  Inside, there were signs in English saying no smoking and danger—explosives, next to signs in Cyrillic lettering which I figured said the same.

  “Right there,” he said, pointing to a stretch of flooring between the doorway and the rows of wooden shelves. Dark stains had soaked into the floorboards.

  “Where are the bodies now?”

  “They took away Lieutenant Kopelev for burial, I don’t know where. Sergeant Jack Morris’s body was shipped home via C-47 to Tehran. We don’t maintain an American cemetery here,” Black said.

  “Both bodies are gone?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “Yeah. There was a flight to Tehran yesterday, so they put him on it,” Black said with a shrug. “I mean he was shot dead. What else do you need to know?”

  “Just tell me everything you saw when you opened the door,” I said, suppressing my anger. Black was as much a suspect as anyone right now, so everything he told me was going down with a grain of salt.

  “Well, I opened the door.”

  “It was unlocked?” I asked.

  “No. Okay, I unlocked the door. No, wait, Drozdov unlocked it. We went in and the bodies were on the floor. Kopelev on the left, Morris on the right. There was a lot of blood.”

  “How did Drozdov react?”

  “He stopped in his tracks. Said something in Russian, I think it was a curse,” Black said. “Then he checked them for a pulse. But they were dead for sure.” He looked away from the stains, his gaze settling on the shelves, wishing he could forget what he’d seen. Probably not too many blood-drenched corpses at Yale.

  “Where were they shot?” I asked.

  “In the back of the neck,” Black said, rubbing his eyes, as if he might rid himself of that vision. Or was it an act?

  “Favorite method of the NKVD. The Gestapo too, for that matter,” I said. “Doesn’t tell us much. You probably knew that, right?”

  “Me? Yeah, we’ve been briefed on the Soviet security methods. You’re saying it could have been a Yank?”

  “A Yank with the right keys,” I said. “This door took a different key than the main entrance?”

  “Right.”

  “Who has keys to this room?” I asked.

  “Me and General Dawson. Drozdov has one, and like I said, I don’t know who else on the Russian side. They keep things pretty close to the vest,” he said.

  “You need to find out, and fast,” I said. “Otherwise you’re going to be a prime suspect.”

  “I didn’t shoot anybody,” Black said. “You can’t let that happen.”

  “Never in the line of duty? You’re an OSS agent, aren’t you?”

  “I’m a specialist in Soviet affairs, and I can speak some Russian. That’s why I’m here, not for cloak and dagger work.”

  “You’re working on a joint OSS and NKVD mission, Major. Both are spy outfits, and two men have been murdered. This isn’t an academic exercise, and you need to wake up to that,” I said. I was putting the pressure on Black to see how he took it. Maybe he was just in over his head and had no clue about how dangerous this was. Or maybe he was playing the hapless professor for my benefit.

  “Okay, okay,” Black said, holding up his hands as if to push back on the dose of reality I’d unleashed on him. “I did wonder about Drozdov. I mean, it’s possible he did it, right? He’s got access, and I get the feeling he’s no stranger to a well-placed bullet or two.”

  “If he is the killer, then maybe he was acting on orders, have you thought about that? In which case you’re the perfect patsy. A capitalist American spy, it’s made to order,” I said. “And if this was an off-the-books hit, he still needs someone in the frame for it. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. There’s no reason to suspect Drozdov, or you, Major. I’m just tossing out ideas. There’s a lot more I need to know before I get close to figuring this out.”

  “Like what?” Black asked.

  “Was anything missing? And what’s so special about the stuff in here? Why the extra security?”

  “No, nothing was taken,” Black said. “I did a full inventory with Drozdov, and we submitted a joint report. It’s all here.”

  “All what?”

  “Everything from gold to explosives,” he said, stepping around the bloodstains and giving me a tour of the shelves. “American Double Eagles and British sovereigns, sewn into money belts. Plastic explosives and detonators, right next to medical supplies.
Pep pills and morphine syrettes.”

  “Tempting,” I said, reaching into a box and feeling the heft of the fabric belt. Gold and drugs. Very tempting.

  “True enough,” Black said. “Which is why they’re useful for bribes and payments to underground groups. We’re working with anti-German groups in Bulgaria right now, and that’s where most of this is going.”

  “What are the suitcases for?” I asked, spotting a dozen worn suitcases on one shelf, looking like the lost and found at a railway station.

  “Suitcase radios, the latest design,” he said. “We’re way ahead of the Russians on designing small and powerful radios. Not that they’d admit it, of course. These are perfect for smuggling radios to resistance groups. Here we have crates of plastic explosives and detonators. Hence the no smoking signs.”

  “These are weapons?” I asked, patting one of the large wooden crates.

  “Yes. Everything from silenced pistols to submachine guns. Also, compact crossbows for silent killing,” Black said, warming to his subject.

  “Did anyone report hearing shots?” I asked.

  “No. There was a guard on the door, but he didn’t hear a thing,” Black said.

  “Did you check the silenced weapons to see if any had been used?” I asked.

  “No. We were told to wait for the official investigation,” he said.

  “Okay. I’ll need to talk to the guard tomorrow,” I said. “After the Russian cop shows up.”

  “The guard’s not here,” Black said, moving on to another shelf. “These crates contain the latest version of the SCR-300 backpack radio, along with the handheld SCR-536.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “What happened to the guard?”

  “He and his whole platoon were transferred to the front,” Black said, as if a potential witness disappearing was totally normal. Which might be the case in the USSR, after all. “There’s a big push toward Krakow, in southern Poland, Drozdov told me.”