Road of Bones

by James R Benn

  “Fourteen airmen, General,” I said, giving Bull a salute. “Courtesy of our comrades in the Red air force.”

  “Well done, Boyle,” the general said. “Big Mike, good to see you again.”

  “Same here, Bull. Now, when do we eat?”

  “Soon. I want the doctors to check out everyone first,” Bull said as he moved off to talk to each of the returning aircrew.

  “Billy,” Kaz said, moving through the press of men milling around him. “We were growing worried.”

  “Me too,” I said, grabbing him by the shoulders. “It’s good to see you, Kaz. Sorry I wasn’t here when you got in.”

  “Captain Sidorov explained it to me,” Kaz said as Sidorov sidled over. “I was quite surprised to see him, as you can imagine.” I watched Kaz for any sign of trouble, but his face was unreadable.

  “Major Black was gracious enough to meet Lieutenant Kazimierz when his plane landed and explain the circumstances,” Sidorov said. “I have apologized for the situation in London, and the lieutenant was gracious enough to accept it.”

  “Oh yeah?” Big Mike said, balancing himself with one hand on my shoulder.

  “Sergeant,” Sidorov said, acknowledging Big Mike’s presence with a nod. “I am glad you are well.”

  “Did you discover who the killer was while Billy was gone?” Big Mike asked. “I seem to remember you were pretty good at putting the finger on a guy, guilty or not.”

  “Enough,” Kaz said, cutting through the tension with a sharp glance at Big Mike. “We must work together here, however strange that may seem. I suggest we put the past behind us and move on.”

  “Everything okay here?” Bull asked, returning to our group. “We’re going to give everyone a quick medical check and then off to the mess hall.”

  “Fine, Bull,” Big Mike said. “Just talkin’ over old times.”

  “Welcome back, Kapitan,” Drozdov said, as he and Belov joined us. “The general gives you his compliments on finding your men.”

  “Please tell the general it was all due to his excellent orders,” I said, watching the two of them for any reaction. Belov beamed as Drozdov translated. His excellent orders had nearly gotten me killed, but he showed no trace of guile or surprise. Drozdov was neutral, his face betraying nothing.

  “General Belov wishes to hear of your experiences, once you have rested,” Drozdov said. “Perhaps in the morning.” I agreed to see them first thing tomorrow, and they left after some backslapping with Bull and Major Black. Everybody was in a good mood.

  The wounded men were taken away in ambulances and the rest of the airmen piled into a truck. Bull helped Big Mike into his jeep, and Kaz and I took the back, with Sidorov and Black following in their vehicle.

  “Did Bull give you my message?” I said to Kaz. He nodded.

  “It was good advice,” Kaz said. “But quite unnecessary. I would not trust Sidorov for a second.”

  “That’s natural, after what he did in London,” I said.

  “True,” Kaz said, glancing back at Sidorov. “But this is not England. Here in Russia, I trust him even less.”

  “Hey, where’s your Poland patch?” I asked, noticing Kaz’s uniform and the absence of his red shoulder flash as he turned in his seat.

  “It was decided at SHAEF that it would be a provocation if I were to arrive wearing the markings of the London government-in-exile. As you know, the Soviets have their own Polish government already organized. In the interest of Allied unity, I was ordered to divest myself of it.”

  “Sorry, Kaz,” I said. He stared straight ahead.

  “I have no desire to be here,” he said. “I have no desire to work with that man. But I must do both, for a false unity that in the end will once again betray my nation.”

  There was nothing I could say to that. We finished the ride in silence.

  Doctor Mametova checked out the wounded men and pronounced them all in good shape. Besides Big Mike’s bum ankle, there were various lacerations, a broken arm, and two shrapnel wounds, all healing nicely. She told Big Mike his ligaments were torn and to not walk on that foot for a couple of weeks, Sidorov doing the translating. When she was done re-taping Big Mike’s ankle, she spoke directly to Sidorov.

  “She says the situation is still the same,” Sidorov said in a low voice, his eyes darting around the room. “In regard to the medicine.”

  “What medicine?” Kaz asked.

  “I’ll fill you in later,” I said and helped Big Mike get up, wondering if Black had noticed his missing carton of morphine yet.

  The mess hall was busy, the rescued airmen having moved on to vodka toasts with their hosts, the language barrier fading further away with each belt. We took the end of a long table where Big Mike could sit with his leg propped up. Sidorov came with me to get food while Major Black and Kaz settled in on either side of Big Mike.

  “You getting along with Kaz?” I asked as I gestured for the cook to top off the bowl I held out. Meat stew with vegetables, or at least that’s what it looked like.

  “Yes, remarkably well,” Sidorov said. “Lieutenant Kazimierz was very kind, once he got over his surprise. I got the distinct impression he’d thought me dead.”

  “He probably wished it at one point,” I said, handing Sidorov Big Mike’s bowl and getting a normal portion for myself. It took Sidorov a second, but then he chuckled.

  “Of course,” he said as we headed to the table. “I do not think I could have been so gracious.” A bottle of vodka had appeared, and drinks were poured. Big Mike went to work on his food, and I sat down next to Sidorov, wondering how this little dinner party would end up.

  “Have you seen the scene of the crime?” I asked Kaz as I tasted the stew.

  “Yes, Captain Sidorov showed me the warehouse, in the company of Major Black. Quite odd, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Which part?” I asked.

  “The part where a fortune in drugs, gold coins, and equipment was left untouched,” Kaz said. “Two dead bodies are commonplace these days. But next to undisturbed riches? Most unusual.”

  “Lay it out for me,” Big Mike said, not missing a beat between spoonfuls of stew.

  Kaz reviewed the layout of the warehouse, the guards at the door and the locked room upstairs. He checked with Sidorov a few times, and the two of them gave a perfect description of the crime scene. They chatted back and forth like a couple of old friends, and I caught a look of surprise on Big Mike’s face. This was all new to him, and I could tell he was having a hard time with Sidorov. So was Kaz, but he did a much better job of hiding it.

  “Apparently, the officer in charge of guarding the warehouse was transferred immediately after the killings,” Sidorov said. “Billy was given permission to travel to interview him as a witness.”

  “Not you?” Big Mike said, pointedly not looking at Sidorov. “Why not?”

  “I do not pretend to understand how my superiors come to their decisions,” Sidorov said. “I was ordered to remain and continue the investigation with Lieutenant Kazimierz, which I did.”

  “We uncovered no new evidence,” Kaz said. “It took me a day to recover after my long journey here. This is my first assignment since my surgery, and the flight was exhausting.”

  What that meant to me was Kaz had been enraged to find Sidorov waiting to greet him, and it took a day to get his emotions in check. I believed him that the trip here was rough. What I didn’t believe was that he’d ever admit it unless he needed an excuse to avoid Sidorov.

  “What did Lieutenant Nikolin have to say?” Sidorov asked. “Did you have any trouble finding him?”

  “A bit of trouble, yes,” I said. “When we stopped to refuel, my pilot received orders to bomb a German fuel depot. Then she went on to land at a temporary airfield. It was a while before I got to Zolynia.”

  “You flew in an attack with the Night Witches?
” Sidorov said. “Not many men can claim that privilege.” He went on to explain about the all-female unit to Kaz and Big Mike.

  “And I lived to tell the tale,” I said. “Although I did wonder where that order originated from.”

  “What do you mean?” Major Black asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But sending a single biplane with an American in place of the usual navigator into an attack was risky business. Risky enough that we might not have survived.”

  “Who issued the order?” Kaz asked.

  “I don’t know. It came in over the radio, and nobody spoke English,” I said, going over how I’d learned about it and the signal we’d come up with for me to drop flares.

  “Stalin! Perfect,” Sidorov said. “Stalin solves all problems.”

  I described my time with the Night Witches and showed off my Order of the Patriotic War. “I was finally flown to Zolynia where I found out the truth about Lieutenant Vanya Nikolin. He wasn’t transferred. He was sentenced to a penal unit. Tramplers, they call them.”

  “What’s a trampler?” Big Mike asked.

  “They clear minefields. The hard way,” I said. “Nikolin told me he’d received a note while on guard duty to report to General Belov. When he got there, the general was gone and Major Drozdov of the NKVD, found him and put him on charges for leaving his post. Nikolin lost his commission and ended up in the penal company.”

  “Do you have any proof of what he says?” Black asked. The proof was folded neatly in my shirt pocket, but something told me to hold back.

  “No, it’s the story he told. He had no idea what happened while he was gone, or why Belov sent the note, if he really did. We can ask Max. He delivered it.”

  “And Max is who?” Big Mike asked, gulping down the last of his stew.

  “Our factotum,” Kaz said. “A conscript of dubious loyalties who has been assigned to attend to our needs.”

  “A gofer, got it,” Big Mike said. “And he never offered up this tidbit to you? Major Drozdov neither?”

  “No, not a mention,” I said. “We’ll have to talk to them about it. Tomorrow.”

  “Drozdov might have done it to protect Nikolin,” Black said. “I mean, the alternative might have been a firing squad for deserting his post or dereliction of duty.”

  “A quick death would have been merciful,” Sidorov said. “Did you learn anything else?”

  “Wait,” Kaz said, holding up his hand. “You think someone deliberately sent you on a bombing run, and that Nikolin was set up and sent to the front to a near-certain death?”

  “I don’t know how deliberate the rerouting of my flight was, but somebody made it happen, and it sure felt like a suicide mission to me. The orders I’d been given had only one name authorizing the trip. General Belov. And yes, it seems as if Nikolin was ordered to leave the warehouse under false pretenses. He may well be dead by now.”

  “Sounds like you were supposed to join him,” Black said, his eyes darting to Sidorov and then back to Kaz. Did he sense tension?

  “It’s possible. If I were paranoid, which it’s hard not to be when people are shooting at you, I’d think it was all a plot. But then again, maybe that fuel depot needed to be bombed and Tatyana’s aircraft was the only one available. Maybe it’s routine to send NKVD officers to penal companies when murder happens on their watch. What do you think, Kiril?” I caught a glimpse of Kaz’s eyes widening at my use of Sidorov’s first name.

  “It would ruin his career, certainly,” Sidorov said. “No one wants to be associated with failure, even if it was not his fault. But a penal company clearing mines? It is rather excessive.”

  “They send them through minefields, really?” Big Mike asked.

  “Yes,” Sidorov said. “It is usually a three-month sentence, and a man can be reinstated if he survives. Few do.”

  “I met one. He was assigned as my translator at the Zolynia airbase. He drove me to the front to talk to Nikolin at the 18th Detached Penal Company,” I said. “He wasn’t too happy to return to his old unit. He was petrified they’d keep him.”

  “We should try and get this Nikolin guy back here,” Big Mike said, eyeing Sidorov. “You got any clout?”

  “Very little,” Sidorov said. “It may please you to know that I have been in a labor camp in Siberia since I left England. I am here only because I am acquainted with Captain Boyle and the two of you. That is the only clout I carry.” Big Mike kept a poker face. I’d never let on about the trap I’d laid for Sidorov, and if he and Kaz ever suspected, they hadn’t said a word.

  “I’ll see if Bull can request it through Belov, officially,” I said. “We have determined Nikolin possesses vital information, so at least we can make the case.”

  “You come up with anything else?” Black asked, filling his glass and passing the vodka around.

  “Well, I got to talking with my translator, Fedor Popov, and told him about the murders. He came up with an angle I hadn’t considered. It had to do with the location of the murders. I’d been thinking it was done in that locked room because it was secluded. But Teddy—Fedor—suggested the location might have been a signal. Like you said, Kaz, it doesn’t make sense that nothing was taken. But what if the bodies were left there as a warning, or a threat?”

  “Maybe Morris and Kopelev didn’t go along with some scheme and got plugged for it,” Big Mike offered, gulping his vodka and smacking his lips.

  “A message, perhaps?” Sidorov suggested.

  “A message intended for whom?” Kaz asked. “To what purpose?”

  Damn good question.

  “Major Black, anything new on your Bulgarian mission? Any new supplies come in for it?” I asked.

  “Captain Boyle, that is a matter of some secrecy,” he said. “Please don’t mention it again, not in such a public place.”

  “Come, Major,” Sidorov said. “Everyone seems to know of it. We are all friends here, are we not?” He said it with a smile, and a quick glance at Kaz, who sat stone-faced.

  “Okay, but don’t spread this around,” Black said, leaning forward and whispering loud enough to let me know he’d been hitting the vodka pretty hard. “Still no go-ahead from Moscow. Drozdov is champing at the bit to kick it off, but he needs approval. From the highest level, if you know what I mean.”

  Comrade Stalin. Everything seemed to lead back to him. Everything except the double murder, which didn’t lead anywhere.

  “Too bad all that morphine is just sitting there,” I said. “They’re short of the stuff everywhere.”

  “I’m sure our Russian allies will straighten that all out,” Black said. “Right, Capitan Sidorov?”

  “Certainly,” Sidorov said with a straight face. “The Communist Party will not fail the people. It is impossible.”

  No one else could tell, but Kaz was simmering in anger. He raised his glass to me, and I did the same, downing my vodka. We set our glasses on the wooden table with a thump and my gaze fell upon his uniform jacket, barely able to make out the line of holes where his shoulder flash had been sewn on, like the faint traces of an old boundary on a map, erased by war and treachery.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The party had gone on way too long. Most of the liberated airmen had made the mistake of trying to keep up with their Russian counterparts in vodka consumption, and I didn’t envy them their morning after. Sidorov and Black had left us to have a drink with some of the other American officers, and we’d found ourselves alone in a room of cheerful drunks.

  “Do you trust your friend Kiril?” Kaz had asked.

  “He’s not my friend,” I’d said. “But I did have to depend on him the first few days I was here. And he did do one good thing.” I filled Big Mike and Kaz in on our morphine heist and the widespread shortage of the stuff.

  “Is that why you asked Major Black about the Bulgarian mission?” Kaz a
sked.

  “Yes, I wanted to get a sense of whether he’d noticed anything missing from his stocks,” I said. “Listen, I know working with Sidorov is strange. It was a shock to me too. But let’s make the best of it and wrap this thing up. I’ve already had enough of the Eastern Front.”

  With that, we called it a night. We drove Big Mike to the barracks, where he and Kaz had a room next to mine. Fresh clothes had been left on the bed for Big Mike, and I hoped Max had gone for the largest size in everything.

  I was half asleep when Sidorov came in and hit the sack. How bizarre were the twists and turns of this war to have the four of us bunking and working a case together? If indeed we all were working toward the same result.

  I pulled the wool blanket over my head and tried not to think about minefields, morphine, and murder, letting the weariness in my body drive those images from my mind.

  Unfortunately, they ended up in my dreams.

  In the morning, fortified by coffee, powdered eggs, and Spam, Kaz, Sidorov, and I approached Bull Dawson about asking General Belov to officially request Nikolin’s return to the Poltava airbase. I’d ordered Big Mike to take it easy and left him with his leg up on a pillow and a two-week old copy of Life magazine.

  The request for Nikolin was a long shot, but mainly I wanted to see Belov’s reaction and if he would lie again about Nikolin’s punishment. The same went for Drozdov.

  Bull agreed and had Major Black call Belov’s office to arrange a meeting. Ten minutes later, the five of us trooped in to find Belov at his desk, Drozdov seated at his side, and Maiya standing next to him. I checked the knot on my field scarf and brushed down my Ike jacket, wondering if I should have worn my Soviet medal. I’d thought about it, but it didn’t seem right on a Class A uniform.

  Translating through Maiya, I gave a quick account of my flight with Tatyana, including the refueling stop. I asked if the general was aware his written orders had been superseded by the radioed order to attack the German depot.