Night Soldiers

them. The country had a way of swallowing up what most normal persons would hold to be entirely indigestible objects, it drove some technicians quite literally mad.

Thus convenience for the accountants of the system made for the salvation of its inventory-survival could only be managed if they took care of each other. They learned that everyone in the group had something to offer. They learned who the stool pigeons were and fed them on small sins to maintain their credibility so that new, and unknown, informers would not be introduced. Thus together they learned their lessons.

March, no sign of a thaw, winter giving every sign of an encore, it was their turn to occupy the village of Belov on the river Oka.

An outing! A half-day ride in a rattly wooden railcar, chugging past bare birch groves and black-green forests of fir with snow-weighted boughs. Real countryside: woodcutters’ huts, the occasional farm field in a peculiar shape. The Russians, to everyone’s amazement, farmed in oddly configured patches of land, nothing square, perhaps the result of endless divisions of the versts among sons over the centuries. But all they saw was new, and that was what mattered. It made their blood run fast after the shut-in winter months in claustrophobic Moscow. They yelled and capered and carried on like kids. Kerenyi managed to free the upper half of one of the windows. Painted-a horrid Soviet institutional green-shut for years, it shrieked as it opened, borne down by Kerenyi’s great strength. At last, delicious cold air seasoned with railroad soot came rushing into the car. Hooray! Reaching up through the window, Kerenyi returned with a handful of snow from the roof. A rapid shaping in red hands, then a fat snowball sailed out the open window toward a hut. A near miss! They threw themselves on the other windows, and soon enough they were shelling the scenery amid shouts of triumph and exasperation. Well, you know how it is. It would have to be Iovescu, that appalling snitch, who would get it in the back of the head. Fat-faced goody-goody from the Banat. With vengeful eye he searched the crowd who, as one, raised their shoulders in shrugs of angelic innocence. Finally-wouldn’t you know it-he picked on Ilya Goldman, one of the smallest, and chucked a fistful of loose snow at him. There was only one answer to that. The ensuing volley hit Iovescu and everybody else, producing squeals of fury as snow worked under the odd collar. Mayhem followed. In the melee, Karina Olowa, a little blond thing from Wilno, journeyed stealthily to the platform between cars and returned with a colossal snowbomb which, launched upward, splattered against the ceiling and rained down on various heads. A huge cry arose and that, at last, brought Lieutenant Akhimova and the other officers on the run. Order was restored. They’d used up most of the roof snow anyhow.

In the little village of Belov they took over various thatch-roofed huts-where the Belovians themselves had got to, nobody could say-with wood bunks covered by mothholed blankets. They built coal fires in the stoves, trooped down to the church for dinner, where iron pots of soup were boiling and misshapen loaves of rye-flour bread were set out on long tables. After a winter of potatoes and cabbage and fish-bone soup, the smell of food was thrilling. There may even have been a few private thoughts of home. They built a bonfire that night and sang songs, then trooped off to their respective houses-just like real townspeople-and slept the sleep of city dwellers on their first night in the country.

The next morning, after tea and bread, they went to work.

They were divided into fourteen teams of four-each team designated by a number and given numbered strips of material to pin to their collars. Khristo, Goldman and Voluta were a team, joined by a tall Yugoslavian named Drazen Kulic who, in his late twenties, was rather older than most of the others. Kulic seemed to have lived his life away from the sun-his hair, eyes and skin were almost without color. Yet he did not fade into the background; his presence was physical, hard, and there was something in the set of his face that was watchful and unforgiving.

The four were designated Unit Eight.

In the first exercise of the day, half the units entered Belov as security police, the other half were given blank-loaded Tokarev pistols, wooden boxes supposedly containing explosives, a notebook labeled List of Partisan Units, and signaling flares-contraband to hide in their huts. As counterinsurgency officers, Unit Eight was assigned to search houses at the southern end of the village.

On the edge of town, waiting for the whistle that would begin the exercise, Unit Eight held a meeting. Khristo would be the captain, would have final say in all things, though all would participate in planning and executing operations. Ilya Goldman was appointed intelligence officer and freed from all other obligations. He immediately undertook to make lists of the units they would oppose and cooperate with during the exercises. Goldman, a lover of detail, set himself to annotate these lists-in his own code-with observations on personalities, strengths and weaknesses in each unit.

The first argument began right there. Now that Goldman was intelligence officer, he wanted a staff. Typical! Give him an inch and he took a mile! Goldman waited for the other three to calm down, then explained patiently. Lists took time, and observation. Operational efficiency could be sacrificed, for a day or two, in favor of acquiring data that (A) would be useful in defeating opposing units and (B) could be marketed to other units in exchange for cooperation-thereby increasing the data files and making the potential for trading even more productive.

Khristo was impressed and promptly ordered Goldman to choose a staff. He selected Kulic. Khristo calmly pointed out that Kulic was physically strong, and if there were to be only two of them operating as security police that quality was important, principally for purposes of intimidation but who knew what it might come to-future assignments could well be affected by the outcome of the Belov games, and everybody wanted to do well. Fistfights were not out of the question. Goldman accepted Voluta as his assistant, and the two of them immediately went off and whispered in a corner.

Therefore, when the whistle blew and the designated counterinsurgency units fanned out across the village, Unit Eight was represented only by Khristo and Kulic. Belov had been a reasonably prosperous little place: a small church with a dome, a town hall-police station, and a few small shops-really open market stalls-on the main street, which was surfaced in frozen mud. The sun had come out, beads of morning frost glistened in the roof thatch. Khristo, blank-loaded holstered pistol riding his waist, strode along the main street and saw life anew from a policeman’s perspective. A curious sensation, to go anywhere he wanted, to say what he liked to whomever he pleased. There was, he hated to admit it, some distinct comfort in such power.

As other units commenced the exercise, Khristo and Kulic could see that they had adopted the time-honored forms. The hard-handed banging on the door. Shouts of “Open up! Security search!” When the doors were opened, they could see people who had recently been self-confident students transformed by circumstance into groups of huddled peasants.

They found their assigned target, the hut of Unit Five, and briefly discussed their strategy. Kulic disappeared around the back, Khristo tapped lightly on a board below the window. The unit captain appeared at the window and gestured toward the door.

“I needn’t come in,” Khristo said.

The captain looked puzzled.

“They sent me to tell you that you’re in the wrong hut. This one here is supposed to be storage-Unit Five belongs next door.”

The captain nodded and disappeared from the window. Khristo waited, pleased to have the warming sun on his back. It stood to reason that when they moved, their contraband would have to move with them. The captain reappeared at the window and chopped the edge of his right hand into the bent elbow of his left arm, adding, for emphasis, an extended middle finger on the left hand. The universal sign language informed Khristo that his suggestion had been staunchly rejected, so he went and knocked on the door.

The captain opened the door. “Nice try,” he said acidly.

“Keep a civil tongue when you talk to us,” Khristo said, “or you’re in the stockade for the day.”

No stockade had been mentioned in the rules, but one could never be certain. The man stared at him for a moment, then grunted and stood back. Khristo let Kulic in the back door.

“Lieutenant Kulic will conduct the search,” Khristo announced, folding his arms and leaning back against a wall.

“Where are the rest of you?” one of the “peasants” asked.

“You’ll find out,” Khristo answered, putting as much menace in his voice as he dared.

“All stand up!” Kulic shouted as loud as he could. Unit Five stood, slightly sullen at being addressed so harshly.

“All strip!”

They stood with their mouths open.