Night Soldiers

“Hurry up. Down to the skin,” he yelled.

“Against the rules.” Her name was Malya. She was tall and sallow and won all the prizes for codes and ciphers. She stood with her arms folded and glowered at them. “You are state security,” she added, “not dirty- minded boys.” Her eyes glittered with contempt.

As Kulic took a fast step toward her, Khristo’s hand shot out and grabbed his elbow. Kulic shook him off but stayed where he was.

“I’ll be back,” Khristo said. He ran out the door and down the street to the town hall, where the officers had constituted themselves a committee of the rules.

He addressed Irina Akhimova. “Comrade Lieutenant!” He stood at attention.

“Yes, comrade student?”

“We require the search of a female person.”

The officers, five or six of them smoking cigarettes and drinking tea, passed an eyes-to-heaven look among themselves. Here we go again, it said. Another year at Belov and already they are at it.

Akhimova climbed to her feet, affecting weariness, brushed Khristo ahead of her with hand motions. “Yes, yes, comrade Security Officer. Lead the way.”

They arrived at the hut to find Kulic and Unit Five locked in a staring contest. Kulic’s hand rested on the butt of his holstered gun. Akhimova took Malya out the back door toward the privy behind the hut. In a moment they reappeared. Malya’s face was angry, her cheeks well colored. “Donkey,” she said to the unit captain. Akhimova handed Khristo a thickly folded wad of paper.

“One current map of the Ukraine, six towns circled,” she said, “tied to the upper left leg with string.” She took a notebook from the side pocket of her uniform jacket. “Ten points subtracted from Unit Five. Ten points awarded to Unit Eight. Continue the exercise.” As she walked out, only Khristo could see her face. She winked at him. He glanced out the window. Goldman went scurrying by like a ferret.

So, for a week, it went. They battled among themselves, shadowing each other to clandestine meetings, plotting to suborn their opponents, bending every rule until the judging committee stomped about in a red-faced fury. They ran, in their eshpionets kindergarten, every classical operation in the repertoire. Given the preponderance of males, there did seem to be a particular obsession with the honey trap- seduction for the purposes of leverage, the country air had stimulated more than one appetite-but no conquests for intelligence purposes were recorded. They planted compromising evidence on each other-Khristo found a curiously whittled wooden dowel in the bunched-up blanket he used for a pillow. Even Goldman, their chief Machiavelli, declined to offer a theory on its intention. They buried it beside the hut and waited. That night Unit Five, led by the Hungarian captain, an officer-judge in tow, kicked the door open and accused Khristo of secreting an ampule of morphine. The following day, Voluta planted it on somebody else, but he too discovered and removed it before the group was raided.

The classical operations, it turned out to everyone’s irritation, often had classical results. Which is to say, no results. They were accustomed, in all their games, to winning and losing, and the frequency of no decision calls first puzzled, then annoyed them. They had stumbled on the dispiriting truth about spycraft, which was that few disciplines had a lower incidence of clear victories. “I bent my brain to get this right!” Goldman whined after some particular piece of treachery had fizzled before his eyes. They shared his frustration. Their coup of the first day had given them an inflated opinion of their abilities. They were now treated to the chilly reality of initial success diluted by subsequent failure. No matter how hard they went at it, a second Great Triumph eluded them. They won points, they lost points, but most of their efforts earned a “no decision.”

There were serious undertones to this competition. Most of them had been in Moscow for six months or more, and they had discovered that in this egalitarian society some were decidedly more equal than others. Elusive and shadowy it was, but privilege did exist. Being out and about in the city, you’d catch a glimpse, a scent of it. Clearly it was based on rank, one’s position in the scheme of things, and their success in the competition, and generally in the school, would ultimately determine that position. But, try as they might, the members of Unit Eight could not work their way into first place on the list posted daily on the door of the church. They fluttered between second and third. That, it seemed, was the way it was destined to work out. Unit Two, a cadre of teacher’s pets captained by the infamous brownnose Iovescu, sat firmly atop the heap.

The final exercise was witnessed by the god Petenko himself, driven out that morning in an open staff car, a picnic hamper riding next to the officer who acted as chauffeur. This Petenko was a fabled personage-his telephone calls produced ashen-faced terror in subordinates-who sported one of those battering-ram titles in which the words deputy, assistant, minister, interior, state and security all appeared. The tolling of a frightful bell. The sort of high but not too high job where the incumbent could snip your balls off without signing for them. Beside the point, perhaps, that he had seven months to live, or that some of his former castrati were waiting for him when it was his turn to go to the Lubianka-that day he was the czar.

The assignment: assassinate General X as he enters the captured city. Citizens line the streets. Security is rife. This is a triumphal entry. Citizens and security were composed of the other thirteen units-one unit had to do the job. General Petenko deigned to take the role of General X. His flunkies were enacted (in every possible way) by three members of the judging committee. The part of the car was played by his car.

Unit Eight stayed up till dawn, blankets wrapped around their shoulders. They had been screwed, somehow, placed last on the schedule. By then, every other unit would have had its try, every possible variation, every deceit, trick, diversion and ruse would have been seen and identified. They pounded their heads to come up with something completely new. What made it worse was that their officers, the judging committee in the car and others in the street, were arrayed against them along with all the other units and they, of course, were looking forward to it, popping away at their students with blank 7.62 rounds, symbolically slaughtering the incompetent.

For the nineteenth time Captain Khristo asked Intelligence Officer Goldman what assets they had and for the nineteenth time was shown the two pistols Kulic had managed to weasel away from other units. He was, for such a heavy-shouldered brute, a surprisingly subtle thief. In addition, Goldman could make overtures to certain weak links, in other units, in search of covert assistance, but-who could know, they might well be delivering themselves into the nets of somebody’s counterintelligence scheme. They themselves had played the traitor too often, in order to discern someone else’s intentions, not to know that the prank could just as easily be played back on them.

“It’s getting light,” Voluta said. “What can we do with two extra pistols and a few weak links? Or, really, five extra pistols, we’ll only need one to shoot the bastard.”

“Weak links cannot be trusted.” Khristo spoke the axiom automatically.

Kulic agreed, nodding sadly. Completed the worn joke: “Trust the strong even less.”

When, at long last, it came their turn to try the assassination, weak was the word for their effort. It was getting on dusk, there were rumors of a splendid supper on their last night. Everybody was tired and cold and hungry-thirteen foiled assassinations made for a long day. Some units had come close, a few points awarded, but nobody had managed a clean kill.

General X rode into town in stately fashion, waving at the assembled multitude from the front seat of the open car. Irina Akhimova, hands choking the steering wheel, drove the car slowly, her face frozen in rigid concentration. Never mind murder, her expression seemed to say, just don’t scratch the bodywork. Poor Goldman was caught flat-footed on the roof of the church (by Unit Two guards, of course! — points to them), his “bomb,” a sock full of white flour, still hanging down the front of his shirt. Kulic, absurdly disguised with a home-cut eyepatch, was pounced on a moment later. Voluta, attempting to hide in an open doorway, simply raised his hands. Why get your shirt torn on the last day? At the end of the street, two security guards stepped out of the crowd with Khristo held between them. Truly, a disappointing try, especially from the everingenious Unit Eight. Bomb-from-the-church- roof had already failed, and failed quite miserably, twice that day.

General X stood up in the front seat, became General Petenko, raised his hand for silence. The crowd gathered round for a blessing.

“On behalf of the security workers of this progressive nation,” he trumpeted, “I wish to bestow on you and your dedicated instructors compliments and congratulations. What I have seen here today is an inspiration to me, to all the proletariat everywhere. Perhaps not an inspiration of craft-for you are beginners, there is still great effort ahead of you-but an inspiration of effort, seriousness, and …”