immediately saw the cake.
“Where did that come from?” he shouted.
“A very pretty woman made it,” I answered. I hoped the men in the section would gobble up my gift before Stupnikov took a piece.
Stupnikov stood near the samovar table, shaking his head in admiration. “This is one beautiful cake,” he said. “Some lucky guy must be keeping a woman very happy to get a cake like this. Who is he?”
I forced myself to grin at my friend. “You know him very well,” I said.
He roared with laughter, took his copy of the flight schedule, and strode out of the room. A moment later I heard his old GAZ rattle away.
I smacked my lips loudly as I ate my small wedge of cake, then turned to stare out the window at the dark runway. The other officers were grouped around the samovar table, scooping up hunks of cake, laughing and talking. I had put aside twelve pieces for the soldiers in the guardroom. Hopefully they’d be fair and the whole section would eat a piece, including the men about to rotate the apron guard at 0400.
But there were still several pieces on the table. Petrukhin remained in his easy chair, now reading the new issue of Red Star.
“Comrade Major,” I called formally, “you don’t want to miss your cake.”
He looked up coolly, then smiled. “No, thank you,” he said, “but I really don’t care for any.”
My throat went tight and I felt my heart begin to thud. Petrukhin was a notoriously light sleeper. Unless he ate some of the cake, he’d be wide awake when I took off. And if I had to engage him in a dogfight, I would lose precious time. I could see my careful plan unraveling.
“These strawberries are fresh, Major,” I said. “There’s real butter in the frosting.”
Petrukhin barely looked up from his newspaper. “Thanks, but no,” was all he said.
Vladimir Voldeyev was already on his second piece. He would be no problem in an hour or so. But Petrukhin seemed unmoved by the tempting offer. In desperation, I tried to shame him into taking a piece. “Surely you’re not on a diet?”
Petrukhin folded the newspaper and lay it on the knee of his pressure suit. He stared at me for a moment, then smiled sheepishly. “Yes,” he said, “as a matter of fact, I am. You other fellows take my share.”
Before I could reply, Captain Karpov was smacking down his second piece. I took my tea glass and returned to the window. Petrukhin’s refusal to eat was disturbing. I knew he loved sweets. Even on a diet he would have accepted a morsel just for taste. I felt a cold sagging inside. Petrukhin was still a loyal Communist. The Osobists had brought him into their confidence. They had been following me for weeks. They had seen me buy the neozepam and interrogated all the pharmacists. They knew every detail of my plan. It was still not too late to abort. I had not yet reached the point of no return.
No, this was just paranoia. I had to keep my wits. If I panicked, I would die.
I carried the cake to the guardroom down the hall. The young sergeant assured me he would save a piece for the man who came off duty at 0400. When I returned to the dayroom, only a few crumbs and frosting smears remained on the cake pan. I refilled my tea glass from the samovar and settled down to watch the late evening documentary. Instead of the truth about Tbilisi, State television was treating the nation to an inspiring account of volunteer oil-field workers struggling against the Siberian winter to produce needed foreign exchange for the Motherland.
This certainly was not an Italian sex farce. The men were tired from a week of alert duty. I hoped they would soon amble down the hall to their dormitory cots.
As I sat watching the documentary, Senior Lieutenant Ivan Gromov, my relief as duty-alert officer, came through the door, carrying his overnight bag. What the hell was he doing here seven hours early? He and Petrukhin seemed to exchange a furtive glance, then Gromov greeted me.
“My roommates brought a bottle of cognac back from the sauna,” he said. “I can sleep better over here.”
I stared at him, searching for any sign of deception. His face was calm and open. We all considered this duty irksome and restrictive, more suited to bureaucrats than pilots. Was Ivan Gromov part of an Osobist surveillance team? Why had he waited to appear until the last of the cake was eaten?
Then I forced myself to think rationally. Gromov was single. He shared three cramped rooms with six other lieutenants. Compared to his quarters, the alert building was luxurious. Colonel Antonovich had declared a holiday after ten days’ intense training. Ivan’s young roommates would certainly take advantage of the occasion to continue the sauna party, with cognac now instead of beer. But Ivan couldn’t drink the night before taking over the duty section from me. So there was a rational explanation, after all.
But now there would be two officers, Ivan and Petrukhin, who had not eaten any cake. And they both carried pistols.
I hunkered low in my chair and gazed at the comforting images on the television screen. The broadcast from Moscow ended just before 0200. I went outside and strolled around the building. The base was quiet. The thin chunk of moon was high overhead. I could smell diesel fuel and newly plowed fields on the breeze. Away to the north, the snowy wall of the Caucasus shone in the moonlight. It was a perfect night for flying.
When I rounded the corner of the alert building, I saw Petrukhin staring out the window, almost as if he were watching me.
The desk guard had his head down on his folded arms. He was snoring lightly. That was a good sign; the lanky young sergeant must have weighed at least two hundred pounds and had only eaten one piece of cake. The other men were probably already asleep on their cots. Everyone except Petrukhin and Ivan Gromov, of course.
Before returning to the dayroom, I made my final reconnaissance of the dining room. All the section’s communication lines connecting the building’s three telephones, the public address system, and the old hand- cranked field telephone ran through the dining room in a thick wire bundle. It was there that I planned to cut them, my final preparation before subduing the apron guard. I quietly turned the door handle. To my horror, it was locked. I felt the sweat pop on my forehead. Breaking down the door would wake everyone, no matter how much cake they had eaten. I had planned my every move, but I had never imagined this door would be locked.
Once more, I forced myself to think rationally. The desk guard was required to have keys for all the rooms. I shook him brusquely awake. His face was slack and he couldn’t stop blinking. He explained through his yawns that Captain Karpov had asked him to lock the dining room to prevent people stealing cheese from the pantry.
“That’s against fire regulations, Sergeant,” I snapped, taking the key.
“Yes, Comrade Captain,” he said, his eyes already closing.
I unlocked the door and hid my flannel helmet bag under a table in the far corner. There was another door leading from the dining room to the side of the building. I made sure it was open, in case someone decided to lock the hall door again. Then I knelt at the bundle of communication lines to feel the thickness of each wire. There was nothing here that I couldn’t cut quickly.
Back in the alert room, I was amazed to find that everyone was still awake. Voldeyev was bent over his training schedule. The maintenance officers were finishing a hand of cards. Petrukhin studied his damned Red Star as if it were a training manual. At this rate they’d still be up when the effects of the tranquilizer wore off.
“I don’t know about you sportsmen,” I said, nodding to the maintenance officers, “but I’m tired, and I’m going to get some sleep.” I stretched slowly and yawned. As I had hoped, the suggestion worked. Voldeyev was yawning now and so were two other officers. I turned on a small desk lamp, then switched off the overhead light. We all made our way to the dormitory.
I curled up with my arm around the pillow and my hand over my eyes. After a few minutes I heard Voldeyev snoring. But Petrukhin rolled back and forth on his cot, trying to find a comfortable position in his tight pressure suit. After a long time I heard his breathing steady into a regular rhythm. In my mind I reviewed all the steps I had taken as if going through a takeoff checklist. My next step was to cut the communication lines from the control tower, steal the vehicle keys, then slip inside the dining room and cut the last wire bundle. Then a final check to make sure the desk guard was still asleep. After that I had to move quickly to overpower the apron guard before regimental headquarters discovered the phones were down.
But it was already almost 0400. I didn’t want to be in the middle of tying up the guard on the apron if the relief guard actually woke up and came on duty. Although it was risky, I decided to wait until after the guard had changed. But it was impossible to lie here feigning sleep. I pulled on my boots and quietly left the dormitory.
The desk guard was still snoring. Outside, the night was dead quiet. There was no sign of movement down
