Red Army

stood indecisively at the top of a black chasm.

“I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black.”

“Here. Take this.” Seryosha poked a small cylinder into Leonid’s hand. It took him a moment before he realized that it was a cigarette lighter, looted from somewhere.

“It’s all right,” Seryosha went on. “I have another one.”

Leonid flicked on the little flame with his left hand, holding his assault rifle at the ready with his right.

“Get the light down out of sight,” Seryosha insisted.

Leonid advanced downward into the darkness, testing the steps. He heard the reassuring noises of Seryosha close behind him. The stairs were narrow and there was no handrail. Leonid shifted his weight, tapping down to find the next level. The small ring of light from the lighter’s flame failed to reach into the depths of the cellar.

Leonid felt his fingers burn, and he let the lighter go out. He halted abruptly.

“What’s the matter?”

“It got too hot,” Leonid whispered. “Just wait a minute.”

The two boys stood in the middle of the stairs, balancing in the darkness. The sound of his own breath seemed like the winter wind to Leonid. As soon as he judged it possible, he ignited the lighter again.

Something moved.

Leonid fired his weapon in the direction of the movement, stumbling down the last few stairs, tripping, falling face down. He scrambled and rolled out of the way, firing haphazardly, until he found a wall against which he could huddle. The noise of the shots fired in the enclosed space echoed and rang in his ears. He felt as though he had been slapped hard on both sides of the head.

Seryosha brought the machine gun to bear. It sounded like a cannon firing. Leonid fired again, emptying his magazine in what he hoped was the right direction.

Someone screamed. Another voice shouted foreign words. Seryosha swept the machine gun through the darkness. But no one fired back. Streaks of light zigzagged crazily in the darkness, pinging and sparking off the walls.

“Stop it,” Leonid shouted, “stop firing.” He had suddenly realized that the ricochets were as likely to kill them as were any enemy actions.

Seryosha ceased firing.

“Surrender,” Leonid screamed at their phantom opponents.

A female voice shrieked in response, rising over the low notes of male groans.

“Surrender,” Leonid shouted, confused, his voice cracking. “Surrender.”

A female voice soared hideously in a strange language, babbling.

“What the hell is going on?” Seryosha said. His voice sounded near panic.

Leonid lifted himself from the floor, all bruised knees and elbows and the burning feel of scraped skin. He lunged toward the foreign voice.

“Surrender,” he ordered, his mind wild with fragments of thoughts that would not connect. He clicked on the lighter.

A heavyset girl stood with her back pressed against the wall, hands clutched to her face. She screamed in an animal fear that Leonid could not understand. It had never occurred to him that anyone might be afraid of him.

A few feet away from the girl, two bodies lay — a crumpled man and the thick form of a woman. The moans had stopped now, and the bodies lay remarkably still, with the man hunched over the woman as though he were shielding her.

It struck Leonid that the broken tapes in his pockets probably belonged to this girl, and he suddenly felt ashamed, as though he had been discovered as a thief.

The girl’s screams wheezed down into sobs. Leonid let the lighter go out, shaking his singed fingers to soothe them. Seryosha clicked on his own lighter. And the girl howled again. She rubbed herself from side to side against the cinderblock wall, as though she wanted to grind herself into it.

“Oh, no,” Leonid said suddenly, as the situation began to come clear to him. “No… I didn’t mean it…” He wished he could make the girl understand. He looked at her, gesturing thoughtlessly with his reeking weapon. “I didn’t mean it,” he repeated. “It was all an accident.”

The girl’s voice welled up again.

Seryosha stepped forward, slapping the girl with the hand that held the lighter. When it went out, Leonid took his turn again, working the flint with his sore fingers.

“Shut up,” Seryosha ordered. “You just shut up.” He slapped the girl again. There was a totally unfamiliar tone in Seryosha’s voice now.

The girl hushed slightly, as though she understood. But Leonid knew she didn’t understand at all.

“I’m sorry,” he told her again, anyway.

“You bet you’re sorry,” Seryosha told him angrily. Then he punched the girl. “Shut up.”

“Stop it,” Leonid told him.

“What do you mean, stop it?” Seryosha asked. “Who are you? You just killed them. Do you realize what’s going to happen to us if somebody hears her and comes down here? They’ll kill us.”

Such a possibility had not occurred to Leonid. Now it reached him in its fullness, stopping him with its power.

The girl sobbed against the wall, bleeding driblets from her lower lip. She had gone beyond words now, and she merely cried, face turned to one side. Her sounds were those of a weakening animal.

Seryosha thrust with the machine gun, jamming its muzzle hard into her chest like a spear. Then he brought the heavy stock around and smashed it into her face. Leonid watched in wonder. With clumsy speed, Seryosha beat the girl to the ground, hitting her so hard with the machine gun that she could not meaningfully resist. She waved a pudgy hand at the descending blows, then toppled to the side, crumpling in on herself. Seryosha brought the butt of the weapon down on her skull with all of his weight behind it. Then he hit her again. And again.

Finally, the boy straightened, gasping for breath.

“Now she won’t tell anybody,” he said.

Fourteen

Starukhin smashed his fist down onto the map table. “Don’t sing me a song, you little bastard. Fix it.”

“Comrade Army Commander,” the shattered chief of signals said, “the communications complex is a complete loss. A direct hit. It will take some time to restore — ”

“I don’t have time, you shit. I should send you down with the motorized rifle troops and let you see what war’s really like. How can I run an army when I can’t talk to anybody?”

“Comrade Army Commander, we can still communicate using manual Morse. And the auxiliary radios will be off the trucks and set up in no time. It’s just the multiplexing that will take a little time.”

“I don’t have time. Time is the one thing I don’t have,” Starukhin shouted. “You should’ve had all of the auxiliary systems set up and ready to operate. You’re a moron, a disgrace.” He looked around the headquarters. “You’re all a damned disgrace.”

The chief of signals almost replied that, since they had just shifted locations, it was unreasonable, even impossible, to expect that all of the backup systems would be fully prepared for operations. They had still been having trouble with the microwave connections even before the enemy strike. But he realized that it was hopeless to argue. All you could do was let the army commander blow over you like a storm, then pick up whatever was left.

Starukhin suddenly turned away. He began to pace back and forth like a powerful caged cat. Without warning, he smashed a hanging chart full of figures from the wall.

“I need to talk.”