Rage of Battle

envelope closer to the congressman. “Go on, have a look.” La Roche spun the envelope opener, which, in the fluorescent light, threw a series of long white slashes on the high ceiling. “I know your boy’s in Korea,” he said. “American Division. Near Racin. Port for Pyongyang — or it was until our bombers pounded the shit out of it.” The congressman tried to hide his surprise at the extent of La Roche’s knowledge about his son.

La Roche shrugged nonchalantly, sat down, and swung his high-backed leather chair around toward the harbor, watching a fog bank that was moving inshore. “You shouldn’t feel out of it,” he told the congressman. “You’re not the only—” He almost said “gofer” but used “connection” instead.

“Then why don’t you have your other connection fix the transfer?” asked the congressman, looking down at the unopened envelope.

La Roche was watching the fog starting to roll as the warm land eddies rose from beneath the cooler air of the sea. La Roche spoke without turning back to face the congressman. “He’s in Japan at the moment. I can hardly fax him, can I? Besides, he’s busy over there. If we don’t watch it, we’re going to lose our supply of China crude.”

The congressman lifted the envelope. It was heavy. As he began opening it, he had to admit to himself that La Roche certainly was well informed. The fact that the United States, because the fighting in the Mideast had effectively dried up Arab shipments of oil, depended for up to 30 percent of its oil supply on China crude, was a little-known and carefully unpublicized statistic in the United States.

La Roche turned away from the window and stood behind the congressman, looking down at the contents of the envelope. “I like the redhead,” Jay said. “How old’s he? Sixteen — seventeen? Hard to tell with you on top of him. His face is in the shadow, but that’s you, all right, isn’t it?”

The congressman’s head didn’t move. “Where did you get these?”

“I got them. That’s the point, isn’t it? Now get the transfer.”

“Ah—” The congressman couldn’t go on, his voice cutting out.

“You need a drink,” said La Roche, moving over to the mahogany wall, pressing the panel that opened with a quiet whir, revealing a bar twinkling in its opulence. “Jack Daniels — crushed ice. Right?”

The congressman didn’t answer.

La Roche returned and held out the drink. The congressman hesitated, but then his body slumped and he seemed to shrivel. As he took the drink, he could hear the quiet tinkle of the ice collapsing, the smell of La Roche’s minty breath overpowering. “I suppose you have copies?”

“No,” said La Roche, “not of that lot. But I’ve better photos of you than that.”

The congressman didn’t want to look at the photos anymore, but he was shocked doubly by the fact that they were Polaroids, that someone must have used a flash. But how—

“You were so pissed,” said La Roche, anticipating him in a matter-of-fact tone, “you probably thought the bright light was a fucking sunrise.”

The congressman felt something on his shoulder. La Roche’s hand.

“Relax,” intoned La Roche, sipping a creme de menthe. “You’re all right. Should be a bit more careful, though. Use someplace you know — somewhere you’ve checked out. I always do.” La Roche’s other hand was on the congressman’s shoulder, massaging his neck.

“Christ!” said the congressman, slumping forward now, his head buried in his hands.

La Roche kept up the steady massage. “It’s a bastard, isn’t it? Still — we have to keep it in the family. Right? I mean— for the family’s sake.” Outside, the fog had become a gossamer of gold swallowing the carriers.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Though the afternoon was overcast above Tallinn, it could not dampen the corporal’s spirits. For him it was a day of singular victory. Were Malle any older, it could have been embarrassing. Normally it wouldn’t do — a man courting a woman ten years his senior — but she kept her figure well. It was the first thing he’d noticed on the day he’d knocked on the door of her apartment in the Mustamae complex. He had commented on her beauty often, especially after she undid the tight bun and let her hair cascade down. And the more he told her how beautiful she was, the more he convinced himself that having sex with her was a completely natural outcome of their first “meeting,” as he called it— rather than rape. In his eyes she had confirmed as much herself, asking him after they’d made love the day before to go with her today for a walk in Kadriorg Park, explaining that with the MPO’s Captain Malkov continuing to arbitrarily take hostages from the street until he rooted out the munitions saboteurs in Tallinn, she was terrified to go out alone.

“I would be honored,” he had told her, the very idea of his comrades seeing him with a vivacious woman on his arm pleasing him immensely. Indeed, he regarded his being posted to Estonia as the best thing that had happened to him since he’d been conscripted, his liaison with Malle confirming his belief not only that things work out for the best in the long run but that at heart women craved a palochku— “bit of stick”—even though they would never admit it. And what if anyone in his MPO company saw him and blabbed about it to his wife, Raza, back home? Then, he determined, he would merely tell Raza that Malle had been another suspected Estonian saboteur he had been ordered to — well, that would be a bit thin, he thought, but it was highly unlikely someone would mention it in their letters. Besides, the company censor would be quick to black out anything that might cause consternation on the home front.

They were strolling beneath the copse of linden trees, the pigeons walking about more skittishly than usual — pigeons were fresh meat in a time of severe rationing. “You are very quiet today,” he said to her, smiling.

“Yes.”

“You look sad. I thought you would be pleased to be out in the park again, yes?”

Two MPO guardsmen passed by, one of them giving him a knowing leer. “Well—?” the corporal pressed. “Why are you sad?”

“Because,” she began, looking pensively ahead at the denuded chestnut trees etched black on the gray sky, “of the war.” She fell silent.

“Don’t be so glum,” he said, slipping his arm about her. He was surprised she didn’t resist — most women did, in public at least. It made him even surer of himself. “Sometimes the war brings good things,” he said. “I like you and you like me. Not at first, but you see, strange things happen in the war. Things we have no control over, yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed, slowing down by the rest rooms, the grass about them knee-deep in fallen leaves that were spilling out onto the cement pathway.

“Wait here for a moment,” she said. “I have to go to the rest room.”

Waiting for her, the corporal pulled his gloves on more tightly, something he always affected when he felt in a particularly good mood. Problem was, if Malkov ever found his damn saboteurs, the corporal knew he’d be moving out, probably reassigned, God help him, to guard duty around the mines in east Estonia. The backside of the Baltic. He hoped Malkov would never find the saboteurs, but anyway, he would turn the boy in then. Did Malle really think he hadn’t figured out the boy was tucked away in the crawl space? He could smell him. The kid was probably masturbating every time they did it.

The corporal’s attention was on a motorcade; the big boy, Admiral Brodsky, was down from Leningrad, and word had it that he wasn’t happy with Malkov’s failure to root out whoever had been sabotaging the munitions that had gone to the Yumashev and God knew where else. The MPO had already taken over six hundred hostages, with no results. It was said Brodsky was also under pressure from the STAVKA to settle the problem, and quickly — an artillery battery in Germany had come across several duds in what was supposed to be high-explosive 120-millimeters. It was all going to mean more hostages, most likely. Pray, thought the corporal, that the saboteurs, whoever they were, would hold out and give him more time with Malle. But he doubted they would. Some teenagers, like Malle’s grandson, had been shot in the last few days.

Suddenly it occurred to him Malle had been gone a long time, though Heaven knew women always took an age in the — maybe there was a rear door? He started toward the washroom.

“What’s wrong?” It was Malle, coming out, her hair no longer in a bun but about her shoulders, her coat over one arm. Her hair shocked him — she only did that when they were about to make love. It was as if she were undressing in public. She took his right arm with her left and pulled him close to her.