World in Flames

Parkin’s footsteps echoed on the highly polished linoleum. “Well, if you can put up with me, Lieutenant, they say I can drive you down. But I was thinking, maybe her folks wouldn’t — I mean, maybe we should wait a few days.”

“No,” said David. “I’d like to go now.”

“It’s about ninety miles. Good three hours, Lieutenant. Maybe you should rest awhile. Go in the morning.”

Parkin waited patiently for the lieutenant to reconsider, to at least put it off till the morning. Parkin knew he couldn’t appeal to the American’s convalescent status anymore either — the sister on the ward telling the Corporal that Brentwood was as fit as they could make him now and that he could certainly go to Bouillon if he wanted to. To cheer him up, the sister brought a pile of letters waiting for him from the United States. “And abroad,” she said, showing him one with a Scottish postmark.

“Thank you,” David said, looking at the bundle in his hand. He might as well have been looking at a relic from the ancient past. Right now nothing held any importance for him, not how Lana was faring in the Aleutians or Robert on the Roosevelt—if he was still on the Roosevelt—or even the state of Ray’s progress in the burn unit of San Diego Vet’s. The only thing that mattered was that Lili was gone. She had been a bright burst, a warmth in the winter of his recovery from Stadthagen. Only his anger at the Russians offered any salve for the emptiness that now engulfed him; he fed on it. On that anger and what he felt was his duty to go to Bouillon. He hoped they’d find each and every one of the SPETS and hang them. It hadn’t been a military action — what was military about hitting a train and murdering wounded in cold blood? It was butchery. He only hoped he could keep the worst of it from Lili’s father and mother.

“ ‘S all right with you, sir,” said Parkin. “I wouldn’t mind a kip before we go.”

“All right,” said Brentwood finally. “But I want to go down first thing in the morning.” It was the most dispirited voice Parkin had ever heard.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The December sun was weak in Khabarovsk, but its reflection off the snow dazzled the city, ice crystals sparkling in the pristine air. Apart from the massive underground supply depots and the munition factories on the city’s outskirts, where the wind kept most of the industrial pollution blowing west, the city, though shabby up close, nevertheless looked stunningly clean and peaceful. Gen. Kiril Marchenko had sensed the difference in the air the moment he’d deplaned following the long, four-thousand-mile trip from Moscow.

After having received greetings from the Khabarovsk’s KGB chief, Colonel Nefski, he went up the winding stone stairs of the jail. General Marchenko took off his greatcoat, cap, and gloves, and got right to it.

“Who put you up to this?” he asked the girl, Alexsandra Malof, the moment she was brought in.

She said nothing.

“It’s a very grave matter.”

It was worse than that, Nefski knew. Even suspected sabotage carried the death penalty. Several submarine captains from the Far Eastern Fleet out of Vladivostok had reported that some torpedoes were not detonating. A serial number check showed they all came from the munitions factory at Khabarovsk.

In a perverse way, Nefski admired the woman. Dark, in her late twenties, not much over five feet, she radiated defiance, her body stiffening the moment the two burly guards held her, one on each arm, when she looked as if she was about to spit at the general. The coarse woolen prison top could not hide her beauty, her breasts more alluring each time she resisted the pull of the guards, her eyes quick with rage, her whole body tense. Proud, too — wouldn’t even acknowledge the presence of Nefski’s subaltern near the window, overlooking the courtyard, whether from fear or contempt, he didn’t know. Of course, she’d just been in the prison for a day — brought straight from the munitions factory. Anyone could act tough for the first couple of hours, and amateurs were always profligate with their resistance.

It never occurred to her interrogators that she might be innocent of any sabotage, either on the railway or in the munitions factories where the Jews were supplying what was euphemistically called “volunteer labor.” She was also one of the young Jewish women prorosili—”requested”—to entertain the pilots at Khabarovsk air base. Refusal meant family harassment or most usually what the fliers called a “surprise party”—a pogrom — when things became too dull at the base.

“Is this how you Jews repay us?” pressed Marchenko. She glared at Colonel Nefski and his assistant looking on impassively.

“We give you your autonomous regions,” said Marchenko. “Let you worship your God — and this is how you treat us?” He waited. Nefski and his assistant could see the general’s patience was wearing thin.

“There are Jews in all our armed services, you know,” continued Marchenko. “Loyal to the USSR. How do you think they must feel, knowing there are traitors among their own people?”

She smiled, but it was one of contempt, as if to say, “They are the ones who are the traitors.”

Marchenko rose from behind the colonel’s desk, put on his coat, and picked up his gloves from his cap. Holding his gloves in one hand, the general put the edge of his cap beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “You think this Jewish stubbornness is a virtue?”

She remained silent, and Marchenko, sweeping the cap away, turned to Nefski. “I’m wasting my time. She’s your charge.” Putting on his cap, he gestured to Nefski with his gloves. “A moment, Comrade.”

As the two men’s footsteps echoed down the stone staircase toward the brilliant white rectangle of snow framed by the door of the KGB headquarters, Nefski’s assistant asked the prisoner if she would like some tea. She made no sign.

Marchenko began putting on his fur-lined gloves. It might be sunny outside, but it was still twenty below. “She is banking on the kosoglazy—slant-eyes — being beaten by the Americans— if the Americans cross the Yalu.”

“I think you may underestimate the Chinese, General,” said Nefski. “With all due respect. They may solve our problem for us. Look at the Americans in Vietnam. They failed miserably, and with overwhelming air superiority.”

“They failed,” said Marchenko, pulling the other glove on tightly and squinting against the brilliant reflection of the snow, “because they lacked national will, Colonel. They dropped more ordnance on the Vietnamese than in all of World War Two. But it does you no good if you don’t have national will. This war, however, is very different, Comrade. The Americans see it as a Holy Grail. Vietnam veterans were spat on. In this war, Americans think God is back on their side. Like the Jews, which is why we must break that one upstairs. A dud torpedo that does not sink an American nuclear ship, a missile that fails to bring down an American nuclear bomber, could mean the difference between victory and defeat for us. Remember, Colonel, for the want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe, the horse, for the want of the horse, the rider, for the want of the rider, the battle.”

“I will get the information about the sabotage,” said Nefski confidently.

“No doubt, Comrade. But when? It’s all a matter of time. You remember the Yumashev—the best battle cruiser we had? Well, we found the Estonian bastards who sabotaged her depth charges — depth charges which might have saved her from the American Sea Wolf — the Roosevelt—that sank her.”

“Luchshie umy mysliat odinakovo”—”Great minds think alike”—said Nefski. “I was telling my assistant only this morning, Comrade General, about the Yumashev.” Nefski didn’t go on to tell the general that his mention of the Yumashev to his assistant had been used to illustrate how Moscow’s interference with local investigations could actually delay solving the problem.

“Good,” said the general, “then we are in concert on this matter.” The chauffeur opened the door of the hand-tooled Zil and Marchenko stepped into the warm, plush interior. “I will be here for another six hours before I return to Moscow with my report. I can be reached at Khabarovsk air base. It would go well for us both, Colonel, if I could tell the Politburo upon my return that the situation had been solved.”

“Of course, General. I understand.”

“I’m sure you do.” The splash-green-and-white-camouflaged Zil moved slowly out of the compound, its tires