CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was the sixth day. Salvini was on point, David left of him in the diamond, Choir and Aussie, right flank, when Salvini gave them the “freeze” signal. To have gone down would have kicked up the powder snow and made too much noise. The patrol coming toward them through the trees, about ten men, hadn’t seen them yet but soon would. It was up to Salvini; he could see the most. The other three had all gone off “safety.” Simultaneously Salvini waved the diamond down and took a chance. “American!”
There was a roar of submachine gun fire and men shouting. Then a white flag — an overlay held aloft, its bearer growing as he rose unsteadily to his feet, advancing now, waving the white overlay side to side. All the others, nine of them, were walking forward now, hands raised. They were Siberian regulars — hungry, tired, wearing the patch showing a bear with a lightning rod in his paws, the insignia of the Siberian Thirty-first Stalingrad Division. As the clatter of their surrendered weapons seemed to fill the forest with sound, Aussie noticed one of their weapons was an American-issue.45.
“Where’d you get that, Ivan?”
The Siberian affected ignorance, signifying he didn’t speak English. Aussie flipped open the Siberian’s holster flap and saw the “US Navy” stamp — Lieutenant R.C. Simpson.
“One of the Stallion crew,” said Salvini.
“You sure?” asked David.
“I’m sure. Helped him load the Arrows.”
Aussie drew his boot knife.”Where are they?” he asked the Siberian coldly.
“Easy, Aussie,” cautioned David.
“Where the fuck are they?” repeated Aussie, the blade under the Siberian’s chin.
A captain, hands still up, marched forward. “I speak little English.”
“Yeah?” said Aussie, without taking his eyes off the man in front of him. “Where are the helicopter soldiers?”
The captain shrugged. “We find on way to front, yes?” he said, indicating the.45. “All kaput in helicopters. Everyone dead.” He imitated a machine gun so well that Choir swung about and almost blew his head off.
“Sorry,” said the Siberian quickly. “Sorry, but everyone kaput.” He made a slashing motion across his throat. “SPETSNAZ. You understand. Ah—”
“We understand,” said David.
“I don’t believe the bastard,” said Aussie.
“I do,” said David.
“Then how come they’re heading back this way if they’re on their way to the fucking front?”
“Excuse me, please,” said the Siberian captain. “War is all finished.”
“Bullshit!” said Aussie. “I oughta—”
“Knock it off, Lewis,” warned David. “Back off. And that’s an order.”
Aussie sheathed the knife reluctantly without taking his eye off the Siberian. “If I find you’re lying, Ivan, I’ll hang you out to dry.”
The Siberian was utterly unafraid.”You have radio? You hear war is over?”
“When was it over?” Aussie shot back.
“This last night.”
It was three hours before they could pick up the BBC overseas broadcast, a mood of unhappy suspicion hanging over the S/D team as well as the hapless prisoners, their hands tied in a rope chain as they sat glumly in a circle.
When the S/D team heard the news of the cease-fire, the mood was more relief than exhilaration. Now they could break silence and call for pickup.
Aussie threw the Siberian captain a packet of cigarettes, but he was still morose. He’d never know for sure, but for now he believed the captain’s story. They sure as hell weren’t SPETS— no blue-and-white striped T-shirts to start with. And they didn’t have the look. He only really hated the SPETS.
David made the call for pickup, and after waiting for an hour they started the purple smoke flares. David, seeing Aussie was still grumpy, embarrassed now by his outburst with the knife, looked over at Choir Williams. “Hey, Choir. How long you think it’ll be till pickup?”
“An hour,” said Choir.
“Salvini?” asked David.
“The same I reckon,” answered Salvini, somewhat nonplussed.
“Gimme the map!” said Aussie. David let him study it for a moment or two, then asked casually, “Well, Aussie? How long do you say?”
“Forty-five minutes. Maximum.”
“Ah, too soon,” said David confidently.
“All right, Nostradamus,” challenged Aussie. “Put some money on it. Ten to one?”
“Rubles?” inquired Choir.
“Fuck rubles,” said Aussie. “Dollars — U.S.” He looked around, indelible pencil in hand. “Who’s in?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
When colonel Nefski surveyed the rubble that had been the old library and hotel at Port Baikal, it was a wonder to him that any of them had survived the SAS/Delta commando attack. Half the prisoners had gone, vanished in the taiga, but he had little doubt that most, if not all, would be rounded up again. Top priority, he told his subaltern, was to be given to finding Alexsandra Malof. It was possible that the Jewish underground, using her as exhibit A, would try to reach the Americans, moaning again about “civil-rights abuses” and starting some damned UN investigation.
“We won’t take a chance with that,” Nefski told the corporal. “Shoot her on sight.”
“What about the Jewish underground? She can still give us information—”
“If you find her, shoot her,” snapped Nefski. “Where’d you get that bruise?”
“Ah, bit of wood, I think. Ricochet.”
“Better get it seen to,” advised Nefski, an unusual moment of concern for the well-being of the junior ranks. He felt more magnanimous now he’d cheated death, and more emboldened, determined to root out the undesirable elements now his efforts could turn away from what had been the wartime concerns to those of the cease-fire, to getting back to his old haunts in Khabarovsk.
As he walked toward the entrance to the hotel, its fairy-tale dome of snow sparkling in the sunlike sugar icing, he glanced at its ruined facade, shot through by SAS/Delta Force small-arms fire and the odd LAW round. But even among the ruins, the golden glints of sunlight off the ice along the eaves gave beauty to the place. He took it as a good omen; already he was thinking about hopes of promotion in the spring, though he would have to greatly increase the estimated number of American commandos that had attacked Port Baikal so as to further enhance the report of his vigorous defense.
His first step on the snow-laden steps of the hotel crunched in the warm winter sunshine. It was the vibration of his second step that proved too much for the fifty-pound icicle. Its stem snapped — and its long needle plummeted, smashing Nefski’s skull like an eggshell. As he lay crumpled on the snow,
Aussie lost sixty dollars — U.S. — because the Chinook helo, having spotted three figures moving north along the edge of the lake — Robert Brentwood and his two crewmen — had gone out to pick them up. It made the Chinook over an hour late. Aussie argued that “crook helicopters” rendered the bets null and void but he was howled down by his three compatriots whom he delicately called “fucking Ned Kellys,” after the infamous Australian
