I followed, and the four soldiers fell in behind me. We moved quickly through the silent visiting officers quarters and out the front entrance to a parked, covered truck. The tailgate was down, and the four soldiers assisted me in jumping into the back. One moved around to the driver's side and the civilian slid into the passenger side in front of him. They were separated from the aft compartment by a sliding glass window that the civilian opened immediately.
'It is thirty minutes away from here, more or less. We cannot move too quickly ? it would arouse suspicion. There is some slight danger associated with being out anyway, but I thought it would be a risk you are willing to take. The consequences ? well, if we're stopped, I will say that you wished to see the evening sky. They will not believe it, but it will give us enough time to think of something else. Agreed?'
'Agreed.' The truck started up then, a loud, rumbling diesel engine.
It jerked into motion, rattling and thumping along the pavement, the motion getting worse as we transitioned to a potholed and rutted dirt road.
It was too noisy inside the truck to talk, but I had enough to think about. While I'd brought my coat with me, the cold was quickly seeping in through it. One of the Russian soldiers observed that, and reached into a corner of the truck to pull out a thermos. He twisted off the top, then poured it full of dark, steaming liquid. I accepted it gratefully.
Tea, hot tea, heavily laced with sugar. I drank it and appreciated the warmth that coursed down to my stomach. 'Spacebo,' I said, using my limited Russian to thank him.
He nodded in acknowledgment, then passed the cup and the thermos around to the other men. They each drank sparingly.
Finally, with one final jolt, the truck pulled off the road. The engine idled for a moment, then fell silent. The soldiers stood, stretching the kinks out of their cold joints as I did, then moved to the rear of the truck and jumped to the ground. One turned to offer me assistance in disembarking, but I refused it.
The woods were a study in black and white, stark trees cutting a web across the moonlit sky. We couldn't be that far from the base, but there was no sign of the lights that surrounded its perimeter. There was utter silence, except for the faint keening of a chill, cutting breeze through those bare limbs. The trees themselves gave off faint groans and creaks as the wind blew through them.
'It is down this path,' the civilian said. He started forward again, once more not looking back to see if I'd followed.
I had slipped on winter boots over my shoes, and they were far too thin for this weather. The cold ate through them, seeping from the ground and creeping up my legs. The cup of hot tea seemed like it had been hours ago.
I fought the cold off. It was not important, not tonight. The only thing that mattered was the truth.
We walked for maybe five minutes, then came to a small clearing.
During the summer, there would probably be some light groundcover, and a few skeletal bushes surrounding the area. Overhead, the trees closed in, creating a solid canopy.
The civilian knelt and brushed away the light coating of snow and winter debris that covered the ground. His fingers left deep, icy trenches in it. Within minutes, he had uncovered a dull steel marker.
He stood, then guided me over to look down at the spot. 'There. That is the number.' He shook his head, then said, 'That's all they were given, the numbers. No names.' He shot me a sideways glance. 'You understand the reason for that, I am certain. It would be evidence of a particularly damaging kind.'
I stared down at the marker. So little to be left of so great a man, one who'd loomed throughout my life as the ideal naval officer, the aviator who died in service of his country. Mom had kept it alive, occasionally reminding me. Her harshest rebuke would be simply
'Your father would not have liked that.' That one indication of his name alone had the power to stop me in my tracks.
'How do I know it is him?' I asked.
'You don't. Other than my assurances, there is no other proof I can give you. There is a roster, to be certain, but it is still held as a state secret. Even if I could gain access to it, it would be unreasonably dangerous to do so. I am sorry, but in this matter, you have only my word alone.'
Was it enough? I knelt down to the marker, stripped off my glove, and ran my hands over the freezing metal. My fingers stuck lightly as the sweat on the ends of my fingers froze to it. I pulled them off, leaving something of myself at the gravesite.
It was as he said. I would never know for certain, but his words carried a chilling conviction, and instinctively I knew he was telling the truth. If twenty-five years in the Navy had taught me nothing else, it had at least taught me to generally be able to discern that.
'We haven't much time. I'm sorry about that, too,' he said. He motioned to the other soldiers. 'As I said, it is a function of which men are on guard. Much longer, and they will be missed.'
I nodded, and stood. My knees creaked with the motion. This, then, was the end of that mystery.
For so long, my family's obsession over my father's fate had seemed to drive almost every decision. Underlying every thought, every plan, every action was the possibility that someday, no matter how remote, my father might return. Mother had probably suffered the worst for it, refusing to consider remarrying or even dating again.
Now, so many years later, I realized how strong our obsession had been.
I bent down again, brushed away the remainder of the snow, and scooped up a handful of the frozen dirt. I crushed it between my fingers, having my imprint in it, then carefully pulled out my handkerchief and wrapped the ground up. So little ? but it might be all I ever had.
I looked up at him, dry-eyed with an overwhelming sense of closure.
'Why? Why did you do all this? The man in the hospital, the faked photographs, all of it? Can you tell me that much?'
He shook his head. 'Much of it would not make sense. Internal politics, jockeying for position. Amidst all of it, there are those of us who would do the right thing. Correct the errors of the past, make amends in what small ways that we can.' 'Why?' I asked again.
'Isn't it enough that we do it?' he said. 'It will have to be.
Perhaps, sometime when Russia returns as a world power, you will remember that at least some Russians are not monsters. You will stop, remember this night, these stars, and there will be a chance that the man in your gun sights will do the same. We make what is wrong, right. And hope that it will not be necessary again.'
We left the clearing, walked back to the truck and took up our previous positions. The noise of the truck seemed almost blasphemous in the still, quiet woods.
I wasn't sure I bought his explanation at all. The idea that there might be a group of Russians who simply wanted to do the right thing, to begin to heal those wounds so long ago inflicted ? well, it went contrary to everything I'd grown up with. Russia was the Evil Empire.
Wasn't it?
I remembered the kinship I'd felt with Ilanovich in the air, two old aviators dogging it during a competition just to steal a few more minutes in the air. If our positions had been reversed, if I had known that he was seeking a final truth to his father's fate, would I have done something similar? Arranged to lure him to America where he could be told the truth?
And would there have been agencies in the United States that would have coached an imposter, hoping to gain a hold over a potential source in the Russian military? I thought I knew the answer to that one as well.
As we neared the base, the lights came into view again. They were blazing now, all of them, not the few spotted security lampposts I'd seen when we left. Even over the noise of the truck, I could hear a siren wailing in the distance.
There was angry, uneasy muttering among the men in the back. They were pointedly not looking at me. I rapped on the forward window. 'What's happening?'
The civilian looked back at me, his face a mask of worry. 'I do not know. But whatever it is, it increases the danger. Quickly now ? we must have a story.'
We finally agreed on a plan. They would drop me and one guard off at a relatively deserted point on the base. The others he would take back to quarters. The story would be that I was unable to sleep, had decided to go for a walk, and, per his orders, one of the guards had decided to accompany me. It wasn't great, but it was better than
