She had cheekbones like doorknobs, which pulled her cheeks taut, almost concave. The lips, however, were full, if grim. The nose had an aquiline perfection, but nothing matched her eyes, which were as blue as summer lakes and as big as winter oceans. They, too, were grim, but somehow calm and capable of holding a stare without revealing a thing. But one knew that the irises could dilate into expressiveness, even warmth, in split seconds. Her eyebrows were dark in contrast to her tanned but still-soft skin; the tawny-dark tendrils of hair hanging down across her forehead achieved not messiness but perfection. Whatever happened to this woman’s hair, it would always seem perfect.
“Cigarette?” he said, holding out a Merkur for her.
She took it, watching him carefully. Beauties were usually calm, because they understood bad things would not happen to them. That extended to the White Witch in German captivity. Even though she understood, at least abstractly, that very bad things were about to happen to her.
He lit her cigarette and one for himself.
A new barrage opened up, preceded by the howl of the Katyushas.
“As you can see, your people are on their way,” he said in Russian. “I would advise you against false hopes. They’re not going to get to this position until nightfall, several hours away. Our business will be concluded by that time, and you will be on your way.”
Her eyes settled on far distance, focusing on nothing. Then she said, “My name is Ludmilla Petrova. I am a Sergeant, Sixty-fourth Guards Army, currently on detached duty. I forgot my serial number. That is all I am going to tell you.”
“I’m not asking anything, Sergeant Petrova. The SS is on the way, and they’ll have plenty of questions. They want you very badly. I’ll see that you’re fed. I’ll give you some cigarettes. Nobody will rape or molest you. We’re not that kind of German. My advice is, give the SS what they demand. What does it matter, this late in the war, which you’ve basically already won? They get very unpleasant when they are defied. Maybe that will earn you a swift execution, which is all you can reasonably expect from them. After all, you killed one of their heroes.”
“I would do it all over again, knowing that it would turn out this way. My death means nothing.”
“You’re vastly superior to me. My death means everything, particularly to me, and I don’t care to have it occur today. When I turn you over to them, my men and I get out of your lovely country for good. We may even survive.”
“Congratulations,” she said. “By the way, I’ve never seen that funny helmet. What are you supposed to be, a mushroom?”
“It’s a parachutist’s helmet. We’re the famous Battlegroup Von Drehle, on detached duty with Fourteenth Panzergrenadier, Army Group North Ukraine, Major Karl Von Drehle at your service. You know, we jump out of airplanes. A daredevil like you would enjoy it. I’d take you along if you weren’t otherwise occupied.”
“What does ‘Kreta’ mean?” She pointed to the embroidered strip around the cuff of his bonebag. “Is it a kind of cheese?”
“That’s ‘feta.’ Kreta is a Greek island in the Mediterranean. We jumped into it in 1941. They fired at us all the way down.”
“Perhaps if you hadn’t been invading their island, they wouldn’t have been shooting.”
“I understood their point of view and the military necessity involved. I didn’t take it personally.”
“My husband, Dimitri, was a pilot. He didn’t jump out of his airplane, he burned alive in it. German incendiary bullets.”
“That was nothing personal, either, even if you and Dimitri take it personally. I have many comrades buried under wheat and snow, so I may know something of grief. Who are these men with you?”
He gestured, and both looked across the road to the two captives ravenously devouring German rations.
“These are simple men, a schoolteacher and a peasant. Subtleties are beyond them. They are ignorant.”
“I can’t let them go. The SS wants them, too.”
She said nothing. The sun lit her face, which was fair and calm. She took another puff of her cigarette, inhaled, exhaled, utterly impervious to self and circumstance.
“The SS is on its way to pick you up. Yet you remain calm. Quite impressive.”
“I never expected to survive. I’ve accepted my own death. I killed Groedl and nothing else matters. No one is left in my family, so I will join them in heaven, if there is a heaven. Look, Major, you appear to be a civilized man. May I ask you—may I beg you? Please. I accept that I am your trophy and will earn you some prizes. But let those two men go. They’re nothing but refugees. I’m your ticket to survival. They’re harmless. Ask yourself the same question. What difference does it make?”
“I really hate you noble, heroic types. See that fellow over there feeding your friends? He’s even got them laughing? That guy’s noble, too. It’s sickening. He has six wound stripes and a seventy-five-engagement badge. Seventy-five! That covers him to about 1942, but they don’t make bigger badges. For political reasons, the SS would kill him if they could. They know his subversive tendencies. I’d like to get him home; he’s earned it. My other fellows, too. They’ve earned it. And if I don’t give your friends to the SS, Wili doesn’t go home, and this little group of boys who are pretty much my family, they don’t go home. They die here on some godforsaken mountain. For nothing. So that does matter, and that is why I can’t help you, much as I might want to. If I have to weigh your friends’ lives against Wili’s, and it appears I do, then I’ll choose Wili’s every time. I tell you this so you know my motives aren’t malign, even if they have, from your point of view, malign results.”
“It’s nothing personal.”
“To be honest, it feels personal, and I don’t like the feeling. But duty is duty.”
“I appreciate that the young officer listened to me and treated me civilly.”
“I appreciate that the sniper sergeant behaved well. It’s a mark of good breeding.”
* * *
An hour passed. The three prisoners ate a last meal. The other men remained in casual battle positions, with two recon posts half a mile down the Yaremche road to report on the arrival of either the Police Brigade panzerwagens or the Russians. Karl sat in the communications tent with Wili, monitoring developments over the radio.
He smoked and thought. He decided what the hell and finished off the last of his English pipe tobacco. It brought a rich, heavy buzz to his head. The sound of the shells, the scream of the rockets, was constant, though it varied in intensity. It rose, it fell. Still, no small-arms fire could be heard, which meant the battle was too far off to matter.
His reverie was interrupted by his signalman. “Karl, Horst on telephone.”
“Yes, yes,” said Karl, taking the receiver. “Hello, hello, Karl here.”
“Karl, I see them. Still a few miles out. Three SS panzerwagens coming down the road.”
“Fine, I receive you. Can you give me an estimate on arrival?”
“I’m guessing at least half an hour.”
“Good work. All right, get back here, in position.”
“Yes, Karl.”
“Leave the phone. Don’t waste time respooling the wire. One way or another, we won’t be needing it.”
“Got it and end transmit.”
“End transmit,” said Karl.
He rose, summoned Wili to him. “Can you put together a bread bag full of actual bread instead of grenades for a change? Some vegetables, maybe, some clean water in a water bottle.”
“Karl, what are you thinking?”
“Wili, just do what you’re told. I’m still the officer here, remember?”
“Yes, Karl.”
Karl went over to the three captured bandits, now in a trench together. “All right,” he said. “I’ve decided to let the two men go. Wili is putting together some supplies. My advice is to go through the canyon here, then cut right and find a cave or a glade some miles away from the road. You don’t want to be on this side of the crest because ther
e may be a battle here, and a lot of sloppy fire will be going all over the place, maybe mortar rounds as well. There will be a large explosion when we seal off the road. Stay over there for at least twenty-four hours after the shooting stops. Then walk in, hands high, to your own people. They’re trigger-happy, so it’s best to wait until you see an officer or NCO in charge. He will keep things calm.”
He turned to the woman just as Wili arrived with two bread bags and a couple of water bottles. “I cannot do the same for you, as I have explained. Use the next few minutes to make your good-byes. The SS will be here shortly, and after that, I can do nothing more for you.”
“Karl, are you—” Wili began.
“I am sure.”
“But weren’t the orders explicit? The woman and the men with her. It could be just what they need to turn against us.”
“Possibly. But I think they’re going to be so happy to get the female sniper, they won’t care about anything else. On top of that, I’ll make a big deal over the imminent arrival of the Ivans. Believe me, Ali Baba won’t like that. He’ll be in a hurry to get down the road to Uzhgorod and behind our new lines. I guarantee you, the last thing this Arab wants is to be stuck in the middle of a battle between two forces he despises equally, the Red Army and Twenty-one Para. We’ll blow Ginger, and then I’ll go straight to Muntz, if he’s still alive, and tell him the men were near death, and there was no point in sending them further. He’ll have to accept that, and again, he will be happy to have sent this woman to Berlin with whatever secrets she has.”
“Yes, Karl, if you say so. We’ve never doubted you. But Karl, we have it all now, and it seems—”
“The men are meaningless, Wili. There’s a reason the SS gets the woman. There’s no reason for it to get these two idiots. They won’t even notice, I assure you.”
* * *
The Teacher and the Peasant, rested now and plied with bread bags, passed through the canyon passageway, turned right, and found a high trail deep into the woods under the crest. There were no Germans here, as all had fled. They were safe.
They hurried down the rocky cut in the forest. Then they both stopped.
“I have to see,” said the Teacher.
“So do I,” said the Peasant.
“You should go on. There’s nothing to see.”
“No, I must—”
“Your head must be made of marble. Now go, you have officially survived, remember what the German said, take your time, don’t jump at the Red Army, they will shoot you.”
“I will not go. I must see, too.”
“You could easily die.”
“So it happens.”
“Come on, then.”
The two rushed back until they reached the chalky canyon wall. They slithered closer and closer and finally came to the spot where the edge of the rock afforded visibility into the little German fortress.
The Teacher quickly noted the three SS panzerwagens, dappled in shades of forest brown and green, churning heavily on great gnashing treads up the dirt road. The three vehicles came ahead almost on sheer determination. A man stood like a ship’s captain in the cab of the first one. They were a few minutes away.
The Teacher shifted his view, came back to the fortified zone, saw nothing, and then—
“Look,” said the Peasant. “It’s Mili.”
“It is,” said the Teacher.
She walked with the young officer back along the road a bit. She was smoking a cigarette.
“What is he going to do?” asked the Peasant. “Is he going to let her go?”
“He can’t let her go. He would be executed.”
“Then what—”
“It will seem cruel,” said the Teacher. “But it is not. It is the only happy ending possible. It will probably cost the officer his life, but he cannot turn her over to the SS for torture. Like the two of us, he is in love with her.”
“I don’t—”
“Watch, Peasant. The drama has a wonderful ending. Think about it, and in time you will understand. You will also understand that the German is a decent man, possibly a hero.”
“We could—”
“No,” said the Teacher. “No, we couldn’t.”
They reached a sunlit place. She took a last puff on her cigarette and tossed it away. He walked around behind her and withdrew his pistol.
“He is probably killing himself as well,” said the Teacher.
The two watched. The officer put his pistol to the back of the head and fired. She dropped to her knees, then toppled to the earth. He walked around and again placed the muzzle to the back of the head and fired. Then he put his pistol in its holster and walked back to his men.
CHAPTER 55
Moscow
THE PRESENT
It hit harder than he’d thought it would. You can’t predict. But this one hit so hard. All the way back he was stony, silent. He just stared ahead, paying no attention when she fished out her laptop and started writing—this story, another story, who knew? The cabin of the helicopter was dark, and the screen lit her face. He didn’t look at her, he just looked ahead or out the window.
They landed close to midnight, and Will was in the private terminal, waiting for Stronski’s jet. He hugged his wife, and they exchanged jabber and pleasure at each other’s presence in the way old-marrieds the world over do. Swagger made a big show of meeting Will for the first time, and obvious jokes were exchanged, all of it a kind of social theater that Swagger wasn’t really into. But the conventions demanded, and he delivered; he owed it to both of them. Finally Will drove them into Moscow, unaware that a car full of Stronski shooters rode hard a few lengths behind, just in case. Stronski’s idea, approved by Bob.
They got to the apartment complex and pulled in to a lot in the interior of a space between six-story apartment buildings, which rose on either side like walls of a canyon, sparsely lit because of the lateness of the hour. They headed toward the one that housed The Washington Post’s bureau on its top floor, and provided a living for Kathy and Will, with an abundance of spare bedrooms. Bob had seen it before; it was a cool place.
“You go on up,” he said.
“What?”
“I’m going in there.”
“What?”
He had pointed to a neon sign blazing at ground level in another building. It said in bright neon orange COCKTAILS, and next to the word was the universal symbol of the beast itself, a tilted martini glass with a smiling olive inside.
“You’re kidding,” said Reilly.
“Nope. Never been more serious.”
“Swagger, I’m down, too. But we knew. We suspected. It was a war. It was the best ending possible. It’s no reason to go off the wagon.”
“No, that ain’t it. It’s a debt I have to pay.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It occurred to me on the flight. I put it together. It took him ten years, but he got it done.”
He took a breath.
“I don’t know who he was, professional or amateur. But the NKVD records prove that one guy figured out what happened to Mili, and he tracked down Krulov and made him pay. Krulov, top of the world, and someone knows it ain’t right, takes him down and cuts his tongue out, and sends him for a swim without it. Maximum insult. The way you kill a traitor. So I have decided, goddammit, I will drink a toast to that man. It’s the one little shred of right that happened in the whole story of Mili and all the powers who got together to destroy her. He’s the one guy who stood up for her. He deserves a drink, whoever he is, and it ain’t worth staying on the wagon to deny him that gesture. He’d get it, even if no one else would.”
“I think we’ll join you,” said Will.
CHAPTER 56
The Carpathians
Yaremche
JULY 1944
The Peasant and the Teacher hastened along the high trail on the far side of the crest. They had not gone a mile when, back at the canyon, they heard the Russian attack. It was a sharp, harsh f
irefight, all kinds of automatic fire and explosions. They paused, listening, as behind them men fought and died. It seemed to last forever, but in reality, it was only seconds.
“Who won?” asked the Peasant.
“I don’t know. If enough Germans survived to blow the passage, I suppose they won the battle of Natasha’s Womb. If the Russians killed all the Germans, the passage stays open, and it’s another glorious victory for Stalin.”
“If they blow it, that should be a show.”
“If you like seeing things blown up, yes, it should be. Come on, I’m sure we’re safe now, but we should move as far as we can, anyway.”
They continued, following the track through the ragged forest trees. To their right, the mountains stiffened considerably, almost unclimbable, until they towered above. To the right, through an occasional hole in the trees, they could see more mountains, a sea of mountains stretching away limitlessly.
The explosion was loud even when it reached them, over two kilometers away. Both turned, slightly adjusted their position on the track for greater vision, and watched as a mushroom of hot, gritty gas rose, then drifted apart in the wind.
“The Germans are very good at blowing things up,” said the Teacher.
In time, as the dust settled, and through a gap in the trees, they were able to see three tiny vehicles move down the road to Uzhgorod, then disappear, swallowed by trees.
“The SS swine,” said the Teacher. “Why does God favor the wicked with such luck?”
They continued another few kilometers, until full dark.
“I think this is far enough,” said the Teacher. “We should be safe here.”
They went off the track, slipped another half-kilometer into the woods, and found shelter where two giant boulders lay together. Fiercely they attacked their bread and carrots and smoked the German cigarettes they had been given and fell into silent sleep. If nightmares haunted either, he was silent about it the next morning.
“All right,” said the Teacher, “now we head back to the passage to see if our troops are in command. Or maybe, after it was blocked, there was no point for them to stick around, so they went back to Yaremche. In that case, we shall have to walk there to find somebody to report to.”