“Yes, yes,” said the Peasant, rising.
“Wait, I must talk with you before we go. Sit down.”
Obediently the Peasant sat.
“We may be separated when we report. For various reasons. Look, let me tell you something that will help you.”
“All right.”
“You love her, I love her, she was a hero, she deserves to be remembered forever. But under no circumstances should you tell anyone of your time with Mili Petrova.”
“What? Why—”
“There are politics here. You do not understand them. It would take to the end of the war for me to explain them to you. But it may have developed, by certain realities, that she is considered a traitor. Trust me. I know it’s wrong, but it can’t be helped at this time. So instead of being applauded for assisting the White Witch, you might be interrogated and executed for it. Do you see?”
“She killed the monster Groedl. She—”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is: who is in charge? And whoever he is, he will seek to eliminate anyone who had close contact with Mili. That is how it is. Furthermore, please do not claim membership in Bak’s army. If the Soviets see him as a Ukraine nationalist, they may decide you were criminal for being with him. Who knows, perhaps they were the ones who killed him. I’m only warning you, that’s the way they work. Do you see?”
The Peasant, it was clear, did not.
“Trust me, my friend. I want the best for you. Your story is that you were hauled off by the Germans as conscripted labor. Somehow you ended up in this area. When the big offensive came, you made your escape. You hid in the forest for a few days, and now you are back. That is your story, you know nothing about Bak or about Mili, and you stick to it. Do you understand?”
“I suppose,” he said, even if he did not.
* * *
In the town of—or rather, the smoldering ruins of—Yaremche, the Soviet army set up a clearance center to which all unassigned or nonlocal citizens, uprooted by the carnage of war, had to report, for categorization and permission to return to their own lands or, worse, some dark fate unknown. The lines were long, and the Peasant waited patiently for his turn, while the Teacher was just behind him.
In the distance, Red Army investigators pawed through the burned wreckage of the town and caused a great sensation when they discovered 135 burned bodies in the ashes and charred timbers of the church. Meanwhile, at least temporarily, a tank company had taken up residence, primarily as support and logistics for the NKVD processors who ran the clearance center. A tent city grew, where those released by NKVD were sent to recover their strength before beginning their return home. It was the Soviet empire reclaiming control after the German occupation, a rough bureaucratic procedure. A small field hospital took care of the wounded; a small field kitchen prepared the food, none of which could be considered memorable; a few political officers supervised.
Finally the Peasant presented himself to a young officer at a table; he wore wire-frame glasses, was overworked, maybe a little drunk. The Peasant was very nervous, for talking to authority was not an ordeal he had much practice with. No matter that the Teacher had told him, just before it was his turn, to be calm, to be relaxed, to cling to his story. He gave his name, presented his tattered papers.
The young man did not bother to look up. “Explain your presence,” he said as he examined the paperwork, a flyblown red-covered pamphlet enclosing his ID card.
“I was rounded up by German soldiers two years ago. I have been working as a laborer over that time, building roads for tanks, laying wire, digging trenches. When the offensive came, there was shelling and confusion. I managed to make it to the forest, where I have remained for a week or so.”
He went on haltingly.
“Stop, stop,” said the young man. “Now, I ask you, sir, are you familiar with a partisan group in this area run by a man called Bak?”
“I have not heard of any Bak, sir.”
“You did not fight with his partisans in the mountains?”
“I did not.”
“All right, tell me this. Have you ever heard of a woman called Ludmilla Petrova? Also called the White Witch. She was with Bak’s partisan army.”
“I have never heard of Mili Petrova,” said the Peasant.
“Excellent,” said the young officer. “Now I see clearly. Show me your hands, please.”
The Peasant put his hands out.
“No, no, you idiot, palms up.”
He turned them over.
“Explain, please, why after two years of hard labor under German conscription, you have no calluses? Your hands, though filthy, are soft. You haven’t touched a shovel or a hoe in years.”
“I, I—I have never heard of Mili Petrova,” said the Peasant.
The officer nodded to two soldiers, who walked over, grabbed the Peasant, and pulled his shirt open. Tattoos covered his chest. The soldier pointed to one, a design that featured a mandolin flanked by outward-facing R’s, though all of a single line.
“That is the tattoo of the Trizubets,” said the officer. “It is the Ukraine national emblem, it is the emblem of Bak’s Ukraine National Army. You lied to me; you were a soldier in that army and thus a traitor to the Soviet Union. You may well have aided the traitor Ludmilla Petrova, who is on a death list. Only someone intimate with her would know that her nickname is Mili, not Luda, unless you read of her in the magazines years ago, and I doubt that you can read.”
“Sir,” said the Teacher, “may I speak for the man? His tongue is clumsy.”
The officer looked up at the Teacher. “Who are you?”
The Teacher raced forward and handed over his document.
The officer examined it. “So, a teacher.”
“Sir, this man is—”
“I ask the questions here. Were you also conscripted? Are you with him?”
“These peasants get tattoos all over their bodies. It amuses them. They have no idea what the tattoos mean. I am a teacher here. I know this.”
“I asked you, were you with him? Were you conscripted?”
“Sir, I am only pointing out—”
One of the soldiers hit him in the stomach with his rifle butt.
“Teacher, fool, I ask questions. You do not explain. I am not one of your children. Show me your hands.”
The soldier who had hit him dragged him to the table, turned one hand over to show the officer. “Another man at labor with soft white hands. Yours are even clean. I doubt you have tattoos because you consider yourself refined, but you speak for him, you lie for him, you attempt to evade Soviet justice. Take them both away to the—”
“Sir, if I could show you but one thing.”
He was hit hard across the neck and went to his knees. The Peasant stepped in to intervene, was clubbed equally hard, and went down, blood leaking from his skull.
“Get this vermin out of here,” said the officer. “I’m done wasting time with criminals.”
“Sir, I beg you. Just let me show you my papers. I believe you’ll find them very interesting.”
“I have no more time to waste,” said the officer, holding up the Teacher’s document.
The Teacher squirmed free, grabbed it, twisted it, and with his deft fingers separated the rear cover into two halves. A card shook out. He handed it to the young officer.
The officer looked at it; his face went white, his jaw dropped, and he began to gibber.
“Major Speshnev, I apologize, sir, I was hasty, I had no idea, sir, sir, please, I was only trying to—”
The Teacher stopped his yammering with one raised hand. “Listen to me, Lieutenant, if you don’t care to spend the rest of your life building a road to the North Pole on the off chance that The Boss decides to go for a ride up there. You will do exactly what I require, and you will do it instantly.”
“Yes sir, of course. I had no idea—”
“You have caused me to blow cover on an important operation. Let me just say that you will nev
er uncover the missing Bak. I have already done your work for you, and now you expose me. Do you see what I could do to you?”
“Yes sir. I had no—”
“I did so because this man here is my bodyguard and has done extraordinary work in service to NKVD and the security of the Soviet Union.”
“Yes, Major Speshnev, my God, everyone knows of Major Speshnev, of his activities with the partisans all over the occupied zones, of his—”
“Get him the highest clearance so that he may return home as the hero he is. I will move paperwork shortly to award him the medals he deserves.”
“Yes sir.”
“As for me, I require air transportation to Moscow at my earliest convenience. Do you understand?”
“It will be done.”
Speshnev went up to the Peasant. “All right,” he said, “they will treat you well now. Go home, my friend, live well, have many children.”
“Sir, you will speak for Mili? Make them see—”
“It is not time yet. Politics, as I have said. Much needs to be unraveled. I will try. Vengeance is a different matter, however. Now get out of here. Return home. Have more children.”
“I will name them after you.”
“It’s of no importance. If you have a daughter, name her after Mili. That would be something.”
Interlude in Tel Aviv VII
The bad news was that the satellite had filmed imagery of six tractor-trailers, each with oceangoing containers, leaving the Nordyne site and transporting their cargo to a Iranian freighter in the Astrakhan harbor. The trucks completed loading. The ship was ready to go. What was holding it up?
“It’s Russia. Paperwork.”
Cohen explained: “The Russians run their import-export very tightly. Nothing goes in or gets out without close examination. That’s why this puzzles me. Those containers will be examined, that load of extremely hazardous material will be discovered, and there will be an immediate emergency. Any kind of damage could set that stuff off, and there’d be a huge tragedy. The Russians will have to disassemble it very carefully.”
The eureka moment. The banging of drums, maybe the ringing of a doorbell, maybe just a weird tremor, brain to toes. Gershon experienced it at that second. Dots all connected. “I have it,” he said.
All eyes went to him.
“The minister of trade can issue arbitrary waivers on the inspection process. That’s why he wanted the job.”
Silence in the room.
Gershon summed up: “We now know that Strelnikov was the son of the traitor Basil Krulov, who was himself a student of the insane Dr. Hans Groedl, may he not rest in peace. It’s a straight line from the coils of Groedl’s infected brain to that ship full of Zyklon B sitting in a Russian harbor, waiting for shipment to Iran and then, by means yet unknown, to Israel. The boy Vassily idealized his father, Basil, and wanted to be just like him, wanted to continue his work in the holy war against the Jews. Now he’s elderly and absurdly rich and feeling disappointed that he hasn’t done enough. So he uses his wealth to set up this insanity as a tribute to his father’s wishes. Now all that’s left for him to do is to sign the documents and sit back and enjoy the fun.”
“When does he become minister of trade?”
Gershon looked at his watch, calculated Moscow time from it, and replied, “In about twenty minutes.”
“Options,” the director asked.
“Limited, I’m afraid,” said someone. “We have no military assets in the area. Even if we did, attacking something in a Russian harbor would be a policy disaster. The ship will be vulnerable for the eight hours it takes to travel from Astrakhan to the Iranian harbor. We could hit it with Phantoms if we could get permission to meet them on the way back in someone else’s air space with tankers for refueling. Even then we’d catch hell for bombing a ship in the Caspian, and if there were consequences of the gas, we’d catch hell for that. Not the makers of the gas but us, the Israelis, as usual.”
“Once it’s unloaded in Iran, we’ve pretty much lost it,” another executive continued. “Our only responses are defensive. Heightened border and air security. A posture of readiness. A suspicion of any large-bulk transport near our borders. All reactive, not proactive.”
“Gershon, you’re the genius who came up with this. Tell us what to do.”
“Everything just mentioned. Prayer would also be an excellent idea.”
“Strelnikov will sign the documents, the ship will leave, we will watch it disappear, and then we’ll wait for the inevitable. We—”
“Sir,” said someone.
“Please don’t interrupt,” said the director. “I’m trying to—”
“Sir, please. Look at the monitor.”
All eyes went to the silent newsfeed on the screen of the television mounted in the corner.
“Mystery blast in Moscow,” ran the crawl under the image, which depicted the common sight of first responders working a site of excessive destruction while red lights flashed.
Someone turned the sound up.
“—have confirmed that the limousine contained the controversial Vassily Strelnikov, on his way to the Kremlin to be sworn in as the new minister of trade. He is among the four dead on the scene outside the Strelnikov mansion in this fashionable section of Moscow. Just who is responsible—terrorists or Russian Mafia figures or other actors—is unknown at this point but—”
“Nice work, Gershon,” said the director.
“I had no idea I was on such good terms with the Almighty,” said Gershon.
“He doesn’t even go to synagogue,” said Cohen.
CHAPTER 57
Idaho
Outside Cascade
THE PRESENT
MILI GOT HER MAN: NEW evidence suggests discredited Russian sniper may have killed Nazi war criminal, by Kathy Reilly and Will French, Washington Post Moscow Correspondents, ran as a three-part series, debuting on a Sunday on Page 1 under digitally enhanced photos of both Mili and Obergruppenführer Groedl across six of the newspaper’s eight columns. It got more Web hits than anything in Post history for a single day; it sold fifty thousand extra paywall subscriptions; and it is a front-runner for the upcoming Pulitzer Prize in Feature writing.
For Kathy, it meant a munificent book contract to develop the series into a book. She took a six-month book leave, right after she and Will wound up their coverage of the assassination of Vassily Strelnikov on the way to his swearing-in as trade minister, while Will alone went to Astrakhan to cover the mysterious “abandoned freighter loaded with poison gas” story.
For Swagger, there were numerous pleasures. When he returned home, Miko was back from her riding camp in the East, and father and daughter and mother had a good three weeks of family. Nikki flew in from Washington for a weekend, and the next, Ray and Molly, who was pregnant. It was a good time.
Still: they went home. Then fall arrived. October turned out to be the cruelest month. Swagger’s children went back to their lives, his wife back to her office and the business, he theoretically to his rifles, his 6.5 Creedmoor project, his long rides, the things he did that he enjoyed. But he was alone again, not with ghosts, not with regrets, but with—what?
“You’re in love with her, too, you crazy old coot.” Reilly had yelled that at him, and though he never would have put it in such naked words, he supposed it was true. He couldn’t stop imagining Mili, whose face he’d never seen except in the 1943 magazine blow-up, in the circumstances she’d deserved: Mili with her kids. Mili goes out to dinner. Mili on the job. Mili in her life, a good life, a life both loved and loving. As if Swagger were some kind of screwball angel in some screwball ’40s movie. Yet the images gave him such comfort. Even if they’d never happened, they should have happened, not because she was beautiful, brave, a warrior, but because she was one of the lost millions who got in the way of madmen and, all these years later, had been largely forgotten.
He thought: The least I can do is help the world remember her. And maybe we did that. It’
s not much, but it’s something.
He was an old man in a dry month. He was hard, stoic, isolate, unmelted. He rocked on the porch, closing hard on sixty-eight, and watched as frost came and took the land. The green grass turned colorless and stiff, the trees went threadbare, the piles of clouds seemed to gray with age as they sped over the landscape trailing shadow, and a chill came into the air. Dead leaves rode spurts of breeze this way and that, and migratory fowl beat wings southward, trailing a forlorn racket.
“You need a mission,” Jen said.
“I am out of the mission business,” he said. “Here I sit. Call the crematorium when I stop rocking, and that’ll be that.”
“It’s the girl, isn’t it? Bob, what did you expect? It was a war. You know war better than any man alive. When you can’t fight in someone else’s war, you invent your own, because you need to feel alive in the strange way your head is wired. But ever since your first tour, you’ve known the terrible part of it: good people die all the time. So it goes in the cruel, cruel world.”
“I know. Get over it. Wish I could. Jen, it ain’t just ‘Okay, now I’m all better.’ It’s not like that.”
“I know it. It’s clinical depression. It’s a disease, like cancer or mumps. You need to see someone or take something.”
“I am fine. It will go away.”
“Stubborn old goat. Looks like Matt Dillon himself watching the town he tamed turn to hell, and nobody realizes what he went through to get the place livable.”
“It’s called progress.”
“Maybe not progress. Maybe just change.”
“I’ll be okay, sweetie.”
“Go for a long ride. Get some air in those lungs, feel the wind, watch the deer and the antelope play. Maybe the skies will not be cloudy all day. Get some stimulation, that’s what you need. Something nice and mild to get you operational again. Take up photography, Chinese checkers, decoupage, quilting, adultery, but something, for God’s sake.”