Alan Furst - Blood of Victory

Maybe Marrano could see ahead of them, Serebin couldn’t. Only rain and the dark bulk of the cliff flying by on the right. Marrano speed-shifted, lost the road, and Serebin’s side of the car went scraping along the rock. Marrano jerked the wheel, the car fishtailed and slid toward the outer edge of the road, then he took it back the other way, the right front fender caught the cliff, a headlight ring flew up in the air, and the car straightened out.

The road twisted, cornered, switched back on itself, rain streamed across the black windshield. Marrano, hands in a death grip on the wheel, powered through every turn, worked mostly in second gear, slammed his foot on the brake until the rear wheels began to slide, then accelerated out of the skid.

Then, on a long, even climb, the car lit up-a pair of headlights behind them, glaring yellow beams that sparkled on the fractured glass in the back window. Marrano ducked, grabbed Serebin by the shoulder of his jacket and pulled him down. A stone chip hit Serebin’s door and he said, “They’re shooting at us.”

The car swerved violently, Marrano fought the wheel and said, “Tire.” The headlights moved closer, the car wobbled on the flat tire, ground it off, then bounced along on the rim. “It’s over,” Marrano said. They were sideways for a moment, then off again as the back window blew in.

“Now,” Serebin said. “Go ahead.”

Marrano said shit and turned left.

In the air, the silence went on for a long time. Serebin’s mind was empty, or maybe just a name, as though it were the first word of an apology.

Then they hit some saplings, which bowed before they broke, then brush, then earth; then a sudden drop that stood the car on its front end. It stayed there for a moment, canted over in slow motion, and came to rest upside down. Serebin wound up sprawled across the roof, facing the windshield, where two red impact marks pocked the glass. He felt the blood, seeping from his hairline, then smelled gasoline, kicked savagely at the door, which was already open, and slid himself out on the ground. He crawled around the car, found the driver’s side door jammed shut, reached through the broken window, and cranked it up-with the car on its roof-until it was out of the way. Marrano’s foot was caught in the steering wheel, Serebin got him loose, then hauled him out through the open window. This took some time, because only one hand worked, his wrist either broken or sprained.

He could see the lights of the command car, parked up on the road, and he could hear voices. Excited, he thought. Somebody had a flashlight, up there, and tried to find the sedan. “Briefcase,” Marrano said.

“Can you walk?”

Marrano mumbled something he couldn’t hear.

From the opposite shore, thunder, but not close, the storm moving west, the rain a light, steady beat on the river. Serebin leaned into the car and searched for the briefcase, finally found it pinned between the floor and the brake pedal, which had been bent on its side. He took out a small bag of gold coins and slid the revolver in his belt.

Some of the soldiers were now working their way down the hill-the flashlight, masked by a hand, was still clearly visible. Somebody fell, somebody swore, somebody whispered angrily. Serebin drew the revolver and thumbed the safety off. Turned around and took a good long look at the river, perhaps forty feet away. He put the safety back on, got his good hand under Marrano’s arm, and began to drag him toward the water.

Plenty of driftwood logs on the shore, all sizes. Serebin got one of them launched, draped Marrano over it, held on and kicked, carefully keeping his feet well below the surface, until he felt the pull of the current. Back on the hillside, the search party was getting near the car. Serebin hung on to the log by looping his arm around it, kept his good hand on Marrano.

On shore, they’d apparently reached the car, and there was a loud conversation with somebody up on the road. Search the woods. Looking down the river, Serebin saw a low shape ahead of them, some kind of promontory jutting out from the shoreline. It took quite some time to get there, his legs numb and lifeless when he finally beached the log on the sand. Marrano was unconscious, Serebin pulled him a few feet up the slope, then fell. Done. No more he could do. He tried to force himself to get up, couldn’t, passed out.

29 March.

“Good morning to you, sir.”

Logically, there was something in this Balkan opera of a city that could surprise the doorman at the Srbski Kralj but it sure as hell wasn’t Serebin. With four days’ growth of beard, wearing a sheepskin fisherman’s vest one of his rescuers had given him, a bloody rag around his head, his left wrist bound to a stick with fishing line-just good old Mr. Thing in Room 74.

“Good morning,” Serebin said.

“Lovely day.”

“Yes, thank you, it is.”

“Need any help, sir?”

“No, thank you.”

Limping, he got himself up the stairs to the top floor, then down a long hallway. Stained carpets, green walls, the aroma of yesterday’s dinner; all very appealing to Serebin, who was lucky to be alive and knew it. That went for Marrano as well. In the hospital for a day or two but he would live to fight again.

He stopped in front of the door numbered 74. He’d had a key to this door, once upon a time, but it was long gone. Or was it this door? Because, if this was his room, why was somebody laughing inside? Tentatively, he knocked. Then knocked louder and Captain Draza, wearing only undershirt and underpants, threw the door open and gazed at him with surprise and delight. “Say, look at you!”

A fine party, it must have been. Or, perhaps, still was. Captain Jovan, in underpants only but wearing a uniform cap, was sleeping in the room’s easy chair, a bottle between his thighs. The air was thick with black tobacco and White Gardenia, the bed occupied by three young women, one very young, all of them striking, but striking in different ways. Mysterious, Milkmaid, and Ballerina, he named them. Mysterious and Ballerina sound asleep, Milkmaid sitting propped up on pillows, reading the book of Anya Zak’s poetry she’d given him for the train. “Hello,” she said, rather formally, and, an afterthought, pulled the sheet up over her bare breasts.

“Ah, Natalya,” Draza said. What way is that to greet a guest?

Jovan was suddenly awake. “Welcome home,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

The room had been-sifted. Nothing was broken, but everything had been picked up and put down somewhere else. This apparently made it hard for Captain Draza to find what he was looking for but, eventually, beneath a pile of women’s clothes, tunics, and a holstered pistol on a belt, a newspaper was discovered. “Famous guy,” Draza said, handing him the paper and pointing to a headline at the bottom of

the first page: BRITISH SABOTEURS ATTACK RIVER TARGETS

They had put the Moldova Veche pilot station out of commission for ten days to two weeks. Burned down the office, destroying valuable charts and records. And severely damaged a repair ship, when a booby trap blew up while a sunken barge was being craned to the surface.

Draza took the newspaper and read his favorite part aloud. “‘The Axis has been put on notice that the British Lion will strike anywhere, at any time, to disrupt the supply lines of its enemies.’”

Jovan liked hearing that. “To victory,” he said, and drank to it.

“You don’t mind we’re here, do you?” Draza said. “We were waiting for you to come back, so, we thought, what better place to wait?”

“You’re welcome here,” Serebin said. “But I’m going to wash, and then I need to sleep.”

Jovan stumbled out of his chair, caught himself, then stood upright, swaying. “Right here,” he said. “It’s very comfortable.”