Ian Slater - Arctic Front

Colonel Nefski, recently of Khabarovsk, had already learned that Marshal Yesov had arrived in Irkutsk, forty miles west of Lake Baikal. Yesov had come not simply to finalize the attack but to use the cruise missiles aboard the miniaturnye podvodnye lodki— ”midget submarines”—to produce a total og-nevoy udar—”fire shock”—and udar voisk— “troop shock”— against the American Second Army before Freeman could reach beyond the Amur hump and split his forces in a two-pronged offensive, one southwest to Irkutsk, the other swinging north to Yakutsk. If either — or worse, both — was ever captured by the Americans, it would afford them non-air-refueling radii to pound the Siberian army’s arsenals and factories.

The political officer, the Zampolit, of the Siberian Thirty-first, was screaming at Nefski. Advance SPETS scouts, dropped ahead of the Thirty-first with their BMD fighting vehicles at the tip of the Stalingrad Division’s spearhead, had rounded up several civilians near Kultuk at the southernmost end of Lake Baikal. One of the prisoners, a Jew suspected of working for the yevreyskoe podpolie— “Jewish underground”—had been “persuaded” after his fingernails had been torn out to reveal that the camera he possessed had indeed been used for sabotage; that photographs of the lake had been passed on via the Rossiya express to contacts at Irkutsk further west. The KGB knew there was an active Jewish underground working from Irkutsk all along the Trans-Siberian to Krasnoyarsk railhead 530 miles west of Baikal then northeast on the BAM — the Baikal-Amur mainline loop — from which it could find its way through to Allied lines. Nevertheless, despite what might be the seriousness of the situation, Nefski refused to be cowed. Who did this Zampolit think he was — Chernko? Nefski asked him coolly how it was that he assumed it was one of Nefski’s prisoners who had received the photos of the lake or whatever from the old Jew.

“I told you!” shouted the political officer. “The old man confessed. He gave it to someone on the Rossiya. By the time the SPETS got the old fool to talk, the photos had already been passed.”

“To whom?”

“The old Jew had no names. It’s a rule — they never give one another their real names. All the SPETS got from him was that it was a Jewess on the Khabarovsk carriage.”

“Was she pretty?” enquired Nefski.

The Zampolits face was creased with worry. “If the Americans suspect we’re slipping the midgets under the ice from Port Baikal at the southern end of the lake they’ll try to bomb the rail line and—”

“Why?” said Nefski, not minding his insolent tone. “What good would bombing Port Baikal do? The submarines are already safe — deep in the lake.”

“Yes, but they must come in for armament resupply.”

“Ah,” said Nefski, trying to reduce the consequences for both of them, because he had suddenly realized who it might be. “I don’t think the Americans know, Comrade. And if they did try to bomb Port Baikal and got through the heavy antiaircraft ring we have all about the lake, so what? If they hit one or two subs in the dock that were in for ammunition resupply, the other subs would still be at large in the lake. Plus they would be warned off by the explosions.”

“Ah!” said the Zampolit, mocking Nefski’s own tone. “You don’t understand the Americans, comrade. Haven’t you heard? They can be ingenious. They will try something.”

“Then,” shrugged Nefski, “put everyone around the lake on extra alert.”

The political officer conceded the point. “Nevertheless, you must try to find this woman and stop any other messages that might be—”

“Oh,” said Nefski, lighting a cigarette, “there is no mystery there, Comrade. There’s only one pretty Jewess that was sent from Khabarovsk to Irkutsk. I have interrogated her before. Her whole family is rotten.”

“Then I suggest you question her again. Get as much information from her as you can before you get rid of her.”

Nefski took a long drag on his cigarette — a Winston, the Zampolit noted enviously. Imported from Japan, no doubt. “That might be difficult,” Nefski was saying.”To eliminate her.” The political officer looked angrily at the KGB colonel. “Why? You shoot people every day. It’s your job.”

“A pilot,” said Nefski, “transferred to Irkutsk PVO with all the others from Khabarovsk station — he fancies her.”

“I don’t care what some pilot fancies,” began the political officer.

“This pilot is the son of a high party official, Comrade. Kiril Marchenko.”

“He’s in Moscow!” said the Zampolit defiantly.

“Ah, yes, but who knows who else is in Moscow? Perhaps he’s helping us.”

“I don’t care. Interrogate her then have her shot. Moscow’s finished. Novosibirsk is what counts now, Comrade.”

“The pilot is one of our aces,” Nefski informed him.

The Zampolit sneered contemptuously.”Never heard of him. Eliminate her.”

Nefski rose and saluted. “As you wish, Comrade.”

Nefski told himself he wasn’t afraid of the political officer, but nor was he a fool. You did what political officers told you or you would be eliminated.

“Christ! It’s colder’n a fish’s tit!” These were the first words that Aussie Lewis said as he stepped off the C-5 after the long haul from Alaska via Japan to the Never-Skovorodino road. “There a whorehouse ‘round here, Yank?”

The marine assigned to drive the twelve SAS/Delta Force troops to Freeman’s HQ was busy chipping ice from the Humvee track’s windscreen. “Nearest cathouse around here, buddy, is Japan. Thataway!”

“Oh, lovely!” said Aussie. “You hear that, Davey boy? You’re gonna have to play with yourself for the duration.”

“Better than being on Rat,” responded David Brentwood, saluting and shaking hands with the marine colonel who, though senior in rank to David Brentwood, was awed by the presence of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner.

“Take no notice of him, sir,” David told the colonel. “He’s an Aussie. They all talk like that. Good man in a firefight, though.”

The colonel grinned. “Yes, I knew a few in ‘Nam around Da Nan—” The Humvee’s radio crackled loudly in the frigid air. “Incoming! Incoming!”

Aussie Lewis hadn’t heard any heavy artillery. Where were the Russian guns? The Commies didn’t fire any artillery unless they had at least a hundred of them.

“Cruise missiles!” yelled a marine. “Let’s get outta here!”

“Beautiful,” said Aussie, heaving his eighty-pound pack into the back of the Humvee. “Hear that, Choir?” he called out to Williams. “No fucking class, these Sibirs. Can’t wait till a man’s unpacked.” Williams, the last man in, pulled the door shut. “Well, with you yabbering away, Aussie, they’ll have no trouble knowing where we are.”

“Now, don’t get shirty!” said Aussie and, either oblivious to or uncaring of a colonel of marines being present, adopted Choir Williams’s accent, explaining to all in the truck, “He’s a fucking Welshman. Take him out of the Estedford and he gets terrible cranky. He’d rather be singing in chapel you see. Tenor—’Men of Harlech’ and all that shit!”

David Brentwood, in the front with the colonel and driver, turned around. “You pack those Norsheets?” He was anxious that the Norwegian tent segments, which could be used to make various sizes of small tents, had been brought along.

“Planning on using them, are you?” asked Aussie.