Ian Slater - World in Flames

Sergei said nothing.

“Well?” pressed the general.

“What?” Sergei challenged him. “Do you want me to sign an affidavit?”

“I want you to assure me, here, now, that you’ll not see her again.”

Sergei turned to head back toward the fighter hangars, his father following.

“The question’s academic, isn’t it? I doubt the Committee for Public Safety will release her.” There was a sarcastic edge in his use of the KGB’s official title. “I assume you’ve made sure of that.”

“Don’t be insulting!” said Kiril Marchenko, looking at his son angrily. There was a long silence as they continued walking, the only sound that of their boots, now out of step, in the snow. “Colonel Nefski,” began the general, “is in a difficult position. If these saboteurs aren’t caught and they cut the Trans-Siberian, our garrisons out here would be seriously—”

“I know that,” said Sergei impatiently.

“Your own squadron will feel the effect, too,” the general continued. “Not only from the railway delays but the munitions being made out here.”

“We’ve already had problems,” said Sergei.

“Oh—” The general slowed. “Nefski never told me that.”

“Some of the Aphids,” said Sergei.

“What are they?”

“Air-to-air. They appear not to have exploded on the target range — though it’s possible they could have gone into the ocean. It’s difficult sometimes to—”

“You see,” said the general, seizing the opportunity. “This is precisely what I mean, Sergei. This mission against the American general, Freeman. Imagine if, after all that trouble, a rocket didn’t—” He stopped. “You haven’t volunteered, have you?”

“Of course.”

Kiril Marchenko had said it before his professional obligation had had a chance to override his feelings as a father. “Then—” he said, “I’m proud of you.”

Sergei said nothing. They were approaching the control tower, a dark obelisk in the sporadic moonlight that was shining through wisps of stratus, the air redolent with pine, and in the distance somewhere a convoy, the faint slits of its air raid headlights approaching the base like some strange, segmented yellow snake weaving through the forest. The saboteurs, Sergei remembered, had also cut the Khabarovsk and Volochayevka roadway.

“Would be nice,” said Kiril Marchenko, changing the subject, “if you wrote your mother more often.”

“Yes,” said Sergei, “I mean to but—”

Kiril held his gloved hand up. “I know. I was the same. But I told her I’d order you.”

Sergei couldn’t see his father’s face clearly but sensed the attempt at good humor.

“Is she all right?” asked Sergei.

“Thriving. She’s soon to be promoted — head of chemical defense for all of Moscow. The first woman. It’s quite an honor.”

“You think it will come to that?”

“No,” said the general. “The Americans don’t have the stomach for it. Not after they’ve seen what we’ve done with our sleepers in their own country — their water supplies and the like. It’s the one great advantage we have over them, Sergei. One must admit that for all his childish idealism, Gorbachev did at least make it easier for Chernko to flood the United States with our agents. Happily, it’s never been the other way around.” The general paused for a moment, looking about to see whether any of the air traffic control sentries were nearby, lowering his voice. “But if we’re attacked with it, we’ll use it. Suzlov won’t hesitate.”

“Neither will the STAVKA,” put in Sergei. He said it without rancor but as a matter of fact.

Kiril saw a guard at the door, silhouetted against a faint glow from the officers’ mess. He called out to the man, reminding him it was an air raid precaution violation and to have the shutters drawn securely.

“Sergei, I wouldn’t be surprised if Comrade Nefski gives you a call — to warn you off this woman. Try not to be rude. It won’t do you any good. Just accept you’ve made an error.” The general hurried on. “You can find another outlet for your passions — you understand, eh?” He slapped Sergei on the back. “Find a good Russian girl or one of the brown-skinned ones, eh?” He paused at the entrance to the mess.

“My plane leaves in half an hour.” Sergei still said nothing. It was Sergei’s worst failing, in his father’s view. On the battlefield his son had distinguished himself more than once, but he had retained a childish propensity to sulk. Or was it only with his father that he behaved so? “Look,” said Kiril. “A man must be sensible about these things. If you need more money in order to—”

“Huh — so I can buy a woman?”

“If necessary, yes,” said Kiril Marchenko. “If you go to a clean place, at least you know what you’re getting. You’re not the first soldier to—”

“I don’t need money,” said Sergei. “I have enough.” His father hadn’t even used her name. Again there was a long, awkward silence between them. Finally Sergei murmured, “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

“Good,” said the general. They hugged.

“Write to your mother.”

“Yes.”

In the officers’ mess, Sergei was flipping through a finger-worn copy of a German pornographic magazine, lingering over a blonde, tarted up in a top hat and tails, no shirt — her long, red-nailed fingers clasping the silver top of a long walking stick. Sergei and his wing man, Boris, were trying to discover whether the blonde’s attributes were natural or silicone-assisted. Such procedures were rare in the Soviet Union but apparently quite common in Germany.

“Our women have bigger breasts than that,” said Boris.

“And bigger bottoms,” countered Sergei.

“So what’s wrong with that?” parried Boris. “I like something you can grab on to.”

“All I want to grab,” put in the ground crew captain, “are enormous, great, pendulous—”

“Major —Major — Marchenko!”

“Da?”

“Telefon.”

When Sergei heard Nefski’s voice, he was immediately on guard, at once struck by his father’s warning that his association with the Jewess was bound to incur a warning from the KGB to stay away from the Yevreysk autonomous region.

“Major. We believe you know the girl Alexsandra Malof?”

“Yes,” Marchenko said, then, as he was wont to do in a dogfight, seizing offense as the best defense, added, “She’s a Jew.”

“Ah — now, there you are. You see—” The KGB colonel seemed to be talking to someone else at the other end, then came back on the line. “—I was just telling my assistant, Major, that you are just like your father. A man who gets straight to the heart of things.”

No, thought Sergei, I am not like my father. I won’t do a dance around it. The Jewess was the best lay he’d had during the entire war. Besides, what could Nefski do to an air ace? It would make the local KGB boss very unpopular, not only with the STAVKA HQ in Moscow but with all the propaganda cadres throughout the sixteen military districts and the four air armies.

“I would like to talk to you,” said Nefski, his tone upbeat, casual.

“Yes?” said Sergei guardedly, waiting.

“No, no,” said the colonel. “Not on the phone. Let us have a meal — dinner — at the Bear Inn?”

Marchenko knew the place in Khabarovsk. It specialized in Yakut food.

“What is there to talk about, Comrade Colonel?”

“Let’s talk.”

“I can’t tonight.”

“I realize that,” said Nefski, Marchenko surprised that the colonel apparently knew about “Operatsiya otmorozhennaya” —”Operation Frostbite”—the planned intercept of the plane that reportedly would be flying the legendary American General Freeman across the Sea of Japan to Korea. But then, Sergei told himself, he should have guessed that Nefski would have spies everywhere — probably knew what the base commander had for breakfast.