The Thin Wall: A POW/MIA Truth Novel

by R. Cyril West

  Death without pain. It was the way civilized men preferred to kill. After all, Dal had some sense of humanity when it came to taking a life. He was a father as much as he was a soldier. What sort of monster enjoyed taking lives when pain was involved? Driving back to the villa, he asked, “Who was the feisty woman at the square?”

  “The dark-haired beauty?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ayna,” Gurko said, stepping on the gas when chickens entered the road. “‘Ayna the Terrible,’ or so I have heard some people say.”

  “Terrible? She’s exquisite.”

  “She’s an outcast.”

  “She looks somewhat different from the typical Czech. I was thinking Gypsy.”

  “Trust me, comrade. You don’t want anything to do with the woman. She isn’t a real Czech. She is half Azerbaijani. They say she is what happens when a Christian and a Muslim fornicate. As such, she is cursed by her Mohammedan roots.”

  Dal looked stupidly at Gurko. “What do you mean──cursed?”

  The parlor, with its wall of windows overlooking the garden, was the staging area for Sascha’s body. As soon as Potapov left the room, Gurko peeled back the bloody shirt and examined the wounds. One bullet had penetrated the man’s heart. Two bullets had pierced the abdomen. A fourth shot had ripped through his thigh. There was little blood.

  “The POW and him,” Dal said, “their likeness is not so similar now that Sascha is dead.”

  “This is what happens when the breath leaves the body.”

  “I see . . .” Dal bit his lip. “Except for the color of the hair, which is an exceptional shade of bright copper, I’d say we are in deep trouble trying to pass him off for the American.”

  Gurko raised an eyebrow. “You have reservations concerning our body double?”

  “It is simply an observation.”

  The sergeant grabbed scissors and a razor and cropped Sascha’s hair in a military cut, leaving a mat of red hair. The corpse would be carried into the forest and photographed near a makeshift grave. The photos and a detailed report would be delivered to fellow conspirators in the Lubyanka. They would lead a superficial investigation and validate the death certificate as GySgt Russell E. Johnston, United States Marine Corps.

  “Fortunately, the American has moles on his face,” Gurko said. “I can easily duplicate them with women’s makeup.”

  “You make it sound so trouble-free.”

  “It’s usually the case.”

  “You trick photographers work like magicians.”

  “By sunrise his face will be bloated. There will be no difference between the Czech and the American. Trust me, comrade. They will look like identical twins once rigor mortis has set in. There will be little need for trick photography. To be safe, I will take the color photographs at dawn and be reprimanded for my sloppiness.”

  Dal nodded. “You are committed to the cause.”

  “Without question.”

  “Good.”

  “Yet might I say something, comrade?”

  “What is it?”

  “About your acting . . . while Sascha strangled you . . . how you grabbed your throat and gasped for breath.”

  “Impressed?”

  “It seemed a bit of an exaggeration.”

  “Nonsense. You have never performed Shakespeare.”

  “I’m not an actor.”

  “Well . . . Shakespeare speaks to me of tragedy. To be convincing, tragedy must be larger than life. It must be of epic proportion, as though reaching out to the audience and plucking the life breath from their souls. Had I not overacted as you seem to suggest, and let the anarchist Sascha Boyd have his way with me, the people of Mersk would fail to remember that it was I, Colonel Grigori Dal, who was first assaulted by the hands of an angry student.”

  “Forgive me, comrade.”

  “Ah, no apologies are necessary. Do what you must do to the cadaver. Then take your photographs.”

  Everything was coming together. The Czech police had been bribed. Agents were prepared to take custody of the American prisoner-of-war. And soon funds would be transferred to Dal’s anonymous Swiss Bank account. In five years, he intended to retire from the KGB and move his family to a villa along the green banks of the Volga River. He longed to eat good food and drink fine wine and spend his best years pursuing that elusive acting career.

  Dal breathed a sigh of relief. He had a corpse and complete faith in the sergeant’s photographic skills. He was one step closer to the good life on the Volga.

  Who could stop him now?

  Second Act: Conformity

  COOPERATION IS PEACE

  The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

  ROLLO MAY

  When Milan Husak told his colleagues that he planned to keep working regardless of the invaders, he meant it. “I don’t care how many guns the Russians point at me, I’m moving forward with our plans for a clinic in Mersk.”

  The invasion had entered its sixth day and Milan had spent every one of those days at the hospital, lending a hand as injured citizens swarmed the emergency room. On Monday morning he drove south.

  He left his modest concrete apartment building shortly before sunrise, hoping to pass through the layers of Soviet checkpoints without an altercation. As a representative of the ministry, he had special access to the roads during the city’s curfew hours and intended to take advantage of this privilege, regardless of the tanks, the soldiers, and the machine gun nests positioned at key intersections across town.

  He drove past a fire department, a grocery store, and a bank. He turned right at an avenue swarming with soldiers and sped toward the highway. There were only a handful of civilian vehicles on the roads at this early hour of the morning. The city streets, he began to notice, were patrolled in all directions by Soviet jeeps and armored vehicles. Little Nazis, he thought. They would not intimidate him. However his status as a low-level director at the ministry meant little to the Russians. They had randomly stopped him, demanding to know what he was up to, where he was going, and why his business was so urgent that it could not wait for the curfew hours to end. Yesterday, while driving to the hospital, soldiers had pulled him from his car at gunpoint to inspect the trunk for weapons, slamming him against the hood and putting a pistol to his head. Counter-revolutionary, they yelled, confess your crimes! The soldiers were only joking and afterward offered him a sip of vodka; but Milan was pissed.

  When he reached the wooden barricades near the warehouses, he frowned at the Russian soldier who approached his Škoda sedan, unsure what to expect.

  “There’s a curfew,” the soldier said, leaning into the window. “Don’t you know?”

  Milan found his identity card and handed it over. “I’m with the Ministry of Health.”

  “Is that supposed to impress me?”

  “It means I have permission to be out during curfew. It’s all right there. Have a peek.”

  “Yet another Czech with an excuse to defy the curfew.” The soldier spoke as though addressing a criminal.

  “Look here,” Milan said, pushing the round spectacles up on his nose. “I’m late for an important meeting with one of your officers. He won’t like that I’ve been unnecessarily delayed.”

  The Russian gave a perfunctory scan of the medical journals and files in the back seat, then studied Milan’s identification. “I don’t like this. Not at all.”

  “Problem?”

  “The photo doesn’t look like you.”

  The photo ID showed Milan with a clean-shaven face, rather than today’s goatee and peppered gray hair. “It’s me,” he said, noticing his hairline at forty-seven-years-old had begun to recede.

  “Maybe so.”

  “Can’t I just enter the highway? Be on my way?”

  “No. I need approval.”

  Milan glanced at his watch while the soldier huddled with an officer near a military motorbike. In the Soviet system, everything flowed through a commander. Soldiers at the
bottom of the ranks were trained to get approval before acting on their own initiative. Milan remembered a conversation he’d had a while back with a friend who claimed to have the secret to defeating the Red Army. Just shoot the tank commanders. It’s that simple. Shoot them. The tanks will drive in circles.

  A few minutes later, the soldier came back to the Škoda and retuned Milan’s identification card. “It’s your lucky day, doctor.”

  “Oh, how so?”

  “You could be held for questioning.”

  “Questioning?” Milan snickered. “What the hell?”

  “Instead we have decided to let you proceed for the sake of the public health.”

  “That’s generous,” Milan said, thinking: jerk.

  “Cooperation is all we ask.”

  “Then give my regards to Comrade Brezhnev . . .”

  Milan rolled up his window and drove onto the highway. With journals and hospital paperwork stacked on the passenger seats, a box of medical files in the footwell, and pens and miscellaneous receipts crammed into the glove compartment, his dinged up 1952 Škoda functioned much like a second office. He loved this black car. It cost little to maintain and rarely broke down. Its chrome grill, which gleamed in the sun, reminded him of an open shark’s mouth. The Škoda was the perfect vehicle for a Czech on the go.

  Like him.

  Always on the go these days.

  Working nonstop to establish a network of clinics in rural Bohemia.

  He had spent the last few months sequestered in cramped rooms with public health committees and local organizations, trying to cut through the bureaucratic language and red tape that impeded clinicians. Progress was slow, but he had already laid the framework for the construction of several clinics. Mersk was one of eight communities on his list.

  Farther along the highway, a farmer stood near the flipped open hood of a 1940s Praga farm truck, a wrench in his hand. The truck was painted green and had wood slats along the bed. Had there been time, Milan would have stopped and offered some help. As he passed the truck, the farmer tipped his hat and Milan threw a friendly hand.

  Like all Czechs, the farmer carried on with his life in spite of the occupying armies. Even in defeat, the people remained proud. They would stomach the invaders. Throw rocks at them. Hurl Molotovs at their tanks. Then each night, after climbing into bed, they prayed the disputing governments would reach an agreement and the foreign armies withdraw.

  He drove with a sense of déjà vu. That farmer. His hunter’s hat with a jaybird feather. He reminded him of someone. Who?

  THE LIBRARY SHELVES were lined with books: history, literature, poetry, essays and almanacs dating back to the 17th century. Translations in Russian screamed out to Dal. With its glass bookcases, the room reminded him of the rare book room at the university in Moscow, where he had spent many nights reading original manuscripts by Anton Chekhov and Aleksandr Kuprin.

  Dal sat broodingly at an executive desk made of oak. He was skimming Milan’s credentials, the wall of books behind him, a window and a row of file cabinets to his right. Aside from outlining his outstanding career at the ministry, the paperwork shed light on his Communist Party membership and his distinguished military record.

  “I’m impressed by your soldier years,” Dal said in a cryptic tone, easing himself back in the chair. “Hitler must have put a Kaiser-size bounty on you.”

  “We made things uncomfortable for his troops,” Milan admitted.

  “You fought with the Czech resistance?”

  “The Council of the Three.”

  “Ah, an impressive group. You must feel at home here in Bohemia, with the peasantry?”

  “I’m envious of them.”

  “Envious?”

  “They’re the heart of the country.”

  Dal flicked the ashes of his cigarette in the nearby ashtray. “Heart? I wonder how many of them support the political problems caused by Dubček and his ill-advised comrades?”

  “The politicking and factional tussles at the Castle bore me to no end.”

  “But you are a communist, no?”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  Dal smiled ruefully. Physicians sworn to their profession, not the Party, irritated him. He traced his finger on the paperwork. “You have been assigned to this district to work with children, is that correct?”

  “Yes. The ministry is putting in a new clinic,” Milan said. “Right here in Mersk.”

  “Oh?”

  “At the abandoned police station.”

  “I see. Tell me more.”

  “The building reeks of mildew and its electrical system is shot to hell. But there is good news. Thanks to the mayor, the town council recently approved some needed renovations. The building has been gutted and two patient rooms have already been constructed.”

  This all sounded good on the surface. Crime was mostly nonexistent in Mersk. People looked out for each other. Hence there was no need for the police. The old station, once home to drunks and petty thieves, had been closed due to the population decline of the 1950s. All the same, the last thing Dal wanted was a representative of the ministry──even a doctor turned health administrator──setting up office within earshot of the villa.

  Dal asked, “Who made this decision?”

  “Minister Precan.”

  Dal glanced to his sergeant with questioning eyes. “This is news to me,” Gurko admitted. “The official report from the Lubyanka mentioned nothing of a clinic.”

  “A fire in Kamenny destroyed the building we originally planned to occupy,” Milan explained. “We decided to relocate to another town rather than rebuild the clinic. Mersk was always our second choice. I’ll only be here for a couple of months. Long enough to establish the clinic. A small team of caregivers will eventually replace me once the clinic is fully operational.”

  Dal spent several minutes interrogating him, asking questions about the ministry and his associations. “Does the minister support stronger ties with Moscow? Do you stand with President Svoboda? What do you think of Alexander Dubček’s progressive policies?”

  Milan’s answers were benign, mumblings of, “I’m not sure,” and “I suppose,” and “They seem encouraging.” He would not elaborate.

  “The ship has been steered off course. You might want to pay attention. It affects everyone. Even you.” Dal examined the physician with caution.

  “Any further questions?”

  “For the time being, no,” Dal said disarmingly. He had seen Dr. Husak’s type in hospitals across Eastern Europe. He reeked of self-protection. While he was devoted to health care policy, and quite possibly the hardest working doctor in the country, he avoided making political statements, in particular choosing sides on divisive issues. This was not surprising. Likely he feared being ostracized by his bosses or being reported on by a colleague. Did he want to blend in with the system and stay out of the limelight? Perhaps. However something struck Dal as unusual. Unlike most veterans he had met over the years, Milan spoke humbly of his war hero label and showed no interest in reliving the glory days. Dal found this peculiar. Veterans typically wore their merits with pride. Not Milan Husak. He shunned the accolades and praise for his heroics combating the Nazis. Any mention of the fighting tightened his lips. He was hiding something──maybe a past pain, a war horror.

  “I have instituted Martial Law in Mersk,” Dal went on, signing paperwork that allowed Milan access to Zdenek Seifert. “A bold move, I admit. Be that as it may, I support dialogue with the citizens, not confrontation. I am not against these people, you see. My plan is to maintain order. Your plan, turning the streets into a destination spot for the weary and sick, is not something that appeals to me. Is it possible to delay the clinic’s opening, say, for a few weeks?”

  “No,” Milan said. “It’s important we move forward as planned. Each passing day is another day a child goes without care. Over the years, the folks have had various excuses to stay away from the hospitals in the cities. This is unfortunate, consider
ing there is no shortage of physicians to care for them.”

  “It does not concern me.”

  “I’m sure you’ll agree. The people need this clinic.”

  “To me, it is an issue of timing. That is all.”

  “I’m certain Minister Pre─”

  “Minister Precan is a questionable communist,” Dal barked. “What does the misguided minister know? He has nothing in common with socialism. He is a political corpse, nothing more.”

  “I take my orders from him,” Milan replied.

  Minister Klaus Precan’s political career, and the careers of other progressives in the government halls, were numbered. Within weeks, administrators loyal to the class struggle would be running the country, taking over for those who sought to soften government policies. “You appear to be biting off more than you can chew,” Dal said, visible frustration rising in the lines of his face. “I must ask you. Keep matters low key at your clinic. These are precarious times in Czechoslovakia.”

  Dal stood. As a precaution, he asked the physician to limit his visits with Zdenek Seifert to thirty minutes before heading downstairs to conduct the business of the day. There was much work to be done. He had already locked the doors to the town hall and disbanded the citizen committee. Soon he would replace members with pro-Moscow sympathizers.

  He sat at the reception desk and found his cigarettes. He wanted to prevent the doctor from opening the clinic; however rattling the ministry’s attention was risky. They might send someone to investigate. He did not need Czech officials probing into his affairs.

  The front door opened. “An irate farmer from Ceske Krumlov has arrived,” Potapov said, stepping into the foyer. “He insists on speaking with you.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He claims soldiers have stolen produce from his truck.”

  “Things like this happen during war.”

  “He demands justice, compensation to pay for the lost goods.”