Birkenfeld ground his teeth in frustration. He had to get to Tanya’s apartment fast but he didn’t have the damned motorcycle. And it was too dangerous to return to his apartment. But the good news was that there was a ship out tonight. He’d checked the papers. The Vera Cruz, with a cargo of farm equipment, was sailing for Valparaiso, Chili, at 11:00 and he’d managed to book passage for two. The agent had demanded cash. Five thousand American. Each. That would be no problem. Neat packages of fifty dollar bills lay under a false bottom of the briefcase that Schmidt had just handed over.
Hurry.
The Embassy phone call Schmidt had referred to was on an open line, so Kiramatsu, one of his operatives, had to be cryptic. As Birkenfeld nodded in shocked silence, Kiramatsu relayed that the Tokubetsu Koto Kaisatu Bu (Tokko--civilian secret police) had come within a hair’s breadth of arresting Major Abe, his mole on the Japanese General Staff. In panic, Abe had left Tokyo on a flight for Manchuria, returning to the relative safety of the amorphous Kwangtung Army. God only knew, Birkenfeld had learned, one could get lost in that organization, a political entity all of its own.
In a near-screech, Kiramatsu added that he’d just learned the Tokko’s monitors were standing by on Birkenfeld’s frequencies, ready to triangulate. Then Kiramatsu said he was headed for the country and rang off abruptly. His warning was clear. Stop Tanya before she tapped out her six o’clock broadcast to Moscow.
Roast goose. He wondered if he and Tanya would ever enjoy roast goose again. Maybe on the Vera Cruz after she cleared port.
Birkenfeld rounded a corner, seeing Tanya's apartment building halfway down the block. Here, in the middle of Tokyo, the sidewalk narrowed, forcing the people into a crush. His height saved him from being one of them; like one of a million-billion salmon charging up the river, fighting the rapids, crashing onto rocks, being thrust back only to try again madly; flapping its tail, pumping its gills, and gasping for oxygen. Only to return to—
Someone rabbit-chopped Birkenfeld in the back of the neck. The next thing he knew, he'd been shoved face-down on a car's floor--it smelled like a mixture of grease and American chewing gum. The car was a big one; a four-door sedan Birkenfeld sensed as he wheezed and struggled. But, comically, his long legs still stuck out the door and people had to walk around them. Someone's knee dropped into his back, muttering in Japanese, smelling of garlic. Birkenfeld renewed his efforts and with a loud groan, raised his two-hundred twenty-five pound bulk off the floor. Just then another pair of knees crashed onto his shoulders. Through a crook in the man's leg (this one wore white trousers) Birkenfeld saw the crowd push past, not missing a step, moving silently on, unfazed, eyes straight ahead, not daring to leave the impression the scene was at all observed.
With a mighty gasp, Birkenfeld again rose to his elbows and began rolling over.
"Chikusho!" growled one of the men. Something smashed into Birkenfeld's temple and his head thumped to the floor.
Then something else was shoved over his nose and mouth, a rag. It was damp and—
--chloroform!
Even without breathing, Birkenfeld felt the brittle tendrils biting into his nasal passages, his lungs.
In panic, he beat his feet on the sidewalk. Someone tried to slam the door on his long legs but only succeeded in bashing his ankles in the door jamb. He gurgled and struggled and again beat his toes on the sidewalk in a macabre tattoo while the faceless crowd pushed past--like salmon.
And when his head felt like it burst, Birkenfeld heaved a frantic breath...
PART ONE
Let a man once overcome his selfish terror
at his own finitude, and his finitude is,
in one sense, overcome.
The Ethics of Spinoza
George Santayana
* * *
I am willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, if you fellows will concede to me that each of us has a familiar devil as well.
Lord Jim
Joseph Conrad
CHAPTER ONE
11 August, 1942
Thirty Miles West of
San Francisco, California
Steaming in ponderous circles on the windless night, she slogged through dark swells five miles west of the Farallon Islands. Her running lights were off; the moon was down, as nervously, she waited for her Coast Guard escort to lead her through the minefield into San Francisco Bay. After a sixteen-day, 4,570-mile trek from Vladivostok, the freighter was tired and nearly out of fuel-oil to feed her ancient boiler. Without cargo she was top-heavy, rolling awkwardly in the swells, her crew cursing and holding on, as she creaked from side to side.
Displacing 6,908 tons, the ship was built in Schiedam, Holland in 1921. Cyrillic letters spelled Dzhurma on her curved transom from which drooped the red and gold ensign of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, a neutral to the Pacific War. Lazy wisps of smoke meandered from a narrow stack on her midships superstructure high above pale-yellow decks. Long, reddish-brown streaks ran down her gray superstructure, trickled across her decks and finished the trip to her faded white boot-topping on the waterline. Countless storms had dished in her hull plates, making the Dzhurma look every bit of her twenty-one years, almost as if she were a stooped, old woman hobbling down the hall, a hand braced on her hip.
She hailed from a large fleet of prison ships whose holds were stuffed with thousands of pitiful wretches who had survived Stalin’s execution squads. Instead of dying, their greater misfortune was to be shipped by rail to Vladivostok, then boarded on the Dzhurma or one of her sisters, for a hellish trip through the Bering Straits to Ambarchi at the mouth of the Kolyma and on to the gulags above the Arctic circle.
Nevastroi, Indigirka, Dalstroi, Dneprostroi, Nikolai, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Igarka, Kulu, and Sovlatvia: Each of the ship’s names was a death sentence. Among them, they averaged five thousand prisoners per shipment with the Dzhurma, Dalstroi, and Sovlatvia acknowledged as the core of the slave fleet.
The stench of misery, perspiration and excrement and death lingered among the ships, but the Dzhurma’s odor was unusually fetid. It was most noticeable on those warm evenings when a soft wind glazed her quarter, the ship steaming in her own stagnant air. Even so, her crew, un-rotated for three years, grew accustomed to the rank smell, impossible to wash away or eradicate with chemicals.
On this trip there were no prisoners, only a crew of twenty. In the pilot house, her skipper, Kapitan Vtorovo Ranga--captain Second Rank, Michael Fedotov, braced himself against the roll, wearing a stained navy-surplus pea coat. He was stocky, with virtually no neck, bald, a Van Dyke beard, and the largest and blackest eyes east of the Urals. With Fedotov was the ship’s First Officer, and three enlisted watch-standers gulping the last of their ersatz coffee. Five others stood watch in the engine room, with the rest of the crew lying in their bunks, some listening to a San Francisco jazz station, others pretending to sleep. But with the ship’s motion and the visage of a Japanese submarine firing a torpedo into the engine room, one could only look at the rusted overhead and hope for a quick rendezvous with the American escort or a quick death in the cold Pacific.
The bridge intercom buzzed and Fedotov reached for the handset. After three low grunts, the Dzhurma’s skipper hung up and trudged to the hatchway. Eduard Dezhnev stood on the port bridge wing, binoculars to his eyes, scanning the ocean, his body rigid with concentration as if expecting to find an entire fleet lurking behind the Farallon Islands. At five eleven, Dezhnev had dark red hair combed straight back, and was fair complected with a medium build. His chest and arms, although not prominent, were well defined, conveying a sense of power and alacrity when he moved. It was difficult to disguise a limp, and most of the time his left foot twisted out when he walked. It was prosthesis, Fedotov knew; Dezhnev, commander of a patrol boat, had lost his left leg in a skirmish with German E-boats last winter in the Gulf of Riga.
Fedotov had orders to treat Dezhnev like a VIP. After all, the man was a Starshiy-Leytenant in the Voyenno Morskoy Flotilla
senior lieutenant in the Soviet Navy. But the man kept to himself and Fedotov knew little of him, except for the Gulf of Riga business. But fighting boredom, Dezhnev had volunteered for everything during the tedious voyage from Vladivostok, practically becoming a member of the crew. For the past three hours, he’d been port lookout, this time filling in for able-body seaman Lodoga, ill in his bunk after drinking home-made brew.
“Dezhnev.”
Dezhnev, wearing a black turtleneck sweater, pea coat and dark work trousers, walked over and leaned in the pilot house hatchway. “Yes, Sir?”
Fedotov nodded to the phone. “Zenit wants to know why you aren’t in the wardroom.”
“Had to stand a watch, Sir.” During the voyage, Dezhnev had more than subtlety demonstrated contempt for Sergei Zenit. Even though he tried to avoid him there were times when he actually had to snub the man to stay out of his path. For Zenit was the ship’s zampolit or political officer: A politician who wore the naval uniform and stood first in line to suck up the glory. Zampolits were not regular Navy. They were NKVD -- Nardonyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del -- state security police, who hid behind their rank when the going grew difficult. Zenit had no idea what made a ship run, was of no use while underway, and openly defied the Captain by refusing to stand watches of any kind.
The ship slowly circled, letting a small breeze catch up to sweep across the fantail bringing once again, the strange sweet-foul odor.
Fedotov said, “Go on down. I’ll fill in until your relief comes.”
Dezhnev stood rooted, his eyes burning.
The air was moist for this time of year. Fedotov sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
A curtain seemed to rise above Dezhnev’s face. “Thank you, Sir. No sign of the American escort yet.” He handed his binoculars to Fedotov and headed for a companionway.
“Eduard.”
Dezhnev turned. “Captain?”
“Go easy on the man.”
“Yes sir.” Dezhnev hobbled down a ladder, his cane clattering on the steps.
The wardroom was on the main deck and was perhaps five by ten meters, with a long table running athwart ships. On the starboard side, a serving buffet stood against the aft bulkhead, where a pass-through window gave way to a small galley just aft. Two tattered couches, a chipped metal game table, and folding chairs were scattered about the port side. Dezhnev walked in, finding Zenit seated alone, wearing the coat of a Kapitan tret’yevo ranga--captain Third Rank, one grade senior to him. He had dark curly hair, was much taller than Dezhnev and a bit on the heavy side, at least as much as a Soviet diet would allow. Zenit’s nose was long and drew to a fine point, as if carved by a wood whittler. His eyes, a blue-grey, were close together, and he wore a thin moustache above a protruding upper lip. As the Dzhurma’s Zampolit, Zenit was charged with the cultural, moral, and political development of the Dzhurma’s officers and crew. But Dezhnev knew that half of Zenit’s time was spent collecting the crew’s mandatory contribution to the Merchant Seaman’s Retirement Fund, then raking ten percent off the top. It was a way of life in the Navy and the grumbling crew eventually gave in lest they end up on the beach, rifle in hand, marching off to fight German tanks.
After too many peppermint schnapps one night, Fedotov told Dezhnev the San Francisco trip presented new challenges to Captain Third Rank Sergei Zenit. After a layover for much-needed repairs to the Dzhurma’s boiler, she was due to take aboard a yet-to-be specified cargo financed by lend-lease dollars, courtesy of the American Congress. Then she would sail for Vladivostok. Except...
...the Americans didn’t know she would stop first in Yokohama, Japan, where Zenit would sell much of her cargo to the Imperial Japanese Army. Zenit was counting on another shipment of penicillin, the wonder drug now mass-produced by the Americans that cured everything from gangrene to gonorrhea. Fedotov knew Zenit would demand that his Japanese broker pay in gold bullion. Next, Zenit would rake off another twenty percent, kicking back ten to the Japanese broker and keeping the other ten. The rest of the proceeds would go to the NKVD. All in gold bullion, of course.
Zenit leafed through a file as Dezhnev sat, propping his cane against the table.
“You’re fifteen minutes late.” Zenit withdrew a flimsy from the folder; it looked like a radio message.
“I was standing watch.”
“Sir.” Zenit gave him a cold stare expecting a reply.
“Sir.”
“Yes.” Then Zenit returned to his folder.
The ship careened on a swell to port. Dezhnev caught the cane just as it threatened to spin away. After securing it, he tried again. “Fedotov is filling in for me.”
Zenit folded his hands and looked around the wardroom before focusing on Dezhnev. “Well, now. How do you like our part of the Navy?”
“To tell you honestly, this ship stinks.”
“Of course. Did you ever wonder why, Comrade?”
“Actually, yes.” What the hell is this?
Leaning forward, Zenit drew a deep breath and said, “Three years ago we boarded a load of prisoners in Vladivostok, cleared the Bering Straits, and sailed into the Arctic. But it was late Autumn and we’d had a boiler breakdown. We were two and a half weeks getting underway, you see.”
Dezhnev scratched his head wondering why Zenit was telling him this.
Looking into space, Zenit continued, “Winter came early, and we were trapped in the ice-pack near Wrangle Island. We carried only 2,000 people on that trip--all of them criminals of some sort; murderers, rapists, thieves, and political malcontents, you see. They were in the forward hold.”
Dezhnev closed his eyes momentarily trying to visualize what it would be like living with 2,000 souls in a stinking, cramped hold.
“After four weeks in the ice, a fire broke out. The prisoners,” Zenit lit a cigarette, took a long puff and exhaled, “well, with this fire they rioted, you see. We had to hose them down and keep them battened in the hold. But we couldn’t control the fire.” He leaned forward and speared Dezhnev with his eyes. “The water boiled and they were roasted alive.”
Dezhnev gasped, “All of them?”
“Every last one. I...I still hear their screams in my sleep.
“Then...then, it was sixteen weeks until the icebreaker reached us. Only the crew remained. Thirty-five in all. Thirty-three actually. Two committed suicide, you see.”
An emptiness swept over Dezhnev.
“That is why the ship stinks, Comrade.” After a pause Zenit asked, “Does anything else bother you? Perhaps you would like a tour of the forward cargo hold?”
Dezhnev tried to comprehend what sort of men crewed the Dzhurma. Living with constant death and human misery, he wondered how they maintained their sanity. Or did they?
Suddenly, the ship's motion changed to a deliberate rolling. Both could tell she now steamed on a straight course. “On to San Francisco,” Dezhnev said.
Zenit stared at Dezhnev for a moment, then let his eyes fall to a folder on the table. “This says you commanded a torpedo boat and, hmmm,” he made a show of flipping pages, “and you shot it out with two German E-Boats in the Gulf of Riga, sinking at least one.”
“Yes.”
“But then you lost your boat?” It sounded like an accusation.
It was his file. All the fool had to do was read on. “Yes.”
“And your crew was lost, too?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Zenit snapped. He wanted another ‘Sir.’
“A direct hit, Sir. I remember nothing except being fished from the water.”
“And your leg?”
Dezhnev raised his left leg and thumped it twice on the deck. “That, too. Just below the knee. Sacrificed for the glory of the Rodina.”
Zenit didn’t miss a beat. “Yes, an artificial leg. Made in Britain I understand. Mmmm. Very privileged. Let’s you get around very well. Does it still hurt?” His eyes sparkled.
It hurt like hell, especially in this damp weather. And it still wasn�
��t fully mended. But Dezhnev wasn’t about to say anything. “What is it you want, Comrade?”
Zenit wasn’t ready, yet. “And you carry the Order of Lenin?”
“They gave that to me, yes.”
“Hmmmm. And your mission now?
“I’ll be leaving the ship...”
“Yes?”
“...to be assigned as assistant Naval attaché to the San Francisco consulate.”
“Doing what?”
Dezhnev shrugged. “What all Naval attachés do. Discovering the latest in your host’s tactics and technologies.”
“Come now. Doesn’t Beria have something else in mind for you? Your English, for example, is perfect. Aren’t you Bioko trained?”
Dezhnev sat back. Zenit tread on dangerous ground, invoking the name of Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, NKVD Commissar, one of the most powerful men in the Soviet Union and second only to Premier Josef Stalin. Also, he had referred to Bykovo, a school for spies sixty kilometers north of Moscow, established by Beria in 1938. It was a large camp of gifted youths in their late teens to mid-twenties, from pianists to athletes, where they were Americanized, learning everything from baseball to what’s up, doc? Dezhnev had spent six months there, training and recouping from his leg wound.
With the slightest of smiles, Zenit prodded further. “An actor in peacetime?”
Now the fool was showing off. Dezhnev picked up his cane and tapped it on the deck.
Zenit reached to a chair beside him and produced a thick packet of papers. “Your assignment has changed, comrade.” He Tossed the packet before Dezhnev. “And I am to be your control. You will find the authorization in there.”
A cold sickness grew deep in Dezhnev’s stomach. He picked up the papers finding a long transmittal. It was signed by Beria. “I see nothing here about you being my control.”
A CODE FOR TOMORROW: A Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 2) Page 2