Snow Wolf

by Glenn Meade

  “The doctor asked me a question this morning. He asked if I regretted killing the men. The camp officer and the guard at the border.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I said that I could feel for their wives and children, if they had any. But I didn’t regret killing them. I wanted to escape. What was done to me was wrong. I remember Ivan telling me something once, something he had read. That those to whom evil is done, do evil in return. I only returned the evil that was done to me. It was me or them.”

  “Then I guess that answers it.”

  • • •

  As Massey and Anna sat in the interview room in the city police station, the two Russians in civilian suits stepped in past the policeman who opened the door.

  The older of the two was in his early forties and looked like a powerhouse of energy, tall and broad, his muscled body straining under his suit. A pair of icy blue eyes were set in a brutal-looking face that was pockmarked with acne scars, and part of the man’s left ear was missing. He carried a briefcase and curtly introduced himself as Nikita Romulka, a senior official from Moscow.

  The second Russian, a young embassy aide, sat beside him and handed him a file.

  Romulka flicked it open and said, “You are Anna Khorev.” He barely looked at her as he spoke.

  Massey nodded to Anna and she answered, “Yes.”

  When the man looked up he stared at her. “Under the terms of the Soviet-Finnish Protocol I am here to offer you a chance to redeem yourself by facing the serious crimes you have committed on Soviet soil. I am authorized to inform you that should you return to Moscow, your entire case will be reviewed and resubmitted for trial. You will be accorded the utmost leniency that is due to every Soviet citizen. Do you understand me?”

  Anna hesitated, and before she could reply, Massey said in fluent Russian, “Let’s cut out all the formal bull, Romulka. What exactly are you saying?”

  The cold eyes stared over at Massey, and Romulka’s voice was full of scorn. “The question was addressed to the woman, not you.”

  “Then make it simple so she understands the situation perfectly.”

  Romulka glared at Massey, then smiled and sat back. “Basically this: If she agrees to return to Moscow there will be a retrial for her past deeds. If the courts decide she was harshly treated or wrongly accused, then her recent crimes, shooting the border guards and escaping from a prison camp, will be judged in that light. Can I put it any simpler, even for an obviously simple man such as yourself?”

  Massey ignored the remark and looked at Anna. “What do you say, Anna?”

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  Romulka said firmly, “Diplomatic efforts will be made to ensure you do. But I’m giving you the opportunity to return of your own free will and have your case reviewed. If I were you I would give such a proposal serious thought.”

  “I told you. I don’t want to go back. I was imprisoned for no wrong. I committed no crime before I was sent to the Gulag. And it’s not I who ought to be tried, but the people who sent me to a prison camp.”

  Romulka’s face suddenly twisted in anger. “Listen to me, you stupid fool. Imagine how unpleasant we could make things for your child. Come back and face the courts, and you may see her again. Don’t, and I swear to you the rest of her life in that orphanage could be made very unpleasant indeed. Do you understand me?”

  Massey tried hard to control the urge to hit the man, and then he saw the emotion welling in Anna’s eyes, the pain growing on her face until she seemed to snap, all the anguish suddenly flooding out. She lunged across the table and her nails dug into Romulka’s face, drawing blood.

  “No! You won’t hurt my daughter like that. You won’t!”

  As Massey fought to restrain her, Romulka went to grab her hair. “You stupid woman!”

  Massey and the aide stepped in between them before the policeman appeared at the door. Massey quickly ushered Anna from the room and shut the door behind her, returning to face the Russian.

  As Romulka removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed blood from his face, he glared at Massey. “You haven’t heard the last of this! Your embassy will learn of this outrage!”

  Massey stared angrily at the Russian. “Tell who you like, you piece of garbage. But she’s made her decision, and we’ll make ours.” Massey jabbed a finger hard in Romulka’s chest. “Now get the heck out of here before I hit you myself.”

  For a moment it seemed as if Romulka would rise to the threat as he glared back at Massey, rage in his eyes, but suddenly he snapped up his briefcase and stormed out of the room.

  Romulka’s aide lit a cigarette and looked over at Massey. “Not a very sensible thing the woman just did, considering our embassy will most likely succeed in getting her back. And besides, Romulka is a dangerous man to cross.”

  “So am I, buddy.”

  • • •

  Massey arrived at the hospital that evening, and they walked down to the lake. They sat on one of the benches, and Anna said, “What I did today didn’t help, did it? Has your ambassador decided what’s going to happen to me?” She looked at Massey uncertainly, but he smiled.

  “After he heard about Romulka’s threat he agreed to grant you asylum. We’re going to help you start a new life in America, Anna. Give you a new identity and help you settle down and find a job. You won’t be given citizenship right away, but that’s normal in cases like yours. You’ll have to be a resident for five years, just like any other legal immigrant. But if you don’t break the law or do anything crazy, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Massey saw her close her eyes, then open them again slowly. There was a look of relief on her face.

  “Thank you.”

  Massey smiled. “Don’t thank me, thank the ambassador. Or maybe you should thank Romulka. Tomorrow you’ll be flown to Germany. There you’ll be filled in on the arrangements that are being made to help you. After that you’ll be flown to the United States. Where to, I don’t know. That kind of detail isn’t up to me.”

  For a long time Anna Khorev said nothing. She looked out at the frozen lake. Finally she said, “Do you think I’ll be happy in America?”

  Massey saw the sudden fear in her face, as if it was only now she realized the enormity of what had happened and the uncertainty that lay ahead.

  “It’s a good country to make a fresh start in. You’ve been badly hurt and your emotions are in turmoil. You don’t know what the future holds for you, and your past is a painful memory. Right now you’re living in a kind of twilight zone. You’ll probably feel confused and lost for a long time. You’ll be in a new country with no friends. But you’re going to heal with time, I know you will. That’s about it. Except for the bad news. And that is we’ll probably never meet again. But I wish you happiness, Anna.”

  “You know something, Massey?”

  “What?”

  “If things were different, I would have liked to see you again. Just to talk. To be friends. I think you’re one of the nicest men I’ve ever met.”

  Massey smiled. “Thanks for the compliment. But I guess you haven’t known many men, Anna. I’m just an ordinary guy, believe me.”

  “Will you come to say goodbye at the airport?”

  “Sure, if you like.” He looked down at her and some instinct made him touch her shoulder gently. “You’ll be okay. I know you will. Time will heal your heart.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  Massey smiled. “Trust me.”

  • • •

  There was a patina of snow on the ground as Massey and the two men walked with her to the aircraft. The Finnish Constellation was waiting on the apron, and the passengers were already boarding.

  Massey hesitated at the foot of the metal steps. He offered her his hand, and she kissed him on the cheek.

  “So long, Anna. Take care of yourself.”

  “I hope I see you again, Massey.”

  She was looking at his face as she boarded, and he tho
ught he saw tears. He knew he had been the first real emotional contact Anna had made in the last six months, and he guessed he left an impression. He knew it would have been the same with most people who escaped over the Soviet border. Frightened and alone, they grasped the first kind hand offered to them.

  Massey also knew that no matter what his intuition told him, he could have been wrong about Anna and the Finnish SUPO officer who doubted her story could have been right; only time would tell.

  It was five minutes later when he stood in the Departures lounge and watched as the Constellation trundled down the runway before being finally sucked up into the Baltic twilight, its flashing lights sending an eerie glow out into the surrounding cloud. Massey looked at the empty sky for a few moments before he said softly, “Do svidaniya.”

  As he pulled up his coat collar and walked back toward the exit, he was too preoccupied to notice the dark-haired young man lounging by the newspaper stand, watching the departing aircraft.

  * * *

  PART TWO

  * * *

  JANUARY 13–27, 1953

  8

  * * *

  BAVARIA, GERMANY

  JANUARY 13, 11 P.M.

  It was raining hard all over southern Germany that night, lightning flickering on the horizon, and no weather for flying.

  The airfield barracks complex in the heart of the Bavarian lake district was shrouded in low cloud and mist. No more than a runway and a collection of wooden huts that once belonged to the Luftwaffe’s crack Southern Air Command, it now housed the CIA’s Soviet Operations Division in Germany.

  As Jake Massey came out of the Nissen hut that served as the operations room, he looked at the filthy black sky, then pulled up his collar and ran across to a covered army jeep waiting in the pouring rain. A fork of lightning streaked across the darkness and as he slid into the jeep, the man sitting in the driver’s seat said, “A night for the fireside, I’d say. With pleasant company and a bottle of Scotch.”

  Massey smiled as the jeep started along a tarmac road. “You could do worse, Janne.”

  “So who have I got tonight?”

  “A couple of former Ukrainian SS men bound for Moscow, via Kiev.”

  “Charming. You always did keep the best of company, Jake.”

  “It’s either work for us or face a war crimes trial. Nasty types, both of them, part of an SS group who executed a group of women and children in Riga. But beggars like us can’t be choosers.”

  “That’s what I like about working for the CIA—you get to meet the most interesting people.”

  The man beside Massey wore a pilot’s leather flying jacket and a white silk scarf. He had a cheerful face, and although he was short and stocky his straw-blond hair was unmistakably Nordic. At thirty-one, Janne Saarinen had already seen more trouble than most men. Like some Finns after the Winter War with Russia in 1940 who viewed their country’s allegiance with Hitler’s Germany as a chance to get even with Moscow, Saarinen had thrown in his lot with the Germans but paid a price.

  His right leg had been blown off below the knee by a Russian shrapnel burst that tore into the cockpit of his Luftwaffe Messerschmitt at five thousand feet during a Baltic skirmish, and now he had to make do with a wooden contraption that passed for a leg. A piece of the Russian metal was still somewhere in the ugly mass of scar tissue where the German surgeon had sewn the stump together, but at least Saarinen was still walking, even if with a pronounced limp.

  The jeep drove down to a runway situated near a rather large lake, a collection of hangars nearby, the doors of one of them open and arc lights blazing inside. Massey climbed out of the jeep and ran in out of the rain, followed by Saarinen.

  Two men were sitting in a corner by a table, parachutes beside them, smoking cigarettes as they waited near a black-painted DC-3 aircraft with no markings. It was parked just inside the hangar, a flight of metal steps leading up into the open cargo door in the side of the fuselage.

  One of the men was in his late twenties, tall and thin, a nervous look on his anxious face, which already looked harsh despite his relative youth. The second was older, a rough-looking and heavily built specimen with red hair and a face that seemed hewn out of rock. He had an air of insolence about him and he stood up when he saw Massey enter the hangar. As he walked across the man tossed away his cigarette.

  He said to Massey in Russian, “No night for man or beast, let alone flying. Are we still going, Americanski?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  The man shrugged and quickly lit another cigarette, obviously on edge, then looked back toward his white-faced companion. “Sergei here has a bad case of the frights. From the look of him he thinks we’re doomed. And on a night like this I’m inclined to agree. If the Russian radar doesn’t help put us in an early grave, the lousy weather probably will.”

  Massey smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. You’re in good hands. Say hello to your pilot.”

  Because of regulations Massey didn’t offer the Finn’s name, and the two men shook hands briefly.

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” said the Ukrainian. He looked at Massey more seriously, a nervous grin flickering on his face. “A small point, but your pilot’s got a false leg. I just thought I’d mention it.”

  Offended, Saarinen said, “You could always try taking off without me if it bothers you. And you and your friend over there had better put out those cigarettes or none of us will be going anywhere.” He nodded over to the aircraft. “There are six thousand pounds of highly flammable fuel in those tanks. Do it, now!”

  The younger man stubbed out his cigarette the moment Saarinen barked the order, but the older Ukrainian stared at Saarinen sullenly, then grudgingly followed suit.

  “Who knows? Perhaps it might be a better way to die than taking our chances with a pilot who’s a cripple.”

  Massey saw the anger flare on Saarinen’s face and he said quickly to the Ukrainian, “That’s enough, Boris. Just remember, your life’s in this man’s hands, so be nice to him. And for your information, you’ve got the best pilot in the business. No one knows the route as well.”

  “Let’s hope so.” The Ukrainian shrugged sourly and slapped a hand on the DC-3’s fuselage, addressing Saarinen. “So, you think we’ll make it in this American crate?”

  Saarinen bit back his temper and said evenly, “It might be a lousy night for flying, but that means the Reds won’t be too anxious to put their own planes up. We should be all right. The danger point is approaching the Soviet-Czech border. After that it’s roses all the way.”

  “Then we’re in your hands, it seems.”

  The second man came over and nodded to Massey and Saarinen. Massey introduced them, and the young man said, “Something tells me I should have taken my chances with a war crimes trial.”

  “Too late now. Okay, let’s run through a final check. Papers, money. On the table.”

  The Ukrainians emptied out their pockets on the table, and Massey sifted through their belongings. “Everything looks in order. Once you get to Moscow and get yourselves organized you know what to do.”

  Both men nodded.

  “That’s it, then. Good luck to both of you.”

  The red-haired Ukrainian grunted and said to Saarinen, “If we get to Moscow. Whenever you’re ready, my little crippled friend.”

  Saarinen glared at the man and went to move toward him, but Massey gripped the Finn’s shoulder as the Ukrainian turned dismissively, and he and his companion walked toward the aircraft, parachutes over their shoulders, both of them laughing.

  “Maybe I should drop them in the wrong zone, just for the fun of it, and let the KGB do the work for me.”

  “Don’t worry, the life expectancy of those two isn’t long. They’ll be lucky if they do make it to Moscow. You ought to know—most of the agents we send in get caught in the first forty-eight hours. But it’s still a chance that’s better than a rope or a firing squad.”

  “And I have to say some of the lowlifes you use
deserve it, Jake. Right, I suppose I’d better get moving.”

  As Saarinen picked up a parachute and moved toward the stairs up to the DC-3, a jeep pulled up outside the hangar and a young man in civilian clothes climbed out and went over to Massey.

  “Message for you, sir.”

  He handed across a telegram and Massey tore it open, read the contents, then said to the man, “Carry on, Lieutenant. There’s no reply needed.”

  The man climbed back into the jeep and drove off into heavy rain as Saarinen came over.

  “Bad news? Don’t tell me, the drop’s canceled because of the weather?” He grinned. “Never mind that I’ve flown in much worse without a copilot, like tonight. With a bit of luck I might just make it to a nightclub in Munich, and those two swine on board can live on their nerves for another night.”

  Massey said, “Afraid not. And it depends on what you mean by bad news. I’ve been recalled to Washington as soon as I’ve finished this week’s parachute drops.”

  “Good for you.” Saarinen smiled. “Me, I’m taking a rest after this one, Jake. Time to throttle back and rest my wings. Some of these former SS scum you’re using are starting to get on my nerves.”

  Saarinen went up the metal stairs of the aircraft and at the top he hauled in the steps.

  “Wish me luck.”

  “Break a leg.”

  • • •

  It was almost nine when Jake Massey drove down to the lake and lit a cigarette as he stared out at the choppy water in the drizzling rain. He wondered about the signal from Washington and why they wanted him home.

  As he switched off the engine he heard the faint blast of a foghorn out on the water, glanced up, and saw the distant lights of a boat moving in the cold darkness near the far shore.

  That sound always reminded him, and for a moment he sat and closed his eyes.

  It was a long ago winter’s evening like this when he had first seen the lights of America as a child.

  • • •

  He was only seven years of age, but Jakob Masensky still remembered the body smells and the babble of strange voices on Ellis Island. Ukrainians, Balts, Russians mixed with Irish and Italians and Spanish and Germans: all hoping to start a new life in the promise of the New World.