Edge of Valor

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

“Todd?” Helen asked.

  Ingram said, “You see, I used to have these nightmares too. I was on Corregidor with Helen. That’s where we met. And I saw those poor chopped-up people, some bound to their stretchers in the main tunnel when artillery shells blasted at the entrance, sending dust and smoke all the way through. Some of those guys were so covered with dirt you couldn’t tell if they were alive. And they . . .”

  “Shhh, baby,” said Helen.

  He turned to her, “Why am I saying all this?”

  Raduga said, “I’m not surprised. So many are in the same situation. And neither of you is a coward. It’s just that humans can only take so much.”

  Ingram tried to stop himself but couldn’t. “And then Guadalcanal. We stood toe-to-toe with the Japs. We tangled with a Jap battleship. You know what the inside of a 5-inch mount looks like after a 14-inch round goes through it? You’re lucky if you find a jawbone or a bent belt buckle. The rest of the mount looks like hamburger all stuck to machinery. Twelve guys snuffed out,” he snapped his fingers, “just like that, to say nothing of the ship on fire and the upper decks littered with dead and dying. Broken men with scalded faces crying for their mothers . . .”

  Helen leaned into him. “Todd, honey.”

  He turned to her. “Did you know Ollie saved my life more than once?”

  “You sort of implied it.”

  “We hated him on Corregidor. He got scared during a Jap air attack and froze up when his shipmates were in trouble. Two of my men died. Not really his fault, but it looked like it. Maybe he could have done something, maybe not. But everybody wanted to kill him, and he let them feel that way. They literally threw him off the dock and into the 51 boat when we shoved off from Caballo. Everybody ignored him, even me.

  “But then I got chickenitis too. There were a couple of times when I froze. Once on Marinduque and once when we rescued you. I froze at the trigger. But Ollie was right there backing me up, killing people who were trying to kill me. He saved my life more than once because I became a coward. I really shouldn’t be here.”

  “I . . . didn’t know that.”

  He took a deep breath and looked squarely at Raduga. “This is the first time I’ve talked about this. And I really didn’t mean to. It just came out.”

  “It’s okay, Todd. That’s why we’re here,” said Raduga.

  Helen ran a hand through his hair. “You should have said something, Todd. I’ve been making this all about me.”

  “Couldn’t. Big . . . tough . . . guy.”

  “Todd.”

  “I’m yellow.” He clinched his fists. “Yellow with two Navy Crosses I don’t deserve.”

  “Todd, come on.”

  He took a deep breath. “Weeeow. Can you believe this? Shooting off my mouth. I’m sorry.” He looked up. “But I think I’ve beaten it. The belladonna and a caring wife got me through this.”

  Raduga said, “So, you’re okay for now?”

  “I’ll tell you. Coming home to Helen and not getting shot at helps a lot.”

  “Oftentimes that’s all it takes. But if the nightmares continue, why don’t you go to the Terminal Island Naval Hospital. I’m Army, remember?”

  “That’s a career killer. Someone finds out I’m seeing a shrink and they close the record. Period. I’ll get drummed out. This has to be off the record.”

  “Tell you what, Todd. Let’s have coffee again next Friday and we’ll talk some more. See how you’re doing. But I can’t make any promises, especially with the off-the-record stuff. That wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’re Navy, I’m Army, and that’s okay. But still, I’m trained and certified to comment and make recommendations on your fitness for duty. I’d be derelict if I found you unfit and didn’t do something about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “What I can say is that I can keep this off the record unless something is seriously wrong, which in my humble opinion is not the case.”

  Now it was Ingram’s turn to stir coffee. “Fair enough.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  10 September 1945

  Pacific Fleet Headquarters, Voyenno Morskoy Flot, Vladivostok, USSR

  Many visitors to Vladivostok, a city of high, rolling hills and sweeping vistas, have compared it to San Francisco. The summer fog that obscured Captain Third Rank Eduard Dezhnev’s vision made the comparison even more apt. He couldn’t see ten feet ahead as he stepped from the Jeep and hobbled up the steps of the faux-colonial building overlooking Vladivostok harbor. He found it even more difficult to open the front door.

  Dezhnev dreaded this meeting with Captain First Rank Gennady Kulibin, commanding officer of the NKVD’s special naval forces for the Pacific region, and his CO. Although Kulibin was the son of a Politburo member, he was more of a soldier than a politician, and that gave Dezhnev cause for concern. Kulibin had always been fair, but Dezhnev had no idea what to expect from the sudden summons. This was their first meeting since his disastrous visit to the USS Missouri a week ago. For all Dezhnev knew, his body could soon be sailing into a mass grave to join the corpses of the thousands of Japanese and pro–Chiang Kai-shek supporters the Soviets had captured in the last few weeks.

  A barrel-chested leading seaman with close-cropped hair sat at a desk in the lobby. Dezhnev expected the man to be half asleep. With the war over, a relaxed atmosphere had fallen over Vladivostok—as it had all over Russia. But not here. This man was on his toes. A thick scar running from his right ear to the top of his eyebrow told the story. Combat proven. No one to trifle with.

  Dezhnev handed over his ID. The man examined it, checked the photograph, looked Dezhnev up and down, and then handed it back. He picked up a journal and checked a date, saying, “Captain Kulibin is expecting you. Top floor, room 402.” He nodded to a flight of stairs.

  Dezhnev groaned. It would take forever to negotiate all those steps. “Very well.” He pocketed his ID and limped toward the stairs.

  “Sir!” The man stood and walked over. “Perhaps you could follow me?”

  “What for?”

  “There is a VIP elevator.” He whistled for an aide to take over, then led Dezhnev down the hall. Taking a key from his pocket he opened a door, revealing an ornate elevator cage large enough for two people. “Perhaps this will be better?” he said studying Dezhnev’s campaign ribbons.

  “Much better.”

  The elevator ground and clanked its way to the fourth floor. The leading seaman opened the cage with a nod. “Just push the buzzer on the call panel when you’re ready, sir, and I’ll come and get you.”

  “I can make it down all right. Thanks.” Dezhnev stepped out and made his way to room 402. He knocked.

  “Enter,” a voice rumbled.

  Dezhnev walked in. “Captain Third Rank Eduard Dezhnev reporting, sir.”

  The office was small, with a couch on one wall, a bookcase on the other, and books and papers stacked on every horizontal surface. Dirty windows and the fog blocked what would otherwise have been a glorious view of Vladivostok. Captain First Rank Gennady Kulibin sat precariously in a tilted-back chair, his feet propped on a heavily chipped ornate wooden desk that looked as if it might once have belonged to Czar Nicholas II. His tunic hung on a coat rack, and his sleeves were rolled up. “Ahhh, Dezhnev. Come in, come in.” He beckoned and lay down a sheaf of papers.

  Dezhnev walked in and stood at parade rest.

  “Comrade, you are not here to be pilloried, I assure you. Please sit.”

  Dezhnev sat stiffly.

  “Relax, damn it.” Kulibin’s feet were still up, leaning him back at an impossible angle; his hands were laced behind his bald head. He didn’t weigh a lot, no more than 175 pounds on a 5-foot 10-inch frame; otherwise, Dezhnev was sure, the chair would have given way beneath him. A neatly trimmed full beard offset Kulibin’s baldness and emphasized his bushy black eyebrows and impenetrable dark eyes. A large black mole protruding from his left cheek made Dezhnev wonder if he picked at it.


  Kulibin waved to the fog outside the window. “This weather is for the shits. Can’t see a thing. Was it like this in San Francisco?”

  “Worse.” Dezhnev did his best to look at ease while certain that an operative stood behind him ready to shove a pistol behind his ear and pull the trigger. With great difficulty he suppressed an impulse to turn around and look.

  Kulibin repeated himself. “It’s all right, comrade. Please.” He waved a hand toward an electric coffee pot.

  Dezhnev sniffed. The coffee smelled wonderful. “No thank you, Captain. I just had breakfast.”

  Kulibin dropped his feet to the floor, hitting it with a great thump. His chair rotated forward. “Well, I need a refill, damn it.” He rose and walked over to the coffee service and poured a cup. He looked over his shoulder, waving the carafe in the air. “You sure?”

  “No thank you, Captain. It keys me up.”

  Kulibin shrugged, finished pouring, and returned to his desk, again propping up his feet. “Say, you want two tickets to the opera tonight?”

  “What’s playing?”

  “American stuff. Showboat.”

  Dezhnev knew every song, every line, in Showboat by heart. His trainers at Bykovo had shown the film time and time again, immersing their students in American music and films. “Better not. I have an early morning tomorrow.”

  “Front-row seats. Not a box, but front row.”

  “I’d really like to but . . .”

  “If it’s a matter of a date, I could fix you up with Lyudmila, one of our radio girls on the second floor. She’s really a hot one and she knows music. Her . . . rhythm is exceptional, if you know what I mean.” He winked.

  “No, sir. I really appreciate it, but I’d better not.”

  “Suit yourself.” Kulibin raised his mug and sipped, looking over the brim at Dezhnev. “How did your photos turn out?”

  “Some didn’t.”

  “Oh?”

  Dezhnev knew he was on safe ground at this point. Kulibin would have known about the photographic blunder because Dezhnev had already sent the other roll ahead in the diplomatic pouch along with an explanation of the incident.

  He’s pulling me through a knothole and wants to see me wiggle. Nevertheless, Dezhnev explained everything in detail, including how Ingram’s friends exposed one of his best rolls of film.

  Kulibin waved a hand. “We have other photos and intelligence. Don’t worry about that.”

  Dezhnev sat back, an alarm going off in his head. There was something in Kulibin’s tone. What else was there to worry about? Sakhalin? As instructed, Dezhnev had allowed the Americans to escape. He could have easily shot them down. So it can’t be about that. Then why the hell am I here?

  Kulibin sipped his coffee and looked around his cluttered office. Then he said quietly, “This is, ahhh, very sensitive. I had the room swept just this morning.”

  Swept? What the hell is going on? Again Dezhnev was bolt upright.

  “Yes, look, it’s about—all right. I was in Moscow two months ago.”

  “I recall.”

  Kulibin was fidgeting. “I didn’t tell you this. Your mother was there. It was an opening night.”

  “What?” His mother had written recently that with victory in the Great Patriotic War, there was a stampede to make movies about beating the Nazis. Although not a young woman by any stretch of the imagination, Anoushka Dezhnev at forty-nine was still beautiful and in demand for mature roles. She had just finished eight weeks of shooting for Challenge of Darkness, about the siege of Stalingrad. She’d played the tragic Nikka, wife of a Soviet artillery colonel killed in the final days of the siege.

  “Eduard, please. Sit.”

  Dezhnev didn’t realize that he had jumped to his feet. He sat.

  “Anyway. There was a party later, and we met and we . . .”

  “I see.” He knew Anoushka had occasionally seen other men since the death of his father, Vadim Dezhnev, four years ago. But as far as Dezhnev knew she hadn’t really been interested in any of them.

  “Well, as I said, we met at the party and . . . well . . .”

  “I get it.”

  “Nothing serious, you know.”

  “Nothing serious.”

  “Well . . .”

  The silence shouted at them. The obviously embarrassed Kulibin was having difficulty. But Dezhnev figured his superior officer didn’t need his permission to date Anoushka. His mother was an unmarried woman, a widow among many thousands, and there was a war on. Until now.

  Dezhnev kept quiet.

  At length Kulibin said, “Something has come up.”

  “Sir?”

  “Beria was at the same party.”

  “Shit!” said Dezhnev. His heart froze in his chest and the blood drained from his head. Lavrenti Beria was commissar of state security under Generalissimo Josef Stalin and the head of Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh del—the NKVD. Beria was the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union. Over the past two decades he had ordered the deaths of millions, including many military officers.

  “Take it easy,” Kulibin said. “He tried to take her home after the movie ended, but she put him off. Later, at the stage door, he had a couple of goons try to pull her into his car. The word is that she fought them off, screaming, and then escaped when a crowd gathered. Beria was embarrassed and furious and tried to cancel subsequent showings of Challenge of Darkness. But it was such a great success that night that he couldn’t bring it off.”

  Dezhnev ran a hand over his face. Beria’s image had appeared less frequently in official photos recently. Especially after word leaked that he often plied the streets of Moscow at night, driving his big armored Packard and pointing out young women he wanted his thugs to abduct. And the goons did it, bringing the helpless women to Beria’s soundproof office in Dzerzhinsky Square, where he raped them. Most of the time, the women were turned back to the goons to be released into the streets under the threat of death if anything was reported.

  Dezhnev looked up. “Recriminations?”

  “As far as I can tell, none. But as extra insurance I had her flown back to Sochi the next day. She is at home now with guards posted.”

  Sochi was his hometown on the Black Sea. He grew up there. The Dezhnevs had many friends in Sochi. “Guards? Our people?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry. Nothing obvious. Beria’s idiots won’t get past if they try.”

  “That’s very kind of you.” Dezhnev meant it. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, not really. I thought you should know about this in light of what I’m about to say to you. The reason for this meeting.”

  “Sir?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want coffee?”

  “I think I will have some after all, thank you.”

  Kulibin again thumped his chair down, rose, and walked to the coffee pot. “Strange that we inherited the coffee habit from the Americans. I wonder what else will change.”

  Wouldn’t Lavrenti Beria love to hear Comrade Kulibin say that?

  Kulibin handed Dezhnev a mug, then sat and reassumed his tilted-back position. “Big changes are afoot, Dezhnev. Sometime soon, all the commissariats are going to be renamed ministries. The NKVD will become the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or MVD.”

  “Amazing.”

  “And they’re calling the the Ministry of State Security the MGB.”

  Dezhnev nodded.

  “Our friend Lavrenti Beria will be in charge of both.”

  “Comrade, I—”

  “Don’t worry, Dezhnev. I’m not interested in politics or coups or breaches of security. I’ve had enough of wars and fighting and killing. I just want to live a simple life. And I think I know where and how.” He looked up.

  Dezhnev didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t help it if Kulibin had fallen for his mother. He shrugged. “That sounds fine with me.”

  “Yes. I learned yesterday that I am going to be promoted to rear admiral.”

  “Congratulations, sir
.”

  “But there is an interim assignment.” Kulibin steepled his fingers.

  Dezhnev waited for a moment, then asked, “What is that, sir?”

  “They’re giving me a cruiser—the Admiral Volshkov, a war prize from the Germans. Previously she was the Würtzburg, 5,400 tons. She just arrived, but her skipper took sick. So I’m on top of the heap now.” He laughed, then took a bottle of vodka from a drawer and poured a dollop into his coffee. He waved the bottle.

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “But as I say, it’s only interim. When the new replacement skipper arrives I will be posted to the Black Sea Fleet.”

  “I see.” Black Sea. Sochi. Anoushka. It was all falling into place for Kulibin.

  “You, on the other hand, have a career to pursue.”

  “I’m not so sure now.”

  “You distinguished yourself with the e-boats. You are Bykovo trained. You did well on Sakhalin.”

  “But San Francisco . . .”

  “Idiots sent you there. Your handler, Zenit, was a dolt. All political training and no military sense at all. No, your record in San Francisco is clear. You did what you were told to do.”

  That was true. But he hadn’t liked betraying his friend Ingram.

  “Drink your coffee.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dezhnev sipped. There was a familiar zip to it.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s very good, sir. Thank you.”

  “It’s American: Folgers.”

  “I thought so. A company based in San Francisco.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “When I was there, Folgers was all we drank. Founded in 1850, I believe.”

  “Your Bykovo training shines through.” Kulibin leveled a gaze. “We need to put you on another path. One that utilizes all your skills and one you will enjoy.” He paused. “We are sending you to specialized training. Submarines.”

  “Sir, as much as I’d like to do that, my foot won’t support the physical requirements.”

  “We’re going to change that.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “If Sergei Zenit was a dolt, the doctors who fitted your prosthesis were worse, far worse.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”