‘.‘Yes, I am ready. Not willing. But ready.”
“Haven’t you thought of escape afterward?"
“It is foolish even to hope for it. It will be impossible.”
“Then you knew this was a suicide mission before you joined?”
“Of course. We all knew that. Didn’t you, when you jumped from your plane? Didn’t you know you would never go back home?”
“I don’t know what I thought.”
“Well, we have today and tonight in which to think, gospodin. But it will do you no good.”
The sun was directly overhead when Elena crawled up the slope to their rock ledge and relieved Vassili. She had a chunk of bread and an open tin of fish and a pint of vodka for Durell. She spoke in whispers to Vassili, beyond Durell’s earshot, and Vassili bobbed his head and, returning to his habitual silence, departed without a word to Durell. The dark-haired woman eased herself carefully to her stomach beside Durell and looked down at the bridge below.
“Gregori wishes to know if you are nervous, American."
“No,” Durell said. “Not yet.”
“But you will shoot straight, when the time comes?”
“I haven’t made up my mind yet, if that’s what you want to know.”
She said, unsmiling: “Valya sends you her love."
“Thank her for me.”
“Did you sleep with her last night?”
“Yes,” Durell said flatly.
“I am glad. Mikhail is not the man for her. She needs you, American. She is in love with you She is desperate about you, and she wants to die with you.”
“Is dying necessary?” Durell asked.
“It is, for all of us here. I am sorry I hurt her. I did not want to injure her face.”
“How is she?”
“Confused. She hates me and she loves you.” Elena looked quickly away from his direct gaze and studied the bridge and the two sentries leaning on the wooden rail. The soldiers were dreamily considering the rush of the stream below. “What will you do with Valya, American? She wants to go with you. She knows there is no hope that we can escape after tomorrow, but she thinks of it and plans for it. She says you do not love her but that she doesn't care. I am truly sorry that I hurt her.”
“I didn’t think you were one to talk of love," Durell remarked. He brushed a small insect from the barrel of the rifle he cradled beside him. He hoped the night would not bring too many mosquitoes. “You seem to have dedicated yourself to other matters.”
She winced slightly and bit her lip. It was the first time he had seen her mask of strength slip a little. “I deserve that comment. For an American, you are clever. I used to think of Westerners as ogres, as unnatural men. You could be one of us, after all.”
“Spaceeba,” he said wryly.
“I had a husband once—he looked a little like you. And two children. A beautiful girl, a handsome little boy.” She sighed. “They are dead now. My husband Was with Gregori in these marshes during the war. When they escaped the SS division that circled them, Andrei was not as lucky as Gregori. He fell in with a detachment of our Soviet guards commanded by a man who considered all of us who had been behind the lines as traitors. Andrei was shot immediately.”
“And your children?”
“They were taken from me. They are not really dead, I suppose. But for me, they are. They are lost forever. I can never find them again.”
“I’m sorry,” Durell said quietly.
“And so I speak of love,” Elena said. Her voice was thin and bitter. “I put all that behind me, and now I watch Valya and I remember so many things I don’t want to remember. Are you comfortable here, tovarich?”
“I could think of more comfortable places to be,” he said.
“Can I bring you anything else you need?”
He shook his head. “Just hope. And you have none of that, have you, Elena?”
“No. None at all. It is better that way.”
A high-bodied command car came racing down the ravine road toward the bridge and stopped with a squeal of brakes. Before the dust had settled, an officer had run toward the sentry tower. The guards snapped to attention while the officer spoke to them and then he reached for a telephone in a wooden box attached to the tower wall. Durell traced the telephone line with his eye, following it across the bridge and down the road in one direction, and up into the woods behind the tower in the other. His interest quickened. The officer stood talking on the phone, and even from this distance his figure looked huge and strong. The two guards were more alert than before. After another moment the officer replaced the phone in its box and went back to the command car, which reversed on the approach to the bridge and went boiling back the way it had come, toward the missile base.
“They are alarmed,” Elena whispered. “They know someone without authorization is in the area."
“Meaning us,” Durell said. “Perhaps you had better go back and tell Gregori something is up down at the watchtower.”
"I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I must stay with you until Vassili returns."
“Doesn’t Gregori trust me?” he asked ironically.
Elena’s eyes were cold again. “How can we? If you are left alone, you might decide to try to escape on foot with your own resources. Gregori thinks you are a dangerously competent man. I am inclined to agree with his opinion. No, you are not to be left alone."
“And if I decide to get up right now and go for a walk?”
“You won’t,” Elena said. She produced the P.38 in her right hand and Durell grinned with surprise. She had lifted it from his pocket without any suspicion from him, While they lay side by side. “If you try to escape, I am to shoot you."
“And bring down the Red Army on your crew?”
“What will it matter then? We need you in order to succeed. If you leave us, we will have failed. It would make no difference, you see?”
Durell looked at her hard, inflexible face. “I believe it wouldn’t make any difference to you at all whether I were alive or dead.”
“Of course not. So you understand how things are.”
He nodded. “I understand. But let us not talk again of love."
Two hours went by. Nothing happened on the road or the bridge. The sun was hot, as if trying to make up for the belated spring. Insects hummed in increasing numbers around Durell’s head. Elena, beside him, might have been asleep, but he doubted it. There had been no more conversation. He drank a bit of the vodka, wished once again for bourbon, then wished for water and took some of the bottled, carbonated water that Vassili had left for him. His thoughts drifted to the dugout and Valya. He could not accurately analyze his feelings for her. Last night had been a time of trial, when they were both unbalanced by exhaustion and their flight. He thought of Deirdre Padgett, back in Washington, cool and lovely and beautiful and more desirable than any woman he had ever known. Yet there was not the elemental understanding between himself and Deirdre that he had discovered with Valya. He told himself to stop thinking about either of them. Deirdre was finished with him, she did not understand his job, she knew nothing about all this. She was on the other side of the world, and he probably would never see her again, and it was a certainty that it he did not get back, General Dickinson McFee would never tell her what had happened because McFee wouldn’t know the truth, either.
“Sam?”
He turned his head sharply at the sound of his whispered name. It was Valya. She came running up the hill, crouching to keep below the line of the brush at the crest. Her face was white as she knelt beside him. She did not bother to give Elena a glance.
“Sam, it’s Mikhail.”
“Where is he?” Durell asked.
Her voice was thin and tight. “He just came walking into the dugout. By himself. Gregori hit him and tied him up and—"
Durell put a finger on her shaking mouth. “Take it easy. Did Mikhail come back of his own free will?”
She nodded qu
ickly and swallowed. “That’s what he says. And I believe him. He says he was hiding in the woods not far from the dugout all night. He says he tried to follow me when I went with you, but he soon lost us. He came back because he—he loves me, Sam.”
“Then why did Gregori jump him?"
“Gregori doesn’t believe him. Gregori thinks he has betrayed us. It’s the same thing, all over again.” She bent her head and covered her face with her hands. Durell waited, looking at Elena; the woman‘s face looked carved from dark stone.
When Valya lifted her eyes to Durell again, her expression was anguished. “Don’t you see?” she asked intensely. “All our lives we found ourselves suspected by the government, by the secret police, by our neighbors. We resented it because We weren’t trusted to be good citizens. You heard Gregori tell you how it was when we got back to our own troops during the war. And here is Mikhail-—and just because he left us for a few hours, Gregori treats him as a traitor! We are as bad as any of them down there, as had as what we are fighting?‘ she whispered bitterly. She waved an arm toward the bridge below. “As bad as those we hate and plan to kill.”
Elena said flatly: “Valya, you are simply upset. Be quiet. You’re hysterical."
Valya swung impatiently to Durell. “Please. You must go down there and stop Gregori from doing—what he’s doing to Mikhail. He wants Mikhail to confess that he betrayed us. Gregori will kill him if you don’t stop it!”
Durell stood up carefully, rifle in hand; then he put the rifle down. “Very well, I’ll go down and talk to them.”
Elena said sharply, “Your post is here. You have no right to leave it now."
Durell looked at her. “Do you want to stop me?”
“Suppose you are needed here? Suppose—”
“You can always toss a grenade clown on your pals at the bridge,” he said harshly. “Keep the rifle. Valya, stay here with her. Don’t come back to the dugout until I return.”
She nodded, her eyes wet and grateful. “Thank you, Sam. Thank you. Help him, please."
He didn’t reply. He walked down the hill from the crest of the ridge with a long, even stride.
Chapter Sixteen
VASSILI rose up from the brush as he approached the dugout, rising as if from the earth itself, a silent, thin phantom with the challenge of a gun in his hand. His narrow face shone with sweat. There was a thin smear of blood on his knuckles.
“Go back to your place, gospodin," he said quietly.
“I want to see Mikhail.”
“Gregori is questioning him. It does not concern you.”
“Anything that happens here is my concern. You made me one of you, and anything that happens to you happens to me, too. Get out of my way.”
“All right. But don’t be a fool.”
“How is that?”
“Mikhail has betrayed us.”
“How do you know?”
“He has already confessed.”
Vassili sat down with his back against a tree, watching the narrow entrance to the dugout ravine. Durell stared at his young, impassive face and felt a cold clutch of apprehension; then he pushed aside the tangled brush and ducked under the limb of a twisted swamp maple bright with swelling red flowers. The dugout entrance was just ahead. He paused as a moaning sound came from beyond the dead vines and tangled logs that sheltered the opening. There was a small clearing about ten feet wide to the right of the narrow slot in the rocks, and Gregori stood there, hulking like an angry bear over the man who sprawled on the ground before him.
Mikhail’s hands were tied behind his back, and his clothing was as torn and muddled as the others’. His nose had been broken, and bright blood gushed down over his mouth and chin. He tried to sit up, coughing and gagging, and then he saw Durell and Stared at him with hot, terrified eyes.
Gregori swung sharply, arms held at his sides in a wrestler’s stance. Scowling, he said: “What are you doing here?”
“Valya told me about Mikhail. She said you‘re going to kill him.”
“And you object?”
“I don’t believe in torture to get words from a man. Usually the words mean nothing when they are obtained this way. You should know that. You had the experience,” Durell said coldly.
“I thank you not to interfere."
“It’s my business as well as yours.” Durell swung to the man on the ground. “Mikhail, tell us the truth. We‘re all dead men here. You know that now, as well as I. And you’re going to die with the rest of us. You have nothing more to lose. Where did you go last night?”
Mikhail cursed in a soft, womanish voice. He coughed and shook his head. “You’re all crazy, do you hear? You will never succeed.”
“Because you told them about us?” Gregori growled.
“I told you—”
“I know what you told me. And I don’t believe it. You’ve lied to us from the start.”
“No, no—”
Gregori‘s knee suddenly lifted and slammed into the dancer’s face with crushing force, and Mikhail, moaning, toppled over backward on his tied hands. He started to scream and Gregori hit him again, with swift and deadly precision. Mikhail sobbed and rolled over on his face. His chest heaved and he gagged. Durell did not interfere. He was aware of the warm afternoon sunlight, the balm of spring in the air, the caress of a small breeze that found its way between the cleft in the rocks to where they stood. His face was dark and impassive as he looked down at the tormented man. He felt nothing toward Mikhail. He had seen death and brutality and savagery many times before. None of it was new to him. He saw that Gregori stood undecided of his next move. The Russian was capable of any torture, and although he was without doubt a fine combat leader, Durell suddenly felt that Gregori was floundering beyond his depth in this.
He knelt beside the fallen man.
“Mikhail,” he said quietly. “Can you hear me?"
“Kill me and get it over with quickly,” Mikhail whispered.
“Will you answer some questions for me?”
“I did not betray you last night. Don’t you understand? Valya would have been caught with you. They would have shot her, too. Even though—no, it doesn’t matter if she despises me and thinks I am a coward. Perhaps I am. But I couldn‘t hurt her. I couldn’t betray her, too."
“I understand that," Durell said. He added suddenly: “Tell me—who is your uncle?"
Mikhail lay very still, face down, unmoving. His stillness was complete, absolute.
Gregori made a hissing sound. “His uncle?"
Durell kept talking to Mikhail. “When I landed near Leningrad and met Valya, she said the dacha where I found her belonged to the uncle of a friend of hers. Is that your uncle, Mikhail?”
Gregori said: “What makes you ask about this, all at once?"
“I have been wondering about it for some time.” Durell looked at the fallen man. “Answer me, Mikhail.”
Mikhail rolled over on his back and stared unwinkingly at the sky. Blood trickled from his broken nose down the side of his cheek. His throat moved spasmodically as he swallowed.
“Was it your uncle’s place, Mikhail?"
“Yes.”
“And your uncle is an important political figure, isn’t he? A commissar of something or other, some important defense department?"
“I don’t know—What Uncle Sergei does.”
“Sergei? What’s his last name?"
Mikhail blinked and stared at the sky.
“All right. Explain this. Tell us how Kronev happened to come to that dacha within minutes after I parachuted down outside of Leningrad and met Valya.”
“I—don’t know. There was an alarm-—the plane was shot down—”
“Was it by chance? An unlucky encounter? Or were they expecting me?”
“I don’t know!”
Durell looked at Gregori. The big man leaned forward a little, his right arm in his tattered sling, his left hand open and swinging restlessly at his side. Durell drew a deep breath. “Sit up, Mikhail.
Look at us. I have been slow to think about this. I should have known the truth before this. Look at me, Mikhail!”
“I have not betrayed you," Mikhail muttered.
“Then how did Kronev know enough to intercept us at the opera house when we went there to meet you?"
“He—he must have followed you.”
“No. I watched. Nobody followed us. Arid how did he know enough to come straight to your apartment?"
Mikhail swallowed. “Again, he followed you.”
Durell said flatly, “Listen. I’m in the business. I know enough to keep eyes in the back of my head. We were not followed from the dacha. We were not caught accidentally at the opera house. We were not followed from there to your apartment. Each time, Kronev knew that we were moving to contact you and Kronev moved to get there at the same time.”
Mikhail’s face was drawn as tight as a sheet of white rubber. His eyes were liquid and white and unnatural. He licked his bleeding lips, shook his head, tried to sit up, and fell back again with his bound hands behind his back.
All at once Gregori hit him, swinging his left arm. The sound of his fist was like the flat of an ax against a slab of meat. Mikhail stifled a scream and tried to roll over on his knees and get up to run. Gregori kicked him and Durell grabbed Gregori’s shoulder and spun the big man around and hurled him away from their captive.
“Leave him alone now. He knows what we know.”
Gregori breathed heavily. “He betrayed us days ago!”
“Perhaps not.”
“But you just said—"
Durell said: “Mikhail, you never consciously told your Uncle Sergei about Valya’s activities and her invitation for you to join her band, did you?”
“No, no," the man moaned.
“Yet he knew.”
“He—he suspected, I think. He had me followed."
“So he knew,” Durell said.
“Da . . . da . . . he knew. He treated me with contempt. He considered my art—the ballet—with contempt. A plaything for women, he said. He used to imply—what he knew about me and Valya and what we hoped to do—and he would laugh. There is something in him—a madness. In the war he was a general in command of a brigade. When our troops drove back in Poland, he began to kill and kill and kill. They called him the Butcher of Potolsk. A butcher, that is what he is.”
Assignment - Suicide Page 14