Road of Bones

by James R Benn

  I rolled under the wheels of the aircraft, getting my automatic out just as Aristov stepped in front of me and put a lethal burst into Drozdov, who’d managed to get off a couple of shots.

  With Drozdov out of the way, Maiya knelt and jammed her pistol into my neck. I dropped my automatic and raised my hands as best I could.

  “Stop shooting!” she yelled. There was enough light for Kaz and Sidorov to see what she was up to. Protecting the aircraft. And there was enough light for me to see the blood dripping down Aristov’s leg. He’d been hit.

  “Let him go,” Kaz shouted as another volley of bombs hit the main runway. They were targeting the bombers, very carefully, and at their damned leisure.

  “No. You come out. If you fire, Boyle dies,” Maiya said, twisting the red-hot barrel against my neck. “We just want to take off.”

  Sidorov stood, his pistol held in his hand, but at his side.

  “It was you all along, wasn’t it, Maiya? You planned this. You used Black and all the others. Aristov as well,” he said, frank admiration in his voice.

  “Not that anyone would ever think a woman capable,” Maiya said. “I wanted so much more than to be a mere interpreter. But men, they can only see what they desire. Not what is.”

  “This is all fine, but can I stand?” I asked as Maiya dragged me out from under the aircraft. “If I’m going to be shot or blown up, I’d prefer to do it standing.” Another salvo of bombs hit the far end of the main runway, followed by the wooshing explosion of fuel drums.

  “You may stand,” Maiya said, jamming the gun into my ribs.

  “There is no need of further killing,” Kaz said. “Go. You have all you need.”

  Aristov growled something to Maiya, who nodded. He grimaced as he raised his submachine gun, blood squishing in his boots. It looked like what they needed was us dead.

  “Wait,” Sidorov said, holding up a hand. His eyes went to Aristov, who held a grimace of pain in check, his jaw clenched. Then Sidorov put the full force of his gaze on Maiya. “Is this man special to you in any way? A lover, perhaps? A relative?”

  Why was Sidorov asking her in English? To keep Aristov in the dark?

  Maiya held up her hand for Aristov to wait. He held his weapon steady but did not fire. A questioning look spread across his features as Maiya looked at his leg, the blood glistening in the reflected light of the fires all around us.

  Maiya looked to Sidorov. She raised an eyebrow.

  “No, he is not special,” she said, turning slightly as she raised the Tokarev to Aristov’s temple and fired.

  His skull bloomed pink and Sidorov’s pistol was suddenly in Kaz’s back as he relieved him of his Webley. Maiya scooped up the submachine gun and shoved me roughly toward Kaz.

  “Don’t tell me this was part of your plan,” I said, involuntarily hunching my shoulders as more bombs cascaded beyond us.

  “One must adapt,” Maiya said. “The colonel quickly became a liability. I could not tend to him while flying, and it would be inconvenient to land with a dead NKVD officer. And I know, if Captain Sidorov does not, that he will be returned to the labor camp. Whether I get away or not.”

  “I am sorry, gentlemen,” Sidorov said, collecting the weapons left on the ground. “But it is the only option I have left. I know Maiya needs a colleague. A male colleague of some useful rank. And I need to leave the country. This outcome is not what Moscow desires.”

  “I hope you’ll live to enjoy it,” I said. “Her other male colleagues sure didn’t.”

  Sidorov didn’t respond but leaned in to whisper to Maiya. She frowned, then nodded her agreement to whatever he said, and he motioned Kaz to the plane.

  “No, you’re not taking him!” I said, stepping forward but halted by the muzzle of the papasha.

  “Do not worry,” Maiya said, her face glowing red. “He only wishes to make you a peace offering. It will make him more compliant if he assuages his guilt, which is why I allow it.”

  Kaz stood by the rear door of the aircraft as Sidorov loaded him up with the cartons of morphine.

  “Stand there,” Sidorov directed, moving me closer to Kaz. “Do not move, either of you.”

  Maiya handed him the submachine gun and got into the plane, making her way to the pilot’s compartment. She switched on one engine, then the other. As they began to rev up, Sidorov hung out the rear door.

  “I wish it could have turned out differently,” he said. “But we did solve the case, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Tell it to Black and Drozdov,” I said, as the prop blast hit me.

  “Black was a fool and a dupe, that is obvious,” Sidorov said, shouting over the increasingly loud engines. “He would have never survived in the field. As for Drozdov, well, as you well know, we men of the NKVD all have blood on our hands.” With that, he gave a wry grin, flicked a salute in our direction, and pulled the door shut.

  The Yak-6M rolled down the runway, flames from burning B-17s lighting the way. Maiya lifted off, went wheels up, and stayed low, snaking over the hangars to stay out of the spray of antiaircraft fire. She disappeared into the night as the Russian gunners kept up their fireworks and more columns of flame and black smoke erupted from the main runway.

  “Christ on a crutch,” I said. “What the hell do we do now?”

  “Take this to Dr. Mametova,” Kaz said, hefting the cases in his hands. “She will need it before this night is done.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  I felt bad leaving Drozdov and Black out in the open, but there wasn’t time to move their bodies. The jeep had taken some hits in the shootout, but it started. Kaz cradled the morphine as I drove to the hospital, leaving the runways behind. The last of the flares had died away and one more salvo of explosions rippled across the ground, tearing into hangars and igniting fuel drums, sending them rocketing skyward.

  We made it to the hospital on a flat tire and boiling radiator. Men were being carried in on stretchers, most of them Russian. Dr. Mametova was inside, inspecting the wounded. She saw Kaz, did a double take, and snapped out an order to a nurse, who relieved Kaz of his pain-dulling burden.

  “I told her to ask no questions,” Kaz said. “She told the nurse it was a gift from Stalin, which no one will question.”

  We got out of the way as the main lobby became jammed with walking wounded who’d made their own way in. We bumped into Bull, dragging a dazed Yank whose arm and forehead dripped blood.

  “It’s bad,” Bull said as a nurse relieved him of his charge. “Too soon to tell, but it looks like half our B-17s have been hit.”

  “It’s bad on our end too,” I said. “Different kind of bad.”

  “Let’s get out of here, I need to get back to Operations,” Bull said, hustling outside. We followed, watching the fires along the main runway and the nearby buildings cast their eerie glow.

  “We need a lift,” I said, pointing to our bullet-ridden jeep.

  “What the hell happened? No, never mind, I can only handle one SNAFU at a time,” Bull said, craning his neck to search the smoke-filled sky. “Looks like we have a lull. There’ll be a second wave for sure, to hit everyone who comes out for damage control.”

  “The first thing we need to do is search Maiya’s desk,” Kaz said as Bull sped down the thoroughfare. “Then Black’s.” Kaz was already thinking along the same lines as I was. Maiya was too smart to let us live unless she had some trick up her sleeve.

  “Maiya? What’s she got to do with this?” Bull snarled as he braked to avoid a column of Russians with shovels hotfooting it to the hangars. A damage control party.

  As if on cue, the roar of low-level aircraft sounded from the horizon, drawing closer as Bull blasted the horn and I swiveled my head trying to spot the threat. Explosions bracketed the road and machine guns spat tracer rounds in every direction. Bull pulled over, coming to a halt alongside a brick bu
ilding. We took cover between the jeep and the wall, making ourselves as small as possible.

  Bullets were flying in every direction. Up, down, and everywhere in between. Explosions blossomed all around us, the low-level bombers not as precise as the first wave but doing a good job of beating up the place as our B-17s burned. We stayed that way for ten minutes, until the attack abated. The Russians were still firing away with their machine guns, but the sky was empty.

  “Is that it?” Kaz asked, raising his head above the jeep.

  “Probably,” Bull said, standing up. “I don’t know where the hell the Russian night fighters have been, but those Germans have to be worried about them showing up. The Krauts are hightailing it for home if they’re smart.”

  I walked around the jeep, cocking my ear for the sound of more approaching bombers. Flickering, rosy light danced along the roadway, shadows appearing and vanishing in an instant, smoke billowing and drifting around us. It was hell.

  Then it was white-hot noon. The night sky turned white.

  “Stop!” Bull yelled.

  “What’s that?” Kaz said.

  “Don’t move, dammit!” Bull shouted. “Butterfly bombs.”

  The intense white light was gone, and we were back to the reddish reflective glow. I could make out a small object at my feet. Butterfly? It did look like it had wings.

  “Anti-personnel bomb,” Bull said, working to keep his voice calm. “The Krauts drop ’em by the boatload at the end of a raid. Don’t move a muscle. It’ll gut you.”

  As my eyes adjusted, I could see it more clearly. It was about three inches long, with hinged sides that did make it look like a cast iron killer butterfly. And it was inches from my toe.

  “I spotted it when that magnesium flash bomb went off,” Bull said, reaching into the jeep. “Good news is the raid’s over. That flash was for the recon planes to photograph the bomb damage.”

  “I can guess the bad news,” I said, as Bull stood in the jeep and shone the flashlight around.

  “How lethal are they?” Kaz asked. “At a distance, I mean.”

  “They can kill at thirty feet,” Bull said. “We’re clear except for that one. Billy, take two steps backwards. Carefully.”

  It was harder to do than it sounded, with a gutting death close to my boot. But I made it to the jeep. Bull set the flashlight on the grass, just as a short, sharp explosion cracked from the other side of the building.

  We all jumped. The flashlight rolled. Bull’s arm shot out and grabbed it, inches from the butterfly. He set the light down again, held in place by a couple of stones, the beam shining on the bomb.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Some of these things go off on their own, others when you touch them.”

  “Slowly,” Kaz added. “And carefully.”

  I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe.

  Bull drove like molasses, his headlights illuminating the road ahead. We spotted two more butterfly bombs and left gear from the jeep to mark them. At Operations, everyone was running around or yelling into field telephones. The Americans looked panicked. The Russians looked like they were about to be shot. If anyone from the NKVD above the rank of lieutenant had been here, they might have been. This was a disaster.

  “Where the hell are your sidearms?” Bull asked, noticing our empty holsters for the first time.

  “You’ve got bigger things to worry about,” I said. “Right now, we need to search Maiya’s desk to see if she left any clue.”

  “Clue? No, never mind. But first, come with me. You can’t walk around disarmed. It doesn’t look good,” Bull said. “You’ve got time before the Russians come out of their shock. Half of them are waiting for Moscow to tell them what to do, and the other half are afraid to tell Moscow what happened.”

  Back in his office, Bull unlocked the filing cabinet and took out two Smith & Wesson .38 revolvers and a box of cartridges.

  “Not a Webley, but it will do,” Kaz said, loading his.

  “Didn’t know you had your own armory,” I said, checking the weapon.

  “They’re from guys who were wounded. They don’t need them,” Bull said. It wasn’t exactly a cheery thought, but I did feel better with some weight on my hip. The general pointed us to Maiya’s desk and headed into a conference room where we could see Belov, sitting at a table, staring into space.

  “I will never make fun of your stories again,” Kaz said as he sat in Maiya’s chair. “Molly the Moll had nothing on our Maiya.” He began shuffling through the papers on her desk.

  “That’s what blinded me,” I said. “Our Maiya. Mischievous and helpful. A pretty girl with a friendly smile. Completely disarming.”

  “Literally,” Kaz said, opening a drawer.

  “She used Aristov to set it all up. Remember she told us Aristov was from the Directorate of Border and Internal Guards?”

  “GUPVO,” Kaz said, flipping through a book and tossing it aside.

  “Right. But Belov told us one of Aristov’s recent accomplishments was breaking up a gang that was looting trains.”

  “You’re right,” Kaz said. “There is a different directorate for railway security. She lied about that to cover up Aristov’s role.”

  “It was the only thing that fit,” I said. “Once Sidorov mentioned the Bulgarian contact who switched sides, I realized there had to be someone on the inside who could get themselves clear of this place. The Bulgarian mission had to be their way out. As soon as Belov confirmed Maiya was the pilot, I knew it was true. Molly the Moll switched sides and got away with it. Maiya did the same, in spades. I think she set this whole thing in motion and recruited the people she needed.”

  “Like Lieutenant Mishkin, until he got greedy and struck out on his own,” Kaz said.

  “Yeah. That signed his death warrant,” I said.

  “Aristov could have arranged for Max to be brought here,” Kaz said, pausing in his search of Maiya’s paperwork. “We assumed it was Drozdov, but an NKVD colonel can pull many strings.”

  “Right. And when Kopelev started getting suspicious, and Morris refused to cooperate, she probably had Max kill them. With Black forced to witness it, which frightened him into cooperating.”

  “Major Black was a foolish man,” Kaz said. “There was no way Maiya would have let him live. All she needed him for was to ship the heroin to Tehran under his name.”

  “We know the drugs went to Tehran,” I said. “Now we need to figure out the next stop. Odds are it isn’t Tabriz.”

  “We would be dead if it were,” Kaz said, taking out a drawer and dumping the contents on top of the desk. I glanced at the conference room, where Russians sat stony-faced and unmoving.

  Kaz was right. Khazar Brothers Shipping might still be handling the smuggling, but it wasn’t going through Tabriz. Maiya’s daddy would have laid us on the ground if that had been true. She knew we’d seen the cases with their destination clearly marked. Which meant they were going someplace else.

  “We need to get word to Big Mike,” I said as Kaz went through the last drawer. “He’s got to know about Sidorov before our Russian pal shows up and pulls a fast one.”

  “Yes,” Kaz said. “Sidorov made a gallant gesture with the morphine, but I think Maiya was right. It was to lessen the guilt he felt at betraying us. Knowing the punishment that awaits him if captured, he will do anything to avoid it. That makes him dangerous. And this desk has no clues to offer.” With that, he slammed shut the drawer.

  Black’s office was next. There was more to search, but at least it was all in English. Kaz tried the desk and I went for the filing cabinet. Both were locked. I remembered he left a key in the top desk drawer. Kaz tried it, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Stand clear,” I said, and flipped the desk over. I stomped on the bottom of the center draw, the thin wood cracking beneath my heel. “There’s always an alternative.”


  I grabbed the key as an American sergeant looked in on us.

  “Redecorating,” Kaz said. “We shall call if we need assistance.”

  “Have at it, sir,” the sergeant said, and made himself scarce.

  I didn’t know what we were looking for exactly or how we could ever track them down, but we had to try. Maiya and her accomplices had left too many bodies in their wake.

  Not to mention I’d trusted Sidorov. Maybe he’d felt he had no choice. Maybe that was true. Either way, he’d repaid my trust with betrayal, and I couldn’t let that stand. I had to find him and bring him back, road of bones or no.

  “Anything to do with Turkey?” I asked Kaz as he sifted through the contents of the drawers. “An alternate route?”

  “No. It is not as easy as turning over a desk, since we don’t know what to look for.”

  I flipped through the files, looking for anything out of place. Unfortunately, the OSS had a wide range of interests, so everything looked like a clue. There were thick files on Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a kid who had taken over from his old man as king, or shah, of Iran.

  Lots of stuff on Iraq too. Crown Prince Abdullah was our man there. I hadn’t heard of him, but I had heard of oil. Lots of files on oil rights and possible Nazi agents, but nothing that clicked as a clue.

  Then I spotted a file marked 482nd Port Battalion, US Army.

  We were a long way from any port. I pulled the file and flipped through the mimeographed pages. It contained lists of officers and men, radio call signs, battalion headquarters staff, and an inventory of heavy equipment.

  “Stevedores,” I said, half to myself. “Longshoremen.”

  “Where?” Kaz asked, tossing a pile of papers aside.