“Perhaps I expected trouble from you Lithuanians.”
“Or perhaps you have some other mission in mind, General,” Palcikas said. “What else do you have planned for Lithuania, General? Or shall I guess?”
“You seem to enjoy the sound of your own prattle very much, General, so please continue,” Voshchanka said magnanimously.
“I have watched most of the Commonwealth’s Fifth Army in western Byelorussia being replaced by Byelorussian troops over the past several months,” Palcikas said. “Now the Commonwealth’s 103rd Guards Division appears to be replaced by Byelorussia’s Tenth Lancers in Vilnius, Kaunas, and Kaliningrad.
“Your intelligence is commendable but spotty,” Voshchanka said smugly.
Palcikas ignored the remark. “Your forces are widely dispersed, but there is a solid line of Byelorussian troops forming from the Baltic to Minsk. There are almost no Commonwealth forces at all west of the thirtieth meridian.
“We are Commonwealth forces, Palcikas,” the Byelorussian colonel said irritably. “What the hell do you think we’re doing in your rat’s nest of a country?”
Palcikas knew the Colonel was blowing smoke at him. While Voshchanka was commander of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ military forces in the Baltics, set up as a part of the mutual-defense treaty of the Baltics, he was also commander of all Byelorussian forces. When Byelorussia became independent, Voshchanka simply assumed control of the troops and equipment that had been his to command when he was head of Soviet forces in Byelorussia. Besides being a convenient way to hold on to the rank and privileges Voshchanka enjoyed under Soviet rule, it was also a nice way to expand his power-and Palcikas would bet his next paycheck that Voshchanka would do it with Byelorussian troops.
“Never mind replying to his fiction, Colonel,” General Voshchanka said. “He is trying to impress us with his supposed knowledge of Commonwealth troop deployment and strengths, when in fact he couldn’t be further off the mark. He has asked us to withdraw, so we will.” He turned back toward Palcikas and, raising his voice to be heard over the roar of the helicopters nearby, added, “Bringing your helicopter gunships over my troops is like pulling a gun on me, General. Next time you had better be prepared to use it. I will not warn you again.” He turned and headed for his vehicle, leaving Palcikas and Kolginov alone in the middle of the muddy, disheveled corral.
“General, you took a very big chance there,” Kolginov said in Lithuailian. He shouldered his rifle and held tightly to the sling, hoping that he could keep his hands from shaking. “True, they had at least six twenty-and thirty-millimeter guns on the Defenders, but they also had a few twelve..point..sevens trained on us. I thought we were dead.”
“We were dead,” Palcikas stressed. “I saw the murder in Voshchanka’s eyes. He would have ordered his men to open fire, had he himself not been in the area. Colonel Gurlo was ready to mow us all down, too.”
Palcikas motioned for the Mil-8 to land in a clearing a few hundred meters away. “Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the last of him. He’ll be back, with more troops, sooner than we think. He’s a hungry pig.”
Kolginov watched his superior officer searching the skies and the fields around him as if he were already commanding the battle he knew was coming.
Finally Palcikas said, “Let’s go check the farmer and his family; they’re probably scared out of their minds right now.”
They found the farmer, who was mad enough to chew on horseshoes, a few moments later. Palcikas and Kolginov had no choice but to endure the old man’s blistering tirade against all military men in general and Byelorussian soldiers in particular. “Why, they can’t even drive a tank properly!” the old man shouted. “In the Great Patriotic War, I drove all kinds of vehicles, from sidecar motorcycles to tanks. I was half their age and I could maneuver a tank around a fencepost or outhouse like nobody’s business!”
“If the General could just get your name, sir …” Kolginov tried, but the man ranted on for a few minutes more until a young woman entered the room.
“His name is Mikhaus Egoro Kulikauskas,” the woman said. She touched the old man’s shoulder to silence him. “He is my father. He doesn’t hear very well, and he has seen more strangers this morning than he has all month.”
“And you are Anna Kulikauskas, the famous young revolutionary,” General Palcikas said. “I recognize you from your photos in the Sajudis newspapers. I now see where you get your temper from.”
The woman, no older than her late thirties, nodded and smiled as she carefully returned Palcikas’ gaze. Anna Kulikauskas was one of the new breed of young, fiery politicians in the “new” Lithuania, a left-wing (many, including Palcikas, would call her “radical”) advocate of making Lithuania part of a “New European Order.” Palcikas recalled that her idea of a New European Order did not include such things as armies, navies, military facilities of any kind, nuclear-power plants, taxes, heavy industrial plants that could pollute the environment, and foreign companies that wanted to invest in Lithuanian businesses that owned farms and forests. Anna Kulikauskas was active in the formation of the Sajudis independent political party and first gained international prominence as the leading voice of protest that finally resulted in the closing of the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant in northwestern Lithuania-photos of her facing down hundreds of armed Red Army and Black Beret soldiers were published worldwide. She was strong-willed, intelligent, quick-tempered, bold, and aggressive.
She wore a homespun “peasant’s skirt” that was now all the rage in Europe — especially in the Baltic states — and being copied by famous designers and dressmakers all over the world. Like most Slavic women, she had light-brown curly hair which was worn long and unbound, big blue eyes, full lips, and a nose just a bit out of proportion with the rest of her face. But there must have been a Viking in the barn one night, because Anna was also curvaceous and full-figured, with a thin waist bisecting healthy hips and a deep, sexy bosom that made Palcikas stare.
Kolginov coughed politely, stifling an amused smile.
Palcikas quickly asked, “Was anyone hurt here?”
“Human, no,” Anna replied. “Animal, yes. Some of the soldiers claimed two of our horses jumped over a fence and ran away, but I think they took them. Some other animals were killed or chased away — a few thousand liths’ worth.”
“Make a list of the damage and the missing livestock, sign it, and deliver it to my headquarters at Trakai,” Palcikas said. “The government will reimburse you immediately. My men will also help rebuild your barns and fences.”
“I don’t need your help to rebuild my farm!” the old man retorted. “I just need to be left alone! I used every ruble of my pension savings to buy this farm, and I won’t have it torn apart by you soldiers again!”
“Those were Commonwealth soldiers, Mr. Kulikauskas,” Palcikas’ aide, Kolginov, said. “Not Lithuanians.”
“And who are you?” the old man demanded, his eyes widening at Kolginov’s slight Russian accent. “A Russian? First we have Commonwealth soldiers, then Byelorussians, and now Russians …?”
Kolginov gave him a wry smile, but Palcikas interceded for him: “Major Kolginov is a naturalized Lithuanian and a member of the Iron Wolf Brigade, Mr. Kulikauskas,” he said.
“The Iron Wolf Brigade!” the old man cried out. “How dare you! How dare you debase the name of the Grand Duke’s army!” The old eyes sought out Palcikas’ uniform and rested with shock on a red patch with a mounted knight on a rearing charger in white in the center. “You wear the Grand Duke’s Vytis like a patch to mend tattered clothing? Do you have a Vytis sewn in your crotch as well? Why, that Is… that is unholy…!”