“Anton,” Tony said, “we gotta get out of here.”
The Pole nodded. Both Polish refugees’ English had improved significantly as a result of the constant contact with Tony, and Anton was the acknowledged leader of the others. “But where can we go? East leads to my home, but it also leads to Russia. West will take us to where the fighting is, and your army, but it would be a dangerous journey.”
Tony agreed in silence. Anton and the other Pole also spoke Russian and had been able to snoop around, and they had found out about the heavy fighting to the west.
Tony asked. “You wanna go back to Poland?”
Anton shrugged. “Not while the Russians are there, and I don’t think they’ll be leaving soon. If I know the Russians, they will never leave Poland.”
“Well, that leaves us exactly two other choices. One, we can stay here in the city and continue to hide out, or, two, we can very carefully head west and find the American lines. Somehow, I think as a soldier that’s what I am expected to do.”
They thought it over. Berlin was now a Russian city. The SS troopers who had manned the roadblocks had disappeared. The SS had been responsible for the hundreds of corpses hanging by their necks from telephone poles and wearing the signs that said “Deserter,” or “Enemy of the Reich.” Some of the bodies looked too old or too young to have been deserters or anyone’s enemies. But then, it was common knowledge that the SS just liked to kill and had gone into a murderous frenzy in the last moments of the Reich.
The Russians were beginning to set up an administration in Berlin. That would mean police, and Tony and Anton both knew their little band would ultimately be discovered.
Anton smiled grimly. “Sometimes choices are made for us, aren’t they? We must leave here. We shall travel as refugees. Certainly, that is not far from the truth.”
“Yeah. We go west and try to find my guys. Y’know, I’m gonna need some different clothes. I can’t be a refugee if I’m wearing an American uniform.”
“Don’t worry,” said Anton, “we will have no trouble finding clothing for you.” He brightened. “Perhaps we will, as we work our way west, find some opportunities to cause inconvenience to the damned Russians?”
Tony reached into his shirt and squeezed a bug, probably a louse, that was crawling along his chest, looking for a home. “Y’know, a while ago and regardless of what I said, I really didn’t think that screwing with the Russians was the smart thing to do. Now I’m beginning to change my mind.”
CHAPTER 11
The furnace room in the basement of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison was unbearably hot. It was a warm spring day, and normally the furnaces would not have been working too hard. But today, the grimy and dour men who kept them burning had them at full blast.
More than the heat affected the thirty or so men jammed into the small room. Almost all of them were senior army officers and they were in full and heavy uniforms. Many were pale and sweating profusely. Most felt terror and were fighting waves of fear and nausea. They knew what happened in the basement of the Lubyanka. They had been ordered there for a command performance in the price of disloyalty.
A door opened and the NKVD head, Lavrentii Beria, entered silently. He stood off to the side and looked directly at no one. One of the officers started to whimper and was quickly silenced by a companion. If Beria noticed, he gave no sign. He could have been his own statue.
The screeching sound of an iron-wheeled cart dragging on the cement floor was heard. The officers looked in the direction of the wide double doors that led to a hallway where the worst or most important prisoners were kept.
The door opened and two NKVD officers pushed in a hospital-type gurney on which a man was strapped. They stopped in front of Beria and the assembled officers, and unstrapped the man, who began moaning loudly. As he was pulled to a standing position, he screamed from the pain of having to use joints and limbs that had been pulled apart and broken.
In fascinated horror, the officers stared at the man. He was vaguely familiar to some, but so distorted as to be a caricature of himself. His nose was flattened and there was a dark hole where one eye had been. The man howled in pain, and they could see where the teeth that hadn’t been pulled out had been broken off into stumps. They wondered what other physical horrors his shapeless prison garb hid. They also wondered what he had told his interrogators, who were so obviously through with him, and whether it could come back to threaten them.
“Korzov,” came the hissed whisper of recognition from the rear. Now they knew the rumors were true. Korzov was the army officer who had betrayed his country while in the United States. Exactly what he had done, they didn’t know. Rumors had said only that he had betrayed a major secret to the Americans. Collectively, they shuddered. Beria did not move and, like a reptilian predator, did not seem to be aware of the heat or the collective scent of fear.
Korzov looked about the room with his one eye. It looked like he was trying to focus on the rows of faces to figure out what was going on, and what new agony was in store for him.
The two NKVD men set up a chute that led to one of the furnaces while two furnace operators watched in detachment. They had seen all this before. At a nod from one of the NKVD men, one of the operators opened the furnace doors, and a wave of additional heat surged across the room while the white-hot flames made a roaring sound that buried the collective moan of thirty horrified and terrorized men.
Puzzled, Korzov turned his head in the direction of the unaccustomed warmth. His nights had been damp and bitter cold. He saw the flames but his mind did not register any particular significance.
The NKVD men grabbed him and wrapped his arms and legs in straps so he could not move, only wriggle like a worm trapped on a hook. Then they roughly put him on the chute, feet facing the open furnace. When he was set, they lifted the chute, but steadied Korzov, so he could see the furnace and the flames within.
Now it registered. Korzov’s screams of fear seemed to come from the bowels of hell. Some of the most hardened officers began to tremble. Korzov tried to thrash, disregarding the agony of his broken arms and legs in his effort to flee his fate.
It was no use. If there was a signal from Beria, no one saw it, but as if on cue, the two NKVD men released Korzov, who began a slow, screaming slide down the chute.
His legs entered first and his clothing flared, then his torso, and then his head and contorted face. For an instant he held that position. He was visible in the flames as a dancing, writhing specter until finally collapsing and disappearing as the furnace men closed the door on the ghastly show.
There was silence. Beria walked from the room, a hint of a smile flickering on his face. The lesson had been delivered.
A FTER KNOCKING SEVERAL times, Steve Burke tried the door to Natalie’s apartment and found it unlocked. Surprised, he entered. Natalie was seated on a chair in her living room, looking out her window.
“Are you all right?” he said, approaching her quietly.
She turned and smiled wanly. “I’ve had better days.”
He knelt before her and took her hand. “Anything you care to share?”
“Yes, but make me a martini first.” He obeyed, and she saluted him before taking her first sip. “Here’s to new wars.”
Steve was puzzled. What on earth could have happened? Could she have heard he actually was going to Europe as part of Marshall’s entourage? That was why he had dropped by, to inform her. He didn’t know how she would take the information. Would the fact of his leaving upset her or would she be proud of him?
Natalie put her glass down. “The FBI was around today. They see Communists and other undesirables everywhere.”
He was incredulous. “You?”
“No, at least not seriously. They did question me to reconfirm what they already knew about my past life in Russia and my citizenship. I don’t think I am considered a subversive. But they may label my mother as an undesirable and deport her. God only knows where they would send her. Certainly not to Russia.”