“Bozhemoi,” Bokov muttered, surveying square kilometers of barrenness, of charred shells of buildings, of places where asphalt had puddled and then run like rivers. The twin stenches of burning and death still thickened the air. He suspected they would linger for years.
“Cunts had it coming,” said his driver, a stolid peasant named Gorinovich.
“Oh, no doubt,” Bokov agreed. Not only did he really feel that way, but you never could tell to whom Gorinovich reported. An NKVD man saw wheels within wheels whether they were there or not. In the USSR, and in Bokov’s line of work, they commonly were. He did add, “If the Americans could do this without their fancy new bombs, screw me if I know why they needed them.”
Gorinovich grunted in response to that. Then he said, “You were going to Division HQ, sir?”
“Da.” Bokov nodded.
“All right. I’ll get you there.”
And he did. The paving was chewed up and sometimes nonexistent, but neither mud nor gravel nor anything else fazed the two-and-a-half-ton American truck. U.S. tanks had thin armor, weak guns, and highly inflammable gasoline engines. The planes the Americans gave the Soviet Union were mostly ones they didn’t want themselves. But nobody ever said a bad word about their trucks. The Red Army would have had a devil of a time winning the war without them.
With a word of thanks, Bokov hopped out of this one in front of the battered house flying the divisional commander’s flag. Sentries with submachine guns stood in front of the door. Like most of their kind, they scrambled out of the way with comic haste when they spotted his arm-of-service colors.
In a way, that wasn’t so good. A Nazi who got hold of an NKVD cap and shoulder boards might bluff his way in to see-or to assassinate-almost anybody. Worry about it later, Bokov told himself. One thing at a time. He turned the knob and walked into the house.
Major General Boris Antipov was drinking tea and laughing with a pretty redhead half his age. When Bokov came in, she turned red, exclaimed in German, and disappeared with a rustle of silk. She’d landed on her feet in postwar Germany-or more likely on her back.
“Who the-?” Antipov growled. Then he too noticed Bokov’s shoulder boards and cap. Some of the hostility left his voice as he went on, “Oh. You’re the fellow they sent from Berlin.”
“That’s me,” Bokov said. “Does your, ah, friend speak Russian?”
“Not a word of it. But she fucks like it’s going out of style, so who cares? Why do you-?” Antipov broke off again and clapped a meaty hand to his forehead. “Son of a bitch! Are you thinking Trudi’s a spy? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”
“I’m not thinking that,” Bokov said carefully-even the NKVD had to pick its spots before it risked pissing off a general. “But you should recognize the possibility even so. And I wanted to make sure we could talk without her eavesdropping.”
“Well, we can,” Antipov said. “You’ll want to know about the prisoner, eh?”
Bokov leaned forward like a hunting dog taking a scent. “Yes. I’ll want to know about the prisoner.” His voice was soft and eager.
“Can’t tell you a whole hell of a lot,” Antipov said. “What I mainly know is, his bomb didn’t go off. Maybe it was a dud, or maybe he chickened out at the last second. But my boys noticed him acting weird, so they jumped on him. When they found his vest, they tied him up good and tight and let me know. I called you people. That kind of stuff is your baby.”
“Thanks,” Bokov said. Some Red Army men would have tried putting the screws to an important prisoner themselves. In fact, maybe Antipov had. Casually, Bokov asked, “Get anything out of him?”
“His name, his rank, his pay number-that’s about it. Like I said, we didn’t work him over much. Figured that was your business,” Antipov answered. “Oh. And he says he’s a prisoner of war.”
“Prisoner of war, my dick,” Bokov said. “Not after the Hitlerites surrendered, he’s not. He’s nothing but a fucking bandit. And even before…”
General Antipov nodded. The USSR treated German prisoners only slightly better than the Nazis treated captured Soviet troops. Hundreds of thousands of German POWs went into the gulags. Maybe some would come out one day. On the other hand, maybe none would. Bokov wouldn’t lose any sleep over that.
“I’ll take him back to Berlin, where we can interrogate him properly,” the NKVD man said. They would get answers out of the German. Bokov was sure of that. The NKVD had ways of finding out what it needed to know. They weren’t pretty, but they worked.
“Come on, then.” Antipov got to his feet. For a moment, Bokov thought the general himself would take him to the prisoner, but he didn’t. As soon as they got outside, Antipov bawled for some men. A squad appeared on the double. The soldiers were well turned-out and looked very alert. “Take him to the German,” Antipov told them. “Do whatever he says.”
“Yes, Comrade General!” the men chorused. Their sergeant saluted Bokov. “Come with us, sir.”
They’d disarmed the would-be bomber and stowed him in a shed a couple of hundred meters away. Four soldiers with submachine guns stood guard around it. That German wasn’t going anywhere. At Bokov’s nod, one of the guards unbarred the door. “Heraus!” he shouted. It might have been the only word of German he knew-or needed.
Slowly, the Fritz emerged. He had bruises and scrapes on his face and a cut lip. By the way he cradled his right wrist in his left hand, it was sprained, maybe broken. Well, the soldiers wouldn’t have been gentle when they grabbed him.
“Ought to string him up by the nuts,” one soldier said.
“Roast him over a slow fire,” another agreed.
The way the captive watched them made Bokov wonder. “Do you speak Russian?” he asked in German.
“Sir, my name is Fenstermacher, Gustav Eduard Fenstermacher. My rank is Obergefreiter.” Gustav Eduard Fenstermacher rattled off a serial number. “I am a prisoner of war. Under the Geneva Convention, I don’t have to say anything else.”
He was about twenty-five-a few years younger than Bokov-with blue eyes and brown hair. The Wehrmacht had several ranks between senior private and corporal; he held one of them. He wore ragged Feldgrau as if it were new and pressed and kitted out with his rank badges and medals.
Bokov laughed in his face. “Fuck you, fuck your mother, and fuck the Geneva Convention, too.” It would have sounded better in Russian, but German would do. “You’re dead meat. You’re dogshit, nothing else but. Have you got that?”
Fenstermacher stood mute. Bokov murmured to a Red Army man beside him. Grinning, the trooper stepped up and whacked the German on his bad wrist. Fenstermacher wailed. He went white. He started to sag to his knees, but managed to catch himself.
“Have you got that, dogshit?” Bokov asked again. Obergefreiter Fenstermacher hesitated. “Don’t screw around with me,” Bokov advised him. “If you were a hero, you would’ve died yesterday. Last chance, arselick-have you got that?”
The German licked his lips. “Ja,” he whispered, just before Bokov told the soldier to give him another lick.
“Better,” Bokov said. And it was. Once a girl who’d been holding out let you get a hand between her legs, everything else was easy. Interrogations worked the same way. “So…do you speak Russian?”
Another hesitation-a shorter one this time. “Not much. Mostly bad words,” Fenstermacher said.
Plenty of Russians Bokov knew spoke bits of German the same way. Which didn’t mean this snake was telling the truth. The right lie now could give him his chance later. He’d think so, anyhow. Bokov didn’t intend to let anything like that happen.
The U.S.-built truck waited not far from the house General Antipov had commandeered. The driver stood outside, leaning against a fender and smoking a cigarette. By the look of him, Gorinovich didn’t care whether he stayed there another half hour or another week.