Astronomy(32)

The Soviet camp spread just beyond. She shaded her eyes against the giant fire at its center. She could just make out a handful of trucks, a collection of light field artillery, tents, and some tower-thing away to the back of the camp, inexplicable from here.

Above it all drifted—Susan frowned with surprise—music. The Andrews Sisters were singing “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby?” Their pristine harmonies eeked, thin and cracked, out of some ancient public-address system. She shrugged at Charley. Charley shrugged at her. Those Russians.

The incongruity of the American Tin Pan Alley floating over a Soviet military outpost caught her up short. Her eyes were on the little speaker blaring down at them from the top of the gatepost. She never saw the Russian sentry slip through a gap in the concertina wire.

He was a nervous kid with a prewar Masin-Nagant rifle. Susan didn’t realize how young he was till he stepped out of the glare of the bonfire.

Christ, she said to herself, because he was younger than the German kids she’d left in Berlin. War in the twentieth century had turned to cradle robbing to satisfy its needs. Susan was not casting stones, no indeed. She had her own little den of Cub Scout spies back on Berendtstrasse in Kiel, didn’t she.

“Reach for the sky,” the kid demanded.

Carefully, Charley Shrieve pulled Marshal Zhukov’s travel permit out of his coat pocket. The kid examined Marshal Zhukov’s signature and then flipped it over as if looking for the fine print. He tossed it to the ground.

“Reach for the sky,” he repeated. Communist or not, he was obviously a connoisseur of American culture.

Susan thought for a moment. Did she want to give up her weapon inside the Soviet Sector? She started to raise the Thompson. Charley turned a meaningful glance over his shoulder.

The truck they had passed at the bottom of the grade had turned around. It was now pulling in behind them, blocking their only exit. Susan put the gun down.

Soldiers gathered around the car. None of them would have been college age in America.

A Tokarev pistol was pressed to Susan’s nose. The Thompson was taken from her lap. One of the kids removed a pack of cigarettes from Malmagden’s shirt pocket. He had one in his mouth before his friend pointed to the writing on the pack, which, unfortunately, was in German.

She heard one of the sentries refer to them as “Werewolves.” Susan realized they were not referring to the shapeshifting creatures of lore, but the Nazi partisan group.

It occurred to her that maybe she was about to be shot.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “Wait a minute.”

The door jerked open. She was pulled out and thrown to the ground, next to Charley and Malmagden. Shrieve was searched with perfunctory disinterest.

Malmagden was kicked in the ribs so that he jackknifed over, gasping for breath. Two of the sentries went through his pockets for weapons and more cigarettes. Finding neither, they kicked him in the ribs a couple more times.

A fight broke out over who would search Susan. It engulfed the squad of sentries, and then the soldiers who came to break it up.

Selfishness appeared to be the issue—why did Viktor Illysovich always get to search the women? The possibility that Susan might have a backup hidden under her pant cuff never occurred to any of them. She wondered, What exactly did they hope to find?

She found herself standing over the swarm of fists and knees with her Walther PP in her hand, tapping her foot expectantly. She looked at Charley, What do you want to do?

Shrieve put out his hands, going, I don’t know. Eventually, he pointed out one of the kids at random.

“Hey.” She stuck the automatic in his ear. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

Viktor Illysovich looked dismayed. His comrades looked utterly heartbroken. They glared at the Walther as if it violated the accepted rules of gang rape.

Somebody near the back picked up his rifle. Shrieve grabbed his Colt out of some careless kid’s hand and sighted right down on the miscreant. The rifle fell to the ground, hardly louder than the stares from every soldier at the reservoir.

Great, she said to herself. We’ve got the drop on about a hundred-twenty Soviet troops. Somehow, she knew, this got them back to the American lines. But she was hazy on the details.

Susan grabbed her Thompson back from a pair of slack hands. She gave the Walther to Malmagden, who was leaning over, nursing his ribs. He looked surprised. He did not give it back.

An older man stepped into the road, swearing majestically. His young soldiers began sputtering explanations at him, all at once. She could tell by his stride he was some sort of officer, but he’d been out in the field way too long. The man looked from Susan to the boy with the gun in his ear. He thought for a moment, sighed. He slapped the boy about the head, shoved him back toward his friends, and glared at Susan.