They sat in a rude Moscow strip club called the Animal, so rude that a woman onstage was in a further state of undress. There were many women there trolling for business in the dark enclaves of the joint, all to the beat-beat-beat of loud, bad Russian syntho-rock. Naturally, it was Likov’s favorite place, and many SVR guys came here. They were known to the girls, who liked them so much they never gave a discount.
Mikhail had helped Will on a few tough-to-get stories in the past, usually for a modest tip—it was for his kids, he said, but at least three of those kids, Eva the blond one, Jun the Asian, and Magda the Czech—were here tonight.
“What’s so important about this file?”
“That’s the funny thing. I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I’ve been hunting in archives for three days and come up with nothing, as if it’s been erased. But whoever’s doing the erasing, I’m guessing he couldn’t erase it out of the collective memory of the KGB.”
“They had standards, those boys,” said Mikhail. More vodka. Eye contact, Jun. She seemed to be available. He winked. She came by and sat on his lap. She licked his ear and whispered something he found quite interesting, then she stood up and undulated away, trailing come-hither glances, perfume, and jiggly ripeness everywhere.
“Pretty girl,” said Will. “I see why you like her.”
“Now and then I contribute to her college fund,” Mikhail said, finding his own joke hilarious. Will did not, because he had looted his own daughter’s college fund for tonight’s fun, but he pretended like he did.
“This file, anyone I know?”
“Doubtful.”
“If he’s a big man, he should be in the archives of the other places,” said Mikhail.
“See, that’s the deal. Someone erased him, I think.”
“Lots of erasing goes on in Russia,” said Mikhail. “People make some money, then they erase themselves and start a new life. Happens all the time. Some stories I could tell you.”
“I’m only interested in one man’s story,” said Will.
“So what’s the offer?”
Will held his hand up. Jun came over. She smiled at Mikhail. Mikhail smiled back, then noted that Will’s hand was still in the air. Magda, the Czech, came over. She smiled at Mikhail. The she licked the inside of Jun’s ear, and Jun ground her pelvis once or twice into Magda’s hip. But wait. The hand was still up. Eva inserted herself between Magda and Jun. She put a tongue in each gal’s ear, one and then the other. All three of them smiled at Mikhail.
“You’ve made an arrangement, I see,” said Mikhail. “Will you be joining me?”
“Ah, I think you can find your way without my guidance,” said Will, thinking, God, I hope I can get this party past the Post’s expense account mavens, or daughter number two is going to Prince George’s Community College next year.
“What file?” said Mikhail, rising.
Will already had it written down: “Basil Krulov, Stalin’s assistant, 1942 to 1954, disappeared sometime in mid ’50s.”
Mikhail didn’t even look at it. “I’ll have it for you day after tomorrow.”
The girls led him away.
“Better make that day after the day after tomorrow,” he called back.
CHAPTER 32
Headquarters, 14th Panzergrenadier Division
Outside Stanislav
MID-JULY 1944
For their command appearance, Karl and Wili brushed out their bonebags, scraped the mud off their boots, shaved, and bathed, even fished out the white summer cap they, as Luftwaffers, were entitled to wear. If they said so themselves, they managed to look pretty spiffy. You could never predict who you’d run into, so spiffy was always the wise move.
Not being assigned a Kübel themselves, they were driven to the HQ building, a mansion under some trees from an earlier century. If there was a mansion, the staff found it; 14th Panzer had found a beautiful old house set in some trees on the far side of the tank park. Actually they’d found the house first and established the tank park next to it. The dwelling, of Georgian grace and with an aristocratic background until the Reds had turned it into some kind of potato collective in ’39, was festooned with gaudy National Emblem banners and 14th Panzer flags, surrounded by security behind spools of K-wire and MG-42 posts, the lawns and shrubbery all cut and smashed by the treads of the armored beasts.
Inside, it was all business, as about all the division’s needs were serviced by a Panzer cadre who scurried about, administering a twelve-thousand-man/four-hundred-tank military entity, in the field, in constant contact with the enemy. Communications rooms, a huge study where a topographic map was being examined by officers while enlisted men pushed little painted blocks around it, and other rooms turned into offices where ammunition was ordered, tracked, and stocked, fuel levels monitored, supplies listed, living quarters assigned, mess supplies provided. There was hardly ever time for tea.