Cold Allies (27 page)

“Look,” Mike said.

One of the blue lights was coming over the lake, a rising cerulean moon.

Mike pointed his boneless finger. “See there, Gordon?”

“Yes,” the soldier said.

“I live in the light,” Mike told him. In the dim glow of the pier Jerry could see Mike’s eyes bulge with fierce hunger. “We all do. We make it come. We make it go.” He waved his hand. The blue globe of light bobbed back and forth, as if it were a kite and Mike were holding the string.

“It is our eyes,” Mike said.

But that was a lie, Jerry thought. Mike’s eyes were oozing down his cheeks.

“From where the light is, I can see the other side of the lake. Do you understand?” Mike asked the soldier.

The gomer screwed his face up into a confused frown.

“We drive it.”

The soldier’s bewilderment smoothed out, was replaced by surprise.

“Would you like to drive one?” Mike was asking, leaning into the soldier so that their bodies pressed together. Mike’s soft bones gave way. His chest swallowed the soldier’s right side. “Would you?”

“I would, Pa!” Jerry said quickly before the soldier could answer. “I’d like to see the other side of the lake in that thing.”

“Shhh,” Pa said.

“But I’d like to go, Pa. Please, can’t I go?”

“It’s not for you, Jerry,” his Pa said. “It’s for Gordon. We make this offer for Gordon.”

But it would be a fine ride, Jerry knew. Better than bumper cars. If his Pa gave him everything he ever wanted, he should let him drive one of those lights.

“I want to drive one, Pa,” he said.

Pa wrapped him in his arm, and for the first time Jerry realized how heavy that arm could be. With an angry tug, Jerry freed himself from his Pa and glanced around.

Mike was regarding the blue light thoughtfully. The soldier was gone.

WARSAW, POLAND

Taking a deep breath, Baranyk walked into the office.

Czajowski was sitting behind his desk, a drowsy-eyed spider. “Shut the door, will you?” he said.

Baranyk pulled the door to. Czajowski stood. “Valentin, Valentin,” he said, shaking his head. “There was a mine field out there. And four hundred thousand Arabs.”

“Yes, Andrzej. And none of them killed me.”

“Not for lack of your trying.”

“Someone should try something, I think.”

The Pole looked either sick or exhausted. He limped over to a plush armchair and fell into it. He massaged his leg. “My arthritis bothers me again.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“You
bother me,” Czajowski said, concentrating on his knee.

Baranyk looked at the ornate cross hung above the Pole’s desk, and the statue of the Virgin in blue and white beside it. The Mother of God had her face lowered, her hands outspread, as if welcoming to her bosom a child or a pet dog.

“We must save our ammunition,” Czajowski said.

“Yes. We can make rings out of it. Bracelets, the like.”

At Baranyk’s acid tone, the Pole glanced up. “I could strip you of your command. Do you know that?”

“If we obey you, Andrzej, we will let all of Warsaw become rubble. Have you forgotten what happened during the Patriotic War?”

Czajowski’s face flushed. He jumped to his feet, nearly toppled again, grasped his thigh. “Goddamn,” he growled. “Shit. May my leg be fucked. Yes, Valentin, goddamn you. I realize the Red Army sat back and let the Germans level Warsaw.” Breathing heavily—more from pain, Baranyk suspected, than from fury—the Pole dropped into the chair again. “General Lauterbach is sending a division. When he arrives with the Germans, we will need every shell we have.”

Baranyk studied the commander. The Pole’s cheeks were pale, his jaw taut with pain. A man so weary of battle, it seemed he was ready to fall into the Virgin’s porcelain, unfeeling arms. It was a dangerous faith that Czajowski had. A deadly one.

“God, Andrzej,” Baranyk whispered. “Don’t you see? Lauterbach is lying to us.”

“He will come,” Czajowski said. “The Germans will come. Warsaw is too important to fall.”

“The Germans hope the Arabs will be satisfied with Poland, and they are probably right. They will write a peace on our corpses.”

When Czajowski did not respond, Baranyk went to the opposite chair and sat. The office was smaller than Pankov’s, but in its way just as opulent.

“Look at me,” Baranyk said. “Won’t you look?”

The Pole kept his eyes on his offending knee. “I am angry. If I look at you, I will be angrier still.”

“Then don’t look. Listen. Lauterbach has no fuel. How can he move a division so far? And if he got here, what good would a division be? Four hundred thousand Arabs surround us and Arab planes own the skies.”

Czajowski’s hair was flaxen and silver. At the very top of his cranium, pink scalp shone through the sparse strands.

“I know Lauterbach,” Baranyk said. “I understand his mind. He is devious, and no fool. It is easier to lie. A lie gains him time. He lets us think help is coming and—oh, Andrzej, Don’t you see?” The small office was filled with the hush of resignation, the sour stench of defeat. “Lauterbach dangles the carrot.”

Baranyk glanced up at the bronze figure of Christ on the Cross. The statue’s muscles and tendons were delineated, its face sagging, like Czajowski’s, with pain.
Christ,
Baranyk thought bitterly. Christ had dangled the carrot, too.

The Pole massaged his knee. His voice was the soft, acquiescent voice of a saint facing martyrdom. “Lauterbach will come,” he said.

CRAV COMMAND, TRÁS-OS-MONTES, PORTUGAL

“I came to say goodbye,” Toshio said.

Hunched in a chair in his pajamas, Gordon let his gaze rest on Toshio’s face. This was obviously near the end of the movie, the sad part. But Gordon couldn’t remember the rest of the film and didn’t know why he should be unhappy.

“You’re being transferred home,” Toshio told him. “Colonel Pelham brought the papers over this morning.”

Someone died. That was what happened in the sad parts of movies. Who, though? Then Gordon realized that the dead man was himself.

Toshio looked away, because people never look at the dead for very long. “He’ll be in to see you in a few moments.”

A hush settled over the room, airy and light as the glow from the windows. Gordon closed his eyes. Mike was standing on the beach, ankle-deep in the waves.

“Are you ready?” Mike asked. He put out his hand, and Gordon grasped it. The small mouths of Mike’s nails sucked at his palm.

“No family,” Toshio said.

Gordon opened his eyes. The man was regarding him, his black eyes turned warm obsidian.

“You have a mother somewhere, but you were never close to your family. No girlfriend. I read your psychiatric file. There is no one who cares for you. I think the colonel makes a mistake by sending you home.”

Home. Gordon suddenly knew that Mike was coming to take him home. He sat up straighter, listened hard, stared out the window.

“Gordon?” Toshio asked curiously.

Everyone in this film was dead. That’s why it was sad. The world was full of mummies and vampires and zombies. The dead peered out of movie screens. Somewhere Bela Lugosi laughed, a lazy heroin chuckle. And the tall ghost of Christopher Lee strode.

“Gordon? What is it?”

Mike was coming.

Beside him Toshio was as hazy as a TV with bad reception.

Gordon leaped to his feet.

“What’s wrong?” Toshio asked, rising with him.

In the back of Gordon’s mind, he heard the clattering of sleet, whispered vows, the combined troth of the community. He felt a tug of longing as though his heart were being sucked from his chest. Mike was close, riding on eddies of air, on volumes of wind, drifting over the alien green fields.

Gordon ran to greet him, knocking over a table, shoving past a nurse. At the entrance to the clinic Pelham glanced up, startled.

Stumbling down the steps and across the gravel in the yard, Gordon soared like an untethered balloon, no family, no ties to hold him. An armed MP and his group of prisoners stopped to watch him pass.

“Damn it, Gordon!” he heard Pelham shout.

Gordon halted in the yard, taking in a ragged breath. Mike was there. The blue light was sailing into the compound. Arab prisoners scattered; the MP screamed for them to stop.

Strong, desperate arms grabbed his pajamas, clawed at his neck. “No!” the colonel shouted. “No, son! That thing will kill you!”

Then Pelham’s arms were wrenched away. Bewildered, Gordon turned and saw Toshio and the colonel wrestling in the gravel.

“Let him!” Toshio said. “Let him go! Gordon needs someone now. Let him go.”

Gordon whirled. Mike was right beside him, cool and wintry blue. Closing his eyes, he plunged into the azure Atlantic, the salt smell of the waves, the keen, clattering shrieks of the gulls.

WARSAW, POLAND

Baranyk awoke to the sound of sirens. It was black in the room, and the general, still half asleep, imagined that the rises and falls of sound were slow ocean waves bearing him into the dark.

He turned over in bed, the cheap army-issue frame creaking. He scrubbed his face and finally sat up, letting the warmth of the covers fall away. A shadow stood at the door.

“Sir,” Zgursky said. “Would you care to go to the basement?”

The AAA had not started up. A Scud, then; not bombers. He blinked at Zgursky, a man-shaped blot in the night

“No,” Baranyk said. Had he been dreaming again? he wondered. The bedclothes were in a sweated knot. From the open window flowed a cool breeze and the drumming sound of November rain.

Groping toward the top of the nightstand, he found his vodka bottle, screwed open the cap, took a swallow. The liquor laid a hot trail down his throat

“Your gas mask, sir?”

“No. You go ahead,” he told his aide. “Get your mask. Go to the basement. I’ll be there in a minute.”

The shadow in the doorway didn’t move. Zgursky probably knew he was lying. “One minute,” the aide said.

“I understand.” Zgursky was counting. They had three minutes from the first moan of the sirens to the strike; two minutes had already gone by. The aide lingered, a clock-watching death angel.

Other than the sirens and the slow rain, Warsaw was silent. No dogs barked. No cars passed in the rubble-choked streets.

Then the shadow moved. Zgursky raised his head, listening.

A belly-wrenching explosion—much too close. The floor shook. Dull red light sparked at the window. The blast rolled on, an incredible, ceaseless timpani. Baranyk’s small Tensor lamp jittered across the nightstand and fell over with a crash.

He stood in the dim orange light and fumbled for his pants. “Close the drapes,” the general gasped. “Turn on the lights.” Under his bare feet the floor still shuddered.

“Sir?” Zgursky called.

Holding his trousers in one hand, Baranyk hurried to the window. From the east rose a column of fire. Another quake struck, rattling the curtain pulls, making the springs in the iron bed sing.

As Baranyk hurriedly began to dress, he heard a dry click.

“Electricity’s out, sir,” Zgursky informed him.

Baranyk buttoned his uniform blouse as well as he could with shivering, blind fingers. The door to the hall swung open with a squeal.

“General?” Major Shcheribitsky whispered.

“You will come with me, major. I wish to inspect the eastern emplacements. And order the Humvee to be brought up, please, sergeant.”

Baranyk put on his calf-length woolen coat, searched in the dark for the nightstand, found the bottle and took a deep, calming drink.

Outside of the officers’ barracks, Zgursky was waiting. Baranyk, ducking his way through the rain, climbed into the shelter of the Humvee. The warning sirens had fallen silent, but from a nearby street came the tenor wails of fire trucks.

Two blocks from the fire, Zgursky stopped. In the steady downpour, Jastrun stood with some Polish officers watching the inferno. Across the street three fire trucks were parked in a line, the firemen gathered around, confounded and useless. “Have you called up the tanks?” Baranyk shouted at Jastrun.

The Pole, too, Baranyk noticed, had been dragged out of bed. His wet uniform was awry. “What?” the colonel snapped, in his foul mood overlooking formalities.

“Call tanks to this location, man! Get spotters on the roofs! If the Arabs take the advantage, they will attack at this location!”

A series of angry bass booms thundered as the flames reached more stockpiled shells. Jastrun and his men flinched. The firemen ran for cover. An instant later hot debris rained down, hissing through the mist, pinging on helmets and the Humvee.

“Colonel Jastrun!” Baranyk shouted.

Ducking, the Pole made his way to the side of the Humvee. Even in the lurid glow from the fire, the man’s face was pale. “Yes?”

“Which munitions, colonel?”

Jastrun blinked. “The smart shells, I believe. I—”

“Does Czajowski know?”

“Of course. I informed him immediately. I believe he has telephoned the Americans and plans—”

“Shit!” Baranyk screamed. “Mother of God! He would tell the Americans?”

The Pole was utterly confused. “Why not?”

“Your brains drip out your asshole, Jastrun! Because,
tovarich,”
Baranyk said, falling back into old habits, older suspicions, “now Lauterbach will begin drafting Poland’s surrender.”

He rapped on the door frame of the Humvee. “Get us to the commander’s office now, sergeant. Get us there quickly, before Czajowski makes his mistake.”

It took almost fifteen minutes to reach the command center. Before the Humvee came to a stop, Baranyk had jumped out and was sprinting up the steps. The power was back on; the hall he raced down was brightly lit. He reached Czajowski’s office at a dead run and flung open the door.

The Pole was just putting down the secure phone’s receiver. There was a bemused, frightened expression on his face.

“Did you tell him?” Baranyk shouted. “Did you tell Lauterbach of our situation?”

Czajowski stared at the phone. “Do you know what he said?” he asked softly.

Baranyk was still breathing hard from his run. It seemed that his tight throat meant to strangle him.

“He said he would get back to me,” Czajowski said with an anxious twitch of a smile. “I told him we had lost half our munitions, and he said he would get back to me. Blessed Mother,” the Pole breathed. His grotesque smile vanished. “Doesn’t he realize there will be no one to pick up the phone?”

CENTCOM WEST, BADAJOZ, SPAIN

Banging and shouts at the anteroom door. Jolted from sleep, Mrs. Parisi sat up and looked bleary-eyed at the clock. Good Lord. Twelve midnight, and they were waking her up. The Army simply had no sense of decorum.

It was cold in her room, and that made her even more out of sorts. She turned on the bedside lamp, but before she could put on her robe, she heard footsteps, and there was Lauterbach in the doorway. He looked a fright. His hair was mussed, his face wide-eyed and pale.

“The main munitions dump in Warsaw has just been destroyed,” he said. “Out of bed. We need to contact the aliens.”

Suddenly Mrs. Parisi was aware that all she had on was her filmy nightgown, the one with the tiny pink and blue flowers all over it.

“Let me get dressed,” she said, pulling the blanket over her shoulders.

Much to her astonishment, the general lunged across to the bed and grabbed her upper arm so tightly, she knew it would leave bruises. He shook her, and she was shamefully conscious of the water-balloon sway of her braless breasts.

“Listen to me, lady!”

Furious spittle flew, misted her cheeks.

“I’m sick of all this New Age crap you’ve been feeding me!” He shoved his face into hers. “It’s all over with, all right? This is do-or-die time. You said in your books you can contact the aliens. Well, goddamn! Get to it!”

“Not everyone comes at your silly beck and call,” she said, overriding her fear of him and returning his glare. “The Eridanians are not your ridiculous toy soldiers.”

For a moment it looked as if he might actually strike her. He was breathing so hard that his chest heaved.

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” he said with a sound between a moan and a gasp. “God. You’ve been lying to me.”

Her heart was hammering terribly now, so loud, she was certain he could hear it. His grip on her arm made her fingers tingle.

“You simply haven’t been able to sleep deeply enough to reach them,” she told him. “Don’t blame me for that.”

His eyes took on a faraway look she didn’t like.

“I know you!” Her voice rose now, strident with desperation. “You catch a couple of hours here and there. I can see the effects of sleep deprivation in your face. Really. You look just awful. How do you expect ...”

He dropped her arm; stepped away. “I take sleeping pills. That’s not it.” He looked around, at the dresser, the bed, like a child who has strayed from his mother in the busy confusion of a shopping mall. “You’ve been lying.”

She stood up, ignoring the sheerness of her nightgown. “You stupid, egotistical little man!” she said. “You can’t talk to the Eridanians if you’ve been taking sleeping pills.”

His eyes sparked in renewed anger. Faith took a long time to die, she knew. It sickened and decayed into a prolonged half-life. She realized, at that moment, Lauterbach still yearned to believe.

“Did you take pills tonight?” she asked.

“No, I just—”

“Go straight to bed,” she said curtly. “You’re living on drugs, that’s what you’re doing.” She had never played the Game so boldly and so well. Her skill gave her a giddy sense of pride. “No wonder the Eridanians can’t understand.” His shoulders sagged.

“For Christ’s sake, lady. I can’t sleep.”

“Well, you’d just better, hadn’t you? You’d just better try.”

He straightened. His gaze became Machiavellian. She hadn’t seen that shrewdness in his face in a long time. “You’re lying,” he told her.

“How will you ever know?” she smirked.

For a moment he stood, regarding her skeptically. Then he whirled and stalked out.

“Sir?” a waiting aide asked. “Will you call General Brown now, sir? To arrange the ordnance for the B-2s?’

The door slammed on Lauterbach’s reply.

IN THE LIGHT

Rita turned the corner of the stacks and saw Lauterbach. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face a sickly gray.

“I have a message,” he told her, his expression intent.

“Fuck you,” she answered. “What do you expect me to do, salute? You want ‘Yes, sir, what is the message, sir?’ Well, up your four-star ass, sir. I didn’t ask to be sent here.”

‘There isn’t much time,” he said. “You need to ask them to help.”

“Who, the aliens?” she laughed. “Help with what?”