Edge of Valor (62 page)

“That's her,” said Blinde. “Very sexy. She's in Hollywood right now making movies. Do you know her?”

“I met her at Jerry Landa's wedding. But if . . .”

“If she doesn't come around, then her little boy goes to Lubyanka sooner rather than later.”

“Where's Lubyanka?”

Blinde said, “Political prison in Moscow run by the NKVD. Prisoners rarely come out alive.” He said it with a finality that seemed to make the whole room black. Even Kulibin across the room faded from view.

“I don't understand. Dezhnev is a highly regarded officer, is he not?”

Blinde said, “Not anymore. He's working for you, the Office of Naval Intelligence.”

“What?”

“You didn't know?”

“Know what, damn it?”

“You should ask your buddy Toliver.”

“Speak English.”

“Except I don't think that will be possible now.”

“Why not?”

Kulibin sauntered over and tapped Blinde on the shoulder.

Blinde said, “We must leave, Commander. I wish we had met under different circumstances.”

“Not me.”

Kulibin clapped his hands and called, “Oleg.”

“
Da
.” The big blond thug walked up and slapped Ingram hard. His leather jacket squeaked while he tied Ingram's hands with telephone cord. Then he pulled a pistol from the small of his back, a German Walther 7.65-mm PPK. Oleg's enormous hand made the pistol look like a toy. He ran his hand over the action and cocked it.

“Nyet,”
Blinde shouted.
“Podozhdi poka my uidyom.”
(Wait until we leave.)

“Hokay.” Oleg lowered the pistol, set the safety, and stuffed it back in his waistband. Then he wrapped tape around Ingram's mouth.

Ingram's nose was swollen from the fighting, and it was already hard to breath. He squirmed and kicked his feet and growled.

Again the Russian backhanded him.

It was all Ingram could do to will himself to be quiet, to stop breathing hard, to quell the panic rising in his throat.

Blinde and Borzakov each took an end of the crate and picked it up. Kulibin stood by passively, his hands behind his back, watching Ingram as if he were a bug on a microscope slide.

Blinde said, “I'm sorry, truly I am.” He nodded to Borzakov and the two men carried the crate out the door. Kulibin lingered for a moment, then tipped two fingers to his forehead and followed.

Is this it?
Ingram's heart must have been pumping at 220 beats a minute. His head throbbed, and he sensed Oleg moving around like a caged animal. What the hell was he doing? Cigarette butts! The idiot was picking up Japanese cigarette butts and stuffing them in his pocket. Then he opened desk drawers, peering at documents. Some drawers he dumped on the hard-packed clay; a few papers he stuffed into a leather briefcase. Seconds turned into minutes as the man quietly canvassed the room, then the bunkrooms off to the side, one of which was where Ingram had originally met Walter Boring.

Oleg emerged from the bunkroom, walked over, and patted Ingram down, removing everything from his pockets. Nothing seemed to interest him, and he pitched it all on the ground: he didn't take Ingram's watch or his Naval Academy ring.

The Russian swept the room for a long moment with steel-gray eyes. Finally, he looked down at Ingram and smiled. He reached back and pulled the Walther PPK from the small of his back as if he were tugging out a handkerchief.

Lightning bolts danced in Ingram's head. He felt cold and hot at the same time, and jerked against his bindings. Like a wild-eyed cow in a slaughterhouse, he knew his time had come. His breath came in short gasps. He couldn't sweat enough; he couldn't cry out. The realization hit that he had just seconds to live. All he could think of was how cruel life had been to him and how short it was. Helen swirled in his mind, and he thanked God for her. She was the best thing that ever—

“Goodbye, Yank.” The Russian raised his pistol and pointed right it between Ingram's eyes. His thumb traveled to the safety.

There was a blast. Ingram, waiting for death, wondered,
Shouldn't I be dead?
But it was Oleg Lepechn's forehead with a neat hole in it, not his. Blood and gray matter spewed out the back of his skull. With his eyes wide open and knees locked, the giant fell straight back to crash among rolled-up charts and a pair of overturned chairs.

A man was at the entrance. Ingram's heart jumped. It was a Russian dressed in a fur cap and heavy overcoat; a PPSh submachine gun was slung over one shoulder, an M-1 carbine hung over the other. He was in a two-handed stance, and a wisp of smoke rose from the muzzle of his .45. He quickly swept the pistol over the rest of the room. Vapor puffed from his mouth as he walked into the bunkrooms and checked them carefully. Looking from side to side, the man walked up to Oleg, stooped, and put two fingers on the corpse's carotid artery, making sure Oleg really was a corpse.

Satisfied, he looked up at Ingram, stood, and walked over.

Ingram squeezed his eyes shut.

Chapter Fifty

4 December 1945

Shakhtyorsk Air Base, Sakhalin Oblast, USSR

I
nstead of a cold gun barrel against his neck Ingram felt the tape being carefully peeled from his mouth. His eyes snapped open. It was a U.S. Marine. It was . . . “Ah-Amaya,” Ingram stammered. He gasped and sucked in large breaths of cool, wonderful air.

“You okay, Commander?” Amaya asked, shedding his Russian overcoat. He threw off the fur cap and plopped on the helmet that had been hanging from his web belt, his eyes all the while sweeping the room.

“Get me out of this Amaya.”

“Yes, sir.” Amaya whipped out his bayonet and easily cut through the telephone cord.

Ingram rubbed his wrists. “How did you manage this?” He stood, feeling wobbly.

Amaya grabbed Ingram's elbow to steady him. “They're gone. They loaded our gear in the command car and had the gunny march the boys down the runway. They turned right and headed for the Rooskie pier.”

Circulation returned. Ingram's wrists and ankles glowed and itched with new life. “Thanks, Amaya,” he pushed away and stood on his own.

“That's not all.”

“What?”

“I heard the Russian officer tell the gunny that they'll give us a ride back to the
Maxwell
and ‘poof,' we'll be gone.”

“That sounds encouraging. But tell me what made you decide to come after me?”

“After they marched off the squad, the remaining Rooskies fell in and headed back.”

“How many?”

“Umm, twenty, maybe thirty guys. But the command car didn't leave right away. It just sat there with the engine idling.”

“I wonder why?”

“I'm not sure. But up in the tower, I got worried. I saw those Rooskies take you to the bunker. You walked in, but you didn't come out.”

“Can you see the bunker from up there?”

“Yes, sir. Not the entrance, but the top of the bunker and some trenches around it. So I'm thinking about all this when their top kick decides to send someone back to check the tower. They were marching away when this guy climbs up the ladder right to the top. You should have seen his eyes when he saw me. Big as saucers. So I bopped him on the head. Not a sound. Then I put on his stuff and climbed on down. I just marched past the two guys in the command car and into the brush.”

“What made you come here?”

“Me? Like I said, you weren't with those Russians when they came back. And later, that civilian, Mr. Blinde—he's workin' for the Commies, right?”

“That's right.”

“So Mr. Blinde and this other civilian came back carrying a crate. And right behind them is a Russian officer. He looked important.”

“Skipper of that Russian cruiser.”

“So that's it. This other guy with Mr. Blinde was dopey looking. He was wearing a black leather jacket and some sort of mobster hat; kind of like Al Capone. So they loaded the crate on the command car and took off. Hell, I didn't know what to do. But I kept thinking about you and decided to come here and . . .” he waved at the corpse.

On the trip up from Atsugi, Ingram had watched Private Amaya laughing and cutting up with the others. He was an eighteen-year-old from New York with sandy hair who spoke with a Brooklyn accent and had a lopsided grin. He looked as if he had just started shaving. And now, in an instant, Amaya had become a man, looking every inch a Marine. His face was at once very serious and yet relaxed, confident but vigilant. His eyes darted everywhere, the pistol still poised.

“I owe you my life, Amaya. Thank you,” said Ingram.

“Well, I suppose it's my job, sir.”

Ingram's knees still felt shaky, and he knew it wasn't from being tied up.
Time to put on a good face
. “And well done too. Here, give me a moment.” Ingram stooped, picked up the PPK, and stuffed it into his belt at the small of his back, Oleg style. Then he checked Oleg's pockets, finding an extra clip for the pistol. There was an ID kit inside Oleg's jacket. A strange-looking metal badge and a wallet—very thin, no rubles, just a crinkled photo of an elderly couple. Then he picked up his own belongings that Oleg had cast aside. Standing, he said, “Okay.”

“How are we going to do this, Commander?”

“I'm working on it.” Ingram hadn't the foggiest idea.

It was late afternoon by the time they finished creeping the length of the runway. They turned north for the pier and . . . Amaya raised a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

They stopped. It was one of the 105-mm gun emplacements. Two of the crew sat around a small bonfire warming their hands. Another was drawing a canvas cover over the barrel. Three more were loading gear on a truck while a lone soldier walked the perimeter with a rifle over his shoulder, occasionally stamping his feet.

Ingram whispered. “Packing up?”

“Looks like it.”

Silently, they eased around the gun emplacement, giving it a wide berth.

Someone shouted. An engine started nearby. Then another. Then many. The ground shook with vehicles on the move. Ingram muttered, “What are these guys doing?”

More vehicles rumbled nearby. They came to a break in the brush and saw a muddy road. As they crouched in the underbrush two T-34 tanks, four M-16s, and four trucks swept by, their gears clanking as wheels and treads churned through the mud. Ingram looked at Amaya, who shrugged. The convoy petered out, and they waited for a moment making sure the road was clear.

“Now.” Ingram said. They dashed across just as another tank clanked around a bend and snarled past. He looked back. The tank hadn't stopped. Nor did any of the ten trucks that sloshed by afterward.

With stealth no longer necessary, Ingram and Amaya made their way through tall grass and up to the top of a berm. Below them lay the pier. It extended about three hundred feet into the Sea of Japan, where twelve knots of wind whipped up waves, a few topped with whitecaps. To their right, the
Admiral Volshkov
lay a thousand yards off the beach. To their left, the
Maxwell
's graceful lines stood out as she swung at anchor, her battle ensign now stowed and her flag flying at the fantail. A low gray shape bobbed around her bow and swept down her starboard side—the
Maxwell
's motor whaleboat patrolling around the destroyer in slow, lazy circles. Ingram muttered, “What I wouldn't give for Boland's walkie-talkie.”