The Berkut (22 page)

"Here," a voice said, and a gaunt man limped to the front. "Show him," Valentine said.

Umberto stepped up, bent over Logan and revealed a face twisted off center by a scar that began under one eye, descended to the corner of his mouth, climbed back up over the middle of the nose, dropped again to the other corner of his mouth, and finally curled into a whorl of pink flesh just to the right of his chin. The tissue was deep pink, still inflamed, and the scar pulled his facial muscles to the left. Logan tried to move back from the face, but was held in place. "Pretty nice work, eh, Americano?" Umberto asked. His breath was heavy with garlic, and the odor, coupled with the smell of the wet bodies in the room, made Logan queasy.

Valentine held a bottle of whiskey over the wound. "This is probably going to sting some," he said, and the hands on Logan immediately tightened, locking him to the table. Valentine poured the whiskey into the wound and Logan let go with a scream that hung in the room for a long time before finally subsiding into a prolonged whimper. "See?" Valentine asked. "Not too bad," he said. Stripping off his shirt, he gave the bottle to another man and held out his hands. After whiskey had been poured over them, he lifted his wet arms in the air and stared at the knee below him, as if trying to come to a decision.

"All right," he said finally to the crowd, "what's the time?" "One-fourteen," a voice said.

"Good. Three to one if I don't close it up in ten minutes," he
announced.

The group muttered among themselves. "No bet, Valentine," one of the men croaked. "Five minutes, or you got no bets."

Valentine frowned. "Bastards. Okay, five minutes, and because I'm in a generous mood I'll up the odds to six to one." The men immediately crowded around the table, and paper bills and coins scattered around the patient.

Picking up a needle, Valentine stabbed at it with thread but kept missing until a man brought a lantern to help him. Bending, he looked into the wound. "Five minutes will be a bitch, but what's life without a challenge?" He laughed. "But first I need tonic." A man held up a bottle of wine, and Valentine sucked on it without using his hands; the red liquid ran down his chin onto his chest. After several gulps, he pulled his chin in, belched and hunched his shoulders. "Time?"

"One-eighteen," the timekeeper announced.

"On your mark, get set, go," Valentine shouted as he deftly slid the curved needle into Logan's flesh. The patient's head came up, mouth open, then his eyes rolled to white and he fell back, hitting his head on the wooden table with a loud thump.

When Logan came to, he was in a chair on the porch, his leg wrapped tightly in a yellow cloth with grease stains and propped up on a small wooden keg. Instinctively he flexed his leg muscles and pain shot into his thigh from the knee. Finding that staying still eased the pain, he resolved to move no more than he had to. Looking around, he saw that several people were on the porch with him; others were nearby, sitting or standing on rocks, looking downhill. The rain had let up, but it was darker now and the thunder was loud, engulfing them. The darkness was interspersed with lightning that seemed so close that Logan felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. What were they all looking at?

Leaning forward slightly, he saw half a dozen men below, standing on rocks several yards apart. They were naked except for their boots, and each of them held a ten-foot metal rod above his head. What the hell was going on?

"An experiment," Valentine said from the steps just below Logan.

He had a bottle of wine in his hand, and a cigarette dangled from his lower lip. "Krauts," he said. "Stragglers. We tangled with them last night; these six are all that's left. Don't look s
o almighty with their little pec
kers shriveled up in the rain, do they?" He laughed.

Another series of lightning bolts suddenly flashed, and the partisans began talking excitedly to one another. Logan tried to analyze the situation. Lightning. Men on rocks. Holding metal rods. Oh, God! "You're using them as lightning rods," he shouted. "You can't do this !"

Valentine turned and looked at him. "Good enough for old Ben Franklin, good enough for Beau. We got bets on which one gets hit first. Course, if it doesn't happen soon, we'll just have to shoot them and be done with it. Much more interesting this way, don't you think?"

"You're crazy," Logan sputtered.

Suddenly a lightning bolt struck at the other end of the camp, and the partisans cheered wildly.

"Now we're cooking," Beau said with obvious pleasure. "By the way," he added, "what brings you up here?"

"Message," Logan said. "Inside pocket in back of my coat. It's encoded."

Valentine grabbed the coat, turned it over, extracted a rubber courier envelope from the pocket and went inside to decode the message.

As he reappeared a few minutes later, another bolt struck, this time even closer than the last, and thunder crashed overhead, making most of the watchers duck. Valentine held a Thompson submachine gun as he walked down the steps. "Shut up!" he called out to the partisans. "You," he shouted to the nearest German. "Are you a scientist? "

The man shook his head wildly. "I'm just a soldier," he whined. "What about the rest of you?" Valentine shouted to the other Germans, but they all shook their heads.

"Damn," he said, kicking a loose stone down the hill. "I was hoping they were scientists; it would save me a trip to Germany." Turning back to the nearest German, he said, "Go."

The man looked puzzled.

"Go," Valentine repeated, but the Germans stayed where they were. Suddenly he lifted his Thompson and sprayed a burst into the ground in front of the prisoners, who immediately dropped their metal rods and ran wildly down the trail, pushing and shoving one another in an effort to get to the front. Dozens of other guns fired into the air, and there were shouts and laughter as the Germans disappeared.

Valentine turned to Logan. "That really pisses me off," he said angrily. "They didn't even say good-bye."

26
–
May 16, 1945, 8:00 A.M.

No matter how often he flew, Petrov was uncomfortable in the air. It was not simple fear; rather, it seemed to be more a question of control. On the ground, even in a train or a speeding automobile, he always had the feeling that he could dismount and go his own way at a time and place of his own choosing. He understood that he could leave an aircraft as well, but it would be a desperate kind of departure, without control. He knew it was irrational; to get out of a moving auto or train was far more dangerous than parachuting. Yet the fear persisted, and he no longer gave it much thought. It irritated him to have to fly, but he accepted it. Orders were orders, and duty required this journey. It amused him to think that the Berkut was afraid to fly.

He had received a typed message addressed to "The Berkut." It
had been relayed by Dr. Chenko, who had gotten it from Andrei Vishinsky, the deputy foreign minister sent to Berlin by Stalin. The message, which was unsigned, ordered him to report to Tempelhof for a flight. Petrov knew who it was from: only one man called him the Berkut. Where he might be going was a different matter; he had no idea.

The destination turned out to be Odessa, the Russian port at the northern extreme of the Black Sea. Even with a moderate tail wind, the flight consumed more than six hours, and it was dark when they landed. A black American-built Packard was waiting on the apron with its motor running.

They drove northeast along the coast for nearly an hour. Petrov knew they were nearing their destination by the increasing density of security positions along the route. Finally they pulled off the gravel road onto a dirt lane and crossed through several heavily armed checkpoints. Ordinarily-in Moscow or at any of Stalin's other normal retreats and haunts-there would have been a search at each post, but this time, whenever they were stopped the driver flashed some papers, the barrier ahead of them snapped open and they drove on.

From his seat in back, Petrov could see a large wooden dacha sitting on a bluff ahead. Far below was a dark sandy beach and the smell of salt was heavy in the air. He noted that hundreds of lights were strung around the perimeter, and guards on foot and bicycles were constantly on the move inside their assigned areas.

Straining to clear the final steep grade up to the structure, the auto chugged onto a grassy knoll and stopped. A guard opened Petrov's door and stepped back. Another guard took his credentials, checking them against duplicates and a set of photographs. Once on the grounds, he had to traverse the usual maze of guards and internal checkpoints, the same system he had installed in Berlin for his own organization. He observed that several antiaircraft batteries were nearby and covered with camouflage netting. He guessed there would be a large radar antenna somewhere in the area, perhaps on the roof of the dacha itself. Reaching the building, he climbed a long flight of wide wooden steps, had his credentials checked a final time and was admitted to the building.

The house seemed empty, something he did not expect. Ordinarily the closer one got to Stalin, the heavier the security became, yet there seemed to be no guards here. Standing at the base of a curved staircase with ornately carved railings, Petrov surveyed his surroundings. He
could smell the decadence that had brought on the October Revolution and the civil war that followed. Such an atmosphere required centuries to subside; decades were not enough.

The dacha was richly furnished, and Petrov considered what the capitalists might say if they saw how Russia's leader lived. He understood that appearances were deceiving; every Communist had to work for his keep, and unlike a class born to its wealth, in the Soviet Union nothing was forever. What the party bestowed the party could take away-and frequently did. This was the critical difference that would elude the capitalists.
How
Stalin lived was irrelevant;
that
he lived and ruled were the facts to be reckoned with.

It had been a long time since Petrov had first met Stalin. He had found the Georgian a crude and simple man in some ways, complex and shrewd in others. When it was needed, the man could summon forth an incredibly urbane polish and cultured air. In the years after the Revolution, he had consolidated his power by playing factions against one another. Stalin's style was one of terror, but terror with a purpose: to keep the masses and his enemies off-balance and at bay. He knew that over an extended period of time he could reeducate the masses and force them to accept the circumstances of Communism. Over the years the application of terror, even mass murder, would mold total obedience. Once unquestioning obedience had been achieved, total efficiency would follow. With so many people, no other approach would work.
Then
from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Once settled, their society could move forward, but Hitler had interrupted the progression. It was a rudimentary formula, but Petrov accepted it.

On the spiral staircase was a red carpet. Gargoyles peered from the walls at him, and mirrors reflected candles and lanterns. There was no electricity. Suddenly Stalin swung into sight in front of him, coming down the stairs. He was buttoning his fly and chewing a black cigar.

Petrov never failed to be affected by the sight of Stalin, not so much because of what he was, but because of what he wasn't. Stalin had leathery skin with deep lines cut into his face. His mustache was thick, the most prominent feature of his leonine head and small body. Only a few inches over five feet, he was shorter than Petrov. Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili,
he had
come from Russia's poor. Had he been born in Germany, Hitler's policies would have condemned him to death, for his body was deformed. His right hand was
he had considerably smaller than his left, and he often hid it behind his back during public appearances. The second and third toes of his left foot were fused, and even while on holiday at his favorite beaches he waded and swam with his shoes on. His left arm was shorter than his right, the result of an accident in his youth. His teeth were stained yellow and he was bent in posture. All in all, he was living proof of some genetic mishap.

Petrov held no misconceptions about his leader. While Stalin had brought him into the periphery of the inner circle of Soviet power, he knew that his position was tenuous, based solely on his ability to perform. Failure would bring exile to Siberia at best-or more likely, death. Stalin would not tolerate failure or weakness.

Over the years Petrov learned his leader's habits by studying them. Talking in private to him, one on one, was no different from dealing with him in a group or in public. Stalin was always the leader of the USSR, and he let no one forget it. He was a man consistent in his habits, altering them for no person and no circumstance.

His voice, while harsh, had a
certain clarity to it, a distinct tone difficult to imitate, and he spoke Russian with a thick Georgian accent. Now, seeing Petrov, he smiled broadly. "Have you found that bastard?" he bellowed from above. Petrov hesitated as Stalin tramped loudly down the remaining steps. "You can talk freely here; it's not like the Kremlin where even the commodes have ears."

He laughed and ushered Petrov into a large living room containing stuffed chairs and a wide table loaded with food. There was hot tea steaming in a silver pot with a serpent's body twisted into a handle; bottles of vodka in hand-tooled leather sleeves; plates heaped with caviar and smoked salmon; wheels of bread with a silver knife embedded in each; great chunks of white cheese in small gold crocks; pickled eggs; mounds of butter heaped like snow in heavy crystal bowls that glittered in the indirect light.

"Eat," Stalin urged. "We'll talk while we eat. I want to hear about Berlin. You know, I've been getting messages from Zhukov. The general fills my office with wires till they drift around in the breeze like autumn leaves. In public he is the great face of stone; in private he never uses one word when a hundred can be substituted. Zhukov maintains that Hitler is dead and that's that-shot himself in the head. I can't believe he'd have the balls to shoot himself like a man."