As Sergei Marchenko’s bullet-splattered Fulcrum came in, its braking chute deploying less than a hundred feet from the runway, puffs of steam could be seen, caused by the friction of its front and two side wheels coming in at over a hundred miles an hour onto the icy runway.
The ground crew were already calling Marchenko “Kot”— “Cat.” Nine lives. Not only had he and his aircraft once again escaped injury, this time from the burst of American gunfire from the Tomcats escorting the big 747, but his fuel gauge was registering empty when the ground crew rolled it into the hangar. His ground captain was already on the phone, telling Khabarovsk’s KGB chief Nefski that Marchenko had survived but that he was lucky — the ground captain estimating the Fulcrum probably had no more than twenty liters of fuel left. He was mistaken — there were only ten gallons remaining. And so it was that as he stepped out, exhausted and disappointed that he had not ne ulovil—”bagged”—the American general, Marchenko’s legend, with one more F-14 to his credit, grew even more.
Nefski wasn’t pleased about the new accolades for the “Cat.” It might make it more difficult for the KGB ace to convince the fighter ace that he should assist them in suborning his girlfriend, Alexsandra. Moscow had called Nefski yet again, within an hour of Comrade Marchenko’s departure, pressing him for more information about the sabotage ring Nefski was sure that Alexsandra’s brothers and she were involved in at the Khabarovsk munitions factory. But Nefski, like Marchenko, was not a man to panic under pressure. In any case, he was encouraged by Marchenko’s honoring his agreement to dine with him at the Bear Inn.
One look at the menu and Sergei Marchenko wished he hadn’t come. It was all stodgy, fatty-sounding fare, what Marchenko called “Eastern Siberian”—by which he disparagingly meant anything east of Lake Baikal. The big favorite apparently was pigs’ trotters done with a variety of Buryat sauces with exotic names, most of which sounded to Marchenko as if they might be prepared solely to cover the lack of meat.
“If you wish,” Nefski said, “you may order the vyrezka svininy—pork tenderloin.”
Marchenko scanned the menu. “There isn’t any.”
“Ah!” Nefski said knowingly, and snapped his fingers. A waiter scurried over, his drooping walrus mustache so prolific that in the dim candlelight, he appeared to have no mouth.
“Andre,” began Nefski — and Marchenko burst out laughing, not bothering to hide his contempt for the provincial snobbery that would pretend to have a genuine French waiter in Khabarovsk, the fighter pilot’s laughter puncturing the respect shown the KGB chief. Nefski’s smile was a forced grin. “You don’t like pork tenderloin?”
“I love it.”
“Well then, be glad you’re not a Jew like that little whore of yours.”
“You’re jealous.”
“Not at all. I’ve released her from prison — for the time being. Give her a taste of how it can be for her if she cooperates.”
Marchenko was unimpressed. What Nefski no doubt meant was he’d released Alexsandra hoping she’d lead him to whatever he thought she was involved with. Obviously she hadn’t led him to anything.
Nefski poured the vodka and raised his glass, its oily liquid turning to amber in the candlelight. “To Mother Russia!”
“To Mother Russia!” said Marchenko. It was as natural a toast as “Next year in Jerusalem” would be to Alexsandra.
“Tell your little Jew girl that if she doesn’t tell us who’s involved with the sabotage ring, we will put it about how her family changed its Jewish name to ingratiate themselves with the Soviets. And how now that Mother Russia is at war, they have turned on her — how they seek to stab her in the back— and that—”
“You’ve already put that about,” said Marchenko contemptuously. “That won’t budge her.”
“I’m not finished,” said Nefski, “but it’s interesting you say it won’t budge her. Your tone suggests she should be budged.”
“I don’t approve of sabotage, no, but—”
“If you don’t approve, it’s your duty to help. Tell her if she doesn’t cooperate, I will have her entire family — grandparents, everyone — all sixteen of them — shot.”
Marchenko laughed. “You invite me so you can have your pigs’ trotters and ask me to pass on your threats. Why don’t you tell her yourself?”
“Because, Colonel, we have another message for her. If she doesn’t cooperate, we’ll arrest her again and put her in the tranzitnaya kamera—holding cell. Not one of her own, you understand.” He poured another vodka. “The holding cell is a mixed mag — common criminals, rapists — all three sexes. I’m sure you can inject more concern about that than we ever could.” Nefski raised his glass again. “Mother Russia!”
Marchenko pushed his glass away, his tone low, angry. “Leave her alone.”
“When she tells us what we want to know.”
“Perhaps she knows nothing.”
“Don’t be stupid, Marchenko. She’s a dirty little Jew. All the Jews know something. They cling together like maggots in our belly. We have to shit them out.” He smiled. “Except the ones we want to keep for our amusement, of course.” Nefski paused. “Honestly now, Colonel — would you marry one?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Ah ha—”
The waiter returned, the tenderloin surrounded by small baked potatoes and fresh sautéed greens, the bread so fresh, it was still warm from the oven — a long French loaf. Marchenko was astonished.
Nefski was already attacking the pigs’ trotters, slicing off the crisp bubbling fat, consuming it quickly, washing it down with more vodka, and adroitly mopping the fat that dribbled over his bottom lip. “Look, Comrade, I’m not going to fuck around with you any longer. I try to be nice, but being an ace has gone to your head.” He jabbed his fork, laden with fat-soaked bread, toward Marchenko. “We are fighting a war down here as well as you are in the air.” He gobbled the bread and downed another vodka. “I heard you missed the American?”
“There’ll be more.”
“You come to the point readily,” said Nefski, turning full onto him.
“How do you mean?”
“There won’t be any more opportunities for you if you don’t convince her to spill her guts.” Marchenko sneered with derision at the threat, though his reaction was mitigated somewhat by the tenderloin — done to perfection, the best he’d ever tasted.
“Oh—” said Nefski, with his interrogator’s unnerving ability to predict his victim’s next response. “You think you are so important I wouldn’t dare? That Daddy would protect you?” He stopped eating for a moment and wiped his mouth, using his thumbnail to push a small sliver of bone from his teeth. “Listen, Colonel Hero, I, too, have connections. If push comes to shove, we could all get bruised, but comrade Chernko swings more weight than your father any day of the week. Are you so stupid not to know that? A fighter pilot is important, but if the rail lines and munitions keep getting hit, your fighter pilots’ll have no gasoline with which to fly.” He pointed his knife at Marchenko. “Besides, I don’t have to bother with any of this official nonsense, crawling around, cap in hand, like we did for a while in Gorbachev’s time. That’s all finished, my friend.” He tore off another piece of the baguette. “You know about Lieutenant Yablonski?”
“Never heard of him.”
“No, because he wasn’t around long enough, that’s why. Transferred here from the Western TVD. We asked him to help us, too, when he was here. He didn’t.”
“So?”
“A truck. The brakes failed one night. On the base.”
“You threatening me?”
“I’m telling you a story,” said Nefski, mopping up the residual fat.
Marchenko fell silent, took another vodka, and smiled. “What if I told you I’d been wearing a tape recorder?”
Nefski belched and wiped his mouth again with the stained napkin. “Don’t be childish, fighter man. You’re out of your depth. Completely.” He turned to Marchenko. “It is the first thing we check.”
“You’re bluffing.”
Nefski sat back and opened his jacket to reveal a small black box, covered with perforated black leather like a transistor radio, less than half a cigarette pack in size. “Mike detector,” he explained. “Standard equipment. As necessary to us, Comrade, as oxygen to you when you fly. If you fly again.” Nefski closed his coat and resumed eating. “I’ve tried to be nice to you, but always you want to play the big man. So now I’m telling you, hero pilot. I give you forty-eight hours. If that little cunt of yours doesn’t start telling us what we want to know, I’ll let her loose among the other scum. They’ll fuck her dead and you won’t fly again. Ever. Ofitsiant! — Waiter!”
“Sir?” The walrus was by his side.
“Telefon!”
Next minute the waiter was frantically unraveling a phone cord like a man readying to abandon ship. Nefski pushed the phone toward Marchenko. “Call your base commander. Tell him I want to talk to him.” Nefski was still chewing, staring at Marchenko, daring him.
Marchenko dialed, and when the base commander came on, his tone was terse, clipped, authoritarian, asking Marchenko what he wanted. Nefski grabbed the receiver, identifying himself brusquely to the commander, then held the receiver far enough away so that Marchenko could hear as well. The change in the commander’s tone upon hearing Nefski had been instantaneous. Marchenko was disgusted. The man was senior fighter commander TVD, yet his tone was cloyingly subservient. Nefski smiled and spoke brusquely to the commander, “I want you in my office within half an hour.”
“Yes, Colonel,” came the response. “Of course, I’ll—”
Nefski put down the receiver and stared at Marchenko. “And I want that slut talking in forty-eight hours.” With that, he left.
Marchenko sat, the vodka cupped in his hands, his eyes fixed on the little oily sea inside the glass, and waited for what he thought was Nefski’s final insult: leaving him to pay the bill. When it didn’t come, he called over the waiter to hurry it up, but the walrus informed him, “Monsieur, there is no bill for Colonel Nefski’s guests.”
“Oh,” Marchenko said, feeling momentarily like a naive schoolboy, and grabbing his cap and coat, made his way out into the blinding snow. He hailed a troika — more of them about now that gas rationing was even more severe than normal. With the harness bells jingling, the outer two horses’ nostrils flaring, the steam of their breath almost instantly frozen to icicles, Marchenko sat back into the troika’s deep embrace, pulling down his cap, and the collar of his greatcoat and the rough serge blankets up about his ears. As the shushing of the snow, like the threshing of wheat, cut through the silence of the dark streets, the old, grizzled driver, his beard a clump of watery ice, snapped the whip, driving Marchenko fast toward the Jewish sector.