Russian Amerika (20 page)

Grisha stepped back next to Wing and watched. He savored the kisses they had shared and looked forward to more. They both held a reluctance to move into anything more intimate. Each needed more time.

Tomorrow he and Cora had to walk into the twin beaks of the imperial eagle to set bait for an ambush. The comprehension of their audacity made Grisha feel like a mouse. He'd have to be a fast and smooth-talking mouse if he wanted to live. To succeed, Grisha must pass as a
Creole
promyshlennik.

Every Russian he encountered would look down on him. Their contempt might help him avoid suspicion, perhaps they would think him too cowed by their numbers and social standing to be dangerous.

Suddenly the small group around Cora stepped back to admire their work.

"What do you think?" Wing asked.

Cora's transformation to frightened, wild-eyed village woman went beyond convincing. For a moment he didn't even want to pretend that he was responsible for the pain and abuse evident in that furtive face. He suddenly smiled.

"You're good at this! Now if I can just remember to act as if I'm the bastard who makes you cringe like that, we might get through this."

"You can do it," Cora said firmly. "Now let's get our final briefing from Chan."

Chan said, "Good news, we've got the Troika Guard surrounded."

Grisha stopped and stared at the man. "You
are
giving them the chance to surrender and change their lives, aren't you? Most of them aren't even Russian citizens."

"Grisha," Chan spoke as if to a child, "of course we're giving them that chance. So far they haven't accepted. Just do your part and we'll do ours."

"Do you want me to talk to them?"

"Not to worry, we're telling them about you."

30

Chena Redoubt

The seven-meter walls of Chena Redoubt sprouted like malignant mushrooms from the buildings clustered close near their base. The RustyCan ran through the middle of town and past the front gate of the compound. As in every other town on the highway, the road boasted a convict-constructed stone surface.

Army lorries outnumbered civilian vehicles by a wide margin. Most people walked or rode the omnibus. The stench of diesel shrouded the town and trailed off into the surrounding forest.

Based on Tetlin Redoubt, Grisha's low expectations experienced a shock. The town of Chena stretched for five kilometers between the highway and the Tanana River, then widened to a kilometer on each side of the road near the middle of the strip. Neither Tetlin or any of the towns in Southeast Alaska came close to this size.

Conveniences such as electricity, sewer, and running water existed in even the poorest dwelling. Two nonparochial schools indicated the wealth of the local bourgeoisie. Education outside Russian Orthodox schools remained costly.

The priests had taught Grisha to read and write Russian. He had easily picked up street English, the _lingua franca® of the Pacific coast. Here, things seemed much more conservative and old-time Russian.

Every person moving about on the streets could pass for a character out of a Pushkin novel. New clothing styles had not gained a foothold here, nor anything else new.

This peculiar provincialism supposedly held an attraction for many people in the southern American countries. They called this the "Last Frontier."

Some people would buy anything, Grisha mused. Cora kept them moving at a steady gait past shops of all descriptions toward the forbidding hulk of the redoubt gate. Wing's assessment of the population held more skew than she realized.

Grisha blended with the lowest elements of humanity in Chena. His shabby appearance also created a barrier that many of the residents didn't care to breach. Few gave them a second glance.

Not that he minded their studied indifference. Quite the contrary. A half-track crunched past them and the soldiers manning its heavy machine gun shouted at Cora, offering her money for explicit sexual acts.

She scurried up next to Grisha, placing him between her and them. The soldiers laughed as they passed.

She gazed up at him and murmured, "Some of these soldiers won't get the same opportunity you did."

He nodded, trying his best to look dangerous and important.

They hurried up to the gate.

"I need to see the duty officer," Grisha said to one of the two guards.

The man rested his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol and looked them over contemptuously.

"What would a
Creole
want to tell an officer?" His rancid breath advertised ruined teeth.

"About Dená killing Russian soldiers and Cossacks."

Instantly both men leveled their weapons at them.

"Don't move!" the more distant guard said with a bark. "Go get the lieutenant, Pitr."

The guard in front of the them turned and hurried through the gate.

"It's not
us
doing the killing!" Grisha said nervously.

"Quiet! Tell it to the officer."

Two armed men hurried out and took up position behind them. Cora stared at the ground, hands clenched together. Grisha did his best to appear as if he owned the world.

A youth of no more than twenty summers, wearing a rough gray uniform and glossy high black boots, strode through the gate gripping a machine pistol in his hand. He stopped directly in front of them and put the muzzle against the bridge of Grisha's nose.

"Who are you planning to kill?"

Grisha realized this was the lieutenant. "Nobody," he said carefully.

"As I tried to tell these, ah, soldiers. I have knowledge about an ambush and I thought it might be worth something to you."

The lieutenant's lip curled. "Who would dare attack us here? Look around you. You can't even slide through the gate using your woman for grease."

Grisha stared at him with loathing. "I came to save lives, mine included. Maybe it's best that I don't bother you at this time." Grisha pulled back slightly. "After all, my woman and I are safe-it's the Troika Guard who are surrounded."

Grisha felt sick that his old unit was being used in this mess. But he agreed with Nathan and Chan that this would produce intense interest on the part of the Russians.

"Troika-" blurted one of the newer guards.

"Silence!" the lieutenant snapped. "Bring them." He hurried back through the gate.

With the wave of a gun barrel, the guards ushered them into the compound. Grisha tried to see everything he could without moving his head. Cora stared around wildly, rubbing her hands together in agitation.

The lieutenant sped across the courtyard, all but running. Grisha didn't try to keep up.

"Move your feet!" a guard snarled.

They trotted after the officer who disappeared into a two-story concrete building. Guards flanked the metal door. Bars latticed the windows.

Once past the alert sentries, they entered an immaculate hallway where their footsteps echoed off stone walls. The sour scent of urine fought the heavy chemical reek of government cleanser for domination of Grisha's nose. He also detected fear, and not just his own.

"In here," the lieutenant's voice echoed out at them. He stood in a small room furnished with four chairs and a heavily scarred wood table, all illuminated by a single bright light dangling from the dark, invisible ceiling. Despite the stone walls, the building's chill stayed in the hallway; the room felt quite warm.

The guards halted at the door. As Grisha and Cora stepped in front of the table the iron door slammed shut and latched behind them. Across the table sat a man in a soft gray uniform with the red tabs of a colonel on his collar.

Grisha tried not to stare, but he had never before seen a man so totally devoid of hair. The single light shone off his bald head as if reflected by a mirror. How the uniform remained spotless in such a filthy world was beyond him.

"Where did you hear the term 'Troika Guard' ?" the man asked softly.

"At my
odinochka
between here and the Yukon," Grisha said.

"So you have a fortified outpost." The man's pale gray eyes glinted beneath wispy, light-colored lashes. "What manner Native are you?"

"I am a
Creole
," Grisha said, putting injury into his voice while straightening his posture. "My father was a Russian
promyshlennik
, as am I, and my mother was a Dená."

"That rabble!" the lieutenant said, slapping his leather holster.

"Shut up, Dimitri," the man said in his soft voice.

The lieutenant snapped to nervous attention.

"Where did you hear the term 'Troika Guard' ? " the man repeated.

"May two good citizens sit in your presence?" Grisha tried to be unctuous.

"Yes. Now tell me."

They sat and Grisha leaned on the table to cover his shaking knees.

"A cousin of my woman came in the night and told me this thing. He had been shot. Before he died he said a lot of Cossacks who called themselves Troika Guards had been surrounded by an army of Dená separatists, and were fighting for their lives. That when they finished wiping out the Russians, they would come after him and me."

"Why would they do that?"

"He was a
kaiurp
, he worked for the Cossacks. Some Dená who know him saw him escape. They know me, too. They say I ask too much for my goods. It isn't easy being a good subject to the Czar out there."

"Where is this supposed massacre taking place?"

"Near Yankovich Creek, where it meets the Nenana."

"Why haven't they radioed for help?"

"I should know?" Grisha shrugged. "If they have radio, why don't you call them?"

A thin wrinkle broke the shine on his scalp.

"We tried. Can you show me on a map where they are?"

"Yes, pretty close, I think."

The pale man pushed something on the table and a large map attached to a sheet of wood hummed from the darkness above them, bumping gently down the stone wall.

"Where?"

Grisha stood and peered hard at the lines and words. He tapped the surface.

"Somewhere in this area. My
odinochka
is right here. We could hear shooting to the west."

"You're lying of course," the man whispered and smiled.

Grisha's stomach knotted and his sphincter clenched.

"Why should I lie? Would I be here if this is a lie?"

"You are here because you are frightened. You don't care about Imperial soldiers. You want us to protect your smelly store."

"I would like that, to have my store be safe. But they are dying out there."

"Then we shall have to rescue them," the gray man said. "And you will guide us."

"I am not a warrior. I am a merchant, a trapper, a hunter."

"And now you're a guide. Your woman will be kept here just in case you had some alternate plan."

"But, she needs to be with me." Grisha didn't need to strain to put real pleading into his words. "She needs to be safe."

"Sasha?" Cora said sharply, fear emanating from her. Grisha wondered how much of it was acting.

"They say you must stay," he said in her language. Learning the Tanana dialect of Athabascan had been the most difficult part of his training. "I will come back for you."

Grisha turned to the bald man. "If she is harmed, I will kill you," he said flatly.

"That would be fair," the man said. "But it won't be necessary. She'll be quite safe."

The man lifted a steel helmet off the floor behind the table and strapped it carefully on his head. It bore the Imperial Army gold twin-headed eagle holding a sword in one talon and a wreath in the other, as well as the three stars of a colonel. "Dimitri, sound the alarm."

The lieutenant rushed out the door. Moments later an amplified bugle blared and even through the stone walls Grisha could hear running feet.

"Shall we go?" The colonel swept his hand toward the door.
31

800 Meters Over the Tanana River

The helicopter beat northward. That the Russians brought him with them gave him no surprise, but he hadn't anticipated flying. He nervously remembered the gunfire knocking down helicopters during the attack on Toklat.

"You're worried," the colonel said.

Grisha glanced at the man sitting next to him and nodded.

"I would rather be walking."

"We'll join the ground forces as soon as we ascertain there is indeed a battle under way. I don't want to send my motorized battalion into an ambush, do I?"

"No. Of course not," Grisha said, rubbing sweaty hands on his trouser legs.

"I thought all
promyshlenniks
relished a good fight, what's wrong with you?"

"How can I fight from this?" Grisha thumped the metal wall with his knuckles. "I do my fighting on my feet." He slid the razor-edged knife from his sleeve. "With this."

The colonel's eyes narrowed as he studied him.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Sasha. Sasha Dublinnik, free trader and expert hunter. What's yours?"

The colonel gave him a frosty grin and looked away to study the ground beneath them. Grisha did the same. Anxiety swirled through him.

He wasn't sure what they would encounter once they reached the battle site. A lot of people besides him had invested their lives in this complex operation. He would be the first to die if the Dená subterfuge did not work. Cora and many of the Chena assault force would also die.

"There's smoke ahead, Colonel," the pilot said over his shoulder.

"Circle the area first."

The gunship canted to the side as it turned. The left door gunner tightened his straps, slid open a Plexiglas hatch and, gripping his weapon, braced against the wall with one foot. Wind whipped in from the opening, displacing all warmth with withering cold. Their eyes followed the black column of smoke downward.

A Russian half-track burned furiously in the center of a snowy meadow. A figure in mottled white and dark camouflage ran out of the trees and waved at the helicopter, motioning it to land in the open space next to the burning vehicle. The gunship continued to circle.

Other figures in winter camouflage waved up at the craft, then went back to firing into the forest. Many men lay on the ground in various attitudes of death. Blood pimpled the snowy meadow.