A Very Private Plot (6 page)

Nikolai laughed, and told Andrei he was now a licensed electrical engineer, and that he had done twenty-two hours of history.

“Russian history? Or Soviet history?”

Nikolai replied cautiously. “Both.”

“I should have known. They do run into each other a bit, ho ho, but let's get off that. Me, I did not go to college, I went right to the army. I was commissioned an officer in the field three months after I got here. Promoted in January. I could use the extra pay. Ah!”—Andrei wavered: Should he order another tumbler of vodka?—“
Money
, it is so important! If I did not have a little money, including”—his eyes widened, his hand slipped under his trousers, moving quickly from one side of his stomach to the other, a zipper unzipped—“including
this
! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve! Twelve U.S. dollar bills, oh my what they will get for you! While you lie down in the room and dream of it, I will be”—he got up, closing his eyes in rapture—“experiencing it. She costs ten—ten!—rubles, or one—
one
—American dollar, my little dark-skinned beautiful slut, my Akta! Come along, or the mess will close down and the horse manure they serve us will poison the pigs.”

Nikolai Trimov followed Andrei out into the dark, into the cold, past yet two more barracks-type quarters to the squat compound that served as the officers' mess hall. Nikolai knew that his grandfather would have killed to have whatever they would be given to eat at the mess hall.

For the thousandth time in the six years since in his teens he had pieced together his family history he felt those pulsations of fury against the system for which he was now being asked to fight, if necessary to death.

CHAPTER 7

MARCH 1985

Colonel Stepan Dombrovsky addressed the assembly of regimental, battalion, and company commanders. Dombrovsky had taught at the War College. He was too young to have seen action in the Great Patriotic War against Hitler, so that when he arrived at the front he was received with some skepticism by the veteran soldiers. That skepticism went quickly, after he was observed in command of the front regiments, which he directed with bravery, assurance, and sophistication. He was promoted now to operations officer. He was entirely comfortable back at a lectern, as in the old days at the War College in Leningrad.

The plan, he disclosed, was to drive the mujahedin resisters up to the high peak of Mountain “A”—the colonel pointed to the enlarged section of the map. “Behind it is the high range, this side of the Pakistani border. We will”—he described a semicircle with his baton—“use small arms, artillery, and mortar right along this line. The rebels will need to seek shelter in the mountain crevices. From there they have no alternative, as we keep up the fire, than to head for the range, along this line”—again he used his baton.

“Beginning on the third day, the whole regiment is bound to seek relief. It is the toughest of the resistance units, seven to ten thousand men. But they are armed only with rifles.
Then
,” said Colonel Dombrovsky, who spoke with something of a lisp because two teeth were missing, as also a section of the adjacent lip, “when they begin to go for the range, our fighter planes will go to work and our bombers will drop big payloads. They will be bottled up”—he pointed to the map—“in this ravine here. There is no way to avoid traversing it when seeking the shelter of the range. With luck”—the colonel tapped his baton playfully on the head of Battalion Commander Major Lapin—“we will put the Zeta mujahedin regiment completely out of business before the end of the week.”

Were there any questions?

There were. But it was only the question asked by Lieutenant Andrei Belinkov that rattled the colonel. “Will there be Stingers?” Andrei asked.

“How in Hades would
I
know, Lieutenant Belinkov, if there will be any Stingers? In the engagement last Thursday there were no Stingers and our fighters managed to do plenty of damage to the enemy, would you not agree, Lieutenant Belinkov?”

Belinkov said yes, he certainly agreed that there had been plenty of damage done to the enemy on Thursday. He had no problem recalling the events of the day. Soviet fighter planes had ripped into a column of mujahedin, killing and wounding over sixty rebels. The survivors of the Afghan unit, surrounded, had dropped their rifles. You could hear the clatter of steel barrels landing on the rocky soil. The cold mountain air, working on the warm exhalations, gave the impression that the rebels were all smoking cigarettes. They were led, their hands behind their necks, to the edge of the neighboring forest. At a signal from Major Lapin, a Soviet machine gunner stationed just inside the forest that gave him camouflage began firing. He mowed them all down, investing at least five bullets in each of the resisters. The major had then walked nonchalantly along the row of scattered bodies, firing his pistol into the heads of the half-dozen soldiers that showed any sign of life.

“The Stingers are the responsibility of the air force,” the colonel explained, “with which of course our own operation is completely coordinated.”

There being no other questions, the company commanders were told to give the appropriate instructions for the next day's operation to their platoon leaders.

Inside the combat zone, ten days later, Andrei Belinkov, along with Nikolai, faced the problem of the evening meal. It was necessary to eat early—in the daylight hours cooking fires didn't attract sniper fire. Andrei took his ration of beans and rice and that evening's fishy gruel, wrapped himself in his great coat, and sat, his back against the side of a tank, alongside Nikolai, who had not fully mastered the technique of handling his army fork while wearing the heavy gloves without which his hands would freeze in the bitter cold at 7,500 feet.

“Great sport, eh, Nikolai?” Andrei began. “It will not be so easy tomorrow, you will see. Well, but then tomorrow will not be so difficult, because our artillery is very heavy, and there will not be much counter fire. We will drive them up to shelters in the mountain, yes, and probably, yes, Muhammad Ezi will seek the greater refuge of the range, perhaps even the shelter of Pakistan. But the success of the operation will depend entirely on the air offensive, the fighters especially. We will not be able to use our artillery effectively into the ravine—”

“Why not?”

“Why not? My dear Nikolai … because the same artillery we will be using to assault Mountain ‘A' will require four, five hours, maybe more, to transport around the mountain to get within firing range of the ravine. We rifle soldiers will be able to ascend and take our positions and begin firing into the ravine quickly, in less than an hour. So the heavy barrage will need to be from the airplanes. Without American-made interference—You have seen the American Stingers?… Of course not. We have been in the field only ten days, and on Thursday there were no Stingers, I do not know why.” The pitch of Andrei's voice was interrogatory: “It is very surprising.

“Oh my God what I would do for some vodka, it is two days since I ran out. Do you know, Nikolai, I have absolutely
no
idea what you think of this madness we are engaged in.
You are the most reserved man
I have ever associated with! As a matter of fact, Nikolai, I do not really know why I continue to seek your company. We have slept in the same two-man shelter now for ten days. You listen to me, and sometimes you laugh, and you answer my questions. But I do not know what is on your mind, and surely you are the only officer in the army who does not complain of Moscow's policy in this accursed war.”

Andrei put down his aluminum plate. He spoke now gruffly. “Say
something
, for the love of God, Nikolai,
say something
! You may not be able to say something two days from now,
because you may be dead
!” Andrei stared into the eyes of Nikolai and, grabbing his collar with one hand, shook him hard, though suddenly his voice modulated, as it traveled from exhortation to entreaty. Andrei Belinkov wanted desperately to hear Nikolai condemn the mad vicious bloody venture in which the Soviet Union was engaged “
for no purpose except a meaningless enlargement of empire and the sweet smell of nearby Iranian oil
. That's the
only
purpose of it,” he half muttered. His hand loosened its grip on Nikolai's collar and a tear came to his eye. He dropped his hand. “It is a quite dreadful way to die, is it not, Nikolai?”

Nikolai spoke now. His voice had acquired a new timbre, one Belinkov had not heard before.

“It is a terrible way to die, yes, Andrei. The death of the mujahedin who surrendered to us two weeks ago, that too was a terrible way to die.”

Belinkov turned away. “What are we
supposed
to do with the prisoners?”

Nikolai did not answer.

Belinkov relented. “You are right, it was a terrible way to die. I have not got used to it.”

Operation Bottleneck worked according to schedule for the first two days. Early on the third day, a Soviet surveillance plane flying at 50,000 feet reported that the mujahedin appeared to be consolidating on the southern base of Mountain “A” preparatory to crossing the ravine to the safety of the high range, two miles across. Colonel Dombrovsky was elated and ordered two battalions of light infantry to begin the forced march to the east side of the mountain, proceed to deploy, and fire at the enemy. Orders went out to the artillery to begin their arduous trek to both sides of the mountain. The radio from the surveillance plane alerted the Soviet fighters and bombers on standby 75 kilometers to the north.

One hour later, several hundred mujahedin began to cross the ravine. At 8:35 a.m. the Soviet air force could be spotted on the western horizon—as heavy a concentration of Su-17s and Su-25s, thought Nikolai, as one might expect to see flying over Moscow on May Day! He continued to lead his men, at quick-time, to the eastern side of the mountain, where they would squat down and contribute their own firepower to the slaughter. The bombers, he guessed, would come in at about 5,000 feet, the fighter planes at 1,000 feet. And now the explosive sounds of falling bombs began, synchronizing with the deadly rat-tat-tat of the fighters' machine guns.

And then—Nikolai stared in disbelief. Six fighter planes, almost as if exercising a joint maneuver, abruptly left their offensive configuration. Three exploded before hitting the ground. The ten surviving planes in the squadron, executing the Soviet plan, consummated their 180-degree turn at the south end of the ten-mile-long ravine and whizzed back to strafe again the mujahedin, whose numbers, designed to swell as Muhammad Ezi's regiment made their way to the range, were however rapidly diminishing. Suddenly, four more fighters were struck, three going down directly in flames; one, with a smoky contrail as if gasping for air, lost its altitude slowly, crashing, finally, an eternal twenty seconds later, into the west face of the range. The surviving six fighters abandoned the cauldron, and suddenly the bombing fleet dematerialized into the horizon.

It was then that the rebels' rifle fire concentrated on the Soviet battalion that had been poised to fire into the ravine, by now almost empty of targets as the mujahedin completed their ambush. Nikolai shouted at his men to take cover. It seemed only seconds before Nikolai heard a bullet's thud a few yards ahead of him. And it was only minutes later that he discerned that the heavy rifle fire was coming not only from ahead of him, from the southern flank of the mountain, but from behind. The mujahedin had descended from their mountain crevices, taking positions to the rear of the Soviet regiment, which now was taking concentrated fire from ahead and behind. Belinkov's voice came in over the radio to Nikolai. “
The bastards are everywhere. Dig in. I am radioing to the artillery to head back and give us cover
.”

Soon after midday, Soviet artillery began to pepper the northern flank. The withering fire from the rear gradually decreased and the order came to the Soviet commanders to turn about and make their way back to where they had come from. Nikolai shouted out the order for his platoon to retreat. Platoon B provided cover from the front. At this moment, standing to shout out his commands, Nikolai felt the bullet in his thigh. He dived down and began to crawl. He could no longer run, though he'd have felt no safer doing so.

It was midafternoon before there was anything like a reassembly at the regimental station from which the offensive had begun. Thirty-five men in Nikolai's platoon were checked in, ten of them wounded. Twenty-five were not accounted for. The casualties in the other platoons were comparable.

Colonel Dombrovsky did not appear, and no one came forward to testify to what had happened to him. It was not until nightfall that the military radio from Kandahãr brought them the news: a radio intercept of the enemy revealed that Dombrovsky had been taken prisoner.

Andrei Belinkov made it back with a dozen survivors of his own platoon. He went to the field hospital and found Nikolai. Only penlight flashlights were permitted and it was with a pen-light trained on his thigh that Nikolai saw the scalpel dig into his flesh to bare the cavity in which the bullet lay. He did not remember the yank that dislodged it, feeling only the intense pain and hearing the voice of Andrei (“Easy, Nikolai Grigorovich, the worst is almost over …”), who held a second flashlight for the pharmacist's mate officiating. He remembered hearing the voice of another officer saying hoarsely to Belinkov, “A bloody ambush. The whole thing. Including two weeks ago—no Stingers—whole thing—bloody ambush.”

Nikolai woke the next day in a truck in which he and a half-dozen—a dozen?—other soldiers lay, some of them moaning, all of them freezing in the cold as they made their bumpy way back to the division headquarters fifty kilometers away. Every day for four days Andrei would come and exchange a few words with him. They spoke about every subject except the war, except the killing. Nikolai spoke of his childhood, ascribing his orphan status to a local plague, and then about his college years. Andrei spent relaxing moments describing the sports he had so much enjoyed, the karate lessons he had mastered, and the friends in boyhood who joined him in attempting to eke some pleasures from their drab lives. Where-were-you-when-Stalin-died did not work for them, since neither had been alive in 1953, but they did recall the great Olympic triumphs of the gymnast Nikolai Andrianov in Montreal in 1976. Neither of them brought up the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980. That had been a reaction to the Soviet Afghan offensive that had brought them here, an engagement they would not willingly evoke.