Siberius (8 page)

             
“
It would be a shame to have to kill you, too.
”
Tobolisk’s final words before leaving the radar room stuck in Kurskin’s head. Since then, he had smoked 14 cigarettes and paced a groove in the floor.

             
“Son of a bitch,” he said as he leaned against the cinder block wall and puffed away. “Son of a bitch.” Kurskin went back to the radio set, sat down and dialed in the correct channel. He picked up the handset and depressed the button.

             
And said nothing.

             
He released the button, stood up, and paced some more. “Son of a bitch,” he said. Over the past few hours, he had repeated the move to the radio umpteen times, yet couldn’t bring himself to call Vukarin. What would he say? What
could
he say?
“Lieutenant, big dumb, ugly Tobolisk is picking on me! Tell him to stop!”
Yeah, that’d go over well. Sure, it was a crime to threaten an officer. But he and Tobolisk were privates, and privates settled their differences with a nice game of cards, a vodka shot challenge, or a good old-fashioned fist fight. Kurskin didn’t know how to play cards, and there was no way he could out drink Tobolisk, who had more vodka in his veins than blood. As for a fist fight, well, the answer to that was obvious. Still…

             
“Fuck it.” Kurskin grabbed the radio handset and pushed the button.

Before he could say anything, the outside door flew open and private Vladamir Warnikov shot inside. An icy wind accompanied him, and Kurskin spun and dropped the handset all at the same time.

“Shit!” he hollered, more frightened than angry.

Though the room was mostly dark with green highlights, Kurskin could see that Warnikov’s eyes were bulging and that he was breathing heavy. The radar op didn’t really know him that well, but he did know that Warnikov was probably as worthless as Tobolisk. He was always flashing pictures in his wallet of numerous girlfriends back in Volgograd. Kurskin thought they were pictures he had cut from magazines.

“What are you doing?” said Kurskin, snuffing out his cigarette. They weren’t supposed to smoke on the grounds, let alone inside the buildings. He hoped Warnikov wouldn’t make an issue out of it.

“
It’s Mierkin,” he said in a timid voice. “Come with me.”

Kurskin immediately knew something was wrong. For one, Warnikov never spoke in a timid voice. And for another, he was no friend of Boris Mierkin, who Kurskin believed was consistently the foulest-smelling soldier east of the Ural mountains. Mierkin’s favorite thing to eat were onion and sardine sandwiches, and the combination left him with an ever-present stench coming out of both ends.

Kurskin put the dead cigarette in his coat pocket. “What’s wrong with Mierkin? And close the door, will you?”

But Warnikov just stood there, licking his lips and swallowing with a repetitive nervous twitch. “Will you come out to the fence with me?” he said. His eyes hardly blinked.

Hell no, I don’t want to go out there. I hate the cold. I hate the snow. I hate people coming into my nice little sanctuary in the middle of the night.
“Why?” he found himself saying. “What’s out there?”

“
Just come with me,” said Warnikov. “It’s Mierkin. I don’t know what’s happened to him.”

“
What’s
happened
to him?”

“
Yes.”

“
Is he okay?”

“
I don’t know. Just come with me.”

“
Why was he out at the fence?” Kurskin already knew the answer: to smoke.
Idiots,
he thought.
You can smoke inside where it’s nice and warm. Barkov’s a hundred miles away
.
No one’s gonna say anything.

“
Are you coming with me?”

Kurskin huffed a little, then thought it would do some good to get some fresh air. Some fresh
cold
air. He’d been thinking about Tobolisk long enough.

Kurskin went to the door and looked outside. The sun had sunk below the horizon, casting everything in featureless black silhouettes. It’d be dark in 15 minutes.

“Hang on,” he said, then opened an unmarked door in the corner and entered. After a few seconds, sounds of switches being thrown were followed by the compound’s lights coming on. The sodium vapor glow barely reached into the radar room. Kurskin appeared again, and closing the door to the little room, walked past Warnikov without even looking at him.

“
Let’s go,” he said as he exited the radar room.

9

             
The Siberian sky ran purple as the sun disappeared. The soldiers climbed into the canvas shrouded Jimmies, grabbed blankets from underneath the benches and covered up. Vukarin went from truck to truck and helped tie down the flaps in an effort to keep the wind out. Radchek stood by the Maultier and stared off into the night. He was tired, exhausted even, but he had to set an example. The Red Army did not defeat Hitler by being soft. He glanced into the half-track’s cab.

             
Barkov sat with binoculars, scanning the tree line through the windshield. It had taken less than an hour to hike back to the trucks from the plane. Once there, they had all dipped into the MRE’s, eating as much as they could stomach. All except Barkov. He didn’t eat. Not a single crumb.

“
All bedded down, sir,” Vukarin said while trudging toward him through the snow. His voice was soft. Twenty-four hours without sleep did that to a man. “Did he say how long we’d be here?”

The lieutenant followed Radchek as he navigated around to the rear of the half-track. “Two hours,” said the captain.

“Longer than I thought,” Vukarin nodded.

“
Yes,” said Radchek, then added, “How is Corovich?”

They looked back toward the lead truck. The sleeping private could be seen through the Jimmie’s windshield. “He’s fine. Mild concussion, but he’ll live.”

“Good,” said Radchek. “Because the colonel wants
him
to lead the second team north.”

Vukarin smiled. “Thank Christ,” he said. “I thought I’d have to do it.”

10

Talia slid a heavy beam across the door, then draped a thick blanket over it. Nick stirred at the sound, then opened his eyes. Facing a wall, it took a minute or two before he remembered where he was:

In a cabin. With that woman.

He had no idea how long he had slept, but he felt better. Though his head still ached, his mind was clearing, and that was a good thing. For the moment at least, he wasn’t in any obvious danger.

Nick took stock of his surroundings. In a corner by the bed, he saw things he hadn’t noticed before. A shelf stacked with notebooks and papers. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses. A shaving kit. Hanging from a wall hook, a large parka and ermine hat. On the floor, big fur-lined boots. There were also some old tin-plate photos in rusting frames and a Krasnagorsk camera with a broken lens. It was evident to Nick that these were a man’s things. Everything was coated with dust, and looked like they hadn’t been touched in years. To Nick, that likely meant only one thing:

Whoever owned them was not coming back.

Rolling on his other side, he saw Talia standing over a potbellied stove, warming her hands. For the first time, Nick saw her without a winter coat. He was surprised by what he saw.

Talia was pretty. The glow of the fire rendered her skin in warm, even tones. Her eyes were the same color as the evergreen trees of the taiga
,
and her dark brown hair hung just below her shoulders
.
A kettle of tea steamed on the cast iron plate, and she threw another chunk of wood into the stove.

Nick sat up, rubbing his head. “How long have I been asleep?” His stomach rumbled and his mouth was dry and salty.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t have a clock in here. But it’s dusk, if that helps you.” Nick eased his legs over the side of the bed and watched Talia pour tea into a cup. She sat down and sipped it.

“
Got any more of that, miss-” His mind went blank and he chuckled and said, “You know, I’m in your home, sleeping in your bed and I don’t even know your name.” Talia glared at him and Nick straightened up. “You know what I mean,” he said, losing his smile.

“
There’s a cup on the shelf, Nick. Help yourself.” She was smug about knowing his name and Nick cringed.

Good job, Nicky-boy
, he thought
. You’re one hell of a mole.
Talking in his sleep was a problem he tried to deal with while in the army, and it almost cost Nick assignments with the OSS. It could be worse, he reasoned. At least he didn’t sleep walk.

Nick climbed out of bed. In a moment, he too was sipping hot tea next to the stove. He let the steam rise over his face, breathing it in. “Did I say anything else?”

Talia thought it over. “You live in Cleveland,” she said, not looking at him. “With Indians.”

Nick chuckled again. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor. “Oh, yeah, my baseball dream,” Nick said. “You know baseball?”

              Talia shook her head and stared at the fire. Nick was a pretty rational person, and he sensed that this woman was no danger to him. At the very least, she wasn’t part of the Red Army.

             
“I haven’t seen a ball game in-” He stopped, contemplated it like it meant something. “Geez, must be five years. I’m gonna see one this summer, though, I can promise you that.” Her reaction was another swallow from her cup. “Guess there’s no point in telling you my rank and serial number.” He extended his hand. “I’m Nicholas Somerset. Friends call me Nick.”

             
Hesitant, she shook it. “Talia.”

             
“Talia. That’s nice. I guess I owe you my life.”

             
“I guess you do,” she said, then draped a blanket around her shoulders. Thick walls and blankets muffled the faint whistling wind.

             
“This is real cozy,” he said, looking around. “Are you on your own out here?” She ignored him. Nick sipped his tea. “Pretty cold outside, huh?”

             
“You can spend the night here,” she said with sharp urgency. “But you must leave in the morning.” And with that, she stood up and went to the little table. Nick watched her open a ratty notebook, then grab a few books from the bookshelf against the wall. She sat down and started to read.

She was rude, but Nick couldn’t bring himself to complain. He had crashed in a frozen wasteland and this woman saved his life. Under the circumstances, Nick thought himself the luckiest man on Earth.

              “I hate to say this,” he said. “But I’m hungry.” Talia looked up from her book, and Nick could see that she was irritated.

“
There’s bread in the sack on the shelf and dried meat in that can.”

Nick searched around and found the stash. He slapped a few chunks of the meat on a piece of flatbread, folded it over, and dove in. His face lit up as he chewed.

“Last meal I had was a soggy MRE.” He swallowed without enough chewing, and the food strained to get down to his stomach. Nick reveled in the sensation. “Know what an MRE is?”

“
Uh-uh,” said Talia. She didn’t look up from her book.

“
Meals Ready to Eat. Worst invention in the Army, unless you’re starving. And even then…” Nick gulped down the rest of the sandwich, licked his fingers. “Kinda tender for beef jerky.”

“
Musk-ox,” she said. Nick stopped chewing. “Actually, musk-ox calf. It was left over from a wolf kill.”

“
Well, that was some fine musk-ox,” he said. Pouring another cup of tea, he knocked it back, unsure if the aftertaste was his own imagination or not.

Nick stood up and glanced over the books on the shelf. Most of them were in Russian and German, but Nick was fluent in both, which is why he had been recruited to join the OSS in the first place. He read the spines:
The Changing World of the Ice Age
by R.A. Daly
.
He perused some more.
Great Animal Migrations
by J. Obenheiffer and P. Dickson
, Phylogeny of the Felidae
by W.D. Matthew,
Panthera Tigris
by J.K. Rachinov.
Extinction Theory
by R. Lydekker.
Across the Bering Strait
by H. Melskin. And one unusual one:
The Scythian People of Siberia
by L. Andrychenko.

“
Those are some interesting books, miss,” Nick said. He pulled the Lydekker book and opened it. “What are you, some kind of scientist?”

“
Zoologist,” she said while writing in the notebook.

“
Oh, yeah? So you study what-” He turned pages past long stretches of text and stopped at an illustration. “Zoos?” A black and white painting of a herd of giant wooly mammoths marching across a snowy conifer forest spanned two pages. The caption read:
A typical scene on the Somme in France during the last ice age. Painting courtesy of C.R. Knight, American Museum of Natural History.