Underground (29 page)

“On what grounds?”

“First, because you and others told them there was a whole, solid underground network in place in the Baltics and his news sounds pessimistic, the kind of thing the Reds might want us to believe. The Americans hate pessimism. Next, they believe that the Reds, having developed an atomic bomb, are more confident and beginning to mass troops for an offensive against Western Europe in the spring. But Lozorius says nothing about massed troops or materiel transports heading west. Therefore, he sounds suspicious.”

Lukas was sitting with Zoly at a table at a window that overlooked the front yard of the house and the sea beyond it. Shimkus and Rudis were being trained for hand-to-hand combat by an Asian Swede. The three looked like sportsmen practising wrestling. The whole session had an air of unreality to it, as if they were playing a game.

“Maybe Lozorius is pinned down in his bunker and doesn't know anything,” said Lukas.

“Maybe. Or maybe he's sending disinformation.” Zoly said it dispassionately enough, as if he had never known the man in all his charisma. He stood up and took the full ashtray from the table and tossed it on the cinders in the cold fireplace. When he returned to the table, he lit up again.

“If what you say is true, they're asking me to walk into a trap,” said Lukas.

Zoly shrugged. “You have to be prepared for whatever reality you find there.”

“Or maybe what Lozorius is saying is true, he has not been turned, and the Americans just don't want to hear it.”

“That's also possible.”

“If they don't want to hear it from him, they won't want to hear it from me. I wouldn't want to be stranded in the country because they doubted me.”

“I've promised to get you out of there once you've contacted Lozorius and collected some information.”

“You'll have to do better than promise. I have no intention of dying. I'm going in there to get my wife out, and you have to help me.”

“I said I would.”

“If it means rowing a dinghy yourself to pick us up, I expect you to do it.”

“I'll do everything I can.”

“You have to do the impossible, Zoly. And if I don't make it out, you have to watch over Monika and watch over Elena. Get Monika a pension or something.”

“What am I supposed to do for Elena from here?”

“I don't know. Send Elena Red Cross packages, if they're permitted.”

“I promise I'll do the best I can!” said Zoly, throwing up his hands. “Just remember this: the Brits, Americans and Swedes are going to a lot of trouble putting you in there. Remember that you owe something to them. Get some intelligence. Set up a conduit for information. They want to know about troop movements and missile bases. Don't be quite the high-minded soul you were when you first came out. Help them and you'll make it easier for me to help you.”

“All right. There is just one more possibility I'd like to explore.”

“What's that?”

“The possibility that Dunlop has made it all up.”

Zoly stood and walked into the kitchen to put a kettle on the stove. He came back to lean on the door jamb as he waited for the kettle to boil. “I thought of that too. So I asked to listen in on a recording of Lozorius's transmission. Dunlop didn't let me do that. He said there was no recording. But there was a transcript. I looked at that.”

“Well?”

“Lozorius does say that your wife is alive, but not much more than that. Maybe he doesn't want to betray her accidentally.”

“So you're satisfied what he said is true?”

“True?” Zoly laughed. “I saw the transcript, but I can't prove that he sent it, or that he was telling the truth if he did. The Brits or the Americans might be luring you in to go and test whether Lozorius has been turned. On the other hand, he might be intending to lure you in so the Cheka can take you as a prize. Or it could all be true. Even if it is true, Elena might be under some kind of pressure of her own, something we're unaware of. We can't be sure of anything.”

Too restless to sit still as the other men slept, Lukas walked cautiously along the forest cutline to the point where it ended a kilometre farther along, and there he looked out to where a few farmhouses stood among the autumn fields. The first one, a thatched-roof wooden home, belonged to a man named Martinkus, supposedly a friend and contact. Lukas watched from the distance but did not see anything out of the ordinary about the house or the surroundings.

When he made his way back, he found Shimkus poised in a crouch with his rifle at the ready. So much for his easygoing attitude. He had been boiling water over a small fire.

“Where did you go?” Shimkus asked accusingly.

“I wanted to look around.”

“Never walk off like that without leaving word.”

“Why not?”

“I thought you'd abandoned us.”

“I didn't think you were the nervous type.”

“I'm not from this part of the country. I'd be lost on my own.”

“Is Rudis still asleep?”

“I tried to wake him, but he told me to go to hell.”

Shimkus had an aggrieved air, like someone who nurtured his insults. Lukas resolved to keep an eye on this tendency. You could never tell what a man was like until you were with him in the field. Some became better and some became worse.

Of the two radios they had brought, only one worked because the other's batteries had got wet. Rudis was finally woken and came up sullen, but after a cup of tea and a cigarette he was prevailed upon to transmit a signal back to Sweden. They waited for a response but received none.

At dusk, all three of them went to the farmhouse, where Lukas rapped on the window. A middle-aged man came out.

“We're looking for a farmer named Martinkus,” said Lukas.

The man looked at their weapons and packs. He did not appear to be afraid, but he did not look too happy either. “He's dead. I married his daughter, but she's lying inside, pregnant and sick.”

“We're partisans come in from Sweden,” said Rudis. “Someone was supposed to meet us here.”

Lukas did not like it that Rudis spoke out on his own.

“I don't know anything about it,” said the man, and he turned to go back inside. But Lukas made him take two of them in, leaving Shimkus on guard outside.

The pale, frightened wife was lying on a bench in the kitchen, two small children playing around her. Rudis took off his hat and shook out his golden hair and smiled down on the woman. Lukas was astonished that the man imagined he could work his charm here.

“We mean no harm,” said Lukas.

“Then please take what you want and go away.”

Lukas wished he could do that, but he could not. He sat down with his knapsack and began to take things out of it. He showed them a Swedish camera, wonderfully miniature. He took out a bar of chocolate and gave it to the children. They held it in their hands, afraid, so he took it back and unwrapped it, breaking off pieces for the woman and the man as well as the children. He showed them the Swedish wrapper.

“We don't have any ties with the partisans,” the man said eventually, “but if you tell me where you're camped in the woods I can start looking around and send someone there.”

“Don't send anyone. We'll come back tomorrow to find out if you've learned anything.”

“Please,” said the woman, “don't come to the house. Meet him by the shrine half a kilometre down the road. I don't want people to see you coming here.”

They bought eggs, butter and bread from the couple, paying 350 rubles, which seemed high, and then went back to the forest.

“What do you make of that?” asked Rudis.

“They were terrified. They thought we might be
agents provocateurs
.” “She was a nice-looking lady, though, for all her problems.”

For three days they camped out in different spots, warily meeting the farmer each night. Once they bought bacon and another time bread, eggs and butter. Lukas was beginning to think the farmer had found a useful private market, but on the fourth night he said he had someone for them to meet, a partisan.

Lukas asked him to bring the man into a clearing in the forest at dawn. He kept Rudis with him and asked Shimkus to stand a little way inside the forest beyond the clearing in order to cover them in case of complications. An hour before the meeting, Lukas and Shimkus combed the forest around themselves, looking for movement of partisans or interior army agents. They saw nothing.

The man the farmer brought with him was middle-aged, which was a little surprising. Older men did not do well in the partisan movement because the living conditions were so poor. This man had a very straight back and a good, if old, long brown leather coat over his jacket, and he wore a tie as well as a woollen cap. He looked somewhat familiar.

“This is the partisan I told you about,” said the farmer. “I've seen him around before. He calls himself Karpis. I hope you two will straighten out whatever you have to say to one another, but I ask just one thing. From here on in, leave me alone. I have a sick, pregnant wife and two children. My problems probably don't interest you, but your problems don't really interest me either.” He walked away without so much as a wave.

“You see how it is now,” said Karpis. “The people are tired.”

“Are you armed?” Lukas asked.

“Just a pistol.”

“I'd like to see it.”

Karpis pulled a small PPK from a pocket inside his leather coat. “Maybe you and your friend should set down your arms as well.”

Lukas and Rudis did as he asked, and Karpis knew enough about them to ask where Shimkus was, but they said he was away. Lukas asked Rudis to sit apart from them as they spoke, but Rudis ignored the order and stayed nearby. It was standard operating procedure: no man should know more than he had to. Rudis's refusal demonstrated his incompetence and his stupidity. Now Karpis would know that Lukas's men did not follow orders.

“The farmer tells me you come from abroad,” said Karpis. “How can this be possible?”

“We landed on the beach in a rubber raft.”

“Could you show me where you buried it?”

“I don't think so. We don't want to go back there. But look at this.” He took out the folder with the American money in it—a thou-sand American dollars in tens.

“This shows me you're rich, but the money could have come from anywhere. Anything else?”

Lukas showed the miniature camera and a letter he had posted to himself just before leaving Stockholm. The postmark seemed to convince Karpis.

“And what about you?” Lukas asked. “How do I know you're a partisan?”

“You might recognize me, for one thing. I was the mayor of Panevezys before the war.”

“Not my part of the country.”

“I'm the brother of the late president's wife.”

Lukas looked him over. The late president had installed many of his wife's relatives in the government. Poor former mayor. He would have lived the life of striped pants and municipal receptions until the war—a soft life. How did men like that survive now?

“Bring me up to date with the situation in the country,” said Lukas.

“We don't carry out many missions anymore. We're hard up for food and we're out of touch with most of the other partisan groups. We just try to survive now. We haven't actually fired on anyone in months. We're down to collecting information and printing up newspapers whenever we can find the ink and the paper.”

“It sounds bad.”

“It is. What did you come here for? If I had a way out, I'd take it and never come back.”

Lukas glanced at Rudis. The man was looking more unhappy than ever, if that was possible. He had even let some of his precious curls slip out from under his cap.

“If you want, we can help you a little,” said Karpis. “My men and I can escort you to the frontier of the next partisan district. It's true we've lost touch with them, but we might be able to use some of the old contacts.”

“How many men can you spare?”

“There are three of you, right?” asked Karpis.

“That's right.”

“Then I could send along four or five escorts. We're short of manpower—I'll come along too.”

“Are you sure you want to go yourself?” Lukas asked.

“Don't worry. I look old, but I'm tough.”

They agreed to confirm their plans the next day. Then it would take a couple more days to gather up the men, who were scattered in pairs in small bunkers, getting ready to settle in for the winter.

After Karpis left, Shimkus came out of the woods and Lukas told him what Karpis had said. Rudis corrected him twice on details, and Lukas told him to shut up. Rudis sulked.

“There's something I don't like about Karpis,” said Lukas.

“What's that?”

“His long leather coat. It's the kind of thing you might wear in the city to cover a revolver in your pocket, but out in the country it doesn't make sense. It would get caught on branches, or all bunched up when you were crawling into a bunker.”

“Maybe he just uses it for special occasions,” said Shimkus, smiling at his own joke.

“What did you think?” Lukas asked Rudis, trying to mollify him.

“I don't see why he'd lie to us. I think the greater danger comes from the farmer.”

They radioed Stockholm again to say they had made contact with a partisan code-named Karpis. Unsure of his own intuition about Karpis, Lukas asked for instructions. Six hours later the reply came in, terse, the exasperation clear even in the brevity of the message: Follow the plan. Use partisan contact to gain access to Lozorius.

Karpis did not return the next day as planned, but all plans were contingent. They changed the placement of their camp and permitted themselves a small fire, which Rudis tended, breaking sticks into shorter and shorter pieces until they could not be made any smaller. Lukas cleaned his gun, sensing Shimkus's eyes on him.