Last Orders: The War That Came Early (48 page)

“You open the box,” Mogamedov said.

“Suppose you want to find out without opening the box, though.”

“Can you smell inside, to find out whether the cat is shitting or rotting?”

“Not that, either.”

“Well, how
do
you tell, then?” the Azeri asked with the air of a man humoring a lunatic.

“I’ve thought a lot about it, and the way it looks to me is, you
can’t
tell till you open the box and you see whether a live cat jumps out or something’s in there stinking that you’ve got to chuck on the rubbish
pile. Till then, you just don’t know. As far as you’re concerned, the cat is alive and dead at the same time … until you open the box and see,” Stas said.

Mogamedov muttered a few words in Azeri. Stas didn’t understand them, but the tone left something to be desired. Then Mogamedov switched back to Russian: “And this has what, exactly, to do with the war?”

“Well, mostly that we don’t know what will happen—we have no way of knowing—till either it happens or it doesn’t,” Mouradian answered. “Maybe we’ll go back to bombing the Fritzes and they’ll go back to trying to shoot us down. Or maybe it will be peace, and we start figuring out what to do with our lives from then on. In the meantime, though, the war is alive, but it’s dead, too.”

What he said made sense to him—a peculiar kind of sense, but sense even so. Whether it made even a peculiar kind of sense to anyone else … he was about to find out. If Mogamedov laughed in his face, he thought he really would have to look for another crewmate, no matter if putting in the request meant a black mark on his record.

The Azeri looked as if he were about to laugh. Then he stopped looking that way. Quite visibly, he thought it over. After a minute or so, he said, “Well, you’re not as crazy as I thought you were when you first came out with it. Or I don’t think you are, anyhow.”

“Thanks,” Stas said. “I know it’s loopy, but it’s interesting to play with in your head, too, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Mogamedov nodded “Not a dead war, not a live war … That’s what we’ve got, all right.”

He must have liked the conceit well enough to pass it along to other flyers and groundcrew men. Pretty soon, people all over the air base were talking about “Mouradian’s cat.” Isa hadn’t stolen the credit for it. Or he might have decided he wanted to stick Stas with the blame.

That was another one of those cases where you couldn’t know the answer till after you asked the question. You might not know even then. When you opened the imaginary box, a live cat either would or wouldn’t hop out. A dead cat couldn’t lie about being alive. But Isa Mogamedov could lie.

Stas didn’t give him the chance. He didn’t ask.

Some of the Red Air Force men teased him about “Mouradian’s cat.” A few seemed interested in the paradox. He was more proud than otherwise to have his name attached to something people were talking about.

He was for a little while, anyhow. Fighting men being what they were, they didn’t talk about “Mouradian’s cat” for long. Pretty soon, they started going on about “Mouradian’s pussy.” That might have been funny once—to him. To a lot of the guys, it got funnier every time they said it.

“Hey, Stas,” another lieutenant called at supper, “how’s your pussy?”

“Well, Volodya, why don’t you step outside the tent here, and I’ll show it to you,” Mouradian answered calmly.

Everyone whooped as they strode out together. Half a minute later, Stas came back in. He sat down and returned to the kasha and mutton in his mess tin. Some of the knuckles on his left hand were skinned. His right ankle was sore from kicking Vladimir Ostrogorsky in the belly so hard, but that didn’t show.

When the Russian didn’t come back in right away, a couple of men went out to see what had happened to him. They came back staring at Stas. “
Bozehmoi
, Mouradian,” one of them said. “Volodya won’t ask about your pussy again any time soon.”

“That was the idea,” Stas answered, and returned to his supper without another word.

He did wonder how many friends Lieutenant Ostrogorsky had, and whether they’d try to pay him back. He dared hope they wouldn’t. Ostrogorsky had been asking for it. Anybody could see that. Well, Stas hoped anybody could see it.

At last, Ostrogorsky did walk in. By the shaky way he moved, he might have downed a liter of vodka. His eyes didn’t quite track, either. He had a bruise on the side of his jaw; a trickle of blood ran down his chin from one corner of his mouth.

“You don’t fight fair,” he told Mouradian.

“Too bad,” Stas said. “You want an engraved invitation, go join a boxing club. And tell your jokes somewhere else.”

“If I tell a really funny one, you’ll probably murder me.” Ostrogorsky rubbed his midsection. Stas’ kick had caught him right in the solar
plexus. After that, the Russian couldn’t have fought back no matter how badly he wanted to.

Stas only shrugged. He wanted to say he was done with it if Ostrogorsky was. He didn’t, though. He worried the other man would take it as a sign of weakness. Someone from the Caucasus surely would have. Russians didn’t ritualize revenge the way southern men did, but Mouradian wanted to keep the edge he’d won for himself.

After supper, Isa Mogamedov said, “I’m sorry. I should have known they would turn it into something filthy. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“Nichevo,”
Stas replied. Yes, that was a useful Russian word.

“I didn’t know you were such a tough bitch, either.” Mogamedov brought out
blyad
with the self-consciousness anyone who hadn’t grown up speaking Russian showed when he took a mild stab at
mat
.

“Partly luck,” Stas said, adding another shrug. “Partly I surprised him. He must have thought I was going to spend a while cussing before I started fighting. But why waste time?”

“Remind me not to get you that mad at me,” the Azeri said,

The squadron commander called Stas in on the carpet the next morning. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid Krasnikov was a squat, blond, wide-faced man, about as Russian-looking as any Russian could get. Silver-framed glasses only made his gray eyes colder. But all he said was, “Did you have to hit him that fucking hard, Mouradian?”

“I’m sorry, Comrade Colonel,” Stas answered, which was true … up to a point. “I hoped that, if I did a proper job of it once, I wouldn’t have to do it over and over.”

“Is that what you hoped?” Krasnikov’s stare got no friendlier. He sighed. “Well, except for a broken tooth you didn’t do any permanent damage. And you
were
provoked. So get out of here.”

“I serve the Soviet Union!” Stas saluted and left. The squadron commander had some humanity lurking in him after all. Who would have guessed that? Maybe there wouldn’t be any more fighting in the air or on the ground. Maybe the cat was alive. Maybe.

Major Keller looked earnestly, even urgently, into Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s face. “We need you,” the National Socialist Loyalty Officer said. “The State needs you. The Party needs you. The
Grossdeutsches Reich
needs you.”

“Needs me to do what, sir?” Hans-Ulrich knew the loyalty officer thought he was very loyal to the
Führer
. Keller wasn’t wrong, either. He had been loyal to Adolf Hitler. That kind of feeling was harder to come by, though, when you tried to attach it to Rudolf Hess or Reinhard Heydrich or the other top-ranking National Socialists who headed the fight against the Salvation Committee’s forces.

Keller had no doubts about where his own loyalty lay. “To bomb a column of traitors and rebels moving from Münster toward the Ruhr,” he answered.

“Sir, that’s a mighty long flight. All the way across Holland, into the
Reich
 … And how much company would I have?” Hans-Ulrich didn’t flat-out refuse the order. He just pointed out the difficulties.

“You will not fly alone. I promise you that. And you would be able to land in the Ruhr. Loyal forces there hold several airfields. Remember,
Rudel, you swore a sacred oath of loyalty to the
Führer
. Are you a man of honor, or some other kind of man?”

“Major, the
Führer
is dead,” Hans-Ulrich reminded Keller.

The loyalty officer turned red. “Yes, he is. But
Reichsmarschall
Göring is his legitimate successor, or the deputy
Führer
or the
Reichsführer
-SS if the
Reichsmarschall
cannot take up his duties.” No one knew what had happened to Göring, not for sure. No one knew if he was alive or dead. If he was dead, no one was sure which side had killed him, or precisely why.

Rudolf Hess, the deputy
Führer
, wasn’t exactly a nonentity, but he wasn’t a charismatic leader, either. And
Reichsführer
-SS had been Himmler’s title. Himmler pretty definitely was dead; the title belonged to Heydrich now. The other title that stuck to Heydrich was Hitler’s Hangman. Such people were useful—what state didn’t need a security chief?—but he also wasn’t a leader for whom men would charge, singing, into battle.

“Sir, before all this really got started, Colonel Steinbrenner asked me if I was ready to bomb other Germans,” Hans-Ulrich said. “I told him I didn’t think I could do that. I’m telling you the same thing.”

“Colonel Steinbrenner’s loyalty is not above suspicion—far from it,” Keller said darkly. “And you wouldn’t be bombing Germans here. Traitors do not deserve to be called by that glorious name.”

“You are not in my chain of command, sir.” Rudel kept grasping at straws, grabbing for time. “If someone who is tries to give me that order, well, I’d have to think about it, anyway. In the meantime, it’s been good talking with you.” He ducked out of the National Socialist Loyalty Officer’s tent before Keller could do anything but stare.

None of the flyers or groundcrew men now at the Belgian airstrip had opened fire on men who disagreed with them … yet. No one here had even tried to arrest anyone else, which might have started the shooting. Nor had England or France attacked the base. If they had, they might well have smashed it. But they would have united all the surviving
Luftwaffe
men against them.

They were smart enough to see that. By all the signs, they were smarter politically than anybody playing the game on the German side.

Hans-Ulrich hadn’t gone far before Sergeant Dieselhorst appeared at his side out of nowhere. “Well? What’s the latest from the major?” Dieselhorst asked.

“He wanted me to start bombing the Committee’s forces inside Germany,” Rudel answered baldly.

“What did you tell him?”

“Basically, that I might do it if Colonel Steinbrenner told me to, but that he wasn’t my commanding officer and didn’t have the authority to send me out.”

“That’s pretty good, sir!” Dieselhorst gave him a thumbs-up. “The colonel won’t give you that order in a million years. He’s behind the Salvation Committee all the way, Steinbrenner is.”

“Is he?” Now Rudel’s voice held no expression whatever. The news wasn’t a surprise, but it hurt just the same, the way finding out the girlfriend you suspected really was unfaithful would.

Dieselhorst heard that emptiness. “
Ja
, sir, he is. If we’d stuck with what we had, what would’ve happened? We’d’ve gone down the shitter, that’s what, ground to powder between the Ivans and the Americans.”

“Or we might have won in spite of everything. We still might.” Hans-Ulrich had believed in the Party and the
Führer
as long as he could, and then a little longer besides.
Mein Ehre heisst Treue
, the SS motto said.
My honor is loyalty
. He was no blackshirt. He didn’t even like them. But that idea resonated with something deep down inside him.

“I am, too, you know,” Dieselhorst said. “You can turn me in to the major if you want.”

Wearily, Rudel shook his head. “Give me a break, Albert. I wouldn’t do that.” Hearing that the sergeant had no use for the Nazis surprised him not a bit. “You know I lean the other way. If your side wins, turn me in to whatever takes the
Gestapo
’s place if you want to.”

“Something will, sure as houses. Can’t hardly run a country these days without something like that. And if that’s not a judgment on us, screw me if I know what would be.” Dieselhorst sighed, then brightened. “I
am
glad you didn’t get the plane bombed up and take off for Germany with somebody else in the back seat.”

“I have no stomach for killing Germans, even in the middle of a
civil war,” Hans-Ulrich said. “I told that to Steinbrenner. I told Keller the same thing.”

“Your father raised you the right way.” Had Dieselhorst said it mockingly, Hans-Ulrich would have tried to deck him. But he sounded as if he meant it.

“Thank you,” Hans-Ulrich said, acknowledging that. “Thank you very much. Plenty of other Germans don’t seem to have any trouble with it at all. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be where we are.”

“No, we wouldn’t. We’d be gurgling down that stinking shitter instead. Everybody would goose-step after the
Führer
till he led us right over the cliff. And that’s where we would have gone. This way, maybe, just maybe, we get another chance.”

“A chance to do what? We’re supposed to be the masters of Europe—”