Snow Wolf (20 page)

"Yes, briefly."

.,Although he's completely trustworthy,
for the sake of security you don't discuss the mission with him. But don't
worry about that, he won't ask. We'll be doing some preparation together for
the journey but in ten days' time a man will arrive. His name's Popov. He's
going to put us through some pretty rigorous training, both in Soviet weapons
and self-defense. It's a precaution really, for your sake, so you'll know how
to handle yourself if you get in a difficult situation. But on no account do
you talk to Popov about our intentions or discuss anything about our plans. Is
that understood?"

She looked briefly at Massey. He was
staring at her. "Anna, while you're here Alex is in charge. You do as he
says."

She looked back at Stanski. "Very
well. I agree."

"Good. Another rule. You work @and
and do your utmost to absorb everything you're going to learn. I want to be
sure of who I'm going in with. I want to be sure I can depend on you."

"You can."

Stanski stood up slowly. "OK.
Concerning the mission itself, and just to let you know, when the time comes
we'll be going into Russia through one of the Baltic states, landing by
parachute. Estonia to be precise. You've been to Estonia?"

Anna nodded. "My father served there
as a commander with the Red Army." Stanski said shortly, "Then let's
just hope when we get there the Estonian resistance we're depending, on to help
us don't get to know about it. At all times during the mission, while it's
necessary, we'll behave as man and wife. If things go according to plan, we'll
make our way to Moscow using regular transport, tram@ and buses, via Leningrad.
We'll have a predetermined route and enough contacts to help us as we need. If
things go against us for whatever reasons, then we'll just have to change our
plans to suit the situation. Once we reach Moscow-if'we reach Moscow-you'll be
passed on to another contact to be taken back to America."

How?"

Jake will tell you all that before we go.
As well as everything else you need to know." Anna looked from Massey to
Stanski. "You make it sound easy. What about the rotiline checks on
travelers in the Soviet Union? What about the paperwork needed for the
journey'? What happens if we're separated or one or both of us are
captured?"

"it won't be easy. In fact, it's
going to be damned difficult. Especially just after we parachute. Estonia is
crawling with Soviet troops. It's a garrison country and some of' the Baltic
Fleet are based there. In many ways traveling in Estonia will be- more
difficult than Russia itself. As to your other questions, You'll get the
answers all in good time." Anna said, "I've never parachuted
before."

Stanski shook his head. "Don't
worry, we'll sort that out too."

He checked his watch before saying to
Massey, "I've got to pick up some supplies in town. You want to show Anna
around'? Vissily should be back soon. He's taken the boat out on the lake to do
some fishing."

Massey nodded. Stanski picked up some
keys from the table and crossed to the door and went out. Anna heard the jeep
start up moments later and drive off.

Massey looked at Stanski's face.
"What's wrong?"

"Something I saw in his eyes. Either
he doesn't like me or he doesn't trust me."

Massey smiled. "I wouldn't say that.
If Alex is blunt, it's because he has your safety in mind. But he's always
blunt when it comes to tactical business. Granted, he's also a difficult man to
get to know. But don't worry, you'll be fine."

"I'm not worried, Jake."

"Good." Massey smiled.
"Come on, let's see if we can find Vassilv. I think you're going to like
him."

As they reached the lake Minutes later a
small boat was coming in, its outboard motor rupturing the silence, sounding
like a metal wasp as it came into the shore.

The old man sat in the bow, and when he
saw Massey he waved. He wore a deerskin jacket and an old woollen deerstalker
cap with the ear flaps pulled down. There was a big sheathed knife on a leather
belt around his waist, and Anna recognized something familiar in the man's
features as he climbed out of the boat and tied up. He studied her face briefly
before he shook Massey's hand.

He spoke in English, his accent heavily
broken. "Massey. Welcome. Alexei told me you'd be coming."

"Vassily, I'd like you to meet Anna.
Anna, this is Vassily."

Anna looked at the man again. Though far
from handsome, there was something warm about his face, a kindness in his brown
eyes she found instantly endearing, and when she offered her hand and the old
man shook it, she said instinctively, "Zdr(i.ytvuti."

He smiled and replied in Russian.
"Welcome, Anna. Welcome to my house. Alexei never said you were
Russian."

"From Moscow. And you?"

Kuzomen.

Now she recognized the old man's
features, the dark Laplander looks of those who inhabited Russia's northern
tundra.

"You're a long way from home."

A big smile creased the man's brown face.
"A very long way and too far to go back. But this place is just like home.
And we Russians are like good wine. We travel well." He looked at Massey.
"Where's Alexei?"

"Gone to town to pick up
supplies."

"Did he offer our guest bread and
salt?"

It was an old Russian tradition with
visitors, and Massey smiled and said, "Just coffee, I'm afraid."

The old man removed his hat and shook his
head. "Typical. Like all the young he forgets tradition. Come, let me do
the honors, Anna. Give me your arm."

Vassily held out his arm to her and Anna
slipped her hand through his.

She winked at Massey as he stood there
amused, and let the old man lead them up to the house. Anna looked up as Massey
smiled over at her. "You know, I think he likes you."

Massey was standing at the window smoking
a cigarette minutes later when he saw the jeep pull up outside.

Stanski climbed out and carried two
cardboard boxes of supplies up to the house. Massey opened the door for- him
and when Stanski had put the boxes away he looked at the two long wooden crates
Massey had placed on the floor and kicked one of them with his boot.

"What's in the boxes?" Massey
said, "Everything you'll need when Popov arrives. Better stash it in a
safe place; there's enough weapons and munitions in there to start a war."

"There's a cold storage room under
the kitchen. We can leave them there."

'-Where's the girl?"

"Vassily's taking her for a tour of
the place. He's taken quite a shine to her."

"It's just been a long time since
he's seen perfuithe. But suddenly I'm not so sure about her, Jake."

"You've got doubts already'? What
happened to your instinct?"

Stanski shook his head. "One look at
her was enough to tell me she's got what it takes. But it's her life you're
riskini@. I don't think she fully realizes what she's getting herself' into
here. Once she's with me, I think she'll he OK. But if we have to part company
because of trouble I'm not sure she's capable of making it on her own."

"You ought to give her more credit,
Alex. I told you. Trust me. And remember, she's spent almost a year in the
Gulag. Anyone who can survive that and do what she did to escape isn't going to
give in easily. And she'll be fine once Popov puts her through her paces."

"Another thing. She's far too
pretty. She'll attract attention."

"Then why did you agree to having
her along'!"

Stanski smiled. "Maybe for that very
reason. You Know me, I'm a sucker for a pretty face."

Massey smiled back and shook his head.
"You're anything but, my friend. But we can have that problem sorted out
when the time comes. It's amazing what clever make-up and a bad hairstyle can
do to alter someone's appearance."

"You ought to know, Jake."

"Funny."

Massey removed an envelope from his
inside pocket and handed it across.

"What's this?"

"Your list of contacts in Russia and
the Baltic. You need to memorize the details between now and the day of
departure, then destroy the list."

Stanski glanced at the envelope.
"How did you get in touch with them?"

"I haven't, not yet. but leave that
to me. If there's any change in the names I'll let you know. I've arranged to
make contact with our partisan friends in Tallinn who'll pick you up after you
drop, if everything goes according to plan."

Stanski put the envelope in his pocket.
"So what do you want me to do with the girl in the meantime?"

"Give her a couple of days to let
her get used to the place, then start to get her into shape. And yourself.
Daily runs and exercises. Be tough with her. It's for her own good. It's a long
way from Tallinn to Moscow and you don't know what to expect, so you both want
to be fit. Another thing seems as you'll both be parachuting in and we can't
use any of our training camps, you'll have@ to do the best you can in that
department. Seeing as Anna hasn't dropped before you'll have to cover the
basics to make sure she doesn't do damage to herself when she falls."

"And what will you be doing while
we're sweating it out here?"

"Me?" Massey smiled. "I'll
be in Paris enjoying myself."

When the Red Army rolled over the plains
of Poland on its way to crush Berlin and the German Reich, Henri Lebel had been
liberated from Auschwitz concentration camp.

The Russian officer who had gone through
the camp huts with his men searching for the still living among the dead had
taken one look at the Frenchman's emaciated body lying on the lice-ridden bunk,
had spindly legs and an emaciated body with shrunken eyes, and said,
"Leave him. The poor bastard's dead."

It was only when they carried Lebel's
body to the mass grave along with the other wasted corpses and heard the faint
gasp of breath and saw the flicker of life in Lebel's eyes that they decided
the man was definitely still alive.

There had been two long months spent in a
Russian field hospital to build up his strength before he was handed over to
the British and allowed to return to his native Paris.

Lebel had survived the war but it was a
war that had cost him his wife, gassed, then burned in the ovens of Auschwitz,
not only because she was Jewish, but because Lebel had been a member of the
French Communist Resistance.

For the last eight years he had resumed
the furrier trade his father, an immigrant Russian Jew, had begun in Paris.
Henri Lebel had Gradually built it up into a flourishing business, outfitting
the Parisian rich with the best of Russian sable and fur, and in the process
turning himself into a wealthy man, with a resident suite at the Ritz Hotel and
a luxury villa in Canne:";.

There were frequent trips to Moscow,
where his resistance connections had gone down well with the Soviet
authorities, and as a result Lebel had managed to turn his company into a
virtual monopoly, with sole rights in Europe to sell the finest Russian sable
and fur. And with America beginning to boom in the postwar years, he had even
opened a thriving branch on New York's Fifth Avenue.

Life, it seemed, despite its horrors, had
turned out reasonably well for Henri Lebel. But unknown to his business
contacts in Moscow, he had a dark secret he kept hidden from them.

There were milestones in his troubled
life which Henri Lebel remembered with great clarity. The day he and Klara were
arrested by the Gestapo. The day he had met lrena Dezov. And the day he had
begun to live again after the horror of Auschwitz.

The first, the arrest in Paris two years
after the Germans invaded, he could never forget.

It was his wife's birthday, and after
several months of hiding he had decided to risk taking her out to celebrate. As
he sat in the Paris cafe with Klara that Saturday morning, barely enjoying the
wartime ersatz coffee and the stodgy cakes, the door had burst in and three men
in plain clothes entered. Lebel saw the black leather coats and gloves and the
slouch hats and an icy chill ran through his veins. As it stood, he was already
a wanted man for his resistance activities.

The three men stood in the center of the
cafe, hands on their hips, the sharp voice of the man in charge still perfectly
clear in Lebel's memory.

"Papieren! Everybody get their
papers ready"'

And then the grim joke that rang around
the cafe as the Gestapo man grinned. "And if there are any Jews among you,
start saying your prayers."

The laughter that followed from the
Gestapo men still echoed in Henri Lebel's ears. He had looked at his wife, her
beautiful face draining of color. Lebel could still remember the feeling that
sprin- morning. Icy fear. Sweat breaking out all over his body, his heart
pumping in his ears, ready to burst. He was Resistance, and worse, a Jewish
Resistance.

The three men went through the cafe
checking papers. The one in charge came to Lebel's table. He smiled down at
Klara, then looked at Lebel.