‘What?’ he snapped. Kate frowned as he pointedly took a long toke — his cheeks sucked into his face. ‘What are you?’ he managed to say without leaking too much of his precious smoke. ‘My mother?’
‘I just don’t like being the designated driver in the middle of a Goddamn war.’
‘Here, then,’ Woody said — holding the joint out to Kate. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She walked up to the small garden in front of a house that was deeply pitted and burned. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘I dunno,’ Woody replied. He took a deep breath of the frigid morning air. He wore a large grin on his face.
‘There’s no story here,’ she said, looking all around.
‘Sure there is, Kate. There’s a story everywhere! He stepped up on a low stone wall — balancing himself with his hands out to the side. The joint was pinched between his gloved thumb and index finger. ‘The White Army troops came into town with their guns blazing.’ He held his imaginary machine-gun up and trilled out a few rounds with his tongue. ‘A-a-ah!’ he screeched in mock agony. ‘Lots of people died. There was blood everywhere. Two minutes of prime time — guaranteed! But with their black flags flying, the Anarchists beat the White Army back, slaughtering them by the thousands.’ Again he acted out the massacre. ‘Both sides were exhausted, and both tried to surrender to the other. In the end, they decided to simply lay down their arms and go home. Right here, Kate, in this little village. Right here is where the collapse of Russia occurred.’
Kate looked at Woody, then at the meager collection of shacks along the side of the road. They were all burned and shelled out. ‘How do you know all that happened here?’ she asked.
Woody shrugged and stepped down off the wall. ‘How do you know it didn’t?’ He relit the joint.
Jesus, Woody!’ She huffed, expelling her breath in a puff of white fog. ‘What do you propose we do? Give me the camera while you do a one-man dramatization of the Russian Civil War?’
Just then, they heard the heavy rumbling of a train. They both stared in the direction from which it emanated. Kate wandered through the yard of the abandoned house and to the edge of the snowy woods behind it. Woody followed. The supply truck with which they’d hitched a ride generally followed the rail line to the west from the port of Vanin. They’d seen several long trains hurtle past them on the five-hour ride. But the sounds to which they now listened were different. This train was stopping.
‘Come on,’ Kate said. She trudged out into the deep snow of the woods.
‘Hey, Kate,’ Woody called out from behind. She turned. ‘I’m not so sure this is a good idea.’
‘What? I just wanta go see why that train stopped.’
‘Yeah, but…’ He faltered.
‘But what?’
‘What if they don’t want us to see? I mean, UNRUSFOR put this whole area off limits.’
‘So? You mean to tell me you’re perfectly happy smoking pot,’ she said sarcastically, ‘but tre-espassing! Well…!’
‘I’m not worried about getting busted, Kate. I’m worried about getting shot.’
She laughed dismissively and turned. ‘We’ll just be quiet and take a look over this hill.’ She labored through the snow with loud squeaks from her boots. Woody followed. She heard the flicking of his lighter and his renewed sucking on the ever-shortening joint.
It was slower going than she’d expected, especially during their ascent of the hill. The snow was up to her knees. Woody had to help her in some spots where she sank particularly deep. Finally, they reached the crest of the hill.
The rail line ran to the east and west for as far as she could see. About a quarter of a mile away, the train they’d heard sat parked in the middle of nowhere. At least seventy cars long, the train was brimming with military vehicles of every size and description. The only uniformity to its cargo appeared to be the two dozen flatbed cars in a row. They each had the same vehicle on top. M-l main battle tanks — painted white. Car after car was loaded with the monsters. Their thick barrels were all pointed toward the rear.
Several people walked along the train’s length. At first Kate surmised that it had broken down. It was the middle of nowhere. The snow was particularly deep on the open fields to the sides of the tracks.
All of a sudden, the snowy ground opened up. Two men peeled back white fabric to reveal the artificial light inside.
‘Holy shit? Woody whispered. He raised the minicam to his shoulder on reflex. It began to whir quietly. A large truck emerged from the opening towing a wedge-shaped green ramp. The men and vehicle gave everything a scale. The snowy field was in feet the polyurethane roof to a massive depot of some sort. The thick metal braces that held the fabric aloft attested to the enormity of the subterranean labyrinth.
Soldiers crawled over the tanks. One fired up an engine with a puff of smoke. The engine’s growl was audible despite the distance. Still more smoke belched from its tailpipes as the tank pivoted toward the ramp. The driver nudged the tank forward. Its nose dipped and it descended to the ground.
The tank disappeared inside the white cavern. Behind it came other tanks.
The camera fell silent. Woody lowered it from his shoulder.
‘Wait,’ Kate said — transfixed by the sight of the earth consuming the massive stores of equipment. ‘I wanta do a stand-up.’
‘Kate…’ Woody began woodenly.
‘I know, I know!’ she interrupted. ‘But if I look like a camera hog we’ll edit it out I just don’t want the network taking the raw footage and doing their own…’
‘Kate,’ Woody said — whispering.
She turned. A team of men moved silently through the trees toward where they stood. Their weapons were raised.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Everybody up! the platoon sergeant barked.
For a moment Stempel thought he couldn’t possibly move. He was at the bottom of a deep well of sleep. A ton of fatigue pressed him down. Kept him wrapped inside the womb of his sleeping bag.
He coughed. Pain shot through his head. His sinuses were dry from the frigid air. His throat was raw. His nose bled nearly constantly. Even his eyes were sore from the dryness. Some of the guys slept with towels or mufflers over their faces. But Stempel felt suffocated and left his face uncovered.
The ‘Army cough’ was epidemic in the sleeping bunker. The men on either side of Stempel’s spot on the icy floor bumped and jostled him as they rose. Stempel reached up to grab the bag’s zipper before the sergeant landed a boot on his butt, but he couldn’t will himself to pull it down. The bladders of the thin air mattress — when warmed by his body heat — softened and provided just enough cushion to be called luxury.
Half the men were kept at their fighting posts every night with weapons in hand. The other half were roused when an attack was under way. That night, Stempel’s squad was in the latter group and there had been only one almost perfunctory Chinese assault. Tonight, it would be them on the walls — all night long.
The nights on trench duty were the worst. Bundled up in an extra layer of clothing — with his head and ears covered with a knit liner, helmet, and hood — he felt like he was in a cocoon. He withdrew into his own little world. His mind became sluggish. Three nights earlier, Stempel had been slouched in the fighting post cut out of a wall — his rifle laid on the sandbags — peering out into the open killing ground ahead. He thought nothing. He saw nothing although he was wide awake and his eyes were open. When the flares went up they illuminated a field full of Chinese infantry. Stempel realized that in the back of his mind he’d seen the men advancing. He just hadn’t realized what the shadowy figures were. Like the machinery they’d brought with them to Siberia, his mind slowed in the cold.