Pyotr stepped back to the diaper aisle. His hand reached into his jacket. He seized the butt of the automatic. The man’s hair was unkempt — sticking up all around. His eyes were red and puffy. Drugs! The man reached into his pocket!
Pyotr yanked the pistol out. The man pulled a crinkled piece of yellow paper from his overcoat.
‘Frank? Pyotr heard. The man turned. The pistol was already back in Pyotr’s pocket. ‘Frank Bradley! How’s that ba-aby doing?’
Pyotr disappeared behind a display of fat-free cookies. It was then that he heard Olga calling out his name. He charged into her aisle toward the basket. His hand again grabbed the pistol butt. There appeared to be no danger on Aisle Five. ‘What?’ Pyotr snapped — checking both ends of the empty aisle.
‘What is wrong with you?’ Olga asked. She wore a look of concern.
‘You called for help!’ Pyotr responded. His heart was pounding.
‘I wanted to know if it was Prego or Ragu that we had at the Hall’s for dinner?’ She stood there holding the competing brands of spaghetti sauce.
Pyotr closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, stuck his chin in the air, and stretched his clenched and cramping neck muscles.
‘Papa’s sweating,’ one of the girls said.
‘Pyotr?’ Olga said. ‘V chyom delo?’ she whispered.
He loosed a ragged breath. ‘Nothing.’
‘No. It’s not “nothing”. Something’s wrong.’
The guy with the long coat wheeled his basket full of diapers and formula onto their aisle.
He looked at her. ‘I almost shot that man,’ he whispered.
She looked back and forth between Pyotr and the new father- her jaw drooping. ‘Why?’
Pyotr was still so agitated that he blew his top. ‘Because he was buying diapers!’ The girls giggled. Pyotr again closed his eyes and leaned against the shelves. Olga’s cool hand found his face.
‘You’re too upright.’
‘“Up-tight”,’ Pyotr corrected. Her hand pulled back. He opened his eyes. An elderly woman was passing, looking his way nervously. He let her pass, then said, Tm sorry.’
‘Nobody is looking for us, Pyotr. We are safe. Everything is good here.’ She turned to look over her left shoulder. ‘Tfu-tfu-tfu,’ she said, pretending to spit — to ward off the bad luck that comes with congratulating good fortune. ‘We have nothing to fear from… Kartsev.’
Pyotr didn’t argue. But it wasn’t lost on him that she couldn’t say the man’s name above a whisper.
Olga continued her maddeningly slow perusal of goods. Pyotr concentrated on calming himself. But mention of Kartsev had changed his mood from agitated to bitter. By the time they got to the dairy products, he was gritting his teeth in anger. Olga read the labels on five different types of cream cheese. Pyotr slammed his palm on a shelf. A row of small yoghurt containers collapsed onto the floor.
Olga just looked at him. He turned away.
I had the shot, he kept saying to himself. I had the shot.
Kate Dunn watched the press pool footage with growing frustration. The scenes were dramatic, but her job was not. ‘There!’ she said, pointing. The image froze. Woody rewound and placed an index mark on the clip before rolling the tape forward. ‘Stop,’ Kate said. She rolled her finger in air slowly until Woody found exactly the place. ‘There.’ He marked the end of the video clip. ‘How long is that?’ she asked.
‘Eight point two seconds,’ Woody said. ‘That gets us up to a total of… one minute, twenty-nine point seven seconds. That should do it!’ Kate drew a deep breath in through her nose and held the air in her full lungs. ‘You ready?’ Woody asked.
Kate raised her microphone and tested the sound. Woody gave her the ‘okay’ sign. She cleared her throat, waited for the taping light, and began. The video ran silently in the background while she read. ‘As the Battle of Birobidzhan enters its third day, all signs point to an Allied victory. Chinese forces have suffered major losses, some estimates running as high as twenty thousand dead But the price has not been cheap. Defense Department sources put the number of U.S. killed, or missing and presumed killed or captured, at seven hundred and fifty-nine, with an additional four hundred wounded, many seriously. UNRUSFOR spokesmen here in Vladivostok have downplayed the importance of this opening battle. Newsweek magazine, however, is reporting that Lieutenant General Nate Clark — supreme Allied commander in Russia — personally flew to Birobidzhan to take charge of the bastion’s defenses.
‘Elsewhere along the thousand-mile front, however, the Chinese Army continues its seemingly inexorable advance.’ The pictures now were from Iranian television footage. Their quality was poor. But they showed rugged mountainous terrain touched here and there with patches of ice and snow. A narrow dirt road wound its way up the rocky slopes of a ridge. Long columns of white-clad soldiers — four abreast-were broken only by the empty space between units. The camera panned. Horses, mules, two-wheeled trailers pulled by porters — the procession out of the Chinese heartland seemed endless. ‘Round-the-clock bombing by U.S. and European air forces has reduced the rate of advance to only the foot speed of individual infantrymen. This slow-motion tsunami of men and materiel, however, is pouring into Siberia at the rate of one division every three hours. Meanwhile, allied firebases that dot the thin defensive line just south of the Trans-Siberian Railway brace themselves for an onslaught that many military experts believe can have only one result — massive bloodletting, followed by inevitable Chinese overrun.’
The images switched to rusty Russian cranes offloading armored fighting vehicles in the port of Vladivostok. Kate made a mental note to superimpose a graphic identifying the site of the footage. ‘While American and European reinforcements are being rushed to Siberia from Western Europe, Japan, Korea and the United States, estimates are that it will take upwards of thirty to forty-five days before those forces will be ready to mount large-scale operations in the brutal winter conditions. So the race is on. Allied ships, planes and trains rush toward Siberia from the far corners of the earth. And Chinese foot soldiers slog their way ever northward — straight for the outmanned westerners whose guns lie in waiting. This is Kate Dunn, NBC News, Vladivostok.’
The last shot was of an American soldier who couldn’t have been more than eighteen. He was looking out over the snow-covered lip of his trench from under his white helmet. He held a single black M-16 in his hands. She flicked the switch to end the taping.
‘Timing’s great,’ Woody said. ‘Now, wanta do it for real?’
‘What do you mean? That was for real.’
‘It sounded like you were reading last week’s grocery list. Jeeze, Kate, there’s a huge, bloody war on and you seem bored by the whole thing. That wouldn’t get on the air on a slow news day. And business is booming back at network. So what gives?’
Kate frowned. Her shoulders slumped. ‘I’m not bored, Woody. I’m pissed off! This isn’t the way to cover a war! The most dramatic part of our day is elbowing our way to the front of the line to get the raw footage from the news pool!’