He hit the one in the middle with an open hand, palm-up strike to the nose, enjoying the crunch beneath the thrust even as the shock traveled up his arm to tell his head the blow had been well placed. Felt so good.
The lady reeled back and the pistol came out, a Makarov with six inches of suppressor at the muzzle, but Swagger nabbed the wrist with his left hand and twisted it away and took another hard-palm, right-handed shot into the nose, which issued blood outflow in torrential quantities. He heard screams, shouts, had the peripheral impression of people fleeing. He kicked his opponent’s feet out from under and she went down hard, though he held the gun hand tight enough to snap the wrist, and he pivoted, stepped viciously, driving heel first into her face while controlling the gun. Then he reversed on the arm, finding leverage against the elbow, and felt it bend as it sent high-voltage pain into the fallen body. He twisted the loosened pistol out of the woman’s hand. He deftly shifted it and placed muzzle against the throat, feeling the opponent go to surrender against the pressure of the lethal instrument,
The trigger was such a temptation. It would sound like a refrigerator door closing, and then this one would be with the angels. But he didn’t yield. He didn’t pull the trigger. He leaned over and whispered in meaningless English, “Hairy knuckles, dumb motherfucker,” then elbowed the bloody, damaged face again, feeling teeth break at the point of contact.
He rose, turned to find people at each end of the corridor staring at him, while from one of the buses a whole load of passengers had come to the windows.
He leaned over, grabbed the top of the woman’s blouse, and pulled it open, yanking free a brassiere stuffed with tissue to reveal a heavy, hairy male chest wearing a galaxy of tattoos. He twisted the body so that the spectators could see it. The false woman groaned in pain and put the other hand to his tormented biceps.
“Mafia,” Swagger said, knowing the word to be universal.
“Ahhh,” came the roar of the crowd, and he dumped the damaged shooter back to the ground and turned, and the people parted to let him past. Now they understood. Someone pointed the way, and he followed a couple of turns, saw a cab, and went to it.
“All right,” said Mikhail Likov of SVR, “you want something. Fine, you got money, lots of it? I’m no traitor, but for a certain amount, ha ha, anything is possible. Capitalism, you know.”
“No money,” said Will. “But I know you’ll get me what I want in trade for what I have to offer.”
“What you want?”
Mikhail downed another vodka shot. It was okay. Nothing special, but at least potato-based, unlike some of this new age shit.
“A file. So old that it was started back when they called the outfit NKVD. So old I don’t think it’s that valuable. That’s why I’m an idiot for giving you what I’m going to give you for it.”
They sat in a rude Moscow strip club called the Animal, so rude that a woman onstage was in a further state of undress. There were many women there trolling for business in the dark enclaves of the joint, all to the beat-beat-beat of loud, bad Russian syntho-rock. Naturally, it was Likov’s favorite place, and many SVR guys came here. They were known to the girls, who liked them so much they never gave a discount.
Mikhail had helped Will on a few tough-to-get stories in the past, usually for a modest tip — it was for his kids, he said, but at least three of those kids, Eva the blond one, Jun the Asian, and Magda the Czech — were here tonight.
“What’s so important about this file?”
“That’s the funny thing. I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I’ve been hunting in archives for three days and come up with nothing, as if it’s been erased. But whoever’s doing the erasing, I’m guessing he couldn’t erase it out of the collective memory of the KGB.”
“They had standards, those boys,” said Mikhail. More vodka. Eye contact, Jun. She seemed to be available. He winked. She came by and sat on his lap. She licked his ear and whispered something he found quite interesting, then she stood up and undulated away, trailing come-hither glances, perfume, and jiggly ripeness everywhere.
“Pretty girl,” said Will. “I see why you like her.”
“Now and then I contribute to her college fund,” Mikhail said, finding his own joke hilarious. Will did not, because he had looted his own daughter’s college fund for tonight’s fun, but he pretended like he did.
“This file, anyone I know?”
“Doubtful.”
“If he’s a big man, he should be in the archives of the other places,” said Mikhail.
“See, that’s the deal. Someone erased him, I think.”
“Lots of erasing goes on in Russia,” said Mikhail. “People make some money, then they erase themselves and start a new life. Happens all the time. Some stories I could tell you.”
“I’m only interested in one man’s story,” said Will.
“So what’s the offer?”
Will held his hand up. Jun came over. She smiled at Mikhail. Mikhail smiled back, then noted that Will’s hand was still in the air. Magda, the Czech, came over. She smiled at Mikhail. The she licked the inside of Jun’s ear, and Jun ground her pelvis once or twice into Magda’s hip. But wait. The hand was still up. Eva inserted herself between Magda and Jun. She put a tongue in each gal’s ear, one and then the other. All three of them smiled at Mikhail.
“You’ve made an arrangement, I see,” said Mikhail. “Will you be joining me?”
“Ah, I think you can find your way without my guidance,” said Will, thinking, God, I hope I can get this party past the Post’s expense account mavens, or daughter number two is going to Prince George’s Community College next year.
“What file?” said Mikhail, rising.
Will already had it written down: “Basil Krulov, Stalin’s assistant, 1942 to 1954, disappeared sometime in mid ’50s.”
Mikhail didn’t even look at it. “I’ll have it for you day after tomorrow.”
The girls led him away.
“Better make that day after the day after tomorrow,” he called back.
CHAPTER 32
For their command appearance, Karl and Wili brushed out their bonebags, scraped the mud off their boots, shaved, and bathed, even fished out the white summer cap they, as Luftwaffers, were entitled to wear. If they said so themselves, they managed to look pretty spiffy. You could never predict who you’d run into, so spiffy was always the wise move.
Not being assigned a Kübel themselves, they were driven to the HQ building, a mansion under some trees from an earlier century. If there was a mansion, the staff found it; 14th Panzer had found a beautiful old house set in some trees on the far side of the tank park. Actually they’d found the house first and established the tank park next to it. The dwelling, of Georgian grace and with an aristocratic background until the Reds had turned it into some kind of potato collective in ’39, was festooned with gaudy National Emblem banners and 14th Panzer flags, surrounded by security behind spools of K-wire and MG-42 posts, the lawns and shrubbery all cut and smashed by the treads of the armored beasts.
Inside, it was all business, as about all the division’s needs were serviced by a Panzer cadre who scurried about, administering a twelve-thousand-man/four-hundred-tank military entity, in the field, in constant contact with the enemy. Communications rooms, a huge study where a topographic map was being examined by officers while enlisted men pushed little painted blocks around it, and other rooms turned into offices where ammunition was ordered, tracked, and stocked, fuel levels monitored, supplies listed, living quarters assigned, mess supplies provided. There was hardly ever time for tea.