"Looking for its sister brigades from which it was separated when the 116th Mechanized, in its hurry to reach Moscow, cut through their column."
"The 116th Mechanized?" Kodorovich exclaimed again. He wanted to stop talking in questions but all this was coming so fast and unexpectedly.
"Don"t even inquire of me about them," Plekoskaya said, shuddering.
"They are so disorganized and tangled with two other armored divisions whose designations I don"t even know. It all happened because they were trying to outrace each other to the trunk highway and they arrived at the intersection almost simultaneously. You can"t possibly imagine the hideous clatter when you have two stubborn armored divisions and an obstinate mechanized one all trying to occupy the same road at once. I could hear it all the way back here." Plekoskaya belched delicately.
"General, do wash off the dust of the road and join me at table."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"No thank you. If that"s all the delay is, it should be cleared soon and we"ll be moving again. I"ll want to be with my division."
"General Kodorovich, you evidently don"t understand what has happened.
The word that has been pa.s.sed from the most forward units, which are in the city itself, to the rear ones, indicates that Moscow is the hub of one vast military traffic jam thirty to perhaps fifty miles deep and growing worse all the time as new groups are moving in."
"But I must get to the city," Kodorovich insisted. "I have orders to surround the Kremlin, seal off MVD headquarters and--"
"Ease your mind," Plekoskaya interrupted. "The Kremlin is well surrounded. General Smolledin is deployed around the walls; General Alexeiev is deployed around General Smolledin; General Paretsev is deployed around Alexeiev and so on to the outskirts of the city. Those of us out here, of course, cannot deploy off the roads, for, who knows, tomorrow the Minister of Agriculture may be Premier and he may not take it kindly if we trample the collectives."
"How can you just sit there and do nothing when the people"s government is in some kind of danger?" Kodorovich said with some heat.
"It is very simple," Plekoskaya said with mild irritation and sarcasm.
"I merely bend at the knees and hips and have a lunch of a weight adequate enough to keep me from floating off my chair and rushing about seeking trouble. Of course it takes years of experience to learn how to do this and most important, _when_." In kindlier tones Plekoskaya continued. "Whatever it is that is happening in the Kremlin and the other hotbeds of intrigue will have to happen without us. There is no telling who, if anyone, is in control. Conflicting orders have been coming over the military radio depending upon which clique controls which headquarters. Why do you know, my dear Kodorovich, already this morning the 124th has alternately been ordered to march to Moscow and a dozen other places including downtown Siberia."
Kodorovich did not smile at Plekoskaya"s slight humor. He was squinting anxiously through the bright sunlight at the immobile column of men and vehicles jammed along the road into the far, blue distance.
Plekoskaya took a sip of wine. "There is obviously some kind of political readjustment going on within the government and the unpleasant thing about these little disturbances is that one can never be certain who will emerge to inform the people that he is their unanimous choice for leader. So don"t be in so much of a hurry to rush off to Moscow to commit yourself. You might pick the wrong one."
Kodorovich shrugged and sat down at the table. "Perhaps you are right.
Do you have any idea who is involved this time?"
"Who isn"t involved?" Plekoskaya snorted. "You and I know, as sensible men must, that in our milieu there are at any given moment thousands of intrigues and plots and counterplots simmering away in the Party halls, the ministries, the barracks and anywhere else you care to look. Of course it is treason, don"t misunderstand, general, but most of it is really quite harmless. It is the national pastime of the power elite; a sort of political mah-jongg and most of these little bubbling kettles cool and sour from inaction. However, this time, it is evident that some drastic catalyst has caused a most violent reaction of these subversive ingredients and the incredible, one in a million possibility has occurred. All the pots are suddenly, all at once, boiling over ...
erupting into action!
"By the way," Plekoskaya continued with a smile, "you might be interested to know that when I reach Moscow I am supposed to relieve you of command of the 71st and place you under arrest for unsocialistic activities."
Kodorovich, looking dazed, took a gla.s.s of wine. "Who signed your orders?"
"Major Lemchovsky of the MVD."
Kodorovich smiled for the first time since they had met under the trees.
"I have orders for your arrest also, to take effect when we reach Moscow; signed by Major Kamashev, MVD."
"I"m sorry," Plekoskaya said, "but you will have to wait your turn. The commanders of the 116th and the 48th are both ahead of you."
Kodorovich suddenly stood up frowning and stared around at the fields where the peasants were working. "I don"t like the way those people keep glancing at the troops and snickering. I can hear some of their remarks."
"Don"t trouble yourself about it. They"ve been doing it all morning.
It"s only good-natured jesting."
"It breeds disrespect of the Army. And disrespect of authority is the first step on the road to anarchy," Kodorovich said severely.
"Well at least that"s a movement to somewhere," Plekoskaya said. "Can you blame them for smiling? That"s the 124th, the famous "lightning"
division, that"s been glued to the road in front of them for the past six hours. In that time it has moved perhaps a hundred or so feet and I suspect it is only because your 71st is very ill-manneredly pushing from behind."
"I still don"t like their smirking."
Plekoskaya became suddenly solemn. "It is when they begin to laugh openly that we should become concerned."
"How did you get the American lieutenant out of Moscow?" Colonel Peng"s superior was asking him.
"Bushmilov was conducting the interrogation," Colonel Peng replied, "when suddenly somebody started shooting through the window from another office across the way. I heard Bushmilov yell something about plotters and counterrevolutionaries and he and his men started shooting back.
Within minutes the entire building was like a battlefield. In the confusion we s.n.a.t.c.hed the American and hustled him away. The corridors were full of groups of MVD men running and shooting and I have no idea what it was all about but whatever it was it didn"t affect us for we were allowed to pa.s.s unmolested. We managed to escape stray bullets and get out of the building with whole skins to our emba.s.sy.
"Getting out of Moscow was the real problem. Within hours the city was clogged with troops. Slowly, as supplies were choked off by the congestion, offices and factories and shops closed down and the people were on the streets strolling about as if on holiday, laughing and joking about the tangle of tanks and vehicles and military equipment that was effectively strangling the city.
"It appears that not even the highest officers and officials were making any effort to clear up the mess. Each one seemed to be afraid to take any responsibility beyond the last coherent orders that had brought practically the entire army converging on Moscow.
"We tried to get out by air but that proved impossible. All civil flights were canceled so that the fields could accommodate the armadas of military aircraft that swarmed into the area. We couldn"t even get a wireless message out because of the spreading chaos. We had to proceed out of the city on foot and by then affairs were beginning to take an ugly turn. Food supplies were becoming exhausted and as long as the military refused to budge nothing could be brought in, even their own supplies. Once out of the city we took to the river. No one attempted to stop us but neither did any official attempt to help their Chinese comrades. The curious paralysis had spread. It was as if the entire countryside was holding its breath, waiting for some positive sign of authority. In Gorki, where there was less air-congestion, we managed to steal a plane and flew it to Finland. The rest you know."
Peng"s superior nodded. "Our Russian friends are losing their grip. That is because they do not practice pure Communism. Upon China now falls the mantle of leadership of the people"s republics as we knew, long before, it was destined to be." He rose from behind his desk. "Come, let us now turn our attention to this strange American lieutenant and see how the interrogation is proceeding."
As Peng and his chief stepped into the hallway, they heard a shattering of gla.s.s and a cry of pain from a room at the far end of the hallway.
"It sounds like someone falling through a window!" Peng exclaimed.
His chief"s face was shadowed with a momentary irritation. "If that is another one of my men having a foolish accident--"
"What do you mean?" Peng inquired.
"Mean?" his chief repeated in exasperation. "I"ll tell you what I mean.
Since this interrogation started four of my men have injured themselves in silly, stupid accidents; like the captain who fell off his chair and broke his leg. If I didn"t know my men, I would swear that they had all been drinking!"
There was a sudden, single shot. They hurried along the hall but before they could reach the room at the end they had to drop to the floor to escape the fusillade of bullets that whined down the corridor.
In the great Operations Room of the Pentagon, the uppermost echelons of the American General Staff glared at Dr. t.i.tus whose civilian presence was defiling this military "holy of holies."
An admiral, sitting next to General Fyfe, banged his fist on the table and almost shouted at t.i.tus. "So you"re one of the idiots who"s been advising the President not to let us commit our forces in Afghanistan.
Do you realize the Russians will--"
t.i.tus appealed to the Chairman of the General Staff. "Do I or do I not have the floor? Hm-m-m?" Reluctantly, the chairman restored order and motioned t.i.tus to continue. "It is true that the President has been persuaded to not commit the United States to any further military adventures until we have given a plan of mine some little time to take effect. Gentlemen, we have in operation a secret weapon that, if all goes well, will make any future military undertakings unnecessary and bring about the destruction of our enemies." At the mention of "secret weapon," the entire General Staff, excepting Fyfe, creaked forward in their seats with eager interest. "The secret weapon is an eighteen-year-old boy named Dolliver Wims, recently commissioned a lieutenant in the Army and now in Russian hands."
An avalanche of derisive remarks concerning his sanity roared down on t.i.tus but he ignored them and continued. "Wims came to work for us last spring and nothing in his manner or appearance indicated that he was in any way unusual. However, he had hardly been with us a month before complaints from my staff started flooding my office. Our accident rate soared skyward and all staff fingers pointed at Wims. I investigated and discovered that in spite of the accusations Wims was never _directly_ involved in these mishaps. He was present when they occurred, yes, but he never pushed or b.u.mped anyone or dropped anything or even fingered anything he wasn"t supposed to and yet in the face of this fact, almost everyone, including my most dispa.s.sionate researchers, invariably blamed Wims. Finding this extremely odd, I kept the boy on and under various subterfuges I probed, tested and observed him without his knowledge.