“This is nonsense. If you don’t give me any more information, you’ll be shot as a traitor and your family sent to a labor camp for rehabilitation.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I have your confession, Comrade.”
“I retract my confession!”
Lyudmila sighs. “You’re making this so difficult. Why not simply give me the information? We both know you have it. We both know you love your wife and your family, and you don’t want to see any harm come to them.”
Digby just stares at her. He has the most remarkable eyes, a color so intensely blue it’s difficult to look away. A good thing Lyudmila is so hardened by years of practice at interrogation. Oh, the pathetic pleas she’s heard, the weeping and distress! You simply have to imagine yourself as a rock, millions of years old, impervious to wind and sea and sun and the intensely blue eyes of traitors to the revolution. You have to remember the great ideal for which you’re fighting.
“You’re going to send them to the camps, anyway, aren’t you? Whatever I say, whatever I reveal to you, you’re going to have me shot and they’re going to disappear into the gulag. Whatever I—”
Digby stops in the middle of his sentence and looks to the door in surprise. Lyudmila’s seen this trick before, however. She doesn’t flinch. Only when a small, dry gasp penetrates the air behind her does she turn her head to glance over her shoulder.
A girl stands there, all by herself. She’s wearing a rumpled school uniform and an expression of horrified shock. It actually takes Lyudmila a second or two to recognize that it’s Marina.
She starts to rise from the chair. “Marina! How did you—”
A guard appears behind her daughter and grabs her by the arm. Marina turns her head and bites his hand—kicks him—he snatches her arm and bends it behind her back and shoves her to the ground.
“Comrade! Let the girl go this instant! What’s the meaning of this?”
The guard has his knee in the middle of Marina’s back. He looks up, panting, and says, “This girl just shot the guard outside the prison hut, Comrade! She was trying to free the prisoners!”
The general stands by the window and stares at the rising sun. He clasps his arms behind his back. Lyudmila can see how furious he is by the tic of one finger against the back of the other hand.
“I did not wish to allow this facility to be used for KGB purposes,” he says. “The locals are not happy about our presence here to begin with. I agreed, because one does not refuse requests from Moscow Centre.”
“Your loyalty has been noted.”
“Has it?” He turns his head. His face blazes pink. “Why could this affair not have been handled in one of the detention centers near Moscow?”
“For strategic reasons—”
“Luckily the bullet missed his heart by a couple of inches. As it is, I must write a report on the incident. This is very grave, Ivanova. Very grave.”
“Don’t worry about the report.”
“I don’t worry about it with respect to myself, Ivanova. I’ve written such reports before. They are inconvenient, but my career has survived worse. No. The trouble is the child. There are witnesses. I can’t obscure the facts.”
“Of course not. She is to blame. She must face the consequences.”
The general stares at her. The color begins to fade from his skin, the blood to return to its usual habits of circulation. He must be about fifty or so. Lyudmila knows his record. He made his name during the defense of Moscow, was transferred to Stalingrad, then led a division into Poland and then Germany as the tide turned. He’s seen more bloodshed and more human misery than any single person should witness in a hundred lifetimes.
“You realize, of course, what those consequences are. To attack a solider, to shoot him. To attempt a prison escape. These are the most serious possible offenses. Her age and sex will not protect her. Nor can you, Ivanova.”
“I understand.”
He sighs. “Do you know how she found this place?”
“According to her account, she forced the information from my deputy at Moscow Centre, then boarded a train for Riga, then stole a motorcycle, upon which she conveyed herself here.”
“Where did she learn to ride a motorcycle, at her age?”
“I’m not exactly certain.”
“My God. She has the tenacity of a tiger. What a shame. What a waste.” He shakes his head and fixes Lyudmila with his dark, sunken eyes. “It would have been far better for her if she had succeeded.”