In the Balance

“Yes, that is what I was getting to, Major,” the NKVD man said. “We have reports from witnesses that the Lizards are operating as if in an area of poison gas, although no gas seems to be present. Not only do they wear masks, in fact, but also bulky full-body protective suits. You see the significance of this, I trust?”

“Ja,” Jager said absently. Except for helmets and sometimes body armor, Lizards didn’t wear clothes, if they felt they needed to be protected from something, whatever it was had to be pretty fierce. As for gas-he shivered a little as he remembered his own days in the trenches back in the first war. A gas mask was torment, made worth wearing only because it warded against worse.

“It is not gas, you say?” Skorzeny put in.

“No, definitely not,” Lidov answered. “There has been no problem due to wind or anything of that sort. The Lizards appear to be engaged in recovering certain chunks of metal strewn about over a wide area when their ship exploded. These are loaded into lorries which seem to be very heavy for their size, judging by the tracks they leave in dirt.”

“Armor-plated?” Jager asked.

“Possibly,” Lidov said. “Or possibly lead.”

Jager thought about that. Lead was good for plumbing, but for shielding? The only time he’d ever seen anyone use lead for shielding was when the fellow who’d X-rayed him after he was wounded put on a lead waistcoat before he took his pictures. He made a sudden connection-he’d heard inside these very Kremlin walls that the weapon which destroyed Berlin had had some sort of effect (not being a physicist, he didn’t know quite what) related to X rays.

He said, “Is this salvage related to these dreadful bombs the Lizards have?”

Skorzeny’s dark eyes widened. Lidov’s rather narrow ones, already constricted by a Tatar fold at their inner corners, now thinned further. In a voice silky with danger, he said, “Were you one of ours, Major Jager, I doubt you would long survive. You speak your thoughts too openly.”

Georg Schultz surged halfway out of his chair “You watch your mouth, you damned Red!”

Jager set a hand on the gunner’s shoulder, pushed him back into the seat. “Do remember where we are, Sergeant,” he said dryly.

“That is an excellent suggestion, Sergeant Schultz,” the NKVD man agreed. “Your loyalty does you credit, but it is foolish here.” He turned back to Jager. “You, Major, may be too clever for your own good.”

“Not necessarily.” Otto Skorzeny spoke up for the panzer officer. “That we are here, Lieutenant Colonel Lidov, that you have said even so much on this sensitive matter, argues that you need German assistance for whatever you have in mind. You shall not get it unless Major Jager here remains unharmed. You do need us, do you not?” In other circumstances, his smile would have been sweet. Now it mocked.

Lidov glared at him. Lieutenant Colonel Kraminov, who had let the other man do the talking till now, said, “You are right, worse luck, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer. This area has only Russian partisans, no regular Red Army forces, as you Germans drove these out last fall. While brave enough, the partisans lack the heavy armament required to attack a Lizard lorry convoy. There are, however, also fragmentary Wehrmacht units in the area-”

“In regard to the Lizards, these are hardly more than partisan forces themselves,” Lidov interrupted. “But they do retain more arms than our own glorious and heroic partisans, that is true.” By his expression, the truth tasted bad in his mouth.

“Thus we suggest a joint undertaking,” Kraminov said. “You three will serve as our liaison with whatever German units remain north of Kiev. In the event we succeed in despoiling the convoy, our two governments will share equally in what we capture. Is it agreed?”

“How do we know you won’t keep everything for yourselves?” Schultz asked.

“You fascist aggressors were the ones who brutally violated the nonaggression pact the great Stalin generously granted to Hitler,” Lidov snapped. “We are the ones who tremble at the thought of trusting you.”

“You would’ve jumped us if we hadn’t,” Schultz said angrily. “Comrades,” Lieutenant Colonel Kraminov said-in German, which gave the word a different feel from the harsh Russian Lidov had used. “Please, comrades. If we are to be comrades, we shall need to work together. If we go at each other’s throats, only the Lizards will benefit”

“He’s right, Georg,” Jager said. “If we start arguing, we’ll never get anything done.” He hadn’t forgotten his own dislike and contempt for nearly everything he’d seen in the Soviet Union, but could not deny the Russians fought hard-nor that they were masters of partisan warfare. “For now, let ideology wait.”

“Can you get me a telegraph line to Germany?” Otto Skorzeny asked. “I must have authorization before proceeding with this scheme.”