Red Ice

“Matsuma, gather up the four gang bosses and invite them to the commandant’s quarters. It’s time for that briefing you’ve prepared. Tell the other prisoners not to start running off on their own—we’re going to help them with an organized escape.”

It was better to keep Matsuma busy. The Japanese say that with some debts of honor one can only begin to pay one one-thousandth of the debt. I didn’t want him reducing the fraction’s denominator.

Matsuma turned to a group of prisoners standing uneasily on a barracks’ stoop. Their features were a map of the Soviet Union—Yakut, Kazakh, Uzbek, Belorussian, Armenian, Ukrainian, Russian. One Mongolian girl reminded me of Keiko. Ivan bestowed his favors with equanimity. The USSR is an equal-opportunity oppressor.

“We come as friends…,” he began.

I turned to Puckins. “Lock them up in the cooler. Some of their friends should be by to release them shortly. Then take some of the C-4 and blow out the insides of the radio shack after you pull those items we need. That way Ivan won’t realize what’s missing.

“One other thing, Chief. Have someone smash the radios in the half-tracks. Then have Gurung and Wickersham gather up any ammo they can find. We may need it.”

“Right, sir.”

He returned in half an hour.

“Here they are, the crypto assembly and the code books.” He held out several looseleaf binders and a mass of electronic circuitry about the size of a typewriter. “The charges are set.”

“Good. Very good.”

The radio shack erupted in fiery splinters, shattering the false dawn. Tiny bits of knobs, wires, and metal plate hummed down around us. What was left of it burned in indifferent competition with the guards’ barracks/pyre. Prisoners, in a festive mood, milled about the two bonfires. In Siberia, holidays were where you found them.

CHAPTER 24

“Who are you?”

The four gang bosses sat in the center of the commandant’s office. We stood along its sides. Light flickered from a kerosene lantern onto the commandant’s well-appointed oak desk. Matsuma and Gurung stood in front of them without their exposure masks.

Matsuma pealed off his white overblouse to reveal a green quilted jacket with red collar flashes but devoid of insignia. He moved stiffly. I guessed the hit to the body armor had broken a rib or two. “We are soldiers of the People’s Republic of China. We are liberating all the concentration camps of the Russian imperialists in this area and seizing the Trans Siberian Railway.”

“Are we your captives?” asked an Armenian gang boss with a heavy beard.

“By no means. We have admired the courage of you who have challenged the Kremlin adventurists. You are free to go. In fact, that is why we have asked you here. One gang will divide up the camp’s food and supplies into four equal parts. Then, by lot, the other gangs will be allowed to choose which quarter they want. It will be up to each gang boss to parcel up the supplies among his individual gang members. You should take the three remaining half-tracks and the train. That’ll give you a head start. Head in different directions for about half a day, then abandon them and split up. We figure a VOKhk relief detachment will get here by rail within twenty-four hours.”

A straw-haired old boss with deep-sunken eyes stood up. “Can you help us get into China?”

“No,” Matsuma stated firmly. “We have liberated you, that is all we can do. Escape for us, in the event our army does not succeed, will be difficult enough.”

“How can we possibly survive?”

“I don’t know. All I can say is winter is nearly over and this is a large, sparsely settled region. With the guards’ portion added in, you’re going to have more food than you would have had otherwise. Anyone who wishes can of course stay in the camp until the raid has been discovered and the new guards arrive.”

“Not bloody likely,” another gang boss said, then spit for emphasis. It left a dark spot on the commandant’s Persian rug.

“They don’t look very Chinese to me. Some of these men are too big, even for northern Chinese,” a short gang boss with Mongolian features and no teeth said, pointing to Chamonix and Wickersham, “and why are they still wearing masks?”

Matsuma looked to me.

“Tell them we freedom fighters of the People’s Republic do not observe class or race distinctions. Ours is an international struggle.” I said to Matsuma in Japanese. He translated.

They guffawed.

“And it is in your self-interest for us to be Chinese. If we are Chinese, the Kremlin must order a border-long mobilization. If any zek reveals to anyone we are not, then the Kremlin can concentrate all its resources into catching us and recapturing you. Convince your zek gangs that we are all dog-eating Chinamen and be content. There is an ancient Chinese proverb: ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’”

They nodded understanding.

“One more thing,” I said. “Where is Special Prisoner Seven Thirty-four?… Vyshinsky?”

“That goner? He’s in sick bay.”