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Lucimila sagged with relief. Schultz did not seem to have followed enough of the conversation to know he’d been in danger. But then, he’d been in danger since the moment he rolled across the Soviet border. Perhaps he’d grown used to it-though Ludmila never had.
“You have the flight plan, Comrade Pilot?” Molotov asked.
“Yes,” Ludmila said, tapping a pocket in her leather flying suit. That made her think of something else. “Comrade Foreign Commissar, your clothing may be warm enough on the ground, but the Kukuruznik, as you see, is an airplane with open cockpits. The wind of our motion will be savage… and we will be flying north.”
To get to Germany at all, the little U-2 would have to fly around three sides of a rectangle. The short way, across Poland, lay in the Lizards’ hands. So it would be north past Leningrad, then west through Finland, Sweden, and Denmark, and finally south into Germany. Ludmila hoped the fuel dumps promised on paper would be there in fact. The Kukuruznik’s range was only a little better than five hundred kilometers; it would have to refuel a number of times on the journey. On the other hand, if travel arrangements for the foreign commissar of the Soviet Union went awry, the nation was probably doomed.
“Can I draw flying clothes like yours from the commandant of this base?” Molotov asked.
“I am certain Colonel Karpov will be honored to provide you with them, Comrade Foreign Comntissar,” Ludmila said. She was just as certain the colonel would not dare refuse, even if it meant sending one of his pilots out to freeze on the fellow’s next mission.
Molotov left the revetment. Schultz started to laugh. Ludmila turned a questioning eye on him. He said, “A year ago this time, if I’d shot that little hardnosed pigdog, the Fuhrer would have stuck the Knight’s Cross, the Swords, and the Diamonds on me-likely kissed me on both cheeks, too. Now I’m helping him. Bloody strange world.” To that Ludmila could only nod.
When the foreign commissar returned half an hour later, he looked as if he’d suddenly gained fifteen kilos. He was bundled into a leather and sheepskin flight suit, boots, and flying helmet, and carried a pair of goggles in his left hand. “Will these fit over my spectacles?” he asked.
“Comrade Foreign Commissar, I don’t know.” Ludmila had never heard of a Red Air Force flier who needed spectacles. “You can try them, though.”
Molotov looked at his wristwatch. Just getting to it under the bulky flight suit was a struggle. “We are due to depart in less than two hours. I trust we shall be punctual.”
“There should be no trouble,” Ludmila said. A lot of the mission would be flown at night to minimize the chance of interception. The only problem with that was the U-2’s aggressively basic navigational gear: compass and airspeed indicator were about it.
As things happened, there was a problem: the little Shvetsov engine didn’t want to turn over when Georg Schultz spun the prop. In the seat in front of Ludmila’s, Molotov clenched his jaw. He said nothing, but she knew he was making mental notes. That chilled her worse than the frigid night air.
But this problem had a solution, borrowed from the British: a Hicks starter, mounted on the front of a battered truck, revolved the propeller shaft fast enough to kick the engine into life. “God-damned sewing machine!” Schultz bawled up to Ludmila, just to see her glare. The acrid stink of the exhaust was perfume in her nostrils.
The U-2 taxied to the end of the airstrip, bumped along the couple of hundred meters of badly smoothed ground as it built up speed-and at the end of one bump, didn’t come back to earth. Ludmila always relished the feeling of leaving the ground. The wind that blasted into her face over and around her little windscreen told her she was really flying.
And tonight she relished taking off for another reason as well. As long as the Kukuruznik stayed in the air, she was in charge, not Molotov. That was a heady feeling, like being on the way to drunk. If she did a tight snap roll and flew upside down for a few seconds, she could check how well he’d fastened his safety belt…
She shook her head. Foolishness, foolishness. If people-had disappeared in the purges of the thirties-and they had, in great carload lots-the German invasion proved there were worse things. Some Soviet citizens had been willing (and some Soviet citizens had been eager) to collaborate with the Nazis, but the Germans showed themselves even more brutal than the NKVD.
But now Soviets and Nazis had a common cause, a foe that threatened to crush them both, regardless, even heedless, of ideology. Life, Ludmila thought with profound unoriginality, was very strange.
The biplane droned through the night. Snow-draped fields alternated with black pine forests below. Ludmila stayed as low as she dared: not as low as she would have during the day, for now a swell of ground could be upon her before she knew it was there. Her route swung wide around the Valdai Hills just to cut that risk.
The farther north she flew, the longer the night became, also. It was as if she drew darkness around the aircraft… though winter nights anywhere in the Soviet Union were quite long enough.
Her first assigned refueling stop was between Kalinin and Kashin, on the upper reaches of the Volga. She buzzed around the area where she thought the airstrip was until her fuel started getting dangerously low. She hoped she wouldn’t have to try to put the U-2 down in a field, not with the passenger she was carrying.
Just when she thought she would have to do that-better with power than dead stick-she spied a lantern or electric torch, swung the Kukuruznik toward it. More torches came on, briefly, to mark the borders of a landing strip. She brought in the U-2 with gentleness that surprised even herself.
Whatever Molotov thought of the landing, he kept it to himself. He rose stiffly, for which Ludmila could hardly blame him-after four and a half hours in the air, she too had cramps and kinks aplenty.
Ignoring the officer in charge of the airstrip, the foreign commissar stumped off into the darkness. Looking for a secluded place to piss, Ludmila guessed: the most nearly human response she’d yet seen from Molotov.
The officer-the collar tabs of his greatcoat were Air Force sky-blue and bore a winged prop and a major’s two scarlet rectangles-turned to Ludmila and said, “We are ordered to render you every assistance, Senior Lieutenant Gorbunov.”
“Gorbunova, sir,” Ludmila corrected, only a little put out: the heavy winter flight suit would have disguised any shape at all.
“Gorbunova-pardon me,” the major said, eyebrows rising. “Did I read the despatch wrong, or was it written incorrectly? Well, no matter. If you have been chosen to fly the comrade foreigncommissar, your competence cannot be questioned.” His tone of voice said he did question it, but Ludmila let that go. The major went on, more briskly now, “What do you require, Senior Lieutenant?”
“Fuel for the aircraft, oil if necessary, and a mechanical check if you have a mechanic who can do a proper job.” Ludmila put first things first (she also wished she could have lashed Georg Schultz to the U-2’s fuselage and carried him along). Almost as an afterthought, she added, “Food and someplace warm for me to sleep through the day would be pleasant.”
“Would be necessary,” Molotov amended as he came back to the Kukuruznik. His face remained expressionless, but his voice betrayed more animation; Ludmila wondered how hard he’d been fighting to hold it in. Her own bladder was pretty full, too. Perhaps confirming her thought, the foreign commissar continued, “Tea would also be welcome now.” Not before, ran through Ludmila’s mind-he would have exploded. She knew that feeling.
The major said, “Comrades, if you will come with me… He led Ludmila and Molotov toward his own dwelling. As they kicked their way through the snow, he bawled orders to his groundcrew. The men ran like wraiths in the predawn darkness, easier to follow by ear than by eye.
The major’s quarters were half-hut, half dug-out cave. A lantern on a board-and-trestle table cast a flickering light over the little chamber. A samovar stood nearby; so did a spirit stove. Atop the latter was a pot from which rose a heavenly odor.
With every sign of pride, the major ladled out bowls of borscht, thick with cabbage, beets, and meat that might have been veal or just as easily might have been rat. Ludmila didn’t care; whatever it was, it was hot and filling. Molotov ate as if he were stoking a machine.
The major handed them glasses of tea. It was also hot, but had an odd-taste-a couple-of odd tastes, in fact. “Cut with dried herbs and barks, I’m afraid,” the major said apologetically, “and sweetened with honey we found ourselves. Haven’t seen any sugar for quite a while.”
“Given the circumstances, it is adequate,” Molotov said: not high praise, but understanding, at any rate.
“Comrade Pilot, you may rest there,” the major said, pointing to a pile of blankets in one corner that evidently served him for a bed. “Comrade Foreign Commissar, for you the men are preparing a cot, which should be here momentarily.”
“Not necessary,” Molotov said. “A blanket or two will also do for me.”
“What?” The major blinked. “Well, as you say, of course. Excuse me, comrades.” He went back out into the cold, returned in a little while with more blankets. “Here you are, Comrade Foreign Commissar.”
“Thank you. Be sure to awaken us at the scheduled time,” Molotov said.
