Red Sniper

“My jump line got hung up, and by the time I jumped you guys were nowhere in sight. I went out of the plane upside down, and the shock of the chute flipping me upright ripped open my haversack. I lost most of my gear.”

“Damn.”

“Some of it was what we had for Whitlock,” Honaker said. “It was on top, and when the pack opened—well, out it went. Lost his sleeping bag, his winter coat, some of the rations. I’d still be wandering around the goddamn middle of nowhere if Vaska here hadn’t found me.”

Vaska was warming himself by the cookstove. His wife hefted a big, steaming kettle and made them all tea. Out the window, they could see that it was getting dark again. The autumn days here must be very short. She was setting out more food—a fish pie this time, featuring chunks of burbot with potatoes and onions, all under a thick blanket of crust baked in a rectangular pan. Cole wasn’t a big fan of fish—he preferred red meat—but his belly rumbled all the same at the smell of the food.

They sat down to eat with Vaska around a battered homemade wooden table as the wife served them. This time, she was not so stingy with the food. She did not say much and in any case did not seem to speak a word of English, but she had that universal look of pleasure that came to any cook’s face upon seeing hungry men devour the food she had prepared. Cole sopped up the juices with a chunk of thick black bread.

After the meal, there was more tea served in chipped mugs with spiderwebs of fine cracks across the surface. Vaska lit a pipe and a couple of the Americans smoked cigarettes.

They could have been simple supper guests, if their real purpose had not been to spirit an American prisoner out of the nearby Gulag compound. Listening to Vaska’s occasional comments, there was something Cole couldn’t figure out. “Vaska, how come you speak English?” he asked.

The old Russian grunted. “You are not the first Americans that I have come across.”

That got their attention. “What in the world are you talking about? Have there been others before us?”

Vaska chuckled. “There were others back in 1919. Almost thirty years ago. I helped the Americans fight the Bolsheviks near Archangelsk.”

The men look at him blankly.

“Someone must have left that chapter out of the history textbooks,” Vaccaro said.

“The Americans lost,” Vaska explained. A faraway look came into his eyes as he remembered. “Perhaps that is why you have not heard of this battle, because it was not one that anyone wished to remember, but Vaska was there. We could hardly move in the deep snow and the Bolshevik snipers picked us off. Many Americans were killed and the wounded ones froze to death.”

“That was a long time ago. So what’s in it for you now?” Cole pressed. “You get paid?”

Vaska nodded. “It is not so easy living here. There is no way to get extra food unless you have some money. So I get people things they need but that they are not supposed to have.”

“So you’re a smuggler.”

Vaska shrugged. “If I were younger I would move north and trap sables, away from all of this.” He waved his hand at the village beyond the window, as if it were a teeming metropolis rather than a collection of humble backwater dwellings. He looked at Cole. “I would be a hunter, like you.”

“What do you know about me?” Cole said. It came out snarly—he didn’t like the idea of someone prying at who he was, even some old Russian.

“I can see what you are in your eyes,” Vaska said quietly. “You have the look of the wolf. You tell me if I am wrong.”

As the silence around the table grew uncomfortable, Vaccaro spoke up. “Vaska my friend, I just hope they paid you enough to help us so that you don’t go changing your mind.”

Vaska shrugged. “What is money? A little goes a long way here. No, Vaska helps you for the same reason I helped to fight the Bolsheviks in 1919. They were no good. Stalin is no good. But I keep such thoughts to myself, or I would end up in the Gulag over there.”

Cole went to the window, lifted the shade, and peered out. It was dark enough now that he would only be a silhouette to any passerby. Beyond the village he could see a complex of low buildings, ringed by watch towers and barbed wire fences. Dim lights lit the perimeter. It was his first glimpse of the Gulag where Whitlock was being held. He gave a low whistle—the place looked formidable as a state prison. No way in. No way out.

“We are gonna need some help to get our boy out of yonder prison.”

“We need an insider,” Honaker agreed. “Maybe there is someone who works inside the Gulag who sees things like you do.”