Red Inferno

CHAPTER 11

The furnace room in the basement of Moscow’s Lubyanka prison was unbearably hot. It was a warm spring day, and normally the furnaces would not have been working too hard. But today, the grimy and dour men who kept them burning had them at full blast.

More than the heat affected the thirty or so men jammed into the small room. Almost all of them were senior army officers and they were in full and heavy uniforms. Many were pale and sweating profusely. Most felt terror and were fighting waves of fear and nausea. They knew what happened in the basement of the Lubyanka. They had been ordered there for a command performance in the price of disloyalty.

A door opened and the NKVD head, Lavrentii Beria, entered silently. He stood off to the side and looked directly at no one. One of the officers started to whimper and was quickly silenced by a companion. If Beria noticed, he gave no sign. He could have been his own statue.

The screeching sound of an iron-wheeled cart dragging on the cement floor was heard. The officers looked in the direction of the wide double doors that led to a hallway where the worst or most important prisoners were kept.

The door opened and two NKVD officers pushed in a hospital-type gurney on which a man was strapped. They stopped in front of Beria and the assembled officers, and unstrapped the man, who began moaning loudly. As he was pulled to a standing position, he screamed from the pain of having to use joints and limbs that had been pulled apart and broken.

In fascinated horror, the officers stared at the man. He was vaguely familiar to some, but so distorted as to be a caricature of himself. His nose was flattened and there was a dark hole where one eye had been. The man howled in pain, and they could see where the teeth that hadn’t been pulled out had been broken off into stumps. They wondered what other physical horrors his shapeless prison garb hid. They also wondered what he had told his interrogators, who were so obviously through with him, and whether it could come back to threaten them.

“Korzov,” came the hissed whisper of recognition from the rear. Now they knew the rumors were true. Korzov was the army officer who had betrayed his country while in the United States. Exactly what he had done, they didn’t know. Rumors had said only that he had betrayed a major secret to the Americans. Collectively, they shuddered. Beria did not move and, like a reptilian predator, did not seem to be aware of the heat or the collective scent of fear.

Korzov looked about the room with his one eye. It looked like he was trying to focus on the rows of faces to figure out what was going on, and what new agony was in store for him.

The two NKVD men set up a chute that led to one of the furnaces while two furnace operators watched in detachment. They had seen all this before. At a nod from one of the NKVD men, one of the operators opened the furnace doors, and a wave of additional heat surged across the room while the white-hot flames made a roaring sound that buried the collective moan of thirty horrified and terrorized men.

Puzzled, Korzov turned his head in the direction of the unaccustomed warmth. His nights had been damp and bitter cold. He saw the flames but his mind did not register any particular significance.

The NKVD men grabbed him and wrapped his arms and legs in straps so he could not move, only wriggle like a worm trapped on a hook. Then they roughly put him on the chute, feet facing the open furnace. When he was set, they lifted the chute, but steadied Korzov, so he could see the furnace and the flames within.

Now it registered. Korzov’s screams of fear seemed to come from the bowels of hell. Some of the most hardened officers began to tremble. Korzov tried to thrash, disregarding the agony of his broken arms and legs in his effort to flee his fate.

It was no use. If there was a signal from Beria, no one saw it, but as if on cue, the two NKVD men released Korzov, who began a slow, screaming slide down the chute.

His legs entered first and his clothing flared, then his torso, and then his head and contorted face. For an instant he held that position. He was visible in the flames as a dancing, writhing specter until finally collapsing and disappearing as the furnace men closed the door on the ghastly show.

There was silence. Beria walked from the room, a hint of a smile flickering on his face. The lesson had been delivered.

A FTER KNOCKING SEVERAL times, Steve Burke tried the door to Natalie’s apartment and found it unlocked. Surprised, he entered. Natalie was seated on a chair in her living room, looking out her window.

“Are you all right?” he said, approaching her quietly.

She turned and smiled wanly. “I’ve had better days.”

He knelt before her and took her hand. “Anything you care to share?”

“Yes, but make me a martini first.” He obeyed, and she saluted him before taking her first sip. “Here’s to new wars.”

Steve was puzzled. What on earth could have happened? Could she have heard he actually was going to Europe as part of Marshall’s entourage? That was why he had dropped by, to inform her. He didn’t know how she would take the information. Would the fact of his leaving upset her or would she be proud of him?

Natalie put her glass down. “The FBI was around today. They see Communists and other undesirables everywhere.”

He was incredulous. “You?”

“No, at least not seriously. They did question me to reconfirm what they already knew about my past life in Russia and my citizenship. I don’t think I am considered a subversive. But they may label my mother as an undesirable and deport her. God only knows where they would send her. Certainly not to Russia.”

“What on earth for?”

Natalie laughed harshly. “Because she was too frank a few years ago when applying for American citizenship. Remember when I told you she sold herself for food and passage to the United States? Well, a few years ago some sanctimonious fool at immigration labeled her a prostitute and rejected her application for citizenship. I knew she had been turned down, but never wondered why. Stupid me. Today they came and informed her that the combination of Russian citizenship and a record as an admitted whore was too much for the puritans in our government and would she mind leaving the country. It didn’t matter that she’d married an American who, unfortunately, died and isn’t around to defend her. My stepfather certainly never thought of her as a whore and he knew full well how she got to America. I’ve spent most of the day trying to straighten out that mess.”

“Any success?”

She took a deep breath and swallowed the rest of her drink. He took the glass and started to mix another. “I think so. Unfortunately, we won’t know for several weeks. Not everyone who works for the government is an idiot-just most of them.” The irony that both of them were on the government payroll did not escape them.

“That’s awful,” he said, handing her the drink and taking a seat across from her. Steve had never met her mother but Natalie had told him a great deal about her. It wasn’t fair that someone who had suffered so much should be called upon to suffer again.

“And things are terrible at work,” she continued. “Once again the iron hand of J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI stormtroopers is at work. They are going through our personnel files and talking to anyone who ever belonged to a left-wing organization, even though some of those so-called memberships might have occurred years or even a decade or more ago, and at a time when the Russian Revolution was thought of as a part of the liberation of oppressed peoples.”

Or even more recently, Steve thought, since, up until a little while ago, the Soviet Union and the man Roosevelt referred to as “Uncle Joe” were our allies. He knew of the activities of the FBI, but he was not aware they were so extensive or so oppressive. On the other hand, it made sense to him that State would be so heavily investigated. They were the first line of contact with other governments and privy to so many federal secrets.

“What is happening to the ones they suspect?”

“Nothing officially,” she answered. “Apparently they are under orders not to arrest anyone without real proof, but they are making life miserable for people who are now under dark clouds of suspicion. Some zealous, perhaps fearful, administrators have placed a few people on administrative leaves of absence until they are cleared. A couple of people have had the misfortune of being both homosexual and leftist, and they are in real trouble. It’s sad. You are legally innocent, but still guilty of something until they prove otherwise.”

With that off her chest, she smiled warmly at him. “Now, what caused you to come rushing over here and burst through the door I was so distressed that I foolishly forgot to lock?”

“Well, General Marshall is going to Europe to meet with all the big shots and he is taking some of his staff. He decided he needed some people who knew about the Soviet Union and Joe Stalin in particular, so I, as I suspected might happen, am going along.”

Her eyes misted over. “I know you’re thrilled, but I will worry about you. I’ve already lost one man to war and I don’t want to lose a second one.”

“Don’t worry. I can’t imagine General Marshall getting anywhere near the front lines. More likely, we’ll be holed up in some fancy hotel in London or Paris, roughing it with the elite.”

“Don’t count on it,” she said. “Things have a strange way of working out just like we don’t expect. The gentleman whose robe you wore that first night was a navy pilot, and, like all pilots, he thought he was immortal. He flew a torpedo plane off Midway Island and was shot down. So were all the torpedo planes. I heard through the grapevine that it was because they were lousy, slow planes and the Japs had fast and good ones. You may have no intention of getting caught up in the war, but events have a way of controlling us, don’t they?”

“True,” he said. “In real life, I should be at Notre Dame grading papers from students who don’t even know how to even spell Communist. Instead, I’m going to Europe and may meet heads of state and other people who are making history and not teaching it. In a way, it doesn’t make sense. Here I am jumping up and down like a little kid going on an adventure, and I am actually going into a war area where thousands of people are getting killed and wounded each day.”

“Like you said, it doesn’t make sense, but then, it doesn’t have to. When do you go?”

“Later tonight. I’ve packed and my bags are in the car.”

Her eyes twinkled. “And you presumed to come here and impress me with your departing-warrior routine? You probably thought you could dazzle me out of my clothes and I would drag you off to my bed and let you work your evil way with me? Is that what you had in mind?”

He grinned. “Frankly, yes.”

Natalie stood and swallowed the rest of her drink. “Well, my fearless scholar-warrior, I would have been horribly angry if you had thought otherwise.” She took his hand and pulled him to a standing position. “You are going to remember the next few hours for the rest of your life.” Which, she thought with a trace of sadness, I hope is a very, very long one.

“gretel, let me see your baby.”

Elisabeth Wolf framed the request as gently as possible. The tormented wraith in front of her clutched the lifeless bundle to her bosom and looked about in terror. The woman was about Lis’s age but looked decades older.

“It’s all right,” Elisabeth soothed. As Logan watched, she continued to gentle the frightened young woman. Finally, the woman started to sob. After a moment, she handed the bundle to Elisabeth with a shy smile and started to walk away.

“Where’s she going?” Jack asked.

“Back to the others. She’s finally accepted the fact that the baby is dead.”

“And she can walk away from it?”

Elisabeth opened the cloth wrappings and looked on the bluish and distorted face of the dead infant. “It isn’t hers.”

“What?”

Elisabeth covered the tiny face. “I heard her story from one of her friends. She found it a few days ago. I guess the real mother had been killed. Gretel hoped that her having a baby to care for would keep the Russians from hurting her. It didn’t work.”

“Oh God.” Logan had been hearing more and more stories of the unspeakable atrocities the Russians were inflicting on the German women in revenge for the equally barbaric treatment of Russian women by the Nazis.

“Oh God is right. She was probably raped many times in the last couple of weeks. Sometimes more than once by the same man, but more likely she was just passed around or periodically singled out. Every Russian knows at least two German words, frau komm. When a Russian calls you like that you have no choice but to comply if you have any hope of living through it. Gretel was once fairly attractive. I think she’s younger than I am.”

“How did the baby die?”

Elisabeth looked again at the lifeless bundle in her arms. “According to one of the other women who came in with her, some Russian pig stomped on it and killed it because it started crying while he was having his way with Gretel.”

To Logan, who thought he was inured to horror, the story was a nightmare. “What now?” he managed to ask. He wondered how Elisabeth could deal with these things so calmly.

“I will take the child to the cemetery. Von Schumann has people who will bury it. As to the woman, perhaps she will begin to heal. Perhaps not, though. She is on the verge of total madness. The only thing that can heal people like her will be peace, and that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, is it?”

It was only a short walk to the cemetery, and they left the body with two older women who accepted it without comment. It seemed to Logan that it was so perfunctory it was like mailing a package. Except a package had an address on it. No one had any idea what the child’s name had been. There were a number of fresh graves, and he wondered how many of them contained unidentified bodies.

Then they walked to where Elisabeth and Pauli lived with the other refugees. Pauli was on his hands and knees, solemnly examining the shiny object before him. It was a top, and Pauli was figuring out how to spin it. He was having difficulties, and it occurred to Logan that the boy didn’t really know how to play. Jack thought he would work to rectify that. There were only a few boys Pauli’s age in Potsdam, and most were as confused as he.

Elisabeth smiled. Logan thought he saw the hint of a tear in her eye. “Thank you for the toy. I almost forget when he last had a chance to be a little boy.”

Logan shrugged and grinned. It hadn’t been all that easy rummaging through the abandoned and looted buildings until he found something he thought a child Pauli’s age would like. Now he thought the effort had been well worth it. If Elisabeth was happy then he was ecstatic.

“Yeah, he does seem to be having fun.”

“And it’s the first time he’s let me go without jumping all over me when I return. That is a very good sign that someday he too can live a normal life when we get out of this.”

If, Jack thought, not when. If we ever get out of this stinking mess. All signs indicated that the American army was being pushed farther and farther to the west and away from them. So far there had been no effort on the part of the Russians to overrun Potsdam. Apparently taking the city was something they felt they could do at any time they wished. It was one thing to be an optimist, but he preferred realism, and realism said their stay in Potsdam could be tragically, violently short. It was a thought that nagged him, but what could he do about it?

He checked his watch. “I’ve got to go. Captain Dimitri wants to meet with his officers in a little while. Would it be all right if I stopped by again? I might not be able to find any more toys, though.”

Elisabeth laughed. For a big, bright officer, he could be so dense. “Well then, you will have to be his toy. But yes, you may come back and visit. I would like that. When Pauli goes to bed, perhaps you and I can simply sit and talk.”

“Now would you take some food if I brought it?”

He had brought some “extra” rations for Pauli and the boy had gobbled them down. Despite her protestations that she was receiving enough, he had seen her eyes widen at the sight of what he and his men thought of as tasteless and undesirable C rations, which included meat, instant coffee, lemonade powder, a chocolate bar, hard candy, toilet paper, chewing gum, crackers or canned bread, and cigarettes. Pauli, of course, did not get any cigarettes or coffee. K rations, which were intended to be eaten without being cooked, were even worse, but the boy had no qualms about eating them either.

“I will think about it,” she said softly, then brightened. “Perhaps we can have dinner together.”