Justine Saracen - The Sniper’s Kiss

He paused for dramatic effect.

“Then Zaitsev remembered that the corpses all around us had canteens. We crawled out under cover and brought back a dozen of them. The water was old and not great, but it kept us going. The Germans never thought of it and kept trying to get to the spring, where we knocked them off one by one.”

“A good lesson, Comrade Major,” someone said. “To use our brains and not just our eyes.”

“Yeah, and to start out with a full canteen.” He snorted and strode from the mess hall.

Kalya watched him leave. “They keep telling us about Zaitsev, but my hero is Comrade Pavlichenko. She’s one of us.”

“Do you suppose the British and Americans have women snipers?” Sasha asked. “Or are they softer than we are?”

Alexia gave a faint shrug. “Could be. I only met that one American. Kind of soft, but with a spirit tough as any man’s.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“She partied all night with Stalin, and then she kissed me.”

* * *

On April 1, 1944, the Central Women’s School of Sniper Training graduated its second class of snipers, and fifty women carrying their Mozin-Nagant rifles fitted with PU scopes of 3.5 magnification marched past the reviewing stand.

Their instructors and senior government officials sat in a row before a huge red banner that the Supreme Council of the Soviet Union had presented to the school.

The parading women halted and the speeches began. Alexia barely listened and was already thinking of the next morning when she would be deployed to the 1st Belorussian Front Army under the command of General Rokossovsky. She would pack her small kit and march with the others with the same orders to the station to board a train to Novgorod.

There, at some point, she would be called upon to use her newly acquired skills, not to shoot holes through a painted cardboard cap, but to kill a living German point-blank. Father Zosima would be appalled.

April 1944

“Come in.” Hopkins’s somewhat bored voice came through the door, and Mia let herself in.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I won’t take long.” She held out an envelope. “It’s my letter of resignation.”

He frowned consternation. “Good grief. Whatever for?” He took the envelope but held it in front of him without opening it. “Has anyone mistreated you? Is there some problem?”

“In fact, the problem is mine, sir. Not the job. I love it.”

“Then what’s the reason for this?” He laid the letter on his desk. “Unless it’s for a very grave matter, I can’t let you leave. You’re too important to the program, especially now, when I have to accompany the president on the campaign.”

Mia took a step back, unprepared for his reception. “Well, it’s precisely because of the campaign that I have to leave. You see, I was involved in an… um… indiscretion a year or so ago, before being hired. I thought it was all behind me, but it’s come back to haunt me.”

“An indiscretion. Has this anything to do with the death of your father? I thought the police had closed the case. Are you implicated in any way?”

Mia took a breath. “Not in the death. At least I don’t think so. It’s been months since my brother said the case had reopened, and no one from the police has contacted me. No, it’s a personal indiscretion.” She paused, gathering her courage. “With a woman.”

“A woman? I see.” A frown passed quickly over his face and disappeared. “But how does that affect your work here, or the campaign?”

Mia pressed her forehead, as if to push away a headache. “She’s blackmailing me, threatening to go to the newspapers. And her revelations could prove an embarrassment to the White House, particularly now.”

“Did you commit a crime?”

“No sir. Nothing like that.”

“Did you do anything violent?”

“Not at all. Quite the opposite.”

“Then the issue is your fear of public opinion?”

“Public opinion that could taint the president, yes sir.”

He leaned back and lit up a cigarette, a trick he always used to give himself a moment to think. He inhaled and blew out smoke.

“The president is more resilient than you might think. We have a number of people of your… uh… disposition on the presidential staff, and it has so far never been an issue. But if she’s threatening to make the information public, we’ll have to separate you from the White House.”

“Exactly, sir. That’s the reason for my resignation.”

“No, no. Nothing as radical as that. We need only relocate you where you will be irrelevant to the campaign. To Moscow, for example.”

She was taken aback. “Moscow? On what pretense? Weren’t we just there two months ago?”

“Yes, but it wouldn’t be a pretense. As you know, inventory is still disappearing mysteriously, and I’m convinced the problem is in the Russian distribution.”

“So, you want to post me to Moscow, alone, to deal again with Mr. Molotov and his complaints?”

“You wouldn’t be alone. Mr. Harriman would meet you and fill you in on the status quo. The State Department will not mind issuing another air ticket, and you already have credentials with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Armaments. You have as much expertise to deal with them as anyone.”

“And you think that’ll work. I mean, to protect the president?”

“I’m certain it will. The heads of the major newspapers aren’t interested in embarrassing Mr. Roosevelt. They’ve downplayed his paralysis for three terms, so if your blackmailing friend shows up in their offices with such accusations, the editors will come to us for confirmation, and we’ll say we have no such person working in the White House.”

It was, in fact, an elegant solution. “Thank you, sir. I hope to live up to your trust in me.”

“Never mind. Just prepare to leave in the next few days. I’ll inform Mr. Harriman of your arrival and formally request meetings with Molotov and Ustinov. I expect you to accomplish something while you’re there.”

“Understood, sir. Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hopkins said, and dropped the unopened envelope into his trash bin. Turning back to his desk, he flicked off the long ash of the cigarette that had lain in his glass ashtray.

“The White House has been negotiating the fate of all of Europe. Does this stupid woman think we’d be thrown by a bit of sordid gossip?” He spat out a bit of air to show his contempt.

* * *

The map-room staff reported that since February, the Axis powers had lost superiority in the airspace over the Baltic through to Leningrad, and that Allied traffic had a 90 percent chance of getting through. Mia didn’t care for the remaining 10 percent, but it was the only deal on the table.

Fortunately, the Douglas DC-3 carrying Lend-Lease radio equipment encountered no enemy presence and dropped safely to a lower altitude over Leningrad, now relieved of its two-year siege. She peered through the airplane window, trying to spot anything recognizable of the city of her childhood, but could make out only the two island districts that sheltered it from the sea and the Neva River that curved north and then south into the Baltic. She searched her feelings for homesickness but found only faint nostalgia for the happy family of her early years.

It had all changed with her mother’s death from diphtheria, as if it were only his wife who had kept Fyodor’s baser nature in check. His moral squalor that alternated with religious fervor had confused and tainted her and Van.

And her involvement with Grushenka, which at first blush had seemed like romance, had been no better. Mia winced at the memory. The beautiful Grushenka, who threatened to blackmail her now, and—the irony was excruciating—who looked much too much like Alexia.

Alexia Vassilievna Mazarova. Was she still standing guard at the Kremlin, handsome and safe from the war? Or had she joined the infantry and was now slogging through mud?

The first rough bump as the aircraft touched down at Moscow Airport broke her reverie. Time to go to work. She gathered her scant luggage, the greater weight of which was created by copies of the Lend-Lease books she brought to compare with local accounts. The aircraft door slid open, and as the Russian spring air blew inside as a sort of welcome, she followed the other passengers down the stairs onto the tarmac.

Though it was April, snow had obviously fallen, and the tarmac was wet with slush.

She glanced around, searching for Averell Harriman, but saw no one. She halted, perplexed and slightly alarmed. What now?

Finally, a man broke away from the crowd and approached her, and she recognized the chauffer from the embassy. He tipped his hat and held out a hand to take her suitcase.

“Hello, Mr.… Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Dornwend,” he said, touching his cap again. “You can call me Robert. Important thing is, I know who you are. Mr. Harriman is in Kuibyshev today and asked me to pick you up. But don’t worry. Your room is ready, and the ambassador will return tomorrow or the next day.”

Mia was struck by a moment of panic at the thought of approaching Molotov alone. But she reminded herself that she was only a telegram away from Harry Hopkins. Besides, most of the people she’d have to deal with at the Kremlin were familiar with her. For heaven’s sake, they’d gotten drunk together. How difficult could it be?

* * *

The next morning, the ambassador had not yet returned from Kuibyshev, and all she had for support was Robert the chauffeur. He cheerfully dropped her off at the Spasskaya Tower entrance of the Kremlin, but she was no better prepared than when she’d left Washington.

“Thanks, Robert,” she said as he held the rear door open for her. “I don’t suppose I’ll need to go back to the embassy until later this afternoon. Say, about four? And do you have any last words of advice, by the way?”

“Well, I have had success getting in good with the Russians by offering them American cigarettes. That’s not going to work with Molotov, of course, but maybe a guard or two. You never know.”

She patted her empty coat pocket. “But I don’t smoke and so I don’t carry any around.”

“Here. I’ve got a pack of Lucky Strikes and I’ve only smoked one. Take it, courtesy of the US government.” He drew it from his shirt pocket and tucked it into her hand. Touching one finger to his cap, he climbed back into the car and started off through the slushy snow.

* * *

With cigarettes or without, Molotov kept her waiting, as she knew he would. A cheap exercise of power, she thought, though, to be fair, the foreign minister probably had other matters to deal with. In any case, she put on her best face when he admitted her.

“So, you finally have located your miscalculations?” he asked coldly. Clearly, he did not view the search for discrepancies to be a collaborative effort, and she’d have to humor him.

She laid her several loose-leaf notebooks carefully on the edge of his desk, though his cold glance down at the invasive books told her she was trespassing on his space. “I’ve returned because we feel the problem arises on this side, and I’d like to sit down with various agents along the lines of distribution to pinpoint the leaks.”

“You imply theft on the part of our transport agents?” He seemed affronted. Yet it was exactly what she was implying, and she would have to choose her words carefully.

“I suggest nothing, Mr. Molotov. But our search indicates a reliable accounting of items shipped to your ports, subtracting those lost at sea. What remains now is to examine the manifestos and receipts at each step here.”

“I understood that is what you were doing the last time you visited.” He held his cigarette to the side of his face, a foppish gesture at odds with his bullying manner. It was an American cigarette, she noted.

She maintained her tight smile. “It was only a preliminary judgment. Now that we’ve examined our own records, I need to compare them with the receipts your agents have signed.”

“I’m afraid such receipts do not reside with me. For that you must refer to the relevant agencies. You could start with Dmitriy Ustinov at the Commissariat of Armaments.” He stubbed out his cigarette, leaving a one-inch butt in the ashtray. She wondered which of his lackeys would fish it out and reclaim the remaining tobacco. “Will that be all?”

He was dismissing her after only five minutes. You bastard, she thought, but retained her composure.