Sniper's Honor

CHAPTER 17

You had to hand it to the Poles: they really knew how to design an ugly building.

In 1936 they had somehow come up with the atrocity of the Stanislav Town Hall, grotesquely angled as if in homage to some science-fiction idea of the future, which climbed cube by severe cube to ultimately a spindly if angular five-story tower, like a child’s ABC-block construction, but great for flying flags of bright national identification. It was a natural for the bloodred swastika flag that had rippled from its top between 1941 and 1944.

“In ’43, they killed twelve thousand Jews in this town. Shot them all. Terrible, terrible,” Reilly said.

Swagger had no comment. There was no comment to be made.

“Then in ’44, when the Russians were pushing the Nazis out of Ukraine, this is where they came to nest as a last stopping point. Groedl’s Reichskommissariat office was here.”

It was near nightfall. They’d returned from Yaremche and were now in Ivano, checked in to the Nadia Hotel, and out for a walk, looking and trying to imagine the Nazi banners, the Kübel and the Horch cars, the ranks of black-uniformed SS creeps, the dowdy civilians of the Reichskommissariat who had administered lebensraum for their leader, all of the theater of history.

“Want to go in?” she said.

“Don’t see no point.”

“I understand. I don’t want to go in, either.”

“We have to go back to Yaremche. Walk that town site more, get up on the mountain trails. You have hiking boots?”

“Yes, and you still have to tell me where she got herself a new rifle.”

“As soon as I know, you’re number one on the list. Dinner?”

“Always.”

They walked the few blocks to what was now Independence Street, which had been Stalin Boulevard, Hitlerstrasse, Warsaw Avenue, and Budapest Utcanev in its time, and found a sidewalk café among the many that had turned the now-pedestrian boulevard so pleasant.

They ate meat, somewhat silently.

“You know what?” said Swagger. “I ain’t got no ideas at all.”

“Let’s do a game called ‘know/assumption,’ okay? What we do know against what we think we know.”

“Sure. Know Mili disappeared in July 1944. Assumption: She was sent to Ukraine on a special mission, according to other sniper Slusskya. Assumption: Guy who sent her had to be this Krulov, Basil, Stalin’s Harry Hopkins, because he had the power. Known: Nothing. All circumstantial. Known: There was a Nazi ambush of partisans in the Carpathians above Yaremche, killing a lot, recovering weapons. Assumption: the partisan unit was betrayed; that’s based on my interp of the Twelfth SS war diary, which documents too big a haul for the meet-up to be by chance. Assumption: Krulov betrayed her. Because he was the only guy capable of betraying her, being the biggest guy on board. He was also the only guy capable of erasing her records in Russia, with the clout to have them erased in Germany, independently of each other. No motive yet. Next assumption: She escaped. Next week or so, nothing. Know: July 26, 1944, day big Russian offensive kicks off. Know: There was an atrocity in Yaremche, one hundred and thirty-five people killed. Assumption: That was retaliation for what we think was an assassination attempt, unsuccessful, on Groedl’s life. Assume Mili was killed or captured and later killed. Know: Germans hit the road, Groedl and the Police Battalion assholes were — okay, here’s something. I got something.”

“Let’s hear.”

“Krulov. Who was he? What happened to him? What would his motive have been? Maybe that’s where we ought to go next. Can Will handle that?”

“I see nothing wrong with that, except that if I give him Krulov to investigate, he will divorce me. He does have a real job, you know.”

“He’s a pro. Won’t faze him in the least.”

“I’ll point that out to him tonight in an e-mail.”

They paid and got up and headed down the street toward the Nadia. The town was pleasant, pinkish Georgian buildings, dapples of light overhanging the street of walkers, the cafés abustle. He thought of beer. Not a good idea. He turned elsewhere in his ruminations.

It was a blur, the rush of darkness, maybe a little noise announcing acceleration, but somehow he picked it up in his peripheral, got a hand on her to pull her back and pivoted, all this in some kind of supertime where he hadn’t been in years, and then the car hit him.