Maybe that was why Stalin and Beria and Mikoyan and the other formidable fellows from the Caucasus cut such a swath through Soviet politics-the Russians who were trying to deal with them couldn't figure out what the devil they were talking about till too late. Yaroslavsky didn't say that to Anastas. One more time-you never could tell. If the Armenian took it wrong, it might end up as a one-way ticket to a labor camp.

And then Sergei forgot about it. Me-109s tore into the Soviet bombers. The plane just in front of his spun down toward the dappled ground trailing flame from its left engine. Another SB-2, fortunately farther away, blew up in midair. That felt worse than a near miss from an antiaircraft shell; Sergei's bomber staggered as if bouncing off a wall.

One of the rear machine guns chattered. Kuchkov's voice came through the voice tube: "These pricks are all over everywhere like crabs on cunt hair! Do something about it, for Christ's sake!"

Off to Sergei's left, a Soviet bomber dropped its load over nothing in particular, broke formation, and scooted for Byelorussia. That looked like cowardice. Another SB-2 went down, and then another. However the Fascists had found out about this attack, they were all over it. What had seemed cowardice a moment before began to look more and more like good sense.

Sergei fired the forward machine gun at a 109. Tracers didn't come close. The German fighter flipped away with almost contemptuous ease. During the Spanish Civil War, the SB-2 outran and outclimbed Nationalist fighters. Everybody said so. But those German and Italian biplanes must have been mighty clumsy. As Yaroslavsky had first seen in Czechoslovakia, the bomber was no match for a Messerschmitt.

One more SB-2 tumbled in flames. That was enough-no, too much-for Sergei. "Dump the bombs, Ivan!" he yelled into the speaking tube. "We're heading for home!"

"Now you're talking, boss!" Kuchkov said. Grating metallic noises said he was opening the bay and pulling release levers as fast as he could. Half a dozen 220kg bombs whistled toward the ground. "They're bound to come down on some mother's head," Kuchkov called cheerfully.

He wasn't even wrong; Sergei could console himself with that thought. He hauled the SB-2 around and roared east at full throttle. Maybe it could outrun an Italian Fiat. Next to a 109, he might have been piloting a garbage scow. The airspeed indicator said he was making better than 400 kilometers an hour. All the same, he felt nailed in place in the sky. When a Messerschmitt could get up over 550, how could anybody blame him, either?

Kuchkov's ventral machine gun barked again. The bombardier let out a shout of triumph-or was it surprise? "Nailed the fucker!" he roared.

"Damned if he didn't." Anastas Mouradian certainly sounded surprised. As bomb-aimer, he had a better view below than Sergei did. "The pilot managed to get out and hit the silk."

"Too bad. Only means he'll be flying against us again before too long," Sergei said. He tried to look every which way at once, including in his rearview mirror. German fighters were bad enough when you knew they were around. If they took you by surprise, you were dead. It was about that simple.

He flew over the Poles and Russians. Soldiers from both sides fired at the SB-2. That always happened. They weren't likely to hit anything.

"Won't it be wonderful," Mouradian said in his Armenian-accented Russian, "if we lead the Fascists to our airstrip and they shoot us up after we land?"

"Fucking wonderful," Sergei half-agreed. His superiors wouldn't love him for leading the Luftwaffe back to the field. But what could you do? His only other choice was putting down on the first open ground he saw. And if it was rough or muddy-and odds were it would be one or the other if not both-he was asking to go nose-up or dig a prop or a wingtip into the dirt. His superiors wouldn't love him for that, either.

There was the airstrip. Groundcrew men could get the plane under cover in a hurry. Sergei landed in a hurry, too-as much a controlled crash as a proper descent. His teeth clicked together when the landing gear smacked the ground. He tasted blood-he'd bitten his tongue. Anastas said something flavorful in Armenian that he didn't translate.

"You all right, Ivan?" Sergei asked the bombardier.

"I'm here, anyway," Kuchkov answered darkly.

That would do. Right now, anything would. They scrambled out of the plane. The groundcrew men hauled it towards a revetment. They'd drape camouflage netting over it. In minutes, it would be next to impossible to spot from the air. No 109s circled overhead or swooped low. All the same, Sergei decided he could hardly wait for the rasputitsa to kick in full bore. THE FRONT WAS PARIS. Alistair Walsh would have known as much even if papers didn't scream it, even if posters weren't pasted to everything that didn't try to pick you up. Bomb craters and, now, shell hits from Nazi heavy artillery told their own story. When the 105s started reaching the City of Light, that would be real trouble.

No, Walsh thought. When the Boches drive their tanks down the Champs-Elysees, that's real trouble. Till it happened, he'd damn well enjoy Paris instead of fighting in it.

Or he hoped he would. This time, he didn't exactly have leave. His unit had fallen back into the eastern outskirts of town. Maybe they were supposed to be setting up somewhere, getting ready to hold back the next German push. If they were, though, nobody'd bothered to tell him about it.

In a way, that wasn't so good. It said orders from on high weren't getting where they needed to go. He would have been more upset were he less surprised. If the Germans kept pushing everybody else back, of course things would go to hell every so often. God only knew they had in 1918.

A lot of Parisians had already run away. On the other hand, a lot of provincials from the north and west had fled into Paris one step ahead of the invaders. You couldn't be sure whether the face that peered out a window at you belonged to a homeowner or a squatter who'd picked a lock or broken a window. If you were a Tommy, what the hell difference did it make, anyhow?

Plenty of bars stayed open. Most of the men who filled them were soldiers-French, English, or from heaven knew where. Walsh had run into Czechs before. Maybe the hard-drinking fellows who spat incomprehensible consonants at one another were more from that lot. Or maybe they were Yugoslav adventurers or White Russians or…But what the hell difference did that make, either?

One of the poilus had a concertina. When he started playing it, several other Frenchmen sang with more enthusiasm than tune. Walsh knew just enough of the language to recognize a dirty word or two every line. The barmaids pretended to be shocked. Their acting might have been even worse than the soldiers' singing.

Half a dozen military policemen stormed into the joint. The concertina squalled to a stop. The French MPs started hauling poilus out into the street. Then they grabbed one of the maybe-Czechs. He was in French uniform. He said something to them. It didn't help-they dragged him toward the door. Then he hit one of them in the face. The Frenchman went down with a groan. His buddy, unperturbed, hauled out a blackjack and coshed the Slav, who also crumpled. He might not have wanted to go wherever they were taking people, but he would.

Walsh's hand tightened on his mug of piss-sour, piss-thin beer. They wouldn't haul him off without a fight.

They didn't haul him off. One of them nodded his way, shrugged Gallically, and said, "Eh bien, Monsieur le Anglais?" He pointed to the flattened MP and soldier, as if to say, Well, what can you do?

"Just leave me alone, that's all." Walsh didn't loosen his grip on the mug. He didn't want to provoke the military police, but he also didn't want them taking him anywhere.