More cars and vans pulled off the dirt road to let out an army carrying not weapons but portable grills. Boys marched with the somber faces of inductees to a secret rite, their camos freshly stitched with the Diggers’ emblem of the red star, rose and helmet.
“Were there any witnesses?”
“No. Finally, your father said he calculated there was one chance in seven that I was telling the truth and he emptied his revolver, all but the seventh bullet, spun the barrel and gave me the gun. What could I do? They were, like the General said, better odds than a firing squad. I put the pistol to my head and pulled the trigger. I missed because the action of the trigger was so stiff and the barrel kicked and all I did was burst an eardrum and burn the side of my head. I thought your father was going to fall off his chair from laughing. How he laughed. He gave me a cigarette and we had a smoke. Then he picked up the gun and spun the barrel and said to try again and keep the barrel level. So I put the pistol to my head again and pulled the trigger, determined to do as he said, but the hammer came down on the empty chamber.”
“And then?”
“The General was a man of his word. He had me released.”
“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes, how he saved my life. With a burst eardrum I was unfit for frontline service. When you see him next, tell him I was the only one in my group to survive the war.”
The old man was wrong on so many counts, Arkady thought. First, so far as he knew, the General had never been at the Tver front. Second, he owned a Nagant revolver, but he usually carried a Tokarev pistol, so there had been no dramatic spinning of the barrel. Third, when soldiers were executed they were often told to strip, so that their uniforms could be passed without bullet holes to the next man. That was a touch his father never would have missed. But there was no good reason to set Big Rudi straight. What would it gain him?
True, the General did enjoy the occasional game of Russian roulette, especially toward the end. People said he must have been insane. Father and son were so estranged that Arkady claimed what the General was really suffering from was a late onset of sanity, that he finally saw the monster he was.
A sense of organization was taking hold by the time Arkady and Big Rudi returned to the dig. A poster on a stake assigned squads of Diggers by color to sections of the field marked by pegs tied with matching tape; none of the sections were near the trees. A curious thing about the trees: as the day got brighter, they grew darker and more solid.
The Red Diggers seemed to be both a paramilitary organization and a social club. As Arkady understood it, they pitched their tents, hiked, sang and exhumed the dead. Who could argue with an agenda like that? Separate tables were set up for sorting bones, others for food, vodka and beer. There was the good cheer of a reunion, a fair turnout for an unexpected wintertime dig. Arkady recognized one of the lesser candidates from the Russian Patriot rally. He was digging furiously.
“Wait until tomorrow, that will be a show,” the candidate told Arkady and jumped aside as Rudi came through to dump a wheelbarrow load of bones at a poster that said, “Germans Here.”
Arkady’s cell phone rang. He got an earful of static when he answered but he didn’t move for fear of losing reception entirely.
“I apologize. I can barely make you out. Could you speak loudly, please?”
“This is Sarkisian. Where the devil are you?”
Arkady said, “I’m sorry, this connection is terrible.”
“What have you been up to?”
“Would you repeat that?”
“Where are you staying?”
“We’re breaking up.”
“Damn it, Zurin told me you’d play tricks like this.”
“Sorry.” Arkady pressed END.
He hardly took a step before the cell phone rang again. Now the reception was loud and clear.
A deliberate voice said, “This is Agronsky. Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it, whoever you are, I don’t care,” and hung up.
Arkady put down the shovel.
Bones would wait.
The retired Major Gennady Agronsky, a round man in a raveled sweater, surveyed the daffodils that bordered his vegetable garden.
“Fool’s gold. Beautiful but brief. This kind of deceitful weather draws them out and a frost lays them low. But good for the Diggers, I suppose.”
“Yes, it is. Major, you’re a hard man to reach.”
“I don’t answer the phone or the door. Most people get the message. Then I saw that you came on an old Cossack. What a beast! It went right to my heart.”
A white picket fence was the boundary of his domain, a trim cottage in front and in back a patio of terra-cotta pavers with rows of vegetables to come, several raw stumps, sawdust and a small cherry tree with a satiny bark. His neighbor’s yard was a junkyard.
“They plant nothing, not even cucumbers. In the summer I have pickles, tomatoes, coriander, dill, you name it. These young people, these good-for-nothings, complain there’s no work. Just pick up a hoe and put your back into it. At least you’ll eat, I say.”
Arkady noticed a pit bull pretending to be asleep on the other side of the fence. “What do they say?”
“They say, ‘Stuff it, you old fart!’ or ‘Pull your head out of your ass!’ The same with the dealer on the other side. You’re sure you wouldn’t like vodka, just a touch?”
“No, thanks.”
“That’s just as well. The doctor says if I drink I might as well shoot myself. My attitude? Everything in moderation, including vice.” Agronsky led Arkady to the patio table. “Sit.”
“Did you go to the rally for the Russian Patriots?”
“Too far to go. This is almost outside town. We have bears in the garbage.”
“I noticed a hunting rifle at your front door. Do bears call at your front door?”
“Not yet.”
The rifle was a Baikal Express with over and under barrels. Arkady thought that would discourage even a bear.
“They offered free rides to the rally.”
“I saw enough on television.”
“The candidate is someone you must know, Captain Nikolai Isakov. He is a militia detective in Moscow now, but he was a Black Beret from Tver. A man rising in the world is Nikolai Isakov.”
“You’re investigating him?”
“Just asking a few questions. For example, was Captain Isakov a competent officer?”
“What a question. More than competent; a model officer. We held him up as an example.”
“He was the hero of Sunzha Bridge, after all. As, I suppose, were all the men under his command that day at the river. All heroes and all from Tver.”
“The people of Tver are patriotic,” Agronsky said.
“Six Black Berets against fifty heavily armed rebels with an armored personnel carrier and two trucks. The outcome was what, thirteen, fourteen terrorists dead-”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen terrorists dead, the APC and trucks in retreat and, in return, one Black Beret wounded. Amazing. It was the sort of battle that can make an officer’s reputation and win a promotion in rank, especially at a time when there was so little good news coming out of Chechnya. Yet there wasn’t a single decoration.”
“These things happen in war. Sometimes it’s just a matter of missing paperwork or witnesses.”
“Which is why there is a citation committee to review commendations. You were the head of the committee that denied the Black Berets of Sunzha Bridge any medals or promotion. Why?”
“You expect me to remember? The committee processes hundreds of recommendations, and on a generous basis. The regular army consists of boys, conscripts, the poorest and dumbest, the ten percent who didn’t dodge the draft and the one percent true patriots. They deserve commendations. If they get shot in the ass they get a commendation. If they steal a chicken for their commanding officer they get a commendation. If they get killed their body parts go home in a sealed coffin with a commendation.”