Snow Job (52 page)
“Rest assured, Clara, that we do not intend to expose your nationals to any increased danger that is not of their own making. But given the turmoil in Bhashyistan, our government cannot give you our blessings for your Operation Wolverine.”
That was about as good as she expected to get. They carried on for a few minutes more, in their earlier relaxed manner, Bulov thanking her for the Dixieland music, and belting out an off-key stanza of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Clara ventured that he’d obviously had voice training at the Bolshoi. Both laughed, and concluded with hopes for continued good relations.
“What do you make of that?” she asked Percival.
“They’re giving us a window to go in, but it’s our problem if we trip over own feet.”
“He’s really quite clever, isn’t he, in his Machiavellian way. Couldn’t help treating me like a dumb blonde, though.”
“My dear, you
did
look radiant. Canada’s cover girl.”
“I’ll bet he actually wants us to go in, to precipitate a crisis, give them an excuse for intervention.”
“Goodness. Maybe you’re not a dumb blonde.”
Behind schedule after the long recess at Oyster Flats, Clara gave brief, desperately hearty orations at the other stops, and affected delight at entertainments from a barbershop quartet with accordion backup, a square-dance ensemble, and two pipe bands.
Finally, in Comox, just after one, she was ushered into an operations room of Nineteen Wing, Air Command’s West Coast base. The colonel in charge had been briefed on Wolverine, so she invited him to hook into the line. Percival slipped on another headset.
From National Defence Headquarters, Clara heard a babble, the echoing of many men on a speakerphone. E.K. Boyes and his advisers would be there, facing off with senior military staff. Clara assumed the heavy breathing on the line emanated from Buster Buchanan, unaware they were connected.
“Good afternoon, General.”
“Prime Minister?”
“Let’s get right into this, General Buchanan — what’s our current situation?” More heavy breathing, like a horse pulling a load. “Shoot, General.”
“Two CF-18s are currently airborne, Prime Minister. The Herc with the attacking force has just lifted off from Kandahar field. The advance aircraft is nearing Bhashyistan air space, and in twenty minutes will drop crew and equipment — “
“Twenty minutes! I thought we had an hour.”
When Buchanan didn’t respond immediately, one of his staff broke in. “They had a strong tailwind.”
“Is that twenty minutes exactly, General Montpelier?” Buchanan asked.
“Nineteen and a half, sir, give or take —”
“Never mind!” Clara fought another attack of the furies — they were carrying on as if she wasn’t there. “Continue, General Buchanan.”
“The drop will be to an uninhabited plateau fifteen miles south of Özbeg — aerial surveillance has confirmed this to be a choice landing site.”
Buchanan’s composed tone, his slow, measured words, warned Clara that he was stalling until it was too late to turn back. Hard puffing by high command had produced the strong tailwind; they’d launched early.
“Let’s zip it along. The situation on the ground?”
“The enemy is focused on the border north of Özbeg — that’s where its main positions are set up.”
“How many troops?” Clara asked.
“Four companies.”
“Stationed how far from Özbeg?”
“Twenty-five kilometres of bad road. Not a real problem, Prime Minister, because the Özbeg garrison hasn’t been beefed up. We will be in and out within the hour.”
“General, only two days ago you assured us that the Bhashyistan troops were poking along too slowly to pose a problem. Now we find they got there well ahead of our ETA.”
“They put on a spurt when they reached the flat country.”
“Nor was it anticipated, when designing Wolverine, that the Russian army would become a major presence twenty-five kilometres north of Özbeg.”
“We’ve been given to understand they won’t intervene.”
“So they say.”
“General Montpelier here, Prime Minister. We have factored in the Russian presence, and I assure you it’s to our advantage. They have so many planes flying around that the enemy is unlikely to notice our airdrop and landing.”
Buchanan took over, continuing to pound the drums for Wolverine, a fait accompli, inexorable, unalterable. Subdued by this rhetoric, E.K. and his crew were as mute as cowering rabbits. And now it was ten minutes to airdrop.
“General, your enthusiasm is commendable, but now hear me. My take is we’re being played like pawns in an old-fashioned great powers coup.”
“Madam Prime Minister, I beg to differ.” Buchanan, volume up. “This is about Canadian honour.”
“This is all about oil, gentlemen, and nothing about honour. You’ll go in there, and there’ll be a firefight — and let’s not pretend lives won’t be lost — and the Russians will have their excuse to invade. While you’re factoring in the Russian presence, add the Yanks and Brits — Anglo-Atlantic is their shared brat. Canada will be caught in the international crossfire. I will not see our country play the helpless stooge.”
From Ottawa, a sullen silence.
“I am ordering you to abort.”
Dear Hank
,
By my watch it is almost five a.m. I guess it was an airplane that awoke me, because I can still hear the drone of distant propellers to the south, over Bhashyistan
.
I’ve scurried to the window but can’t see any aircraft, no lights moving in that cloudless sky. The sound is dimming, gone
.
The excitement of making it to Siberia and freedom (a sort of freedom) is paling, and I’m feeling tension over what awaits our friends and rescuers camped below. Add to that the agony of waiting to get out of here, and waiting, waiting. We will be escorted to Omsk imminently, Colonel Letvinov keeps promising, then continues to ignore us
.
Maxine and Ivy sleep on, but I am bundled into a quilt, staring out at the snowy barrens. They look so haunted and desolate under the silvery moon. Fires are burning in the Bhashyistan encampment. An occasional flick of a lighter below, where Russian sentries smoke and murmur
.
Far away on the Siberian steppes, something else is sending darts of light — headlights, it looks like, a vehicle coming down the dusty road from Omsk
.
I’ve nudged the window open, and I can hear the purr of its engine. Maybe someone has finally come to fetch us. Soon, Colonel Letvinov said. Soon. With repetition, that no longer seems a comforting word
.
The vehicle has taken shape, a big black Lada, maybe a staff car … It has just rolled into the encampment, and … wow, it’s causing a huge stirring among the tents of the Bhashyistan resistance army …
Okay, a couple of men have got out of the car, and one of them is going toward the men and women pouring out of the tents. A huge commotion! A shout, repeated. “Abzal! Abzal!”
It has become a chorus. They are thronging him. “Abzal! Abzal! Abzal!”
Dear Hank (continued)
,
Eight a.m., a cold winter sun is rising over the snowbound eastern plains. In the tent village of the Revolutionary Front, the partisans are dipping bowls into a huge pot of, I guess, porridge. Abzal Erzhan is still moving among them, hugging, shaking the hands that are not pummelling him on the back. “Abzal! Abzal!” Where had he come from? No one is saying
.
We have just returned from breakfast downstairs in the officers’ mess, where we met a very engaging journalist, Vlad Mishin. The card he gave us says he’s with
Izvestia
. He arrived with Abzal Erzhan, I guess, though he didn’t say so. No one will talk about Mr. Erzhan, we just get shrugs. I find his presence here a little unnerving. A hero of the resistance, and a Canadian citizen to boot, but isn’t he also an assassin?
Anyway, Mr. Mishin wants to interview Maxine, Ivy, and me, and we’re game for that, anything that will get word out that we’re alive and well. He’s the only journalist here, and seems to have privileges, talking and joking with the colonel and his
staff — they’ve probably ordered him to put the right slant on this story. Cynical me …
Abzal Erzhan has just entered the palisade gate, a Kalashnikov over his shoulder, and has joined red-bearded Ruslan and Atun and Colonel Letvinov, and they’re poring over maps down there. I’ve read history. Sometimes the big powers don’t directly invade the little ones. They use surrogates. At the Bay of Pigs the surrogates got trounced
.
Through the binoculars Atun left with us, I see cook fires burning in the Bhashyistan army encampment. Their efforts at trenching have been abandoned — I think they struck hardpan over there. You don’t see any civilians on the village’s streets, it’s like a ghost town. Sometimes you hear a shot, accidental or caused by nerves. If you believe Atun, it’s deserters being executed
.
The air seems prickly with anticipation. I know I should get away from the window, but I can’t. It’s nerve-racking, though, what if one of those rifles sends a bullet my way? Or a missile. I have an eerie sense the Russians might not mind, they’d have their excuse to go to war, which it looks like they’re itching to do
.
Hello again, darling. It’s a couple of hours later. I’ll try to relate this as plainly as possible, though I’m absolutely shaking
.
First of all, there was a plane, a small one, Russian, I guess, and it flew right above us, low, over the border, and you could see the Bhashyistan soldiers scampering off, like they were under attack, but the plane only dropped leaflets, it was like a snowfall of paper
.
As this was going on, Ruslan was leading about a hundred partisans south, and Atun was taking another hundred to the west, a pincer manoeuvre, said Mishin. I’d better explain. Vlad Mishin has come up to our suite to do his interviews, and we all got distracted when the plane passed over. Vlad had his own binocs (and
a satellite phone, by the way), and Maxine and Ivy and I were fighting over the other pair
.
So Bhashyistan officers were running about, ordering their soldiers back to their positions, and you could see them, officers and infantry, mulling over the leaflets. They’re from the Bhashyistan Revolutionary Front, Vlad said, with a picture of Abzal Erzhan and a message urging the army to put down their guns and join the resistance
.
While that was going on, Abzal Erzhan led the main body of partisans straight toward the little customs houses, and as they approached, there was wild activity on the Bhashyistan side, with most of the officers piling into army trucks and speeding off
.
Some of the foot soldiers followed, bounding off like jackrabbits, but most began throwing rifles into a pile, raising their arms in surrender. By this time, Abzal Erzhan’s contingent had crossed the border. Not a shot fired! They simply took over the village, and the townspeople finally emerged from their homes. You could hear their chanting from the half a mile that separates us. “Abzal! Abzal! Abzal!” Even the soldiers who’d surrendered were calling his name
.
Meanwhile, Vlad Mishin has been on his satellite phone, to his editor in Moscow, relating his scoop. Somehow, the communications blackout doesn’t apply to him. He looks really pleased with himself as he concludes his call … Oh, boy, he wants to know if I’d like to call home
.
