Page 16 of White Wolf

The major general inspected the necklace without touching it. “This was it? This was all you found?”

“There was nothing to find. There never has been.”

He’d known this moment was coming, had been building for months now. All those villages, all those simple farm folk, factory workers, families with too many mouths to feed. Upended furniture, and startled shrieks, the cries of babies. And the blood. All the blood. Nothing worth taking but a handful of trinkets that were precious to their owners, and worthless to the cause. Threats from Germany, amassing armies, and a mad scramble in the dark for something even darker, something Nikita wasn’t sure he even understood. He’d known it would come to this face-off across a desk, he just hadn’t known how much he’d lose in the process.

“I’m done,” he said, simply, and reached to unfasten the top button of his coat with one bloody-gloved hand.

“Wait,” the stranger said, twisting in his chair. Smooth, unremarkable features, lines around his eyes – eyes that were, as Nikita studied him – brighter than he’d first thought. Full of sparks and mischief. His beard and mustache were neatly trimmed, salt-and-pepper. His hair shone with expensive oils.

“Captain,” he said, smiling, “the major general and I have been talking about you and your men.”

Nikita had always thought that when he finally resigned, he’d do so with his heart in his throat, his pulse beating loudly out of his ears and fingertips, his skin slick with sweat beneath his clothes. He’d thought his jaw would lock and his tongue would freeze, and that he wouldn’t be able to get the words out. Because the words were a death sentence. The day he said “I don’t” was the day he signed the rest of his life away.

Instead, he felt nothing but cold. His insides full-up with the bleak chill of the winter that lay beyond the Kremlin’s decadent walls. He let the few, fragile soft parts of himself soak up the grief, lock it away tight until he had the chance to feel it properly, and everything else was ice.

At the stranger’s words, he felt the first crack in that wall of indifference. The first faint stirrings of something like fear.

“Captain Baskin,” Rokossovsky said, folding his hands together on the desk. “I’d like you to meet Monsieur Philippe.”

Nikita didn’t acknowledge the man, who was now watching him with a smile.

“He comes to us with a great boon,” the major general continued. “A way to stop the Germans.”

Nikita didn’t take the bait.

The stranger – Philippe – turned around fully, tucking his legs up into the chair like a child. “You see, Captain, there is a program, one which I’m quite familiar with. A way to create a powerful weapon.” His smile widened as he spoke. “The kind of weapon that the Führer, even with all his factories and technology, could only dream of obtaining. It will turn the tide of the war.”

Nikita curled his hands into fists, felt the stickiness of drying blood gluing his fingers to his palms. “I don’t see what this has to do with me or my men.”

The major general smiled then, sharp and angry. “Monsieur Philippe’s weapon requires a volunteer.”

“One with certain…gifts,” Philippe said.

“You,” Rokossovsky said, pointing at Nikita, “are going to go and fetch him.”

5

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY

Moscow was the city of his birth, but he was glad, in a way, to step onto the train and leave it behind for now. The taint of war lingered. It still smelled of corpse flesh, and the sourness of dried blood. No one had expected the Germans to get as far as the capital, but they had, and though they’d been turned back, they would make another run for the Motherland. Hitler and Stalin had that in common: neither of them would admit defeat until they’d expended all their men. What was slaughter in the face of victory?

Nikita was selfish and a coward, because though he loathed what he did in the name of patriotism, it was better than serving in the Red Army. Ignoble, but easier to swallow.

At least…it had been. Before Dmitri…

“Do you know what I love most about Siberia?” Philippe asked, and Nikita closed his eyes a moment, willed himself not to snap at the old man.

When he opened them again, the scenery beyond the window had not changed: an endless stretch of snow and pine forest, tree trunks flashing past with dizzying speed, the sky white with the promise of yet more snow. The gentle swaying of the train and the steady clack of the wheels on the tracks could have lulled him to sleep – where he would undoubtedly suffer nightmares of Dmitri – if only the old man would shut up.

They had the luxurious car to themselves – the Major General’s coin had bought what no one’s seemed able to these days: comfortable seats, clean windows, and food should they want it. The boys had all sensed that Nikita wanted to be alone, and they had spread out through the car; somewhere up ahead, he could hear Ivan’s soft laughter as he cheated Pyotr at cards.

But Monsieur Philippe was either tactless or insufferable, choosing to plop himself down right across from Nikita. And he kept trying to make conversation.

Nikita slanted him a look but wouldn’t askwhat?He wasn’t going to make this easy on the old fool.

“I love the people best,” Philippe went on, cheerfully. “They are peasants, yes, but they’ve never been serfs. The men and women of Siberia serve no one but themselves. They are a free people.”

Nikita stared at him.

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