Eyes in the Sky Page 3

and xenophobia that helped sustain and legitimize the Japanese insurgency.

  The Great Patriotic War in the East finally wrapped up in the spring of 1947. There were still isolated pockets of resistance, militarists and right wing crazies refusing to acknowledge the hopelessness of their cause, exploding the occasional bomb or ambushing the odd motorcade. But those incidents became more and more infrequent; the damage, it seemed, had already been done.

  For all intents and purposes, Japan had ceased to exist. What little that remained after years of incessant bombing and warfare was jointly administered by the USA and USSR, but neither side had any great desire to govern lands scoured and depopulated by armed conflict and its handmaidens Famine, Disease and Death.

  The Allied coalition tried but it was simply not possible to feed hungry multitudes in the ruins of Europe and, at the same time, provide for their Japanese wards. There were shortages: medicine, shelter, even basic foodstuffs.

  Asia would never forgive or forget America's role in what happened next. Who knows what the final death toll was? It was classified a state secret, as were the locations of many of the mass graves.

  But the Motherland had taken no part in that dark chapter. Moscow, as Comrade Stalin assured the world with a foxy smile, did not have imperial ambitions. Such things were in direct contravention of the revolutionary spirit. She couldn't remember the exact wording but it went something like that. While the Americans struggled to feed and shelter the Japanese with winter fast approaching, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics withdrew all combat soldiers, leaving behind only a few advisors and diplomats, perhaps a spy or three. And what did they ask in return? Oh, nothing much--the Kuril Islands and a few other innocuous lumps of rock, for purely strategic purposes.

  Another great coup for the Father of All Nations, the Red Tsar!

  She glanced at her watch, an expensive Swiss model, a gift from Colonel Laptev.

  Who knows of my lavish tastes.

  Further on that subject, a new Beriozka shop had recently opened on Blavatsky Prospekt. Very chic. She'd heard from an unimpeachable source that all the diplomats' wives shopped there, which told her everything she needed to know.

  The lift was out of order again and on the way downstairs she encountered her next door neighbor, Rejdak. A revolting specimen of manhood and, it seemed, utterly smitten with her. So far she had managed to ward off his attentions but one had to be careful. You could never tell who might be a stukach. Every building had at least one and probably more. The fat old telkas downstairs wouldn't hesitate to denounce her the first chance they got. It wasn't wise to have too many enemies. And so, as much as she loathed herself for it, she pretended to be flattered by his advances, tried not to recoil as he fawned over her.

  "Such a lovely wrap," he crooned, referring to a beautiful sable stole that she would be paying for, as the joke went, until either Stalin died or a Pole was elected Pope. Not Russian made, Scandinavian. An impulsive, stupid act on her part; her state stipend was generous but hardly accorded her the disposable income required by her roving, acquisitive eye. She couldn't bear to watch him stroking the gorgeous fur with his greasy fingers. At last she was able to extricate herself with a half-hearted promise to get together at a later date. Hurried down the poorly lit stairwell, her heels clattering on the treacherous steps.

  A black Zil was waiting outside, one of the new models they'd recently introduced. Her driver was a thick-headed Georgian with a deplorable accent that reduced even the briefest exchange to a mime show as they struggled to make themselves understood.

  When they passed Blavatsky Prospekt, she rapped on the glass partition but he ignored her. The dark sedan sped along a lane reserved for those on official business, making good time. She tried not to sulk over missing a chance to pick up some authentic American blue jeans. He took her directly to the Ministry. She had to show her pass three times before she could report to her immediate supervisor.

  Some cruel bureaucrat had assigned Vasili the smallest office in the building. A converted broom closet. She could barely get through the door; poor, fat Vasili, meanwhile, all a hundred and fifty kilos of him, was wedged in so tight behind his desk he couldn't rise to greet her. Its surface was a debris field of half-eaten food and mounds of stained paper. It was said that he lived at the desk for months at a time, terrified he might miss a call from the Inner Sanctum. It could come at any hour, day or night. The Boss was a notorious insomniac.

  "The Americans have been buzzing about," he informed her without preamble. "I think it's time we fed them a little more candy..."

  To read the exciting conclusion of this novelette, zip over to Amazon and snap up the Kindle version, with accompanying cover art and an Afterword by the author.