VANGUARD(22)

“No, but our translator here, Georgs, will assist.” Georgs translated for the Rev as the Commandant’s eyes crawled over Dave and Sophie. “Commandant, we are eager to begin work, but we have many things to discuss first. Shall we?”





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It took two days of negotiation before both parties reached agreement on how they would operate. All the ground they’d covered with the Soviet representatives before leaving the US was revisited. Whether the team could use a helicopter to bring in the heavier equipment. Security protocols. Allowing refugees to play a role in the organization of Parnaas. On this last point, Commandant Jaros had a hard philosophy.

“You may use the detainees in this camp for menial labor, if you wish. Waste removal, digging of sanitation facilities. But they are not permitted to do tasks of responsibility.” The friendly fa?ade dropped for a moment, his eyes stony. “No detainee leaves Parnaas unless they are being carried to the burial trench for disposal.” The smile returned. “I cannot have you removing my country’s newest citizens, can I? They are safest here, yes, where I can protect them.”

Agreement in hand, the coalition began moving their equipment from Kaliningrad to the Orlisian border. They commandeered what appeared to be an abandoned military establishment on the Soviet side of the border as their headquarters. Then the exec team – seven people, representing the largest coalition partners – got their first tour of Parnaas. Sophie heard someone behind her in the Jeep mutter “Warsaw Ghetto” as they crawled along the muddy tracks between the shelters.

The refugees were crammed ten to a shelter, bodies packed wall to wall for warmth. Every possible material had been pressed into service – plastic sheeting, household possessions, vehicle parts, fence posts, pine boughs. No running water. No electricity. No heat. Just icy mud, the choking haze of manure fires, and thousands upon thousands of Orlisians living in the dead of winter under the most brutal conditions.

“There were a few cases of cholera early on, but it’s been contained,” Sophie yelled to her colleagues. “The positioning of the latrines on this side of the camp helped keep the water supply from contaminating. However, they’ve got an infectious pneumonia now that’s killed about a half dozen people in the last few weeks. All elderly or very young. That’ll be high on our priority list.”

They returned to the administrative building, grim faced. Commandant Jaros awaited them, all smiles.

“To assist you in your work, we have maps of the camp,” he said. “We enlisted a detainee to help survey Parnaas prior your arrival.” Jaros gestured to the guards at the door. They stepped out and returned with a terrified man in their grasp who looked like he might have been a desk clerk in his regular life. He was painfully thin, balding, and short, his face cast down to the floor. The guards shoved him forward, and the man fell to his knees. Everyone stepped forward to help him, but stopped when the automatic weapons came up.

“Stand,” Jaros ordered. The man got to his feet without lifting his face, extending several rolled-up maps to the foreigners. Jaros gestured Sophie forward.

She gently removed the papers from the man’s trembling hands. “Thank you,” she said in Orlisian. “Do not be afraid. We will not hurt you. We are here to help.” The man’s head flew up at the sound of Sophie’s voice. His shocked eyes met hers.

“You will not speak that language again!” thundered the Commandant. “It is now forbidden in the Soviet Republic to do so.” But no one’s eyes moved from the face of the man in front of them. Sophie heard someone behind her curse under their breath.

He had been mutilated. Crusted-over knife wounds on his forehead, straight and diagonal lines. Sophie realized in horror that the cuts roughly resembled the hammer and sickle emblem that had represented the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The republic had dropped the symbol when it had changed its name in the early 1990s.

“Who did this to you?” Sophie asked in a deadly voice, still speaking Orlisian. The man didn’t answer, shaking his head wildly and staring at her in terror. In the background, she heard the guards switching the safeties off their weapons.

“It will not be you and your colleagues who die, Ms. Swenda, if you continue to violate the laws of this nation.” The guns, she saw, were pointed at the man in front of her. Sophie stepped back, her eyes narrowing at the Commandant.

“Torturing prisoners of war is against the Geneva Convention, Commandant,” she said in Russian.