That afternoon, Pietari was just south of the Kallavesi lake system. He and the others started before dawn with high clouds overhead. All morning, the clouds kept coming in lower, and now it was snowing lightly, the visibility diminishing with every hour.
Breathing through his nose to warm the air, he could feel his lungs pushing against his parka. It felt good. It felt clean out here, away from Helsinki, away from politics and money—and memories. The shushing of his skis was meditative. The rhythm was meditative. Even though reaching the American was the reason he was out here, he didn’t want to end the reverie by reaching him.
He came over a small rise and was just beginning to glide down the gentle slope when he thought he caught movement to his immediate north. He swung his skis parallel to the hill and twisted, trying to see through the snow. A lone, fast-moving skier was heading south. Pietari glided forward toward the skier, nodding his head to no one present and accepting the end of the silence. It was Koski. Part of him had hoped it wouldn’t be. Not being the one to find Koski would have precluded what he was planning to do if he were the one to find him. He would do it for his dead brothers, his mother’s sons, and the tens of thousands like them.
Sokolov was also planning, but it was much more involved. Fedotov had informed him that there would be no interference from Finnish authorities on the question of Finnish sovereignty and airspace, but care must be taken not to alert the Finnish police. They couldn’t be trusted to obey orders, even those coming from Paasikivi, if they went against their reactionary politics.
It hadn’t taken but a few hours to get a small, elite team of MGB parachute-trained agents to Porkkala from Moscow. A quick telephone call from Fedotov to the commander of the base placed all the base’s assets at Sokolov’s disposal. Sokolov had asked for and received two navy Ilyushin-4 long-range torpedo bombers. He’d had them in the air before the parachutists arrived, an MGB agent with a camera aboard each in the place of the rear machine gunner. They’d been warned to locate both skiers without raising any suspicion by flying to the east and west of the assumed course, just close enough to spot the skiers without them noticing. If they did notice, they’d be unsuspicious of a single Russian airplane they’d assume was on some kind of mission from Porkkala. The instant one or both skiers were spotted, the agent aboard would take a photograph with a telephoto lens, the Ilyushin-4 would continue on its way and the other plane would be warned to veer off course.
Sokolov briefed the team of eight. They had very few questions. They didn’t ask, and they didn’t want to know why their superiors wanted them to find a Russian army officer in the middle of nowhere. Asking questions would only raise questions about their loyalty. They settled into their most frequent activity—waiting.
Arnie caught a glimpse of movement before he made out the somewhat obscured figure of another skier coming north toward him. Whoever he was, it wasn’t Mikhail who would be heading south. Only mildly curious as to why someone else would be skiing in the area, he kept to his course, not wanting to waste any time going to say hello to some stranger.
Then, it appeared that the stranger was coming his way. Arnie fought another battle in his lifelong war between just wanting to be left alone and having to get along in the world, which required talking to people when he didn’t want to. It wasn’t that he disliked people, far from it. It was just that there was some pull, some inertia, intensified since the war, to keep his distance. One could observe a pack and its inherent dangers from a distance far better than from within it.
The distant skier kept coming his way. Now puzzled, Arnie stopped. Standing straight, he watched the skier, a man clearly at home on skis who was coming steadily for him. The man stopped about ten feet away and lifted his snow goggles. It was Kaarina Varila’s son, Pietari. What in the hell? Arnie’s first thought was that something had happened to Louise.
“Päivää,” Pietari said with the usual reserved dignity of the Finnish male. It was the informal “day” half of the more formal greeting, hyvää päivää, good day. Arnie knew, since childhood, that watching another Finn’s face for any indication of what was going on in their head was futile.
“Päivää,” he replied. Then he waited. What was going on? Was Louise OK? His own dignity required he conform to Pietari’s dignity. He’d wait stoically until the man delivered his message.
“Everything is OK at home,” Pietari said. “Louise wanted you to know several things, so she sent me.” He stopped talking.
Arnie nodded.
“But first, she wanted to know if you were winning.”
Arnie shrugged. “It’s pretty tight right now,” he said. “We were dead even this morning.” He didn’t think it necessary to go into the fact that Mikhail had saved his life, given up a sure victory doing so, and that he had conceded the victory of the long race to Mikhail. That could come later by a warm fire, and if he spent too much time talking, he wouldn’t win that one either.
“How did you find me?”
“There are ten of us, spread across several kilometers. I figured you’d be around here and took the center spot. Still, mostly luck. But with the snow starting … not easy to find either of you.”
Arnie grunted an acknowledgment. Ten? What is going on? He waited impatiently for the second part of the message, aware that he was losing time.
“Louise also wanted you to know that there has been some publicity about the race.”
Arnie furrowed his brow, questioning.
“She is raising money for Äiti’s orphanage.”
Arnie nodded.
“She has formed a sort of raffle. People buy a ticket for one hundred markka and try to guess the difference between your time and the Russian’s. The one who gets closest wins one hundred thousand markka.”
Arnie took this in, not wanting to believe Louise had made the race public.
“She got the local newspapers to promote it.”
Arnie tried to suppress his growing anger. He surely must have told Louise that the race was a private affair, but he hadn’t specifically said to keep it quiet. Still, it was that damned impetuous go-get-’em attitude of hers. Of course, she’d come up with some scheme to bring in money for the cause. To cover the anger, he asked, “Is it working?”
“Yoh.” Pietari paused. “Big success. Thousands of markka coming in.”
Again, Arnie furrowed his brow.
“The articles got picked up in London and New York.” Pietari paused. “And Moscow.”
Arnie’s anger turned to a sinking feeling that went straight to the bottom of his gut. He compressed his lips very tightly, struggling to sound calm. “So, this race has become”—he couldn’t find a Finnish equivalent for “cause célèbre”—“a big deal.”
“Yoh.”
Arnie allowed himself the indulgence of stabbing a ski pole into the snow. “And she sent you out here to tell me that?”
“Yoh. She said you hate surprises and would want to prepare yourself for questioning by news reporters when you get to Kuopio.”
You’re goddamned right I’d hate a surprise like this, Arnie thought. Louise had cajoled ten of them to find him. He knew her well enough to know that most likely she had made the race public feeling the cause outweighed any consequences. She was now probably trying to soften the blow of facing his anger over what she’d done.
Arnie started moving his skis back and forth, anxious to get moving.
“She also thought it would be important for you to know that because the race is no longer just personal, you are skiing for the honor of the Tenth Mountain Division and the US Army. Of Finns and Americans everywhere.”
“She’s such a cheerleader,” Arnie said without humor. He looked up, trying to see where the sun was behind the high clouds. “Tell her thanks. I’ve got to get moving.”
“Yoh.” Pietari pushed his goggles back down and Arnie followed suit. “We all agreed to rendezvous in Siilinjärvi. I’ll telephone from there that you’re in good shape.”
“I just saw Mikhail this morning. Get word to his wife he’s in good shape, too.”
“Yoh.” Pietari pushed off.
Arnie set off south, furious, stabbing his poles with unnecessary force until he realized he was wasting energy. Louise could be so goddamned headstrong, single focused on one of her causes with blinders on to avoid seeing anything that might get in her way.
After about ten minutes of hard skiing, Arnie started thinking. Convincing ten Finns to go looking for him? Louise must have been feeling exceptionally bad about ignoring his request—their agreement—to keep the race just between him and Mikhail. But ten? That’s asking a lot to just avoid facing your husband after making him angry. Louise was probably feeling bad about making the race public, but she wasn’t the type to turn heaven and earth to let him know she’d made a mistake. She wasn’t afraid of him. That couldn’t be the motive.
He kept working his skis, trying to make up for the time lost talking with Pietari.
And this stuff about the honor of the US Army. That didn’t sound like Louise at all. The story of the race is being read in the major capitals. Paris, London … Moscow.
The penny dropped.
This was about Mikhail. Of course, the Kremlin would be reading about the race, who knows how high up. Stalin and Beria were not the kind of men who laughed at embarrassment. They were the kind of men who would kill you if you embarrassed them. That goddamned Pietari simply didn’t deliver the real message. Why would he? He and half of the country would be happy about one more dead Russian.
He felt a stab of fear for his friend. What would happen to Mikhail if he lost? That could go two ways for him. It could be seen as a terrible disgrace because he was a Hero of the Soviet Union. The punishment could be severe. On the other hand, because he was a Hero of the Soviet Union, they could cut him some slack. After all, in America, a Medal of Honor winner could hardly do anything wrong for the rest of his life. Surely, Mikhail wouldn’t be in any serious danger. Some trouble maybe, but—
He was skiing hard, focusing on the terrain, but he couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling. Russians weren’t Americans, and totalitarian dictatorships weren’t democracies.
Pumping up a small hill, with his skis making a forty-five-degree herringbone pattern, Arnie’s anger with Louise was being replaced by fear for his friend’s life.
He crested the small hill. Squatting to lower wind resistance, he gained speed heading downhill. By the time he slowed at the bottom of the slope, he knew that he had to find Mikhail to warn him. Maybe they could come across the finish line hand in hand. That would look good in the papers. Hell, just let him win. Whatever Mikhail wanted.
But there was one problem. Where was Mikhail?
He set off nearly perpendicular to his original course to see if he could pick up Mikhail’s trail. If Mikhail was in front of him, he’d come across his tracks. But Arnie knew now that he was the better skier. That would mean Mikhail was behind him, so he wouldn’t cross Mikhail’s tracks. He could wait for him, gambling Mikhail was indeed behind him, but then how would he spot him? The country was vast. And it was getting dark. And it was snowing.