The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 45: The Choir Boy

"But why do they need me? Why can't they just wait until an official announcement?"

"Because by then, they believe, it would be too late. By then Germany would be ready for them."

"But they have other spies, other secret agents," Karen continued to argue. She'd met at least one.

Bobby agreed. "Yes, but they like corroborating sources."

"And for one more corroborating source they would release you?"

"They'd drop all charges."

"I could just pretend," Karen suggested. "I could say I would tell them, but never actually do it."

"They thought of that," replied Bobby. "They won't drop the charges until you actually report. They won't arrest me, they'll allow me to walk around, but I won't actually be free. And if the Soviet Union does capitulate without you saying they would, then they'll arrest me again."

Karen stared at Bobby. "And what if the Soviet Union doesn't capitulate?"

Bobby sighed. "The men pulling my strings do not, apparently, believe that can happen."

"But what if it does? We stopped them here, we stopped them in Stalingrad."

"Temporarily."

"Maybe more than that."

"If the Soviet Union somehow accomplishes a miracle, if Russia somehow turns this war around, then I go back to prison. I'll have nothing left to bargain with, so the deal will be null and void."

"They sound like the NKVD."

Bobby shook his head. "No. Unfortunately I've met the NKVD."

Now it was Karen's turn to shake her head. She laughed at her own naivite. "We thought you were here to try and take me back."

Bobby gave a little sarcastic smile. "No fear of that, I'm afraid. That ship sailed – or should I say the plane flew away – back in July."

Karen was silent after that. Bobby couldn't read her mind but he knew what she was thinking. "I know, you're between a rock and a hard place. You feel guilty about betraying me, but if you do what they want you'll be betraying an entire country."

"Would I be, though?" Karen said gently, almost in a whisper. "If Russia capitulates, will it still be Russia? Is France still France?"

Bobby was surprised by her comment. She was trying to convince herself, convince herself to help him. He was surprised that she still cared about him. He admired her for it. And so he couldn't allow the fiction to go on any longer. "Fortunately," he said, "that's not something you will ever have to find out."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going back," Bobby insisted. "I'm staying here, like you. I will die in Russia."

"I can't let you do that."

Bobby smiled consolingly. "This time, I can finally, honestly say, you have nothing to do with it." Bobby realized in that moment that he was telling the truth. Seeing Karen sitting across from him didn't elicit those strong emotions that she used to. He no longer felt the love that drove him to join the Army Air Force and hunt her down. But neither did he feel the hate that had haunted his days in Leavenworth. Instead all he felt was a sweet nostalgia: the fond memory of a time long past and of a lost love that would never be rekindled. "I want to stay," Bobby admitted.

Karen's expression turned to dread and Bobby realized what she was afraid of: she feared he was staying for her. She was afraid he wanted to remain close to her, to try and somehow win her back from Petr. So he quickly shook his head and re-assured her. "Not for you," he said. "For somebody else. When I'm returned to my unit I'll probably never see you again."

Karen smiled, not just in relief, but also out of genuine happiness for Bobby. "Does she know?"

"She does."

"I'm glad for you." Karen took his hand and squeezed it.

Later that night Petr found Bobby alone, too, cornering him in an empty, roofless section of the apartment building. Moonlight shone diagonally across his beard and face, casting half in a silvery glow and half in deep shadow. "Are you taking her home?" he asked.

"No," Bobby said, "she's all yours. She always will be."

Bobby was surprised to see disappointment in Petr's face. "Is there anything I can do to change your mind?"

"Taking her back just isn't an option," Bobby told him.

Petr frowned in anguish and frustration. "She won't survive here," he admitted. "She's had to do things..." Petr didn't finish the thought.

Bobby nodded with understanding. "We all have had to do things," he said, remembering the German prisoner of war he'd shot in cold blood. A shiver of horror trickled down his spine. "It's war."

Petr looked at Bobby, held his stare. "She's had to do worse than most, just to survive."

Bobby didn't nod, but he thought he understood. And he remembered what Karen had once asked of him: "Don't try too hard," she had said, "to kill. Just try to survive."

"One doesn't go without the other," Bobby had replied, but even then he hadn't really understood. Had that only been six months ago? It felt like a different lifetime.

"I'm sorry," Bobby said. "It's just not possible." Then he turned his back on Petr, found a quiet place on the floor, and lay down to sleep.

He closed his eyes and immediately thought of Lenka. He could imagine her beside him, teasing him. The thought made him smile. He'd happily stay in Russia to be with her.

And then suddenly he remembered Dr. Parsons in the Leavenworth interrogation room. He remembered the former History Professor staring at him through a twisting curtain of pipe smoke. "Bullshit," Dr. Parsons had accused, "you did it for a girl. Which, by the way, is the absolute wrong reason to ever do anything."

Well, he was doing it for a girl all over again. And as far as Bobby was concerned, Dr. Parsons could go fuck himself.