The Undaunted (Book 2 of The Undesirables)

Chapter 42: The Choir Boy

Bobby didn't understand the rapid-fire Russian, but he did recognize the soldier who was speaking it. It was Petr, the man who had stolen Karen from him, the man who had ruined his life.

Petr had changed. His gaunt face, narrow with hunger, was blanketed below the nose with a soft, blonde beard. The hollow rims of his eyes contrasted more sharply with his ice blue irises, giving his expression an intoxicating, eye-popping intensity. His uniform was filthy, bloody and torn: the battle scars of surviving three months in Stalingrad.

The first time Bobby and Petr had met, back in Chelyabinsk, they'd gotten into a fist-fight, and Bobby felt the urge to repeat that confrontation. Why? Why did he feel that way? He'd moved past Karen, she meant nothing to him now, so Petr should mean nothing to him, too.

It had to be anger and fear – yes Bobby was man enough to admit when he was afraid – at staring down the barrel of a Russian tommy gun. So Bobby stifled his impulse to fight, raised his hands, and placed his palms in surrender behind his head.

That prompted Petr, and his companion, an olive-skinned young man that Bobby didn't know or recognize, to lower their weapons. Petr evidently realized that Bobby didn't understand him, so he spoke in careful, slow English, stumbling over the words. "How are you here?" he asked.

Bobby kept his hands behind his head, careful not to prompt a violent reaction. "I was shot down," he explained, responding to Petr's broken English with his own slow, careful Russian.

"You are a pilot?" Petr's olive-skinned companion asked, surprise in his voice.

Bobby nodded.

"But you are not Russian?"

Petr's companion had figured that much out. Probably, Bobby realized, because of his poor command of the Russian language. Bobby's lack of fluency was frustrating. He had an almost photographic memory, and yet somehow the intricacies of how foreign languages were constructed baffled him. He wasn't any worse at learning them than the average Joe, but he wasn't any better, either. And for someone like Bobby, who excelled at every other academic exercise, it was frustrating.

"I am American," he said, deciding there was no value in hiding the truth. "But I defected."

"Why?" asked the Russian soldier, genuinely baffled.

Bobby shrugged. "To help you fight," he explained. "Just like Karen," he added, looking Petr in the eyes.

"So you are the one we have been sent to rescue?" asked Petr's companion.

"I hope so," Bobby replied.

"Do you have a weapon?" Petr asked.

Bobby slowly dropped his hand to his survival vest and half-drew his Russian seven-round revolver from its holster.

Petr said something in fast Russian that Bobby couldn't catch and then his companion stepped forward, unslinging one of three guns strapped over his shoulder. He held it out to Bobby.

Bobby secured his revolver back in its holster and accepted the weapon offered by the soldier. It was a German "MP40" assault pistol, a little stamped steel submachine gun. It wasn't as accurate or reliable as the Russian Ppsh tommy gun, but it could still spit a lot of lead in very little time. Bobby briefly wondered where the Russians got it before quickly concluding they must have scavenged it off of a dead German.

"The bolt is the safety," Petr instructed him. "Pull it back and the submachine gun is ready to fire. But be careful," he warned, "it has a hair trigger."