The Solomon Effect by C. S. Graham Page A

policeman’s wife?
    Gasping with fear, he pelted over the arched bridge andinto the hamlet. A bent old man in suspenders appeared at his doorway as Stefan streaked by. From the far side of the creek came Victor’s furious shout, “Stop that boy! He’s a thief!”
    Stefan caught the sound of running footsteps pounding the dirt road behind him. His jaw clenched with concentration, he veered to his left, dodging another man in a butcher’s apron who made a grab for him. He could see a line of trees ahead, the beginnings of a patch of ancient forest that stretched across the next hill. The temperature was falling, the light cold and flat. It would be dark soon. If he could just make it to the trees…
    He heard another shout from the militiaman behind him. Then a second man’s voice joined with his, the pounding of footsteps drawing nearer. Stefan could smell the sharp scent of the pines, the deep earthy humus of the forest floor rising up to beckon him on. Lungs aching, legs shaking with exhaustion and fear, he gave one last desperate spurt. Ten meters. Five. Then the darkness of the woods closed around him, like the embrace of a loving mother drawing a penitent son to her breast.
     
    Monday morning dawned cold and overcast, the air pregnant with the scent of wood smoke and the dampness of coming rain. Rodriguez was up early, his feet pounding the pavement as he ran down a tree-lined avenue past an ancient graveyard with lichen-covered stones engraved with German names. Looking at the sturdy old houses and the red brick Gothic church, he could easily have imagined he was in Hamburg or Potsdam—except for the jarring reminder offered by the Cyrillic street sign at the corner.
    He circled around the rusty iron fence enclosing the half-ruined church and started back. This place gave him the creeps. It reminded him of his grandparents’ house inHavana—lost, like these houses, to the spread of Communism.
    Rodriquez had taken a night class in twentieth-century history in college, but it had left him more confused than anything else. He’d always been told that France and England declared war on Germany because Hitler invaded Poland. But the problem with that explanation was that the Russians had invaded Poland at the same time, in alliance with the Nazis. The Russians had also invaded Finland, although nobody declared war on the Russians. And when the war was supposed to be over, the Russians were still in Poland—and a hell of a lot of other places, too. So it seemed to Rodriguez that if the war had been fought to free Eastern Europe from invaders, then the whole thing had been a failure. Sure, it had gotten rid of the Nazis. But the Nazis had always been a lot more interested in fighting the Communists than they were the Western Allies—which was why they’d let the Brits escape at Dunkirk, and why they kept resisting Roosevelt’s repeated efforts to drag them into a war with the States. Only, for some reason, people seemed to forget that.
    Rodriguez was breathing hard now, legs pumping as he sprinted down a quiet lane, his wet T-shirt sticking to his back despite the chill. He passed a park with a statue of Lenin staring straight ahead, as if he could see all the way back to Moscow, and he found himself wondering what would have happened if the West had just let the two motherfuckers fight it out. Hitler and Stalin. Nazis and Commies. He had a feeling the world would look a lot different today.
    He slowed to a walk as he neared the house, then did a hundred push-ups and a hundred crunches in the yard before heading inside.
    “Heard from our guy in Berlin yet?” he asked Salinger as he let the kitchen door slam behind him.
    “Nothing yet.”
    Rodriguez grabbed a liter of water and downed it in one long pull. “Something’s gone wrong.”
    “Could just be a delay.”
    Rodriguez shook his head. After years of running operations, he’d learned to trust his gut. “Get onto our source at Aeroflot.”
    Salinger