A Lighter Shade of Night Read online

  A LIGHTER

  SHADE OF NIGHT

  K.A. Bachus

  Copyright © 2022 K.A. Bachus

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  https://www.charlemagnefiles.com

  (EPUB) ISBN-13: 978-1-7364925-6-7

  (Paperback) ISBN-13: 978-1-7364925-5-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  CHARLEMAGNE FILE TIMELINES

  INTUITION

  COLD CUNNING

  AVARICE

  VASILY’S CARPET

  THE SURVIVOR

  PICTURE WINDOW

  ON FIRST ACQUAINTANCE

  BLACK SHEEP

  THIRTY-EIGHT HOURS

  COUNTING COSTS

  QUENCHING THIRST

  A LIGHTER SHADE OF NIGHT

  TWO PAIR, ACE HIGH

  CHARLEMAGNE FILE TIMELINES

  Short Story Collection

  A Lighter Shade of Night ,

  mid 60s to early 70s

  Novels

  Trinity Icon , early 70s

  Cetus Wedge , early 80s

  Brevet Wedge , nine months later

  Lion Tamer, five months later

  State of Nature , early 90s

  Vory , a year later

  Swallow , five weeks later

  Quiet Move , late 90s

  Author’s Note

  Most of the short stories in A Lighter Shade of Night take place before Trinity Icon . Two of them give other characters’ points of view concerning events in that novel.

  INTUITION

  Louis demonstrated the technique again. For such a smart guy, Misha was taking his time learning the simple thing he was trying to teach him. He remembered Uncle Bertrand showing him the maneuver just after he had reached adolescence. He had learned it on the first try in this very gymnasium in the basement of Misha’s house.

  “Again,” said Louis. “Do it again. The dummy now. Your knife comes uncomfortably closer to me each time. Go for the dummy like he is real.”

  A teacher faced with a precocious pupil whose excessive talent becomes suddenly evident can react in any number of ways. Pride, jealousy, disbelief, and finally dismissal can run through the pedagogical mind in quick succession. Louis was usually well aware of his emotions, allowing them almost complete freedom of expression on his face, in his words, and through his actions. He stood transfixed as Misha opened the neck of the dummy in a move so fast as to be almost invisible.

  His student raised an eyebrow, asking Teacher for a grade. What could Louis say?

  “You will do very well if you do not mind the blood,” he said.

  It was what Uncle Bertrand had said to him. It turned out he did mind the blood and concentrated on getting a bit of distance from it. Louis was a superb marksman.

  “I do not mind blood,” said Misha.

  “You have not done this before.”

  “I have killed twice.”

  “You shot them. It is different.”

  “I will not flinch.”

  Louis looked into those impossibly blue eyes. Misha ’ s nineteen-year-old eyes recently had watched his parents and siblings die by car bomb. The murderers responsible had done their best to annihilate him as well, to their own destruction.

  “You are first born, Misha. You should not fight. Marry the girl they picked for you and raise an heir. I do not mind helping you survive, but you were not trained for this like I was.”

  “My family’s enemies chose this occupation for me, Louis. I will marry her and beget as many heirs as possible. How do you suggest I protect them? Build a castle? Hire an army? This is not the middle ages. I must know where our enemies are and bring the fight to them. It is the only way to survive. You need not tie yourself to me.”

  “Of course I am tied to you, by more than blood. We have been friends since our infancy. Of the three of us, you always saw furthest. What do you propose?”

  Misha picked up a strop and ran his blade over it before putting it away. He looked up at Louis.

  “We must find Vasily.”

  *****

  After a week-long journey to a desolate place in search of their friend, Louis trained his binoculars on a decrepit Gdansk manor. Its exterior rendering had peeled away from the underlying brick, giving the house a diseased aspect. He could see barred windows at the basement level.

  Misha returned from his inspection of the other side of the house. "It seems the only working entrance is on this side. I have checked again. There are no intact staircases to the main doors.”

  Louis pulled a damp roll of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to his friend.

  “What is this?” asked Misha.

  “A plan of a similar house three miles away. I got it from the old man I drank beer with last evening while you disapproved and told me to stop. I did not stop after you left, and so we have an idea of what the layout may be like in there.” Louis nodded toward the house.

  “Which may or may not be accurate.”

  “But is nonetheless better than nothing.” He met Misha’s steady blue eyes.

  “Where is the sentry likely to be?” asked Misha.

  Louis took the chart from him, unrolled it, and pointed. “Here. If he hears you on the stairs, he will turn to face you.”

  “He will not hear me.”

  Louis suppressed a guffaw at what, at first glance, seemed unwarranted overconfidence until he remembered all the games requiring stealth they had played as children. Misha always won. He nodded instead, reinforcing his own courage through Misha’s confidence.

  “In that case, he will be facing toward the prisoners,” he said.

  “There will be more guards with the prisoners, I imagine.”

  Louis nodded. “At least two, that is KGB procedure.”

  As Misha studied the basement drawn on the plan, he said, “Initially, I will hold the body to direct the spray, but the floor will be slick with his blood. Be careful as you move past me. I will be able to follow within moments.”

  Louis wondered about his friend’s unnaturally accurate grasp of the job. “You have never…”

  “I can read.”

  “We should use suppressors. Though not silent like your knife, they are at least quiet.” And will provide backup if you balk, thought Louis.

  “Of course.”

  “And check for keys before you let the body drop.”

  “Good advice, I will."

  Louis knew his lifelong friend was the scion of a cold family, but this calculating stillness in the face of fear unnerved him. He suppressed an urge to shake a morsel of humanity into Misha.

  “There may be more of them staying upstairs, like in a barrack,” he said.

  Misha agreed. “Then we must be very quiet. Do we know their habits? Will they be drunk by a certain time?”

  “By one o’clock, according to my source, but they have high tolerances and can be deadly until nearly comatose.”

  “While you were gathering your intelligence last night, I watched this house,” Misha said with just a hint of a smile. “There were no lights on the ground floor, but a few on the northeast side of the first floor. These were dark by two o’clock, confirming your source’s information. The basement lights stretched along the western wall to the left of the door. They were dim, probably coming from a lit hallway.”

  Misha pointed to a room drawn on the plan and continued. “Near this kitchen will be the interior staircase to the cellar from the upper floors. See, it is indicated here, very much like in my house. We must be wary of sounds coming from that direction.”

  Louis refrained from pointing out that, because Misha’s house was vastly larger than this one, comparisons could be dangerous. He did bring up the next thing on his mind though. “Do we know that Vasily is here?”

  “Yes.”

  Louis paused. “Is there additional information? That Vasily has an interest in making bombs, and that the local communist party headquarters was blown up, does not mean…”

  “And there was a press report that the perpetrators are being held here.”

  “Yes, but no names or descriptions were released.”

  Misha stared at him. “He is here.”

  Louis said nothing, expressionless, and Misha added, “Yes, I am risking our lives on my intuition. What was her name, by the way?”

  Louis narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Who?”

  “Your source.”

  “How did you know…?”

  “I know you.”

  Louis sighed. “When do we go in?”

  “Tonight, after the lights upstairs go out.”

  “So soon? More reconnaissance…”

  “This morning at dawn I heard a shot coming from the basement. They carried out a body just before you arrived from your… reconnaissance.”

  Louis’s eyes opened wide.

  “It was not Vasily,” said Misha, smiling. “Intuition,” he continued, in answer to Louis’s next unspoken question.

  “But you fear he will be next.”

  Misha nodded. “I will be back after sunset. I recommend the small, dark copse to the West.” He
pointed to their left. “There is a mossy hollow under the trees, where you will hear any movement from the house but may rest when there is none. What was her name again?”

  Louis ground his teeth and glared. “Bronya. She may be a little old for you.”

  Misha grinned, turned, and disappeared through a wilderness of brush. He was gone before Louis remembered to ask him how he planned to get the three of them out of Poland, assuming they survived to need a way out.

  A soaking rain, light but steady, lasted all afternoon. Despite interference from the dense canopy of branches above him, by sunset Louis was wet enough to wish he could catch the streams of water dripping from his chin to quench his thirst. His black curls plastered themselves to his forehead and cheeks, and his jacket did little to delay the thorough saturation of the inner layers he wore. His boots held the line, though; he was grateful for dry feet.

  Misha ’ s arrival brought with it an end to the rain. He was comparatively dry, but only because he wore a better coat, thought Louis. Bramble branches and cockleburs decorated it. He must have crawled for some distance, judging by the caked mud on the front of his legs and torso.

  “Bronya’s uncle has a boat with a motor and also some petrol,” Misha said.

  Louis indulged himself by curling his lip in a snarl as he glared at his friend. “Did you engage it?”

  “Yes, but we will not use it.”

  The snarl gave way to confusion. “ Why?”

  Misha shrugged with only a maddening smile.

  They stood in the gloom of fast-falling night, well covered by tall grasses and brush, and watched the lights go on upstairs in the house-turned-prison. Louis marveled at the stillness that characterized his friend. Not only his stance, he thought, but even his movements are economical in the extreme. He opened his mouth to ask how he liked Bronya, in order to show he had forgiven his friend ’ s poaching, when Misha spoke first.

  “Instead, I bought a rowboat.”

  The injury over Bronya renewed itself. “Did you hire someone to row?” The flash in Louis's black eyes was invisible in the dark, but his voice held a touch of venom he was sure Misha could hear.

  “No,” came the smooth reply. “You and I will take turns. There is only one set of oars. If Vasily is able, I am sure he will want to contribute as well.”

  “Does your intuition tell you that I am about to pummel you?”

  “Yes, but you will not. You know that I have judged correctly. And yes, Bronya was very nice indeed.”

  “I am sure I will come to value your judgment, Misha, and even rely upon it, but I will never appreciate your ability to read my mind. Stop it.”

  When the time came to move, it was a relief, a welcome journey from wretched boredom to adrenaline-fueled terror. Louis fretted, his back plastered against the wall beside the door Misha had entered. They had crept down the crumbling cement steps in their socks at Misha ’ s insistence, making Louis's feet join the rest of his body in cold clamminess.

  He counted slowly to thirty, doubting for a moment that Misha would be able to perform but suddenly sure he would. The man — still a boy, really, — must be the last of a host of peculiar ancestors, he decided. Thirty seconds reached, he entered, turned left down the dim hallway and passed Misha, who held the dying sentry so that the lessening spray from his carotid hit the wall silently.

  Louis's stockinged feet now squelched through blood.

  Sounds of blows against a body leaked through the door at the end of the hall. Louis waited as Misha unlocked it with keys he had taken from the sentry. Two men, in the process of beating a prisoner, turned at the sound. Louis's Modèle 1935 dispatched them rapidly, with finality and precision. He was pleased with the new suppressor he had fitted. The sound was no more than a soft zip.

  Finding Vasily in one of the cages to the left took only a moment despite the dim light. He had stood when they entered and tilted his head toward the prisoner in the cage next to him. “ He is an informer,” he told them in French.

  Louis eliminated the spy as Misha unlocked Vasily ’ s c ell and shackles, and supported the eighteen-year-old — nearly carried him — from the cage. Louis took the keys and unlocked the others on their way out but used a few choice threats to simultaneously make the inhabitants cautious about moving too soon. There was no sound from the basement as they emerged into a moonless night and disappeared into the brush.

  *****

  Surveying a small wooden house with consternation, Louis wondered if he knew it. They had reached it by a circuitous route through a semi-rural suburb of Gdansk and were viewing the place from the back; but it seemed eerily familiar to him, or perhaps the neighborhood was. He couldn ’ t be sure.

  “I do not understand why you insist on this delay, Vasily. We must hurry,” he whispered.

  Instead of answering him, Vasily asked Misha, “Did you secure a motor boat?”

  Louis hissed with exasperation and answered for Misha. “ He did, but then bought a rowboat. If you can delay us like this then you can help us row, despite your poor hand.”

  He winced to himself when he remembered the mangled mess he had seen in the dim light of the basement.

  “May I borrow your gun, Misha?” Vasily asked. He took the old relic Misha proffered him and held it in his left hand, the hand that was still whole.

  Louis winced again.

  Vasily stood and crossed the five meters to the back door of the house. Louis tried to follow, but Misha held his arm, stopping him, and shook his head. They watched from their places concealed under an evergreen tree on the left of the open space. Vasily moved back from the door after knocking and waited.

  When Bronya stood in the open doorway, he stepped into the light from her kitchen.

  “Vasily!”

  “My uncle was not involved, Bronya.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She said it too quickly and with too much vehemence.

  “They took him also, because he was with me when they came for me. After you met with them. After you made love to me.”

  Her eyes searched the darkness. “Are you alone?” Her voice held notes of rising panic.

  “They shot him at dawn yesterday.” Vasily raised the gun.

  “Vasily, please, I didn’t mean…”

  Louis was unable to learn what she did not mean, because she died before finishing the sentence, but he could guess. The hastily contrived suppressor on Misha’s gun was not as effective as that on Louis’s Modèle, but it was quiet enough. There had been no sound from within the house either, because her uncle was waiting for them with several other men at his motor boat.

  The three friends rowed past the ambush off shore with muffled oars in the pre-dawn darkness and saw the disappointed group standing under the lights of the quay.

  Louis took his turn rowing each time that day without complaint, watching the gruesome work of the night before show itself in Misha’s hardening gaze.

  “How did you know she was dirty?” he asked.

  Misha’s answer explained more than usual. “I saw something in her eyes and wondered why she feared me.”

  They reached Gdynia after nightfall and stowed away on an empty trawler bound for Kariskrona. The hold stank of bilge and rotting fish, but they lounged on a large pile of canvas, dry and alone but for the occasional curious rat.

  “I propose we go into business,” said Misha.

  “What business could we possibly go into?” asked Louis. “I am trained for only one thing.”

  “Precisely. I propose we go into the business that Vasily’s father made such a success. But instead of being solos, we should form a team. No country wants to risk another world war, but governments will continue to need quiet solutions. My intuition tells me that in time, if we live, we will be very successful. We are younger than the aging partisans of the last war and can employ more modern skills.”

  Louis nodded. “The combination of these with more traditional methods can be formidable."

  “I agree,” said Vasily, “but we will need a trade name, so that we do not reveal too much to our clients.”

  They were silent for a time until Louis spoke again. “I have been considering our more peculiar ancestors. Our name must sound formidable."