Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 27

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  It was colder outside the cramped command track than inside, but the air did not stink of diesel and cigarette smoke, and unwashed men. Hind attack helicopters, ugly with menace, hammered overhead, stark against the Caucasian mountains. Behind Rebecca Taylor, near Davidenko on the main road into Grozny, capital city of Chechnya, stretched a long column of armored vehicles, tanks, and trucks. Just before her stood General Ivan Babichev, a burly, bulky paratrooper. He was confronted by chanting Chechen women, some sitting in the road, others dancing the zikr, or sacred dance. The women were proud and defiant. Some were telling Babichev that he was going to have to drive his tanks over them if he wanted to advance. Others were telling the tankists that they should not be killing women who might have been their own mothers.

  There were other voices ringing in Rebecca Taylor’s ears. These were the denunciations by Russian officers of President Yeltsin. It had been announced that he had been obliged to enter the hospital for surgery to correct a deviated septum. It was a ludicrous, cowardly, obvious, terrible, disgraceful attempt to evade responsibility for what might happen on this road at any moment. Other officers cursed Defense Minister Pavel Grachev and Minister of Federal Security Sergei Stepashin. Once respected, they had chosen to become thieving whores attempting to divert public attention from their looting of State resources. Perhaps they wanted the massacre that seemed about to happen. They’d certainly ignored those who had told them that restoring federal control over Grozny would require much more time to plan and many more troops to execute.

  The officers speaking to Rebecca refused to give her their last names. Other officers refused to speak directly to her, but nevertheless spoke loudly enough for her to overhear. The voices formed a strange, deep chorus of fury and regret. Fury at their leaders, who were not among them. Regret that the next few minutes might find them killing women and children and innocent men. Fury that their soldiers might soon be killed or maimed for those absent leaders, the whores for whom being called whores was better than they deserved. And regret that, no matter how corrupt the leadership, Chechnya had to be taught a lesson.

  Rebecca Taylor heard General Babichev say that he would not use the Army to kill his own people. Then she heard him say that he would use the Army because Russia could not let Chechnya go. She wondered how he could reconcile the two. She realized that he could not, that any mental reconciliation would soon enough shatter against the reality. All anyone could do was hope that a far-from-inevitable Russian victory could justify the inevitable slaughter.

  General Babichev gave orders to back off and find some other way to enter Grozny. His men understood. So did the Chechens. So did Rebecca Taylor, who returned to her place in the command vehicle and, with the rest of the men, started looking for some other way to enter Grozny.