Page 8 of Beehive

Click.

Click, click.

“What are you doing now?”

Click.

“Taking photos. If anything happens, Berlin will want to see it.”

Once an intelligence officer, always an intelligence officer, so the saying went. I had to give it to Konrad; he was quick on his feet. I hadn’t even thought to bring a camera, much less a local one most wouldn’t glance at twice. The Leica was a marvelous piece; though, the Soviets would likely sneer at the local brand and etchings that were as far from Cyrillic as markings got.

Click, click.

“You sure Berlin will want to see images of a Soviet lecturing a group of farmers on how he and Stalin just freed them from our tyrannical grip?”

Konradclickedagain.

“Something’s about to happen. I can feel it,” he said. “Look at how the Pols shuffle back. They are terrified. Why would they be scared of men sent to save them?”

I squinted, then raised the binoculars again.

He was right.

The farmers looked pale and as frightened as when we had first arrived with our liberating force, the women even more so. Children cried and clung to mothers.

What was our colonel up to?

“We need to get out of here. Whatever they’re doing, it’ll go badly for us if—”

Gunfire exploded throughout the courtyard below.

The colonel had stepped back so the nearby soldiers had a clear shot.

The Polish—simple farmers and merchants, mothers and sons and daughters—dropped en masse, wheat beneath the scythe.

“Holy shit!” Konrad shouted as he bolted upright, then remembered his camera and began clicking as quickly as the device would allow.

A bulletpingedoff the parapet a yard from my head.

Then another to Konrad’s left.

“Get down!” I hissed.

A barrage of bullets flew in our direction, and Konrad’s body flailed like clothing hung out to dry in a billowing wind. He never had time to speak or cry out. He didn’t look down or signal. Blood splattered across snow, weaving the most macabre blanket of crimson and white.

The camera fell from his grasp, and his body dropped so fast I could barely think.

Shouts barked below.

I peeked around the parapet.

Soldiers raced toward the building—towardourposition.

The colonel was pointing up at us.

My heart boomed.

I shoved off the edge of the roof and turned to flee. Something tickled the back of my mind, and I turned back and snatched up the camera.