Mazepa!

The Ukrainian captive was uncooperative.

“How many of you are there?”

The prisoner ducked his head and avoided eye contact.

“Yes or no, do you have howitzers?”

Silence.

“Do you have drones?”

More silence.

“Do you know anything? Do you even know your name? What’s your name?”

The captive answered softly, barely audible.

“What was that again?”

The prisoner shouted, “Mazepa!” And from the shell-torn forest, that sound seemed to echo.

“What the hell is that? Alexei, get over here. You have Ukrainian blood. What do you make of this.? What is a Mazepa?”

“A Cossack chief, sir. A hetman.”

“Cossacks? Are you kidding? Cavalry in today’s world?”

“A Ukrainian legend, sir.”

“Like The Ghost of Kyiv? A manufactured legend? Propaganda?”

“Ivan Mazepa, hetman of the Zaporizhian Cossack Host, three hundred years ago.”

“Zaporizhian? Like the nuclear power plant?”

“The same, sir.”

“And what did this Mazepa do?”

“He fought under Peter the Great. Then he and his horde turned on the Russians and supported the king of Sweden, probably in a bid to win Ukrainian independence.”

“He failed, of course,” concluded the Lieutenant.

“The man failed. The legend lives.”

“What?”

“Since that time Ukrainians who opposed Russia called themselves Mazepists.”

“Never heard of him. Such nonsense.”

“There’s a poem by Pushkin, a poem by Byron and an opera by Tchaikovsky.”

“And there’s an AK-74 by Putin. Enough. Do you know where the hell we are?

“An orchard, sir. An apple orchard. Antonovkas from the scent of it.”

“Antonovkas?”

“They are common here, but nowhere else.”

“Named after a man, I presume.”

“Or maybe the man chose the name Antoniy because he loved the apple.”

“Chose the name? Who chooses their own name?”

“Monks, when they take holy orders, sir.”

“Enough nonsense. Who gives a damn about apples and monks. The GPS doesn’t work. Street signs have been taken down or altered. We have no maps detailed enough to be useful. Where are we? What’s the name of this place?”

“Village of Lutsikovka.”

“And where’s that?”

“Town of Sumy.”

“Where?”

“Kharkiv Region.”

“Finally, a name I’ve heard of. And you know this area?”

“My great-grandfather came from here. At least I think he was my great-grandfather. I understand that many people around here claim him as an ancestor. Bulatovich. Alexander Bulatovich the cavalry officer, later Antoniy Bulatovich the monk.”

“Your great-grandfather was a monk?”

“He wasn’t always a monk. And monks, too, are human.”

“So he was the Antoniy of the apple.”

“I believe so, sir. And this was his family estate, Lutsikovka. After the Revolution, during the Civil War, he returned here and lived in a shed in the apple orchard, and held religious services, until he was murdered on his doorstep in December 1919. Some say he was defending my great-grandmother. He was known as Mazepa.”

“Mazepa? The name this prisoner shouted.”

“Yes, sir. The same name, sir.”

“In His Majesty’s Life-Guard Hussar Regiment, he was the best horseman and best swordsman. He commanded the training company. He was small of stature, built like a jockey, but he had great strength of will, and the peasants who served under him were fiercely loyal to him. When he volunteered to fight in Manchuria, half a dozen of them followed him. And later, when he decided to become a monk, half a dozen followed him to the monastery as well. They would have gone to hell for him.”

“And the name?”

“Because he was Ukrainian and because he was fearless and uncompromising, his men nicknamed him Mazepa. And that name stuck, too, when as a cavalry officer he helped conquer Manchuria. And when he was a monk at Mount Athos defending his compatriots against the established church that had labeled them as “heretics” and was sending them off to Siberia for their beliefs, they too called him Mazepa.”

“What a bizarre life.”

“That’s not all, sir. He was an African explorer as well.”

“Explorer?”

“In Ethiopia he led the armies of Emperor Menelik II as they conquered a chunk of central Africa in competition with the French and the English.”

“Good God!”

“And in World War I, as a monk, serving as a chaplain, when the regiment he was with was in full retreat, he jumped on horseback and shouted ‘Mazepa!’ and the retreating soldiers turned and followed him, routing the Austro-Hungarians. Imagine this little man — probably the build and height of Zelenskiy, in the black cassock of a monk, wearing a visor to protect his delicate eyes from the sun, sword in hand, on horseback, inspiring an army. That would make a fine statue, I would think, if I were a Ukrainian and the Ukrainians were to win this war.”

The prisoner, who had been listening, shouted Mazepa once again, much louder. And once again there was an echo from the woods.

“What the hell?” asked the Lieutenant. “We’re in the middle of the woods. This is flat land. There can’t be an echo here. And what’s that other sound in the background?”

Alexei answered, “It sounds like galloping horses.”

“Who the hell would ride horses through a forest? And what’s that other sound, that rumble?”

“I’d call it a roar, sir, like the roar of motorcycles.”

“Like a desperate enemy playing tricks with loudspeakers, trying to spook us. Motorcycles, for God’s sake?”

“That reminds me once again of Bulatovich. Over a hundred years ago, he trained his cavalry unit to ride motorcycles.”

Out of the woods appeared a motorcycle, the rider in the black cassock of a monk, with eye-shielding visor, and tucked under his arm, a handheld missile launcher. And behind him a horde of