Before Magruder could answer, Sykes spoke up. “Probably pretty low-key at least for now, Commander,” he told her. “General Boychenko doesn’t have anything to gain from moving too fast or too far.”
“There could be some question about how many of his people know what’s going on,” Vanyek added. His voice didn’t carry well against the sound of the rotors, and Tombstone had to strain to catch the words. “Boychenko is technically committing treason. Some of his people may not care for that.”
“We’re going to have to watch our steps down there,” Tombstone told them.
“Watch what we say, and watch who we talk to, at least until the surrender is official and we have a sizable UN contingent in place.”
“Do you think Krasilnikov will attack Boychenko, once he finds out?”
“The Ukes’ll save him the trouble,” Whitehead said. “Unless we can convince them that invading the Crimea is a bad idea.”
“Final approach, people,” the chopper’s pilot informed them from the cockpit. “Grab onto something and hang on. Please observe the seat-belt and no-smoking signs!”
The SH-53 came in fast and low, as if the pilot were determined to impress the Russians with his style and panache. Looking out the side door’s window, Tombstone caught a blurred impression of blue sea, rock cliffs, and a small airport, with gray-purple mountains visible in the distance. Then they were down with a gentle bump, and the engine noise dropped in pitch as the rotors started to slow.
“End of the line,” the Sea Stallion’s loadmaster called cheerfully. He touched a control and the helicopter’s rear ramp began opening with a grind of electric motors and the clatter of chains. Tombstone, with his personal effects and clean uniforms in a seabag over his shoulder, was first down the ramp and onto the tarmac. Captain Whitehead was close beside him.
As Sykes had predicted, there wasn’t much of a welcoming committee on hand. A couple of elderly limousines were drawn up on the tarmac a few yards away, with a handful of Russian soldiers clustered around them. As Tombstone cleared the rotors and straightened up to his full height, two figures detached themselves from the waiting group and advanced toward the disembarking naval personnel.
The one in the lead wore a Russian army uniform with insignia that identified him as a colonel. He saluted Whitehead stiffly and spoke in careful, precise English. “Captain… Whitehead. Welcome to Yalta. I am Bravin. General Boychenko has asked me to see you and your party to your accommodations.”
Whitehead returned the salute with a smile. “Thank you, Tovarisch Polkovnik,” he said. “And please convey my thanks to the general, as well.”
Before the stilted conversation could go any further, the second man stepped forward. He was in civilian dress, a short, slight man whose quick movements and brisk manner made Tombstone think of a bird searching for worms. “Captain Whitehead,” he said. He spoke with a distinct Hispanic accent that sounded jarring in these surroundings. “I am Jorge Luis Vargas y Vargas, personal aide to Special Envoy Sandoval. He has placed me at your disposal until you have settled in and there is time to arrange a meeting with him and the rest of the United Nations delegation.” The little man studied the new arrivals for a moment, his forehead creasing in a distinctly disapproving frown. “Captain, you and your people must not appear again without proper uniforms. His Excellency will be most displeased. Most displeased.”
“Proper uniforms?” Tombstone asked.
“Your carrier group is attached to the UN command. You should wear the proper blue berets or combat helmets, and UN armbands.” He gestured at the Sea Stallion, in its dark gray livery and muted rounder. “And for that matter, your helicopter should not display American insignia. Please be sure to let your people know what is expected. His Excellency is very precise when it comes to questions of protocol.” Before either Magruder or Whitehead had a chance to reply, Vargas turned to the Russian lieutenant and spoke in rapid-fire Russian.
The young officer nodded. “Da,” he said curtly. “Captain, if you and your party will accompany me, we will go to your hotel and allow you a chance to refresh yourselves. According to the schedule, there will be no meetings requiring your presence until tomorrow. If you please?..”
Whitehead turned and looked at the group, then locked gazes with Tombstone. “Well, CAG,” he said. “I thought there was more of a hurry to this thing.”
“Hurry up and wait,” Tombstone said with a grin. “It’s the same in every language.” He looked at the UN man. “Senor Vargas, I’m Captain Magruder. I’m supposed to liaise with the press. Are there any members of the media here yet?”
Vargas rolled his eyes toward the sky. “Aye, Madre de Dios, you cannot go anywhere in the city without bumping into them and their equipment. They are staying at the same hotel where you will be staying. I’m sure you will have more to… to liaise with, as you say, than you really care to! Now, if you please?..”
Tombstone was intrigued by the little man’s brusque and impatient manner … not exactly what he would have expected from a diplomat. True, Vargas wasn’t exactly a diplomat ― no more than Tombstone himself was, actually ― but Tombstone had been expecting a little more in the way of common courtesy.
It seemed that he had a lot to learn about the gentle art of diplomacy.
CHAPTER 14
Wednesday, 4 November
1515 hours (Zulu +3)
Yalta, Crimean Military District
It was a mild and delightful seventy degrees ― warmer certainly than Tombstone had expected for any part of Russia in November. Palm trees swayed in a line along Drazhinsky Boulevard below his window, and the scores of people he could see on the promenade beyond wore shorts or swimsuits. Bikinis were much in vogue with women, especially the young and attractive ones, and Tombstone had to remind himself that this was part of Russia ― or Ukraine, depending on your point of view ― and not some beach in Mediterranean France. Aboard the Jefferson one hundred miles at sea that morning the air temperature had been fifteen degrees cooler ― not unpleasant, certainly, but not warm enough to prepare him for this subtropical Eden.
The Crimea, he decided, was going to prove to be full of surprises.
Most of the Crimea Peninsula, Tombstone had learned from a guidebook he’d picked up in the ship’s store the day before, was actually hot, dry steppe, something that did not mesh easily with his mental image of the vast and sprawling land that was Russia. Like most Westerners, Tombstone had always pictured Russia as basically cold, in the grip of General Winter from October through April, and his experience over the far-northern tundra wastes of the Kola Peninsula in the still-winter month of March had only reinforced that impression.
He’d known, certainly, that the former Soviet Union wasn’t just ice and tundra, and the balmy temperatures and crystal blue skies of his first day in Yalta were enough to convince him that there was more to this land than Siberian wastes.
In fact, though the northern two-thirds of the Crimea was arid, the chain of mountains stretching from Balaklava in the southwest all the way to Kerch in the extreme east created a natural barrier that kept the southern coast subtropically pleasant. The sun along that coast was warm, even in early November, and the sea breeze was delightful, cool and moist and salt-tangy. The climate and the palms reminded Tombstone a lot of southern California; the south Crimean coast was known, in fact, as the Crimean Riviera. For decades, the elite of the old Soviet Union’s vaunted classless society had come to this region on holiday, and the most powerful of Moscow’s rulers had maintained their dachas and summer homes here. During the abortive 1991 coup, Gorbachev had been placed under arrest and held in his dacha estate not far from Yalta, while events elsewhere in the nation had spun far beyond the reach both of him and of the coup plotters.
The air of affluence that permeated much of the southern Crimean coast had marked the region since long before the Soviets had come on the scene. Czars had kept their summer palaces here, and Lenin had issued a decree to the effect that t
he palaces of the Russian aristocracy in the region should be turned into sanatoria for the people.
The ongoing troubles in Russia, however, had been felt here as well.
From the hotel window, at least, there was actually surprisingly little evidence of the civil war that had been tearing at Russia’s guts for the past months. The buildings were intact, there were no soldiers in the streets, no signs of fortifications or defenses. But the entire city had a depressed air, a depression of the spirit as well as of the economy. The region had depended on tourism for capital, but, reasonably enough, tourism had been in sharp decline for some time now. Most, maybe all, of the people visible on the street were native Russians; there’d been no foreign visitors for some time now, not since the attempted reintegration of the Soviet empire, and the city was showing the absence of their hard currencies. It looked shabby and a bit run-down. There was garbage in the streets ― something unthinkable in the socialist paradise that once had employed women to sweep each street with brooms ― and many of the people Tombstone could see from the window looked less like vacationers than gangs, groups of tough-looking kids in jeans and T-shirts loitering in public areas with the same swaggering aggressiveness Tombstone had seen in their counterparts back in the United States. He’d heard, too, that the region was a magnet for the darker elements of Russia’s disintegrating economy. The Russian Mafia, he’d been told, controlled many of the businesses and most of the business transactions that went on here, while the southern Crimea was a principal meeting place for Armenians, Georgians, Uzbeks, Tatars, and renegade Russian military officers engaged in black market trade.
He turned away from the open window and looked over the room he’d been given… clean and pleasant enough, but modest by American standards. Rooms had been reserved for the United Nations personnel at Yalta’s largest hotel, the Yalta ― a Stalinist horror of concrete in classic Communist-modernist-monolithic architecture. All of the foreigners were being kept here, and Tombstone hadn’t quite decided whether that was for their protection… or because it made it easier for the authorities to keep an eye on them. Both, probably.
His roommate was lying on the bed reading a guidebook. He was sharing the room with Greg Whitehead, the other captain in the group… and the place was almost certainly wired for sound. The Federal Bureau of Security ― or whatever the old KGB was calling itself now ― would be interested in any conversations the two of them might have during their stay.
“I’m going downstairs, Greg,” he told Whitehead, picking up his jacket and shrugging it on. “Maybe stretch my legs.”
“Okay, Matt. Watch out for the roaches.” They’d flushed a few already in the room’s antiquated bathroom, and they put Florida’s finest to shame… not quite strong enough to take on a healthy cat, they’d decided, but large enough to require respect.
At least, Tombstone thought as he pulled the door shut behind him, they had their own bathroom; lots of Russian hotels still believed in communal toilet facilities down the hall. Outside, the floor concierge, one of the small army of women hired by Russian hotels apparently for no other reason than to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the guests, eyed him narrowly and suspiciously from her chair by the elevator. He nodded pleasantly, then took the stairs instead of the elevators, which neither looked nor sounded trustworthy. The stairwells were dark and filthy, stank with the mingled odors of mildewed rags and urine, and were lacking fire doors, but at least he didn’t run the risk of getting stuck in one. The woman barked something in Russian at him as he started down the worn concrete steps… probably something in the nature of “You’re not allowed to do that!” or “Official use only!” but he ignored her and kept going. Let her yell. Tombstone could handle being flung off the bow of an aircraft carrier at 150 knots with complete aplomb, but Russian hotel elevators were something else.
He was going to be very glad to get back aboard the Jefferson.
“Hey… you American? You want fuck?”
The woman was small, blond, and painfully thin, dressed in a tight gown that tried to display her breasts but succeeded mostly in displaying how skinny her arms were, while the heavy eye makeup and lipstick emphasized her hollow cheeks. She stood squarely in the open doorway to the stairwell, blocking his way.
“What?”
“You want… fuck?” The obscenity was less shocking on her lips than it was pathetic. “Or do other things. Five dollars?”
“No,” Tombstone said.
“I suck you, two dollars.”
He felt pity, and a moment’s stumbling uncertainty. Should he just brush past this pathetic creature? Or offer her a few dollar bills as he would a beggar? Glancing past her shoulder, he saw a crowd of other women waiting in the corridor just outside the stairwell, all thin to the point of gauntness, dressed in clothes intended to be provocative, and wearing what they must imagine was sexy-looking makeup. And they were all watching his encounter with the first woman with predatory gleams in their eyes.
Shit. If he tried handing the woman money for no service, that bunch would descend on him like a wolf pack, targeting him as an easy mark. Better to shake his head no and shove past the woman without another glance.
And, he told himself, it might be best to avoid situations here where he was alone and could be cornered somewhere away from the main drag. Tombstone was under no illusions about his ability to fend off an attack by a half-dozen desperate women.
It was a sobering encounter. He’d known the Russian economy was bad, but no written description could have prepared him for the sight of those pitiful human wrecks accosting men in the hotel’s stairwell. He steeled himself to walk past the women outside without meeting their watching eyes. He wished there was something he could do to help them… something other than actually doing business with them, which he knew would be dangerous on several counts.
But there was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do.
The Yalta Hotel’s lobby represented an unpleasant compromise between faux-neoclassical grandeur and Stalinist utilitarianism: large, ugly, and shabby. In some ways, it was like an American shopping mall, with hard currency shops and cafes. There were several tennis courts and swimming pools, amenities not normally associated with Russian hotels, and over twelve hundred rooms, most with their own plumbing and most wired for cable TV.
But it also showed the decay touching everything that once had been part of the Soviet system. Furniture was worn, mismatched, and dirty; the chandeliers were missing many of their crystal ornaments; the carpets were faded and showed worn tracks along the routes of heaviest traffic; and the clerks at the big front desk were conspicuously absent, though several guests were obviously waiting ― clamoring, even ― for attention. The place, Tombstone reflected, was probably busier today than it had been for some time, with the entire UN contingent quartered here, as well as, no doubt, the Russian security people assigned to keep track of them.
As Tombstone stepped into the main lobby near the elevators, his attention was immediately caught by a group of people in the sitting area, next to a scraggly collection of potted palms. Joyce ― Commander Flynn ― was standing there in full uniform, bathed in the glare of a pair of hand-held camera lights. A man with a shoulder-held minicam bearing the ACN logo was filming her and another woman, who held a microphone to her face. The second woman’s back was to him, but Tombstone recognized immediately her blond hair and slim figure. With only the slightest hesitation, he started walking toward the brightly lit tableau.
“And what’s it like,” the reporter was asking Tomboy, “being one of a few hundred women living with five thousand men aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier?”
“It’s actually not much different from being stationed on a Navy base ashore,” Tomboy said. “You just can’t go into town when you want to.”
“And what do you think of the Crimea?”
“Well, we really haven’t had much chance to see a lot of it yet. It’s exciting being here, though. Kind of l
ike history in the making.”
Pamela Drake turned from Tomboy and nodded at the cameraman. “That’s a take,” she said. She smiled at Tomboy. “Thank you, Commander. That was great.”
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
“Hello, Pamela,” Tombstone said, walking up behind the reporter. “You’re certainly a long way from home.”
Pamela turned sharply, eyes wide, blond hair swirling past her ears.
“Matt! What are you doing here?”
He shrugged. “Actually, I’m supposed to be here as the Navy’s liaison with the news media. Care to do some serious liaising?”
“I…” She stopped, then glanced at her cameraman. “Let’s take a break, Phil.”
He grinned at her. “Sure thing, Ms. Drake. Whatever you say.”
She looked at him, her expression unreadable. “I hadn’t really expected to find you here, Matt.”
“No?” She didn’t seem particularly pleased to see him. Damn.
“I thought you were on the Jefferson.”
“You knew we were deployed to the Black Sea, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I also knew the battle group was coming to the Crimea. I guess I just, well… I just didn’t expect you to come ashore.”
“You don’t sound that happy to see me.”
“Of course I am.” But the look in her eyes said otherwise. “You just caught me by surprise, is all.” She looked at her watch. “Listen, I’ve got a meeting to attend, but maybe we can get together a little later, huh?”
“Certainly.” Why was she being so cool? Was she still mad at him? It wasn’t like her to hold a grudge. He knew that everything wasn’t right between them, but right now he had the impression she’d have rather he’d not shown up at all. “Dinner, maybe?”
“That would be nice. Meet you here in the lobby? About six?”
“Eighteen hundred hours.”
Afterburn c-7 Page 18