by Larry Bond
He turned to look at the young MVD officer. “Are you all right, Major?”
“Yes.” The other man looked pale, but otherwise in control.
He straightened his shoulders. “Have you seen enough, Colonel? It will be dark soon.”
Thorn nodded sharply, pushing the image of that blistered corpse out of his mind. “Yeah. I’ve seen enough. For now. But I’ll be back here at first light.”
Investigation Base Camp, Near the Ileksa River
Colonel Peter Thorn stopped near a small tent set up beneath a tall pine tree and buttoned his uniform jacket. His breath steamed in the chilly night air. The temperature had dropped rapidly after darkdipping close to the freezing mark.
He stood still for a moment longer, gathering his thoughts while making sure he wasn’t being observed. Private quarters were the sole concession Helen Gray had accepted as lone woman on the investigative team. She had worked damned hard to be accepted on her merits in the male-dominated precincts of the FBI. And, for all their Soviet-era propaganda boasts about building a truly equal society, the Russians remained an even more intensely conservative lot. Getting caught visiting her tent alone after sundown could easily put her professional reputation at risk. He was determined to avoid that if possible.
Floodlights lit the compound and surrounding forest with a cold, harsh, sharp-edged glare that made the blackness outside the light absolute.
The smell of cheap tobacco and cooked beets wafted from the crowded tents used to house Russian enlisted men. But there were no signs of movement among the trees.
After a long, hard, backbreaking day at the crash site, the search effort had shut down for the night. Moscow would have to ferry in more men, equipment, and supplies before they could accelerate the recovery operation onto a twenty-four-hour cycle.
Thorn turned back toward Helen’s tent and then stopped dead in his tracks. Maybe he should wait and see her the next morning.
Maybe he was pushing too fast.
He shook his head, angry at himself for wavering. He’d been awarded medals for bravery under fire. Right now, though, none of them meant a damned thing. What the hell was his problem?
If she still loved him, everything would be fine. And if she didn’t love him anymore? Well, better to find that out now — to force a clean, crisp break before their screwed-up emotions started interfering with their work. This investigation had to come first. It was time to start acting like a man and a soldier instead of a scared teenager.
He took a quick, deep breath, squared his shoulders, and tapped softly on the canvas tent flap. “Helen? Can I come in?”
“Peter?” The tent flap opened, spilling a warmer light onto the dark and muddy ground. Helen stood in the opening, framed against the glow from a lantern. She eyed him calmly for a second and then motioned him inside, closing the flap behind him.
Her tent contained little beyond a cot made up with rough wool Russian Army blankets, a couple of battered wooden folding chairs, her travel bag and laptop PC, and an empty supply crate that apparently served as a desk. And, of course, Helen herself.
Thorn tried to ignore the pulse pounding in his ears. Even in travel-worn jeans and a heavy green fisherman’s sweater, she was lovely. Her wavy black hair silhouetted a heart-shaped face and stunning blue eyes.
He wanted to kiss her, but he held back. They’d been apart for too long. He couldn’t read her mood with any certainty. It seemed best to play it safe.
“How have you been, Helen?”
She arched an eyebrow. “I’ve been fine.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Thorn obeyed gladly, relieved to hear the bantering tone in her voice. That was a lot more like the Helen Gray he’d come to know and love over the past two years.
She sat down gracefully on the cot facing him and said more, seriously, “I really was surprised to see you pop out of that helicopter, you know.”
“I know,” he answered simply. “I almost didn’t.”
“Oh?”
Thorn shrugged. “I wasn’t exaggerating much when I said I had to hold my breath and throw a tantrum to win a spot on the team. Even then my boss practically told me that he’d yank me back to D.C. the second he heard any complaints from the NTSB … or from the Russians, for that matter. I’m the inspection agency’s liaison here on sufferance.”
Since a team from the On-Site Inspection Agency had been aboard the downed Russian plane, both Washington and Moscow were willing to allow an observer from the agency at the crash site — somebody who could help identify the victims, round up their personal and professional effects, and funnel reports back to O.S.I.A’s Washington headquarters. But none of the top officials involved in either capital were likely to have much patience with him if he pissed off the experts tasked with the real work of investigating the crash.
Helen leaned forward and asked softly, “Is O.S.I.A really that bad, Peter?”
“It’s Siberia without the perks.” Thorn tried smiling and failed.
“Seriously, I have a nice carpeted office, a nice new computer, and a nice clean desk. but nothing important or interesting ever comes across that desk. I write reports analyzing terrorist threats that go straight into a circular file somewhere. And the rest of the time I sit around waiting to answer questions that are never asked.”
He snorted in disgust. “I’m forty years old, Helen, and I’m stuck behind a desk when I should be out leading troops. But I wouldn’t mind that so much if they’d at least let me do the job they hired me for.”
“Then why not resign?” Helen asked bluntly. “Why stay in the Army if they won’t let you do what you’re best at?”
Resign? Leave the Army? Thorn pondered that for a split second and then shook his head decisively. “Can’t do that. They can fire me if they want to, but I won’t quit.”
She frowned.
“Jesus, Helen. I know that sounds stubborn, even muleheaded. But I’m a soldier. That’s all I’ve ever been. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be since I was just a kid.” Thorn paused, remembering the pride he’d felt as a little boy watching his soldier father march past with that green beret sitting proudly on his head. “I took an oath to serve my country. I’ll honor that oath however I’m allowed. Whether it’s behind some goddamned desk. or out here in these damned woods.”
Helen’s frown faded. “Now that’s the Peter Thorn I’m used to hearing.”
Her lips curved upward into a slight smile. “Pigheaded, yes. Opinionated, yes. But not a whiner or a quitter.”
Thorn winced. “I guess I did sound pretty damned bitter, didn’t I?”
“Yep.” She reached out and put a hand gently on his knee.
“And not a bit like the same man who told me to stay in the FBI whenever I wanted to give up. Who pushed me back into the ring every time I got knocked down.”
She looked down at her lap for a moment. “I haven’t forgotten the months you spent getting me back on my feet, Peter. Not a second of them.”
Thorn nodded slowly. While leading an FBI Hostage Rescue Team raid on a terrorist safe house in northern Virginia, Helen had been badly wounded. Her doctors had warned her that her injuries might be permanent. That she might never walk unaided or without a severe limp.
Well, she’d proved them wrong. It had taken months of rigorous physical therapy — months of constant pain and hard work but she’d regained the full use of her legs.
He’d encouraged her to fight for her health and her career every step of the way. Some members of the FBI’s old-boy network would have been very happy to see her accept a presidential commendation for heroism and retire on disability. But she’d surprised them all. She’d reported back for active duty with a clean bill of health from every doctor she could corral.
Thorn smiled to himself. Helen had more courage in one of her little toes than all the bureaucrats at the FBI’s Hoover Building headquarters put together.
Her sigh startled him. He looked up and found her studying him intently.
“Peter …” She hesitated, then fell silent. She tried again.
“Peter, I think we need to talk”
“Yeah. We do,” Thorn cut in hurriedly. Those were not words he wanted to hear right now. He took his hand off hers and quickly tried to change the subject. “You’ve had more time on the ground here. What’s your first take on this plane crash? Do you buy the accident theory? Or do you think we’re looking at some kind of sabotage?”
Christ, I’m babbling like an idiot, he thought.
Helen rolled her eyes. “Peter Thorn, you are the most irritating man I’ve ever met.” She sounded exasperated beyond endurance.
Bingo.
Thorn grinned slowly. “Does that mean you still like me?”
Almost against her will, Helen matched his grin. “Probably.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I even still love you.”
Aware again of the pulse pounding in his ears, Thorn lifted the hand she had on his knee, enclosed it in his own, and pulled her slowly toward him. Her lips parted, met his gently, and then pressed back even harder.
Suddenly he felt her stiffen.
Slowly, reluctantly, Helen pulled her lips away from his. She whispered, “Someone’s outside, Peter. I just heard a twig snap.”
He sat up and faced the tent flap — watching her hand slip toward the shoulder holster hanging from a peg over her cot. Her combat reflexes were obviously still good.
Someone rapped on the canvas. “Special Agent Gray? You are still awake, I hope?”
Helen visibly relaxed. “It’s Alexei Koniev.” She sat back on the cot and smoothed her sweater into shape. “I’m awake, Major. Colonel Thorn and I were just talking. Come on in.”
Koniev slipped through the tent flap and stood looking down at them.
His eyes twinkled. “I hope I am not interrupting anything of importance.”
“Nothing much, Major,” Thorn heard himself say stiffly.
“Ah, that is good.” Koniev tossed his officer’s cap onto Helen’s improvised desk and sat down in the empty folding chair. He crossed his legs casually and leaned forward. “Perhaps we can discuss our strategy for tomorrow, then. Our game plan, I believe you Americans say?”
Thorn bit down hard on his irritation. Koniev had as much right to visit Helen’s tent as he did — maybe even more. And he couldn’t fault the Russian major for wanting to get a head start on the next day’s work. He just wished the younger man didn’t look so much at home in her company. His love life and this investigation were already complicated enough.
CHAPTER TWO
EARLY WARNING
MAY 25
Headquarters, 125th Air Division, Kandalaksha (D MINUS 27)
Colonel General Feodor Serov slid the pile of brochures and bank transfers into a special file folder and nodded to himself. Cuba would serve as the ideal shelter for his family and his newfound wealth.
His lips thinned into a mocking smile.
Some of his old comrades-in-arms might attribute his decision to a liking for one of the world’s few remaining communist states. Despite his professed fondness for “the U.S.S.R.“s good old days,” they would be wrong.
Ideology was a younger man’s luxury, he thought. Socialism was dead or dying. The mighty Soviet state he had served all his life was gone — leaving only a pale, shrinking ghost in its place.
His lopsided smile turned into a sneer. Yeltsin’s Russia could not even maintain its grip on Chechnya — a piss-poor region inhabited only by ignorant Muslim bandits. Four centuries of Russian and then Soviet imperial conquest were being thrown away by the quarreling fools in Moscow.
No, Serov had far better reasons for settling in Cuba.
Hard currency was king in Castro’s island nation. Land was cheap.
Wages were low. And Fidel’s hard-pressed government didn’t ask inconvenient questions when wealthy expatriates brought their resources to its aid. He and his family could blend in with the growing colony of other newly rich Russians who had already moved there — drawn by the sunny, warm climate, and by the chance to spend ill-gotten gains safely outside the reach of their own country’s law enforcement agencies.
His watch beeped. It was time to attend to more routine matters. He grabbed the folder off his desk and jammed it into a leather valise as he headed for the door. His military aide looked up as he hurried through the outer office. “I’ll be on the flight line for the next hour, Captain, and then I’ll be at Maintenance.”’ Serov clattered down the steps, still mentally organizing his afternoon.
With his relief due in two weeks and his retirement slated for the week after that, his days were crowded. Kandalaksha was a large, complex base, and he wanted — no, needed — the turnover to go smoothly.
Especially with the secret venture he knew only as “the Operation” so close to completion. The ongoing An-32 air crash investigation was bad enough. He couldn’t afford any more slipups that might draw even closer official scrutiny.
His staff car and driver were waiting, with the engine running.
Serov yanked the back door open and slid inside. He snapped out a brusque order: “Let’s get to the flight line, Sergeant.”
Only then did the Russian general realize he wasn’t alone.
The other man in the back seat was slightly smaller than Serov and thinner. He wore a perfectly tailored olive-green Italian suit, and his stylishly cut hair was more gray than black. His face was commonplace, much like that of any anonymous bureaucrat or businessman.
Only his steel-gray eyes betrayed his intensity and ruthlessness.
Rolf Ulrich Reichardt waited for the car door to close behind Serov, then nodded at the driver. “Go.”
Serov scowled. “What the devil are you …?” His voice faded when he realized the sergeant sitting behind the wheel was not his regular driver.
They accelerated away from the curb in response to Reichardt’s order.
At the end of the headquarters building, the driver turned left instead of right. Serov’s blood turned to ice.
He licked his lips nervously and glanced at Reichardt. This man had been his primary contact throughout the Operation.
Some of the other man’s subordinates had made the necessary transportation arrangements; still others had handled payment and security concerns outside Kandalaksha. But Reichardt had supervised every step. He sometimes referred to “his employer,” but Serov had never asked who that employer might be. The enormous sums of money he was being paid made such information unnecessary.
Now Reichardt sat impassively, with his eyes fixed on Serov as they drove past the base administration buildings. The Russian didn’t bother asking him what was going on. He knew the other man would only ignore him.
Serov knew little about Reichardt’s background, but he could make several educated guesses. From his appearance, Reichardt was probably in his late forties. Since he spoke fluent Russian with a German accent, Serov also guessed he had grown up in the DDR, East Germany.
Reichardt’s behavior, his mannerisms, also marked him as a former member of the Stasi, the DDR’s feared secret police agency. Members of the Stasi were cut from the same arrogant, thuggish cloth as the old Soviet KGB. The Russian general hid his distaste. The Stasi had been a necessary evil under the old system. Now they were shadows — dangerous shadows, but shadows nonetheless. Most had gone underground — assuming new identities to avoid arrest after German reunification.
Serov knew more about Reichardt’s methods. The German was a meticulous organizer. He paid almost obsessive attention to every detail. He was also utterly ruthless. One of Serov’s junior officers, officially listed as a deserter from Kandalaksha’s engine maintenance facility, actually lay buried in a swamp a hundred kilometers outside the base.
Reichardt had “removed” the young man simply because he was a potential threat to the Operation’s cover story.
They’d driven for almost five minutes before Reichardt broke the increasingly uncomfortable silence. He nodded
toward the driver.
“This is Sergeant Kurgin, Feodor Mikhailovich. He’s just been assigned to Kandalaksha. He will be your driver and orderly until you retire and leave Russia. Do you understand?”
Irked, Serov nodded. So this Kurgin was one of Reichardt’s spies.
Given the German’s predilection for holding all the reins of power, it wasn’t surprising that he would keep Serov under close surveillance for as long as possible. Not surprising, perhaps, but insulting. And worrying, too. Exactly how far did Reichardt’s arm reach?
“And where are we going now?” Serov asked quietly.
“For a private discussion,” the German replied flatly. “A very private discussion.”
They drove in silence for several more minutes before coming to a large, two-story building. Serov recognized it immediately.
Big enough to be a factory, it had housed a jet engine rework facility before being abandoned a few years ago. Other deserted buildings and equipment yards surrounded the building — making it the perfect spot for a covert enterprise. He and a few carefully selected subordinates had used the site for just such a purpose in recent weeks before stripping it again.
The car paused only long enough for Kurgin to hop out and open a heavy metal sliding door before getting back in and pulling the car inside.
Serov and Reichardt stepped out of the car into the abandoned building’s chilly, damp interior. Rusted metal fittings jutted up from the stained and spotted concrete floor, marking where machinery had once been mounted. Dirty windows lined the galvanized metal and bare concrete walls. They admitted just enough light to let them pick their way across the debris-littered floor.
Sergeant Kurgin left the car, walked outside, and pulled the door shut behind him. The sound of the door closing echoed through the building’s cavernous interior.
Serov and Reichardt were left alone inside.
Reichardt dropped any pretense of civility, his face suddenly clouded with cold fury. “Very well, Serov. I have a number of questions for you. And you will give me the right answers to those questions. if you want to leave this place alive.”