by Larry Bond
“In other words, we’re under house arrest,” Helen muttered.
Clifford looked over his shoulder at her. “On the contrary, Miss Gray,” he countered. “I’ve given you the freedom of the city. And you should be damned grateful to follow. I’d be within my rights and authority to confine you to the embasy grounds and ship you out on the evening flight — with within my the embassy grounds or your personal effects to.” Then he shook his head. “But I won’t do that. You’ve created a nasty incident-one that my staff and I are going to have to bend over backward to smooth over. But you’ve committed no crime, per se — no matter what some of the MVD’s hardliners are claiming. So for God’s sake stay low, keep your mouths shut, and steer clear of any more trouble!”
Without waiting for any further argument, Clifford turned back to the window in a clear dismissal.
Thorn stopped in the hallway outside Clifford’s office, aware that he still felt numb, almost completely disconnected from his own body. No matter how many times he’d told himself his days in the Army were numbered, the diplomat’s cold announcement that he was being forcibly retired had still hit him with the force of a hammer-blow. He’d spent most of his adult life in uniform.
What could the civilian world offer him now?
Thorn frowned, remembering friends who’d opted out of the Special Operations Command during the Army’s recent waves of downsizing. Two or three had joined defense firms as managers.
A couple had tried to set themselves up as security consultants.
One was a teacher at some high school in the Midwest. They were making a living, supporting themselves and their families, but they all missed the Army’s close-knit camaraderie, excitement, and sense of a larger purpose.
He glanced at Helen. Her face mirrored his own stunned disbelief.
She clearly didn’t harbor any illusions about her own long-term prospects in the FBI. The legal attache job had been a plum assignment — one that had put her in the running for further promotion.
But the FBI hierarchy was notoriously unforgiving and notoriously touchy about bad publicity. Screw up once and you’d find yourself in hot water. Screw up once, in the public eye, and you were likely to spend the rest of your career either in some podunk town in the middle of nowhere, or, worse yet, trapped in the drearier confines of the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
Without thinking, Thorn slipped his arm around her shoulder.
Normally Helen was prickly about public displays of affection, especially on her professional turf, but she welcomed his touch now.
She sighed deeply and half leaned against him as they headed back toward the elevators that would take them to her office.
“Jesus, you two sure don’t look like the superhuman Amerikanski secret commandos I’ve been reading about in the afternoon paper! More like folks who’ve been caught out in a tornado.”
Thorn stiffened and swung around toward the short, balding man who’d come around a corner behind them. He’d taken just about enough crap from the U.S. State Department for one day … Helen laid a cautionary hand on his arm. She tried smiling and almost made it. “Hello, Charlie.”
The newcomer looked ready to embrace Helen, but he settled for pumping her hand. “Christ, Helen! I’m sure glad to see you alive and well. When we heard about that business in Pechenga, we were all horrified.”
He turned to Thorn and extended his hand. “And you’re Peter Thorn. I’m Charlie Spiegel. I work here at the embassy.”
Helen explained. “Charlie and I worked together on a couple of cases. I can’t tell you who he works for, but he’s good at his job.” The implication was obvious: Charlie Spiegel worked for the CIA.
“She’s too kind, Colonel,” Spiegel said. He flashed a quick grin. “Mostly I just sit around and file reports claiming credit for whatever paydirt Helen digs up.”
“But not this time,” Thorn said quietly.
Spiegel’s grin faded. “No, not this time.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Man, I’m afraid you two have taken one hell of a long walk off a short pier. I hate to say it, but I think the ambassador’s right to get you out of Russia before anything else hits the fan — and the quicker the better.”
He saw the surprise on Thorn’s face and shrugged. “Helen said I was good, and it’s my job to keep plugged in. Look, why don’t you come to my office? While His Nibs in there gave you the forty lashes with a wet tongue, I’ve been keeping my ear to the ground. There are some new developments I think you should know about.”
The CIA agent’s office was on the floor above Helen’s, and it was just as cramped and a lot messier. Books, periodicals, and printouts cluttered Spiegel’s battered desk, every shelf, and much of the floor space.
Thorn shook his head wryly as he and Helen cleared stacks of reference works off chairs so they could sit down. This guy seemed to live on paper.
Spiegel didn’t wait for them to get settled. He flopped into his own swivel chair and started explaining. “First, I don’t think you folks fully understand the flap your gun battle in Pechenga has created. You’re both front-page news here. Hell, Clifford’s people had to do some pretty fast footwork to keep the media away from you. That was part of the reason for that little covert handoff out at Sheremetevo Airport.”
Thorn considered that grimly. The only thing worse than sitting in MVD custody would have been getting caught by a mob of eager-beaver reporters and cameramen. Everything in his nature and his Delta Force training taught him the importance of staying out of the glare of TV lights.
“The forty-eight hours you’ve been given isn’t just to let you pack, it’s mostly to give the story time to cool off,” Spiegel said confidentially. He lowered his voice. “You didn’t hear it from me, but the embassy is even making sure you don’t arrive home at a commercial airport. You’ll take a regular flight to Germany, but then they’re transferring you to a military passenger flight to Andrews Air Force Base.”
“Arriving in the dead of the night, I suppose?” Helen asked bitterly.
“You got it,” Spiegel confirmed. “And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you’re listed on the manifest as PFCS John and Jane Doe. The last thing anyone wants is more news coverage.”
Thorn nodded. He agreed with the precautions the State Department was taking on that score, if on no other.
“What about our work, Charlie?” Helen asked. “Can you or your people dig any further? I don’t want this investigation to fall through the cracks once they’ve shipped us off. We’ve paid too high a price to let it go so easily.”
Spiegel looked blank. “Jesus, Helen. That’s gonna be a problem. I mean, the word’s come down from on high: Steer clear of the Kandalaksha mess. It’s a Russian-only situation. If my people start asking too many questions, I’m going to trip all kinds of alarm bells all over the damn place — both here and in D.C.”
Then he shrugged. “Besides, with this Grushtin character dead and that freighter a bust, I wouldn’t really know where to start looking. Seems to me you’ve run this thing into a dead-end no pun intended.”
Thorn frowned. He wasn’t going to let this guy off the hook so easily.
He claimed he was a friend of Helen’s. Well, let him prove it. He shook his head. “Not true. We know one of the people who set us up. Have somebody put the squeeze on Colonel General Feodor Serov. That son of a bitch knows a hell of a lot more than he told us.”
Spiegel sighed. “That’s one of the new developments I mentioned. Somebody took out both Serov and his wife yesterday-probably very early in the A.M. Whoever did it was a pro. The wife took one bullet to the brain. Serov went a little harder. Somebody pumped him so full of heroin that the stuff was practically pouring out his eye sockets.”
Thorn felt his jaw muscles tighten. Every time he thought they were close to the inner core of this mystery, somebody got there first and cleared out all the evidence and witnesses. He looked hard at Spiegel.
“I suppose Serov’s murder is all over the eveni
ng papers, too?”
The CIA officer shook his head. “Not a peep. Nada. The MVD and the Russian Air Force have clamped down a complete security blackout around Kandalaksha. Nothing’s getting in or out. They’re damned serious about it, too. Finding out one of their highest-ranking officers was involved in drug trafficking has them rattled.”
“Oh?” Helen looked skeptical. “Then how did you find out about it?”
“Well …” Spiegel smiled slyly. “Let’s just say that Russian counterintelligence isn’t as good as they’d like to think.”
“All right, so Serov’s dead,” Helen said slowly, thinking aloud. “That still leaves one more trail you could follow.”
“Oh?” Spiegel said. “Fill me in. I’ve never claimed omniscience.”
“Arrus Export,” Helen said. “Both Serov and the customs agent at Pechenga claimed they were dealing with a man named Peterhof.”
“Yeah,” Spiegel said. “I read your report.” Then he shook his head again. “That’s another dead-end, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
The CIA man shrugged. “We checked with the Arrus office here in Moscow. They’ve never had anyone named Peterhof working for them. And they claim they’ve never run an Su-24 engine acquisition program like the one you described.”
“What makes you think they’d admit something like that so easily?”
Thorn challenged. “Christ, we’re talking about blackmarket arms sales here!”
“I understand that, Colonel,” Spiegel said. He checked to make sure the door was completely closed, then lowered his voice slightly.
“Look, Arrus is a clean operation, okay? It’s on the side of the angels.”
Helen stared at him. “Are you telling us that Arrus Export is a Company asset? That it’s a front organization for the CIA?”
“Not exactly,” Spiegel said hastily. “But Arrus has done some significant favors for us in the past. And it’s very well connected back in the States. The owners are fair-haired boys in Langley’s books.”
Helen looked forward, her eyes glittering. “I’m going to ask you one more question, Charlie.” Her lips thinned. “And I expect a straight answer.”
“If I can,” Spiegel temporized.
“No ifs, Charlie,” Helen said coldly. “And no screwing around with maybes. or other covert op double-talk. You owe me. Remember?”
The CIA officer flushed. “Ask your question.”
“Is this engine smuggling operation tied into the Agency somehow?” Helen said carefully. “Or to some other U.S. government outfit?”
“You’re sure?” Thorn asked skeptically. Spiegel’s denial meant nothing if he was out of the loop. All covert operations were run on strict need-to-know principles.
“I’m sure, Colonel,” the CIA man said. He looked Thorn squarely in the eye. “I went straight to the top of the Operations Directorate when I saw Helen’s preliminary report from Kandalaksha. I even asked about the drug angle. Hell, I know this wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tripped over one of our ops, but I’m telling you this was not one of them.”
Spiegel shook his head yet again. “Look, I don’t know who the hell was buying Su-24 engines on the sly, or running heroin, or whatever the real story is. But I do know the CIA is clean. We’re not involved here.”
He glanced at Helen and frowned. “Christ, Helen, I know what you’re going through. Hell, I liked Alexei Koniev, too! But face facts: You’ve pushed this thing as far as you can. You’ve already put your whole career on the line, and you were damned lucky to get out of Pechenga in one piece. So let the Russians sort out their own messes!”
Thorn knew Spiegel was offering them good advice, but he didn’t need to see the stubborn set of Helen’s shoulders to know that she wasn’t prepared to let the matter drop so easily. Unfortunately, he didn’t see what choice either of them really had. Once they were out of Russia their ability to pin down the truth of what had happened at Kandalaksha would drop to precisely zero.
JUNE 8
U.S. Embassy Residential Compound, Moscow
Helen Gray surrendered any hope that she could persuade herself to sleep. Her body was tired — beyond tired, in fact. Every muscle ached. And whenever she moved, she could feel every separate scrape, cut, and bruise she’d collected during the desperate firefight aboard the Star of the White Sea. She could have ignored the pain. Training and sheer exhaustion would have allowed her to do that.
But now her mind and memory betrayed her.
The image of Alexei Koniev lying dead rose before her, and then fled back into the darker recesses of her mindchased away by old ghosts and new fears. All her life she’d pushed herself hard — striving always and everywhere to be the best, to win every game and every contest. Now it looked as though she’d finally met a puzzle she couldn’t solve and an unknown enemy she couldn’t beat.
Helen opened her eyes in the darkness and lay staring up at the ceiling of her small bedroom.
When she was just thirteen, she’d set her heart on becoming an FBI agent. Her parents, her brother and her sisters, and even some of her teachers had tried to convince her that she was on a wild-goose chase.
But she’d persisted. She’d weighed every class, every hobby, and every interest by how far it moved her toward her goal — the FBI Academy at Quantico.
Once in the FBI itself, she’d clawed her way up and into the elite Hostage Rescue Team by sheer ability and hard work — disdaining the various affirmative-action shortcuts that had been dangled in front of her. To Helen, the way to smash the sexist bias of the Bureau’s old boy network was to prove it flatout wrong — not to give them a chance to fall back on the tired, old cop-out that women couldn’t make the grade without special help.
Her jaw tightened. There would be celebrating in some corridors of the Hoover Building once the news that she’d been yanked out of Moscow filtered through the rumor mill. And there were plenty of others like Mcdowell scattered throughout the FBI.
Of course, Helen knew that she had friends and mentors in the Bureau’s hierarchy, too. Men who trusted her. Men who would stand by her. But what could they do for her now? Incurring the wrath of the Russian government while solving an important case might have been acceptable.
Pissing off the Kremlin just to come up with a jumble of unintelligible clues — all leading nowhere — was another story.
On the surface, Charlie Spiegel was right. Their investigation had reached a dead-end. Every witness and every potential suspect they’d turned up had been murdered — first Grushtin, then the entire crew of that Russian tramp freighter, and now Serov.
And, with Alexei Koniev dead, she and Peter had not only lost a partner and friend, they’d also lost their access to anybody they could trust in Russian law enforcement. So what else could they do but slink home to America with their tails between their legs?
Helen sat bolt upright in bed and thumped her fist onto the mattress with a muttered, “No way!”
“Thought you were awake,” Peter Thorn said softly, pushing himself up to sit beside her.
Peter had visited the broom-closet-sized room offered him as temporary accommodations by the embassy staff just long enough to drop off his travel kit. Then he’d come straight to her own cramped quarters to help her pack. Several hours of steady work had left her life in Moscow jumbled up in cardboard boxes all over the floor. At her invitation, he’d stayed for the night.
Both of them were too drained and exhausted to make love, but neither wanted to leave the other’s side. And neither of them gave a damn anymore about the gossip that might race through the chancery building.
Helen turned her head toward him, seeing his eyes gleaming in the dark.
“You can’t sleep, either?”
“Nope.” Peter sighed. “I just keep running things over and over in my mind — trying to see where we screwed up.” Then he shrugged ruefully.
“And trying to avoid thinking about what happens next. Once we’re home, I mean.”
Helen sat silent, struck by a sudden sense of shame. She’d been thinking too much about herself. No matter where they stuck hen-whether in Mudville or the Hoover Building’s basement records office — she would still carry a badge. She would still be an FBI special agent. But Peter … Peter had lost everything.
The United States Army had been his home — his real family, in fact for all of Peter Thorn’s life. His father had been a career soldier, a highly decorated senior sergeant in the Special Forces.
Peter’s boyhood had been spent on military bases around the country and around the world. And, after his wayward mother abandoned them when he was eleven years old, he and his father had grown still closer — closer to each other and closer to the Army they both loved.
Now he was forty and faced with the prospect of … what?
Helen wondered. Retirement? Shuffling papers as a manager in some corporate hive? Living hand-to-mouth as a freelance counterterrorism consultant in a world crowded with other ex-soldiers chasing the same degrading contracts?
She felt tears well up in her eyes and turned toward him. “Oh, Peter …” she whispered brokenly.
His arms tightened around her. One strong hand softly stroked her hair. He kissed her forehead gently, brushing his lips across her skin. “It’ll be all right, Helen,” he promised. “We’ll see this thing through together. No matter what happens.”
“Side by side?” she asked.
“Come hell, high water, earthquake, or congressional committee,” Peter said flatly.
Helen felt her fatigue, her pain, all her doubts, and all her fears fly away — vanishing in a single, convulsive instant. Her lips met his fiercely and parted. Her body molded to his in a flowing, moving, pulsing rhythm that swept time and trouble aside.
Sometime later, exactly how long she wasn’t sure and didn’t really care, she lay still in the comforting circle of his arms. She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, feeling her eyelids growing heavier by the second. “Wow.”