Nimitz Class (1997)

by Patrick Robinson

  The Mercedes rolled through the gray, run-down streets. There were few people to be seen, and cars were rare. The surface of the road was appalling by Western standards. The omens of decay were everywhere. The woeful streets, with their high apartment houses, all around the outer dockyard area of Sevastopol, made Barrow-in-Furness look like Fifth Avenue

  .

  Beyond the inner city, Bill thought the place looked a bit more cheerful. But Sevastopol, steel-ringed by the Soviet Navy for generations, was not long on hotels. This was one of the last areas in all of the Ukraine to acquire a hotel built by a foreign corporation. As late as 1995 there was no such establishment in the entire state, not even in Kiev.

  But, by the turn of the century, one of the enterprising Finnish hotel groups was on the move. They had constructed a new hotel on the outskirts of the city which had housed the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. It was called the Krasnaya, and it existed for the scores of visiting foreign executives who had journeyed to Sevastopol to buy exSoviet warships, and in some instances, new ones. Kilos.

  The place was full of non-nationals, from the Middle East, East Asia, South America, and all kinds of Third World republics, who were either trying to buy warships to frighten their neighbors, or to protect shipments of drugs. Some of the better-heeled patrons, from the Gulf states, had matters more sinister on their minds. It was a perfect place for the huge, apparently genial Russian Naval Intelligence officer Rankov to stay. And Bill Baldridge summed that little scenario up in short order, before he even registered.

  Up in his room he prepared to call Arnold Morgan. He took the portable phone scrambler from the depths of his suitcase, placed it on the bed, and opened the lid. He then put the hotel phone handset into a special cradle in the case, and set up the electronic crypto system, which would render their conversation unintelligible to an outsider. Then he made the call on the regular open line. When the admiral answered they would go over to encrypted mode simultaneously. The process was tricky, but very effective.

  “Morgan…speak.”

  “Baldridge…preparing to speak. Stand by crypto August 10.”

  “Roger, standing by.”

  “Crypto three, two, one. Go. How’s that, Admiral?”

  “Terrible, Bill. But I can hear enough.”

  Arnold Morgan explained that he had been in touch with Major Lynch, and that the spotlight of suspicion, which had shone for so long on Iran, was now shifted to Iraq.

  The Mossad had given orders to tap into the telephone system in the lakeside mansion of Barzan al-Tikriti, one of Saddam Hussein’s half-brothers, and Iraq’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

  The Mossad knew better than anyone how to follow money, particularly counterespionage money. Barzan was one of Iraq’s leading financiers. He had helped to mastermind the plan which enabled the Iraqi dictator to siphon off between 3 and 5 percent of every barrel of exported oil, and turn it into a multibillion-dollar hoard of cash and gold in Geneva.

  The money had traveled efficiently from the Iraqi Treasury into an account called Patriotic Revolutionary Guard Number 473 in the Central Bank of Iraq. From there it was wired to a private bank in Vienna, where numbered accounts were still used. And from there into the account of a Swiss corporation in Geneva, administered by Barzan al-Tikriti. At the last count there was more than 2 billion dollars in that one account, and it was from there that Saddam Hussein broke every international law with regard to purchasing arms.

  A relatively small matter, like withdrawing 10 million in cash in order to strike a secretive and massive blow at the “Satan of the West” was kid stuff to an operator like Saddam. Just as long as he had the right man for the job.

  The Mossad’s agents had been very certain in their reports to General Gavron. The Iraqis would have trusted no bank, no broker, no wire transfer, in moving the money on its final step from Geneva to Istanbul. That was why Ted Lynch had drawn a complete blank in the Turkish banks.

  The vast amount of cash required to “hire” a Russian submarine would have been crammed into a couple of hard, specially rimmed suitcases, and would have traveled on a direct flight, in the first-class luggage cupboard of a Swissair Boeing, under the watchful eye of Barzan’s highly paid personal assistant, a statuesque Austrian blonde named Ingrid Jaschke. She, in turn, was always accompanied by an Iraqi bodyguard, bagman, and professional assassin, who traveled behind her in a business-class seat, probably on a highly respectable Egyptian passport. Kamel Rasheed was the name he went by.

  Ingrid never went anywhere without a small custom-made German pistol, which fired snub-nosed bullets designed to spread on impact, thus leaving a tiny entry hole, but a massive exit wound. She was fully licensed to carry the pistol, and she always checked it with the airline, and then collected it on landing. There are many really lousy ideas associated with international arms dealing. One of them would be to try and rob Ingrid Jaschke, anywhere beyond the airline arrival gate.

  Right now four men from the Mossad were combing the main hotels in the mysterious city of Istanbul, utilizing charm, cash, and persuasion, to try and establish whether Miss Jaschke, and/or Mr. Rasheed, were in residence in the city between April 7 and April 13, 2002—these were the nights most likely to have seen the second arrival in the city of Commander Benjamin Adnam.

  The admiral explained to Bill that this was not such a daunting task, since Miss Jaschke was not the kind of woman to shack up in a youth hostel. If she was in Istanbul that night, she would have been in one of the best hotels in the city. It is, after all, against no law to walk around with a couple of big cases full of cash. So long as you own both the cases and their contents.

  The Mossad was also trying to check the airline, but Swissair was apt to be more secretive than even the Swiss banks. However, one Israeli agent thought he could get his hands on the passenger lists out of Istanbul to Switzerland in the first half of April. Safe behind the encrypted technology, Admiral Morgan explained all of this to his Kansas-born field officer.

  “It beats me how those Israeli guys are so efficient,” Admiral Morgan finally growled down the telephone to Bill Baldridge. “I don’t know where they get their information half the time. But every time I talk to the embassy they have advanced the search further. Every time I talk to the CIA we have nothing more than the Mossad is telling us. And there’s twenty-five thousand people on the staff in Langley. Christ knows what they’re all doing.”

  “I guess it’s because the Mossad is so damned small and tightly controlled,” said Bill. “What have they got, twelve hundred people—only thirty-five case officers? What are they called? Katsas?”

  “Yeah. But there’s something more to it, Bill. Israel has a ton of people, all over the place, who are deeply sympathetic to its plight, and its fears. They are a kind of unseen army, numbered in their thousands in almost every country. They are always there to help any Mossad agent. The Israelis call them ‘the sayanim’—and they have vast computerized lists of ’em. That’s how they tap into real information.

  “I guess that’s how they got into Barzan al-Tikriti’s phone line. A Swiss Jew involved in the telephone system in Geneva. A favor from a proud member of the sayanim, for his spiritual home in the Middle East. That’s how it works.”

  “So right now they’re looking for a helpful Turkish Jew in the hotel business in Istanbul,” replied Baldridge. “A guy to see them on the right track, to call a couple of friends, check out those guest registers?”

  “You got it, Billy. That’s how it’s done. Stay close to Rankov. He wants to find that Kilo too. And stay in touch. Call me if you get anything.”

  The phone went dead. Bill was still holding the receiver, as always. “Oh, thank you very much,” he said sarcastically. “It was so nice to talk to you, Admiral Morgan. Have a nice day, rude asshole.”

  Bill showered and changed, gazed out of the window at the soulless spread of Sevastopol. In the near distance he could see the giant cranes of the shipyards. He decided to wander
downstairs, have some coffee, and then go to the bar to meet Admiral Rankov. The coffee was pretty nondescript, and he skimmed through a copy of an English-written Arab newspaper he found on the next seat.

  There was a picture of the wrecked floating dock, jutting out of the water in the harbor of Bandar Abbas, but the caption carried no suggestion of anything more than an accident in the dockyard area.

  Bill signed the check, and decided to play a mild hunch. He knew now that the Kilo had sailed on April 12, which he had not known before he talked to Rankov. And he felt instinctively that if Adnam had been in Sevastopol in the days leading up to that sailing, he had stayed in this hotel. Everyone in the shipping and arms business did. But, unlike the Mossad, he could not spend days trying to get into a Russian hotel guest list for the first part of April. They would never reveal anything. Not here.

  But there was one thing he could do immediately, and he strolled outside to talk to the waiting limousine drivers who inhabit the fore-courts of hotels such as this.

  The first man he spoke to wore a gray uniform. No, he had never had a long distance run to the southern border of Georgia and Turkey. But he thought Tomas did, back in the spring, and Tomas had just arrived back in the forecourt. Bill then sought out Tomas, a thick-set, blond young Russian. Aged around twenty-five. Yes, he did once have such a customer. Back in April. They drove all through the night, stopping only for gasoline. He remembered it well, because it nearly caused him to be divorced. “My wife was not at home so I could not tell her, and the man wanted to leave immediately. So I just went. Made it in fourteen hours—six hundred miles, right down the coast road, through Sochi. He was an Arab gentleman, paid me two and a half thousand American dollars, cash. Best job I ever had.”

  “How come you nearly got divorced?”

  “I forgot it was her birthday. We were going out to celebrate with friends. It was awful, I phone her from Batumi. She says she never speak to me again. Slammed down the phone. I drive all the way back not knowing if I’m still married. If I had not agreed to share the money with her, I would not be still married.”

  “Do you recall the name of the man?”

  “No, he never told me that. He hardly spoke.”

  “Do you recall what he looked like?”

  “Not really. He was an Arab. Dark-skinned, tight black hair. Not very tall, about my height. But well built, muscular.”

  Bill reached into his pocket for his wallet, took out the grainy, fax machine photograph of Benjamin Adnam in Arab dress—the one they had taken in the Israeli search room at the Allenby Bridge. It was absolutely useless except to the eyes of someone who knew Adnam well. But Bill held out hope for the Russian driver.

  “Could this have been him?” he said, handing the photograph to Tomas.

  “Well, it could have been,” he replied. “But the man I took to the border was not wearing a headdress. I cannot really tell from this. It was night, and I hardly saw his face. He rode in the backseat. This photograph could be any one of fifty Arabs I have driven for. I could not say this was the man I drove to Georgia. But then, I probably wouldn’t recognize him if he was standing here right now.”

  “Where did you leave him when you arrived in Georgia?” asked Bill.

  “In the town. There was another car there to pick him up, and take him on. I think he was going to Turkey but I could not tell whether by road, or on the hydrofoil to Trabzon. I have never seen him since.”

  “Thanks, Tomas,” said Bill, pressing a ten-dollar note into the driver’s hand. “By the way, when’s your wife’s birthday?”

  “I never forget that again. April 11.”

  The time was now 1858 and Bill Baldridge wished the driver good evening and walked back into the hotel to find the bar. He was mildly surprised to find the admiral already there. His Russian uniform cap was on the seat beside him, and the admiral was sipping a glass of gorilka z pertsem, vodka with a small red pepper floating in it. The vodka was a special Ukrainian variant, and Bill, wary of his last run-in with foreign liquor, settled for a scotch and club soda, which was not so elegant in flavor as that at Inveraray Court

  .

  Admiral Rankov was enjoying his drink, taking steady gulps as they talked. Bill half-expected him to hurl the glass over his shoulder in some kind of crazed Cossack ceremony. But before he could, a bell captain came over to announce a phone call for the admiral.

  When he returned, Vitaly Rankov’s big, handsome face was grave. “This is trouble,” he said. “I can sense it. That was young Sapronov. The KGB observers’ daily report says Mrs. Kokoshin’s children did not attend school today. And they were not there yesterday either. They want to know what to do. The school knows nothing, except they are absent.”

  “I know what I’d do,” said Bill. “I’d get round to her apartment real quick. And I would not alert the entire secret police force of the Ukraine either.”

  “You mean now?”

  “Hell, yes. You got the address?”

  “Sure I have.”

  “Then let’s go. I might be able to help.”

  “This is a bit irregular, conducting a search of a Russian officer’s premises in the company of an American Naval officer.”

  “Do you want to be in partnership with the USA in the search for the boat?”

  “I not only want to be, I am instructed by the Kremlin to work with you all the way.”

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here and see what shakes with Mrs. Kokoshin.”

  The admiral signed the check, and they headed out to the car. Rankov gave the new driver the address, and told him also to step on it.

  The Kokoshin family lived only ten minutes away. Their apartment building stood about ten stories high. There were glass swing-doors, but no doorman on duty. The captain’s family lived on the eighth floor, number 824, and Bill stood aside while the admiral rang the bell twice. They could see there were lights on in the apartment, and they could hear a radio or a television in the background.

  No one answered. Rankov hit the bell again, this time three rings. They waited but no one came. “Maybe she just went to see a neighbor,” said the admiral.

  “Why don’t we check?” said Bill. They walked along to number 826 on the same side of the central corridor. The admiral rang the bell, and again there was no reply.

  “Let’s have a shot at 822,” said Bill. And there they were more fortunate. The woman who answered the door did know Mrs. Kokoshin. She had not been home all day, nor was she home yesterday when her own children had come from school and tried to find the Kokoshin boys.

  She suggested the admiral try the lady on the opposite side of the corridor, number 827, who was a good friend of Natalya Kokoshin and might even know where she was. “Sometimes she goes to see her mother, who lives about forty-five minutes from here—little place called Bachcisaraj.”

  The bell didn’t work and they knocked on the door. Another Ukrainian housewife answered, and was unable to offer much help. “I have not seen her for two days, which is unusual,” she said. “She was late home the day before yesterday, because her boys called here for the key. She arrived at about five o’clock and returned the key. I haven’t seen her since.”

  “Do you still have the key?” asked the admiral.

  “Yes, I do, but I don’t think it would be right for you to borrow it.”

  “I assure you it would,” boomed Rankov. “I was her husband’s boss, and my business is very urgent indeed.”

  The neighbor fled from the wrath of the gigantic uniformed Intelligence officer, and returned with the key a moment later.

  The admiral thanked her profusely, bowed low, and waited until she had closed her door. Then he walked quietly over to the home of Natalya Kokoshin and her children. The key turned easily. Rankov pushed open the door. The lights were on, and he could see the television turned on in the living room. The occupants were long gone.

  The place was tidy. But hollow. There was nothing in any bedroom cupboard, the drawers w
ere empty. It was obvious the clothes had been taken, along with shoes and coats. But all the furniture was in place and the kitchen was untouched. The windows were closed and locked. The Kokoshins, observed Bill, were history.

  “Do we go back and grill the neighbor opposite?” asked Rankov.

  “Hell, no,” replied Bill Baldridge. “That would be like taking out a half-page ad in the Ukraine Times, or whatever it is. Since we now know what has happened, I think we should turn off the television, close the drawers, put out the lights, return the key, and leave. Quietly.

  “Then, if I were you, I’d get your KGB guys to check airports, border crossings, the shipping lines, and all the routine stuff we do when we are searching for missing persons.”

  “You’re right. Let’s get back to the hotel. I’ll call Sapronov and put plan in action.”

  “Not that it will do the slightest bit of good,” said the American.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I think that lady is carrying a suitcase full of dollars. And you can cover a lot of trails, a lot of rules, and a lot of miles, with that kind of cash to speed your way. She’s been gone for two days. She could be on the other side of the world by now. She’ll be hard to track down.”