by Tom Clancy
"Did the Minister tell you anything else, Colonel, such as the contents of the shipment?"
"He did not," Rossky said.
"Would you withhold that information from me if Minister Dogin instructed you to do so?"
Rossky glared at his superior. "Not if the information is the business of this Center, sir."
Orlov fell silent as he failed to find the log of his own conversation with Dogin. He looked back at 8:11, which is when he remembered making the entry. The space was blank.
"Is something wrong, sir?" Rossky asked.
Orlov did a word-search of the entire file, just to make sure he hadn't mislogged the entry. Outwardly calm, inwardly he was agitated when Gulfstream did not turn up anywhere.
The General regarded Rossky. The Colonel's expression was relaxed now, which in itself told him something: Rossky had removed the order.
"No," Orlov said, "nothing is wrong. I misplaced a log order. I'll reenter it when we're finished." He sat back, saw a satisfied twist tug on the sides of Rossky's mouth. "I've spent enough time on this matter, and I trust my wishes are clear."
"Quite, sir."
"I want you to inform Minister Dogin of my intentions, and to take over the operation personally. My son respects you, and I'm sure you'll work as well together now as you did in the past."
"Yes, sir," Rossky said. "He's a good officer."
The telephone beeped, and Orlov dismissed the Colonel as he picked up the receiver. Rossky shut the door without a backward glance.
"Yes?" Orlov said.
"Sir, it's Zilash. Would you please come to the radio room?"
"What's wrong?"
"The dish is picking up densely coded communications," Zilash said. "We've sent them over to cryptography, but we've started to wonder if something might be happening before we're able to translate the messages."
"I'm on my way," Orlov said.
He left without bothering to relog the Gulfstream entry, certain that it would only be erased again and angry that a meeting designed to put Rossky in his place merely underscored his growing concern that Dogin and the spetsnaz planned to run the Center with him as a figurehead.
Rossky's words echoed in his mind. "Not if the information is the business of this Center, sir." In the space of just a few hours, the death of an enemy agent and information about the Gulfstream had been kept from him. The Center was one of the most powerful reconnaissance bases in the world: Orlov would not permit Rossky and Dogin to turn it into their own private resource, though he would not do anything just yet. He had learned from his days in space that it was most important to keep his head cool when his seat was heating up to five thousand degrees Fahrenheit— and the pair had not yet come close to raising the temperature that high.
In any case, he still had a facility to run, and neither the Colonel nor a megalomaniac was going to keep him from doing his job.
Orlov sidled into the cramped radio room, which was even thicker with smoke than before. Zilash's narrow face was angled upward, his eyes staring at nothing in particular as he listened on his headset. He removed them after a moment and looked at Orlov.
"Sir," he said around his cigarette, "we've been following two series of coded communications, and we assume they're connected. The first is from Washington to an aircraft over the Atlantic, and the second is to Helsinki." He took two quick puffs, then stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray. "We had the satellite team take a look at the aircraft: it's unmarked, though they make it out to be a C-141B StarLifter."
"Big troop carrier," Orlov said thoughtfully, "a modified version of the C-141A. I know the plane well."
"I thought you might." Zilash smiled, then lit a fresh cigarette. "The StarLifter is on a course toward Helsinki. We listened to communications between the pilot and the tower: he'll be arriving around eleven P.M., local time."
Orlov looked at his watch. "That's less than an hour from now. Any idea who's on board?"
Zilash shook his head. "We tried to listen in on the cockpit with the Svetlana in the North Atlantic, but the captain says there's an electronic field in the plane."
"So it's definitely intelligence," Orlov said, though he wasn't surprised. He thought back to the British operative who had been spying on the Hermitage, and quietly damned Rossky for his handling of the matter. The man should have been watched, not driven to suicide— if indeed he took his own life. "Brief the Ministry of Security in Moscow," Orlov said. "Tell them I need someone in Helsinki to meet the plane and watch to see if the Americans are planning to cross over."
"Yes, sir," said Zilash.
Orlov thanked him, then went to his office and summoned Rossky and Security Director Glinka to talk about which plan to implement in case they had visitors.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Tuesday, 6:08 A.M., Vladivostok
Lenin once said of Vladivostok, "It's a long way away. But it's ours."
Through two World Wars, the port city located on the Muravyev Peninsula on the Sea of Japan was a major entry point for supplies and matériel from the United States and elsewhere. During the Cold War years, the military shut the city off from the world, yet Vladivostok prospered as the port and the Pacific Fleet grew, and both military and commercial shipbuilding brought workers and money into the city. Then, in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev inaugurated the "Vladivostok Initiative," which reopened the city and made it what he called "a wide-open window on the East."
Successive Russian leaders have worked hard to make the city an integral part of trade in the Pacific Rim, but with the new openness have come gangsters from Russia and from around the globe, attracted by hard currency and goods that come into the port both legally and illegally.
The airport in Vladivostok is located nearly nineteen miles to the north of the city. It's an hour ride from the field to the train terminal, which is situated in the heart of Vladivostok, just east of the heavily traveled Ulitsa Oktyabra.
Upon arriving at the airport with his team, Lieutenant Orlov was met by a courier from the Rear Admiral's office. The young messenger handed the officer sealed instructions to call Colonel Rossky for his orders. As snow began to flutter from pale gray skies, Nikita ran to his unit, which was lined up by the bullet nose in front of the Mi-6, the largest helicopter in the world, capable of carrying seventy people up to 652 miles. The troops were dressed in camouflage whites, their hoods down, compact backpacks at their feet. Each man was armed with standard spetsnaz issue: submachine gun and four hundred rounds of ammunition, a knife, six hand grenades, and a P-6 silent pistol. Nikita himself carried an AKR with just 160 rounds of ammunition, the short-barreled submachine gun being standard among officers.
Nikita ordered his radio operator to unpack the parabolic dish. Less than a minute later, he was on a secure uplink to Colonel Rossky.
"Sir," Nikita said, "Lieutenant Orlov calling as ordered."
"Lieutenant," said Rossky, "it's good to hear from you after so many years. I'm looking forward to working with you."
"Thank you, sir. I feel the same way."
"Excellent," Rossky said. "What do you know about your mission Orlov?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Very well. Do you see the Gulfstream on the landing strip?"
Nikita turned to the west, into the flurries, and saw the jet sitting on the tarmac. "Yes, sir."
"Markings?"
"N2692A," Nikita said.
"Correct," said Rossky. "I've asked Rear Admiral Pasenko to send a convoy. Is it there?"
"I see four trucks waiting behind the jet."
"Excellent," said Rossky. "You are to unload the cargo from the jet, put it on the trucks, and meet the train which is waiting at the station in the city. Only the engineer will remain on board: once the cargo has been loaded, you will move the train north. Your tentative destination is Bira, though confirmation will come once you are under way. You are in command of the train, and you are to take whatever measures you deem necessary to see that the cargo reaches its destination."
"I understand, sir, and thank you," Nikita said. He did not ask what the cargo was, nor did it matter. He would treat it as carefully as if it was nuclear warheads, which it could well be. He had heard that the Primorsky region of which the city was a part had designs on becoming politically or economically independent from Russia. This could be a preemptive move by newly elected President Zhanin to disarm the area before that happened.
"You will be in touch with me as you reach each station on the Trans-Siberian route," Rossky said, "but I repeat, Lieutenant: you are to take any and all measures to protect your cargo."
"Understood, sir," Nikita said.
Returning the telephone to the operator, the Lieutenant ordered his men into action. Snatching up their gear, they ran across the field to the Gulfstream, increasingly invisible in the thickening snows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, 11:09 P.M., Moscow
Andrei Volko had never felt so alone or frightened. In Afghanistan, even during the worst of it, there were fellow soldiers with whom to commiserate. When he was first approached by "P" to work for DI6, he felt sick to his stomach at the thought of betraying his country. But he took consolation from the fact that his country had abandoned him after the war, and that he had new friends in Britain and here in Russia— even though he didn't know who they were. No one would benefit, he knew, if he was captured and began rattling off the names of other spies. It was enough to know that he belonged to something, and that knowledge had sustained him in the bitter years when he was forced to deal with the aftermath of a back that had been broken in a dive into a trench.
But the tall, thick-waisted young man had none of that as he approached the terminal. He had been startled during dinner by a beep from the telephone Fields-Hutton had given him. It was hidden inside a Walkman, an item so desirable in Russia that he had an excuse to keep it with him always. His nameless contact had informed him of the death of both Fields-Hutton and another agent, and told him to try and make his way to St. Petersburg within the next twenty-four hours, where he was to await further instructions. As he'd hurriedly dressed, leaving only with the clothes he was wearing, the Walkman, and the U.S. and German currency Fields-Hutton had given him for just such an emergency, Volko no longer felt like he had Britain behind him. Getting to St. Petersburg was going to be lonely and difficult, and even now he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it. He didn't own an automobile, and flying from even one of the smaller airports, like Bykovo, was risky. His name would already be at all the counters, and agents might ask for two pieces of identification instead of the fake one with which he'd been provided. His only chance was to take the train to St. Petersburg.
Fields-Hutton had once told him that if he ever had to leave the city, not to head for the airports or railroad at once. He wasn't as fast as a fax machine. Enthusiasm among clerks tended to wane as lunch or late evening neared. So he'd walked the streets until now, moving as though he had an immediate destination when he had none, mingling with the decreasing number of people heading home from work or from food lines, circuitously making his way from his apartment off Prospekt Vernadskovo through side streets where black market goods were being hawked from car trunks to the nearby Metro station. From there, he rode the crowded train to the Komsomol'skaya Metro stop, with its distinctive six-columned portico, ribbed dome, and majestic spire, in the city's northeast. He walked around for nearly an hour before strolling toward the St. Petersburg Station, which services St. Petersburg, Tallinn, and all points in northern Russia.
The four-hundred-mile railroad that connected Moscow and St. Petersburg was designed by American engineer Lieutenant George Washington Whistler, the father of painter James McNeill Whistler, and constructed by peasants and prisoners who were flogged by railroad personnel and forced to work long hours under often unendurable conditions. Shortly thereafter, in 1851, the Nikolayevskiy Station was constructed. Now known as the St. Petersburg Station, it was the oldest terminal in Moscow and one of three stations situated off busy Komsomol'skaya Square. On the left side of the square was the art nouveau Yaroslavl Station, built in 1904, which is the final stop of the Trans-Siberian Railway. To the right is the Kazan Station, a baroque collection of buildings completed in 1926 from which trains to the Urals, western Siberia, and central Asia departed.
The St. Petersburg Station stood beside the Komsomol'skaya pavilion, just northwest of the Yaroslavl Station. As Volko approached, he used his sleeve to dab perspiration from his high forehead and pushed his longish, dirty-blond hair from his head. Calm, he thought. You have to act calm. He put a big smile on his large, friendly mouth, like a man going off to meet his lover— though he knew the smile wasn't reflected in his eyes. He only hoped no one looked closely enough to notice.
Volko turned his large, sad brown eyes up at the tall, lighted clock tower. It was just after eleven. Trains departed four times a day, starting at eight in the morning and ending at midnight, and Volko's plan was to purchase a ticket for the last train and watch to see if passengers were being stopped by the police. If so, he had two options. One was to engage another passenger in conversation as he headed toward the train, since the police would be watching for someone traveling alone. The other option was to boldly walk up to one of them and ask directions. Fields-Hutton had told him that operatives who skulk in a fast-moving environment only call attention to themselves, and that it was human nature to ignore people who seemed to have nothing to hide.
The lines at the ticket windows were long, even at this hour, and Volko stood in one in the center. He had bought a newspaper and looked at it as he waited without really assimilating anything he read. The line crept along, though Volko, usually an impatient man, did not mind. Every minute he was free gave him more confidence, and also meant that he would have to spend less time as a captive in the train before it departed.
He purchased his ticket without incident, and though police officers were watching people who came and went, and questioned a few men traveling alone, Volko was not stopped.
You're going to make it, he told himself. He passed beneath the ornate arch that led to the track, where the Red Arrow Express was waiting. The ten cars dated back to before the First World War; three were freshly painted a bright red, one green, though that didn't detract from their antique charm. A tour group was standing beside the second car from the rear. Porters had tossed their luggage in a disorderly pile, and militiamen were looking at their passports.
Searching for me, no doubt, Volko thought as he walked right past them. He entered the train one car forward of the tourists and sat in one of the thinly cushioned seats. He realized that he should have brought a suitcase. It would look suspicious for someone to be going to a distant city without at least a change of clothes. He looked around as the car filled up and saw someone pushing several bags into the overhead rack.
He sat under one of them, by the window.
Settling in with his newspaper in his lap and his Walkman in his jacket pocket, Volko finally allowed himself to relax. That was when the cabin went quiet behind him and he felt the cold mouth of a Makarov pistol against the back of his neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Monday, 3:10 P.M., Washington, D.C.
Bob Herbert loved being busy. But not so busy that he felt like wheeling his chair out of Op-Center and not stopping until he hit his hometown— "No, not that Philadelphia" — in Neshoba County not far from the Alabama border. Philadelphia hadn't changed much since he was a kid. He loved going back and reflecting on happier times. They weren't necessarily more innocent times, because he remembered well the chaos that everyone from the Communists to Elvis Presley caused when he was a boy. But they were problems that, for him, went away when he buried himself in a comic book or squirrel gun or behind a fishing pole at the pond.
Now his pager told him that Stephen Viens at the National Reconnaissance Office had something for him to look at, and after cutting short a briefing for Ann Farris, he swung his wheelchair into
his office, shut the door, and called NRO.
"Please tell me you've got photos of the nude swimmin' hole back in Renova," he said into the speakerphone.
"I'm sure the foliage is still covering it up," Viens said. "What I've got is a plane whose heat signature we've been following for DEA. It went from Colombia to Mexico City to Honolulu, then on to Japan and Vladivostok."
"The drug cartels are dealing in Russia," Herbert said. "That isn't news."
"No," said Viens, "but when it landed in Vladivostok, we had a satellite in position to eyeball it. This is the first time I've ever seen a plane being unloaded by spetsnaz troops."
Herbert sat up straight. "How many?"
"Less than a dozen, all in camouflage whites," Viens said. "What's more, the crates were quickly loaded onto trucks from the Pacific Fleet. We may be looking at multi-service drug dealing."
Herbert thought back to the meeting between Shovich, General Kosigan, and Minister Dogin. "It could be more than just the military consortin' with gangsters," he said. "Are the trucks still there?"
"Yes," said Viens. "They're off-loading crates by the dozens. One truck is almost completely full."
"Do the crates look like they're evenly balanced?"
"Perfectly," said Viens. "They're oblong. But both ends seem equally heavy."
"Give a listen with the AIM," Herbert said. "Let me know if there's anything rattling around in there."
"Will do," Viens said.
"And Steve, let me know where the trucks go," Herbert said, signing off and buzzing Mike Rodgers.
Rodgers was out of his office and stopped by when he got the page.
When Herbert was finished briefing him, Rodgers said, "So the Russians are openly consorting with the drug lords. Well, they have to get hard currency from somewhere. I'm just wondering—"
"Excuse me," Herbert said as his phone beeped. He punched the speaker button set in his wheelchair armrest. "Yes?"