by Peter Sasgen
“Mr. Stretzlof, I can explain everything—”
Stretzlof cut Alex off with a vigorous chop of his hand that made his jowls oscillate. “I want to hear Captain Scott’s explanation, not yours, Dr. Thorne.”
“My ‘adventure,’ as you call it,” Scott said, “concerns the murder of an American naval officer—”
“Total conjecture on your part, Captain, isn’t that so?” Stretzlof interrupted. “The official FSB report states that Drummond committed suicide.”
“The FSB report is wrong.”
Stretzlof showed mock surprise. “Is it, now? And I suppose you have ironclad proof to refute the FSB.”
“Yes, I do have some information, and I expect to have more soon. Alex—Dr. Thorne—has assisted in the investigation. I believe Frank may have been murdered because he uncovered information about Chechen terrorist activity in Russia.”
“My, my, you are quite the detective,” Stretzlof said. He put his cola aside. “But General Radford’s orders don’t authorize you to conduct a police investigation.”
“They also don’t authorize you to enlist Alex to help you,” Hoffman added.
“I volunteered, David,” said Alex. “Because I had worked with Admiral Drummond, I thought that any information I had might be helpful to Captain Scott’s investigation.”
“There you go again,” Stretzlof said. “Captain Scott is not here to conduct an investigation. Is that understood?”
Alex said, “Mr. Stretzlof, David, I was very skeptical when Jake told me that he believed Frank was murdered. But I’ve seen evidence—some of it circumstantial, I admit—that challenges the FSB report.
Also, we think—”
“Alex, that’s enough,” Scott said.
“No, let her speak,” Stretzlof said.
“I’m not authorized to reveal what we know, nor is she,” Scott said.
“Really? Aren’t you lucky that you are able to interpret your orders to suit your every whim.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Mr. Stretzlof. I’m not doing any such thing and I’m not playing detective. What I am trying to do is find out why an American was murdered in Russia. If it involves terrorism, it should concern you too.”
Stretzlof’s face turned hard as flint. “Don’t presume to tell me what should or should not concern me. I know something of your background, Captain, and you appear to have a penchant for taking matters into your own hands when the orders you’ve been issued don’t suit.”
“The facts, if you bothered to look at them, may prove your assumptions wrong,” Scott said.
Hoffman cleared his throat. “Alex, Mr. Stretzlof and I have decided that you are to withdraw from further involvement in Captain Scott’s assignment. Is that understood?”
“David, I—”
“Is it?” Hoffman insisted.
She nodded.
“Good. The President arrives in St. Petersburg next Wednesday….”
“I know the President’s schedule, David.”
“Then you also know we still have a lot to do to get ready.”
“And I’m doing it,” Alex said, not hiding her annoyance and embarrassment at being treated like a glorified secretary.
“Don’t take it out on Alex,” Scott said to Hoffman. “I drafted her to work with me on this investigation and she’s done a great job.”
“I told you, Scott, she works for DOE, not the U.S. Navy.”
Stretzlof raised a hand. “And how far have you gotten with this ‘investigation’?” he asked drily.
“I plan to report my findings to General Radford this evening.”
“Yes, do that,” Stretzlof said. He opened a file folder and took out a message flimsy, which he slid across the table to Scott. “This is from General Radford. You’ll note that I am also an addressee.”
Scott took a quick look at the message and said, “Thank you.”
Stretzlof stood. “Until General Radford either countermands your present orders or modifies them in some way, and as long as you are in country, you will cease making further inquiries into Admiral Drummond’s suicide. For the record, I will report this conversation to the ambassador.”
They were all standing. “For the record,” Scott said, “I will report this conversation to General Radford.”
“Good day,” said Stretzlof, departing.
Hoffman said to Alex on his way out, “There’s a staff meeting at four.”
Alone with Scott in the safe room, Alex said, “I’m sorry. Stretzlof could use a good kick in the balls.
David too.”
Scott wasn’t paying attention, so she sidled up to him and said, “What does General Radford want?”
Scott showed her the message flimsy. It said, REPORT AT ONCE.
There was a knock on the door. “May I come in?”
“We’re supposed to stay away from each other,” Scott said.
Alex entered Drummond’s apartment. She had on the down-filled vest, a silk shirt, jeans, and sneakers.
Her hair looked freshly washed and she smelled good. “Professionally, not socially. Anyway, what I do on my own time is none of Viktor’s or David’s business.”
“How’d the staff meeting go?” Scott said.
“Boring. I thought I’d find you here. What are you doing?”
“I’ve finished packing Frank’s things.” Scott pointed to several boxes sealed with special tamperproof tape sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room. There were also two zippered garment bags filled with Drummond’s uniforms and civilian clothes, and a big battered aluminum suitcase. He kicked one of the boxes. “Files.”
Alex looked around the apartment. “It’s like Frank was never here.”
“That’s how Stretzlof wants it.”
“Did you talk to General Radford?”
“When I’m good and ready.”
“Won’t that make things worse?”
Scott snorted. “What can he do? Order me back to the States without Frank’s body?”
Alex hugged herself. “Have you made final arrangements?”
“The paperwork is all filled out.” He pointed to it on the coffee table. “I’ll give it to Abakov tomorrow.
He’s involved with the investigation into the two shootings, the one in St. Petersburg and the one in Murmansk.” He stopped being busy and looked at her.
She met his gaze but said nothing.
“Care for a drink?” he asked. “I saw a bottle around here somewhere.”
“Sure.” She removed her down vest and hung it over a chair.
They sat on the sofa and drank iced vodka. Alex put her feet up on the coffee table, careful to avoid the paperwork for Abakov. “When you leave Russia, will you go back to your submarine?”
“That’s up to Radford,” Scott said.
“He’s not your commanding officer.”
“He is now. He’ll have a lot to say about what happens to me after this stint in Moscow. I have a feeling he’s not going to be happy with the fact that I—what was it Stretzlof said? ‘Expanded my warrant.’
How fucking quaint.”
Alex hesitated but after reflecting, said, “What did Stretzlof mean when he said he knew about your background, about you taking matters into your own hands? Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“He was referring to something I was involved in a while back. I had some problems.”
“In other words, you don’t want to talk about it.”
Scott, hunched on the edge of the sofa, said nothing.
“I’m sorry.” She came upright and put her glass on the table. “Maybe I should go.”
He looked back at her. “No. Don’t go.” He reached for her arm to stop her.
She sat back, turning slightly so she could look at him.
Scott flopped against the cushions. “It was a special-ops mission. We almost lost some men; orders got fouled up. I did something I wasn’t supposed to do and it’s followed me wherever I go. Even to Moscow.”
Part of hi
s past had hurtled out of a dark place and he wasn’t sure how it had happened. Her silence made him hesitate to say any more about it.
He felt her warmth against him and felt the familiar sting of desire. He tried to concentrate on reality, not fantasy, but she had aroused feelings that he thought were buried for good after Tracy had left. He regretted his earlier clumsy attempt to discover how reachable Alex was. It wasn’t supposed to happen, she had said. But God, he had wanted it to.
He felt her gaze on him. “Alex, today when I—”
She put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything.”
Scott drew her head down and they kissed. Her mouth was soft and moist the way he remembered. He moved to her throat, the pit of her neck, her stomach under the open silk shirt, and ran his hands over warm, soft skin.
Alex moved to unzip her jeans. Instead, Scott took his mouth from one of her exquisitely shaped breasts and led her into the bedroom. His body ached while they stood caressing. They parted and Scott quickly shed his clothes. Alex wiggled out of her things and crawled onto the bed. They knelt naked, facing each other, exploring with their hands, enveloped by the heat of it. Slowly they sank into each other, Alex pulling Scott down to feel his mouth between her legs, his tongue in her blond triangle of pubic hair. She closed her eyes and moaned softly, then, gulping air, biting her lip, arched against his mouth and came so quickly, so explosively, that it caught Scott by surprise.
He didn’t stop until she cried, “Do it! Now!” Scott, on the verge of losing control, was barely able to pull away in time to enter her and, driving deeply, empty himself before she climaxed again.
They did it again, slower this time; then, exhausted and cooling down, they lay intertwined on the narrow bed. “I didn’t mean to complicate things,” Alex said.
“Complicate things how?” Scott said. Eyes closed, he let his hand drift lazily over the silky curve of Alex’s hip. He felt overwhelmingly contented and didn’t want the moment to end. There was no one waiting for him in the States, and at that moment Tracy had never existed.
“I had an affair with David,” Alex was saying, “but ended it before you arrived. He’s not handled it well and he’s made things uncomfortable for me.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“And you’re right, he’s jealous of you.”
“Tell him not to be. I won’t be around much longer.” Scott kissed her, then sat up and swung his legs out of bed.
Alex came up behind him. He felt her cheek against his back, her breath on his skin. “This was wonderful. Don’t be angry.”
“I’m not angry, I’m confused.”
“Over what?”
“Everything.”
“That’s understandable. There’s so much we don’t know.”
“Well, we know that Zakayev, Drummond, and Rad ford are connected somehow.”
“Are you disappointed that Frank was working for Radford?”
“Frank was just doing a job. He probably didn’t know what he was involved in. They never tell you.”
“But why send Frank? Did he know Zakayev?”
“I’ve thought about that. It’s possible that it may go back a long way, when Frank was in Afghanistan.”
“What do you mean?”
“A lot of it is rumor, but there may be some truth in it. There always is. Frank was damn good at planning and executing special sub ops. From there he moved on to planning special ops against the Taliban and al-Qaeda on the ground in Afghanistan. There were Chechen forces in Afghanistan, and apparently we arranged for them to feed us intelligence in return for our help in Chechnya against the Russians.”
“Good God, you mean we were helping the Chechens fight the Russians? Why would we do that?”
“To keep the Russians focused on the fight against terrorism, which would justify U.S. incursions into Iran and Syria. Look, it’s complicated and I only know what I told you. But it doesn’t take much imagination to figure that we may have had some SRO special-ops types around Grozny, coaching the rebels.”
“Would they have coached Zakayev?”
“It’s possible,” Scott said. “At this point in time anything is possible.”
“Do the Russians know this?”
“If they did, it would blow Radford—hell, maybe even the President—right out of Washington.
Especially in light of Zakayev’s attack on Moscow last month.”
“In other words, Zakayev’s our creation.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“But we know that Radford sent Frank to Russia to find Zakayev. Maybe to head him off before he launched another terrorist attack.”
“Maybe. Anyway, it’s too late now for me to find out what Frank knew that got him killed. I’m out of here day after tomorrow.”
“Maybe I can help you,” Alex said, and kissed Scott’s neck.
He turned into her. “How?”
“Maybe I can uncover information that will complete the puzzle.”
“How can you do that?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but I have friends here who have access to other friends. It’s a long shot, I know, but still…”
“Too risky. And even if you found something, what would you do with it—send me a letter, call me at home?”
“I can do better than that: I can leave a voice memo in my secure memo file and give you the code to access it.”
“Secure memo file? What the hell’s that?”
“It’s part of the embassy voice mail system. We all have them. You call your telephone number, enter a COMSEC code, and after the prompt dial a six-digit, three-letter access code. This gets you into the memo file, then you leave a message.”
“And it’s totally secure?”
“Totally. It’s a place to park important messages. Later you can download them to the comm center onto a CD-ROM or print them out for file. I used my memo system all the time when we were in Olenya Bay. It saves time; you don’t have to sit down and type out a report or memo on a computer. If you don’t need the memo, you dump it or keep it and edit it. You can access the memo file from any phone in the world. We used our special cell phones because they’re compatible with the comm center’s scramblers.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“It didn’t seem important.”
Scott exhaled heavily. “Did Frank have a memo system?”
“He must have. We all have them.”
“Did he use it in Olenya Bay?”
“I don’t know, I suppose he did…. Oh my God, I see what you’re getting at: Frank may have left information on his memo file about the meeting with Radchenko.”
Scott saw that her skin had gone all goose bumpy. “Put something on. We’ve got work to do.”
Scott dialed the COMSEC code Alex said would activate the memo system.
“You have requested access to a secure communications system of the United States Embassy,” said the recorded female voice. “To access the system, please enter your six-digit access code, then wait for the prompt to enter your three-letter confirmation code.”
“Okay, we know Frank had a memo file,” Scott said. “Now what?”
“We could ask Jack Slaughter for the access code,” Alex said.
“Forget it: Stretzlof would find out and know what we’re up to. We’ll have to find the code ourselves.
Maybe among Frank’s things.”
“If it is, it’d be on a plastic card,” Alex said. “One smaller than a credit card.”
Scott cut open one of the sealed boxes containing Drummond’s papers and started pawing through them while Alex cut open another box.
“I just thought of something,” she said. “Those cards are self-destructing. They fade after six weeks and you can’t read them.”
“Frank was here for, what, six months?” Scott said.
“Close to it. Damn.”
Scott knew Frank was never careless when it came to security and wouldn’t write the code on a piece of
paper and carry it on him. He’d have committed the number to memory. But memory can be tricky, and important things are sometimes forgotten. So he’d have a backup in case he needed it. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t need a backup.
“Can people customize their memo codes?” Scott said.
“Sure: I did, but they warn you not to use anything obvious, like birthdays and anniversaries. Why?”
“Let’s try something,” Scott said.
“If you’re thinking of using different number and letter combinations, good luck. We tried that on Frank’s computer and it didn’t work, remember?”
Scott picked up the receiver and held it away from his ear so Alex could listen in while he accessed the memo system.
The recorded female voice said, “…please enter your six-digit access code, then wait for the prompt to enter your three-letter confirmation code.”
“What are you going to enter?” Alex said.
“The hull numbers of the two submarines Frank commanded: 767 and 778.”
“The what?”
“I’ll explain it later.” Scott keyed the numbers; a tone sounded, then the voice. “Please enter your three-letter confirmation code.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He shushed her and punched in SSN.
Another tone, then: “Access permitted. You have accessed Level One Memo Security. Observe all procedures required for the recording, hearing, and printing of memo documents. When finished, enter J-Star to print documents. Enter T-Star to hear a recorded memo in date order. Enter X-Star to initiate deletion and destruction procedures. Warning: Deletion and destruction procedures cannot be reversed after initiation!”
Scott entered T-Star. A tick later Drummond’s voice with a burst overlay from the armored cell phone came through the receiver like a jolt of electricity.
“Record to memo at twenty hundred hours on four October oh-six…confirming meeting with one Andre Radchenko able seaman assigned to Russian Northern Fleet submarine K-363 …at Novy Polyarnyy Hotel in Murmansk….”
The words rushed over Scott, their force almost palpable.
“…Radchenko has information that I believe is genuine…. Chechen terrorists under command of General Alikhan Zakayev…repeat, Alikhan Zakayev…”
Alex’s hand flew to her mouth.