Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers

by William Brown

  Alone again, Ruchenko’s plastic smile sagged at the corners. He slammed his fist on the table and knew this was would be a very bad trip; it would be his ruin.

  On the Brunnhilde, it took most of that morning and afternoon to unpack the heavy wooden crates lying in the forward cargo hold and begin assembling their equipment. Slowly, Michael got to his feet and stretched, trying to work the knots and kinks out of his back and legs. The pain aside, ever since the airplane landed in Sweden he had felt a growing uneasiness. He hadn’t been completely honest with Einar. He owed the old man everything and he deserved better, but Michael knew Person knew the score. Michael had told him about 1945, the U-boat, and Bruckner before he left; but Einar didn’t know about the gold bars, the ‘Admiral’, or the killer in the blue van in New York. Both Manny and Yuri Chorev had advised caution. “From what you say, he is a very honest and honorable man, Michael, so don’t tell him what he doesn’t need to know, not yet.” So, he didn’t, and the moment had passed. All he could do now was throw himself into the work and push the guilt back into the corner.

  Schiff needed help with the diving platform, so Michael got down on his knees and helped him bolt the long aluminum tubes together. When it was fully assembled, carrying a depth finder, magnetometer, and a bulky array of lights and cameras attached, they would lower the platform over the side, and the whaler would drag it back and forth over the search grids. “The depth finder is state-of-the-art and can give us a pretty good profile of the sea bed, shooting straight down or shooting out on a diagonal,” Yuri Chorev told him. “A U-boat will make a big bump down there, with a fairly distinct height, length, and width. Even if it’s in pieces, we’ll see something; then we can maneuver the platform closer. If it’s made of steel, the magnetometer will sound off in the wheelhouse with a loud buzzing. Then we can power-up the underwater spotlights and the closed-circuit TV camera and take a look. In theory, it should all work.”

  “I’ve used equipment like this in the Mediterranean for the past few years,” Schiff added. “But the Baltic is a little different. It’s a shallow basin of cold, murky water. It averages less than one hundred twenty-five feet deep; but there are deep holes and trenches, big granite blocks, beds of loose rock, and geologic faults that score the seabed like the grooves on a phonograph record. Even the water poses problems. It is a layer cake of different densities, salinities, and temperatures, any one of which could throw the sonar off. So it is easy to miss something big down there, even something really big like a U-boat.”

  Michael knew it was a long shot from the beginning, but the thought of going over it and missing it was unthinkable. Finding the U-582 was the only thing that would vindicate him and the real Eric Bruckner; and that was the only reason he came.

  The sun was finally below the horizon when Manny Eismer checked his watch and slipped unnoticed down the wheelhouse stairs. It stayed light at this latitude until very late at night, so he had to wait longer than he wanted. Below deck, he paused at his own cabin door to listen for any unusual sounds up on deck or back in the hold, making sure no one was out and about, or following him. He heard nothing. Everything seemed peaceful and quiet as he opened his cabin door and slipped inside, locking it behind him. It was nearly 11:00 PM. Manny was alone now and he had important things to do.

  Reaching beneath his bunk, he found the handle of a small metal suitcase and pulled it out. There was a combination lock on the hasp and his fingers quickly spun the dial through a set of numbers until the lock opened, and he raised the top. In the bottom, under a thick layer of sweaters, slacks, and underwear, lay five Beretta automatics. A Beretta wasn’t heavy artillery, but with a bit of practice and patience it could be an accurate and nasty little piece for close-in work. More importantly, it could slip easily into a pants pocket or a waistband. If they needed more firepower than a thirty-two offered, then they were in bigger trouble than they could handle anyway. One was for him. One was for Yuri Chorev and another for Schiff. They were in the military or active reserves, depending upon which story he chose to believe, and they would know how to use it if they had to. One was for Randall. If his story was true, he had the motivation to use one; and that was half the battle. Finally, he had one for Leslie, whether she wanted it or not. Manny slipped a full clip into the receiver of each.

  He had told them he would distribute them later that evening after it got dark. Leslie was the only one who complained. “Manny, if a flock of geese come over the boat and you give me a shotgun, we’ll have goose for dinner; but I’d probably shoot myself in the foot with one of these.”

  “You keep it handy anyway, Cutie Pie.”

  “Manny’s right,” Michael offered. “You’re the easiest target and that makes you the most vulnerable.”

  “Look, if they want to kill me, this won’t stop them.”

  “It isn’t them trying to kill you that bothers me. They’ll be trying to grab you, like they tried to grab me," Michael told her. “That makes you a liability for all of us; so, take the gun.”

  Farther down the corridor, another man stood just inside his own cabin, his ear to the door, listening to the muffled sounds as the fat New York cop shuffled around his cabin. The walls were thick and the sounds little more than faint scratchings, but that did not matter. He already knew about the automatics in the suitcase, and they did not matter either. A sneer curled around the edges of his mouth as he thought about it. No, they did not matter at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In the far northern latitudes, the sun never sinks far below the horizon in summer. Even at 2:00 AM, the night sky over Trelleborg was a dim twilight. Aboard the Brunnhilde, a wiry little man in rubber-soled shoes crept silently out of his cabin and up the staircase into the wheelhouse. Like a ferret on the prowl, his eyes shifted and darted nervously from side to side as he listened for any sound. Was someone watching? Was someone following him? He sniffed and strained to hear, but there was nothing there but the soft creaks and groans of an old boat shifting at her moorings.

  Finally satisfied, Lindstromm stepped out on deck. His rubber-soled shoes made no sound on the oak planks as he crept toward the bow, intent on putting as much distance as he could between himself and the wheelhouse. When he reached the forward cargo boom, he knelt down in the shadows and pulled a small radio transmitter from his jacket. He extended its telescoping antenna and glanced at his wristwatch. He was four minutes late. Damn! The Russians would mark him down for that. But he was the one taking all the risks, not them. Let the MVD swim over here and try it themselves if they think sneaking around and spying on this old whaler was so damned easy.

  Quickly, he unfolded the sheet of paper where he had written out the coded message. He pressed his finger to the red button on the transmitter and began tapping it out in Morse Code. It would be short and sweet, but he hadn’t practiced sending code in many months. They damned well better be listening, and they damned well better get it straight the first time, too, because Lindstromm was not doing it twice.

  Fifteen miles south and over the line in international waters, the fishing trawler cut lazy figure eights across the Baltic’s unusually calm surface, leaving only a soft, phosphorescent wake to mark its passage. Inside the signal room, things were anything but calm. Two nervous radio operators sat on the edges of their stools, adjusting and readjusting the dials of their powerful receivers, straining to hear the one sound that would satisfy the maniac Colonel from Moscow who was pacing the floor behind them. He had been expecting a radio message precisely at the top of the hour, but that didn’t happen. Nothing. The frequency had been dead silent for the past four minutes. Finally, one of the radio operators fine-tuned the dial and began to write. “Here! I have him now," he whispered with a sigh of relief, quickly transcribing the brief message, not daring to miss a single dot or dash.

  Varentsov loomed over the radioman’s shoulder, his fingers twitching, ready to rip the sheet off the cipher pad, but he managed to hold back, waiting until the man finish
ed. He pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, shook one out, and lit it from the butt of the half-smoked one he still held in his other hand, shaking so badly he knocked the red-hot ash into his palm. “Damn!” he cursed as he brushed it away.

  Ruchenko stood in the doorway, watching this Moscow big shot sweat and slowly fall to pieces. “Smoking isn’t good for your health, Comrade Colonel.”

  “And your mouth isn’t good for yours, Ruchenko!” Varentsov fired back with a look of withering contempt. Even in his manic state, Varentsov realized he would need this trawler captain’s cooperation later; so it wasn’t smart to alienate the man completely. While he and Ruchenko both worked for the Ministry, they worked for different Directorates that hated each other. If Varentsov bitched about Ruchenko to his superiors, they would probably pat Ruchenko on the back for tweaking the nose of this arrogant shit from the First Directorate and tell him to screw things up even worse for him.

  Instead, Varentsov took out his anger on the radio operator who had finally finished writing out the message. “The paper! Give it to me, you fool!” He tore it from the man’s fingers and quickly scanned it, devouring every word, searching for any subtlety or nuance. Not that Varentsov had much riding on the outcome — only his life. The gut-wrenching truth was that he was now totally dependent on idiots like these: an over-the-hill trawler captain, two teenaged radio operators, his paid Swedish spy, and a Navy Special Forces diving team. The Speznaz were crack, but the others were untrustworthy by definition. What a pickle he had put himself in. However, if they could not save his ass, then he would make sure they all fried in hell right next to him.

  “Good news, Comrade Colonel?” Ruchenko dared ask.

  “Perhaps,” Varentsov mumbled, lost in his own thoughts. “My agent is on board the whaler now. He says there are five of them plus the Captain and the Mate, all highly trained enemy intelligence operatives and extremely dangerous. The ship’s hold is full of top-secret electronic equipment and diving gear, and they are setting it all up in the forward hold. He says they are CIA and Mossad, even the woman, no doubt about it.”

  Ruchenko watched Varentsov’s face — the sweat, the nervous twitches, the blood-shot eyes. He was a rude, arrogant lout, but he must be under incredible pressure. Clearly, he was coming apart at the seams; the man would be lucky to last out the week before he had a complete breakdown. “With equipment like that, it looks to me like those people are searching for something,” Ruchenko offered.

  “Obviously! That is why we must stop them.”

  “Do you know what are they looking for, Comrade Colonel?”

  “An old Nazi U-boat.”

  “An old U-boat? Surely you are jesting.”

  “Do not aggravate me, Ruchenko!” Varentsov turned on him with a withering stare.

  “That was not my intent, Comrade Colonel.” The Captain realized his mistake and quickly retreated. “But we are very close to Swedish territorial waters. Sooner or later the Swedish Navy will want to know why, and my standing orders are not to risk…”

  “Your standing orders mean nothing to me. If I tell you to stand your boat on its nose, you will do precisely what I tell you. Do you understand me?”

  Ruchenko held his tongue. This First Directorate Colonel was sliding down the long razor blade of failure, lashing out at anything that got in his way, and that made him a very dangerous man to be around.

  Varentsov grabbed the cipher pad from the table and jotted down a few brief words. He threw the pad in front of the radio operator. "Here. Send this back to Lindstromm," he ordered. Tell him I want a report from him every eight hours. Send it!” As the operator began tapping out the message, Varentsov’s knees buckled. He grabbed onto the radioman’s chair or he would have fallen face-first on the floor. He felt dizzy, light-headed. How long had it been since that disastrous meeting with Serov? Four days? Perhaps five, and all without a hot meal or a minute’s sleep. Too many pills, too many cigarettes, and too much vodka.

  Varentsov tried to regain control, forcing himself upright. “I want Lindstromm’s frequency monitored at all times… at all times, do you hear me?” He blinked, trying to stop the room from spinning. Then he turned and stumbled out the door.

  Ruchenko watched him leave and laid a reassuring hand on the radio operator’s shoulder. “Do what he says, Petrov. That man is like a big pine tree in the forest. He sees the lumberjacks headed his way, and there is nothing he can do to stop them, nothing. I just hope when the big bastard comes crashing down, that we are not underneath him.”

  Lindstromm was terrified. He hurried to get the message out, and then he had to sit in agony and wait for a reply. “Come on, come on, you bastards!” he whispered as he tried to melt into the shadow behind the mast. Finally, he heard the dots and dashes and quickly wrote them down. Report every eight hours? He groaned. He got to his feet and quickly looked around the deck. It was still dead quiet, no sign that anyone knew he was there. Operating alone like this with no back-up made it even more dangerous.

  As he glanced around the deck one last time, he noticed that the cover to the foredeck hatch had not been completely closed. It was only open a few feet, but that was all he would need. That was where their equipment was, and the open hatch drew his interest like a fistful of cash. The Russians on the trawler told Lindstromm to get a good look at the equipment in the hold, and this might be the very break he had been hoping for. In the afternoon, he tried to work his way inside the hold, until that damned American woman caught him. Lindstromm had smiled and put on his most polite and friendly act, but she sent him packing with a good tongue-lashing.

  “Here,” he had said, as he stepped closer to help her lift an air tank. “Let a man try.” Lindstromm had to admit he was leering at her legs, but what harm was there in that?

  “I thought the Captain told you to stay out of the hold,” she turned on him with the hard, knowing eyes of a prosecutor.

  “Well…” Lindstromm grinned and tried to sound coy, wondering what it was she was hiding down here.

  “Then get your butt out of here,” she ordered, with no smile, no thanks, no nothing. That smart-mouthed blonde bitch! He had a little man’s hatred of being pushed around, and her day would come, he promised himself.

  So when he found the forward cargo hatch sitting open like that, it was too much of a temptation to let pass. He crept to the edge of the hold and looked down, wondering what secrets lay below, but it was too dark to see to the bottom. Next to his hand, he saw rungs set in the bulkhead, beckoning him to go down. How convenient, he thought as he cast a final nervous glance around the deck. Why not? It was the middle of the night. The deck was empty and everyone was asleep. Even if they caught him, what was the worst they could do? Fire him? For being in the hold of a ship he was working on? He was not breaking any laws. Lindstromm dropped his legs over the side of the hatch and scrambled down the rungs into the dark hold below.

  But Lindstromm was wrong. The deck was not empty and he was not alone. A pair of dark eyes had been watching him from the shadows at the far side of the wheelhouse the entire time he had been on deck. They had been watching every move the little weasel made, and they belonged to Manny Eismer.

  Manny Eismer had not slept well. He never did in a strange bed, particularly one that rocked back and forth with that freakin’ up-and-down-and-sideways stuff. Half awake, a little awake, mostly awake, whatever; Manny snapped wide-awake when he heard the first creak on the staircase outside his cabin door. An old tub like this was filled with strange sounds, but this was different. It was the kind of sneaky sound somebody makes when they’re trying too damned hard not to make any; and that was a dead bang giveaway.

  As quietly as the big man could, he rolled off his bunk and crept to the cabin door, opening it in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of someone disappearing up the stairs into the wheelhouse. Was it Balck? Manny couldn’t tell, but it was worth his trouble to find out. Tucking his Beretta inside the ample waistband of his bl
ue-striped boxer shorts, he stepped out the door and slowly followed the shadowy figure up the stairs, moving only when the other man moved. When he heard the feet leave the wheelhouse and move away from him toward the bow, he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the wheelhouse. In the dim half-light outside, Manny saw someone hiding behind the cargo boom with a small radio transmitter in his hand. To Manny’s surprise, it was not Balck. It was that scrawny deck hand, Lindstromm. He should have known. Like most fat people, Manny could never trust a skinny man. After all, how could you trust somebody who had to be hungry all the time, who didn’t know how to have a good time, and who had nothing to feel guilty about?

  When the Swede completed his message and slipped the radio inside his shirt, Manny figured he would hang back in the wheelhouse and grab the little shit when he came inside. That posed the least amount of risk and it would give him Lindstromm’s radio intact. Once he had it, he could find out what the Swede knew and who he was working for. With a gun and a size-thirteen fist, handling the skinny deckhand should not be very hard.

  But Lindstromm fooled him. When the Swede finally stepped out from behind the cargo boom, he headed for the foredeck hatch, not back to the wheelhouse. That ruined Manny’s plan. When Lindstromm compounded the problem by slipping over the edge and disappearing down into the hold, Manny knew he had to do something quick. With all the delicate dive equipment lying exposed down there — the regulators, tanks, sonar, and magnetometer — the little shit could cause some serious damage, so Manny headed for the hatch to stop him. He expected Lindstromm to have a knife or even a gun, so he knew to be careful. He would get the drop on the skinny Swede or cold-cock him right from the start, but he knew he had to stop him before it was too late.