by Larry Bond
Well, Ibrahim thought coldly, he had repaid their investment in him a million times over.
He returned his attention to the task at hand. The Radical Islamic Front’s plan to destroy the American undersecretary of state contained a single, troubling flaw — a flaw that would have to be mended before it was put into action.
Ibrahim glanced up from the document in his hands. Massif Lahoud sat across the table, watching him closely.
“Do you approve this venture, Highness?” Lahoud asked carefully.
Ibrahim nodded, then held up a single finger. “On one condition.
The Front must first agree to work with Afriz Sallah. You know this man?”
Lahoud shook his head. Usually it was not wise to admit ignorance in front of the prince, but in matters like this there was always much hidden.
“Sallah is a demolitions expert — one who has handled such matters before, usually in Egypt. And the Front lacks the necessary explosives expertise to carry out this operation on its own. I don’t want Carleton walking away unscathed because they bungled the mission. Tell the Front we will cover their expenses and Sallah’s fee — if they can work effectively with him.”
Ibrahim tore off a piece of paper, wrote an address on it, and showed it to Lahoud. “Contact Sallah at this address and arrange a meeting.
Understand?”
The older man read the address, committed it to memory, and then handed the paper back. “I will attend to it immediately, Highness.”
Ibrahim nodded again. “Good. Hashemi will arrange for your transportation back to Taif.”
The meeting was over.
Ibrahim turned his attention back to his paperwork. He had more important matters to manage.
MAY 26
Crash Investigation Base Camp, Near the Ileksa River
Colonel Peter Thorn left the tent being used as a makeshift morgue more shaken than he’d expected. He wiped off the dab of menthol rub from under his nose and took a deep breath of the fresher air outside. The menthol had helped make the nauseating smells inside the tent bearable — but only by a slim margin.
“Jesus, God,” he muttered, trying to push the grim sights he’d just witnessed to the back of his mind.
“That was a bad one,” agreed a quiet voice from beside his shoulder.
Thorn turned. Helen Gray looked ghostwhite, and so did Koniev. The MVD major was busy dabbing at his mouth with a balled-up handkerchief.
Thorn didn’t blame the younger man for getting sick. He still felt ill himself.
Two teams of Russian doctors were busy in the tent behind them — racing against the clock to positively identify the dead, and to find out what precisely had killed them. They were operating under extremely primitive conditions — forced to conduct autopsies by lamplight on folding tables, with only boiled riverwater at hand to wash off the tables between corpses. There weren’t enough diesel generators available to provide refrigeration yet, so the medical teams were also fighting the rapid decay of the bodies they were trying to examine. Bacteria and other microorganisms were erasing vital physical evidence with every passing hour.
Thorn grimaced. Death was never pretty, but what he’d seen laid out on those autopsy tables was appalling. He sought refuge in routine and turned to Koniev. “So where exactly do we stand, Major? I got lost pretty fast in there. I’m afraid my Russian language skills are limited.”
“Dr. Panichev is fairly confident that he and his subordinates will be able to identify everyone aboard the plane,” the MVD officer replied slowly. “They’ve been able to take fingerprints from most of the bodies recovered so far. They may also need dental records, of course.
I assume you can provide such information for the Americans on the inspection team?”
“Of course.” Helen nodded. The color was just starting to return to her face.
“What about causes of death?” she asked. “My Russian’s a little better than Colonel Thorn’s … but not that much better — especially when it comes to technical terms. And Dr. Panichev is, well. he’s …”
“Cryptic?” Koniev finished for her. He forced a wan smile.
“Plain words are not so impressive to laymen, perhaps. Of course, I suspect the good doctor would even use medical jargon to propose marriage.”
Helen chuckled. “Probably.” She shook her head. “Not like you, I suppose, Alexei?”
“Oh, no.” Koniev’s smile perked up. “I would be extremely eloquent — even poetic.”
Thorn felt faint stirrings of jealousy. Helen and this Russian policeman sometimes seemed entirely too close for his comfort.
Especially when the MVD major’s honesty was still an unknown factor.
Down, boy, Thorn told himself quickly. Helen and Koniev had been assigned together for several months. It was only natural that they would have established a friendly working relationship by now. Still, he had to admit that he would feel far easier in his mind if the MVD officer was not quite so determinedly charming and good-looking.
“In any event, I fear the autopsy results are slim so fan-despite Panichev’s best efforts to dazzle us,” Koniev continued. He shrugged.
“From what I gathered, the predominant cause of death seems to be impact trauma.”
“Oh?” Thorn countered. “What about the burns we’ve noted on every body recovered so far?”
“Mostly postmortem,” the younger man answered.
“And the other injuries we observed?” Helen asked. “The puncture wounds and gouges?”
“Panichev says they appear consistent with a crash. There was a lot of torn metal flying about when the plane hit the trees.”
Koniev frowned. “But the good doctor won’t rule out the possibility that some of them might have been inflicted by shrapnel from a bomb or missile.”
The Russian officer nodded toward the helicopter landing pad — barely visible through the trees. “He’s sent tissue samples to the labs in Moscow so they can be tested for explosive residues. But getting conclusive results will take several days at least.”
Thorn and Helen nodded their understanding. They headed toward a large tent adjacent to the landing pad. Maybe the NTSB and Russia’s Aviation Authority teams had found something new. Maybe.
Pieces of twisted metal and heaps of twisted, fireblackened control and electrical cabling covered the tarp floor inside the tent. The piles of wreckage were scattered in separate sections corresponding to different areas of the aircraft — each marked by painted outlines on the floor and signs in both the Russian and English alphabets.
Technicians wearing gloves and sterile surgical garb crouched beside different pieces of debris — intently examining them and taking detailed notes of their findings. Others stood conferring beside large worktables set up along one wall of the tent.
The tall, gaunt head of the NTSB investigative team, Robert Nielsen, was in one of those small groups. Nielsen turned his head when Thorn and the others came in. He immediately broke away from his colleagues and came over to meet them.
Nielsen looked tired and irritated. The higher-ups in Washington and Moscow were all over the investigation, demanding answers instantly.
Thorn, Helen, and Koniev had been careful not to joggle his elbow, because they understood the difficulties the crash team was operating under. Distant bureaucrats were not as understanding — or as patient.
Still, Thorn and the others needed something, if only a status report.
“Do you have any theories about what went wrong yet?” Helen asked softly.
“Theories, yes. Proof, no.” Nielsen hesitated. “The pilot’s Mayday calls show he lost both props — one right after the other before the plane augered in. So right now we’re looking pretty hard at some kind of catastrophic engine or fuel system failure. That seems the most likely scenario anyway.”
“But you don’t have any hard data that would confirm that?”
Koniev pressed.
Nielsen shook his head wearily. “No, Major, we don
’t.” He pointed to two marked sections on the floor. Both were nearly empty. “That’s where we’re going to reconstruct the engines … when we find them. So far we’ve only recovered twenty to thirty percent of the wreck.”
Thorn cut in with a question of his own — one that had been bothering him ever since he’d read the English-language transcripts of the An-3”-s last radio calls. “What are the odds of something going wrong with both engines like that? Accidentally, I mean?”
Nielsen chewed his lower lip for a moment, plainly reluctant to give them a hard and fast answer. Finally, he said slowly, “If this were an American plane flying from an American airport, I’d tell you the odds against losing both props accidentally were high — very high.”
Then the NTSB chief glanced quickly at Koniev and said quietly, “But a Russian aircraft? With Russian maintenance? Well, that puts us in a whole new ballpark, Colonel. I can’t rule anything out. Not a thing.”
FBI/MVD Evidence Holding Area, Crash Investigation Base Camp
Colonel Peter Thorn slid the contents of yet another black plastic bag out onto a folding table and began carefully sorting through the pile.
Scorched wallets. Broken watches. Torn clothing.
Razors. Other toiletries. Mangled paperback books. They were all personal effects recovered from the crash site — the belongings of the dozen men who had died when the doomed An32 fell out of the sky.
He sighed. Cataloging the victims’ possessions was a necessary and important part of any investigation. But that didn’t make it any easier. It raised too many ghosts. He flipped one of the wallets open and stared down at the happy faces of a man and woman surrounded by four smiling children — three adolescent boys and a much younger girl.
It was a picture of Marv Wright, one of John Avery’s team members, and his family.
Thorn shut the wallet and closed his eyes for an instant. He’d met Wright just before the ex-Navy diver shipped out for Moscow. The man had been eager and willing — ready for a new start, a new adventure.
Now what was left of him was lying on a slab inside the morgue tent … “Peter?”
Thorn looked across the tent to where Helen Gray sat sorting through her own pile of personal effects. “Yes?”
“Can you take a look at these for a second?” She held up a pair of battered leather-bound notebooks.
Thorn was at her side in seconds. He leaned over her shoulder and gently touched the front cover of one of the notebooks. Despite the scorch marks and mud stains, he could still make out the gold embossed seal of O.S.I.A. It was an arms inspection team logbook.
He nodded. “You just hit the jackpot, Helen.”
Helen opened the other logbook, carefully peeling torn and charred pages away from each other. She scanned one page and then another.
Her eyes narrowed.
“What’s up?” Thorn asked, leaning closer.
She showed him a page filled with row after row of eightdigit numbers.
All of them had a check mark beside them. “Are these what I think they are?”
“Bomb identifier codes? Yeah, they are,” Thorn agreed.
“Then what do you make of this?” Helen asked, turning the page.
Thorn stared down at more rows of serial numbers. Again, all were checked off. But this time one of the bomb ID codes was also circled boldly. Why? He looked at Helen. “Whose logbook is this?”
“It belonged to John Avery, Peter.”
Avery.
Thorn frowned. He’d known the inspection team leader for years — long before either of them wound up working for O.S.I.A.
As one of the Special Forces’ top nuclear weapons experts, Avery had briefed Thorn and other Delta Force officers on bomb types, security measures, and effects several times. He remembered the former Green Beret’s absolute precision his almost manic attention to detail. Hell, the man had practically charted his own blood/alcohol ratio over drinks at the Fort Bragg Sport Parachute Club. Why would Avery circle a weapon’s serial number after he’d already checked it off?
Thorn leafed through the second logbook and stopped on the same page.
Again, all the bomb codes were checked off. But none of them were circled. He silently showed it to Helen.
She shook her head in confusion. “What does it mean, Peter?”
“I’m damned if I know, but I’d sure like to find out—”
“Special Agent Gray? Colonel Thorn? I think you need to see this. Immediately!”
Alexei Koniev’s voice broke their concentration.
He sounded strained.
They turned around. The Russian major was on the far side of the tent they’d been assigned as a work space. He’d been going through the larger pieces of luggage recovered so far. Now he stood staring down into an open suitcase.
When they joined him, they could see that Koniev was looking at two clear plastic bags nestled carefully among folded clothes.
Both were full of a white, granular powder. He pulled out a penknife and made a small incision at the top of one of the bags.
The MVD major silently offered the bag he’d sliced open to Helen. She dabbed one finger in the powder and studied it closely.
Her face wrinkled. “Christ, Alexei! I think that’s pure heroin!”
Koniev nodded slowly. “Yes, I think so, too.”
Thorn looked down at the bags and then back up at the Russian policeman. “How much is this stuff worth?”
“Two kilos of heroin? On the street?” Koniev grimaced. “Perhaps six billion rubles. Roughly one million of your American dollars.”
“Whose suitcase is that?” Helen demanded.
Koniev looked as though he’d swallowed poison. “Colonel Anatoly Gasparov,” he said reluctantly. “The chief Russian liaison officer to your O.S.I.A inspection team.”
Helen Gray looked up at Thorn, worry written all over her face. “What do you think, Peter?”
He frowned. “I think our lives just got a whole lot more complicated.”’
CHAPTER THREE
IN TRANSIT
MAY 28
Pechenga, Northern Coast of the Kola Peninsula, Russia (D MINUS 24)
Rolf Ulrich Reichardt glanced out a dirty window toward the harbor below. Pechenga, he thought smugly again, was perfect for his purposes.
Located twenty kilometers from the Norwegian border, the dreary little town lay huddled between inhospitable frozen tundra and the frigid Barents Sea. Its only asset was the sheltered harbor built for Soviet Army units and amphibious ships based there during the Cold War. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, the soldiers left and the ships were either scrapped or left to rot at the, pier. Now the town’s few thousand inhabitants struggled to survive on coastal trade and a meager fishing industry.
With so little activity to distract Pechenga’s harbormaster, Reichardt had his full attention as well as the only other chair in the dingy office overlooking the bay. The German lounged casually in the stiff-backed chair, making himself as comfortable as possible in the squalid circumstances. He had left behind his expensive suits and dressed instead in gray slacks and a navy pullover with a black leather jacket to protect him from the chilly winds that always blew off the Barents.
He checked his watch, a Rolex. Expensive, perhaps, but admirably precise. It was also a name people associated with wealth, and power, and success. So much so that many of those Reichardt dealt with saw only the watch — and never the man.
And that was useful.
Reichardt tugged his sleeve back over the watch. There was still ample time to begin work. With luck, the ship he was here to see loaded would be underway by nightfall — by dinner, he corrected himself. So near the summer solstice and so far north, the sun would not set until almost 11:00 P.M. He glanced out the window again.
Star of the White Sea was a small, bulk freighter, sound in hull and engine, though she’d never win any beauty contests. Her dark gray hull had once been topped by a crisp blue-and white superstructure, but the paint had
long ago succumbed to irregular patches of almost leprous rust and grime. A few men milled about on deck, while others, mostly Reichardt’s own security force, waited on the pier. The only other vessels in sight were a few fishing boats and an international environmental survey ship.
A muffled cough brought his attention back inside the cramped office.
The harbormaster, a stooped, elderly man named Cherga, was still leafing through Reichardt’s papers with evident interest.
Manifests, customs forms, and authorizations from the Russian Ministry of Defense covered his battered wooden desk. All except one had been acquired legitimately, though some had needed slight alterations on names, numbers, and dates. Reichardt’s own credentials identified him as the shipping agent for a company called Arrus Export, Inc. They were also genuine — although they showed his name as Mikhail Peterhof, a White Russian of German extraction.
He waited while Cherga studied each document intently, usually nodding, but sometimes setting a page to one side.
Reichardt hid his impatience. The Russian might be only a small-town bureaucrat, but he nevertheless wielded considerable power. In a country that still thrived on red tape, examining official documents was part procedure, part beloved ritual.
In any event, the German knew paperwork alone would not be sufficient to move his cargo out of the harbor. Whether lumber or refined metal or jet engines, a few palms needed to be greased first. For that reason the papers on Cherga’s desk included a plain envelope containing a wad of dollars and deutsche marks, equivalent to several months’ official salary for the older man. At the current rates of exchange, Russia’s miserably low wages were an open invitation to graft and corruption.
With a small sigh, the harbormaster opened the seal on the envelope.
His fingers riffled quickly through the notes, and he smiled with evident satisfaction. The bribe was big enough to win his cooperation without attracting too much attention.
