by Larry Bond
Working swiftly, the young Palestinian guest worker detached a small controller from the piece of wire hanging out of an electrical conduit inspection plate. He concealed the controller in his pocket. Next, he tugged on the wire — pulling it out through the conduit. Since the wire had only been attached to the bomb’s trigger mechanism, it came out easily. If it had hung up on the wreckage, Iyad had come prepared to cut it off and conceal it in place. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary.
Instead, the Palestinian simply reeled the wire in — all twenty meters of it — gathering it up on the same spool it had come from.
Then he clipped off the scorched, twisted end and dropped that in his pocket beside the controller. He planned to drop both pieces of incriminating evidence somewhere deep in the desert outside the Saudi capital.
After replacing the access plate, Iyad left the storage room — locking the door behind him.
Then, donning a look of anguished concern like a mask, the Palestinian hurried, along with everyone else, toward the scene of the tragedy.
Near Tail, Saudi Arabia (D MINUS 15)
“Officials have characterized this as the most serious terrorist attack on the United States in two years — pointing out that Undersecretary of State Carleton is the highest-ranking U.S. official ever assassinated on foreign soil. The White House is preparing a statement … Prince Ibrahim al Saud snapped the television off. A slight smile graced his lips. Carleton’s death was only a fraction of what he hoped to accomplish, of what he planned to accomplish but the Americans had suffered today.
JUNE 7
MVD Holding Area, Sheremetevo-1 Airport, Outside Moscow
The MVD holding area at Sheremetevo-1 showed signs of hard usage. Its black-and-white checkerboard linoleum floor was scarred, scuffed, and still showed mud and other stains tracked in during the last spring rainstorm. Several of the overhead fluorescent lamps were burned out, and some of those that were left flickered at irregular intervals.
Puke-ugly, lime-green plastic chairs bolted around the walls provided the room’s only seating.
Colonel Peter Thorn sat stiffly upright in one of those hard plastic seats, studiously ignoring the young MVD private standing nearby. The kid looked barely old enough to shave, and Thorn earnestly hoped he’d been given enough training to know how to work the safety on the AKSU submachine gun he held cradled in both hands. From the way the private twitched whenever Thorn so much as shifted in his chair, he seemed to think he was guarding Bonnie and Clyde.
Thorn looked across to where Helen Gray sat. Another soldier stood watching her, and a burly, hardfaced MVD captain occupied the chair right next to hers.
She looked pensive, sad, and utterly weary. There were shadows under her blue eyes — shadows that had darkened in the two days since Alexei Koniev had died.
He sighed inaudibly. Losing a partner was one of the toughest things that could ever happen to anyone in law enforcement or the Special Forces. It was something you never really got over.
He knew that only too well. One of his closest friends, his old sergeant major, had been killed in the Delta Force raid on Teheran. He still had occasional nightmares about that — nightmares that lingered on in a sadness that was hard to shake when he woke up.
Thorn shook his head somberly. This investigation had already exacted a bitter price from the woman he loved — and they still weren’t much closer to the truth they’d been seeking. He leaned toward her, hoping he could find the right words to tell her how sorry he was. “Helen, I—”
“Silence!” the MVD captain barked in heavily accented English.
“No talking! It is forbidden.”
Thorn bit down on a savage curse. Damn it. This was ridiculous.
He rubbed angrily at his wrists, fiercely massaging the abrasions left by handcuffs that had been locked down too tight for too long.
He hadn’t been very surprised when the first militia units arriving on the scene at the Star of the White Sea put them under arrest. That had been a reasonable precaution for any policeman faced with a shipload of corpses and two armed foreigners. But what followed next hadn’t been reasonable. Not by a long shot.
They’d been held under lock and key at the Pechenga militia headquarters for hours, denied any contact with the American embassy, and ignored whenever they demanded information on the state of the investigation down at the docks. When this MVD captain and his men showed up earlier today, Thorn had at first thought the wheels of Russia’s ponderous bureaucracy were finally starting to spin in the right direction.
Big mistake, boyo, he thought bitterly. If anything, their situation had gone from bad to worse. He and Helen had been hustled out of militia custody, handcuffed like common criminals, and plopped onto a military transport plane bound for Moscow.
And now they’d been left sitting in this dingy, godforsaken waiting room for more than two hours. He grimaced. What kind of game was the MVD playing here? Somebody, probably that smug son of a bitch Serov, had set the three of them up, and every minute that passed gave whoever it was more time to either cover his tracks or vanish.
Thorn swiveled slightly in his chair as the door to the holding area swung open.
A young man cautiously poked his head through the opening.
Wary brown eyes blinked owlishly behind his horn-rim glasses.
“Captain Dobuzhinsky?”
“Da.” The MVD captain lumbered to his feet. “You are from the American embassy?”
“Yes.” The young man nodded rapidly. He strode forward. “My name is Andrew Wyatt. I’m with the administrative affairs section.”’ It was about time the pinstriped cavalry rode over the ridge, Thorn thought sourly.
Wyatt turned toward them. “Special Agent Gray? Colonel Thorn? I’ve been sent to bring you back to the embassy.” He glanced at the MVD officer. “I assume that’s all right, Captain?”
Dobuzhinsky nodded dourly. “First, you must sign for them.”
The captain held out a clipboard and watched impassively while the young embassy staffer hurriedly read through the official form attached to it — moving his lips as he sounded out some of the Russian legal jargon.
Once Wyatt scrawled his signature across the bottom of the form, the MVD officer uncuffed them — first Helen and then Thorn. He scowled at them and then nodded abruptly toward the door. “Very well. You are free to leave. But only to go with this man from your embassy. Nowhere else. You understand?”
Thorn restrained his anger until they were outside the terminal and on their way to the embassy car waiting at the curb for them. Then he swung around on Wyatt. “What the hell is wrong with the Russians? First, we’re almost aced by some of their frigging Mafiya types and then they throw us in the slammer! Don’t they give a damn about why one of their best officers was murdered?”
The young embassy staffer spread his hands apart. “I’m afraid that’s out of my bailiwick, Colonel. My orders were to bail you out and get you back to the embassy — pronto. The Deputy Chief of Mission wants to see you in his office ASAP” Partly mollified, Thorn pulled open the rear door on the embassy car and held it for Helen. “Fine.” He slid in beside her and said, “Maybe the State Department can light a fire under those idiots in the Kremlin.”
Helen simply shook her head and stared out the window of the car as they sped out of the airport-heading southeast for Moscow.
U.S. Embassy, Moscow
Randolph Clifford was the Deputy Chief of Mission, the number two man at the American embassy in Moscow. His office, richly furnished with carefully selected czarist-era and American colonial antiques, was meant to endorse his authority, to remind visitors of his position as a high-ranking representative of the U.S. government. It was not meant to serve as the setting for a shouting match.
Colonel Peter Thorn supposed that Clifford, a portly man with a thick mane of white hair, might be called distinguished under less stressful circumstances. Right now, though, the badtempered twist of the diplomat’s mouth and the ve
in throbbing dangerously on his temple ruined his image as an urbane shaper of American foreign policy.
“Look, Special Agent Gray,” Clifford said in exasperation. “As far as Washington is concerned, the only thing that happened aboard the Star of the White Sea is that two of our citizens stumbled onto a Russian Mafiya drug buy that went sour. It was just an unhappy coincidence that you, the colonel here, and Major Koniev went aboard the ship at that particular time and got caught in the crossfire.” His tone was final, almost dictatorial, but then he was used to having the authority to back up his dictates.
“Is that the story the MVD’s trying to peddle?” demanded Helen angrily, glaring back at the red-faced diplomat with unblinking eyes. “If so, only a moron would even pretend to believe it!”
Thorn hurriedly tamped down a wry grin. He’d wondered what it would take to shake Helen out of her depression over Alexei Koniev’s death.
He should have guessed it would be contact with one of the State Department’s “best and brightest” at his most obnoxious. Now Thorn was just glad she didn’t still have the Tokarev automatic she’d picked up aboard the Russian freighter. If she’d been armed, he had the feeling Randolph Clifford might already have been on the receiving end of a full eightshot magazine.
Clifford bristled, and then visibly relaxed his facial muscles.
He adopted a more soothing, almost fatherly, tone. “I’ll overlook that unfortunate comment, Miss Gray. You’re overwrought. And I know you’ve been through hell—”
“Don’t patronize me, Mr. Clifford!” Helen interrupted. “What I’m overwrought about, if anything, is the way we, the U.S. government that is, seems to be papering this whole thing over.”
Evidently too mad to sit still, she got up and started pacing the room.
Thorn leaned forward. It was time to stick his own oar in.
“What happened in Pechenga wasn’t an accident, sir. It was a cold-blooded ambush. They were waiting for us.”
“Perhaps so,” the embassy official replied, and clearly glad to talk to him while Helen cooled off. “But the MVD claims that the ambush could have been set up in thirty seconds when one of the Mafiya lookouts spotted you coming down the pier.” He shook his head. “Given the odds against you, I’m still amazed you managed to escape at all.”
Helen snapped, “I’m sure that whoever planned all this is even more amazed!”
Clifford ignored her remark and went on. “You have to view this matter from the Russian perspective, Colonel. The evidence the MVD found aboard that tramp freighter seems quite clear.”
He tapped the bulky manila folder he’d told them contained the official Russian government crime scene report. “First they discover nearly fifty kilos of what looks like heroin in one of the ship’s storage lockers. Then they find out that these drugs are really just milk sugar laced with a small percentage of the real stuff. And finally, they stumble across all nineteen of her crew, including the real Captain Tumarev, gagged and bound with duct tape, shot in the back of the head execution-style, and then dumped in a cargo hold!”
The diplomat shuddered involuntarily, evidently remembering the photographs he’d said were included in the MVD report.
He was a bureaucrat, not a man of action.
Helen, who’d seen worse sights in her tour with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, stopped pacing and shrugged. “All of which proves nothing.” She leaned over the diplomat’s desk. “Except that whoever arranged that ambush was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to put an end to our investigation before we got any closer to the truth. And now you and the MVD are giving the bad guys what they want on a silver platter!”
Clifford turned red with anger. “Listen, Miss Gray, your investigation has done more to strain U.S.-Russian relations than you can possibly imagine.” He scowled, speaking plainly and candidly for a change.
“Somebody in the Pechenga militia already blabbed to the Moscow press corps. And only Undersecretary Carleton’s murder yesterday has kept this off the front pages in the States. But the local boys are running wild, and they’re embarrassing the hell out of the Kremlin. The press is playing every angle it can dream up — Russian organized crime, lousy Russian aircraft safety, Russian drug smuggling, corruption in the Russian military …”
“I don’t give a damn about the press, Mr.. Clifford or the Kremlin,” Helen said forcefully. “My job is finding out the truth about what happened in Kandalaksha and why my partner was killed.”
Clifford shook his head just as firmly. “That’s where you’re wrong, Miss Gray.” He included Thorn in his baleful gaze. “As it stands, you two have managed to anger almost every faction in the Russian government. Most of them were never very happy with the idea of Americans investigating crimes on Russian soil. Now they’re furious!”
“Your original charter covered the O.S.I.A plane crash only,” the diplomat continued. “But once you started poking around into Mafiya drug cartels and their ties to the Russian Air Force, the MVD claims you crossed the line into ‘impermissible interference.’”
That was too much for Thorn. “That’s bullshit,” he growled.
“Alexei Koniev had permission from his higher-ups every step of the way.”
“And Major Koniev is dead,” Clifford reminded him brutally.
“Which brings me to another problem. The MVD is having trouble believing that one of their best men was killed in that ambush while you two walked away without a scratch — even if the major did die a hero.” He shrugged. “Not everyone believes your story about what happened aboard the Star of the White Sea.”
Helen glared and Peter opened his mouth to protest, but the diplomat held up a conciliatory hand. “Don’t worry. I believe you. At least I think I do. I’ve read both your personnel files.”
Clifford sighed and turned to face Thorn directly. “But your Special Forces background makes you very hot, diplomatically, Colonel.” He gestured vaguely toward the window. “There are a lot of people here in Moscow who don’t see you as a simple soldier, Colonel. To the Russians, the closest thing to Delta Force is the old Soviet Spetsnaz. And that means you’re a trained assassin in their eyes — a paid U.S. government killer. So your presence here makes them nervous. They were willing to let it lie as long as things stayed relatively quiet, but you’re in the spotlight now.”
Thorn tensed. He knew that what Clifford said was true. Officially, he’d been on very thin ice from the beginning, and now the ice had cracked. He looked over at Helen, hoping she was on firmer ground.
As if on cue she sat down in the chair next to him and crossed her arms. “Colonel Thorn’s background has proved an extremely valuable asset during this investigation,” she said steadily.
Clifford snorted. “That depends on your perspective, I suppose. Others might reasonably argue your whole effort has been an unmitigated disaster from beginning to end. This Pechenga fiasco is simply the last straw.”
Jesus. Thorn shook his head, trying desperately to think of a way out of the bureaucratic box he saw being built around them.
“I don’t accept that, Mr. Clifford. As far as I can see, we’ve made substantial progress. We’ve established beyond a shadow of a doubt that the O.S.I.A transport plane was sabotaged. And we know that this Captain Grushtin carried out the sabotage — though we don’t know yet why, or on whose orders.”
“That’s no longer any of your concern,” Clifford said bluntly.
“What?” Helen exploded.
The diplomat drew a deep breath, then stood up and walked around his desk to face them. “All right, I’ll spell it out for you. Your role in this investigation is over. This is now solely a Russian matter, involving Russian nationals on sovereign Russian territory. As a result, any further inquiries will be handled by the Russian government and only by the Russian government. Is that understood?”
Helen’s eyes blazed. “No, it is not understood, sir,” she ground out through gritted teeth. “As an FBI legal attache, this case still comes
under my jurisdiction. Or have you forgotten the Americans who also died when that plane went down?”?
Clifford rounded on her, his patience evidently at an end.
“That’s the second part of my message, Special Agent Gray. As of now, you’re no longer a legal attache at this embassy. The FBI is transferring you back to Washington — at the request of the Russian authorities and the ambassador as well.”
Oh, hell, Thorn thought, watching the color drain from Helen’s face. That’s torn it. These sons of a bitches have just flushed her career down the toilet.
“It’s for your own good, Miss Gray,” Clifford explained, more calmly now that he’d dropped his bombshell. “Your usefulness as an investigator here is now nil. No official will ever talk to you.”
He spread his hands. “Besides, there’s the matter of your own physical safety. After what you did aboard the Star of the White Sea, the Mafiya may come after you personally.”
“I can take care of myself, Mr. Clifford,” Helen said tightly. “And I can find people who’ll talk.”
The Deputy Chief of Mission shook his head. “You have your orders, Miss Gray. I suggest you obey them.”
He turned toward Thorn and arched an eyebrow. “As for you, Colonel, you’ve been ordered back to D.C too. You’ll be assigned to temporary duty at the Pentagon — pending your imminent retirement.”
Thorn sat motionless. He told himself he wasn’t surprised — not really.
Egged on by a White House still angry at him for disobeying the President, the brass hats had been looking for a chance to toss him out of the Army for two years now. Only his old commander’s pull had kept them at bay for this long. Well, he’d been living on Sam Farrell’s nickel ever since Teheran and it looked like he’d just spent it. The one thing he hadn’t expected was to pull Helen down with him.
Clifford turned his back and looked out the window. “You both have forty-eight hours to get your personal affairs in order, to pack, and do whatever else you need to do. But you will not leave Moscow. And you will check in here at the embassy by phone at 0700 hours and 1900 hours each day. Finally, you will keep your contacts with Russian nationals to the absolute minimum necessary to prepare for departure.”
