War Plan Red (10 page)

“And Frank Drummond too,” said Scott.

The Mi-28 helicopter, rotors clattering, lifted off the pad from Tushino Aerodrome, north of Moscow.

As it gained altitude it swung north toward the Kola Peninsula. Moscow’s gray suburbs quickly disappeared, replaced by the barren, snow-streaked Russian steppe stretching to the horizon.

Scott and Alex, belted into their bucket seats in the divided cabin, faced an impassive Yuri Abakov across the aisle like paratroopers headed for the drop zone. He had on his ushanka hat and wore a short, heavy coat over civilian clothes. Their breath plumed in the biting cold, which a pair of overhead electric heaters had so far failed to overcome.

Twenty minutes after departing Moscow, Alex twisted around, pointed out the Perspex window, and said above the noise of the chopper’s rotors and turboshaft engine, “Amazing. We’re almost over Rybinsk.”

Scott looked out and saw a clump of factories and smokestacks and to the north, a huge body of water shimmering like beaten metal. “How do you know?”

“Because that’s the Sea of Rybinsk down there. And if you look to the south, you can see the city of Rybinsk on the Volga.”

“She’s right,” Abakov said, passing them two cups he’d filled with coffee from a thermos. “Rybinsk is a big manufacturing center. In ’41 they dammed the upper Volga to make a reservoir, one of the biggest in the world.”

Rybinsk quickly slipped aft and disappeared.

Scott sat back in his seat and sipped hot, black coffee. Abakov briefly met his gaze, then looked away.

Scott took it as his opening.

“Tell me about Alikhan Zakayev.”

This time Abakov met and held Scott’s gaze. “Tell you what?”

“What he’s like. Why he hates Russia.”

“He hates Russia,” Abakov said, “because he wants independence for Chechnya and we won’t give it to him. So he started a war and he’s losing it and wants to make us pay for his mistakes. It’s that simple.”

“The truth is,” Alex said, “the Russian Army killed Zakayev’s entire family: wife, children, parents, and grandparents. That’s why he hates Russia. Why won’t you admit it, Colonel?”

Abakov glared at Alex, then looked out the window.

“Is that true, Colonel?” Scott said.

“Zakayev was a former KGB major,” Abakov said, his gaze on Scott. “I knew him in Moscow in the late 1980’s. Even then he was a hard man, driven. He moved up the ladder and made full colonel. Then, in 1991, during the failed coup in Moscow, he disappeared. We thought he had defected to the West, but instead he had returned to Chechnya, where he joined the rebel forces who had declared their independence. Yeltsin sent in troops to put down the rebellion, and Zakayev, who by then had risen in the ranks of Chechen guerrillas to general and commanded a huge rebel force, put up a hell of a fight.

We offered to negotiate but Zakayev refused and”—Abakov threw up his hands—“as a result we may have to launch an all-out war against Chechnya. Another terrorist attack like the one at the concert hall and I think Chechnya’s days are numbered.”

“How well did you know him?”

“We spent two years together, enough time to get to know someone. He’s completely fearless. He never shows his anger and rarely raises his voice, which gives him a menacing quality. His calm outward demeanor often disarms people who meet him. They think he’s a gentleman, always so soft-spoken.

But that’s just a mask. In fact he will do anything to win independence for Chechnya. He’s a fanatic.”

“Is that why the Russian Army killed Zakayev’s family? Because he’s a fanatic? Did they think that would break his will to fight?”

Abakov considered. “You Americans judge us by your own hypocritical standards. When we Russians take harsh action to protect our country and citizens, we’re accused of crushing independence and democratic reforms. When America does it, you justify it by saying you are preserving liberty and democracy. But now it’s different. We are fighting a group of terrorists bent on destroying Russia. You have to meet force with force. It’s the only thing Zakayev respects.”

“When Zakayev disappeared from the KGB, why did you think he’d gone over to the West?”

Abakov removed his ushanka and rubbed his bald dome with a palm. “There had been rumors that the United States had recruited Zakayev to foment unrest in the Caucasus. That the U.S. wanted to distract Russia from protesting American involvement in the Middle East, in Syria and Iran. We have a huge Muslim population and have good reason to support them in other countries where they are fighting Western imperialism. There are rumors that the U.S. provided Chechen terrorists with money and weapons.”

“Why would the U.S. do that?” Alex said.

“To make sure Zakayev succeeded. Yes, that’s true. Then you could play us off against the Chechens by promising that you’d look the other way while we fought Zakayev so long as Russia looked the other way while the U.S. overthrew the regimes in Iraq and Iran. What you call a quid pro quo.”

“Do you think Zakayev still has ties to the U.S.?” Scott said, drawing a look from Alex.

Abakov shrugged. “I have no proof, but yes, I think so.”

The chopper bounced in rough air.

“Is it possible that Drummond was murdered because he knew something about Zakayev’s ties to the U.S.?”

“The official report I filed states that the cause of death was suicide. You read it.”

“Sure I did. But what about the unofficial report. The one you didn’t file.”

“I don’t understand. What unofficial report?”

Scott tapped his head. “The one inside that police man’s brain of yours. The real one. The one that might be telling you Drummond was killed by Zakayev.”

“You ask too many questions,” Abakov said dismissively. He unlatched his seat belt and went forward to chat up the pilots.

Alex dropped her voice even though Abakov couldn’t hear and said, “Are you going to tell him about the message you found in Frank’s papers?”

“I could be shot for doing that. I could also be shot for reading it and not telling Radford that I read it.”

“Do you have to tell him?”

“It all depends on what we find at the hotel in Murmansk.”

“What do you think we’ll find?”

“Probably nothing. But I think our friend here knows more than he’s letting on.”

Alex looked at Abakov, who was stooped in the open doorway behind the flight deck, looking over the pilot’s shoulder, out the windshield. “That’s a scary thought.”

“Is it scarier than tracking fissile materials so terrorists can’t build a bomb?”

“In some ways it is. You can see radioactive materials, but you can’t see plots unfolding behind the scenes.”

“Is that why you agreed to come with me? To see if Frank had uncovered a plot?”

“If Frank was murdered, I’d want to know why and who did it.”

“I hope David Hoffman will see it that way. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable last night when I asked if he was your lover.”

She gave Scott a playful poke in the ribs. “Yes, you did. Anyway, it’s still none of your business.”

“Right.”

“Look!” Alex pointed. “Off to the west you can just see the skyline of St. Petersburg.”

Scott saw a small spike on the relatively flat horizon. It could have been anything: a mountain, a pine forest, a low cloud. “If you say so.”

“I’ve never been to St. Petersburg. I’ve heard it’s one of the most beautiful cities in the world.”

“And indestructible too. It withstood a nine hundred-day siege by the Nazis.”

“Tells you something about the Russian character.”

“Yeah, hard as nails.”

Minutes later Alex dozed, her head on Scott’s shoulder. The chopper lifted and dropped on a sudden gust of wind from the west, but the pilot, tacking to port, kept its nose pointed north toward the Kola Peninsula.

6

Murmansk

T he girl’s warm breath teased Zakayev’s bare shoulder. He watched her sleep and thought about what she had been through, marveled at the terrors she had survived to be with him now. He thought about what was to come and for a moment felt sad that she would never have a life beyond the one they were living at that moment. As if she knew his thoughts, her eyes opened to meet his gaze.

“I love you, Ali,” she whispered against his shoulder. Her hand was on his flat belly.

A trace of scented bath talc clung to the fingertip he sketched across her hip, which felt like satin. He remembered how she had trembled with fear when he coaxed her from the shelter of the bombed-out building in Grozny where he had found her living like an animal, so emaciated that when he took her hand to help her over the rubble to freedom, fingers dug into his palm like claws. Her sunken eyes had just stared at him, perhaps expecting the worst. He knew he could help her recover physically but didn’t know if he could heal her mind. But she was young and resilient and responded to his care and deep affection. How many times had he wanted to tell her he loved her but didn’t dare to say the words.

They lay side by side, not talking but stroking until their breath exploded, until she moaned and rose above him, her long, black hair tumbling around his face like a tent. His tongue moistened the tips of her small, pointed breasts. His hips rose and he entered her as she pulled his head back, ran a hand through his hair, and covered his lips with a kiss. Legs stiffened, body arched, he let go at the exquisite moment when her lovely face was blemished by the convulsion of orgasm.

Her breath had returned to normal. She sat up in bed. Bars of late-afternoon sunlight falling through window blinds marched across her slim thighs and the damp, rumpled sheets. Zakayev, naked, moved about the room fiddling with his things, searching for wrinkles in the Russian naval officer’s uniform he had hung up on the bathroom door. The girl’s eyes roamed over his lean, pale body scarred by Russian bullets and shrapnel. The fresh white bandage over the wound on his arm almost matched the color of his skin.

“We’ll leave after it’s dark,” Zakayev said. They had let a room in a small, moldering hotel overlooking Murmansk’s busy harbor. It was a place where people didn’t ask questions and avoided eye contact with strangers.

“You will look handsome in your naval uniform,” she said. “I’ll want to kiss you.”

“A petty officer first class can’t kiss an admiral,” Zakayev said with mock seriousness.

They had discussed it so many times and she was eager to play her role. The uniform she would wear—

navy pants, striped jumper, a traditional Russian Navy flat hat with ribbon device—lay folded neatly on a chair.

“Ali, sit here.”

He let her kiss the pit of his neck, his chest and nipples, both hands. Her eyes suddenly welled up. “Ali, there isn’t much time, not even a week, you said.” Her voice quavered, a delicate flutter that he pretended he hadn’t heard.

He appraised her with cold objectivity. “You said you were not afraid to die.”

“I’m not. I chose this, so what is going to happen to me doesn’t matter as long as our mission succeeds; but even so, I want to know if you…I want to hear you say…”

“Don’t…” He got up and turned his back. Yes, he loved her, but could admit it only to himself. If he said the words she wanted to hear, everything would change. “Don’t ask; don’t say any more. We agreed not to. It’s all arranged and nothing can happen to change it. Litvanov and his men are waiting for us.” He faced her. “Now it’s time for you to prepare.”

She rose silently from the bed and went into the tiny bathroom. A naked bulb hanging from a twisted wire in the ceiling provided weak illumination. For a long time she stood looking at herself in the tarnished flyspecked mirror over the rusty sink. Then she picked up a pair of scissors and began cutting her hair, the long, silky strands falling like black rain.

Zakayev turned up his coat collar. A sharp wind laced with the stink of dead fish and diesel fuel sent paper and debris corkscrewing down a deserted wind tunnel of a street lined with ship chandleries and warehouses, with old packing cases, cargo pallets, and rubbish of all sorts. The wheels of heavy trucks had carved ruts in the frozen snow, which made footing treacherous. The girl slipped and almost fell but Zakayev caught her arm.

They turned off the main street into a narrow alley between darkened warehouses that rose on either side like the walls of a canyon. Zakayev found the battered wooden door, which he identified by the heavy iron crossbraces bolted to its face. The door was set into the brick wall of a warehouse over three crumbling concrete steps. He looked down the alley and saw a Guards stake body truck parked where he was told it would be, beside the seawall fronting the harbor.

Zakayev withdrew the H&K P7 from the pocket of his overcoat and tightened his fingers around the grip, cocking the pistol. He banged on the door and waited. A gust of wind plastered the skirt of his overcoat between his legs.

Heavy boots tramped over a plank floor. Bolts snapped open and door hinges squealed. A heavyset man in shabby work clothes, a greasy cap on his close-cropped head, stood in a rectangle of light spilling into the alley from the open door.

“Were you planning to shoot me, Ali?” said Kapitan Third Rank Georgi Litvanov.

Zakayev lowered the pistol. “You look well, Georgi Alexeyevich.”

They entered and Litvanov closed and bolted the door behind them, then looked them up and down.

“Here, let me see you.”

Zakayev shrugged out of his overcoat. The girl handed him a traditional Russian Navy garrison cap, which he put on his head at a rakish angle.

Litvanov stepped back and regarded Zakayev dressed in the uniform of a Russian kontr-admiral—rear admiral—complete with gold shoulder boards on the tunic and gold stripes on the sleeves.

“It’s perfect!” Litvanov said. “You look just like a Russian flag officer.”

Litvanov’s attention swung to the girl in her peacoat, jumper, and flat hat. He inspected her outfit, nodding approval. Her big eyes and full lips, triangular face, and short hair gave her an androgynous look that was strangely appealing.

“My men could take some pointers from this one, Ali, on how to wear their uniforms properly. Ha! You are both a credit to the Russian Navy.”