Orlov sidled into the cramped radio room, which was even thicker with smoke than before. Zilash’s narrow face was angled upward, his eyes staring at nothing in particular as he listened on his headset. He removed them after a moment and looked at Orlov.
“Sir,” he said around his cigarette, “we’ve been following two series of coded communications, and we assume they’re connected. The first is from Washington to an aircraft over the Atlantic, and the second is to Helsinki.” He took two quick puffs, then stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray. “We had the satellite team take a look at the aircraft: it’s unmarked, though they make it out to be a C-141B StarLifter.”
“Big troop carrier,” Orlov said thoughtfully, “a modified version of the C-141A. I know the plane well.”
“I thought you might.” Zilash smiled, then lit a fresh cigarette. “The StarLifter is on a course toward Helsinki. We listened to communications between the pilot and the tower: he’ll be arriving around eleven P.M., local time.”
Orlov looked at his watch. “That’s less than an hour from now. Any idea who’s on board?”
Zilash shook his head. “We tried to listen in on the cockpit with the Svetlana in the North Atlantic, but the captain says there’s an electronic field in the plane.”
“So it’s definitely intelligence,” Orlov said, though he wasn’t surprised. He thought back to the British operative who had been spying on the Hermitage, and quietly damned Rossky for his handling of the matter. The man should have been watched, not driven to suicide if indeed he took his own life. “Brief the Ministry of Security in Moscow,” Orlov said. “Tell them I need someone in Helsinki to meet the plane and watch to see if the Americans are planning to cross over.”
“Yes, sir,” said Zilash.
Orlov thanked him, then went to his office and summoned Rossky and Security Director Glinka to talk about which plan to implement in case they had visitors.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tuesday, 6:08 A.M., Vladivostok
Lenin once said of Vladivostok, “It’s a long way away. But it’s ours.”
Through two World Wars, the port city located on the Muravyev Peninsula on the Sea of Japan was a major entry point for supplies and materiel from the United States and elsewhere. During the Cold War years, the military shut the city off from the world, yet Vladivostok prospered as the port and the Pacific Fleet grew, and both military and commercial shipbuilding brought workers and money into the city. Then, in 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev inaugurated the “Vladivostok Initiative,” which reopened the city and made it what he called “a wide-open window on the East.”
Successive Russian leaders have worked hard to make the city an integral part of trade in the Pacific Rim, but with the new openness have come gangsters from Russia and from around the globe, attracted by hard currency and goods that come into the port both legally and illegally.
The airport in Vladivostok is located nearly nineteen miles to the north of the city. It’s an hour ride from the field to the train terminal, which is situated in the heart of Vladivostok, just east of the heavily traveled Ulitsa Oktyabra.
Upon arriving at the airport with his team, Lieutenant Orlov was met by a courier from the Rear Admiral’s office. The young messenger handed the officer sealed instructions to call Colonel Rossky for his orders. As snow began to flutter from pale gray skies, Nikita ran to his unit, which was lined up by the bullet nose in front of the Mi-6, the largest helicopter in the world, capable of carrying seventy people up to 652 miles. The troops were dressed in camouflage whites, their hoods down, compact backpacks at their feet. Each man was armed with standard spetsnaz issue: submachine gun and four hundred rounds of ammunition, a knife, six hand grenades, and a P-6 silent pistol. Nikita himself carried an AKR with just 160 rounds of ammunition, the shortbarreled submachine gun being standard among officers.
Nikita ordered his radio operator to unpack the parabolic dish. Less than a minute later, he was on a secure uplink to Colonel Rossky.
“Sir,” Nikita said, “Lieutenant Orlov calling as ordered.”
“Lieutenant,” said Rossky, “it’s good to hear from you after so many years. I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“Thank you, sir. I feel the same way.”
“Excellent,” Rossky said. “What do you know about your mission Orlov?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Very well. Do you see the Gulfstream on the landing strip?”
Nikita turned to the west, into the flurries, and saw the jet sitting on the tarmac. “Yes, sir.”
“Markings?”
“N2692A,” Nikita said.
“Correct,” said Rossky. “I’ve asked Rear Admiral Pasenko to send a convoy. Is it there?”
“I see four trucks waiting behind the jet.”
“Excellent,” said Rossky. “You are to unload the cargo from the jet, put it on the trucks, and meet the train which is waiting at the station in the city. Only the engineer will remain on board: once the cargo has been loaded, you will move the train north. Your tentative destination is Bira, though confirmation will come once you are under way. You are in command of the train, and you are to take whatever measures you deem necessary to see that the cargo reaches its destination.”
“I understand, sir, and thank you,” Nikita said. He did not ask what the cargo was, nor did it matter. He would treat it as carefully as if it was nuclear warheads, which it could well be. He had heard that the Primorsky region of which the city was a part had designs on becoming politically or economically independent from Russia. This could be a preemptive move by newly elected President Zhanin to disarm the area before that happened.
“You will be in touch with me as you reach each station on the Trans-Siberian route,” Rossky said, “but I repeat, Lieutenant: you are to take any and all measures to protect your cargo.”
“Understood, sir,” Nikita said.
Returning the telephone to the operator, the Lieutenant ordered his men into action. Snatching up their gear, they ran across the field to the Gulfstream, increasingly invisible in the thickening snows.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, 11:09 P.M., Moscow
Andrei Volko had never felt so alone or frightened. In Afghanistan, even during the worst of it, there were fellow soldiers with whom to commiserate. When he was first approached by “P” to work for D16, he felt sick to his stomach at the thought of betraying his country. But he took consolation from the fact that his country had abandoned him after the war, and that he had new friends in Britain and here in Russia-even though he didn’t know who they were. No one would benefit, he knew, if he was captured and began rattling off the names of other spies. It was enough to know that he belonged to something, and that knowledge had sustained him in the bitter years when he was forced to deal with the aftermath of a back that had been broken in a dive into a trench.
But the tall, thick-waisted young man had none of that as he approached the terminal. He had been startled during dinner by a beep from the telephone Fields-Hutton had given him. It was hidden inside a Walkman, an item so desirable in Russia that he had an excuse to keep it with him always. His nameless contact had informed him of the death of both Fields-Hutton and another agent, and told him to try and make his way to St. Petersburg within the next twenty-four hours, where he was to await further instructions. As he’d hurriedly dressed, leaving only with the clothes he was wearing, the Walkman, and the U.S. and German currency Fields-Hutton had given him for just such an emergency, Volko no longer felt like he had Britain behind him. Getting to St. Petersburg was going to be lonely and difficult, and even now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it. He didn’t own an automobile, and flying from even one of the smaller airports, like Bykovo, was risky. His name would already be at all the counters, and agents might ask for two pieces of identification instead of the fake one with which he’d been provided. His only chance was to take the train to St. Petersburg.
Fields-Hutton had once told him that if he ever had to leave the city, not to head for the airports or railroad at once. He wasn’t as fast as a fax machine. Enthusiasm among clerks tended to wane as lunch or late evening neared. So he’d walked the streets until now, moving as though he had an immediate destination when he had none, mingling with the decreasing number of people heading home from work or from food lines, circuitously making his way from his apartment off Prospekt Vernadskovo through side streets where black market goods were being hawked from car trunks to the nearby Metro station. From there, he rode the crowded train to the Kornsomol’skaya Metro stop, with its distinctive sixcolumned portico, ribbed dome, and majestic spire, in the city’s northeast. He walked around for nearly an hour before strolling toward the St. Petersburg Station, which services St. Petersburg, Tallinn, and all points in northern Russia.