The four-hundred-mile railroad that connected Moscow and St. Petersburg was designed by American engineer Lieutenant George Washington Whistler, the father of painter James McNeill Whistler, and constructed by peasants and prisoners who were flogged by railroad personnel and forced to work long hours under often unendurable conditions. Shortly thereafter, in 1851, the Nikolayevskiy Station was constructed. Now known as the St. Petersburg Station, it was the oldest terminal in Moscow and one of three stations situated off busy Komsomol’skaya Square. On the left side of the square was the art nouveau Yaroslavl Station, built in 1904, which is the final stop of the Trans-Siberian Railway. To the right is the Kazan Station, a baroque collection of buildings completed in 1926 from which trains to the Urals, western Siberia, and central Asia departed.
The St. Petersburg Station stood beside the Komsomol’skaya pavilion, just northwest of the Yaroslavl Station. As Volko approached, he used his sleeve to dab perspiration from his high forehead and pushed his longish, dirty-blond hair from his head. Calm, he thought. You have to act calm. He put a big smile on his large, friendly mouth, like a man going off to meet his lover-though he knew the smile wasn’t reflected in his eyes. He only hoped no one looked closely enough to notice.
Volko turned his large, sad brown eyes up at the tall, lighted clock tower. It was just after eleven. Trains departed four times a day, starting at eight in the morning and ending at midnight, and Volko’s plan was to purchase a ticket for the last train and watch to see if passengers were being stopped by the police. If so, he had two options. One was to engage another passenger in conversation as he headed toward the train, since the police would be watching for someone traveling alone. The other option was to boldly walk up to one of them and ask directions. Fields-Hutton had told him that operatives who skulk in a fast-moving environment only call attention to themselves, and that it was human nature to ignore people who seemed to have nothing to hide.
The lines at the ticket windows were long, even at this hour, and Volko stood in one in the center. He had bought a newspaper and looked at it as he waited without really assimilating anything he read. The line crept along, though Volko, usually an impatient man, did not mind. Every minute he was free gave him more confidence, and also meant that he would have to spend less time as a captive in the train before it departed.
He purchased his ticket without incident, and though police officers were watching people who came and went, and questioned a few men traveling alone, Volko was not stopped.
You’re going to make it, he told himself He passed beneath the ornate arch that led to the track, where the Red Arrow Express was waiting. The ten cars dated back to before the First World War; three were freshly painted a bright red, one green, though that didn’t detract from their antique charm. A tour group was standing beside the second car from the rear. Porters had tossed their luggage in a disorderly pile, and militiamen were looking at their passports.
Searching for me, no doubt, Volko thought as he walked right past them. He entered the train one car forward of the tourists and sat in one of the thinly cushioned seats. He realized that he should have brought a suitcase. It would look suspicious for someone to be going to a distant city without at least a change of clothes. He looked around as the car filled up and saw someone pushing several bags into the overhead rack.
He sat under one of them, by the window.
Settling in with his newspaper in his lap and his Walkman in his jacket pocket, Volko finally allowed himself to relax. That was when the cabin went quiet behind him and he felt the cold mouth of a Makarov pistol against the back of his neck.
TWENTY-NINE
Monday, 3:10 P.M., Washington, D.C.
Bob Herbert loved being busy. But not so busy that he felt like wheeling his chair out of Op-Center and not stopping until he hit his hometown-“No, not that Philadelphia”-in Neshoba County not far from the Alabama border. Philadelphia hadn’t changed much since he was a kid. He loved going back and reflecting on happier times. They weren’t necessarily more innocent times, because he remembered well the chaos that everyone from the Communists to Elvis Presley caused when he was a boy. But they were problems that, for him, went away when he buried himself in a comic book or squirrel gun or behind a fishing pole at the pond.
Now his pager told him that Stephen Viens at the National Reconnaissance Office had something for him to look at, and after cutting short a briefing for Ann Farris, he swung his wheelchair into his office, shut the door, and called NRO.
“Please tell me you’ve got photos of the nude swimmin’ hole back in Renova,” he said into the speakerphone.
“I’m sure the foliage is still covering it up,” Viens said. “What I’ve got is a plane whose heat signature we’ve been following for DEA. It went from Colombia to Mexico City to Honolulu, then on to Japan and Vladivostok. ”
“The drug cartels are dealing in Russia,” Herbert said. “That isn’t news.”
“No,” said Viens, “but when it landed in Vladivostok, we had a satellite in position to eyeball it. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a plane being unloaded by spetsnaz troops.”
Herbert sat up straight. “How many?”
“Less than a dozen, all in camouflage whites,” Viens said. “What’s more, the crates were quickly loaded onto trucks from the Pacific Fleet. We may be looking at multiservice drug dealing.”
Herbert thought back to the meeting between Shovich, General Kosigan, and Minister Dogin. “It could be more than just the military consortin’ with gangsters,” he said. “Are the trucks still there?”
“Yes,” said Viens. “They’re off-loading crates by the dozens. One truck is almost completely full.”
“Do the crates look like they’re evenly balanced?”
“Perfectly,” said Viens. “They’re oblong. But both ends seem equally heavy.”
“Give a listen with the AIM,- Herbert said. “Let me know if there’s anything rattling around in there.”
“Will do,” Viens said.
“And Steve, let me know where the trucks go,” Herbert said, signing off and buzzing Mike Rodgers.
Rodgers was out of his office and stopped by when he got the page.
When Herbert was finished briefing him, Rodgers said, “So the Russians are openly consorting with the drug lords. Well, they have to get hard currency from somewhere. I’m just wondering-”
“Excuse me,” Herbert said as his phone beeped. He punched the speaker button set in his wheelchair armrest. “Yes?”
“Bob, it’s Darrell. The FBI lost their guy in Tokyo.”
“What happened?”
“Gunned down by the crew of the Gulfstream,” McCaskey said grimly. “The Japanese lost their SelfDefense Force guy in the cross fire.”
“Darrell, it’s Mike,” said Rodgers. “Anyone hurt on the plane?”
“Not that we can tell, though the ground crew didn’t say much. They’re scared.”
“Or bribed,” Herbert said. “Sorry about this, Dar. Did he have any family?”
“A father,” McCaskey said. “I’ll see if there’s anything we can do for him.”
“Right,” said Herbert.
“I guess that cements the link between the plane and the Russian drug dealers,” said McCaskey. “Even the Colombians aren’t insane enough to have a firefight at an international airport.”
“No,” Herbert said. “They shoot the guys who are supposed to try the cases. They all stink deeply, and I’d love to turn Striker loose on the lot of them.”
Herbert hung up and took a second to collect himself. These things always made the Intelligence Officer queasy, the more so when there was any kind of family involved.
He looked at Rodgers. “What was it that you were wondering a minute ago, General?”
Rodgers was more somber than before. “If this connects with what Matt found out. Our boy genius just conferenced with Paul and me,” Rodgers said. “He hacked the Kremlin payroll through the bank in Riyadh that holds about ten billion dollars in IOUs. He found out they’ve been employing some very expensive executives at the new TV studio in the Hermitage and in the Ministry of the Interior-people with no prior records anywhere.”
“Meaning that someone may have created names and identities for payroll purposes,” Herbert said, “to pay people who are working secretly in St. Petersburg.”
“Correct,” Rodgers said, “as well as to buy a lot of hi-tech stuff from Japan, Germany, and the U.S.-components which were sent to the Ministry of the Interior. It’s beginning to smell a lot like Dogin put together a very sophisticated intelligence operation up there. Maybe Orlov is there to help with any orbital hardware they’re using.”
Herbert tapped his forehead. “So assuming Dogin is the bossman, and is tight with the Russian mafia, there’s a good chance he’s planning a coup. He doesn’t need arms. Kosigan has those.”