Day of Wrath

The German was shorter than the Star’s captain, which was saying something, but stocky instead of just small. He weighed at least ten kilos more, and as far as Tumarev was concerned, it was all mean. He was also younger, in his mid-thirties instead of his fifties, and showed none of the traditional respect due a ship’s master.

Kleiner didn’t make every trip on the Star, praise God, but when he did he was everywhere. He seemed to know how a merchant vessel should be run, and wasn’t shy about telling the captain when he thought Tumarev or his crew were slacking. Losing their Arrus Export charter was the most pleasant thing he promised.

Satisfied they were back on course, Tumarev risked a glance at his unwelcome passenger. The German was watching him with a scowl — almost as though he were disappointed the Russian hadn’t put Star of the White Sea on the rocks.

Tumarev shrugged and went back inside. This close to the end of the fourteen-hundred-mile run from Pechenga, he had more important matters to attend to. Kleiner and his superiors at Arrus Export paid him well to carry their various cargoes out of Russia without asking inconvenient questions. But they didn’t pay him enough to spend all his time worrying about licking their boots.

Although Bergen lay at the end of a twisted forty kilometer channel, it was an excellent deepwater port. Ships of every type and size crowded the harbor — with oil tankers and container ships anchored below the same steep slopes that had once seen Viking longships unloading plunder and Hanseatic League merchantmen taking on mounds of salted fish.

Tumarev followed traffic control’s instructions to Pier 91A and moored Star of the White Sea portside to a weathered concrete pier sheathed with wood and rubber fenders. It was late in the day, nearly 1800 hours, but the captain saw cranes waiting for his ship.

He gave the boatswain his orders.

Almost before shore power was secured, Tumarev saw the hatch covers being removed, with Kleiner standing next to the boatswain like an unwelcome shadow.

The Russian captain lit an American cigarette and, with his ship safely tied up, relaxed for a few moments, curiosity for once eclipsing his natural laziness. He stood in a shadow and tracked Kleiner while the German watched the first jet engine they were carrying being hoisted out of the Star’s hold. The ship had other cargo aboard — mostly dried fish and scrap metal — but his contracts with Arrus were always clear.

Their shipments always got top priority.

Once the first crate was lifted off the ship, Kleiner hurried to the dock and greeted a tall, dour-looking man in a suit’. Tumarev spat to one side. The Norwegian had the look of an inspector or customs official, and he had scant use for either sort.

Like their counterparts in Russia, the local bureaucrats often seemed to exist only to make his life difficult and to skim off a percentage of his already meager profits in tariffs, taxes, and fees.

To his surprise, the Russian sea captain actually saw a thin smile cross Kleiner’s lips as he shook the newcomer’s hand. Then the Norwegian official showed his teeth, too — the kind of greedy smile one often saw on the face of someone about to receive an expected gift.

The German produced a large manila envelope and passed it to the official, then turned away, heading back up the gangplank.

Tumarev, absorbed in the transaction, almost forgot to turn away himself, but he was sure he hadn’t been seen. He was also sure that whatever Arrus Export’s crated jet engines had been listed as on his ship’s manifests, they would appear as something else entirely at their ultimate destination.

Tumarev also noticed that the engines were not being unloaded to the pier. Instead, the cargo handling cranes were swinging them — he could see three of the five crates now — directly into the hold of another ship on the other side of the pier, in 91B. He squinted at the name painted below her superstructure.

Baltic Venturer. She appeared to be both newer than the Star and bigger by half. She was also moored portside to, with her bow out.

Line-handling crews and a tug were already standing by.

The Russian snorted. Evidently, Kleiner’s employers weren’t planning to waste any time in moving their newly transshipped cargo out of Norwegian territorial waters. But then they never did.

Well, it was none of his business, Tumarev reminded himself.

He had a ship to take care of. Left to her own devices, Star of the White Sea would probably take them all to the bottom in a cloud of rust. He tossed his cigarette over the side and went below to remind the engineer about the need to check their starboard fuel pump.

When he came back on deck an hour later, the Baltic Venturer was already underway — steaming back down the narrow, winding channel toward the open North Sea.