Day of Wrath

Colonel Peter Thorn pivoted slowly through a full circle, carefully checking their immediate surroundings. Broken windows stared back at him from the abandoned buildings visible in every direction. The rust-eaten Lada staff car that had brought them here was parked in front of a large, metal-roofed concrete building enclosed by a sagging chainlink fence. Railroad tracks ran parallel to the fence for a hundred meters before angling off toward the woods around the base perimeter.

Nothing was stirring. Nothing except the hairs on the back of his neck. They were nearly four kilometers from the busier portions of Kandalaksha, and this place was too quiet — too isolated.

He glanced at Koniev and shook his head meaningfully. “I don’t like this, Major. Not one goddamned bit.”

“Neither do I,” Koniev agreed. He jerked a thumb toward the sullenfaced Russian sergeant who had picked them up at the airfield’s main gate. “But this man insists that General Serov himself ordered him to bring us here.”

“Yeah,” Thorn said. “That’s what worries me.”

Nearly two full days had passed since they’d learned that someone had faked Grushtin’s suicide. First, the higher-ups in Russia’s Ministry of Defense had taken their own sweet time — nearly twenty-four hours — to authorize another probe of the officers and men of the 125th Air Division. Hours more had been lost covering the sheer distance between Moscow and Kandalaksha.

Thorn wished again that Russian law allowed foreigners to carry weapons. Whoever had killed Grushtin had been given plenty of warning that they were coming back to this base. And plenty of time to arrange a warm and deadly welcome if that was judged necessary.

He shook his head silently, knowing his concerns might seem ridiculous, maybe even paranoid, to some. But there were too many dead bodies floating around for him to ignore the danger they might be in.

Somebody connected with Kandalaksha was playing a game for very high stakes.

Thorn came to full alert as a big black Zil limousine with tinted windows turned onto the access road and roared toward them. Red command flags fluttered from its hood.

He stepped back — putting the bulk of the Lada between himself and the approaching car. Out of the corner of one eye, he noticed Helen taking the same precaution. If this was an ambush, the rusting staff car wouldn’t offer much protection but he lived by the credo that some cover was always better than none when bullets were flying. As a veteran of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, Helen had the same instincts and the same training.

The Zil pulled up and parked within a few feet. Thorn relaxed only slightly when the tall, trim figure of Colonel General Feodor Serov climbed out of the limousine’s back seat.

He hadn’t liked the Russian base commander much when they’d first met, and he liked him less now.

Although Serov had the usual fighter jock arrogance coming out of his ears, that wasn’t what really bugged him about the Russian. It was something else.

Thorn had used the Ministry of Defense-imposed delay to study the O.S.I.A dossier on Serov.

Nothing he’d read gave him a high opinion of Kandalaksha’s commander.

The Russian had a long track record of backing those he perceived as winners — no matter who they were or what they professed. When Yeltsin was on the way up, Serov supported him. When it seemed the communists might reclaim power in Russia’s first contested presidential election, the general had hurried to proclaim his renewed faith in Marxism. But then he’d turned his coat back to the side of the government just as quickly once the election results came in. Pure and simple, Feodor Mikhailovich Serov struck Thorn as a first-class opportunist— a careerist who always looked out for himself. And that made the Russian the antithesis of everything he thought a soldier should be.

“Major Koniev. Special Agent Gray. And Colonel Thorn.” Serov tried a smile. It flitted nervously across his face and disappeared. “I am grateful that you agreed to meet me here.”

“I was not aware we had a choice, General,” Koniev said flatly. He’d read the same files and evidently come to the same conclusions about Serov’s character.

“Perhaps you could explain why we’ve been brought to this godforsaken place. As you know, we have a number of people to question in connection with Captain Grushtin, his murder, and this secret engine project of yours.”

Thorn watched Serov flush an angry red at the MVD officer’s dismissive tone. He hid a grin. Given a whip hand over the Air Force general by Moscow’s orders, Koniev had evidently decided to push him hard. Atta boy, Alexei, he thought coldly. Keep the arrogant SOB off balance and on the run.

With a visible effort, the base commander regained control over his features. He forced another thin, humorless smile. “I understand your mission, Major. And, as I promised Defense Minister Ulanov, I will cooperate fully with this investigation.” Then he shrugged. “i merely thought starting here would save you precious time and effort.”