Day of Wrath

“Yes.” Helen narrowed her eyes. “Before they have any more time to coordinate their stories. And if they confirm what Serov says … “We head for Pechenga,” Thorn said flatly.

“Uh-huh,” Helen agreed. “And we hope the trail hasn’t grown too cold in the meantime.”

Satisfied, Thorn turned to Koniev. “Just one more question, Major.

What’s likely to happen to Colonel General Serov?

When you report this to Moscow, I mean?”

Koniev’s mouth turned down. “Probably nothing.”

“Nothing?”

The MVD officer shrugged ruefully. “Perhaps a slap on the wrist, if he’s unlucky.” He grimaced. “Compared to the recent activities of other senior officers in my country’s armed forces, I suspect his crimes will seem unimportant to my superiors.”

Thorn nodded. In one case he’d read about, the commander of Russia’s entire Far Eastern Strategic Air Force had been arrested for using his long-range bombers as an air freight service.

“In any event,” Koniev continued sadly, “Serov is no fool. I would be very surprised if a portion of his newfound fortune hasn’t already made its way up the ladder in Moscow.”

Christ, Thorn thought grimly, contemplating the prospect that high-ranking officials could so easily be bribed — and worse, that a ranking police officer like Koniev could so easily imagine such a thing. He had the sudden, uneasy feeling they were walking into quicksand here — and that nobody would be standing by with a rope to pull them out if they started sinking.

JUNE 5

_{Wilhelmshaven, Germany (D MINUS 16)}

Just thirty miles east of the Netherlands and eighty-odd miles southwest of Denmark, Wilhehnshaven was one of several ports along Germany’s low, waterlogged North Sea coast. The city and its harbor lay just inside the mouth of a large, sheltered bay, the Jadebusen.

Once home to warships of the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet and Hitler’s Kriegsmarine, Wilhelmshaven had been eclipsed as a port in recent years by Bremerhaven, but supertankers still arrived regularly to off load oil destined for the heavy industries of the Ruhr.

The city, often cold and wet with North Sea weather, wasn’t a big tourist draw. That suited Baltic Venturer’s owners perfectly.

Shortly after she arrived from Bergen, harbor workers shifted the five steel cases to another Caraco-owned ship, the Caraco Savannah.

This time, facilitated by a liberal exchange of deutsche marks, the cargo manifests were again magically altered. Instead of titanium scrap metal bound for a German metals recycling company, the crates now contained “gas turbines,” the sort used in factories and oil refineries to produce auxiliary power.

Caraco Savannah was larger than Venturer. She was a thirtyknot container ship, modern in equipment and gleaming in a coat of white-and-red paint.

Her destination was Galveston.

CHAPTER SEVEN RED STAR

JUNE 5

_{Yegorova Railway Station, Pechenga}

Dmitry Rozinkin leaned against the station’s rough, cement block wall, scanning the passengers coming off the Murmansk train while pretending to read the local rag. He flipped through the thin, poorly printed pages and sneered to himself. It was pathetic, a weekly with fewer than ten pages. Why, Moscow had dozens of daily newspapers now — some of them pretty slicklooking.

He didn’t read any of them himself, but he saw them stacked up at newsstands.

He shifted uncomfortably, feeling the shoddy workman’s cloth coat he wore tighten across his shoulders. He’d be damned glad once this job was over and he could get back into his city clothes — the brown leather bomber jacket and Americanmade blue jeans that marked him as a young man on the way up. As one of the “new class”—those with enough guts and the right connections to prosper in today’s Russia.

Rozinkin glanced up from a sports article, stared indifferently at the passengers alighting from the closest car, and then quickly lowered his eyes. There they were! Right on time. They were making his life easy.

Two of the three were relatively inconspicuous. Just a welldressed man and woman. Although the woman was a real looker, the Russian decided.

He licked his lips. She was trim, lithe, and curvy. Just the way he liked them.

The second man walking close by her side stood out like a sore thumb.

Before he’d wound up in prison for theft, Rozinkin had done a short-lived stint in the armed forces. He could spot a military uniform two hundred meters away. But this man’s uniform was not Russian, it was American.

Something about the American soldier caught Rozinkin’s attention as the trio walked right by him. It was his eyes, the Russian realized. They were the eyes of someone who had seen Death come in many guises.

Someone who had stared back at Death without blinking.

He shivered slightly — suddenly glad that he had drawn lookout duty only for this job.