Day of Wrath

He folded his newspaper under his arm, settled an old blue cap on his head, and swung in behind them. They headed straight for the taxi stand — or what passed for one in this miserable flyspeck of a town.

Two cabs sat idling outside the station — both weatherbeaten sedans that were probably being held together with baling wire and chewing gum. He was close enough to them to hear the youngest, the Russian man in civilian clothes, tell the lead taxi driver their destination.

Rozinkin waited until the beat-up cab turned the corner, then took out a portable phone and punched a button.

“Yes.”

“They’re on the way,” he reported. “And they’re alone.” He broke the connection.

Pechenga Harbor Major Alexei Koniev let the door to the harbormaster’s office swing closed behind him. Still angry, he strode out onto the pier to where Helen Gray and Peter Thorn stood waiting.

“Any luck?” Helen asked.

Koniev frowned. “Not much,” he admitted.

Harbormaster Cherga was all too typical of Russian officialdom, he thought sadly-corrupt, lazy, and amoral. There were such people everywhere they turned in this case. People who would sell their honor or their country without batting an eyelash.

Koniev shook his head tiredly. He’d become a policeman to help pull Russia out of its wicked past. To make the words “law and order” stand for something more than tyranny and mass murder. But sometimes it seemed a futile task something akin to mucking out a stable with the aid of a toothbrush and nothing more.

What must Helen and this Colonel Thorn of hers think of his country and his countrymen? They both came from a nation where public officials generally respected the rule of law. He felt the hot flush of shame on his forehead.

“Alexei?” Helen Gray asked again.

Koniev pushed his emotions to the side and refocused his attention on the case in hand. “According to Harbormaster Cherga, Arrus Export loaded the last consignment of jet engines aboard a freighter called the Star of the White Sea.” He nodded toward the ship berthed at the end of the pier. “That’s it. The ship has just returned from Bergen.”

“Bergen, Norway?” Helen wondered. “Why there?”

“It’s a major port,” Koniev said. “One with many, vessels entering and leaving each day.”

“A place where a small cargo could get lost in the shuffle?” Thorn suggested.

“Perhaps.” Koniev shrugged his shoulders. “This Cherga also claims he dealt with a man named Peterhof.”

“Imagine that,” Helen said flatly. “Any description?”

“Gray hair. Gray eyes. Middleaged. Distinguished. looking.”

Koniev snorted. “At least it matches what Colonel General Serov told us about this Peterhof.”

“Which wasn’t much,” Thorn commented dryly.

“True, Colonel.”

With that, Koniev turned on his heel and led the way down the pier.

This was his investigation, and the tramp freighter Arrus Export had chartered was the next link in the chain they were building.

The hull of the old ship loomed over them as they drew nearer. Star of the White Sea looked more like an abandoned building than a merchant ship to Koniev. It was big enough, and gray and dirty enough.

Inch-thick mooring lines held her to the pier, while a gangplank near the stern led up to the main deck. A forest of cranes covered the front two thirds of the deck, while the superstructure sat almost all the way back on the stern.

Koniev went up the gangplank first. It angled steeply up to the main deck. The Star of the White Sea was empty, and with the tide in, they climbed almost two stories crossing the gap between the pier and the side of the ship.

A darkhaired man in worn overalls and a filthy jacket lounging against the bulkhead straightened up as Koniev reached the top.

Koniev flashed his identity card. “Major Koniev. MVD.” He nodded toward the superstructure. “I want to see the captain of this ship.”

The sailor, unsmiling, nodded silently and sauntered over to an intercom built into the bulkhead. He punched one of the buttons.

“There’s an MVD officer here to see you, Captain.”

The sailor had a thick Georgian accent, Koniev noted. Odd.

Few natives of that mountainous republic went to sea.

He heard Helen and Thorn reach the top of the gangplank.

He wondered how much of the conversation the two Americans were going to catch if this ship captain didn’t speak English fluently.

Few people outside Moscow and the other major cities did.

It was inconvenient.

The intercom squawked something unintelligible.

“Yes, sir.” The sailor turned to Koniev and muttered, “He’s in his cabin. Come with me.”

He led the three of them to a set of steeply sloped stairs on the aft end of the ship’s superstructure and climbed up to the second deck.

The three decks of the superstructure were arranged like the layers of a wedding cake, each smaller than the one below it.

Glancing up to the third deck, Koniev could see a glassed-in space — almost certainly the bridge — topped by a small mast, radio aerials, and a radar antenna. A small funnel for the engines’ exhaust grew out of the aft end of the superstructure.