watch — and never the man.
And that was useful.
Reichardt tugged his sleeve back over the watch. There was still ample time to begin work. With luck, the ship he was here to see loaded would be underway by nightfall — by dinner, he corrected himself. So near the summer solstice and so far north, the sun would not set until almost 11:00 P.M. He glanced out the window again.
Star of the White Sea was a small, bulk freighter, sound in hull and engine, though she’d never win any beauty contests. Her dark gray hull had once been topped by a crisp blue-and white superstructure, but the paint had long ago succumbed to irregular patches of almost leprous rust and grime. A few men milled about on deck, while others, mostly Reichardt’s own security force, waited on the pier. The only other vessels in sight were a few fishing boats and an international environmental survey ship.
A muffled cough brought his attention back inside the cramped office.
The harbormaster, a stooped, elderly man named Cherga, was still leafing through Reichardt’s papers with evident interest.
Manifests, customs forms, and authorizations from the Russian Ministry of Defense covered his battered wooden desk. All except one had been acquired legitimately, though some had needed slight alterations on names, numbers, and dates. Reichardt’s own credentials identified him as the shipping agent for a company called Arrus Export, Inc. They were also genuine — although they showed his name as Mikhail Peterhof, a White Russian of German extraction.
He waited while Cherga studied each document intently, usually nodding, but sometimes setting a page to one side.
Reichardt hid his impatience. The Russian might be only a small-town bureaucrat, but he nevertheless wielded considerable power. In a country that still thrived on red tape, examining official documents was part procedure, part beloved ritual.
In any event, the German knew paperwork alone would not be sufficient to move his cargo out of the harbor. Whether lumber or refined metal or jet engines, a few palms needed to be greased first. For that reason the papers on Cherga’s desk included a plain envelope containing a wad of dollars and deutsche marks, equivalent to several months’ official salary for the older man. At the current rates of exchange, Russia’s miserably low wages were an open invitation to graft and corruption.
With a small sigh, the harbormaster opened the seal on the envelope.
His fingers riffled quickly through the notes, and he smiled with evident satisfaction. The bribe was big enough to win his cooperation without attracting too much attention.
Cherga glanced up at Reichardt. “As always, it is a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Peterhof.”
“Thank you, Harbormaster,” Reichardt said sincerely. Three decades of covert work first for East Germany’s feared state security service and later for himself had taught him to appreciate men whose services could be bought. It made life so much simpler. He nodded toward the papers on the other man’s desk.
“I assume you have found everything in order?”
“Of course,” the elderly Russian bureaucrat said. He carefully stamped the necessary permits and shipping authorizations, gathered all the documents into a neat pile, and then presented them to Reichardt with a flourish. “I wish your cargo a good voyage, Mr. Peterhof.”
Reichardt left the office just as the majority of Pechenga’s dockworkers and crane operators began straggling into view. He stepped onto the pier and signaled to his security team. Two scrambled up the Star’s gangplank, while others fanned out along the dock. All of them were armed, but none carried their weapons openly. His guards were there as a last resort only.
Reichardt nodded to himself. There would be no mistakes today. This phase of the Operation was too close to completion to permit any further errors. Not like that fool Serov at Kandalaksha.
His lips thinned, remembering the Russian Air Force general’s pale, frightened face. Reichardt had zero tolerance for incompetence, ideology, or sentimentality. The stakes involved in this venture were enormous. If need be, he would carry out the murderous threats he had made against Serov and his family.
The German suppressed the small shiver of pleasurable excitement evoked by the thought of what he could do to the Russian, his wife, and his daughters before finally killing them.
Neither pity nor morality would stop him from punishing those who failed him.
Reichardt had grown up in a system that valued power above any outdated bourgeois virtue. He had seen through the communist party’s other lies at an early age — a wisdom his foolish, deluded parents had never achieved. They had lived their whole wasted spans on earth as true-believing “servants of the State.”
But Reichardt understood that power over life and death was the ultimate power — the nearest approach to divinity possible in a cold, uncaring universe. And he enjoyed every chance to exercise that power.
He turned to watch the first truck roll up to the end of the pier. Two more vehicles followed close behind. Each truck carried two long metal crates. The local longshoremen, grateful for a day’s work and the extra bonus promised if they finished early, moved rapidly into position as the ship’s crane maneuvered its wire rope down to their level.
Reichardt stood where he could both see and be seen. His alert gray eyes missed nothing as the first crate rose high into the air and then swung slowly toward the Star of the White Sea’s forward cargo hold.
“Watcher Two to Control. Unknown crossing security perimeter.”’ The radio message from one of his observers crackled in Reichardt’s earpiece.
He turned and spotted a serious-looking young man in a cheap suit and bulky overcoat marching down the pier. After scanning the mix of longshoremen and plainclothes security personnel milling about, the man headed toward Reichardt.
“Mr. Peterhof?”
Reichardt nodded brusquely. “I’m Peterhof.”
The younger man inclined his head. “I’m Inspector Raminsky, with customs. I’ve just received your papers from Harbormaster Cherga. I came down as soon as I could.”
Reichardt frowned. What the devil was this? He’d already dealt with the clerks in customs yesterday. This Raminsky looked like potential trouble — probably fresh out of university and still full of energy and inflated self- importance. A young pup, then, and one too inexperienced to know when not to bark.
Carefully masking his displeasure, Reichardt calmly asked, “How can I help you, Inspector?”
“Well, Mr. Peterhof, as soon as I saw the, ah, nature of your cargo, I knew it would have to be personally inspected.”
Reichardt’s first impulse was to dismiss him; then he reconsidered.
Compliance would attract less suspicion. He called over the head longshoreman, a bearlike man in greasy coveralls.
“Very well. Which crate did you wish to examine, Mr. Raminsky?”
Reichardt gestured toward the truck currently being unloaded and two others that waited behind it with their engines idling.
Raminsky, obviously pleased at being given a choice, pointed to the remaining crate on the first truck in line. “That one.”
Reichardt nodded his agreement and then issued orders to the head longshoreman. “All right, Vasily. Open it up for the inspector.”’ The crates were standard Russian Air Force issue. They were designed to allow inspection without being totally dismantled, but it still required care to open the end panel. After several minutes of prying with a crowbar, the panel fell to the ground with a loud, metallic clang.
Raminsky stepped forward and shined a flashlight inside, revealing a bright, concave, metal surface with the center curving into a dark hole. The official shifted his beam slightly, illuminating the turbine wheel at the center.
“This appears to be a jet engine,” remarked Raminsky skeptically.
“Of course,” Reichardt snorted. “It is a Saturn AL-21 turbojet engine.”
He tapped the bundle of documents he still held in one hand.
“Just as stated on these custom forms. Forms which I must point out have already been signed by your own Minister Fedorov.”
If he was impressed, Raminsky hid it well. Instead he merely raised an eyebrow and examined the sizable
