Serov told him.
Reichardt did not even bother to hide the sudden wolfish hunger in his voice.
“Excellent, Feodor Mikhailovich. It appears that Captain Nikolai Grushtin may yet perform another service for us, after all.”
Helen Gray leaned close to Peter Thorn’s ear and whispered, “Jesus Christ! If this is an example of Colonel General Serov’s full cooperation, I’d sure hate to see him stonewalling.”
Peter nodded grimly.
The Russian base commander had set aside an empty, unused hangar for their use. As a place to conduct confidential interviews it left much to be desired. With the doors open, the noise from the Kandalaksha flight line was deafening. With the doors closed, the unheated hangar’s thick concrete walls trapped both the nighttime cold and the lingering reek of spilled fuel, oil, and grease. Crude drawings and coarse jokes left spray-painted on the walls by long-discharged Russian conscripts added to the general air of disrepair.
Nor were the other aspects of Serov’s “cooperation” much better.
At the Russian general’s insistence, one of his top aides, a lean, hatchet-faced colonel named Petrov, sat in on every interview — perched across the table in full view of every hapless enlisted man they questioned. Tough- looking sentries wearing body armor and toting AK-74 assault rifles were also posted at the hangar entrance.
Serov had explained these steps as a necessary precaution, given the presence of nuclear weapons at Kandalaksha. “We take security very seriously here, Miss Gray,” he had said, and then, with a sidelong glance at Peter Thorn’s U.S. Army uniform, “although it is clear that others in the Ministry of Defense do not share my concerns.”
Bull, Helen thought. She’d bet cold, hard cash that the Russian general’s precautions were intended to intimidate potential witnesses — not to protect nukes that were stored in bombproof bunkers miles away.
If she was right, the worst of it was that Serov’s plan was working.
So far all of the ground crewmen they’d interviewed had insisted that nothing out of the ordinary occurred while the O.S.I.A inspection team’s An-32 was being readied for takeoff. She didn’t believe them. Nobody liked being questioned by the police, but there were too many hesitations, too many nervous glances at Serov’s aide, too many dry mouths, and too many sweaty brows for her to buy their stories.
No. Something had gone badly wrong out there on the Kandalaksha flight line. But they still didn’t know whether to pin the blame on sloppy procedures or deliberate sabotage.
Frustrated, Helen turned her attention back to the aircraft mechanic Alexei Koniev was questioning. She couldn’t follow the rapid-fire flow of Russian, but she could read body language plainly. The mechanic, a private, had flat, Asiatic features that marked him out as a native of Russia’s Far East. A nervous tic near the corner of one eye told her he was frightened.
Koniev snapped out a question, listened briefly to the private’s hesitant, uncertain reply, and then waved him away in disgust.
“No dice?” Helen asked.
“Nothing,” Koniev snorted. He nodded toward the mechanic, already hurrying out of the hangar. “According to that one, the sky was blue. The birds were singing. The flowers were in bloom. And he and his comrades did everything humanly possible to make sure that plane was ready to fly.”
Peter Thorn leaned over. “Who’s next?”
Koniev glanced down at the unit roster open on the table in front of him. “A Lieutenant Vladimir Chernavin.” He frowned.
“Perhaps the lieutenant will demonstrate his fitness to be a member of the officer class by telling us something resembling the truth.”
Helen shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.”
Despite her skepticism, she had to admit that Chernavin made a better first impression than his subordinates. The lieutenant was short, an inch or so below her own five foot ten, but he was solidly built — carrying enough muscle to show that he did his own share of the grunt work out on the flight line. Closecropped brown hair topped a round, open, boyish face that proclaimed his youth. He also had a ready, infectious smile.
Chernavin took the chair Koniev indicated. His eyes took in Peter’s military uniform and widened. “You are American?” he asked in passable English.
After a quick glance at Koniev, Peter nodded. “Colonel Thorn, U.S. Army.” He indicated Helen. “And this is Special Agent Gray of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
The Russian lieutenant grinned excitedly. “I am very glad to meet you, Colonel! And you, Miss Gray.”
Helen didn’t even try to conceal her surprise. “Really, Lieutenant? Then you’re the first person I’ve run across here at Kandalaksha who’s happy to talk to us. Most of your subordinates seem to think we’re either spies or secret policemen.”
Chernavin’s open, friendly face clouded over. “Ah.” He shrugged. “Then they are ignorant peasants. Their heads are still stuffed full of the old Cold War propaganda. They have not studied America and its marvels as I have.”
The young Russian brightened again. “I hope to visit your country one day, you see! So I am not afraid.”
“You do know we’re here to investigate your unit’s work on the An-32 that crashed eleven days ago?” Koniev cut in impatiently.
“You understand that, Lieutenant Chernavin?”
“Of course.”
Helen fought to keep her face impassive. The Russian Air Force lieutenant seemed blissfully unconcerned by their inquiry.
Why? She leaned forward. “It doesn’t bother you that an aircraft you worked on went down in the woods shortly after taking off from here ? killing everyone on board?”
Chernavin lowered his gaze. “Oh, no. No. I did not mean that.” He looked up at Helen. “Of course, I am very, very sorry that all those people died. It is a great tragedy, naturally. A great tragedy.”
“A tragedy? Not an accident? Not a disaster?” Koniev said skeptically. “Explain that, Lieutenant.”
The young Russian officer spread his hands apart. “I only meant that, whatever caused the aircraft to go down, it had nothing to do with the work performed here at Kandalaksha.”
Helen smiled at Chernavin. If Koniev wanted to grab the tough guy spot in the good cop-bad cop routine, she would oblige. “You seem very sure of that, Lieutenant.”
He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”
“Why?” Koniev rapped out. “Why are you so sure, Chernavin?”
“Because Captain Grushtin handled the preflight check himself,” the Russian maintenance officer said confidently.
Grushtin? Helen glanced down at the maintenance records in front of her. She’d spent enough time in Russia to puzzle out the Cyrillic alphabet, and Koniev had scribbled a hasty translation of the Air Force technical terms and jargon. She looked up at the young Russian officer. “Just who is this Captain Grushtin, Lieutenant?”
For the first time, Chernavin seemed unsure of himself. “Captain Nikolai Grushtin is one of the chief maintenance officers on the base.”
His gaze swiveled from Helen to Koniev and back again. “He is a brilliant mechanic. Brilliant. So you see, that is why I am confident that this crash had nothing to do with our work here.”
Koniev slid his own copy of the An-32 maintenance log across the table toward the younger man. “If this Captain Grushtin performed the preflight check himself, Chernavin, perhaps you can tell me why he is not listed in this log or anywhere else for that matter!”
Clearly surprised, the lieutenant stared down at the papers for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers and looked up. “Captain Grushtin is not listed because he was not officially assigned to supervise the ground crews on that day. The log would only show those of us on that morning’s flight line roster.”
Helen felt her heart rate quicken — aware that it was the same sensation she used to have on the Hostage Rescue Team firing range when the first real target popped up. She shook her head.
“So this Grushtin character just showed up unannounced and you let him handle the An-32 maintenance work?”
