It’s registered in Grushtin’s name.”
Thorn smiled wryly. “Nice can-especially for a guy whose salary is just a couple of hundred dollars a month.” He straightened up. “So when do we pay Captain Grushtin a visit?”
Helen frowned. “That’s the bad news. Titenko won’t let us move without backup from an SOBR team.”
Thorn mentally paged through the briefing papers he’d read.
SOBR was the Russian-language acronym for the Special Detachments of Rapid Deployment — the MVD’S organized crime SWAT unit.
“The SOBR?” Koniev said impatiently. “For God’s sake, why?
We’re talking about bringing one man in for questioning — not assaulting a drug lord’s mansion!”
Helen shook her head. “General Titenko and the rest of your superiors aren’t so sure about that, Alexei. After reading the report we filed from Kandalaksha, they’ve seized on the heroin angle to explain why Grushtin sabotaged that plane. If he is working for a smuggling syndicate, there’s no telling what kind of firepower he could have hidden in that dacha.”
In theory, Thorn agreed with this Titenko’s caution. Rushing an operation without adequate recon or backup was a good way to get yourself killed. And he could understand why the Russians were so eager to believe the An- 32 crash was drug-related. Since returning from Kandalaksha, he’d seen some of the reports crossing Helen’s desk.
Heroin transshipments from Southwest Asia and China through Russia to the West were on the rise. And it would make sense for the smugglers to use Russian Air Force bases as transfer points. With the right officers in their pockets, they wouldn’t find it very difficult to slip large quantities of heroin onto cargo aircraft ferrying in supplies, spare parts, and personnel. As chief of maintenance at Kandalaksha, Nikolai Grushtin was ideally placed to recover such shipments from any number of different hiding places aboard the aircraft arriving at the air base.
Of course, Thorn realized, pinning the blame on the Mafiya also made good political sense. It made the crash an entirely Russian tragedy — turning away any suggestion that the American nuclear arms inspection team might have been the intended target.
Well, he still wasn’t so sure. An air base in the far northern reaches of Russia seemed awfully far from the poppy fields of Afghanistan. And the connection between the heroin they’d found in Colonel Gasparov’s bag and Captain Nikolai Grushtin was still entirely theoretical. As far as he was concerned, it would stay that way until he had a chance to question the Air Force maintenance officer himself.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, so we wait for backup. Just when is this SWAT team available?”
Helen glanced out the window and then checked her watch.
“Not until later tonight — after dark.”
Colonel Peter Thorn crouched low beside the dark BMW parked outside Grushtin’s country home. He risked a cautious glance around the bumper.
Birch trees gleamed silver in the pale light cast by the rising moon.
Patches of shadow flickered in and out of existence as a cool wind stirred the trees. The sky overhead was full of stars.
Moscow’s lights were a distant orange glow on the northern horizon.
They were thirty kilometers south of the city. The dacha itself was just meters away — separated from the rutted dirt lane by an unpainted wood fence and a stretch of weed-choked open ground.
Thorn pulled back into cover.
“Anything?” Helen Gray whispered in his ear.
“Nothing new,” he reported softly. “The lights are on, but the curtains are drawn.”
Koniev appeared out of the darkness, bent low, and dropped to the ground beside them. He unsnapped the holster at his side and drew an automatic pistol — a 5.45mm Makarov PSM. “The SOBR team is almost in place. They will go in first — on my signal.
Are you ready?”
Thorn nodded tightly, aware that his pulse was accelerating.
He glanced again at Koniev’s pistol. His own hands felt empty — too empty. Neither he nor Helen was armed. The Russian authorities frowned on foreigners — even foreigners with military or law enforcement connections — carrying weapons. Koniev had only bent the rules at the An-32 crash site because Helen had been the only woman quartered among hundreds of men. Once they’d come back to Moscow, her sidearm had gone straight back into an embassy lockbox.
The Russian MVD major risked his own look around the BMW’s bumper. He clicked the transmit button on a handheld radio.
“Tri. Dva. ODIN!”
The shadows came alive.
SOBR commandos wearing dark ski masks, jeans, running shoes, and bulky body armor charged out of concealment, covering the short distance from their hiding places to the dacha in seconds. One smashed in the front door with a sledgehammer — covered by two more armed with AKS-74U submachine guns.
The door crumpled, torn off at the hinges, and they poured inside.
At the same time, others broke in through the groundfloor windows.
More commandos armed with night scopes and sniper rifles swept their weapons through tight firing arcs — looking for targets on the upper floor.
The area fell silent again.
Suddenly, Koniev’s radio crackled with a hurried report from inside the dacha. His face fell. He stood up.
Thorn stood with him. “What’s wrong, Major?”
“They found Captain Grushtin,” Koniev said heavily.
Helen joined them. “Good.”
The Russian MVD officer shook his head tiredly. “No, not good. Come with me.”
Thorn and Helen exchanged a troubled look before following Koniev inside.
The dacha’s front room was packed with evidence of Grushtin’s illicit activities. A Japanese-made television set, VCR, and high-end stereo system filled an imported Scandinavian entertainment center on one wall. Personal computer components sat atop a handsome oak desk in the opposite corner. An expensive Persian carpet covered the hardwood floor.
A stepladder lay on its side on the carpet, next to a high-peaked officer’s cap and two empty vodka bottles.
Four SOBR commandos were inside the room, cradling their weapons in their gloved hands. All of them were staring up at the ceiling.
Thorn turned his own gaze upward.
Wearing his full Russian Air Force dress uniform — right down to his polished brown boots — Captain Nikolai Grushtin dangled from the rafters of his own ceiling. His face bulged out over the noose tied tight around his neck. Dark stains down the back of his uniform trousers showed where he had voided his bowels in death.
Thorn sighed. “Oh, hell.”
“Hell, indeed,” Koniev echoed him. He turned away and snapped out a question to the ranking SOBR trooper in the room. The commando stiffened to attention, hurriedly replied, and then carefully handed him a folded piece of paper.
“A suicide note?” Helen asked grimly, turning away from the body dangling above them.
“So it seems,” the MVD major said cautiously. “The assault team found it on the desk over there. Right by the computer.”
Holding it by the edges, he carefully unfolded the piece of paper.
Thorn looked over his shoulder. Scrawled Cyrillic characters filled the page above a signature. The writing looked shaky, uneven.
There were splotches where the ink had run. Were they tear stains? Or sweat?
Koniev frowned. “It’s dated yesterday.” Still holding the note, he began translating. ““I, Nikolai Grushtin, write this last testament and confession in great turmoil of soul and mind. Once a loyal officer in our noble Air Force, I end my days as a murderer, a drunkard, and a peddler of drugs. I accuse Colonel Anatoly Gasparov of leading me down this evil path. It was he who played on my weaknesses until at last I succumbed — selling my honor for
