almost aced by some of their frigging Mafiya types and then they throw us in the slammer! Don’t they give a damn about why one of their best officers was murdered?”
The young embassy staffer spread his hands apart. “I’m afraid that’s out of my bailiwick, Colonel. My orders were to bail you out and get you back to the embassy — pronto. The Deputy Chief of Mission wants to see you in his office ASAP” Partly mollified, Thorn pulled open the rear door on the embassy car and held it for Helen. “Fine.” He slid in beside her and said, “Maybe the State Department can light a fire under those idiots in the Kremlin.”
Helen simply shook her head and stared out the window of the car as they sped out of the airport-heading southeast for Moscow.
Randolph Clifford was the Deputy Chief of Mission, the number two man at the American embassy in Moscow. His office, richly furnished with carefully selected czarist-era and American colonial antiques, was meant to endorse his authority, to remind visitors of his position as a high-ranking representative of the U.S. government. It was not meant to serve as the setting for a shouting match.
Colonel Peter Thorn supposed that Clifford, a portly man with a thick mane of white hair, might be called distinguished under less stressful circumstances. Right now, though, the badtempered twist of the diplomat’s mouth and the vein throbbing dangerously on his temple ruined his image as an urbane shaper of American foreign policy.
“Look, Special Agent Gray,” Clifford said in exasperation. “As far as Washington is concerned, the only thing that happened aboard the Star of the White Sea is that two of our citizens stumbled onto a Russian Mafiya drug buy that went sour. It was just an unhappy coincidence that you, the colonel here, and Major Koniev went aboard the ship at that particular time and got caught in the crossfire.” His tone was final, almost dictatorial, but then he was used to having the authority to back up his dictates.
“Is that the story the MVD’s trying to peddle?” demanded Helen angrily, glaring back at the red-faced diplomat with unblinking eyes. “If so, only a moron would even pretend to believe it!”
Thorn hurriedly tamped down a wry grin. He’d wondered what it would take to shake Helen out of her depression over Alexei Koniev’s death.
He should have guessed it would be contact with one of the State Department’s “best and brightest” at his most obnoxious. Now Thorn was just glad she didn’t still have the Tokarev automatic she’d picked up aboard the Russian freighter. If she’d been armed, he had the feeling Randolph Clifford might already have been on the receiving end of a full eightshot magazine.
Clifford bristled, and then visibly relaxed his facial muscles.
He adopted a more soothing, almost fatherly, tone. “I’ll overlook that unfortunate comment, Miss Gray. You’re overwrought. And I know you’ve been through hell—”
“Don’t patronize me, Mr. Clifford!” Helen interrupted. “What I’m overwrought about, if anything, is the way we, the U.S. government that is, seems to be papering this whole thing over.”
Evidently too mad to sit still, she got up and started pacing the room.
Thorn leaned forward. It was time to stick his own oar in.
“What happened in Pechenga wasn’t an accident, sir. It was a cold-blooded ambush. They were waiting for us.”
“Perhaps so,” the embassy official replied, and clearly glad to talk to him while Helen cooled off. “But the MVD claims that the ambush could have been set up in thirty seconds when one of the Mafiya lookouts spotted you coming down the pier.” He shook his head. “Given the odds against you, I’m still amazed you managed to escape at all.”
Helen snapped, “I’m sure that whoever planned all this is even more amazed!”
Clifford ignored her remark and went on. “You have to view this matter from the Russian perspective, Colonel. The evidence the MVD found aboard that tramp freighter seems quite clear.”
He tapped the bulky manila folder he’d told them contained the official Russian government crime scene report. “First they discover nearly fifty kilos of what looks like heroin in one of the ship’s storage lockers. Then they find out that these drugs are really just milk sugar laced with a small percentage of the real stuff. And finally, they stumble across all nineteen of her crew, including the real Captain Tumarev, gagged and bound with duct tape, shot in the back of the head execution-style, and then dumped in a cargo hold!”
The diplomat shuddered involuntarily, evidently remembering the photographs he’d said were included in the MVD report.
He was a bureaucrat, not a man of action.
Helen, who’d seen worse sights in her tour with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, stopped pacing and shrugged. “All of which proves nothing.” She leaned over the diplomat’s desk. “Except that whoever arranged that ambush was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to put an end to our investigation before we got any closer to the truth. And now you and the MVD are giving the bad guys what they want on a silver platter!”
Clifford turned red with anger. “Listen, Miss Gray, your investigation has done more to strain U.S.-Russian relations than you can possibly imagine.” He scowled, speaking plainly and candidly for a change.
“Somebody in the Pechenga militia already blabbed to the Moscow press corps. And only Undersecretary Carleton’s murder yesterday has kept this off the front pages in the States. But the local boys are running wild, and they’re embarrassing the hell out of the Kremlin. The press is playing every angle it can dream up — Russian organized crime, lousy Russian aircraft safety, Russian drug smuggling, corruption in the Russian military …”
“I don’t give a damn about the press, Mr.. Clifford or the Kremlin,” Helen said forcefully. “My job is finding out the truth about what happened in Kandalaksha and why my partner was killed.”
Clifford shook his head just as firmly. “That’s where you’re wrong, Miss Gray.” He included Thorn in his baleful gaze. “As it stands, you two have managed to anger almost every faction in the Russian government. Most of them were never very happy with the idea of Americans investigating crimes on Russian soil. Now they’re furious!”
“Your original charter covered the O.S.I.A plane crash only,” the diplomat continued. “But once you started poking around into Mafiya drug cartels and their ties to the Russian Air Force, the MVD claims you crossed the line into ‘impermissible interference.’”
That was too much for Thorn. “That’s bullshit,” he growled.
“Alexei Koniev had permission from his higher-ups every step of the way.”
“And Major Koniev is dead,” Clifford reminded him brutally.
“Which brings me to another problem. The MVD is having trouble believing that one of their best men was killed in that ambush while you two walked away without a scratch — even if the major did die a hero.” He shrugged. “Not everyone believes your story about what happened aboard the Star of the White Sea.”
Helen glared and Peter opened his mouth to protest, but the diplomat held up a conciliatory hand. “Don’t worry. I believe you. At least I think I do. I’ve read both your personnel files.”
Clifford sighed and turned to face Thorn directly. “But your Special Forces background makes you very hot, diplomatically, Colonel.” He gestured vaguely toward the window. “There are a lot of people here in Moscow who don’t see you as a simple soldier, Colonel. To the Russians, the closest thing to Delta Force is the old Soviet Spetsnaz. And that means you’re a trained assassin in their eyes — a paid U.S. government killer. So your presence here makes them nervous. They were willing to let it lie as long as things stayed relatively quiet, but you’re in the spotlight now.”
Thorn tensed. He knew that what Clifford said was true. Officially, he’d been on very thin ice from the beginning, and now the ice had cracked. He looked over at Helen, hoping she was on firmer ground.
As if on cue she sat down in the chair next to him and crossed her arms. “Colonel Thorn’s background has proved an extremely valuable asset during this investigation,” she said steadily.
Clifford snorted. “That depends on your perspective, I suppose. Others might reasonably argue your whole effort has been an unmitigated disaster from beginning to end. This Pechenga fiasco is simply the last straw.”
Jesus. Thorn shook his head, trying desperately to think of a way out of the bureaucratic box he saw being built around them.
“I don’t accept that, Mr. Clifford. As far as I can see, we’ve made substantial progress. We’ve established beyond a shadow of a doubt that the O.S.I.A transport plane was sabotaged. And we know that this Captain Grushtin carried out the sabotage — though we don’t know yet why, or on whose orders.”
“That’s no longer any of your concern,” Clifford said bluntly.
“What?” Helen exploded.
