“You got it,” Spiegel confirmed. “And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you’re listed on the manifest as PFCS John and Jane Doe. The last thing anyone wants is more news coverage.”
Thorn nodded. He agreed with the precautions the State Department was taking on that score, if on no other.
“What about our work, Charlie?” Helen asked. “Can you or your people dig any further? I don’t want this investigation to fall through the cracks once they’ve shipped us off. We’ve paid too high a price to let it go so easily.”
Spiegel looked blank. “Jesus, Helen. That’s gonna be a problem. I mean, the word’s come down from on high: Steer clear of the Kandalaksha mess. It’s a Russian-only situation. If my people start asking too many questions, I’m going to trip all kinds of alarm bells all over the damn place — both here and in D.C.”
Then he shrugged. “Besides, with this Grushtin character dead and that freighter a bust, I wouldn’t really know where to start looking. Seems to me you’ve run this thing into a dead-end no pun intended.”
Thorn frowned. He wasn’t going to let this guy off the hook so easily.
He claimed he was a friend of Helen’s. Well, let him prove it. He shook his head. “Not true. We know one of the people who set us up. Have somebody put the squeeze on Colonel General Feodor Serov. That son of a bitch knows a hell of a lot more than he told us.”
Spiegel sighed. “That’s one of the new developments I mentioned. Somebody took out both Serov and his wife yesterday-probably very early in the A.M. Whoever did it was a pro. The wife took one bullet to the brain. Serov went a little harder. Somebody pumped him so full of heroin that the stuff was practically pouring out his eye sockets.”
Thorn felt his jaw muscles tighten. Every time he thought they were close to the inner core of this mystery, somebody got there first and cleared out all the evidence and witnesses. He looked hard at Spiegel.
“I suppose Serov’s murder is all over the evening papers, too?”
The CIA officer shook his head. “Not a peep. Nada. The MVD and the Russian Air Force have clamped down a complete security blackout around Kandalaksha. Nothing’s getting in or out. They’re damned serious about it, too. Finding out one of their highest-ranking officers was involved in drug trafficking has them rattled.”
“Oh?” Helen looked skeptical. “Then how did you find out about it?”
“Well …” Spiegel smiled slyly. “Let’s just say that Russian counterintelligence isn’t as good as they’d like to think.”
“All right, so Serov’s dead,” Helen said slowly, thinking aloud. “That still leaves one more trail you could follow.”
“Oh?” Spiegel said. “Fill me in. I’ve never claimed omniscience.”
“Arrus Export,” Helen said. “Both Serov and the customs agent at Pechenga claimed they were dealing with a man named Peterhof.”
“Yeah,” Spiegel said. “I read your report.” Then he shook his head again. “That’s another dead-end, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
The CIA man shrugged. “We checked with the Arrus office here in Moscow. They’ve never had anyone named Peterhof working for them. And they claim they’ve never run an Su-24 engine acquisition program like the one you described.”
“What makes you think they’d admit something like that so easily?”
Thorn challenged. “Christ, we’re talking about blackmarket arms sales here!”
“I understand that, Colonel,” Spiegel said. He checked to make sure the door was completely closed, then lowered his voice slightly.
“Look, Arrus is a clean operation, okay? It’s on the side of the angels.”
Helen stared at him. “Are you telling us that Arrus Export is a Company asset? That it’s a front organization for the CIA?”
“Not exactly,” Spiegel said hastily. “But Arrus has done some significant favors for us in the past. And it’s very well connected back in the States. The owners are fair-haired boys in Langley’s books.”
Helen looked forward, her eyes glittering. “I’m going to ask you one more question, Charlie.” Her lips thinned. “And I expect a straight answer.”
“If I can,” Spiegel temporized.
“No ifs, Charlie,” Helen said coldly. “And no screwing around with maybes. or other covert op double-talk. You owe me. Remember?”
The CIA officer flushed. “Ask your question.”
“Is this engine smuggling operation tied into the Agency somehow?” Helen said carefully. “Or to some other U.S. government outfit?”
“You’re sure?” Thorn asked skeptically. Spiegel’s denial meant nothing if he was out of the loop. All covert operations were run on strict need-to-know principles.
“I’m sure, Colonel,” the CIA man said. He looked Thorn squarely in the eye. “I went straight to the top of the Operations Directorate when I saw Helen’s preliminary report from Kandalaksha. I even asked about the drug angle. Hell, I know this wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tripped over one of our ops, but I’m telling you this was not one of them.”
Spiegel shook his head yet again. “Look, I don’t know who the hell was buying Su-24 engines on the sly, or running heroin, or whatever the real story is. But I do know the CIA is clean. We’re not involved here.”
He glanced at Helen and frowned. “Christ, Helen, I know what you’re going through. Hell, I liked Alexei Koniev, too! But face facts: You’ve pushed this thing as far as you can. You’ve already put your whole career on the line, and you were damned lucky to get out of Pechenga in one piece. So let the Russians sort out their own messes!”
Thorn knew Spiegel was offering them good advice, but he didn’t need to see the stubborn set of Helen’s shoulders to know that she wasn’t prepared to let the matter drop so easily. Unfortunately, he didn’t see what choice either of them really had. Once they were out of Russia their ability to pin down the truth of what had happened at Kandalaksha would drop to precisely zero.
Helen Gray surrendered any hope that she could persuade herself to sleep. Her body was tired — beyond tired, in fact. Every muscle ached. And whenever she moved, she could feel every separate scrape, cut, and bruise she’d collected during the desperate firefight aboard the Star of the White Sea. She could have ignored the pain. Training and sheer exhaustion would have allowed her to do that.
But now her mind and memory betrayed her.
The image of Alexei Koniev lying dead rose before her, and then fled back into the darker recesses of her mindchased away by old ghosts and new fears. All her life she’d pushed herself hard — striving always and everywhere to be the best, to win every game and every contest. Now it looked as though she’d finally met a puzzle she couldn’t solve and an unknown enemy she couldn’t beat.
Helen opened her eyes in the darkness and lay staring up at the ceiling of her small bedroom.
When she was just thirteen, she’d set her heart on becoming an FBI agent. Her parents, her brother and her sisters, and even some of her teachers had tried to convince her that she was on a wild-goose chase.
But she’d persisted. She’d weighed every class, every hobby, and every interest by how far it moved her toward her goal — the FBI Academy at Quantico.
Once in the FBI itself, she’d clawed her way up and into the elite Hostage Rescue Team by sheer ability and hard work — disdaining the various affirmative-action shortcuts that had been dangled in front of her. To Helen, the way to smash the sexist bias of the Bureau’s old boy network was to prove it flatout wrong — not to give them a chance to fall back on the tired, old cop-out that women couldn’t make the grade without special help.
Her jaw tightened. There would be celebrating in some corridors of the Hoover Building once the news that she’d been yanked out of Moscow filtered through the rumor mill. And there were plenty of others like Mcdowell scattered throughout the FBI.
Of course, Helen knew that she had friends and mentors in the Bureau’s hierarchy, too. Men who trusted her. Men who would stand by her. But what could they do for her now? Incurring the wrath of the Russian government while solving an important case might have been acceptable.
