Day of Wrath

Almost against her will, Helen matched his grin. “Probably.”

She shrugged. “Maybe I even still love you.”

Aware again of the pulse pounding in his ears, Thorn lifted the hand she had on his knee, enclosed it in his own, and pulled her slowly toward him. Her lips parted, met his gently, and then pressed back even harder.

Suddenly he felt her stiffen.

Slowly, reluctantly, Helen pulled her lips away from his. She whispered, “Someone’s outside, Peter. I just heard a twig snap.”

He sat up and faced the tent flap — watching her hand slip toward the shoulder holster hanging from a peg over her cot. Her combat reflexes were obviously still good.

Someone rapped on the canvas. “Special Agent Gray? You are still awake, I hope?”

Helen visibly relaxed. “It’s Alexei Koniev.” She sat back on the cot and smoothed her sweater into shape. “I’m awake, Major.

Colonel Thorn and I were just talking. Come on in.”

Koniev slipped through the tent flap and stood looking down at them.

His eyes twinkled. “I hope I am not interrupting anything of importance.”

“Nothing much, Major,” Thorn heard himself say stiffly.

“Ah, that is good.” Koniev tossed his officer’s cap onto Helen’s improvised desk and sat down in the empty folding chair. He crossed his legs casually and leaned forward. “Perhaps we can discuss our strategy for tomorrow, then. Our game plan, I believe you Americans say?”

Thorn bit down hard on his irritation. Koniev had as much right to visit Helen’s tent as he did — maybe even more. And he couldn’t fault the Russian major for wanting to get a head start on the next day’s work. He just wished the younger man didn’t look so much at home in her company. His love life and this investigation were already complicated enough.

CHAPTER TWO EARLY WARNING

MAY 25

_{Headquarters, 125th Air Division, Kandalaksha (D MINUS 27)}

Colonel General Feodor Serov slid the pile of brochures and bank transfers into a special file folder and nodded to himself. Cuba would serve as the ideal shelter for his family and his newfound wealth.

His lips thinned into a mocking smile.

Some of his old comrades-in-arms might attribute his decision to a liking for one of the world’s few remaining communist states. Despite his professed fondness for “the U.S.S.R.“s good old days,” they would be wrong.

Ideology was a younger man’s luxury, he thought. Socialism was dead or dying. The mighty Soviet state he had served all his life was gone — leaving only a pale, shrinking ghost in its place.

His lopsided smile turned into a sneer. Yeltsin’s Russia could not even maintain its grip on Chechnya — a piss-poor region inhabited only by ignorant Muslim bandits. Four centuries of Russian and then Soviet imperial conquest were being thrown away by the quarreling fools in Moscow.

No, Serov had far better reasons for settling in Cuba.

Hard currency was king in Castro’s island nation. Land was cheap.

Wages were low. And Fidel’s hard-pressed government didn’t ask inconvenient questions when wealthy expatriates brought their resources to its aid. He and his family could blend in with the growing colony of other newly rich Russians who had already moved there — drawn by the sunny, warm climate, and by the chance to spend ill-gotten gains safely outside the reach of their own country’s law enforcement agencies.

His watch beeped. It was time to attend to more routine matters. He grabbed the folder off his desk and jammed it into a leather valise as he headed for the door. His military aide looked up as he hurried through the outer office. “I’ll be on the flight line for the next hour, Captain, and then I’ll be at Maintenance.”’ Serov clattered down the steps, still mentally organizing his afternoon.

With his relief due in two weeks and his retirement slated for the week after that, his days were crowded. Kandalaksha was a large, complex base, and he wanted — no, needed — the turnover to go smoothly.

Especially with the secret venture he knew only as “the Operation” so close to completion. The ongoing An-32 air crash investigation was bad enough. He couldn’t afford any more slipups that might draw even closer official scrutiny.

His staff car and driver were waiting, with the engine running.

Serov yanked the back door open and slid inside. He snapped out a brusque order: “Let’s get to the flight line, Sergeant.”

Only then did the Russian general realize he wasn’t alone.

The other man in the back seat was slightly smaller than Serov and thinner. He wore a perfectly tailored olive-green Italian suit, and his stylishly cut hair was more gray than black. His face was commonplace, much like that of any anonymous bureaucrat or businessman.

Only his steel-gray eyes betrayed his intensity and ruthlessness.

Rolf Ulrich Reichardt waited for the car door to close behind Serov, then nodded at the driver. “Go.”

Serov scowled. “What the devil are you …?” His voice faded when he realized the sergeant sitting behind the wheel was not his regular driver.