Day of Wrath

Manifests, customs forms, and authorizations from the Russian Ministry of Defense covered his battered wooden desk. All except one had been acquired legitimately, though some had needed slight alterations on names, numbers, and dates. Reichardt’s own credentials identified him as the shipping agent for a company called Arrus Export, Inc. They were also genuine — although they showed his name as Mikhail Peterhof, a White Russian of German extraction.

He waited while Cherga studied each document intently, usually nodding, but sometimes setting a page to one side.

Reichardt hid his impatience. The Russian might be only a small-town bureaucrat, but he nevertheless wielded considerable power. In a country that still thrived on red tape, examining official documents was part procedure, part beloved ritual.

In any event, the German knew paperwork alone would not be sufficient to move his cargo out of the harbor. Whether lumber or refined metal or jet engines, a few palms needed to be greased first. For that reason the papers on Cherga’s desk included a plain envelope containing a wad of dollars and deutsche marks, equivalent to several months’ official salary for the older man. At the current rates of exchange, Russia’s miserably low wages were an open invitation to graft and corruption.

With a small sigh, the harbormaster opened the seal on the envelope.

His fingers riffled quickly through the notes, and he smiled with evident satisfaction. The bribe was big enough to win his cooperation without attracting too much attention.

Cherga glanced up at Reichardt. “As always, it is a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Peterhof.”

“Thank you, Harbormaster,” Reichardt said sincerely. Three decades of covert work first for East Germany’s feared state security service and later for himself had taught him to appreciate men whose services could be bought. It made life so much simpler. He nodded toward the papers on the other man’s desk.

“I assume you have found everything in order?”

“Of course,” the elderly Russian bureaucrat said. He carefully stamped the necessary permits and shipping authorizations, gathered all the documents into a neat pile, and then presented them to Reichardt with a flourish. “I wish your cargo a good voyage, Mr. Peterhof.”

Reichardt left the office just as the majority of Pechenga’s dockworkers and crane operators began straggling into view. He stepped onto the pier and signaled to his security team. Two scrambled up the Star’s gangplank, while others fanned out along the dock. All of them were armed, but none carried their weapons openly. His guards were there as a last resort only.

Reichardt nodded to himself. There would be no mistakes today. This phase of the Operation was too close to completion to permit any further errors. Not like that fool Serov at Kandalaksha.

His lips thinned, remembering the Russian Air Force general’s pale, frightened face. Reichardt had zero tolerance for incompetence, ideology, or sentimentality. The stakes involved in this venture were enormous. If need be, he would carry out the murderous threats he had made against Serov and his family.

The German suppressed the small shiver of pleasurable excitement evoked by the thought of what he could do to the Russian, his wife, and his daughters before finally killing them.

Neither pity nor morality would stop him from punishing those who failed him.

Reichardt had grown up in a system that valued power above any outdated bourgeois virtue. He had seen through the communist party’s other lies at an early age — a wisdom his foolish, deluded parents had never achieved. They had lived their whole wasted spans on earth as true-believing “servants of the State.”

But Reichardt understood that power over life and death was the ultimate power — the nearest approach to divinity possible in a cold, uncaring universe. And he enjoyed every chance to exercise that power.

He turned to watch the first truck roll up to the end of the pier. Two more vehicles followed close behind. Each truck carried two long metal crates. The local longshoremen, grateful for a day’s work and the extra bonus promised if they finished early, moved rapidly into position as the ship’s crane maneuvered its wire rope down to their level.

Reichardt stood where he could both see and be seen. His alert gray eyes missed nothing as the first crate rose high into the air and then swung slowly toward the Star of the White Sea’s forward cargo hold.

“Watcher Two to Control. Unknown crossing security perimeter.”’ The radio message from one of his observers crackled in Reichardt’s earpiece.

He turned and spotted a serious-looking young man in a cheap suit and bulky overcoat marching down the pier. After scanning the mix of longshoremen and plainclothes security personnel milling about, the man headed toward Reichardt.

“Mr. Peterhof?”

Reichardt nodded brusquely. “I’m Peterhof.”