Red Ice

“Yes, we could get some mileage out of Vyshinsky’s escape and subsequent press conferences. His statements would support the allegations Kurganov has been making all along about the hoodwinking of the West. Sort of act as an update. But to risk a submarine…”

Well, at least Kim was finally acknowledging they had one.

“We might get the same mileage out of drawing more attention to the Moscow dissidents, without putting any of our security forces in jeopardy,” he said, thinking aloud.

I had one last move and I hoped that I had primed Kim properly. We needed that submarine.

“Such a camp is likely to serve a secondary purpose for Ivan. If my guess is correct, it is not far from a railroad line that services the Chinese frontier and does occasional duty as a communications station for the border forces.”

Kim had stopped blinking and was leaning unconsciously toward me. The bargaining center of gravity had shifted in seconds from him to me. Not bad for a stiff-necked old frogman. He could hardly keep from rubbing his hands together with anticipation.

A communications station meant crypto gear, encrypting devices possibly common to North Korea’s code devices. In any event, these devices would be barterable to some other intelligence agency for North Korean code machines. The prospect of surreptitious capture of crypto gear was enough to make an intelligence czar sell his own mother, though I doubted Kim had one unsold this late in his career.

“We could be persuaded to carry back a few key assemblies,” I said as he silently mouthed the words after me.

Kim’s smile was positively chilling. He cleared his throat officially. “You will, of course, need weapons, ammunition, and explosives. We will obtain them for you. The Japanese government has a very unenlightened attitude regarding such matters.”

I proceeded to tell him my plan in detail, granting some allowances for the lack of specific information on the camp and its location. He offered a few suggestions and suddenly I was the proud charterer of a diesel-powered submarine of unspecified origin and vague description. I hoped the camp was indeed used for a communications station. In any event, I would soon find out.

Commander Pak, beside me, smiled—but only with his eyes.

CHAPTER 6

The next evening I returned to Yokohama and found a telegram waiting for me from Ramsund, Norway. Petty Officer Heyer of the Marinejaegerlag had accepted my offer, but could only get leave for three weeks in late February. After climbing the wooden steps, I slid the door to one side, kicked off my shoes, and sat cross-legged on the tatami mats.

Pieter Heyer was a painfully quiet naval commando from Norway. His angular features, his pale blond hair, and pinkish-white complexion all seemed hewn from the ice and snow of his North Sea homeland. Equally at home in fins or on skis, he seldom moved or spoke unless he absolutely had to, but once he did, his actions were resolute and invariably faultless. As a group member, Heyer assumed the role of a valuable individual rather than a leader. He felt more comfortable working with the constants of objects than with the variables of people. A rifle you could rely on; people were a sometime thing. He was the man to assign to equipment and rations. He, too, spoke fluent Russian—more fluently, though less often, than Dravit.

The components were clicking crisply into place. I was ecstatic, a submarine and a technical man with a strong background in two days. With this kind of luck we might pull the thing off, after all. My exhilaration turned to a sudden uneasiness at my rush of good fortune.

I rose from the mats. As I crossed the room I heard my name called from the landing at the bottom of the stairs and turned.

The caller struggled up the stairs with a slightly out-of-sync gait that, with the marbling of scars across his too closely shorn scalp, made recognition immediate. He was a former SEAL point man—one of the best in his day—now patched and mended, but not quite complete.

“Mr. Frazer, how ya doing? Have you seen…”

He named a former SEAL, one we both had known, who was currently in Yokohama on a merchant ship. There was sake on my visitor’s breath.

“Sir, you think you could spare me a little, you know, to tide me over, just this once?”

I couldn’t, nor could I the other times, either. His disability check never lasted him very long. I wasn’t sure whether it was the liquor or the high cost of living out here that made the money vaporize so quickly. The steel plate in his skull seemed to cause money to evaporate faster than hope. His color was poor.

“Step in.”

He took off his shoes and shuffled around the room inquisitively. When his back was turned, I popped a small wad of bills from their hiding place behind a beam. “Trust them… but only with your life,” I’d heard a chief say.