Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

The pathologist shrugged. “We found no such evidence. It would have been obvious if they had. Usually the rectum shows evidence of trauma—”

“We assume,” Abakov broke in, “that they hadn’t gotten around to it. There was no evidence of any sexual activity, nor did we find any condoms.”

After an awkward interval Abakov said, “Is there anything else you’d like to see?”

Scott put the bullets back in the plastic bag and zipped it shut between a thumb and finger. “The hotel room in Murmansk where they died.”

“What did the ambassador say?” Alex said. She handed Scott an iced vodka.

“This is a nice apartment,” Scott said. Hers was in a block of modem but uninspired redbrick apartments within the U.S. Embassy compound. Alex had brightened it up with travel posters of California sunsets and Florida beaches. The furniture was barely serviceable, but by introducing a collection of vases and figurines made of blue-and-white traditional Russian Gzhel porcelain, lacquer boxes, and matryoshka nesting dolls purchased on the Arbat, she had created a warm, personalized environment.

“What did he say?” she repeated.

“I didn’t talk to him. I met with the deputy chief of mission.”

“Stretzlof? He’s a pompous ass. And a boor.”

“So I discovered,” Scott said. He picked up and examined a beautiful reproduction of a sixteenth- century Russian icon, a painting of the saints Comas, Jacob, and Damian dressed in colorful robes and with gold discs radiating saintliness floating behind their heads. “You have a good eye for this sort of thing.”

“You have to be selective. The shops in Moscow sell a lot of junk to tourists, but if you shop around you can find exquisite things. Like a Chekhov first edition out of my price range.”

“Mine too,” Scott said. “Stretzlof wants Drummond’s body shipped home as soon as possible. I got the impression it’s terribly inconvenient to have a senior military officer murdered in Russia.”

“Stretzlof is the ambassador’s hatchet man. He fronts for the political section too. Did you meet the political affairs officer?”

“No. Should I have?”

“He’s Stretzlof’s handpicked man. He and Stretzlof have gone out of their way at times to anger the Russians. I don’t get it, because we need them as much as they need us. We want a free hand in the Middle East; they want the same in Chechnya. But hey, I try to mind my own business.”

She sat, chin cupped in a fist and looked at Scott. “This is a close-knit community and it’s hard not to step on toes,” Alex said. “Be careful which ones you step on.”

“I had a chat with Brigadier General Carroll,” he said.

“The defense attaché.”

“He offered to help expedite matters, but I told him we could handle things. I didn’t tell him that we were going to Murmansk.”

“Maybe you should have. If Stretzlof finds out, he’ll have a fit. He’ll say you’ve overstepped your orders.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Scott said.

She looked at him guardedly. He sensed a cool, analytical intelligence at work and knew that nothing would likely escape her notice.

“It’s a long trip,” she added.

“Only twelve hundred klicks. We’ll be back before dinner. Besides, it’s Abakov’s helicopter and gas, so it won’t cost Uncle Sam a penny.”

“What do you hope to accomplish by going to Murmansk?” Alex said.

Scott prowled the living room. He seemingly was bursting with energy, the room barely able to contain it. “I don’t know. But I want to find out what the hell happened. Somebody killed Frank and that sailor and I want to know why. Maybe there’s something Abakov’s men overlooked.”

She threw him a questioning look. “Are you saying that the FSB is covering something up?”

“You tell me. What were you two doing in Murmansk that would be so sensitive someone would kill Frank? Remember what Abakov said? He believes the U.S. is trying to conquer Mother Russia. If someone believes that and killed Frank, they could have killed you too.”

Alex gnawed at a fingernail. “We don’t do classified inspections of nuclear weapons—don’t go anywhere near them. Abakov believes that nonsense because he can’t adjust to the new Russia. He wants things the way they were under Brezhnev, when the KGB ran the country. Then he got regular paychecks and could go around scaring the shit out of Russian citizens. Now he has to be nice to people, especially Americans. He’s a dinosaur who can’t adjust to a kinder, gentler Russia.”

“Can you think of any reason someone would kill Frank and that boy?”

“I told you, Jake, all we did was inspect and inventory reactors and their fuel, and monitor radiation levels at the sub bases. Sometimes it was pretty boring work. What kept it from being boring all the time was that Frank was fun to work with; plus, he kept scrupulous notes, which made the job of writing reports easier.”

Scott slugged down his drink. “Then maybe that’s where we should start looking: at Frank’s notes.”

Alex punched a code into a wall-mounted keypad and shut off the embassy’s nodal security system inside Drummond’s apartment. She and Scott stood in the foyer listening to a hum from the refrigerator and a ticking clock on a table in the tiny living room. Like Alex’s apartment, Drummond’s was spare, and he’d made no effort to personalize it. A few well-thumbed Russian language magazines and a National Geographic lay on a Scandinavian-style coffee table in the living room. Other than a coffeemaker and box of sealed premeasured packets of coffee, the kitchenette was bare.

Alex said, “Frank took all of his meals at the embassy mess.”

“He always used government mess whenever he could,” Scott said.

“He kept his papers here,” Alex said. “Each apartment is equipped with a safe. Sensitive materials are held at the chancery, but then, he and I didn’t handle top-grade material.”

She led Scott past a small bedroom that held Drummond’s personal effects to an even smaller room off the hallway that had doubled as his office.

A laptop computer, neatly stacked file folders, a laser printer, and reams of packaged copy paper took up all the space on a trestle table. Pens and pencils, points carefully aligned, stood at attention in a ceramic cup with a smiley face on its side next to a pair of radiation monitors equipped with belt clips. To the left of the table a paper shredder on a stand hung over an empty wastebasket. More files and papers had been left neatly stacked on the floor. Drummond had squared everything away before going to Murmansk. Even his caster chair had been parked just so under the table.

Scott sat down and turned on the desk lamp. He selected a thick file from the stack on the floor and opened it. A rough draft of a report had blue-penciled corrections scribbled over the pages and margins. Scott skimmed the first page of a report on the threat posed by loose fissile materials in Russia.

“Tell me what you’re looking for,” Alex said. “Maybe I can help. This stuff is pretty technical.”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for, and that’s the problem. Maybe there’s something here that might give us a hint.”

“Jake, the only thing I know for sure is that Radchenko was assigned to the K-363. We went aboard the sub and did a walk-through and met the crew, but I don’t specifically remember meeting him. I mean, they are all young and look alike with their short haircuts. Frank interviewed some but not all of the K- 363’s sailors in private ashore to see if any would be suitable to work with Earth Safe securing materials. We had some problems with that, but nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Scott’s senses came alert. “What kind of trouble?”