Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

“The captain of the K-363 made it clear that he didn’t want us on his boat and that he definitely didn’t want us talking to his men ashore—or anywhere else for that matter.”

“What was his name—can you remember?”

“How can I forget? Kapitan Third Rank Georgi Litvanov. A prick.”

“Kapitan third rank—a full commander. What did he do?”

Alex frowned. “He flat-out told us to get the hell off his ship. He even ordered one of his—what do you call them? — michman—”

“Warrant officers.”

“Right—to escort us off the boat.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, you know Frank. He used that charm of his to defuse the situation, and the next thing he and the michman were swapping sea stories.”

“What did Litvanov do about that?”

“What could he do? We had permission from the commander of the Russian Northern Fleet as well as the Interior Ministry to do our work. Litvanov sure as hell didn’t like it but he had to go along with it. I know that the captain of a naval vessel is God, but he had to relinquish his kingdom to a higher authority.”

“This Radchenko was a krasnoflotets—an able seaman. What did he tell Drummond?”

“I don’t know, because I didn’t sit in on the interview.”

“But Frank rejected him.”

“Yes. Radchenko had hardly any experience in nuclear power. He was just a striker getting on-the-job training. I think he doubled as a mess cook.”

Scott raked fingers through his hair. His eyes roamed Frank’s desk, darting from object to object. “It doesn’t make sense. Frank was always looking out for the welfare of his crew, especially the enlisted men. He understood their problems and knew that a ship and CO is only as good as its crew. But Frank wouldn’t necessarily sit down and knock back a few cold ones with his boys. And not this boy. Yet, there he was in Frank’s hotel room.”

“Maybe he had information Frank wanted.”

“What information?”

Her mouth tightened. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, say he did, but why meet him in a shit hole of a hotel? And why the need for secrecy?” Scott considered for a long moment, gazing down at the gray carpeting as if he might find the answer written there. He looked up. “Did Frank say anything at all about a meeting?”

“Not a word. Just that he was going to wrap things up and head back to Moscow.”

“By the way, any idea what happened to his cell phone? I didn’t see it listed on the FSB’s inventory of his personal effects.”

She shook her head. “It’s missing. Someone must have stolen it.”

‘it’s useless without his activation code,” Scott said.

At length Alex’s shoulders sagged. “Maybe…”

“Maybe what?” Scott said.

“Maybe Abakov was right. Maybe Frank and the sailor…”

“Come on, Alex. I know you don’t believe that.”

“I don’t want to, but I can’t think of any reason that Frank would have met with a half-illiterate navy conscript in a hotel near the base. Everything would have been covered in the private interviews.”

“Then there’s got to be another explanation.” Scott turned back to the desk. “What about his computer? Maybe there’s something useful on it.”

“I doubt it,” Alex said. “Most of the stuff he copied to the hard drive was encrypted technical material, and I don’t have the access codes.”

“I thought you said he kept the high-security stuff in the chancery.”

“He did. Even so, this stuff is sensitive, and that’s why he used a twenty-eight-bit encryption code.” “Isn’t that overkill?”

“Probably, but he was careful.”

“Right, and a man who’s that careful wouldn’t meet a sailor from Olenya Bay in a hotel room in Murmansk unless it was damned important.”

Alex said nothing. She knelt beside Scott and booted the laptop sitting on the table. He inhaled her scent, a light fragrance in her hair from the shampoo she had used. The desktop came up on the screen. Alex stroked keys and waited. A dialog box asked for an ID. She tried various combinations of words and letters but kept getting Access denied. Scott suggested a few more, but she got the same result.

“See what I mean?” Alex said. She shut down the laptop.

Scott stood. He blew through his teeth in frustration. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”

They had a table in one of Moscow's elegant new restaurants on Ulitsa Petrovka, complete with tinkling crystal, waiters wearing tuxedos, and a chef imported from Paris. Over drinks Alex said, “Why are you so interested in my background?”

“For one thing, we’re going to be working together. For another, I don’t meet a woman every day who knows how to build a twenty-megaton nuclear weapon.”

Alex laughed behind a hand. “That’s not true at all.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t know how to build a bomb. I know how they work and what goes into one, that’s all.”

“That’s plenty. So tell me about you.”

“There’s not much to tell. I grew up in California. My father was a journalist and I wanted to grow up and be one too. I thought a life interviewing presidents and foreign leaders was the most exciting thing in the world a person could do. Instead I discovered I had a knack for science and studied physics at USC. After I completed graduate work, I got a job at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island.

I arrived when they discovered that radioactive tritium had been seeping into ground water. I was on the team that worked to solve that problem, and later I was offered a position with the U.S. Department of Energy as an embassy liaison with the Norwegians in Russia. That’s how I ended up in Moscow.”

“I’m impressed,” he said.

“You make it sound as if I’m bragging. I’m not. You asked for my résumé and now you have it.”

“I don’t think you’re bragging. Some people take a lifetime to get where you are.”

“I’ll save you the trouble with the math,” Alex said and laughed. “I’m thirty-eight.”

“And single?”

A hesitation. “I was married—for a while. Single now.”

“What’s it like for a single woman living in Moscow?”

“Culturally it’s exhilarating, socially it’s deadening. But I do interesting work and meet interesting people like Frank Drummond. We had a fun time together.”

“What kind of things did you do?”

“Frank was interested in Russian history and I took him places that simply amazed him. We went to museums—not just the usual places like the Pushkin, but smaller ones I’d discovered, little gems tucked away in apartments and homes on the backstreets of Moscow where hardly anyone ever goes. He was amazed at what he saw.”

“Frank was that rare individual one seldom meets in the military,” Scott said. “He was well read, culturally aware, and introspective. And he wasn’t afraid to fight for what he believed.”

“What’s his wife like?” Alex said. “I can’t stop thinking how difficult this must be for her.”

Scott told her about Vivian. He told her about the hardships and heartbreak. “It goes with the job of being a Navy wife,” Scott said.

Alex, perhaps sensing a hint of acidity in that observation, said, “If you don’t mind my asking, is there a Mrs. Scott?” She raised a glass of white wine to her lips.

“There was.” Scott’s face hardened. He looked at his watch. “Considering the time difference, I’d say she’s probably in bed with the U.S. military attaché she flew to Tokyo with last month.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

Scott slugged down vodka.

“Kids?”

“There wasn’t ever time.”

Alex sipped wine and met his eyes when he looked up. “Too much sea duty, is that what you’re saying?”