Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

“Satisfied?” Abakov said.

Scott stood with hands on hips. A wild-goose chase, and he hated to admit it. Yet, something gnawed at him. Why here? Why with Radchenko? What was he overlooking?

Alex peeked into a comer of the room at what passed for a bathroom equipped with a chipped washstand and crazed china commode. A faded floral print curtain on a rusty pole offered little privacy. “This place gives me the creeps,” she said.

“It’s not exactly the Sheraton Regis,” said Scott.

Alex went around the room looking, touching. She stood at the door and ran a hand over the rough woodwork. She worked the doorknob and Abakov took this to mean she was anxious to leave.

“If you are finished, I suggest we go,” Abakov said, closing the blind on the red-tinged sky. “We can conclude our business in Moscow tomorrow and then you can take custody of Admiral Drummond’s remains.”

“Scott, take a look at this,” Alex said. “These door moldings are new and freshly painted. The door looks new too. So does the lock and mortise.”

Scott examined the crudely executed carpentry where angles didn’t match and bent nail heads protruded from scarred wood trim.

“There’s a simple explanation,” Abakov said, rapping his knuckles on the new door. “The old one had been forced open and had to be replaced.”

“Forced open?” Scott said. “Why?”

“Admiral Drummond had taken the room for one night only. When he didn’t come down the next morning to settle his bill, the porter became suspicious. He went up to check on Admiral Drummond, but when he didn’t answer the door, the porter broke it open and that’s when he found the two of them inside, dead.”

“Why did he break it open?”

“He said the chain lock was set. As you can see, it’s been replaced.”

“Did you see the broken door?” Scott said.

“No. The Murmansk police reported to me that it was smashed in when they arrived.”

“Smashed in?”

“The porter said he kicked it in.”

“I want to make sure I understand…. You were called by the Murmansk police?”

“After they discovered that one of the dead men was an American attached to the U.S. Embassy. Admiral Drummond had nothing on him at the time he was found to indicate he was.”

“How long after the bodies were discovered did you arrive in Murmansk to take over the case?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“Two days.”

“Did the Murmansk police take photos of the crime scene? Of the door?”

“Of the room, not the door.”

“So you never actually saw the bodies here. Just photos of them in the positions you described.” Abakov hesitated before saying, “Yes.”

“I see,” Scott said.

He ran a hand over the ugly green wallpaper behind the door and felt a deep, round depression in the plaster that matched the shape of a doorknob. When the door was kicked in, it had flown back and hit the wall, the doorknob leaving its deep impression in the plaster.

“It took a lot of force to do that,” Alex said. “A lot.”

“Didn’t the porter have a passkey?” Scott said. “I mean, why break down the door?”

“It’s not my hotel,” Abakov said, apparently irritated at Scott’s discovery of his lack of firsthand knowledge of the condition of the bodies after their discovery.

“Let’s get the porter up here,” Scott said. “Maybe he knows something.”

“He’s already told us everything he knows,” Abakov said.

“Well, maybe he forgot something.”

Abakov bristled.

“I’m not trying to encroach on your territory, Colonel, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just want to ask him a few questions.”

Abakov boarded the elevator and rode it, clanking and grinding, to the lobby.

Alone in the room with Scott, Alex said, “Abakov never saw the bodies except at the Murmansk morgue. Only photos of them.”

“That’s right.”

“Then his report is based solely on secondhand information from his investigators.”

“Right again.”

“Which means it’s suspect.”

Scott nodded.

“And you don’t believe that the porter kicked the door in, do you?”

“The old man we saw downstairs? No way.”

“Then who did?”

Scott ran a hand through his hair. He thought it would be so simple, but suddenly everything had been turned upside down.

“Tell me.”

He looked at her. Was she reading his mind?

“It was Alikhan Zakayev, wasn’t it,” she said. “Or one of his men.”

They heard the lift start its return trip from the lobby with Abakov and the porter on board.

“Zakayev must have known that Drummond was hunting for him and that he was here with Radchenko,” Scott said. “He killed Drummond and Radchenko and made it look like a murder- suicide.”

“Jake, why fake a suicide? Why not just kill Drummond and Radchenko and get rid of their bodies?”

“Because their disappearance would raise too many questions. At least with a murder-suicide there’d be a good reason to cover up what happened.”

“All right, I can buy that, but what was Drummond doing here with Radchenko, and what was he after?”

The scissors gate rattling open signaled the lift’s arrival. Scott put a finger to his lips.

The porter had eyes bleary from vodka and too much TV. He looked about seventy and smelled like the hotel: unwashed and musty. He was painfully thin, with arms like sticks and tufts of white hair that stood straight up on his head as if he’d stuck his finger in a light socket.

“What’s your name?” Scott asked.

The old man started at hearing an American speak good Russian. “Nikita Fyodorovich.”

“May I call you Nikita?”

“That’s what my friends call me.” He glanced around the room with the practiced eye of an innkeeper concerned that his establishment maintain its reputation for quality. He looked at the tossed bed and frowned.

“I was told that you were the person who discovered the dead bodies in this room.”

Nikita hesitated. He looked at Abakov. “Tell him,” Abakov said.

“I didn’t know there was another man in the room with the Amerikanski until I broke in.”

“Why did you break in?”

Nikita fingered white beard stubble while he considered. “The American had been in the room all night and now it was the next day. When he didn’t come down to pay for another day’s stay, I got suspicious. Here, you always pay in advance for each day that you stay.”

“Do you always break down a door when some one doesn’t pay?”

Nikita had terrible breath, and when he exhaled heavily before answering, it washed over Scott. “I went up three, four times and knocked. I called to him. He didn’t answer. I waited until noon before I did it. You can’t ever let them go a full day without paying.”

“Why didn’t you use a passkey instead of breaking down the door?” Scott said.

Nikita’s eyes flicked to Abakov. “I already told the police everything.”

“Tell me.”

“The chain lock had been set.”

“You mean the American had set it?”

Scott saw a tremor affect Nikita’s blue-veined hands. He linked them behind his back. “Yes, that’s what it was.”

“Why would he do that?”

Nikita lifted a shoulder.

“How did you break down the door?”

“I kicked it in.”

“This new door is pretty thick. Was the old one this thick?”

Nikita shrugged again.

“You didn’t hurt yourself—kicking it in, I mean?”

Nikita looked as if he’d been insulted. “I’m stronger than you think.” He thumped his chest with a fist. “Did anyone see you do it?”

“No.”

“Weren’t there other guests on this floor? Did they hear you do it? Did they come out of their rooms to see what was going on? It must have made a lot of noise.”