Chapter 1: Cabin
Somewhere in the Kamchatka peninsula, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
1528 Hours, Kamchatka Time, March 12
Admiral Syovodor Alyevin blinked at the light shining through the forest canopy, and slipped a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses on over his eyes. He accepted the hand offered to him by his adjutant, a red-haired girl young enough to be Alyevin's daughter, who helped him down the ramp placed in front of the helicopter Alyevin had just landed in.
“Zhana,” Alyevin greeted his assistant, barely loud enough to be heard over the helicopter's rotors, which were picking up speed to leave now that Alyevin had disembarked. “Is everything ready at the cabin?”
“Yes, Comrade-Admiral,” Zhana said, smiling at Alyevin, who couldn't help grinning back. Young she may be, but in the three months she'd been assigned to him, she'd been a more welcome sight with each day; especially since Alyevin had been transferred out east to the Pacific division, leaving his wife and girlfriends in St. Petersburg, practically on the other side of the world. “Your... friend from Switzerland is waiting for you; he arrived an hour ago.”
“Bastard beat me here,” Alyevin grumped. “Wonder what he's trying to say with that?”
“Apparently that he doesn't have anything better to do than wait on you, Comrade-Admiral,” Zhana said, shrugging.
“Well, then you two have something in common, no?” Alyevin grinned at Zhana, and wasn't too ashamed to enjoy the girl's blush. Nothing had happened between the two of them, but Alyevin would be in Kamchatka for many years now, and Zhana's career in the Soviet Navy was precarious enough that she wouldn't risk being hastily re-assigned if her superior was displeased with her. Alyevin was a man who had gotten where he was by taking opportunities when they presented themselves, whether it was a hole in the American sonar network, a rival commander's incompetence, or the prim but coy nature of a red-haired country girl whose job was literally to carry out Alyevin's wishes twenty-four hours a day. “Did he say anything to you?”
“Nothing important, Comrade-Admiral” Zhana said. “At least, I don't think there was anything important. Of course, you can decide for yourself when you listen to the recording I made.” Zhana reached into her pocket and pulled out a military-green device about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It had no power source that Alyevin could see, only a few speaker holes and a yellow button and a red button. Zhana pushed the yellow one, and offered it to Alyevin.
Alyevin put the device to his ear, and smiled at what he heard.
A man, speaking English with an educated British accent: “Is your master usually this late to meetings, Ms...?”
Zhana, in near-impeccable English, though with an unmistakably Russian accent: “Admiral Alyevin is a very busy man, Mr. Kroner, with many responsibilities to take care of.”
Kroner (to be specific, Malcolm Stavro Kroner, the financial wunderkind of Zurich): “To be sure, to be sure. You never did answer me, about your name.”
Zhana: “No, Mr. Kroner, I did not.”
Kroner: “Well, I can't just keep calling you 'Red,' now can I?”
Alyevin pushed the yellow button, cutting off Kroner's conversation with Alyevin's adjustant.
“He goes on like that for some time,” Zhana said. “As I said. Nothing important that I noticed.”
“Does he frighten you?” Alyevin asked.
“Comrade-Admiral?”
“This man, Kroner. You sounded scared when you were with him – am I wrong?”
Zhana pursed her lips. “No, Comrade-Admiral. You are not wrong. He's... He is a dangerous man, Comrade-Admiral. I, I know that you know that already, but...”
Alyevin smiled, and placed a hand on Zhana's shoulder. “There is no need to worry, Zhana. I am Admiral Syovodor Boranovic Alyevin, and I am the living embodiment of the Soviet Navy, the greatest branch of the greatest military of the greatest nation in the world.”
“Long live the Union,” Zhana responded.
“Long live the Union, indeed. Kroner is rich, certainly, and he has had plenty of success in his less-than-public ventures, but this group of con men and muggers he has put together, whatever they call themselves...”
“WRAITH, sir,” Zhana said.
“Yes, right, a good spooky name for a spooky organization. I'm sure it makes Kroner feel very powerful, like the biggest snake in the pit. He is, however, mistaken about this. At least, he is when he is dealing with me.” Alyevin gave Zhana's shoulder another brief squeeze, then quickened his pace and made a clicking sound in the corner of his mouth.
Out of the forest, ten of the most dangerous men in the Soviet Navy simply appeared, like fog snap-freezing into deadly icicles. Eight took up place around Alyevin himself, while two fell into step just behind Zhana. All wore olive-drab balaclavas over their faces, yet more than a few had cut and burn scars that showed through the eye and mouth holes. Their AK-47s were modified in nearly every way such a weapon could be modded, their sidearms were a museum of handguns and revolvers, and nine of them carried a long knife for close-quarters work – the only one who did not carried a machete instead.
Admiral Syovodor Alyevin smiled, and pushed his sunglasses further up his nose. Malcolm Stavro Kroner thought he was a hard man, a dangerous man. Kroner had no idea what the word “dangerous” meant.
-
The cabin was overgrown with vines and shrubs, and had settled and leaned into the forest's soil until nearly every architectural right angle had been crushed or stretched. None of the men, nor the one woman, standing in the cabin's sole room knew how old the cabin was, or who had originally built it or lived in it, but it looked ancient, and it felt like the kind of place that the Babayaga witch might have used as a winter cottage. Perhaps it had just grown as part of the forest, and the appearance of artificiality was just that – appearance, illusion. Maybe even a trap.
People who spend their lives fighting wars develop a pair of contradictory instincts. On the one hand, they believe what is right in front of them, and very little else. They have learned to trust their senses and logic, because these things have kept them alive through countless encounters with the enemy, the elements, and the often cannibalistic politics of their homeland. Yet on the other hand, they often develop a sixth sense that cannot be accounted for with recon reports, combat doctrine, or even anything so explainable as a gut feeling. Certain situations, places, and objects just feel wrong to those warriors who have walked beside Death and joined Him in His work.
Every single person, in that cabin in the middle of the Kamchatka woods, knew that they stood in a place of murder.
Malcolm Stavro Kroner, chairman of WRAITH, couldn't have looked more comfortable or at home.
“What I cannot figure out,” Admiral Alyevin said, slipping off his sunglasses and taking a seat at the warped wood table opposite Kroner, “is how you got here without ruining that very fine suit of yours. You didn't chopper in, or my men would have seen it, and there are no roads large enough to get anything bigger than a wheelbarrow through. So you must have come on foot, but these woods, they are not kind to men who dress as you do.”
Kroner smiled and ran a thumb along the suit jacket he wore, the color of vanilla ice cream. The white shirt underneath, and the copper-colored silk tie and matching pocket square, were absolutely spotless, as were his vanilla slacks and crocodile-skin boots. “I was given many blessings, Admiral. One of them was a vast supply of old money, another was a mind too great for Cambridge, Harvard, or King's College to contain, and another was the ability to know exactly what the men I deal with want, and how to get it for them.” As if to mock the stifling heat in the cabin's densely-packed air, Kroner tightened the knot of his tie a fraction of a centimeter. “Some days, though, I think my flawless appearance is my most indispensable trait.”
“Yes, well it certainly isn't your vanity,” Admiral Alyevin said. He'd meant it to be a joke, but the Admiral's smile said that he hated Kroner, and everything that he stood for. That was just fine with Kroner. “My question remains, however – how did you and your men get here?”
Kroner glanced behind himself at the four men he'd brought with him. One was Kroner's personal butler, holding a desperately-sweating bucket of ice which protected the last bottle of a French Chardonnay whose line had ended with the burning of the vineyard in 1941, as well as two glasses. Two of them were bodyguards, armed simply with Walther semiautomatics. The last man did not, at first appearance, seem to have a job other than to hold a rather large suitcase that, if it had been fitted with treads and a cannon, could have been mistaken for a very small, gray tank.
“We arrived quietly, calmly, and in impeccable style,” Kroner said, turning back to the Admiral. “And we did so with one billion dollars in cash and untraceable bond in tow.”
Alyevin's eyes narrowed. “The deal was seven hundred and fifty million. If I remember correctly, that is.”
“Well, we are making this deal with American money,” Kroner said, shrugging. “A tip seemed appropriate. I always leave twenty-five percent for the waiter in my favorite restaurant in New York.”
Alyevin sneered. “I am not your waiter, Mr. Kroner.”
“No,” Kroner said, shaking his head as if he was disappointed by the fact. “No, you are not. You are, in fact, the man holding two prototype nuclear attack submarines which even the Kremlin does not know exist – and thus, will not miss. If I remember the deal correctly, of course.” Kroner shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, call the extra two hundred and fifty a down payment on our next deal. I'm sure this will be the first of many lucrative and beneficial meetings.”
Alyevin's sneer abated, though Kroner would not say that it had softened. That was to be expected. For all his power and prestige in the Soviet Navy, Alyevin wasn't really any more complicated a man than the average Moscow street tough. “The Polunuchnaya is waiting at a pre-arranged site for your people to pick up. I will send the precise location to you via fax when we both walk away from this worm-eaten shack. The Utrenyaya... is still undergoing sea trials and systems integration, even I cannot recall it immediately without raising suspicion with my men.”
Kroner steepled his fingers and leaned forward. “Admiral... I have brought you one billion dollars for two submarines. Yet, you've just told me that you only have one submarine to give me. Perhaps I should withdraw my gratuity, hm?”
“As I said, the Utrenyaya is completed, it is merely undergoing routine checks and integration. It will be ready to hand over to you in less than a month.”
Kroner sighed. “Admiral, you had more than three years to bring us both to this place, to close this deal. Surely you could have moved 'less than a month' up a bit.”
Alyevin's eyes narrowed. “And tell me, Mr. Kroner... what does an Anglo-Swiss financier need two prototype stealth submarines by the end of March for, anyway?”
The corners of Kroner's eyes creased. “That is my business, Admiral. Your business, is to get me my submarine.”
“The Utrenyaya is not your submarine,” Alyevin said. “Neither of them are, until that money,” he said, nodding at the case of cash and bonds, “is in my adjutant's hands.”
“And neither of us will get to enjoy the surely amusing sight of your little red mouse trying to lift that case,” Kroner said, “until the Polunuchnaya, and the Utrenyaya, are both in my possession.” Kroner spread his hands, and began to get up from the table. “I'm sorry, Admiral, but I don't think this deal is going to-”
Ten rifle barrels raised, and Malcolm Stavro Kroner stared down each of their sights, into the eyes of the men behind those sights. “Hold your fire,” Kroner said to his own men, and slowly sat back down. He heard the hammers of his men's Walthers carefully settle back down. Kroner turned back to look into the eyes of each of the ten men pointing an AK-47 at him. He saw in each man's eyes a perfect willingness to kill for the one they called master. And yet...
Alyevin cracked his hairy knuckles and grinned at Kroner, turning the financier's attention back to the Admiral. “Don't be scared, Mr. Kroner,” he said. “Sweat and piss will surely ruin that fine suit of yours. To say nothing of blood and fine French wine.”
“Well, Admiral,” Kroner said. “You have me outnumbered, to be sure. Eight to two,” Kroner shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Not a betting man's odds.”
Alyevin chuckled. “Count again, Kroner,” he said. “I have ten men...” Then Alyevin's eyes narrowed, and he began to turn around to face the Russian gunmen.
Someone made a soft whistle, and immediately the tiny cabin exploded into gunfire.
-
The young woman called Zhana had the gun, a tiny custom-made Makarov that only about a dozen people outside of the KGB knew existed, shoot from a spring-loaded wrist holster into her hand, and put one round each between the eyes of the men guarding Malcolm Stavro Kroner. The two men who had flanked her on the way to the cabin, and who had stuck next to her throughout the meeting, stepped forward and, their rifles set on full automatic, made short work of the eight men they had trained with, eaten with, befriended, and fought beside for the last year and a half.
It was all over in less than five seconds, but the girl's ears would, she knew, be ringing for hours afterward. This awful cabin seemed practically designed to focus the acoustics of a gunfight, making the sound itself almost as painful and lethal as the bullets that had made that sound. By the time it was over, only the girl, her two allies, Alyevin, and Kroner and his two lackeys were alive. The lackeys had, to their credit, barely flinched when the gunfire started. This was not, the girl observed, their first rodeo. Which suggested something interesting about Kroner and the people he hired.
“What in the hell is going on?!” Alyevin said, standing up so fast that he knocked his chair over. He spun to stare at the red-haired girl, then shrank back when he saw the expression on her face.
“Shut up, you wrinkled old pervert,” she said, barely resisting the urge to spit in the Admiral's face. “This isn't quite how I wanted things to go, but if it means I don't have to put up with you and your grabby paws for one day longer, then bully for me.”
“Zh... Zhana, my dear, what is-”
“You call me 'my dear' one more time, Admiral, and I swear, I will have Teague here hack your balls off, right on that splintery table,” she said, nodding to one of the men with her. Specifically, the one who had the machete slung over his shoulder. “Now: Shut the sweet fuck up.”
“Ah-ha...” Kroner said, still sitting serenely behind the table. “I thought I detected a hint of an accent.”
“You, too,” the woman called Zhana said to Kroner.
“Expertly masked, instructed by a native, of course,” Kroner continued, “and you must have spent at least a year in Russia just on immersion training. Very, very good. Still, there is just the slightest hint of...” Kroner tapped his chin. “Kentucky. Yes... Chattanooga, or nearby there, if my ears don't deceive me.”
Alyevin's eyes flicked back and forth between Kroner and Zhana. “Ken... Kentucky? But, you're from Belarus, your father ran there from the Germans-”
“The only thing my daddy runs is a Buick dealership,” Zhana said, rolling her eyes. “Now will you both shut your damn mouths, or do I need to repeat myself about the table, the machete, and the testicles?”
Kroner and Alyevin both silenced themselves.
“Alright,” Zhana said. “First of all, you with the suitcase. Anything really in there, or do you just stuff it with pillows and Playboys?”
The man's mouth twitched, but he said nothing.
“Go ahead, Erik,” Kroner said. “Show her.”
The man, Erik apparently, set the suitcase down on the table, turned the tumblers of no less than twelve sets of locks (each with a different combination, as far as Zhana could tell), and opened the case. It hissed like a can of Coke opening, the temperature and pressure difference equalizing. Inside were stacks of hundred-dollar bills and manilla envelopes probably filled with bank bonds and untraceable checks.
Zhana whistled appreciatively. “Well, Mr. Kroner, the rumors of your secret fortune were not exaggerated, I see.”
Kroner inclined his head slightly in a bow. “Always good to know that people say such nice things about me.”
She turned to Alyevin. “The Polunachnaya. Where is it?”
“It... I cannot...” Alyevin stammered.
“Teague,” Zhana said. One of the remaining men from Alyevin's security detachment reached over his shoulder, his AK-47 still trained on Alyevin, and pulled out the machete, slowly so that the blade hissed like a snake as it left its sheath.
“Japan!” Alyevin spat. “The sub, it is in the Sea of Japan! In... a small cove, an old Japanese sub pen from the war! We were... we weren't sure if we hid it in Russia that it wouldn't be found by, um, my colleagues.”
“So you hid it the one place you knew they wouldn't look, surrounded by American warships and sonar buoys,” Zhana said. “Well... that makes my job easier. Looks like you get to keep your balls for now. What about the Utrenyaya?”
“Yes,” Kroner said, as if playing the good cop to Zhana's bad. “What about the Utrenyaya?”
“Coop,” Zhana said to the other man hold an AK-47, “if Kroner talks again except to answer my questions, shoot him somewhere painful.”
Kroner smiled and held up his hands. “Merely trying to help.”
“There...” Alyevin started. He swallowed, the sweat pouring off his face and neck and staining his field uniform. “There is no Utrenyaya.”
Zhana raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I... I could only convince the wharves to build one,” Alyevin admitted. “The stealth reactor, the propulsion system, it required some... exotic materials. I thought we could build one first, a prototype, and then another, but the engineers, they were concerned that refining too much, um, material, too quickly, it could...” Alyevin trailed off, licking his lips and wringing his hands.
“It could what?” Zhana said. “Admiral, you may as well get it all out now. I'm willing to offer you asylum in the United States, and I can even spread a rumor about your valiant death at sea, but only if you give me full disclosure and cooperation.”
Alyevin's whole body shook. “It is not... I cannot explain. The materials are not, um, standard, not easily discussed in, ah, such a tense situation. If, perhaps, you could take me to America, I could speak to some of your-”
“Oh for pity's sake,” Zhana said. The she raised the custom Makarov and put two rounds in Alyevin's forehead. The admiral winked one eye, then the other, and fell forward to the cabin's floor. Zhana sighed, and said, in English with a faint Bluegrass twang, “You didn't have a damn clue how it worked, did you, Al?”
Kroner sighed audibly, but he said nothing. Still, the attempt to get Zhana's attention had worked. “So,” she said to Kroner. “What did you need two nuclear stealth subs for, anyway?”
“Rather simple, actually,” Kroner said, sounding dejected. “Much of my, as you called it, secret fortune, comes from smuggling. Rather innocuous items, really – diamonds, medicine, the occasional priceless archeological artifact. Understandably, these are things I'd like moved from one place to another with none of my competitors, or the authorities, the wiser.”
“You wanted the most advanced naval vessel on the planet for... smuggling?”
Kroner shrugged. “And as a personal yacht. I was planning to re-name it, of course.”
Zhana rolled her eyes. “How the hell did jack-offs like you and this guy,” she pointed to Alyevin's corpse “end up running the world?”
“I'd be willing to tell you,” Kroner said. “I know a great deal about the world of, ah, extra-legal business and its dealings with not only the Soviet government, but your own. The admiral was hardly the only man I had deals with – he's not even the only man I planned on meeting this week.”
“Who's the other?” Zhana asked.
“Two conditions,” Kroner said, holding up two fingers. “Two conditions, and I will let you leave here with that suitcase full of money, including the combination to open it, and the name and current location of my next contact, as well as the next ten after that.”
“And these conditions are?” Zhana asked.
“First, you let me live, and to continue to run my business and organization as I see fit, without interference from your government.”
“I'd call that one-and-a-half conditions, really,” Zhana said. She chewed on her lip, then nodded. “Alright. I think I can swing that with my boss.”
“I'm so very pleased to hear that,” Kroner said, looking genuinely happy. “Erik here has all the details – Erik, go ahead and accompany these fine individuals and answer any questions they may have for you. Take the money with you.”
Clearly nervous but just as clearly obedient, Erik picked up the briefcase and stood in one of the cabin's corners, which the soldier named Teague was pointing at with his machete.
“And what's your second condition?” Zhana asked.
“Clearly your name is not Zhana,” Kroner said. “Unless naming traditions in Kentucky have changed drastically since I was there last. I imagine they'll have you as my, I believe the term is 'contact,' for my relationship with whatever branch or agency you work for. And, well,” Kroner grinned. “I can't just keep calling you 'Red,' now can I?”
The woman who had spent the last three months being called Zhana Olagaevna Indrapova, considered, then said to her fellows: “Take Moneybags here out to the extraction point. Make sure he's not wired or anything first. Then, radio the Dugout, give them an update.”
“Ma'am,” Teague acknowledged, and led Erik along by machete-point. The other man, Coop, covered both of them as they exited the cabin and headed back into the stifling forests of Kamchatka.
When they were more or less alone (except for the man who'd done nothing throughout the whole engagement except hold the ice, wine, and glasses), the red-haired woman took a step forward. “Gosely,” she said. “Chandra Gosely, CIA.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Agent Gosely,” Malcolm Stavro Kroner said. “I don't suppose you'd care for a glass of wine?”