"No," said Pogodin, drawing on his cigarette, "because now your friends are dead and you're facing death." He leaned toward the waiter, blowing smoke from both nostrils. "Here's how it can be different, Andrei Volko. Why were you heading to St. Petersburg?"
"To meet someone. I didn't know that he was already dead."
Pogodin slapped the waiter hard across the cheek. "You weren't going to meet the Englishman or the Russian. You wouldn't have been told who the latter was, and besides— they were already dead and DI6 knew it. When the spetsnaz officer tried to use their concealed telephones, the lines were inactive. He was too impatient. You have an ID to enter first, correct?"
Volko remained silent.
"Of course, correct," Pogodin said. "So you were headed to St. Petersburg to meet someone else. Who?"
Volko continued to stare ahead, his terror supplanted by shame. He knew what was coming, what Pogodin had in mind, and he knew he would have a terrible choice to make.
"I don't know," Volko said. "I was—"
"Go on."
Volko took a long, tremulous breath. "I was to go there, contact London, and await further instructions."
"Were they going to try and get you into Finland?" Pogodin asked.
"That— was my impression," Volko said.
Pogodin smoked while he thought, then rose and looked down at the waiter. "I'll be frank, Andrei. The only way you can save yourself is to help us learn more about the British operation. Are you willing to go to St. Petersburg as planned and work with us instead of with the enemy?"
"Willing?" Volko said. "In a relationship that began with a gun at my neck?"
Pogodin said coldly, "And it will end with one there if you don't cooperate."
Volko looked into the tester of smoke hanging under the lights. He tried to tell himself that he would be acting patriotically, but he knew that wasn't the case. He was just afraid.
"Yes," Volko said sullenly. "I'll go to St. Petersburg" — he looked into Pogodin's eyes— "willingly."
Pogodin glanced at his wristwatch. "There's a cabin reserved for us. It won't even be necessary to hold the train." He looked at Volko and smiled now. "I'm going with you, of course. And though I don't carry a gun, I trust you'll still be willing to cooperate."
There was menace in his tone, and Volko was still too shaken to answer. He didn't want other people to die on his account, but he also knew that everyone who played in this field knew the risks himself included.
As his captor led him from the interrogation room back to the car, he told himself that he had two choices. One was to accept Pogodin's terms and earn himself a quick death. The other was to fight back and try to regain the honor he had somehow lost
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The fat, heavy Ilyushin Il-76T was a high-performance Russian transport just over 165 feet long with a wingspan of over 165 feet. First introduced in prototype in 1971, and first flown in service with the Soviet Air Force in 1974, it could take off from short, unpaved airstrips, making it ideal for environments like those found in Siberia. It was also modified as a flight-refueling tanker for Russian supersonic strategic bombers. Il-76Ts had been sold to Iraq, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. Powered by four mighty Soloviev D-30KP turbofans, the jet had a normal cruising speed of nearly five hundred miles an hour and a range of over four thousand miles. The Il-76T could transport forty tons of cargo. If it were flying nearly empty, and if relatively lightweight rubber fuel bladders were installed in the cargo bay with extra fuel, the range could be increased by over seventy percent.
After contacting the Pentagon and explaining that Striker needed a ride into Russia, Bob Herbert was put in touch with General David "Divebomb" Perel in Berlin, who had the husky jet hauled from secret storage. It had been kept at the U.S. air base there since 1976, when it had been bought by the Shah of Iran and then clandestinely sold to the U.S. After studying the aircraft, the Air Force had gutted it for use as a spy plane. To date, the Il-76T had been used in only a handful of missions, measuring exact distances between landmarks to help calibrate spy satellites and taking radar and heat readings of underground installations to get a picture of their layout. On all of these flights, it had managed to fool the Russians as to its legitimacy by filing a flight plan through a mole in the Air Force. The mole was informed, by radio, to do it again for this flight.
This was the first time the Il-76T was going to be used to carry American troops, and the first time it would spend this much time over Russian airspace— eight hours, as it flew from Helsinki to the drop-off point and then on to Japan. In the past, it was never in the air long enough to be spotted, discovered to be unregistered, and investigated.
Both Herbert and Perel were keenly aware of the danger the crew and the Striker team faced, and both of them expressed their deep reservations to Mike Rodgers in a conference call.
Rodgers shared their concerns and asked for alternative suggestions. Perel agreed with Herbert that while the operation was within Op-Center's jurisdiction, the political issue was a matter for the State Department and the White House to decide. Rodgers reminded Herbert and pointed out to the General that until they knew for a fact what was on that train, this was strictly a reconnaissance matter. Until that situation changed, he had no choice but to pursue this course of action— regardless of the danger. On-site intelligence gathering, he said, was never risk free and there were times, like now, when it was indispensable.
And so the Il-76T was prepped and loaded with paratroop and cold-weather gear and took off, headed to Helsinki with special clearance from Defense Minister Kalle Niskanen— though he was told that the flight was only to reconnoiter, not that troops would almost certainly be jumping into Russia. That was a problem Lowell Coffey would have to smooth over once the plane was airborne, though the fiercely anti-Russian Minister probably wouldn't have a problem with anything they wanted to do there. Meanwhile, Herbert contacted the Op-Center radio room and asked to be patched through to Lieutenant Colonel Squires.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
"It isn't hypocritical," Squires told Sondra as the StarLifter began its final approach to Helsinki airport. The Strikers had changed into civilian clothes and looked like any other tourists. "Yes, coffee is a stimulant, and it might be bad for your stomach if consumed by the barrel. But wine is bad for your liver and your mind."
"Not in moderation," Sondra said as she checked her gear again. "And wine tasters have as much right to fuss over vintage and flavor and body as someone does over coffee."
"I don't fuss over coffee," Squires said. "I don't swirl it around my Redskins mug and savor the aroma. I drink it, period. I also don't pretend that getting high sip by sip in an elegant setting is elegant." He chopped down with his hand. "End of debate."
Sondra scowled as she zipped up the nondescript backpack that contained a compass, nine-inch hunting knife, M9.45-caliber pistol, one thousand dollars in cash, and maps of the region that had been printed out by Squires's computer during the flight. It wasn't fair for him to pull rank like that, but she reminded herself that no one ever said the military was fair, that rank had its privileges, and all the other clichés her parents had thrown at her when she'd told them she wanted to join the military straight out of Columbia.
"If you want to travel, travel!" her father had said. "We can afford it, take a year."
But that wasn't it. Carl "Custard" DeVonne had been a self-starter who made a fortune in soft ice cream in New England, and he didn't understand why an only daughter who had everything would want to take her B.A. in literature and join the Navy. Not just the Navy, but fight her way into the SEALs. Maybe it was because she had had everything as a kid and wanted to test herself. Or maybe she needed to do something her over-achieving father hadn't. And the SEALs, and now Striker, were certainly a test.