His wingman, Captain Sergei Novitski, already well over the line between sobriety and inebriation himself, nodded vigorously, with an owlish, glassy-eyed stare. “That is affirmative, Lead.”
With his fresh drink in hand, Rykov turned to survey the packed, smoke-filled bar. The place was a dive, just the kind he liked. With only two days of leave from the159th Fighter Aviation Regiment at Petrozavodsk, he and Novitski didn’t have time to waste. They were on the prowl for cheap booze and fast women, in no particular order.
His gaze flitted lightly across the crowd, evaluating and discarding possible companions in rapid succession. Too chubby. Too short. There was a redhead parked over in the far corner who wasn’t horrible, but she had far too many piercings and tattoos for his taste. God only knew what kind of diseases he might catch. Maybe that skinny blonde? Privately, he dubbed this process “target selection,” likening it to the way his Su-27’s Phazotron Zhuk-MSE active electronically scanned array radar sorted through air contacts — identifying those worth a heat-seeking or radar-guided missile.
Rykov’s gaze drifted across to a slender, attractive woman sitting alone at a tiny table near the door. Now there was a real looker, he thought with sudden interest. Jet-black hair, ice-blue eyes, and a leather bomber jacket unzipped far enough to give him a good look at her assets. She seemed a bit out of place in a seedy bar like this, a little too elegant and composed. But that should work to his advantage, considering the slovenly, ill-kempt civilian schlubs who were his only competition.
Noticing his attention, the woman smiled back at him. Her eyes gleamed brightly in the dim light.
Very promising, he decided. He straightened up to his full, middling-tall height and raised his glass in a silent toast.
With an exaggerated shrug of regret, she held up her own glass and turned it upside down, indicating that it was empty.
Rykov smiled to himself. Target locked on, he thought. Turning back to the bartender, he ordered two shots of vodka, the most expensive brand this time, and then clapped Novitski on the shoulder. “Don’t wait up for me, Sergei,” he said cheerfully. “I’m flying solo tonight.”
His wingman blinked a few times in confusion and then shot him a sly, understanding grin. “Good hunting, Alexei!”
Humming under his breath, Rykov sauntered across the bar, holding both drinks up high to avoid being jostled by a new wave of thirsty patrons crowding in out of the warm St. Petersburg summer night. From the look of them, all torn jeans and spiky hair, some punk rock concert must have just ended.
The attractive woman smiled up at him when he arrived at her table.
“Hello,” Rykov said pleasantly, holding out the drink he’d ordered for her. “My name’s Alexei. And you look thirsty.”
“Parched,” she admitted, taking the glass with a half-sheepish, half-delighted laugh. “Was it so obvious?”
“Not at all,” Rykov lied gallantly. “I have a sixth sense for recognizing beautiful women in distress.” He sat down in the chair across from her and raised his own vodka in another toast. “Vashe zdorov’ye! Your health!”
With a dimpled smile, she echoed him, downing the contents of her glass with a quick, head-back gulp that widened his own eyes in surprised admiration. Then she leaned across the table. “So, Alexei, what is a nice man like you doing in a dump like this?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?” he asked in mock protest.
She shrugged. “It seemed appropriate.”
Rykov glanced around at their surroundings — now even more crowded and noisy than ever. Clouds of acrid cigarette smoke coiled across the bar’s low ceiling, settling like a fog across the sea of sweating, hard-drinking regulars packed in elbow to elbow. He turned back to her with a wry shrug of his own. “Maybe I’m looking for somewhere nicer?”
“Me too.” She cocked her head to one side. “Interested in finding it together?”
Better and better, Rykov thought with secret glee. Not only was this woman sexy as hell, she wasn’t bothering with the usual coy games. He hadn’t even had to play his Hero of the Motherland and fighter-pilot cards yet. “Quite interested,” he said warmly. “Where do you think we should start looking?”
“Well, my car is parked close by,” she said with a demure look that didn’t fool him at all. “And my apartment is only a short drive away.”
Delighted at his good fortune, Rykov rose to his feet and chivalrously offered her his hand. “You know, that sounds like an excellent plan.”
Outside on the sidewalk, she guided him toward a big black Mercedes sedan. But when they drew near, the rear passenger door swung open and a big, grim-faced man in a dark business suit climbed out.
Startled, Rykov stopped dead in his tracks. “Hey, what the hell is going on here?” he demanded.
“Get in the car, Major Rykov,” the woman said coolly. There was no trace of warmth left in her eyes or in her voice.
He scowled at her. “Why should I?”
“Because my name is Colonel Natalia Talanova and you are now in preventative state security custody.” She fished an identity card out of her bomber jacket for his inspection. “You would be wise not to try my patience.”
Rykov stared down at it in confusion. The woman he’d thought he was picking up for some fun, no-strings-attached sex was a senior officer in the FSB’s counterintelligence service. Moistening his lips nervously, he looked up into her unsmiling, wholly unsympathetic face. “Look… Colonel… what is this all about?”
“You don’t know?” Talanova raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It seems that someone has been a very, very naughty boy, Alexei. Maybe it was you. Maybe it was someone you know.” She nodded toward the big man. “That is what my colleague over there and I intend to discover.”
Rykov swallowed hard, suddenly feeling very, very sober indeed. There were many unpleasant stories about how the FSB treated suspects it considered uncooperative. He had no desire to find out if any of those whispered tales of beatings and torture were true. This time, when the colonel ordered him into the car, he obeyed without question.
An hour outside St. Petersburg, the black Mercedes turned off onto a long gravel road that ran deep into the forest. Two kilometers farther on, it parked in front of a small wooden cottage — probably once the country dacha of a mid-ranking Communist Party official. A small light glowed dimly behind one curtained window. Otherwise, the house looked as dark and forbidding as the wilderness all around it.
Silently, Colonel Talanova and her fellow FSB officer marched Rykov inside and into an empty room at the back of the house. Apart from a plain wooden chair set directly under a bare overhead bulb and a small table along one wall, there was no furniture or any other sign of human habitation.
Talanova nodded toward the chair. “Sit down, Major.”
Numbly, Rykov did as he was told. She moved around to stand in front of him. Her face was mostly in shadow, almost wholly unreadable. Cat-quiet despite his size, the big man moved around to take up a position behind the chair, somewhere close by but out of Rykov’s sight. The back of his neck itched.
“You do know why you are here, Alexei, don’t you?” Talanova said calmly.
Desperately, he shook his head. “Honestly, Colonel,” he insisted. “I have no idea of what all this is about. I’m just a pilot, that’s all.”
She snorted. “Just a pilot?” She shook her head. “Try again, Alexei. Ordinary combat aviation officers do not have military service records which contain otherwise unexplained eighteen-month-long periods of ‘special detached duty.’”