“Then there is no question that they are fully committed,” Zakayev said.
Litvanov’s face hardened and his eyes narrowed. A boot sole ground his cigarette into the rough floor.
“Are you questioning, General, whether these men, whom I myself have trained, will follow orders?”
“It is not a question of following orders, it’s a question of how dedicated they are to the cause.”
Litvanov, eyes blazing, said, “I, Georgi Litvanov, kapitan third rank of the Russian Navy, commanding officer of the K-363, assure you that each of them is willing to give up his life for the cause. These men come from towns and villages all over Chechnya. There isn’t a man that hasn’t had a family member murdered by the Russians. I don’t have to tell you, General, that if I hadn’t offered them a chance to strike at the heart of Russia, they would have deserted to fight on the ground in Chechnya.”
“And you, Georgi Alexeyevich?”
Litvanov lifted and dropped his shoulders. “What have I to lose? Tell me?” His eyes searched Zakayev’s face. “I have a photograph of my wife and children in their coffins. My cousin sent it to me.
At first I thought it was a cruel joke somebody was playing, and I wish to God it was. I had to beg for leave and even then I was granted only three days. Three days. My cousin had them buried in Sernovodsk, our ancestral village, the same as yours, General. When I got there and saw their graves, I was sick. A pile of rocks — not even a proper marker.”
Litvanov downed vodka and wiped his mouth with a hand, which he then ran over his close-cropped skull. He turned his gaze on the girl. “I serve in the armed forces of a country that killed my family. I thought I had a good job, one of the best Russia could offer. I was blind to what was happening in Chechnya.” He reflected for a long moment, then said, “But now I have the means to strike back—
hard. So, like you, I made a decision and here I am.”
Through all of this the girl said nothing even though Litvanov spoke directly to her because he knew she understood the horror of Russian occupation in Chechnya. And because he had had a daughter her age.
“We all have our reasons,” Zakayev said. His mouth was a thin hard line.
“It’s hard to forget. I go on sometimes.”
Somewhere a rumbling diesel truck, perhaps hauling logs bound for one of the sawmills in Murmansk, made the warehouse tremble.
Zakayev said, “That sailor, Radchenko, and the American. What do you hear?”
Litvanov shoveled salted fish into his mouth and spoke while he chewed. “Nothing. No one at Olenya Bay has asked any questions. Radchenko’s been listed as a deserter. His records, personal effects, everything, went to Northern Fleet Headquarters in Severomorsk. It’s as if he never existed. As for the Amerikanski, I was told the FSB investigators looked around the hotel for less than an hour, then packed up and left town. The michman who discovered what Radchenko was up to is one of my best men.”
A gust of wind off the harbor rattled the office window glazing. The girl shivered and hunched her shoulders.
“The weather will be cold but stay clear for another day or so,” Litvanov said, dislodging a fish bone from his teeth.
“Then it’s time to go. As you said, there are patrol boats.”
Litvanov downed another drink then wrapped the bread and fish in newspaper He threw the waste in a trash bin and stuck the bottle of vodka in his outer coat pocket. “Security at the base is nonexistent, a joke,” he said as he finished up. “A few conscripts with unloaded assault rifles. When they see your uniform, they’ll be so frightened, they’ll piss their pants and wave us right through without asking for identification.”
“And you?” Zakayev said, looking at Litvanov’s grubby outfit.
“They don’t know who I am. They’ll think I’m your civilian driver.” He jerked a thumb at the girl.
“And her, they’ll just ignore because they’ll think she’s — he’s — with you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes. The base commander’s a drunk and has no idea what’s going on under his own nose. They’re all a bunch of drunks. How do you think we walk off with goods to barter? Trust me on that.”
They stood in the alley by the bolted door adjusting to the dark, getting their bearings.
“This way,” Litvanov said.
Suddenly a pair of headlight beams shot into the alley blinding them. Litvanov threw up an arm. Frozen in the hard, brilliant light, it took a moment to react.
“Get down!” He grabbed the girl and they rolled for cover behind the concrete stairs at the entrance to the warehouse as automatic weapons stuttered and bullets snapped overhead, spanged off brick, metal, and wood. In the shattering silence that followed, Zakayev heard empty brass cartridge cases skittering and spinning over ice and stone. And the metallic slap of a round jacking into the chamber of an automatic pistol that he guessed was Litvanov’s.
Zakayev reached back and felt around blindly. The girl raised her head a fraction. “I’m not hurt,” she said. Then: “It’s him. Ivan Serov.”
Muzzle flashes; another burst of gunfire rattled up the alley.
Zakayev raised his head cautiously and recognized the dual nostrils of a BMW grille between the headlights. He guessed there were three shooters lurking behind the car, which was parked about twenty meters away with two wheels on the curb up against the wall of a warehouse. And one of them was Ivan Serov.
He understood now. Despite precautions they had been followed. Serov had set a trap and he had walked right into it: the narrow alley, the seawall, the harbor — a box, a killing ground. They were pinned down and cut off from the parked truck, their only means of escape. The alley was a stage, and the blinding klieg lights made it impossible for the actors to see the audience waiting for the performance to begin.
Another flash and stutter. Chunks of shattered brick and cement rained on Zakayev and the girl.
He was back in Chechnya. Russian guns cracking and popping all around him and his men. The dull thump of a rocket-propelled grenade exploding. The screams of the wounded and dying. The sharp, sweet smell of cordite mixed with the brassy odor of wet blood. His blood oozing from a horrid, searing wound on his hip turning the baked Chechen soil into red mud. They were low on water and ammo. And it was only noon. Hours to go before dark and possible escape into the hills. Litvanov, on his belly behind a large empty packing crate up against the warehouse, growled something that brought Zakayev back to the present.
“General! Who’s out there? What do they want?”
“It’s Ivan Serov and he wants me.”
“Fuck! You said he was dead.”
Zakayev said nothing.
Litvanov, flat on the ground, aimed and shot out a headlight. In response a white-hot muzzle flash bloomed in the narrow space between the car and brick wall of the warehouse. Bullets ravaged masonry, punched through windows and the packing crate, tearing out splinters of brick, glass, and wood.
Still flat and below the line of fire, Litvanov shot out another headlight. The glare they had been looking into dimmed but didn’t go out, and to make a run for the truck was suicidaclass="underline" They would be perfect targets lit by the beams from the two remaining headlights. The only way out was to kill Serov and his men.
Somewhere in the distance a police car siren started hee-hawing insistently.
“Hear that?” Litvanov growled over his shoulder at Zakayev. It drew another burst of fire from the shooter hunkered between the car and the wall.