Day Of Wrath (12 page)

“The evidence is conclusive. The plane carrying Colonel Gasparov, his shipment, and your O.S.I.A inspection team was sabotaged.”’

He whirled on Serov’s aide. “This investigation is now a formal murder inquiry, Colonel Petrov. Do you agree?”

The other man nodded reluctantly. “It appears so, Major. As difficult as I find that to believe.”

“I don’t give a damn what you believe, Colonel! And I don’t give a damn about your so-called state secrets,” Koniev said savagely.

“I expect your full cooperation—real cooperation—this time?”

Petrov stiffened. “Very well.”

“Good.” Koniev eyed him carefully. “Then you, or Colonel General Serov, will tell us exactly where we can find this Captain Nikolai Grushtin. Or you and your commanding officer will explain your refusal to assist us in even less comfortable and less convenient quarters. In Moscow. Is that understood?”

Sitting rigidly upright in his chair, the other man nodded slowly. He seemed completely cowed.

But later Helen found herself wondering uneasily why the hatchet-faced Russian colonel’s lips had twitched briefly into what looked remarkably like a self-satisfied smirk.

JUNE
1

Proprietary Materials Assembly Building, Caraco Complex, Chantilly, Virginia (D
MINUS
20)

Caraco’s Washington-area regional headquarters lay in the middle of the green, wooded countryside surrounding Dulles International Airport.

Broad streets, grassy lawns, and patches of oak and pine forest left standing around homes and office buildings gave the area something of a rural feel despite the fact that it was only a few scant miles from the western edge of Washington’s urban sprawl.

Seen from the outside, the Caraco compound was almost wholly unremarkable. It blended well with the neighboring modern-looking office parks and light industrial complexes fanning out from the airport. Its large, boxy buildings were pleasantly anonymous, practical, and architecturally uninteresting—similar in style to dozens of others bearing different corporate logos and names like “Vortech” and “
EDC
, Inc.”

Even the compound’s chainlink fence, perimeter floodlights, and twenty-four-hour guards were not out of the ordinary. Many of the area’s hightech electronics firms had tens of millions of dollars in manufacturing equipment and industrial secrets to protect.

But the fence, lighting, and guards were only the visible signs of a much more complete, almost sentient security system. A network of computer-controlled video cameras and motion sensors had been woven around the border of the compound to detect any unauthorized human or machine intrusion. All incoming phone, fax, and data lines were constantly monitored for signs of electronic eavesdropping, and all the external windows were double-paned and vacuum-sealed to thwart laser bugging.

Two of Caraco’s three buildings contained offices meeting rooms, computer centers, and file storage areas—all the run-of-the-mill trappings of any building owned by a large multinational corporation.

But the third building was different—very different.

Guards armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns were stationed just inside the main door. Special identification badges were required to gain entrance—something none of Caraco’s American-born employees carried.

Inside, the warehousesized building was divided into several areas by movable partitions. All the activity was in one area, just off the main entrance. Racks of electronic equipment lined one wall, while the others were covered with wiring diagrams and enlarged photos of a twin-turboprop aircraft.

The floor was crowded with benches, each covered with tools and electronic equipment. Half a dozen technicians sat at the benches—peering at oscilloscope screens, or methodically assembling electronic components.

They conversed easily in low tones, their German mixing with country-western music playing from a boom box on a table next to a coffee machine.

The room had a hard, industrial feel, with nothing personal, no prints or photos, no newspaper clippings anywhere in sight.

The only item not related to the workplace was the radio, now belting out a Clint Black tune.

One of the technicians finished wiring a piece of gear, nodded to himself, and called across the room, “Klaus? Unit Number Three is ready.”

A man in his fifties, at least twenty years older than the rest of the technicians, balding with gray, close-cut hair on the sides, walked over from another workbench. “You remembered the interlocks this time, I hope?” he asked, half joking and half serious.

“Yes, Klaus. I checked them twice before calling you,” the young German technician answered respectfully.

They knew and used only first names in the project, and his was Franz, at least as long as this job lasted. He was in his early twenties with a smooth-shaven head, and he knew the older man still couldn’t get used to the small gold loop piercing his left eyebrow.

His training was good, however—the best available from one of Germany’s top technical schools. He knew electronics.

Caraco had recruited him straight out of school, promising only foreign work and high pay. Very high. Franz had hesitated only momentarily before agreeing to what he suspected was some sort of illegal activity.

After all, he had come to the United States on a tourist visa—not on one that permitted him paid employment.

The working conditions inside the Caraco compound were hard, almost Spartan. Security was tight. And his new employers had made it clear that questions, of any kind, were unwelcome—perhaps even dangerous.

None of that mattered much to the young technician. Germany’s “miracle” economy had stagnated over the past decade.

Most of his peers and friends were still unemployed—reduced to living on the public dole or squatting in abandoned buildings.

Well, not him. For this two months’ work, he would make enough to live decently while finding a more permanent position.

If Caraco wanted to bend a few petty American laws as part of the bargain, so be it.

To demonstrate his success, Franz, humming along with the radio, touched a test probe to several connections inside the device.

The older man watched carefully and then nodded, pleased.

“Very good. All right, let’s do a navigation check.”

Franz disconnected the unit from the bench’s power supply and picked it up by two built-in handles. Holding it with respect, he followed Klaus over to a long workbench in the far corner of the room.

Together, they fitted the new device, which had a curved underside, to the top of a similarly curved metal plate Connectors in the device mated with sockets in the plate.

Referring to a checklist tacked up next to the workbench, Franz pressed a square green button on the front panel. Several small green
LEDS
lit up, and a display on the front came to life.

It was blank for only a moment, then showed the number 1. Another pause and it increased—flickering from 2, to 3, and then on up to 7 in rapid succession. After a few seconds more, an 8 appeared.

Below the green glowing number, several more numbers appeared latitude, longitude, and an elevation above sea level.

They matched the numbers posted prominently on the wall above the workbench, but both men had long ago memorized them.

In theory, it was possible to obtain a good global positioning system (
GPS
) fix using the signals transmitted by just three satellites, but first-rate accuracy demanded five. The precise number available depended both on the location of the receiver and the orbits of the twenty-four operational
GPS
satellites. There were always enough above any observer’s horizon for a decent fix, and often enough for an excellent one.

Another light glowed on the unit.

“Receiving
GPS
correction data,” Franz reported.

“Very good.” Klaus grinned. “Convey my thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard and all the other companies providing us with such services.”

The younger German matched the older man’s grin. The signals transmitted by the
GPS
satellites were carefully degraded so that civilian-owned receivers couldn’t match the accuracy of those used by the American armed forces. Differential
GPS
, or
GPS
, was a technique used to correct those errors. Software inside base station receivers matched their precisely known location against that supplied by
GPS
, and transmitted error correction data to mobile receivers within range.

The U.S. Coast Guard and a number of private companies had set up systems of radio beacons across North America—supplying constant error corrections to anyone with the appropriate equipment.

Standard civilian
GPS
sets could provide a navigation fix accurate to within one hundred meters horizontally and one hundred fifty meters vertically. Using five satellite signals and
GPS
error correction, those same sets could provide a fix accurate to within one meter.

Satisfied that the device’s
GPS
sub-system was on-line and working, the two men carefully checked yet another set of lights above the test panel. All were green.

Franz made a notation. “The computer is up and running, Klaus.”

“Good,” the older man grunted. He checked a pair of readouts on the workbench. “The processors are in sync. And the data feed is operational.”

The two German technicians tested several more functions on the panel, then, satisfied, disconnected the device. Then the man called Klaus watched as Franz placed it on a rack against one wall—next to several other pieces of electronics. He allowed the younger man one moment of satisfaction before ordering him back to work.

Caraco had them on a tight schedule.

JUNE
1

Near Bergen, Norway (D
MINUS
20)

“Bornestangen light bears three two five.”

Captain Pavel Tumarev grunted in reply, studying the radar scope. The Don radar set was stepped down to its shortest range setting, for maximum detail. Even then, he could see three other ships, one in the channel ahead of him and two others in the outbound channel approaching him, but separated by a goodly distance. Star of the White Sea was in her place, on the starboard side of the crowded channel.

Bergen was one of the busiest ports in Scandinavia—a hub for North Sea oil exploration, fishing, and bulk cargo transport. Norwegian radar stations watched all the merchant traffic and Channel 13 crackled with directions from Bergen traffic control.

Tumarev’s ship had been under positive control since passing Sjerkaget light, but if he collided with something, traffic control wouldn’t take responsibility for it.

“Bornestangen light bears three three zero,” reported the port bearing taker.

“Range to Venten Mountain?” Tumarev asked. There was an edge to his question. The radar operator was supposed to report the range every half minute, but he was late.

“Fifty-three hundred meters.”

His first officer looked up from the chart table. “Navigator recommends immediate turn to three three five degrees.”

“Come left to three three five,” ordered Tumarev. “Watch the current.”

They were on an ebb tide, and it might push them out of the channel if they didn’t pay attention.

Tumarev scanned the bridge, then stepped out on the port bridge wing to watch the ship swing. He sensed someone follow him out and knew it was Dietrich Kleiner, Arrus Export’s “senior representative” on board. A nice enough fellow, Tumarev thought sourly, as long as you didn’t try to talk to him or mess up somehow.

Kleiner had ridden his ship many times, always into Bergen.

He always departed at that port—often without saying so much as a word. When he did speak, he used Russian, but it was clear from more than his name that the man was German.

Tumarev grimaced at his own understatement. Kleiner, he thought, exhibited the same Teutonic craving for precision, lust for power, and contempt for Slavs that had led his damned country into two world wars and ruin.

The German was shorter than the Star’s captain, which was saying something, but stocky instead of just small. He weighed at least ten kilos more, and as far as Tumarev was concerned, it was all mean. He was also younger, in his mid-thirties instead of his fifties, and showed none of the traditional respect due a ship’s master.

Kleiner didn’t make every trip on the Star, praise God, but when he did he was everywhere. He seemed to know how a merchant vessel should be run, and wasn’t shy about telling the captain when he thought Tumarev or his crew were slacking. Losing their Arrus Export charter was the most pleasant thing he promised.

Satisfied they were back on course, Tumarev risked a glance at his unwelcome passenger. The German was watching him with a scowl—almost as though he were disappointed the Russian hadn’t put Star of the White Sea on the rocks.

Tumarev shrugged and went back inside. This close to the end of the fourteen-hundred-mile run from Pechenga, he had more important matters to attend to. Kleiner and his superiors at Arrus Export paid him well to carry their various cargoes out of Russia without asking inconvenient questions. But they didn’t pay him enough to spend all his time worrying about licking their boots.

Although Bergen lay at the end of a twisted forty kilometer channel, it was an excellent deepwater port. Ships of every type and size crowded the harbor—with oil tankers and container ships anchored below the same steep slopes that had once seen Viking longships unloading plunder and Hanseatic League merchantmen taking on mounds of salted fish.

Tumarev followed traffic control’s instructions to Pier 91A and moored Star of the White Sea portside to a weathered concrete pier sheathed with wood and rubber fenders. It was late in the day, nearly 1800 hours, but the captain saw cranes waiting for his ship.

He gave the boatswain his orders.

Almost before shore power was secured, Tumarev saw the hatch covers being removed, with Kleiner standing next to the boatswain like an unwelcome shadow.