“Good morning, Mr. President,” said Radford.
The Nimitz clock ticked toward seven A.M.
The president finished reading. He put his elbows on the chair arms and made a steeple with his fingers. “This fellow, Scott,” he said, speaking to Radford over the steeple top. “I thought he had orders to escort Drummond’s body home, not open an independent investigation. I see here that you spoke to him.”
“Yes, sir. Last night.”
“What’s he up to?”
“Wants to prove that Drummond was murdered. He doesn’t believe the FSB report and wants to clear the man’s name.”
Friedman, heavyset with a head of thick, unruly hair that curled over his shirt collar, said, “I’m surprised you authorized his trip to Murmansk. Isn’t that risky?”
“If I had ordered Scott to stay out of Murmansk, it would only make him suspicious,” Radford said. “I felt a trip there would prove he’s on a wild-goose chase. After all, there’s nothing to see.”
The president said, “This science attaché, Dr. Thorne. What do you know about him?”
“It’s a ‘her,’ Mr. President,” Radford replied. “I was fooled too. She worked with Drummond, knows the ropes up there on the Kola Peninsula.”
“Can she be trusted?” the president asked.
“Scott vouched for her.”
Friedman said, “I read Scott’s file: It says he’s got a reputation for taking matters into his own hands.
Sounds like that’s what he’s doing now.”
The president collapsed his steeple. “What’s that all about, Karl?”
“Sir, Paul’s referring to a submarine recon mission Scott undertook a year ago for the SRO into the Yellow Sea. You may remember that your predecessor ordered a special-ops team into North Korea in preparation for a preemptive strike on the Yongbyon nuclear complex. The NKs stumbled on the op before we could execute. Scott almost lost his ship trying to save a SEAL team that the NKs had trapped. He had explicit orders that if something went wrong he was to pull out and leave the team behind but didn’t.”
The president nodded. “I remember. Pretty gutsy, I’d say.”
“But a direct violation of orders. We almost lost a Los Angeles–class nuke to the NKs. It would have been a propaganda coup for them if we had and a hell of a provocation too.”
“To say nothing of the NK ship he torpedoed,” Friedman added.
The president waved that aside and moved on. “I don’t want this Drummond affair blowing up in my face while I’m in St. Petersburg. I’m facing some difficult negotiations, and the Russians have been playing hard ball on every issue we need to resolve.”
“Scott will have departed Russia before you arrive, Mr. President. I guarantee it.”
The president erected his steeple again. “See that he does, Karl,” he said in a measured tone.
“Yes, sir.”
Friedman shifted the load of folders from his lap to the sofa. “Anything new on Zakayev? I see he’s not mentioned in the briefing’s threat assessment.”
“Our J-25 com intercepts have gone deaf,” Radford said. “There’s been no communications activity between Zakayev or his people for almost ninety-six hours.”
“A worrisome thing,” Friedman observed. He glanced at Radford, perhaps hoping the SRO chief would confirm this.
Radford said, “Zakayev’s being hunted all over Russia, so he’s probably hiding somewhere. If in fact he killed Drummond, he may still be somewhere between St. Petersburg and Murmansk. I expect he’ll surface soon.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Friedman unloaded the folders onto the sofa and got to his feet. “And when he does, God help us and the Russians.”
The president collapsed his new steeple and frowned. “You’re overstating it, Paul.”
“Am I?” Friedman said, then, as if suddenly remembering who he was addressing, he softened his tone.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. President, but what I meant to say is that we underestimated Zakayev. The attack on the concert hall was a shock, something none of us could have ever imagined. We know Zakayev is unpredictable and, like a damned snake, can turn on us if he wants to. He’s proven it by turning on the Russians. He’s our creation and we’ve lost control of him. I still believe we made a serious mistake supporting him, using him to distract the Russians. And if they find out we did, it will destroy the summit and undermine our efforts to bring the Russians over to our side on a host of issues.”
“Your moral outrage is duly noted,” the president said. “But you’re raking over old ground. What’s done is done and we can’t change it. What we have to do is convince the Russians not to launch an all-out war in Chechnya and the Caucasus.”
“Sir, with respect,” Friedman said, “the Russians launched all-out war there ten years ago.”
“I’m talking about all-out war using nuclear weapons. They’ve threatened to go nuclear, and if they do it could ignite World War III.”
7
The Novy Polyarnyy Hotel, Murmansk
Y uri Abakov opened the window blind and looked out at the TV antennas and satellite dishes on the roof of the building next door silhouetted against a red glow in the eastern sky. Earlier a dull boom had rattled the windows.
“Is that a fire?” Alex asked.
“Looks like a big one in the harbor area,” Abakov confirmed.
Scott stood in the middle of the room surveying the bed, the greasy furniture, the soiled walls.
“I told you there would be nothing to see,” Abakov said, sounding slightly bored.
There was nothing to indicate that two men had died in the room. And no bloodstains on the floor or the bed. Scott peeled back the coverlet and sheets and discovered a cheap, thin mattress that looked new.
“Satisfied?” Abakov said.
Scott stood with hands on hips. A wild-goose chase, and he hated to admit it. Yet, something gnawed at him. Why here? Why with Radchenko? What was he overlooking?
Alex peeked into a corner of the room at what passed for a bathroom equipped with a chipped washstand and crazed china commode. A faded floral print curtain on a rusty pole offered little privacy.
“This place gives me the creeps,” she said.
“It’s not exactly the Sheraton Regis,” said Scott.
Alex went around the room looking, touching. She stood at the door and ran a hand over the rough woodwork. She worked the doorknob and Abakov took this to mean she was anxious to leave.
“If you are finished, I suggest we go,” Abakov said, closing the blind on the red-tinged sky. “We can conclude our business in Moscow tomorrow and then you can take custody of Admiral Drummond’s remains.”
“Scott, take a look at this,” Alex said. “These door moldings are new and freshly painted. The door looks new too. So does the lock and mortise.”
Scott examined the crudely executed carpentry where angles didn’t match and bent nail heads protruded from scarred wood trim.
“There’s a simple explanation,” Abakov said, rapping his knuckles on the new door. “The old one had been forced open and had to be replaced.”
“Forced open?” Scott said. “Why?”
“Admiral Drummond had taken the room for one night only. When he didn’t come down the next morning to settle his bill, the porter became suspicious. He went up to check on Admiral Drummond, but when he didn’t answer the door, the porter broke it open and that’s when he found the two of them inside, dead.”
“Why did he break it open?”
“He said the chain lock was set. As you can see, it’s been replaced.”
“Did you see the broken door?” Scott said.
“No. The Murmansk police reported to me that it was smashed in when they arrived.”
“Smashed in?”
“The porter said he kicked it in.”
“I want to make sure I understand…. You were called by the Murmansk police?”
“After they discovered that one of the dead men was an American attached to the U.S. Embassy.
Admiral Drummond had nothing on him at the time he was found to indicate he was.”
“How long after the bodies were discovered did you arrive in Murmansk to take over the case?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“Two days.”
“Did the Murmansk police take photos of the crime scene? Of the door?”
“Of the room, not the door.”
“So you never actually saw the bodies here. Just photos of them in the positions you described.”
Abakov hesitated before saying, “Yes.”
“I see,” Scott said.
He ran a hand over the ugly green wallpaper behind the door and felt a deep, round depression in the plaster that matched the shape of a doorknob. When the door was kicked in, it had flown back and hit the wall, the doorknob leaving its deep impression in the plaster.
“It took a lot of force to do that,” Alex said. “A lot.”
“Didn’t the porter have a passkey?” Scott said. “I mean, why break down the door?”
“It’s not my hotel,” Abakov said, apparently irritated at Scott’s discovery of his lack of firsthand knowledge of the condition of the bodies after their discovery.
“Let’s get the porter up here,” Scott said. “Maybe he knows something.”
“He’s already told us everything he knows,” Abakov said.
“Well, maybe he forgot something.”
Abakov bristled.
“I’m not trying to encroach on your territory, Colonel, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just want to ask him a few questions.”
Abakov boarded the elevator and rode it, clanking and grinding, to the lobby.
Alone in the room with Scott, Alex said, “Abakov never saw the bodies except at the Murmansk morgue. Only photos of them.”
“That’s right.”
“Then his report is based solely on secondhand information from his investigators.”
“Right again.”
“Which means it’s suspect.”
Scott nodded.
“And you don’t believe that the porter kicked the door in, do you?”
“The old man we saw downstairs? No way.”
“Then who did?”
Scott ran a hand through his hair. He thought it would be so simple, but suddenly everything had been turned upside down.
“Tell me.”
He looked at her. Was she reading his mind?
“It was Alikhan Zakayev, wasn’t it,” she said. “Or one of his men.”
They heard the lift start its return trip from the lobby with Abakov and the porter on board.
“Zakayev must have known that Drummond was hunting for him and that he was here with Radchenko,” Scott said. “He killed Drummond and Radchenko and made it look like a murder-suicide.”
“Jake, why fake a suicide? Why not just kill Drummond and Radchenko and get rid of their bodies?”
“Because their disappearance would raise too many questions. At least with a murder-suicide there’d be a good reason to cover up what happened.”
“All right, I can buy that, but what was Drummond doing here with Radchenko, and what was he after?”
The scissors gate rattling open signaled the lift’s arrival. Scott put a finger to his lips.
The porter had eyes bleary from vodka and too much TV. He looked about seventy and smelled like the hotel: unwashed and musty. He was painfully thin, with arms like sticks and tufts of white hair that stood straight up on his head as if he’d stuck his finger in a light socket.
“What’s your name?” Scott asked.
The old man started at hearing an American speak good Russian. “Nikita Fyodorovich.”
“May I call you Nikita?”
“That’s what my friends call me.” He glanced around the room with the practiced eye of an innkeeper concerned that his establishment maintain its reputation for quality. He looked at the tossed bed and frowned.
“I was told that you were the person who discovered the dead bodies in this room.”
Nikita hesitated. He looked at Abakov. “Tell him,” Abakov said.
“I didn’t know there was another man in the room with the Amerikanski until I broke in.”
“Why did you break in?”
Nikita fingered white beard stubble while he considered. “The American had been in the room all night and now it was the next day. When he didn’t come down to pay for another day’s stay, I got suspicious.
Here, you always pay in advance for each day that you stay.”
“Do you always break down a door when some one doesn’t pay?”
Nikita had terrible breath, and when he exhaled heavily before answering, it washed over Scott. “I went up three, four times and knocked. I called to him. He didn’t answer. I waited until noon before I did it.
You can’t ever let them go a full day without paying.”
“Why didn’t you use a passkey instead of breaking down the door?” Scott said.
Nikita’s eyes flicked to Abakov. “I already told the police everything.”
“Tell me.”
“The chain lock had been set.”
“You mean the American had set it?”
Scott saw a tremor affect Nikita’s blue-veined hands. He linked them behind his back. “Yes, that’s what it was.”
“Why would he do that?”
Nikita lifted a shoulder.
“How did you break down the door?”
“I kicked it in.”
“This new door is pretty thick. Was the old one this thick?”
Nikita shrugged again.
“You didn’t hurt yourself—kicking it in, I mean?”
Nikita looked as if he’d been insulted. “I’m stronger than you think.” He thumped his chest with a fist.
“Did anyone see you do it?”
“No.”
“Weren’t there other guests on this floor? Did they hear you do it? Did they come out of their rooms to see what was going on? It must have made a lot of noise.”
“This isn’t Moscow. They knew to mind their own business.”
“I don’t understand,” Scott said.
“I think what he means, Jake,” said Alex, “is that old habits from the Soviet era die slowly.”
“I see,” Scott said. “After it was all over, who fixed the door?”
“A man who does odd jobs for the hotel. He does carpentry and fixes plumbing and electricity. He’s also an exterminator.”
“When did he fix it?”
“The next day, after the police had finished.”
“And before Colonel Abakov arrived?”
Nikita shrugged again. “We needed to rent the room.”
Scott gave Nikita six hundred rubles for his trouble and watched him depart.
“He’s lying,” Scott said. “He couldn’t have kicked in that door. He couldn’t kick his way out of a paper bag.”