Snow Wolf (32 page)

There was a terrible look of grief on
Stanski's face as Massey looked down at Vassily's body. They had searched the
others for forms of identity but Braun's was the only one Massey was interested
in.

Vassily's body was badly burned and there
was a gunshot wound in his chest, another in his shoulder. Massey looked at
Stanski for a long time. It was the first time he had ever seen such a look of
anguish on his face, and he touched his arm.

"This is my fault. I'm sorry,
Alex."

Stanski was suddenly white with anger.
"It's no one's fault but the people who did it. He didn't have to die and
they didn't have to kill him." He looked at Massey, a frightening rage in
his eyes. "Someone's going to pay for this, Jake. Someone's going- to pay
dearly, so help me ..."

Leave that to me, Alex. But right this
minute, all bets are off. We're canceling the operation."

Stanski shook his head fiercely.
"You do that and I go in alone, with or without your help. I told you
someone's going to pay and I know who it is ..."

Massey turned to Stanski, "Not now,
we talk later."

"I mean it, Jake. I go in with or
without your help."

"We can't do it, Alex. Branigan
would never go along, not when he hears what's happened to Akashin. And what's
happened here only makes it worse. It's a security risk."

"When they find Akashin's body no
one's going to know who did it. And Akashin couldn't have known what we intend.
Besides, he's dead."

Massey shook his head. "Maybe, but
Branigan will hear. Popov's body is in Braun's apartment. And Branigan will put
two and two together."

Stanski looked over at Anna and said to
Massey, "Either way it's going to take time before Branigan finds out.
Anna can stay if you're worried. But me, I'm still going in.'@

Anna looked at him and said quietly,
"if you go, I go too."

Massey looked at them both. For a long
time he seemed to hesitate, then he said to Stanski, "You're angry, but
are you really sure about this?"

"Me, I'm on this ride to the end of
the tracks. You'd better ask Anna that question."

"Anna ... ?"

She hesitated, then looked over at
Stanski's face and said, "Yes, I'm sure."

For a long time Massey seemed unable to
make up his mind, then he sighed and said, "OK, Alex, we do it your way.
We'll have to bury the bodies in the woods in case anyone comes by. I'll worry
about Branigan later." Suddenly Massey seemed at a loss for words.
"I'll help you bury Vassily." Stanski shook his head and said
fiercely, "Not in the woods with those vermin who killed him. Down by the
lake." Massey said quietly, "There's a shovel in the jeep. I'll get
it.

There was a crash and an explosion of
sparks as part of the roof caved in.

He stared -,it the flames, his mouth
tight in anger, and as Massey went to move toward the jeep he grabbed his arm and
said in a hard voice, "Just tell me, when do we go in?"

"There's a flight to London from
Boston tonight, with a connection to Stockholm and Helsinki. We can make it if
we hurry. We'll use Braun's car. I've got passports for both of' YOU."

"You didn't answer the question. How
long before we go in?"

"Forty-eight hours."

February 23rd-24th 1953

New Hampshire. February 23rd It was
almost 9:00 A.M. the following day when Collins drove up to Boston airport from
New York.

He met the group off the Canadian
Airlines flight from Ottawa, two women and a man, younger than himself, and by
the time they had hired the camper and equipment in Boston and applied for the
hunting permits in New Hampshire, it was almost noon.

The man named Collins was thin but well
muscled, in his early forties, and his eyes had the steely, detached look of
someone who had seen death and even dispensed it. The younger man wore glasses
and his dark hair was cropped short. There was a faint hint of the Slav in his
high cheekbones but his demeanor and manner were pure North American.

The two women were in their late
twenties, both pretty and vivacious, but Collins knew they would be as capable
as he was with any kind of weapon, even in their hands. For the purpose of the
mission they were friends who had met on a camping holiday the previous summer
at Lake Ontario, renewing their acquaintance. The briefing they had received
had been specific about using extreme caution.

The hired camping trailer had been Collins's
idea. Under cover of a hunting party they wouldn't arouse suspicion. All of
them were illegals with no police or criminal record, unknown to the CIA or the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The rifles and pistols were legally bought and
licensed in their own names.

They turned onto the road that led down
to Kingdom Lake just after one that afternoon. Snow chains had been fitted on
the tires so they wouldn't leave identifiable tracks. The landscape seemed
totally deserted. It reminded him of' the Caucasus of his homeland, and who he
really was, despite am)ost eight years as an illegal American citizen-Major
Gri-ori Galushko, KGB 1st Directorate.

They parked the trailer a mile from the
cabin on the lakeside @and decided to cook lunch before venturing closer. That
way they were covered if anyone who had seen them came to investigate. But no
one came and it was almost four when they changed into their hunting- clothes,
all of them wearing gloves, and started to stroll toward the cabin, the men
carrying the rifles. They walked in couples and they made as much noise as they
could, joking and laughing as they strolled, acting like a quartet of married
friends out for a winter shooting holiday, but their eyes were everywhere,
watching any movement, hearing every sound.

A hundred yards from the lakeside cabin
they stopped for a cigarette @and to drink from hip flasks. Galushko's eyes
flicked nervously about the landscape. There was almost no snow in the forest
itself, the @round protected by the trees. He still saw no movement, heard no
sounds, only those of the wind and lake water lapping gently, some pigeons in
the pine trees above cooing their arrival.

They saw the boat tied up at the
promontory and the burned out cabin, smoke still curling from its embers, the
jeep and the pickup parked nearby, the tires shot through, but no sign of life.

Gallishko's face had a worried look.
Instead of walking directly toward the cabin, they skirted it and walked back
into the woods. It took them another half-hour to determine that the area was
deserted, circling it carefully, until they finally came back to the charred
remains of the cabin. Each of them moved more like practiced hunters now,
careful and watchful, as if they were stalking some animal hiding inside.

It was Galushko and the younger man who
went toward the cabin first, moving cautiously onto the remains of the veranda.
The women remained a distance away, watching in case anyone appeared.

"Anybody here?"

Galushko called out twice, but no one
appeared. He could hear the two women doing the same outside, their voices
carrying on the breeze and out onto the cold lake like Ghostly cries for help.
But still no one came and no voice answered.

Then Galushko and his companion took
their time, sifting through the remains.

When they checked the area around the
cabin they saw no sign of a disturbance at first, but then Galushko's practiced
eyes saw the dark stains on the ground, the patchy snow all around melted from
the heat. When he bent to examine the stains he knew it was blood.

He stood and glanced anxiously at his
companion.

After that they moved more quickly.

It took them almost half an hour,
searching the area as thoroughly as they could, then checking the vehicles and
the boat and the perimeter of the lake, before they moved out into the woods
again.

Another hour later they had found nothing
and Galushko was frustrated. They were about to go back to the trailer, had
walked back along the lake shore, when one of the women went off to relieve
herself in the woods, the cold bit at them all. Galushko saw her undo the
buttons of her jeans as she walked away, watching her figure as she retreated
farther into the forest for privacy. When he looked back at one moment, he saw
her white buttocks appearing in the forest gloom like some strange and bloated
ghostlv apparition as the woman squatted and relieved herself. Galushko smiled
faintly before he turned back toward the others.

They had almost reached the camper when
she came running after them breathlessly. Galushko saw the look on her face,
not fear, these women didn't show fear, but something else, and then she was
beside Galushko, but looking at the others too, saying, "I think you'd
better come back and have a look."

Moscow.

Hours later in New York, on that same
late February evening, Leonid Kislov, the KGB station head in New York's Soviet
UN mission, boarded a Pan Am flight to London, with onward connections to
Vienna and Moscow.

He carried with him a diplomatic
briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist, and he hardly slept throughout the
entire twenty-two-hour journey.

As he climbed tiredly into a cold Zil,
Kislov found a blanket on the back seat and pulled it over his freezing legs.
The driver climbed in front and looked around cheerfully. "You had a
pleasant flight. comrade?"

Kislov didn't feel like small talk, his
head aching after the long flights, especially with the knowledge of what he
carried in the briefcase gnawing at his brain.

He said gruffly, "The Kremlin, quick
as you can."

The driver turned back at the rebuff and
eased the Zil across the snowy tarmac toward the airfield exit.

Finland. February 23rd The scheduled SAS
Constellation from Stockholm landed in darkness at Helsinki's Maimi airport a
little after five that February afternoon.

Three of the passengers on board were
Massey, Stanski and Anna Khorev.

As the plane taxied in, there was little
to see in the almost Arctic darkness beyond the cabin windows. Ten minutes
after the aircraft touched down they came through Arrivals.

A blond-haired man wearing a worn leather
flying jacket and a white woollen scarf came out of the waiting room shook
Massey's hand cheerfully.

"Good to see you, Jake. So this must
be the cargo?"

Massey turned to Anna and Stanski.
"I'd like you to meet Janne Saarinen, your pilot. One of Finland's
best."

Saarinen smiled as he shook their hands.
He looked small for a Finn and his face was a mass of angry scars, but despite
the disfigurement he seemed a cheerful sort.

"Don't pay any attention to
Jake," Saarinen said in perfect English. "He's an old flatterer. You
must be exhausted after the flight. I've got a car outside, so let's get you to
our base."

It was very cold and eerily dark outside,
just a faint trace of watery light on the Arctic horizon.

As Saarinen took Anna's case and led them
to the parking lot, Massey saw the look on their faces as the Finn limped his
way ahead of them, swinging his leg out in front with each step.

When he was out of hearing, Massey said
to Stanski, "What's wrong?"

"in case you hadn't noticed I'd say
your friend's missing a leg."

"Don't let it bother you. It hasn't
bothered Janne. Believe me. he's the best there is."

Saarinen climbed in the front of a small
muddied green Volvo, and Massey slid in beside him, Stanski in the back with
Anna. As they drove out of the airport minutes later she was already asleep,
exhausted after the long _journey, her head resting on Stanski's shoulder.

"Welcome to Bylandet Island,"
said Saarinen.

They rattled over the bridge and came to
a small cove that consisted of a couple of bright-painted wooden buildings, a
stretch of curved frozen beach in front and a thick forest behind. Saarinen
drove toward a big, solitary two-story greenpainted wooden house, its shutters
firmly closed, and halted in front. Wood fuel was piled high against one of the
walls, and the remains of a fishing boat languished nearby, a clump of ancient
frozen netting hanging from a rusty hook on the side of the house.

"The place used to belong to a local
fisherman, until he drank himself to death," Saarinen told them. "Not
surprising really. This is the only house on this part of the island and it's
off the beaten track. Hardly anyone comes here in winter apart from wildlife,
unless like us they're completely mad, so we won't be bothered."

The house was all bright-colored pine
inside and freezing cold. Saarinen lit a couple of oil lamps and showed them
around. A large room downstairs served as the kitchen and living room area,
sparsely furnished with a pine table and four chairs and an ancient settee and
dresser, but the place was kept neat and tidy. A small wooden table in a corner
of the room was covered with a heavy canvas sheet that hid something bulky
underneath. There was a wood-burning stove in the corner and when Saarinen had
lit it, pouring some kerosene on the logs to get the blaze going, he showed
them their rooms upstairs.