Snow Wolf (28 page)

It took them twenty minutes to set up the
equipment, the white camouflage canvas tent and the tripods for the powerful
military binoculars. By then it was after two and bitterly cold, a little snow
on the ground, and they climbed wearily into their sleeping bags and tried to
sleep.

Manhattan, New York. February 21st Carlo
Lombardi sat opposite Kurt Braun in the private office above the club on the
Lower East Side docks. Lombardi said, "Your friends are still here at the
lake house. I have my people watching it, but nice and discreet. Another guy
arrived last week with @ a beard, looks like a fucking hick. He's in the cabin.
It was in the last report. still sta-@

Braun frowned and leaned forward. "I
read that. You got photographs of him?"

"Not this time, and it's too risky
for my men to get close."

Lombardi made a face as he looked at the
map. "Who the fuck in their right mind would want to live LIP there'? Real
shitkicking country." Braun said, "This man who arrived at the cabin,
I'll need to know who he is and what he's doing there."

Lombardi shrugged. "Tell your friend
Ark@ishin, he'll figure something out. Me, I don't want to blow this thing just
to have my boys get a closer look." He looked at Braun. "So what's
the deal'?'@, Braun spoke for almost ten minutes When he finished explaining
Lombardi whistled. "Serious business." He whistled again.
"Serious fucking business."

Braun removed an envelope from his pocket
and threw it on the table. Lombardi picked it up and riffled through the thick
wad of bills inside. He suppressed the urge to whistle again.

He had a broad grin on his face as he
stood. "Vince can come along."

"I presume he's capable?"

Lombardi smiled. "Capable"
Mister, let me fucking tell you something" Vince cut his teeth on guns in
the fucking cradle. So when do you want it done?"

The Soviet vessel will be arriving in New
York in twenty-four hours, I think the sooner the better, don't you?"

New Hampshire.

Stanski parked the pickup in the town's
main street. The windows of the pretty New England town were lit up in the
evening darkness as they walked to the hotel on Concord Street. There was a
dance band playing on the rostrum and the waiter showed them to a window table
set with fresh flowers and a red candle. He came back with two bottles of beer
and poured it into their glasses before taking their order and leaving. Anna
looked around the hotel restaurant. It was Friday night and the people there
were mostly middle-aged, but some young couples were on the dance floor.

When their meal came Stanski said,
"It's not exactly New York, but this is where the locals come for their
night out."

"It's the first time I've been to a
place like this in America."

He smiled at her. "You know, you
look very pretty tonight."

She looked across at him. He was staring
at her. Her hair was down and she had put on lipstick and makeup and she wore
the black dress she had worn the first night she had met him in New York.

"Is this where you come to find
girlfriends?"

He smiled and shook his head.
"Hardly, it's only my second time." He looked across and said,
"Tell me about yourself, Anna."

"What do you want to know?"

He sipped his beer and put down the
glass. "Anything you want to tell me,"

"No," she said. "First you
tell me about - Yourself.

He raised his eyes, faintly startled, a
little amused, and suddenly he seemed more at ease. "There isn't much to
tell. Maybe it's better if you ask me what you want to know."

"How did you come to live in
America?"

He toyed with his glass as if he seemed
to be wondering how much to tell her. He didn't look at her directly when he
spoke.

"My family lived in a village near
Smolensk. When my parents died my younger brother and sister and myself were
sent to an orphanage in Moscow. I was twelve. I hated the place. It was cold
and heartless. So I made up my mind for us to escape. A relative of my father's
lived in Leningrad and I thought he'd take US in. The night we planned to
escape we were caught. But I managed to get away alone and climbed aboard a
train at the Leningrad Station. When I reached Leningrad the relative wasn't
very pleased and wanted to hand me back. I wandered the streets until I found
myself at the docks looking at a ship. I didn't know where it was going and I
don't think I much cared. But I knew that ship was destiny waiting for
me." He smiled briefly. "You know what the Russians say. The seeds of
what we'll do are sown in all of us. So I stowed away on board."

"What happened afterwards?"

@"Two weeks later I was on the docks
in Boston, cold and very hungry."

"For a boy of twelve what you did
was remarkable."

He shook his head. "Not so
remarkable. I didn't know it until I landed in Boston but there were four other
stowaways on the same ship. In those days it was a lot easier to escape,"

"How did you end up with
Vassily?"

Stanski smiled. "I proved a little
troublesome after I arrived in Boston. They sent me to an orphanage just like
in Moscow, only the food was better and the people were kinder. But it didn't
help. And then someone had the bright idea to send me up here."

"He's a good man, Vassily."

"The very best type of Russian. Good
and kind."

"And your brother and sister, what
happened to them?"

He didn't reply and as Anna looked at him
she realized it was the first time she had seen any real sign of emotion in his
face. There was a flash of pain but he seemed to want to suppress it as he
leaned forward and the smile came back again. "Now it's your turn."

"What do you want to know?"

"Do you like Massey?"

The question surprised her. She hesitated
and looked away a moment. When she looked back she said, "He was the first
good man I met when I escaped to Finland. The first honest and caring human
being I'd known in a long time. He trusted me and helped me. They would have
sent me back to Russia had it not been for him. For that I'll always be grateful."

"Were you ever married, Anna?"
Suddenly she wanted to tell him the truth, but she said, "Do we have to
talk about it now?"

"Not if you don't want to."

"Then I don't want to." She
changed the subject. "Do you trust Popov?"

He laughed. "Of course."

The Ukrainians were the worst beasts in
the SS. They killed women and children without reguard, without so much as a
second thought. How can you trust him?"

"Is that why you kicked him between
the legs?"

"He got what he deserved. He should
have taken heed of his own advice."

"You really don't like him, do you,
Anna?"

"Men like him were traitors. ]'hey
betrayed their own people by fighting for the Germans. They raped, they
murdered."

He heard the anger in her voice and said,
"You're wrong about Popov, Anna. And you're neglecting an essential truth.
In Russian schools they teach you a very biased history. The Ukraine was not
always a part of the Soviet Union. Lenin subdued the country with his
Bolsheviks. Then Stalin. He had almost five million Ukrainians killed or sent
to Siberia. Men, women, children. Whole families uprooted and massacred. You
have no idea of the scale of it and Soviet history books never tell the
truth."

"And Popov is different?"

"He wasn't a war criminal. He was a
camp instructor, and a good one. Besides, he hates the Reds."

@"Why?"

"During the kulak wars when Stalin
stole all the grain from the Ukraine his people perished in the famine. What
the Germans did was terrible, but what the Russians did to the Ukraine was
worse."

He looked at her but she didn't speak. He
put down his napkin as if to change the Subject and stood and held out his
hand.

"Come on. Let's dance. This is
getting too serious."

"But it's a long time since I
danced."

"It's never too late to start
again."

He led her onto the floor just as the
band changed to a slow dance. He held her close and as they danced he said,
"What happened at the ridge ... I owe you an apology."

She looked up at his face for a moment.
"You don't have to apologize."

"But I do. You were right, I didn't
want you along, but not for the reasons you thought. I just didn't want you to
be hurt getting involved in this."

"And do you still think it would be
better if I didn't come along?"

He smiled. "Now I'm not so
sure."

They danced two sets, and she was aware
of Stanski holding her tight and how comforting it felt. There was some lively
music at the end which had people kicking their legs in the air as a man played
a fiddle. The dancing made her warm when they came back to the table some more
people came over to say hello and she saw several women nearby give her envious
glances.

Stanski smiled. "You know you're
going to ruin my bachelor reputation in this town?"

"Does it bother you?"

"Not one little bit."

It had been a long time since she had
danced with a man. She remembered the night Ivan had danced with her on the
banks of the Moscow River and suddenly it seemed a long time ago and she felt a
little sad.

When they finished the meal they walked
back to the car, and Stanski draped his coat around her shoulders to keep out
the cold.

As they climbed into the pickup neither
of them noticed the dark blue Ford sedan parked across the street, the two men
inside watching them.

Massey's car was parked outside the house
when they got back. He was sitting at the table drinking coffee with Vassily
when they went in and when he saw Anna he smiled.

"it looks like you two have been
enjoying yourselves." Stanski said, "All part of the training, Jake.
Where's Popov?"

"Gone to bed. He's starting early
back to Boston tomorrow. Pull up a chair."

They sat and talked for ten minutes over
coffee, and then Vassily went to bed. Anna said good night shortly thereafter.
Massey waited until she had gone upstairs and said, "Something's different
about her tonight."

"Like what?"

"A look in her eyes. What have you
two been up to?"

Stanski found the bottle of bourbon and
poured them one each. "A dance and @ meal and a few drinks. It did her
good."

"So how's she shaping up?"

"Better than I thought." He
told Massey about Popov's experience and Massey smiled.

"He ought to have known better.
Maybe he's getting old."

"How was Paris?"

Massey told him about the arrangements in
Paris and Helsinki. "We'll use Lebel's girlfriend's dacha when you two get
to Moscow. It's ideal-remote and safe."

"You think it's right getting
Lebel's friend involved?"

"She won't be. If things go
according to plan, as soon as Anna and you arrive in Moscow, Irena and she will
leave on Lebel's train. Then you'll have the place to yourself."

Massey went over the details and then
Stanski looked across at him. "You look like you've got something on your
mind, Jake."

Massey drank his bourbon and put down the
glass and stood. "Remember what I told you about Max Simon and his little
girl'? I think I've found who did it. A man who uses the name Kurt Braun. One
of Moscow's hired killers. And he's in New York as an illegal."

"What's he doing in New York?"

"God only knows, but he can't be up
to much good."

Stanski half smiled. "Why do I sense
something coming?"

"From what I've heard of Braun, he's
the worst scum you could meet. He's a psycho, Alex. He was serving time for
manslaughter and rape in a German prison before the Germans got desperate for
men and put him in an SS penal battalion. The Russians captured him in
forty-five. They gave him a choice. Work for them or freeze to death in a
Siberian camp. Not surprisingly, he chose the first option."

"So what are you going to do?"

Massey crossed to the window and looked
back, a look of anger on his face. "Branigan wants me to forget about
him."

"-",But You have other plans,
right?"

"I checked with immigration. Braun
arrived using a West German passport in the name of Huber three months ago.
I've got his address. An apartment in Brooklyn. I want to pay it a visit. If
it's him, I'm going to settle the score."

"What about the Russians?"

"There's nothing they could do about
it. Braun's an illegal and they can't even acknowledge he exists. And hopefully
he won't @after we're finished."

"And Branigan?"

"He needn't ever know if we do it
properly."