1
Murmansk, the Kola Peninsula, Russia

Radchenko hunched his shoulders against the bitter Arctic wind and swung down off the Number 8 electrobus onto Ulitsa Kipnovich. His boots crunched on the early October snow that had swept in from the Barents Sea across the taiga and low surrounding hills with their glistening stands of birch. The city's mask of white hid its dark, crumbling heart. Like a whore made up to fool an unsuspecting customer. A whore paid to turn tricks, thought Radchenko.

The dimly lighted street was a canyon of deserted apartment blocks bisected by the shimmering electrobus catenary. Radchenko felt utterly alone and for a moment wondered if he had stepped into a trap. He crossed the street and stood in a block of shadow, waiting for something or someone to move. He lit a cigarette, waited a beat, then set out, keeping to the shadows.

The Novy Polyarnyy Hotel was an ugly pile of yellow brick that Radchenko entered through an unlocked rear service door. He walked past the drunken night porter dozing before an ancient black-and-white TV broadcasting an eerie blue light into the worn lobby. Radchenko shunned the lift, thinking of the noise it would make, and instead took the stairs, their risers and treads creaking under his weight. He reached the second landing, stopped, but heard only muffled voices behind closed doors. Somewhere a toilet flushed.

Radchenko reached the third floor, turned left, and found the room. He took a deep breath, knocked twice. The door shivered open and Radchenko slipped into the room. He quickly inventoried the double bed, the battered greasy dresser and chair, the rusty washstand, the drawn blinds.

"Relax. We're alone."

Radchenko faced the tall American. He had a weathered face and short iron-gray hair. He wore well-cut khakis and a bulky black turtleneck sweater. His Russian was elegant, faultless.

Perhaps he had a beautiful blond wife; didn't all American men have blond wives? What would she think if she knew her husband was with a Russian sailor in a hotel in Murmansk?

"Vodka?" The American opened a fresh bottle of Sinopskaya, a premium brand Radchenko had never heard of. "Smoke?" He pointed to a carton of Marlboros that lay open on the bed.

Radchenko downed the vodka, smoother and sweeter than any vodka he had ever tasted. The American refilled Radchenko's drink, then refilled it again.

"I said relax; no one knows you're here."

"You have money to pay?" Radchenko said. He went to the window, peered through a gap where the blind met the wall. All he could see was a forest of TV antennas and satellite dishes on the roof of the apartment building next door.

"Yes."

"Dollars?"

"Yes."

The American watched Radchenko pace the room drinking vodka. He stopped to tear open a pack of cigarettes and light one.

"Take the whole carton; I don't smoke."

Radchenko heard that American men and their blond wives didn't smoke. Unhealthy. But they liked alcohol and sex. Usually taken together. He considered the American through the curling smoke from his cigarette.

The American sat down on the bed. He hadn't touched his drink. At length he said, "You had no trouble getting away?"

"The idiots who guard the base don't pay attention. We come and go as we want."

"No one else saw you leave? A shipmate, perhaps?"

"No one."

"Are you on the fleet duty roster?"

"I have the midwatch: midnight to 0400."

The American rucked a sweater sleeve to uncover a chunky stainless-steel wristwatch. "Then we have plenty of time. Take off your jacket and be comfortable."

Radchenko stopped pacing. He refilled his glass but didn't remove his jacket. He said, around the cigarette stuck in his mouth, "How much will you pay?"

The American swung his legs up on the bed and leaned back against the headboard, glass of vodka balanced on his chest. His feet were shod in a pair of scarred Wellington boots. "What I promised: five hundred. Another five hundred if you do what I want."

A fortune, thought Radchenko. More money than he could ever make as a sailor serving in the Russian Navy, which had seemingly run out of cash to pay its rankers—its officers too. Desertion and suicide were common, as was talk of mutiny. To make matters worse, Radchenko's commanding officer, an iron-fisted disciplinarian, had also become disillusioned. Radchenko remembered being scared to death by what he had overheard him discussing with other officers in the wardroom of the submarine K-363. And when Norwegian nuclear scientists surveying radioactive waste at the Olenya Bay submarine base brought the tall American and his assistant aboard the submarine to interview the crew, Radchenko, sensing an opportunity to earn some money, made an approach.

Copyright © 2004 by Peter Sasgen