First Salvo (18 page)

“I would be honored to help, sir,” Cobb responded.

“Good. You go home to your family tonight, get yourself a good sleep.” He gestured to the foreman. “See that he gets some money to give his family. You have my permission to pay him in advance. Take good care of our Berezin.” And with that, Keradin was off at a brisk pace toward the twilight-obscured dacha, whistling in anticipation of his evening with Verra.

Cobb, hat in hand, had not quite decided his next move. “What are you thinking about, Berezin?” It was the foreman. Grabbing Cobb’s shoulder with a beefy hand, his fingers dug into muscle at the base of the neck. He knew how to inflict pain. “I think we should have a little talk— in private.” His hand maintained its painful grip as he turned Cobb around and walked him in the direction of the crushing shed. “Come into my office.” Once inside, with the door slammed behind them, the foreman spun Cobb around, shoving him against the rough wall. “So you call yourself Berezin. What is your real name? Berezin isn’t Georgian. Your accent is more northern—Moscow or Leningrad maybe—not Georgia.”

“I don’t understand, sir. I…” Cobb’s feigned innocence never had a chance. The foreman caught him in the side of the head with a stunning blow. The noise alone was enough to stun him; the impact knocked him off his feet. Before he could gather his senses, he was jerked to his feet and pressed against the wall.

“You don’t seem to understand,” the other snarled. “No one
—no one
makes a fool of me. And today the general must have thought me to be an idiot. We’ll just stay in here until we know a little more about you.”

It was all Cobb could do to remember his alias. He took a deep breath. “My name is Berezin. I…” The remaining air whooshed out of his body as the foreman buried his fist in Cobb’s midsection. He doubled over onto the floor, his legs kicking spasmodically, gasping for air.

“When you’re ready, you may get up. Then we will start again.” The voice seemed to come through a tunnel, echoing through Cobb’s head, and he tasted bile, choking on it as he gasped. There was no way, Cobb realized, that he could go through this and still execute his plan that night. He got to his hands and knees.

“Now what do you think, my Berezin friend? Shall we talk?”

Cobb wiped at the blood running down his chin. His words came in gasps. “What I think… is that it won’t matter what I say.” He waited. There was no reaction from the other man. “I was brought up in Georgia. I don’t know where my family name came from,” he added quickly. “I can tell you about our grapes, our vineyards, our wines.

He didn’t see the blow coming this time, a brisk open hand to the side of the head that was as hard as a closed fist. Cobb went down again, ears ringing.

“I am sure you can tell me many things I don’t need to know about your wines. Anyone can be trained to do that.” The foreman had seemed relatively calm up to that point, but now anger was evident in his voice. “I want to know who sent you here. Nobody, not even the high and mighty in Moscow, makes a fool of me in front of General Keradin.” He pointed his index finger at Cobb, then jerked his thumb upward, indicating he wanted Cobb to get to his feet. “You could be from anywhere, but I suspect someone sent you to break security, someone who wants to see me sent off so that they can have this job.”

He went on, but Cobb barely heard what he was saying. The fact that the foreman thought he was being tested more for a breach in security than actually being compromised from the outside was Cobb’s ace in the hole. He had passed the test as a Russian, but not as the little old wine maker. Well, play Kozlov’s game, then!

“You are much wiser than anticipated,” Cobb began.

“This has been done before, you realize. I have been able to see through it each time. General Keradin is well taken care of, my friend. No one is going to compromise his position.” The words were spoken with arrogance and cruelty by a man who had succeeded in a mean world. Cobb had heard tales of GRU spying within the ranks, of how underlings sought to overthrow superiors by any means possible. Only the wisest, crudest, most suspicious survived to retire. “All I want to know,” the foreman said, “is who sent you in.”

Cobb lowered his eyes, sensing he might have a chance if he played the part of the enemy within. The foreman took a step in his direction, stopping when Cobb raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “You place me in a difficult position,” Cobb spoke slowly, still gasping. “If anything happens to me, you will of course, be considered responsible. If I am allowed to leave, you will be considered a fool. If I tell you who wants your position, then I will be a dead man.”

It was a chance Cobb had to take. If he kept talking, perhaps the foreman would relax his guard. “Let’s talk about how we can work together. After all, General Keradin is much taken with my knowledge of his wines.”

The foreman looked at him with disgust. “You turn on your seniors now; you will turn on me later.”

“I too want to work with Keradin. I took this assignment to meet him, believe me. I want to get out of Moscow. My life is wine. I have no interest in your job. A life of peace.”

“I can’t believe someone would send you.” The foreman shook his head in disgust. For a second, he turned his back to Cobb, wandering toward the small, single window. “Imagine…”

That was the foreman’s last word as Cobb sprang across the space between them, covering the distance in an instant, his arm already raised. He brought it down, his hand flattened sideways like an ax head. The blow caught the foreman in the back of the neck. As he slumped sideways, Cobb grabbed him, twisting his head back. The neck snapped with a sharp crack. Cobb released the body. The foreman was dead before he hit the floor.

Cobb peeked anxiously out the window. No one was around. He dragged the body behind the foreman’s desk. Knowing there had to be a weapon of some kind, he went through the drawers. In one of them, he found a Makarov pistol, fully loaded. He tucked it inside his shirt.

Outside, the shadows had merged into the blackness of night. A cool breeze blew in off the Black Sea, pushing the lights of magnificent yachts safely into the arms of this Russian Riviera. He pulled his cap low over his forehead and exited into the darkness. He hoped no one had business in the foreman’s office that night. The light was off, the door locked as he slipped out. Perhaps, just perhaps no one would miss the foreman for the next few hours.

Cobb already knew where he would hide until he judged the time was right to move. There could be no possible reason security would ever inspect the crusher. He climbed easily up the side and slid over into the catch basin inside. If for some unknown reason someone did want to look inside, Cobb would be able to hear them climbing up the side.

F
eeling gently with his fingers, Cobb found the side of his face swollen from the foreman’s blows. He sat up cautiously. His stomach also hurt. Stretching slowly, Cobb grinned to himself. He would feel just fine in no time. The foreman would never feel a thing again.

He peered cautiously over the top of the crusher. Nothing—no one. He looked toward the Black Sea. Safety! Lights blinked back from the water. The glow of Yalta, off to one side, offered comfort, especially to the powerful few in the Soviet Union. Like the foreman of Keradin’s vineyard, they had willingly done anything to achieve the good life.

Tonight, if he was successful, Cobb would change that good life for another well-rewarded Russian citizen. But he would only accomplish that if another person, one unknown to him until today, was able to pull off her part of a sensitive plan, one he had conceived in just a few brief moments. This was not out of the ordinary for him. His existence depended on his reactions. He succeeded in the job because he was the best there was. He relished the spirit of the hunt. But Verra was joining him in a spirit of hatred, as well as trust that a complete stranger would do everything in his power to bring her with him. After the degradation she had suffered, she had nothing to lose.

Cobb felt for the pistol, extracting it from his shirt. It was warm with the heat of his body. He checked it again, just as he had done before allowing himself to doze for an hour. The Makarov would be used only as a last desperate measure. Their weapons would make short work of him and Verra if they were caught. Perhaps if they confronted only one man or two, it might buy him time. It might buy time for the girl.

Verra. Cobb dreamed about her. She had changed from a peasant girl, covered with dust, clothing stained with grape juice at the end of the day, to a beautiful woman in an evening gown. He imagined her sweeping down a long staircase, jewelry glittering, hair upswept, long gown covering all but her shoes… and there at the bottom of the staircase, waiting for her in full uniform… was Keradin. Though the shock in the dream had jolted him awake for a second, he realized then, as he did now, that she was as beautiful in reality as she had been in his dream. The peasant clothing she had worn that day was nothing more than a uniform. The elegant way she carried herself, the manner in which she spoke, even her desire to emasculate Keradin, made him realize that she was indeed the lady she claimed to be, a lady who would seek revenge if she was violated. She would be a worthy partner—and he had not realized how much he needed a partner until she clarified that for him. He forced the memories of another time and another woman in Saigon from his mind.

He slipped out of the crusher silently. Sticking to the shadows, he moved toward the dacha. The plan he had roughed out that afternoon as they trudged down the slope to the crushing shed was to have Verra seduce Keradin. She had to make sure that she got Keradin to his room no later than two hours after sunset, and then Cobb intended to take him when he was naked. Somehow a man was obviously weaker and much easier to control that way.

In a few minutes Verra had detailed where the guards were normally stationed at the dacha, the location of Keradin’s bedroom, and which others were adjacent to it. The separate barracks where the slave laborers were housed were considered the major and only source of trouble by Keradin’s guards. They had control over the neighboring villages and saw little chance of trouble from the outside.

That afternoon when he shuffled down the hillside, kicking up dust with tired feet, Cobb saw something he could use—a discarded wine barrel lying on its side not far from the balcony outside Keradin’s room. If she was as equal to her part of the bargain as Cobb anticipated, Keradin would hear no noise. She promised that the sliding glass door would be ajar.

There was a quarter moon that night, not enough light to be seen by, not even if he were within ten yards of someone. Only the white walls of the dacha stood out. It was a country home, a retreat. There had never been a need for spotlights or illumination alongside the single-lane, dirt road, and no traffic existed at night this far from Yalta. This was true country, a place where Soviet officials could relax.

The main house, facing the Black Sea, was lighted primarily in the main dining area where, Verra explained, all the parties took place. It was there, each evening, that Keradin and his staff would bring the women they chose from the barracks. Alcohol— vodka, wine, and brandy—flowed, and sumptuous meals were served. After dinner and brandy, one by one they would drift up to their rooms. Cobb could see some of the rooms lit now. In the one to the left of Keradin’s, the light was extinguished as he watched. Having sex, no one would be listening for strange sounds.

Creeping up to the wine barrel, he rolled it, slowly and quietly, toward the balcony outside Keradin’s room.

Less than ten feet from the balcony, Cobb heard a door open at the far end of the building, by the dining area. Leaving the barrel, he slipped back behind a setting of small bushes lining the front patio area. A man walked out onto the front deck, stretched, then stepped down onto the lawn, unzipping his fly. He looked over in Cobb’s direction, spying the barrel. He meandered toward it, his hands still working at his fly. Looking up at the balcony outside Keradin’s room, he obscenely extended a finger in the general’s direction as he relieved himself on the barrel. When he was finished, he spat in Keradin’s direction and extended his finger again.

All is not well among the chiefs
, Cobb thought, trying not to think about the barrel he had just appropriated. Remembering the foreman’s suspicions, he wondered at the hatred and distrust among men who worked so close together. The man wandered back to the front porch, taking his time, looking from side to side. He stopped, turned, and looked back at the barrel as if he hadn’t remembered it being there. Muttering something under his breath that Cobb could not hear, he finally sauntered back inside. Cobb waited to make sure the man did not return to consider the barrel further, then slipped out from behind the bushes. He rolled it toward the balcony, awkwardly trying to grasp it only at the top end, the still-dry part. But he quickly admitted that he couldn’t get a good hold on it that way.
What’s a little used vodka?
he thought.

He turned the barrel on end at one corner of the balcony, then crept backward to survey the building once more. The lights were now off on both sides of Keradin’s room. That meant that one was being used and the other… more than likely they were also indisposed.

Standing on the barrel, he grasped the edge of the balcony. Silently swinging up with his feet, he knelt momentarily on the edge, then pulled himself up slowly, peering over the railing. There was a light on inside, but curtains were drawn on this end. He pulled himself very carefully over the railing until both feet were planted on the deck. Then he dropped to his knees and crawled to the other end of the balcony.

Just as Verra had promised, the sliding glass door was ajar, open about three inches. He could hear voices inside. Listening, he identified both hers and Keradin’s. The sentences were short and sharp. Her voice rose, followed by his. They were arguing— and that wasn’t part of Cobb’s plan. She was supposed to keep him occupied, not angered. He put his ear close to the opening and listened.