Deep Lie Read Free

officers, but he saluted again and walked quickly toward the gangplank. A seaman saluted him, and Helder said. calmly, “Tell the executive officer that I have been relieved, and he is in command pending further instructions.”
     
    As he approached the truck there didn’t seem to be a guard, so, as a gesture of optimism, he got in beside the driver, instead of climbing into the back. The driver said nothing to him, but executed a quick U-turn and roared off down the dock.
     
    Twenty-five minutes later, he was in an uninsulated transport airplane, the only passenger among a load of unlabeled crates. The noise was horrific, there were no seats, and it was freezing. He curled up on a deflated rubber life raft stuffed the corners of his filthy handkerchief into his ears, and tried to get some sleep. As he drifted into a half doze, he wondered why they hadn’t just shot him on the dock. Why all this bother?
     
    Now it was all over. Thirteen years of naval college, training, and service at sea, nearly all of it on submarines, bloody hard work, and it was over, finished. He had been due for a more modern sub, maybe of the Tango class, and, maybe, a promotion. He was already too long in grade. The worst that could happen was death, but since they were taking all the trouble to transport him to Leningrad and the staff headquarters, that seemed unlikely. A quick court martial on whatever charge, reduction in rank, and an unpleasant transfer seemed the best he could hope for. Vladivostok, he reckoned, six thousand miles by the slowest possible means of transport, and the remainder of his service as a cargo officer on the docks. He would become the oldest ensign in the history of the Soviet Navy.
     
    He dozed off, too exhausted to care.
     
    Holder woke as the aircraft slammed into the runway.
     
    Bloody green pilot, he thought. He went immediately back to sleep and refused to wake up again until a blast of even colder air hit him and a voice shouted his name, none too respectfully. A KGB sergeant was beckoning him from the plane’s doorway, his voice suddenly too loud as the engines died. Helder climbed stiffly down the steel ladder and followed the soldier toward a huge building. It was dark and raining lightly. Helder looked at his watch; just past midnight. They entered a door and climbed some stairs, and Helder found himself in Leningrad’s civilian airport.
     
    They walked briskly through the determinedly modern, nearly empty building. Only a group of Western-looking tourists, smiling weakly under the dour gaze of young KGB immigration officers in their neat uniforms and green epaulets, shared the huge terminal with Helder and the sergeant. Holder’s eyes briefly met those of a pretty young girl. English? American? He wished he had time to find out. Where he was going he would be lucky to find women at all, let alone pretty Western ones.
     
    Another truck. Helder dozed, undisturbed by the silent sergeant, as they entered the city. He woke again as they passed the old Admiralty, now a naval college. Helder had taken an electronics course there in his training days. They passed into the large square before the Winter Palace, now part of the Hermitage Museum, and rattled over the wet and shiny cobblestones toward the triumphal archway that was the entrance to General Staff Headquarters. The truck passed through the archway, turned right, passed the main entrance, turned another corner and stopped before a door manned by a single guard. Helder tore open the envelope he had been given in Murmansk and fished out his pass.
     
    The guard inspected it carefully, then nodded, saluted and motioned him through the doors, turning up his nose slightly at Holder’s filthy clothes. Helder had the feeling that if he hadn’t been wearing his officer’s cap, he wouldn’t have made it past the man. Inside, he was met by a young woman in an ensign’s uniform.
     
    “Captain Helder, please follow me,” she said curtly, and started