Deep Lie Read Free Page B

really a huge, flat-topped building along the waterfront. What had fooled him was that the entire shelter had raised edges and the roof held a foot or two of water. Bloody clever, Helder thought. In a satellite photograph, the building would appear to be part of the bay. Make a lovely skating rink in winter, too.
     
    It now occurred to him that all the buildings he was passing looked civilian and oddly Western. There was a clutch of shops, not just the usual naval store with its tobacco and vodka, and there was a petrol station. Although there was more traffic than would normally appear on the streets of a similar-sized Soviet town, he saw no military vehicles, only civilian cars and trucks, and yet he saw no school, no children, no housewives with prams doing the daily shopping. The place seemed to be neither a military base nor an ordinary town. One last thing intrigued him before he reached his destination. His car drove past a sports center that would have been at home in a much larger city. There was a huge building which, no doubt, housed a gymnasium and a swimming pool, and he counted thirty-six tennis courts down near the water. Past these was a small forest of masts, which meant a marina of some size. As the car stopped before what looked like a small office building, it occurred to him that he must be on one of the most privileged installations in the Soviet Union.
     
    So was its commander privileged, he saw as he got out of the car. In the reserved parking space closest to the building’s door was parked a silver Mercedes 500 SE, brand new, from the look of it. He had seen one in Moscow, once.
     
    He was met at the door by a small, very pretty blonde army sergeant and conducted into the building. On entering, he felt as if he had arrived in a foreign country.
     
    Nothing he saw seemed of Soviet origin. Even the carpeting underfoot, the hardware on the bronzed glass doors, and the standard of construction of the building were markedly different from the shabby Soviet building efforts of recent years. The place had what he imagined was a Scandinavian air about it. They passed through another set of the glass doors and into an open area with a dozen or fifteen desks. The typewriters bore the letters IBM, and he saw half a dozen computer terminals of futuristic design.
     
    But what impressed him more than anything was the appearance of the young women, wearing uniforms of various Soviet services, who sat at the desks and moved around the room. They were nearly all blonde, all of trim, athletic figure, and there was not a dog in the bunch.
     
    Women in the Soviet military were pretty rough looking sorts, as a rule. Never in the Soviet Union had Helder been in a room which contained so many attractive young women.
     
    A surge of randiness involuntarily swelled inside him. A sight like this after five weeks on a submarine was almost too much.
     
    They passed into a small reception area, and Helder hoped he might be asked to wait there a few minutes, so that he might look at the girls some more, but it was not to be. They barely slowed down as they moved into a large, square, sunlit room. A glass-topped desk lay dead ahead of him, and the wall behind it was mostly covered by two very large, backlit maps. He recognized at a glance that one was a nautical chart of the Baltic, and the other, a map of Sweden.
     
    There was no one at the desk, but his attention was directed to his right, to a group of leather furniture. A naval officer wearing the insignia of Admiral of the Fleet sat in one of the chairs. Helder snapped to and saluted.
     
    “Senior Lieutenant Helder reporting as ordered. Comrade Admiral.”
     
    The admiral leaned forward and snuffed out a cigarette in a large ashtray. “Report to the colonel,” he said.
     
    Helder looked further to his right where, in another chair. sat a man wearing the uniform of a colonel in the marine infantry.
     
    Helder was not surprised by this deference from the admiral.