War Plan Red by Peter Sasgen Page A

clothes, a greasy cap on his close-cropped head, stood in a rectangle of light spilling into the alley from the open door.
    “Were you planning to shoot me, Ali?” said Kapitan Third Rank Georgi Litvanov.
    Zakayev lowered the pistol. “You look well, Georgi Alexeyevich.”
    They entered and Litvanov closed and bolted the door behind them, then looked them up and down.
    “Here, let me see you.”
    Zakayev shrugged out of his overcoat. The girl handed him a traditional Russian Navy garrison cap, which he put on his head at a rakish angle.
    Litvanov stepped back and regarded Zakayev dressed in the uniform of a Russian kontr-admiral—rear admiral—complete with gold shoulder boards on the tunic and gold stripes on the sleeves.
    “It’s perfect!” Litvanov said. “You look just like a Russian flag officer.”
    Litvanov’s attention swung to the girl in her peacoat, jumper, and flat hat. He inspected her outfit, nodding approval. Her big eyes and full lips, triangular face, and short hair gave her an androgynous look that was strangely appealing.
    “My men could take some pointers from this one, Ali, on how to wear their uniforms properly. Ha! You are both a credit to the Russian Navy.”
    The girl didn’t speak but smiled to show she was pleased that she’d passed muster with the captain of the submarine K-363.
    Litvanov beckoned they should follow him up a flight of stairs to a makeshift office that had a view from a pair of dirty windows onto the darkened warehouse floor below. Litvanov had laid out black bread, salted herring, and a bottle of vodka on one of the desks.
    “You had no trouble finding the place?” Litvanov said.
    “No, your instructions were clear,” Zakayev said. “We took an electrobus from the hotel and got off three blocks away.” Zakayev looked around the office at file cabinets and equipment that included modern computers and printers. “How did you come by this place?”
    “I do a little business with the owner,” Litvanov said. “He’s always in the market for surplus goods the Northern Fleet has no use for. Particularly titanium and stainless steel. He was in a generous mood and lent his office for our meeting. Eat.”

    The girl declined but Zakayev sampled the salted fish and nodded approval. “Your boat is set for departure?”
    “Of course, General.” Litvanov paused to light a cigarette. “The schedule is tight. I’ve timed our departure so we won’t run into any vessels patrolling the main channel out of the Tuloma River or around Kil’din Island. Procedures have broken down and the harbor control units don’t keep track of ship arrivals and departures like they used to, but now and then you get a new skipper who goes by the book. Do you follow?”
    “Of course. And your crew?”
    “Handpicked,” Litvanov said, his voice thick from cigarette smoke, “stripped to only essential personnel. In other words, enough to operate the boat. The crew has trained nonstop for over a week while we’ve sat moored to a dock in Olenya Bay. They’re eager to get under way. They are good men.
    All the high-flown lectures they receive about duty, honor, and the Motherland can’t change the fact that life at sea in a submarine is hard, that we have lousy food, live among the unwashed, breathe one another’s farts and smelly feet, and sleep in soggy bunks. And for this privilege we are not paid. But now that will change.”
    “Then there is no question that they are fully committed,” Zakayev said.
    Litvanov’s face hardened and his eyes narrowed. A boot sole ground his cigarette into the rough floor.
    “Are you questioning, General, whether these men, whom I myself have trained, will follow orders?”
    “It is not a question of following orders, it’s a question of how dedicated they are to the cause.”
    Litvanov, eyes blazing, said, “I, Georgi Litvanov, kapitan third rank of the Russian Navy, commanding officer of the K-363, assure you that each of them is willing to