Afterburn

CHAPTER 14

It was a mild and delightful seventy degrees ― warmer certainly than Tombstone had expected for any part of Russia in November. Palm trees swayed in a line along Drazhinsky Boulevard below his window, and the scores of people he could see on the promenade beyond wore shorts or swimsuits. Bikinis were much in vogue with women, especially the young and attractive ones, and Tombstone had to remind himself that this was part of Russia ― or Ukraine, depending on your point of view ― and not some beach in Mediterranean France. Aboard the Jefferson one hundred miles at sea that morning the air temperature had been fifteen degrees cooler ― not unpleasant, certainly, but not warm enough to prepare him for this subtropical Eden.

The Crimea, he decided, was going to prove to be full of surprises.

Most of the Crimea Peninsula, Tombstone had learned from a guidebook he’d picked up in the ship’s store the day before, was actually hot, dry steppe, something that did not mesh easily with his mental image of the vast and sprawling land that was Russia. Like most Westerners, Tombstone had always pictured Russia as basically cold, in the grip of General Winter from October through April, and his experience over the far-northern tundra wastes of the Kola Peninsula in the still-winter month of March had only reinforced that impression.

He’d known, certainly, that the former Soviet Union wasn’t just ice and tundra, and the balmy temperatures and crystal blue skies of his first day in Yalta were enough to convince him that there was more to this land than Siberian wastes.

In fact, though the northern two-thirds of the Crimea was arid, the chain of mountains stretching from Balaklava in the southwest all the way to Kerch in the extreme east created a natural barrier that kept the southern coast subtropically pleasant. The sun along that coast was warm, even in early November, and the sea breeze was delightful, cool and moist and salt-tangy. The climate and the palms reminded Tombstone a lot of southern California; the south Crimean coast was known, in fact, as the Crimean Riviera. For decades, the elite of the old Soviet Union’s vaunted classless society had come to this region on holiday, and the most powerful of Moscow’s rulers had maintained their dachas and summer homes here. During the abortive 1991 coup, Gorbachev had been placed under arrest and held in his dacha estate not far from Yalta, while events elsewhere in the nation had spun far beyond the reach both of him and of the coup plotters.

The air of affluence that permeated much of the southern Crimean coast had marked the region since long before the Soviets had come on the scene. Czars had kept their summer palaces here, and Lenin had issued a decree to the effect that the palaces of the Russian aristocracy in the region should be turned into sanatoria for the people.

The ongoing troubles in Russia, however, had been felt here as well.

From the hotel window, at least, there was actually surprisingly little evidence of the civil war that had been tearing at Russia’s guts for the past months. The buildings were intact, there were no soldiers in the streets, no signs of fortifications or defenses. But the entire city had a depressed air, a depression of the spirit as well as of the economy. The region had depended on tourism for capital, but, reasonably enough, tourism had been in sharp decline for some time now. Most, maybe all, of the people visible on the street were native Russians; there’d been no foreign visitors for some time now, not since the attempted reintegration of the Soviet empire, and the city was showing the absence of their hard currencies. It looked shabby and a bit run-down. There was garbage in the streets ― something unthinkable in the socialist paradise that once had employed women to sweep each street with brooms ― and many of the people Tombstone could see from the window looked less like vacationers than gangs, groups of tough-looking kids in jeans and T-shirts loitering in public areas with the same swaggering aggressiveness Tombstone had seen in their counterparts back in the United States. He’d heard, too, that the region was a magnet for the darker elements of Russia’s disintegrating economy. The Russian Mafia, he’d been told, controlled many of the businesses and most of the business transactions that went on here, while the southern Crimea was a principal meeting place for Armenians, Georgians, Uzbeks, Tatars, and renegade Russian military officers engaged in black market trade.

He turned away from the open window and looked over the room he’d been given… clean and pleasant enough, but modest by American standards. Rooms had been reserved for the United Nations personnel at Yalta’s largest hotel, the Yalta ― a Stalinist horror of concrete in classic Communist-modernist-monolithic architecture. All of the foreigners were being kept here, and Tombstone hadn’t quite decided whether that was for their protection… or because it made it easier for the authorities to keep an eye on them. Both, probably.

His roommate was lying on the bed reading a guidebook. He was sharing the room with Greg Whitehead, the other captain in the group… and the place was almost certainly wired for sound. The Federal Bureau of Security ― or whatever the old KGB was calling itself now ― would be interested in any conversations the two of them might have during their stay.

“I’m going downstairs, Greg,” he told Whitehead, picking up his jacket and shrugging it on. “Maybe stretch my legs.”

“Okay, Matt. Watch out for the roaches.” They’d flushed a few already in the room’s antiquated bathroom, and they put Florida’s finest to shame… not quite strong enough to take on a healthy cat, they’d decided, but large enough to require respect.

At least, Tombstone thought as he pulled the door shut behind him, they had their own bathroom; lots of Russian hotels still believed in communal toilet facilities down the hall. Outside, the floor concierge, one of the small army of women hired by Russian hotels apparently for no other reason than to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the guests, eyed him narrowly and suspiciously from her chair by the elevator. He nodded pleasantly, then took the stairs instead of the elevators, which neither looked nor sounded trustworthy. The stairwells were dark and filthy, stank with the mingled odors of mildewed rags and urine, and were lacking fire doors, but at least he didn’t run the risk of getting stuck in one. The woman barked something in Russian at him as he started down the worn concrete steps… probably something in the nature of “You’re not allowed to do that!” or “Official use only!” but he ignored her and kept going. Let her yell. Tombstone could handle being flung off the bow of an aircraft carrier at 150 knots with complete aplomb, but Russian hotel elevators were something else.

He was going to be very glad to get back aboard the Jefferson.

“Hey… you American? You want fuck?”

The woman was small, blond, and painfully thin, dressed in a tight gown that tried to display her breasts but succeeded mostly in displaying how skinny her arms were, while the heavy eye makeup and lipstick emphasized her hollow cheeks. She stood squarely in the open doorway to the stairwell, blocking his way.

“What?”

“You want… fuck?” The obscenity was less shocking on her lips than it was pathetic. “Or do other things. Five dollars?”

“No,” Tombstone said.

“I suck you, two dollars.”

He felt pity, and a moment’s stumbling uncertainty. Should he just brush past this pathetic creature? Or offer her a few dollar bills as he would a beggar? Glancing past her shoulder, he saw a crowd of other women waiting in the corridor just outside the stairwell, all thin to the point of gauntness, dressed in clothes intended to be provocative, and wearing what they must imagine was sexy-looking makeup. And they were all watching his encounter with the first woman with predatory gleams in their eyes.

Shit. If he tried handing the woman money for no service, that bunch would descend on him like a wolf pack, targeting him as an easy mark. Better to shake his head no and shove past the woman without another glance.

And, he told himself, it might be best to avoid situations here where he was alone and could be cornered somewhere away from the main drag. Tombstone was under no illusions about his ability to fend off an attack by a half-dozen desperate women.

It was a sobering encounter. He’d known the Russian economy was bad, but no written description could have prepared him for the sight of those pitiful human wrecks accosting men in the hotel’s stairwell. He steeled himself to walk past the women outside without meeting their watching eyes. He wished there was something he could do to help them… something other than actually doing business with them, which he knew would be dangerous on several counts.

But there was nothing he could do, nothing anyone could do.

The Yalta Hotel’s lobby represented an unpleasant compromise between faux-neoclassical grandeur and Stalinist utilitarianism: large, ugly, and shabby. In some ways, it was like an American shopping mall, with hard currency shops and cafes. There were several tennis courts and swimming pools, amenities not normally associated with Russian hotels, and over twelve hundred rooms, most with their own plumbing and most wired for cable TV.

But it also showed the decay touching everything that once had been part of the Soviet system. Furniture was worn, mismatched, and dirty; the chandeliers were missing many of their crystal ornaments; the carpets were faded and showed worn tracks along the routes of heaviest traffic; and the clerks at the big front desk were conspicuously absent, though several guests were obviously waiting ― clamoring, even ― for attention. The place, Tombstone reflected, was probably busier today than it had been for some time, with the entire UN contingent quartered here, as well as, no doubt, the Russian security people assigned to keep track of them.

As Tombstone stepped into the main lobby near the elevators, his attention was immediately caught by a group of people in the sitting area, next to a scraggly collection of potted palms. Joyce ― Commander Flynn ― was standing there in full uniform, bathed in the glare of a pair of hand-held camera lights. A man with a shoulder-held minicam bearing the ACN logo was filming her and another woman, who held a microphone to her face. The second woman’s back was to him, but Tombstone recognized immediately her blond hair and slim figure. With only the slightest hesitation, he started walking toward the brightly lit tableau.

“And what’s it like,” the reporter was asking Tomboy, “being one of a few hundred women living with five thousand men aboard a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier?”

“It’s actually not much different from being stationed on a Navy base ashore,” Tomboy said. “You just can’t go into town when you want to.”

“And what do you think of the Crimea?”

“Well, we really haven’t had much chance to see a lot of it yet. It’s exciting being here, though. Kind of like history in the making.”

Pamela Drake turned from Tomboy and nodded at the cameraman. “That’s a take,” she said. She smiled at Tomboy. “Thank you, Commander. That was great.”

“My pleasure, ma’am.”

“Hello, Pamela,” Tombstone said, walking up behind the reporter. “You’re certainly a long way from home.”

Pamela turned sharply, eyes wide, blond hair swirling past her ears.

“Matt! What are you doing here?”

He shrugged. “Actually, I’m supposed to be here as the Navy’s liaison with the news media. Care to do some serious liaising?”

“I…” She stopped, then glanced at her cameraman. “Let’s take a break, Phil.”

He grinned at her. “Sure thing, Ms. Drake. Whatever you say.”

She looked at him, her expression unreadable. “I hadn’t really expected to find you here, Matt.”

“No?” She didn’t seem particularly pleased to see him. Damn.

“I thought you were on the Jefferson.”

“You knew we were deployed to the Black Sea, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I also knew the battle group was coming to the Crimea. I guess I just, well… I just didn’t expect you to come ashore.”

“You don’t sound that happy to see me.”

“Of course I am.” But the look in her eyes said otherwise. “You just caught me by surprise, is all.” She looked at her watch. “Listen, I’ve got a meeting to attend, but maybe we can get together a little later, huh?”

“Certainly.” Why was she being so cool? Was she still mad at him? It wasn’t like her to hold a grudge. He knew that everything wasn’t right between them, but right now he had the impression she’d have rather he’d not shown up at all. “Dinner, maybe?”

“That would be nice. Meet you here in the lobby? About six?”

“Eighteen hundred hours.”

She made a face at the militarism. “Whatever.”

He was pretty sure that she was still upset about his staying in the Navy. Damn it, why couldn’t she see that he had a career, just as she had? They’d had this argument over and over again during the past three or four years, and it seemed like she could never see his side of things. He never squawked when she went gallivanting all over the world gathering news stories. Why couldn’t she just accept the fact that he had the same kind of dedication and drive, the same kind of responsibility?

Tomboy stepped up next to him as Pamela walked off. “You know her?”

“Pamela Drake? Yeah, I’ve known her for, oh, four years, I guess. Met her when the Jeff was in Thailand.”

Her dark eyes widened. “Oh, that was that Pamela! I never made the connection.”

Tombstone chuckled. “I have trouble with that too. Connecting the woman I see when I get back off a deployment with the face on the evening news. Yes, that’s Pamela.” He’d told Joyce about the love of his life, back when they’d been flying together. Aviators and RIOS often shared more or less intimate details during long flights ― or during the longer watches in the ready room.

“An ACN anchor, yet,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

“Nothing to be impressed about. She’s got a job. Just like the rest of us.”

Tomboy glanced in the direction in which Pamela had gone. “Well, flyboy, it looks to me like you’ve been stood up.” She jerked her head toward the lobby entrance. “Want me to show you the town?”

Tombstone considered the offer, then grinned. “Why not?” He offered her his arm. “Let’s see the sights.”

As they started out the front door of the hotel, however, a lanky, swarthy-skinned man with black curly hair and a closely trimmed mustache almost collided with them. “You like guide? See city?”

Tombstone looked the man over. He might just be an eager entrepreneur, but there was something about him, a sharpness of character, a focus behind those liquid brown eyes, that suggested he was also a watchdog.

Possibly he was only on someone’s payroll, Tombstone thought. More likely, he was working for either the FBS or for military intelligence ― the GRU. In any case, both he and Tomboy were wearing their dress Navy uniforms, making them somewhat conspicuous. Tombstone decided he would actually feel safer wandering the town with someone who belonged here. “How much?”

The man broke into a toothy smile. “For you, ten dollars American, each day! I have car, A-okay!”

Their guide’s name was Abdulhalik, and it turned out to be a remarkably pleasant afternoon. They ignored his car for the time being in favor of a stroll along the waterfront.

It was a bit disconcerting, walking through the town with Joyce at his side. He was remembering when he’d first started falling in love with Pamela … while walking with her through the streets of Bangkok, seeing the sights of Thailand’s exotic capital, and exploring Thonburi’s floating markets.

Yalta was not as glamorous as Bangkok had been. The climate might have been like southern California, but the town itself reminded him of the more depressing and concrete-clad parts of Atlantic City, without as much in the way of advertising or gambling casinos. There were occasional surprises. Many of the buildings showed a distinct Turkish flavor, especially on the western side of town, and in some areas it was almost possible to forget that they were in the former Soviet Union, but for the most part the buildings were drab, Stalinist-utilitarian and in a depressing state of decay. There was a boardwalk, of sorts, along the waterfront ― though there were no boards in sight. Instead, the strip between highway and water had been paved over, an endless expanse of sterile concrete… sterile in the aesthetic sense, at least. The uncollected garbage had attracted clouds of flies; in the full heat of summer, Tombstone thought, the stink must be atrocious. From time to time, he relieved his eyes by looking up at the Crimean Mountains, bulging huge against the horizon northwest of the town. Some of the tallest peaks there reached to over fifteen hundred meters, and the breeze coming down off their slopes was fresh and pleasantly cool. Tramlines were in place to take tourists up to the top of the mountain overlooking the town, but the queues were impossibly long.

“So why’d you join the Navy, Captain?” Tomboy asked.

He made a face. “Not “Captain,’ please. Or “CAG.’ Not when we’re out like this, just you and me.”

“Tombstone, then?”

“Or “Stoney.’ Or “Matt.’”

“I like Matt. And I’m Joyce. If that doesn’t bend the regs too far.”

Official Navy protocol required personnel to call one another by their last names only, a regulation that was rarely followed outside of the strict limits of duty. “Oh, I think the regs can stand that. Joyce.”

“So how come?”

“How come what?”

“How come you joined the Navy?”

He grinned. “Because I always wanted to fly jets. As far back as I can remember, I wanted to fly.”

“So why not the Air Force? They do jets.”

“Well, I had some relatives that wouldn’t have let me forget that.”

“Ah. Your uncle, the admiral.”

“Navy family,” he said, nodding. “Going way back. I guess I was just continuing the tradition.” He sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, though.”

“How come?”

He glanced around at their “guide.” Abdulhalik was trailing behind them along the promenade, keeping them in sight but granting them privacy. When they had a question, he was right there with an answer, but the rest of the time he kept his distance. A nice guy, Tombstone decided, whatever his true colors.

“I guess I’ve always felt a need to make some kind of a difference,” he admitted after a moment.

“I’d say you have,” she said. She took his arm and snuggled up to him as they walked. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

He looked down at her sharply, but she wasn’t even looking at him. She’d said it in a simple, matter-of-fact way, no coyness, no hidden messages.

“Well, if it hadn’t been for me, you might not have ended up sitting on the tundra in the Kola Peninsula with a busted leg in the first place. And you shot the guy first, as I recall.”

She glanced up at him and grinned. “Yeah, but you distracted him. How many times did you shoot at him and miss?”

“Hell, I lost count,” Tombstone admitted. He grinned back. It was funny … now. It hadn’t been funny then, though, as he’d tried to shoot a Russian soldier with a pistol while running flat out across a field ― definitely a no-good way to practice marksmanship. It worked in the movies, all right, but in the real world, handguns were appallingly inaccurate in anything other than a static, proper stance on a target range. “And you took him down after I slowed him up a bit, as I recall.”

“Teamwork.” She snuggled a bit closer. “Teamwork,” she agreed.