Read Online Snow Wolf by Glenn Meade - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Glenn Meade
Tags: Suspense
Ads: Link
Luckenwaide. At the end of a road lined with tall
fir trees stood a double gate with a metal barrier. Beyond the barrier lay a
tarmac track with barbed-wire runs on either side. Two uniformed guards snapped
stiffly to attention as the Zil drew up and an officer came out of a concrete
guard hut to check the passenger's identity cards. Moments later the barrier
was lifted and the car drove through.
A half kilometer down the barbed-wire run
Kraskin saw the mouth of an underground tunnel, like giant concrete jaws
erupting from the earth. The car drove down and finally came to a halt.
When Krasicin stepped out he was in a
vast bunker that looked like an enormous underground car park. There was a
sickly smell of diesel fumes and stale air. Intense neon light blazed overhead
and a dozen or more military vehicles were parked on the concourse. Off to the
right was an elevator, its metal doors open and waiting.
The officer in charge saluted smartly and
led Kraskin across. Both men stepped in. The doors closed and the elevator
descended.
The Pan American Airways DC-6, Flight 209
from Paris, was almost empty and the blond-haired man sat in a window seat two
rows from the front.
As the aircraft banked to port and came
in over Berlin's Wannsee Lake, the man saw the broad ribbon of the Unter Den
Linden stretched below him. Here and there the surrounding suburbs were still
peppered with old bomb craters, and looking east he saw the still crumbling,
gutted buildings in the Russian Zone.
It was ten minutes later when the plane landed
in West Berlin's Tempelhof airport. The immigration and customs checks were
thorough and there was a military presence everywhere since the Russians had
sealed off East Berlin with a ten-yardwide shoot-to-kill strip. But the
uniformed West German official did not spot the false American passport and the
man passed through without too much delay.
No one seemed to take any notice of the
blond man, and moments later he saw the gray Volkswagen parked opposite the
civilian car park. An attractive woman in her early thirties sat behind the
wheel smoking a cigarette, and he recognized her dark Russian features. She
wore a blue scarf around her neck, and when she noticed him she tossed her
cigarette out of the window.
He waited a full minute before he crossed
to the car and put his case on the back seat, his eyes carefully scanning the
Arrivals area before he moved.
He didn't speak as he climbed in beside
the woman, and a moment later she pulled out quickly from the curb and drove
toward Berlin.
Colonel Grenady Kraskin looked across at
the big, slovenly man seated opposite and smiled. They were in Sergei Enger's
office on the first of several floors in an underground complex that had once
been built by the Germans.
Kraskin smiled. "Well, Sergei, tell
me your troubles."
Sergei Enger was a stout, untidy figure
of a man with dark, thinning curly hair and a plump stomach. A physics graduate
from Moscow University, he was head of research in the Luckenwaide underground
complex. Despite his easy-going manner and untidy personal appearance-Enger
frequently wore mismatched socks and carried the remains of breakfast or lunch
on his tie-the man had a brain as sharp as a scalpel and a talent for
organizing others.
Enger smiled back weakly. Troubles he
certainly had, but Grenady Kraskia didn't have the look of a man you shared
personal problems with.
The colonel's face was sharp and hard and
weather-beaten. There were ruts in his leathery skin, deep wrinkles that almost
looked like scars, and combined with a chilling smile, they had a frightening
effect. And the man's crisply pressed black uniform and immaculately polished
boots always intimidated Enger.
Outwardly a reasonable and intelligent
man, Kraskin's external mask hid a dark and savage streak. In one winter
campaign near Zadonsk on the River Don in the Caucasus during the Bolshevik
Revolution, Kraskin's battalion had engaged a detachment of four hundred
Whites,
fir trees stood a double gate with a metal barrier. Beyond the barrier lay a
tarmac track with barbed-wire runs on either side. Two uniformed guards snapped
stiffly to attention as the Zil drew up and an officer came out of a concrete
guard hut to check the passenger's identity cards. Moments later the barrier
was lifted and the car drove through.
A half kilometer down the barbed-wire run
Kraskin saw the mouth of an underground tunnel, like giant concrete jaws
erupting from the earth. The car drove down and finally came to a halt.
When Krasicin stepped out he was in a
vast bunker that looked like an enormous underground car park. There was a
sickly smell of diesel fumes and stale air. Intense neon light blazed overhead
and a dozen or more military vehicles were parked on the concourse. Off to the
right was an elevator, its metal doors open and waiting.
The officer in charge saluted smartly and
led Kraskin across. Both men stepped in. The doors closed and the elevator
descended.
The Pan American Airways DC-6, Flight 209
from Paris, was almost empty and the blond-haired man sat in a window seat two
rows from the front.
As the aircraft banked to port and came
in over Berlin's Wannsee Lake, the man saw the broad ribbon of the Unter Den
Linden stretched below him. Here and there the surrounding suburbs were still
peppered with old bomb craters, and looking east he saw the still crumbling,
gutted buildings in the Russian Zone.
It was ten minutes later when the plane landed
in West Berlin's Tempelhof airport. The immigration and customs checks were
thorough and there was a military presence everywhere since the Russians had
sealed off East Berlin with a ten-yardwide shoot-to-kill strip. But the
uniformed West German official did not spot the false American passport and the
man passed through without too much delay.
No one seemed to take any notice of the
blond man, and moments later he saw the gray Volkswagen parked opposite the
civilian car park. An attractive woman in her early thirties sat behind the
wheel smoking a cigarette, and he recognized her dark Russian features. She
wore a blue scarf around her neck, and when she noticed him she tossed her
cigarette out of the window.
He waited a full minute before he crossed
to the car and put his case on the back seat, his eyes carefully scanning the
Arrivals area before he moved.
He didn't speak as he climbed in beside
the woman, and a moment later she pulled out quickly from the curb and drove
toward Berlin.
Colonel Grenady Kraskin looked across at
the big, slovenly man seated opposite and smiled. They were in Sergei Enger's
office on the first of several floors in an underground complex that had once
been built by the Germans.
Kraskin smiled. "Well, Sergei, tell
me your troubles."
Sergei Enger was a stout, untidy figure
of a man with dark, thinning curly hair and a plump stomach. A physics graduate
from Moscow University, he was head of research in the Luckenwaide underground
complex. Despite his easy-going manner and untidy personal appearance-Enger
frequently wore mismatched socks and carried the remains of breakfast or lunch
on his tie-the man had a brain as sharp as a scalpel and a talent for
organizing others.
Enger smiled back weakly. Troubles he
certainly had, but Grenady Kraskia didn't have the look of a man you shared
personal problems with.
The colonel's face was sharp and hard and
weather-beaten. There were ruts in his leathery skin, deep wrinkles that almost
looked like scars, and combined with a chilling smile, they had a frightening
effect. And the man's crisply pressed black uniform and immaculately polished
boots always intimidated Enger.
Outwardly a reasonable and intelligent
man, Kraskin's external mask hid a dark and savage streak. In one winter
campaign near Zadonsk on the River Don in the Caucasus during the Bolshevik
Revolution, Kraskin's battalion had engaged a detachment of four hundred
Whites,
Similar Books
