Osprey by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

35

Artemy decided the gods were with him when his phone buzzed just as he was showing his ID to the guard at FSB headquarters.

Shirinov: G here, top floor. Gromovo commander. Excellent.

On my way up. Meet me on 3. Shirinov’s security clearance wouldn’t unlock access to the top floor.

For once, the elevator behaved. It stopped at the third floor and Shirinov stepped in.

“Anything new?”

“Nothing much,” Shirinov handed him a sheet of paper.

“Major Alexej Pronichev. He’s Czech?”

“His grandparents,” Shirinov pointed farther down the page. “Moved to Saint Petersburg back when it was still Leningrad. Third generation military.”

“Three years Commander Gromovo Air Base.” Artemy scanned the rest quickly. Nothing special. Not incompetent but not shining either. The next sheet, the FSB’s report on him, was little more interesting. Petty graft—not that his position would allow him much more than that, but so little that it showed a certain lack of imagination.

The sheet behind was a photograph of a gorgeous young redhead. Even in the photograph the power of her intense blue eyes glared out at him. He stepped from the elevator on the top floor—and almost ran down General Murov.

He and Shirinov snapped to attention and saluted. Artemy tried to read how Murov’s wife had taken the news, but he gave no sign.

Murov waved their salutes and glanced down at Artemy’s hands.

Artemy looked down and saw that he was still holding Natalia Murov’s picture. “Uh, she was lovely, sir. I never had the pleasure of meeting her.”

“Hmmm,” Murov grunted. “What else do you have, Turgenev?”

“I have only just returned and glanced through the Gromovo commander’s file. He’s here now.”

“I know. Our people were quick.”

“I felt a priority code was appropriate.”

“Hmmm,” Murov offered no insight to his thoughts on that either. “What else?”

Artemy turned to the next page after Natalia’s picture. There was too much to absorb quickly. “Shirinov?”

The man stood even straighter if possible. “The number of hazardous sorties assigned to Captain Ivanovna, er, Murov, was far above the norm for other pilots at the base.”

“Govno!” Artemy scanned the additional attachments. “By a factor of ten to twenty in some cases.” Then he realized who he’d just sworn in front of and looked up slowly.

Murov was watching him impassively.

“Sorry, sir. But only the very best pilots like Captain Novikov, who died in the initial Antarctic crash—” Not smooth, Artemy. His death had triggered the whole disaster there, including his predecessor’s death. Plunge ahead. “Only the very best pilots log these kinds of hours. And never so many of them in dangerous missions. It’s as if she was singled out by her commander.”

“Shall we go find out why?”

“Yes sir.” And that’s when Artemy fully absorbed where they were. In the few times he’d come here to this building with reports for Colonel Romanoff and the year since taking command first of Antarctic operations, then the whole of the AARI, he’d only heard the vaguest rumors that the Lubyanka Prison still operated.

Years ago the prison had been turned into a museum, which required special permission and escort to visit.

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