Free Snow Wolf by Glenn Meade Page A

shirt and tie. His short blond hair was brushed off his
forehead and his face was clean-shaven and handsome.
    There was a trace of a smile on his lips,
as if fixed there permanently. But it was the eyes which she always noticed.
Intense pale blue and infinitely dangerous.
    "Kraskin should finish the
Luckenwalde inspection by midafternoon. After that he's holding a briefing at
KGB Headquarters at Karlshorst. At seven-thirty tomorrow morning he's due to
meet with the Soviet Zone Commander, so our guess is he'll go to bed early. He
never stays in any of the army barracks, but always uses the private apartment
at his disposal. It's by the Tierpark. Number twenty-four, a blue door.
Kraskin's apartment is on the second floor, number thirteen." The woman
half smiled. "Sometimes not such a lucky number. But for you, Alex, I hope
so."
    Alex Stanski nodded. The faint smile
didn't leave his lips. "Tell me about the crossing."
    "You'll use one of our tunnels that
exits near Friedrichstrasse. A Red Army jeep will be left parked and waiting
there." The woman went over the details for several minutes, and when
Stanski was satisfied she handed him an envelope. "Those are your papers.
You're a Red Army doctor from the Karishorst Military Hospital making a call to
one of your military patients. Kraskin is a wily old snake, so be careful.
Especially if there's someone else in the apartment."
    "Should there be?"
    "He likes little boys."
    "How little?"
    "Ten-year-olds seem to be his
preference. He also has a boyfriend. A major at Karlshorst named Pitrov. If
he's in the apartment, you know what to do."
    Stanski heard the hard edge of bitterness
in the woman's voice. She nodded at the brown-wrapped parcel. "Everything
you need is in there. Make sure you don't fail, Alex. Because if you do,
Kraskin will kill you."
    He opened the parcel in the bedroom once
she had left.
    He tried on the uniform and it fitted him
well. He felt a shudder go through him as he looked in the mirror. The major's
olive-brown wasted uniform with the wide silver shoulderboards and the polished
boots gave him a threatening look. The brown leather holster and belt lay still
in the wrapper. He took them out and slid out the pistol. It was a Tokarev
automatic, 7.62 millimeter, the standard-issue Russian Army officer's sidearm,
but the tip of the barrel had been grooved. He screwed on the Carswell
silencer, then removed it again. There were two loaded magazines and he took
each in turn and pried out the bullets with his thumb.
    He checked the action of the magazines
and weapon again and again, until he was satisfied neither might jam, then stripped
the gun down and cleaned it with an oily rag left in the parcel. When he had
finished, he replaced the bullets in the magazines, slammed home a magazine
into the butt of the gun, and slipped it into the holster.
    He crossed to the bed and unfastened the
buckles on his suitcase and removed the knife from the doctor's black bag he
took from inside the case. The silver blade gleamed in the light as he
unsheathed it. He stood there running his thumb gently along the razor edge for
several moments, feeling the sharpness of the cold steel. He replaced the knife
in the sheath, slipped it into the doctor's bag, and snapped the metal catch
shut.
    Before he removed the uniform he took the
photograph from his suitcase and slipped it into the tunic pocket. He wrapped
the uniform neatly back in the brown paper. He did not dress again but went to
lie naked on the bed. The alarm clock on the bedside locker said three o'clock.
    He would try and sleep until six and then
it would be time to go.
    It was almost seven when Kraskin's car
pulled up outside the apartment block facing the Tierpark. There was a crack of
thunder and it started to rain as Kraskin climbed out. The black Zil pulled
away and the colonel went up the stairs to the second floor and inserted the
key. When he stepped inside and closed the door he took in the smell
immediately.
    He had been