Free Polar Star by Martin Cruz Smith

Zina?”
    “Just to see. She was always friendly, waving.”
    “And dancing?”
    “I didn’t have the pleasure of dancing with her myself. I was in the wardroom going over charts with my good friends Captains Marchuk and Thorwald.”
    “Do you like the joint fishery?”
    “It’s exciting.”
    “Exciting?” Arkady had never thought of it that way. “How so?”
    “After Dutch we’re going up to the ice sheet. Soviet captains are intrepid. Last year you people had a whole fishing fleet, fifty boats, iced in off Siberia and almostlost them all. You did lose a factory ship, and the only reason the whole crew didn’t go down with it was because they were able to cross the ice.”
    “Those were Soviet boats,” Arkady said.
    “Right, and I don’t want to end up like a Soviet boat. Don’t get the wrong idea; I like Russians. It’s the best joint fishery. Koreans will steal half of every bag. The Japanese are too proud to cheat but they’re colder than the fish.” Morgan was the sort of man who smiled while he reassessed a situation. “Arkady, how is it I don’t recall ever meeting you on the
Polar Star
! You’re a fleet officer or from the Ministry or what?”
    “I work in the factory.”
    “The slime line,” Slava said.
    “And you speak fluent English and investigate accidents? I’d say you’re overqualified for cleaning fish.” There was a candid, glass-blue quality to Morgan’s eyes that told Slava and Arkady what liars he thought they were. “It was an accident?”
    “There’s no doubt of it,” Slava said.
    Morgan had kept his eyes steadily on Arkady. His gaze moved to the net now idle on the gantry, then to two crewmen in oilskin coveralls coming up the outside stairs from the deck, and then back to Arkady. “Okay. It’s been a delightful social call. Just remember, these are American waters.”
    The narrow bridge became crowded as the fishermen entered. These were the Americans he had been curious about since he’d heard Lantz describe them as the “motorcycle gang.” In the Soviet Union, where two wheels chained to an internal combustion engine were the symbol of personal freedom, bikers were called Rockers. The authorities were always trying to channel Rockers into approved motordromes, but the gangs slipped away like Mongols on the loose, took over whole villages, then vanished before a state motor patrol could arrive.
    The larger fisherman had a sallow face, hooded eyesand the strong, hanging arms of someone who has spent time shoving crab pots and nets. Not a smooth man. He looked Arkady up and down. “What is this shit?”
    “This, Coletti,” Morgan explained, “is the joint venture. The man with our old friend Slava speaks English well enough to teach you. We’ll make it fast and clean.”
    “Renko, this is Mike.” Slava introduced the younger fisherman, an Aleut with fine Asian features on a broad face. “Mike is short for Mikhail.”
    “A Russian name?” Arkady asked.
    “Up here there are a lot of Russian names.” Mike had a soft, hesitant voice. “There were a lot of crazy Cossacks around here way back.”
    “At one time the Aleutians and Alaska all belonged to the czars,” Morgan told Arkady. “You ought to know that.”
    “Do you speak Russian?” Here was someone who could have talked to Zina.
    “No. I mean, we use expressions,” Mike said, “without, you know, really knowing what they mean. Like if you hit your thumb with a hammer, right? Or when we go to church, some of that’s in Russian.”
    “There’s still a Russian church in Dutch Harbor,” Slava said.
    The Aleut dared a glance at Coletti before saying, “We’re really sorry about Zina. It’s hard to believe. Every time we brought in a bag of fish there she’d be at the stern rail giving us a big wave. Rain or shine, night or day, she was there.”
    “You danced with her?” Arkady asked.
    Coletti cut in. “We all did.”
    “And after the dance?”
    “When we left, the dance was still