Staggering to his feet, Petrov had no intention of seeing if his attacker was alive, and he took off down the street toward the hostel’s entrance. He slowed to a fast walk as he rounded the corner into the light and slowly pushed the lobby door open. The night manager was busy looking at his computer screen and hardly noticed a thing as Petrov walked to the stairwell. Once inside his room, Petrov locked and bolted the door. His heart was beating like a scared rabbit’s and he found himself struggling to breathe normally; his body shook uncontrollably.
Slowly, painfully, he took off his shredded overalls and the protective vest. There were deep gouges in two of the left panels, and he had two huge bruises on his left chest and side. Petrov then opened the refrigerator and grabbed the bottle of vodka. Sitting down on his bed, he took several deep swigs and tried to make sense of what had just happened. That someone wanted him dead was beyond doubt, but who? His assailant wasn’t an Indian; the man was white and large. Petrov suspected he was a Russian, or possibly Eastern European, but that didn’t answer the fundamental question of who wanted him dead. Could it have been the SVR agent, Ruchkin? He certainly would’ve been trained in hand-to-hand fighting. Petrov desperately tried to remember how big Ruchkin had been, and whether or not that vague memory matched the shadowy image of his attacker. Nothing made sense.
He fished his cell phone from his pocket and hit the speed dial for Samant. The phone rang several times before a sleepy voice answered in Hindi, “Hello?”
“Girish, it’s me, Aleksey, I was just attacked near the Russian Hostel. I think it was the same man that tried yesterday.”
Petrov heard bedding being pulled rapidly aside. “Are you all right, Aleks?”
“I’ve got some ugly bruises, but otherwise in one piece. And thank you. The protective vest you gave me saved my life.” Petrov paused as he took another sip. “Girish, I think I may have killed a man tonight.”
“What!? How!?”
Petrov gave a quick summation of the attack, how well the vest worked, the Mace, and the lucky fall that allowed him to escape, and possibly killed his assailant. “…it sounded like his head hit something very hard, and then there was a nasty gurgling sound. I didn’t stay to see how badly he was hurt, or if he was even alive. I just ran for my life.”
“By the gods, you are a fortunate man!” said Samant, sounding shocked. “Where are you now?”
“I’m in my room at the Russian Hostel. Do you think I’m safe here?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Aleks, but it’s clear they know where to find you. And your attacker was able to get on the base.” Samant paused briefly as he considered their options. The situation was beginning to spiral out of control. Finally, he broke the silence and said, “I’m coming over now to pick you up. You should be safer here in my flat. Pack all the things you wore tonight into a bag, and don’t forget the Mace spray. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
An angry sigh hissed past Dhankhar’s lips as he paged through the security report. Two bodies had been found within the base’s perimeter earlier that morning. Both were white males, probably Russian, and both had serious knife wounds to the chest. One was found over by the graving dock, facedown in a shallow basin, the other by the Russian Hostel. Neither body had any identification, but the second one had nearly fifteen thousand rupees in his pocket. There were photos of the dead men’s faces attached to the back of the report. One man had a particularly horrid gash on his forehead. Shaking his head in frustration, he whispered a single word, “Kirichenko!”
The admiral grabbed his cell phone and punched up the Russian’s number, grumbling that the man had better answer this time. Remarkably, Dhankhar heard Kirichenko’s voice after the third ring. “Yes.”
“Mr. Kirichenko, this is Vice Admiral Dhankhar. Just what manner of mischief are you raising on my naval base?”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Admiral, has there been some trouble?”
“Trouble?” Dhankhar asked incredulously. “I would call the discovery of two dead men, very likely Russian nationals, within the base perimeter trouble. Is this the work of your man, Churkin?”
“Quite possibly,” replied Kirichenko coolly. “Jascha told me yesterday that he had been following a Russian national that was poking his nose into places where he shouldn’t. Do you have any identifying information on these men? Photos perhaps?”
Dhankhar was amazed at how calm Kirichenko’s voice was; the news was nothing more than a trivial incident to him, a matter of course in his business marketing death. “Yes, there are photos of the two individuals. Stand by while I send them to you.”
The admiral pulled up the electronic copy of the report, deleted all the text and sent the photos to Kirichenko’s anonymous e-mail account. “There, you should have them shortly. According to the security report, both men probably died from a single knife wound to the chest.”
“Well, that certainly sounds like Churkin,” admitted Kirichenko. “He prefers using a blade over any type of firearm. Ah, there is the e-mail.”
There was a brief silence over the phone as Kirichenko looked over the photographs. After a few seconds, Dhankhar heard him take a deep breath, followed by a hushed, “Well, that represents an unfortunate complication.”
“What? What is it?”
“The second photo is Churkin,” replied Kirichenko flatly.
“Churkin? How is this possible? Wasn’t he a commando?”
“Yes, Spetsnaz, and quite skilled at hand-to-hand combat. He was convinced that Petrov was getting too close to our operation, asking too many questions. Jascha was planning on taking him out, making it look like a mugging.”
“Could this Petrov have defeated Churkin?”
“Ridiculous!” Kirichenko exclaimed. There was a hint of insult in his voice. “Captain Petrov was a submariner, not a special operations soldier. There is nothing that I know of in his past that even suggests he had anything but a rudimentary knowledge of self-defense. It’s far more likely Churkin misidentified someone he thought was Petrov who possessed the skills to kill him.”
“What about the other man?” questioned Dhankhar. “The photo doesn’t match Petrov’s security badge picture.”
“I don’t know who it is. But it would be prudent to run the photo through your database of Russian nationals working on Chakra’s refit.”
Dhankhar bristled at the obvious suggestion. “I’m sure the naval police are working on that as we speak. I’ll be sure to keep you apprised of their findings. What do we do about Petrov?”
Kirichenko sighed. “If you can find a way to arrest him, or even detain him, that would be helpful. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a good reason to justify his arrest without drawing unwanted attention to Churkin. He had access to the naval base under an alias that was approved by your office.”
“I can revoke Petrov’s access to the base. Claim he’s under investigation for fraud or some other petty crime.”
“Which would only have the effect of confirming some of his suspicions and pushing him to blather what he knows to the Russian embassy. No, he hasn’t said anything because he’s either unsure of what he knows, or he lacks enough proof to get anyone to listen to him. It would be better if you just overload his schedule with administrative meetings and reports — keep him busy. How soon before Chakra leaves the graving dock?”