Yevgeni did not answer, and Dimitri continued: “Maybe the Minister prefers us in the east because it is closer to the gulags of Siberia.”
“Very funny”, Yevgeni protested at Dimitri’s grim joke.
After another hour of noisy travel, the wheels of the military transport plane hit the snow-lined tarmac of the airport near Murmansk. The city of Murmansk lies north of the Arctic Circle, not far from Finland’s eastern border and on the coast of the Barents Sea, the northern waters of which were frozen already at this time of year.
A young officer, wearing a blue Navy uniform, greeted them as they disembarked from the plane. Wasting no time, he led them to two official black Lada cars parked, with engines running, next to the transport plane. Within half an hour, they had arrived at the massive iron gates of the large naval base. The younger officer exchanged a few words with the soldiers manning the checkpoint, and they were waved in through the gates, which opened to their full width. The official cars continued driving in the snow — it had been snowing nonstop before their arrival — until they stopped outside an isolated building at the center of the base. The young officer pointed towards the building.
“Rear Admiral Ilya Leonov, the Base Commandant, is expecting you here. Please follow me, officers.”
The five team members and their escort walked up the wide staircase to the second floor of the building and into the well-heated office of the Commandant. Rear Admiral Leonov received them very warmly. Brigadier General Dimitri, the Navy man, was greeted with an embrace. The two had known each other for years.
Rear Admiral Leonov, at 55 years of age, seemed more like a senior official of the party than an old seaman. He was short in height and full in width and his blue Navy jacket was custom-tailored to accommodate his protruding belly. His hair was thin and white, and his cheeks were full and ruddy.
The office walls were paneled in a dark wood and covered with many photos of the Admiral, models of various naval vessels and unit insignia and coats of arms, marking the many high points of the Admiral’s career. He invited his guests to sit at a table in a corner of the room. A seaman wearing the Navy dress uniform entered the room with a tray and placed it on the table. The tray held a variety of sandwiches, but above all, a steaming tea kettle.
“How was the flight?” asked Rear Admiral Leonov.
“Noisy and tiring”, Dimitri replied without elaborating.
“We have prepared a meal for you in the senior officers’ residence. The conditions there are excellent. You can rest there for a while and freshen up, and tomorrow you will be as good as new”, the Admiral said, looking round at his guests.
“Your liaison Gregory sent me a full list of your requests for personnel and equipment”, he continued, “and all is already prepared and ready for you. To accommodate your request, I’ve cancelled a scheduled exercise for one of our most advanced submarines, which was due to leave tomorrow. From tomorrow, this submarine and its crew are under your command. Shall we meet in the morning, then?”
Yevgeni answered for the team.
“Sir, as the head of the team, I would like to thank you for your hospitality and for your swift and efficient preparations for us.”
“Hold on, Colonel”, the Admiral interrupted him, shifting his gaze again and again from Yevgeni to Dimitri to General Okhramenko. “I want to understand; you are a colonel, right?”
“True.”
Yevgeni already understood where his host was heading with his question.
“So how is it that you are heading a team which includes a General and a Brigadier General?”
Brigadier General Dimitri, the Admiral’s friend, put his hand on Yevgeni’s shoulder as if to tell him, please leave this matter to me.
“This is a very special team”, said Dimitri, “and this Yevgeni is simply a genius. Every time we reached a dead end, he was the only one who knew how to get us all out of it and continue in a new direction. Even Marshal Budarenko, of all people, was impressed by his fantastic abilities, and that is why he appointed Yevgeni to lead the team.”
Rear Admiral Leonov was still perplexed, but finally said, “If Marshal Budarenko so decided, then I have no doubt that he made the best decision for all of you. You, Colonel, couldn’t receive a better compliment than this.”
Colonel Yevgeni thanked the Admiral with a slight bow of the head and decided to cut short the small talk and to get to the reason for their being there.
“Rear Admiral Leonov, I understand that you were requested to designate for us three teams of the best of your people in order for us to start work immediately.”
“That’s right”, replied the Rear Admiral. “We’ve put together three teams, and all of them are already here at the base. The first team is made up of explosives and sea ordnance specialists. The second is made up of experts in communications and electronic warfare, and the third includes operations research specialists and math prodigies, or something like that. Tomorrow morning you will meet all of them.”
“Excellent”, Yevgeni replied curtly. “But I have something to ask of you. I apologize that we are not allowed to disclose the subject that we are dealing with at the moment, but to have a good night’s sleep, or even to have a rest, is a luxury we cannot afford. We are under supervision, and Marshal Budarenko is watching us now from Moscow, and we shouldn’t be surprised if he suddenly lands here with no prior notice. I want to meet with the three teams now. Each of us will work with his relevant team until we get answers and make progress, even if it continues throughout the night. Therefore, can you please call your teams to work now, maybe in a few minutes?”
The Admiral’s expression made it clear that he was still dissatisfied, if not annoyed, by Yevgeni, that thin, strange-looking Colonel. The Admiral was still trying to understand how the Colonel, who did not even look like a military officer, was dispensing orders to a General, and especially to a General of the old school. Moreover, it seemed to him that the Colonel did not even appreciate the Admiral’s hospitality and the great resources that he was allocating to the unprepossessing Colonel on the vast naval base over which he ruled like a demigod. However, since the Colonel had come on a mission on behalf of Marshal Budarenko, and under his direct orders, the Admiral understood that he would do well to overlook the bad manners and keep his cool, and especially his head, and do exactly as instructed by the Colonel. He lifted his heavy figure from his seat, went to his desk and pressed the intercom button. He was answered by the voice of a young man. The senior naval officer shot a string of short orders into the intercom and returned to his guests.
Notwithstanding the urgency, Dimitri exchanged niceties and small talk with the Admiral for a few minutes, asking after his family, his wife and two sons.
The intercom emitted a discordant buzzing sound. The Admiral pushed the blinking button and increased the sound volume on the box.
“Yes”, he replied sharply.
“Sir, I was informed that most of the personnel have been located and they will wait for you in 15 minutes’ time in the main conference room at Naval Intelligence.”
Colonel Yevgeni turned to his friend Dimitri and whispered in his ear.
“I thank you for the knowledgeable explanation you gave the Admiral. Next time we raise the subject, please ask our friend the General to explain.” Yevgeni leaned back in his chair and winked at Dimitri.
The five left the Admiral to meet the three work teams that were already waiting for them. As they were walking in the snow, which had been falling since they arrived at the base, Dimitri clutched Yevgeni’s arm.