Death Wave by Stephen Coonts Page A

Stoy! ”

4
     
    CHARLIE DEAN
MORGUE, RUSSIAN MILITARY HOSPITAL
DUSHANBE, TAJIKISTAN
WEDNESDAY, 1854 HOURS LOCAL TIME
     
Halt!”
“Is Podpolkolnik Pyotr Vasilyev here?” Dean asked, putting a singsong Indian accent into the Russian words. The Vympel soldier blinked and lowered his AK a fraction.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“This is IAF Wing Commander Salman Patel,” Akulinin told him, “and I am Major Golikov. We are on Air Vice Marshal Subarao’s staff, and we need to speak with Colonel Vasilyev immediately !”
“I … that is … he …”
“Stand at attention when a superior addresses you!” Akulinin barked.
“Sir! Yes, sir!” The senior sergeant snapped to attention, but with the rifle at port arms across his chest.
“Guard this door, Senior Sergeant. Make certain that no one comes through!”
“Yes, sir!”
Unlike their American counterparts, Russian enlisted personnel were trained not to think, to follow orders immediately and unquestioningly. By playing the role of a Russian senior officer, with bluster, anger, and a hefty dose of stage presence, Akulinin forced the noncom into his accustomed role—that of an automaton that did not ask questions, did not make waves.
The morgue was a large and cluttered room, with several metal tables under cold fluorescent lights, concrete-block walls lined with filing cabinets, and a central area taken up by a huge refrigeration unit cooling the morgue slabs behind massive, sealed doors. Half a dozen soldiers were gathered around three tables just around the corner of the refrigerator. Lieutenant Colonel Vasilyev was engaged in an intense discussion with a young, blond, white-smocked woman, presumably the morgue attendant.
Dean and Akulinin joined the group, moving unobtrusively into the rear of the group. One soldier glanced at Dean’s Indian uniform curiously. Dean grinned back and winked, and the soldier shrugged, then turned away; if the guard at the door had let an Indian Air Force officer in, obviously he was permitted to be there.
Far more often than not, Dean had learned, a person could get into nearly any restricted area without being questioned so long as he acted as though he had a perfect right to be there.
“I want these bodies examined thoroughly,” Vasilyev was telling the attendant. “In particular, I want them inspected for radiation.”
“Do you mean a Geiger counter?” the woman asked Vasilyev. “To scan them for radiation? Or do you want a pathology workup, looking for cellular damage from radiation?”
“Both.”
“We do not have Geiger counters at this facility, Lieutenant Colonel,” she told him. “As for tissue sampling and microscopy—that requires a pathologist, and Dr. Shmatko is not here.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t see that that is any of your concern, sir.”
“Young woman, you will cooperate with me! Where is this Shmatko?”
She looked angry. “Gone until tomorrow. An autopsy in Tashkent.”
“There will be radiation detectors at the air base,” Vasilyev told her. “I will have one sent here, with a trained operator. You will send a message to Shmatko and tell him he is needed here at once. Do you understand?”
“I understand, sir—but that won’t get the man here one minute sooner. Tashkent is three hundred kilometers away.”
“Just do it!” Vasilyev looked around, angry. He saw Dean, saw Dean’s uniform, and his eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”
“Sir! Wing Commander Patel, special liaison to the Russian forces in Tajikistan.”
“That tells me who I am about to put under arrest,” Vasilyev growled, “but it does not answer my question. What is an Indian Air Force officer doing in a restricted Russian military facility? ”
“Sir! Group Captain Sharad Narayanan, at the Ayni Air Base, sent me to find you. There are reports of Pakistani infiltrators at Ayni, at Farkhor, and at Dushanbe! He told me to deliver the message verbally, since our electronic lines of communication may be