After the mozzarella, they had twenty-five minutes before the risotto would reach the final mantecatura stage where cold butter is stirred into the finished rice, so Witold suggested they go down to the basement firing range. The name “Tiro A Segno” in fact means shooting gallery and the incongruous fifty-yard range with three leather-padded firing points was popular with members. Piotr looked at Nate and pointed to the bolt-action rimfire rifles at two of the shooting positions, put on earmuffs, slapped the four-round magazine into the rifle, and worked the bolt to jack a round into the breach. Nate did the same, and both men rested their elbows on the leather padding and looked through the sighting scopes. The paper targets were simple three-ring bull’s-eyes hung on tracked clips that could be run the length of the spotlighted range, to vary distances or to be retrieved up close for inspection.
Agnes moved to stand behind Nate and whispered udachi, good luck, in Russian. The little rifles popped and each target flapped as the .22 rounds tore ragged holes in the center of the paper—excellent, tight groups on both bull’s-eyes. At the fourth shot, both Forsyth and Witold saw Nate’s rifle barrel waiver for a second. The rifles were safed and the targets run back to the firing line. Nate’s target was perfect; all the rounds had gone through the same expanded hole in the smallest ring. There was a bellow from Piotr. His target had a hole outside the rings, near the edge of the paper—a disastrous “flyer.” Nate shook Piotr’s hand with a serious expression. Piotr looked over at Forsyth and Witold, who were smirking, red faced. He looked back at Nate, who was still serious, but his eyes were twinkling. Piotr finally got it: Nate had shot across the lanes to place the apparent pulled shot into Piotr’s target, an old range-master’s prank Gable had once pulled on Nate himself. Piotr held on to Nate’s hand, glowering.
“Beris druzhno, ne budet gruzno,” said Nate in Russian. If all of us take hold of it together, it won’t feel heavy. Piotr clapped Nate on the shoulder.
“Now I will buy you a drink,” he said.
ZRAZY ZAWIJANE—POLISH ROULADE OF BEEF
Pound slices of round steak very thin. Put thin-sliced onions and pickle, and a finger of trimmed French bread, on each slice, roll tightly, and secure with toothpicks. Boil dried mushrooms in beef stock. Roll beef rolls in flour and brown in butter with additional onions in a Dutch oven. Cover rolls with stock and bake until beef is tender and braising liquid has reduced to a rich gravy.
17
Phase One
The narrowS-shaped Balaklava harbor on the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula was too short to be called a fjord. Protected by craggy headlands topped by the ruins of a Genoese fort built in 1365, the sunbaked little harbor was flanked by empty warehouses and two sleepy restaurants with tables and umbrellas. At the end of the harbor, on the west side, yawned a decrepit concrete adit that was the entrance to the defunct Soviet underground submarine base with a five-hundred-meter channel built under the mountain during the Cold War to shelter Red Fleet submarines from nuclear attack. Clustered on the hills above the east side of the harbor were newer buildings of the town, including the red-tile-roofed Dakkar Resort Hotel with stone balconies overlooking the little jewel harbor. At night, under the riotous Crimean stars, the few city lights glittered on the still water.
Nate and the WOLVERINEs sailed into Balaklava harbor at midnight, on a fifty-two-foot trunk-cabin cruiser with a dark-blue hull and graceful varnished topsides. The leased yacht with two crew from CIA’s Maritime Branch had departed from Varna, Romania, and in two days had navigated the three hundred nautical miles, out of sight of land, directly to Balaklava Bay on the placid Crimean coast of pine-covered peaks and rocky islets. The boat backed into an empty slip at the modest Golden Symbol Yacht Club, too late to check in with the authorities. The next morning, uninterested Ukrainian customs officers recorded the Polish alias passports of the passengers on a coast-wide holiday cruise. Instead of staying aboard the yacht, the passengers booked six rooms at the Dakkar Hotel and spent the rest of the day exploring the little town, climbing the hill to the castle ruins, and taking the organized tour of the underground submarine pens, now a museum. By the end of the day, they had satisfied themselves that there was no coverage of them by local police or regional security services. It had been a consideration that Nate—known by Moscow FSB as a CIA officer—technically was in Russian-controlled Crimea, but he was anonymous in the company of the team.
