IN TRANSIT MAY 28 Pechenga, Northern Coast of the Kola Peninsula, Russia (D MINUS 24) Rolf Ulrich Reichardt glanced out a dirty window toward the harbor below. Pechenga, he thought smugly again, was perfect for his purposes. Located twenty kilometers from the Norwegian border, the dreary little town lay huddled between inhospitable frozen tundra and the frigid Barents Sea. Its only asset was the sheltered harbor built for Soviet Army units and amphibious ships based there during the Cold War. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, the soldiers left and the ships were either scrapped or left to rot at the , pier. Now the town’s few thousand inhabitants struggled to survive on coastal trade and a meager fishing industry. With so little activity to distract Pechenga’s harbormaster, Reichardt had his full attention as well as the only other chair in the dingy office overlooking the bay. The German lounged casually in the stiff-backed chair, making himself as comfortable as possible in the squalid circumstances.
