Covert One 7 - The Arctic Event

Yes, sir. You forget your people and you forget to think for your people, the noncom continued. That setup you ran on the ridge this morning probably would have worked just fine for one man, but there was more than one of you. I donÕt know exactly what youÕre doing in this manÕs Army, Colonel, but whatever it is, itÕs making you forget how to command.

Forgetting how to command? That was a stark assessment for any officerÑa brutal one, in fact. Could it conceivably be a valid one?

It was a startling thought, but it was entirely possible, given the peculiarities of his career path.

USAMRIID was not a conventional Army unit. The majority of its personnel were civilian, like his late fiancŽe, Dr. Sophia Russell. Directing a research project at Fort Detrick was more akin to working in a major university or a corporate laboratory than in a military installation. It was a peer-among-peers environment that required tact and a mastery of bureaucracy more than a command presence.

As for that other peculiar facet of his life, by the very nature and structure of the job, mobile cipher agents frequently operated alone. Since being drawn into Covert One in the aftermath of the Hades crisis, Smith had worked with a variety of allies in the field, but he had not borne the burden of being directly responsible for them.

It was one thing to make a bad call and get yourself killed. It was quite another when that failed call caused the death of someone else. Smith understood that. There had been a time in Africa years ago, before Covert One, when Smith had made such a failed call. The personal reverberations and pain of that decision lingered to this day. It was one of the things that had diverted Smith into the rarified world of medical research.

He slid the oiled bolt back into the SRÕs receiver. Had that move been a form of cowardice? Possibly. It would be something to take a long and hard look at.

I see what you mean, Top, Smith replied. LetÕs say that particular requirement hasnÕt come up with me recently.

The instructor nodded. Maybe so, sir, but if you keep wearing those oak leaves, it will. You can bet your ass on it.

Or someone elseÕs.

Smith was still pondering the instructorÕs words when an alien sound intruded into the forest quiet: the muffled purr-growl of a powerful two-cycle engine. A camouflaged all-terrain vehicle appeared through the trees, tearing up the trail from the Huckleberry Ridge base camp.

The young female soldier braked the ATV to a halt in the grove short of the mountain warfare class. Dismounting, she jogged toward them.

Smith and the ranger sergeant got to their feet as the courier approached.

Colonel Smith? she inquired, saluting.

Right here, Corporal, Smith replied, returning the salute.

A call came in for you at base camp, sir, from the officer of the day at Main Post. She produced a piece of white notepaper from the breast pocket of her BDUs. As soon as possible you are to call this phone number. He indicated it was very important.

Smith accepted the slip of paper and glanced at it. That was all that was required. The number was one that Smith had long ago committed to memory. It was not so much a phone number now as an identifier and a call to arms.

Smith refolded the paper and stowed it in his own pocket, to be burned later. IÕll need to get back to the fort, he said, his voice flat.

ThatÕs been arranged for, sir, the courier replied. You can take the quad down to base camp. TheyÕll have a vehicle waiting for you.

WeÕll take care of your gear, Colonel, the instructor interjected.

Smith nodded. It was likely he wouldnÕt be back. Thanks, Top, he said, extending his hand to the noncom. ItÕs been a good program. IÕve learned a great deal.

The sergeant returned the solid handgrip. I hope itÕll help, sir...wherever. Good luck.

The highway leading down to Fort Lewis snaked through the forested foothills of the Cascades, passing a series of small towns undergoing the economic conversion from logging to tourism for their sustenance. The sixth-largest Army post in the United States, Fort Lewis served as the primary staging facility to AmericaÕs defense commitments in the North Pacific and as the home base for the ArmyÕs cutting-edge Stryker brigades. Scores of the massive eight-wheeled armored fighting vehicles could be seen occupying the post motor pools and rumbling down the access roads to the firing ranges.

The fort also served as home for the Fifth Special Forces Group, the Second Battalion, Seventy-fifth Rangers, and a squadron of the 160th Special Aviation Regiment. Thus, the members of the base cadre were well acquainted with the requirements and necessities of covert operations.

The officer of the day didnÕt ask questions when Smith checked in at the headquarters building. He had been advised to expect this sunburned and bearded stranger in sweat-stained camouflage. He had also been ordered by the highest of authorities to grant Jon Smith every possible assistance.

In short order, Smith found himself seated alone in a headquarters office with a secure communications deck on the desk before him. He dialed the contact number without consulting the note he had been given. On the East Coast of the United States a phone rang in a facility the public believed to be a private yacht club in Anacosta, Maryland.

Yes. The answering voice was a womanÕs, toneless and crisply professional.

This is Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith, he said with careful deliberation, not for the human at the far end of the circuit but for the voice identification system that would be monitoring the call.

The deviceÕs verdict must have been favorable, for when Maggie Templeton spoke again it was with considerably more warmth and animation. Hello, Jon, howÕs Washington? The state, that is.

Very green, Maggie, at least the half IÕve been in. I gather you and the bosses have something for me.

We do. The professionalism crept back into her voice. Margaret Templeton was more than Fred KleinÕs executive assistant. The widow of a CIA field operative and a veteran of her own years at Langley, the slender, graying blonde was, for all intents and purposes, Covert OneÕs second in command. Mr. Klein wants to brief you personally. Are you set up to receive hard copy?

Smith glanced at the desktop laser printer connected to the secure deck, noting its glowing green check lights. Yes.

IÕll start sending you the mission database. IÕm putting you through to Mr. Klein now. Take care.

I always try, Maggie.

As the desk printer started to purr and hiss, the phone clicked, and Smith visualized the connection jumping from Maggie TempletonÕs integrated workstation/office with its bristling array of computer and communications accesses to that second, smaller, starker room.

Good morning, Jon. Fred KleinÕs voice was quiet and instinctively controlled. HowÕs the training going?

Very well, sir. I only have three days left to go on the course.

No, you donÕt, Colonel. YouÕve just graduated. We need to put that training to work right now. A problem has developed that you are uniquely positioned to deal with.

Smith had been bracing for this ever since receiving his contact notification. Still, he had to suppress a sudden shiver. It was happening again, as it had happened so often since SophieÕs death. Once more something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong.

WhatÕs the situation, sir? Smith inquired.

Your specialty, biological warfare, the director of Covert One replied. Only on this occasion the circumstances are somewhat unusual.

Smith frowned. How can biowar ever be considered anything but unusual?

A humorless chuckle came back. I stand corrected, Jon. Let me escalate that to exceptionally unusual.

How so, sir?

For one, the locationÑthe Canadian Arctic. And for the other, our employers.

Our employers?

ThatÕs right, Jon. ItÕs a long story, but this time around it appears weÕre going to be working for the Russians.

Ê

Beijing

Randi Russell sat in the Cantonese restaurant that opened off the Hotel BeijingÕs large and somewhat careworn lobby, breakfasting on dim sum and green tea.

She had worked inside Red China on a number of occasions for the Central Intelligence Agency, and oddly enough, she had found it a comparatively easy operating environment.

The mammoth PRC state security machine was ever present, purring and clicking away in the national background. As an idowai, a foreigner, every taxi or train ride she took would be recorded. Every long-distance telephone call would be monitored, every e-mail read. Every tour guide or translator or hotel manager or travel agent dealt with would answer to his or her assigned contact within the PeopleÕs Armed Police.

So totally pervasive was this mechanism that it actually began to work against itself. As a spy, Randi was never tempted to let her guard down or become sloppy with her cover, because she was always acutely aware she was under observation.

This morning, her observers would be seeing a decidedly attractive American businesswoman in her early thirties, dressed in a neat beige knit dress and a pair of expensive but sensibly heeled pumps. Short, tousled golden-blond hair framed her face, and her open farm girlÕs features bore only a light touch of cosmetics along with the dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Only another member of the profession might note the irregularity, and then only by looking deeply into her dark brown eyes. There could be seen the hint of an internal bleakness and an instinctive, perpetual wariness of the world around herÑthe mark of one who had been both the hunter and the hunted.

Today she hunted, or at least stalked.

Randi had chosen her table in the cafe with care, her position giving her an uninterrupted band of vision that cut across the hotelÕs lobby between the elevator bank and the main entrance. She scanned it only from the corner of her eye. As she nibbled and sipped, her attention appeared to be focused solely on the open and totally irrelevant business file on the table in front of her.

Intermittently she would glance at her wristwatch as if counting down time to some appointment.

She had no such appointment. But someone else might. The previous evening sheÕd committed the Beijing traffic schedules for Air Koryo, the North Korean national airline, to memory, and she was moving into a potentially hot time frame.

Randi had been covering the lobby for almost two hours now. If nothing happened within the next fifteen or twenty minutes, another member of the CIA cell assigned to the hotel would take over the surveillance, and Randi would disengage before her lingering became a cause for suspicion. She would spend the rest of the day doing suitable junior executive busywork around the Chinese capital, all of it essentially as meaningless as the report she was reading.

But she had the duty now, and she caught the passage of the two men through the lobby.

The smaller, slighter, and more nervous of the pair was dressed in blue jeans and a crisp khaki-colored nylon windcheater, and he carried a battered computer case as if it was a precious thing.

The second man, taller, burlier, and older, wore a poorly cut black business suit and an air of guarded grimness. A person familiar with Asian ethnology might have been able to identify them both as Korean. Randi Russell knew them to be so. The man in the suit was an agent of the North Korean PeopleÕs Security Force. The man in the windcheater was Franklin Sun Chok, a third-generation Korean American, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, an employee of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, and a traitor.

He was why she and an entire task force of CIA operatives had been positioned across the width of the Pacific: to oversee his act of treason and, if necessary, to assist him in carrying it out.

Unhurriedly Randi closed her file and tucked it into her shoulder bag. Removing a pen, she ticked her room number onto the bill on the table. Rising, she crossed into the lobby and dropped onto the trail of the two men.

Outside, the hotelÕs taxi marshal was feeding a line of guests into the swarm of cabs clumping up on a smog- and car-clogged Dong Chang an Jie Street.

Sun Chok got into the cab first, moving quickly. The North Korean security agent paused before following, sweeping a last jet-eyed stare around the hotel entrance. Randi felt that cold gaze brush past her.

She kept her own eyes averted until the KoreanÕs cab pulled away. Given the timing of their movement, Randi knew where they must be bound. She wasnÕt unduly concerned about maintaining continuous contact. A minute or so later, using a hesitant Chinese several grades below her actual grasp of the language, she instructed the driver of her own cab to take her to BeijingÕs Capital Airport.

As the little Volkswagen sedan struggled through the hysterical traffic of BeijingÕs Forbidden City district, Randi flipped open her tri-band cellular phone, hitting a preset number.

Hello, Mr. Danforth. This is Tanya Stewart. IÕm on my way out to meet Mr. Bellerman at the airport.

Very good, Tanya, Robert Danforth, the manager of the Beijing office of the California Pacific Consortium, replied. He should be coming in on the Cathay Pacific flight nineteen, or at least thatÕs the last word we had. No guarantees. You know how the Los Angeles office is.

I understand, sir. IÕll keep you posted. Randi snapped her phone shut, having completed her carefully scripted verbal dance.

Robert Danforth was actually the senior agent in charge of the CIAÕs Beijing station, and the California Pacific Consortium was a front company used to provide cover for transient agents operating in northern mainland China. As for Mr. Bellerman, he existed only as a justification name inserted into routine Consortium business traffic over the past few days.

The cellular call had served two purposes. For one, it would explain RandiÕs actions to PRC State Security, should their curiosity be aroused. For the other, it would advise her superiors that two years of carefully crafted counterintelligence work was about to reach fruition.

When Franklin Sun Chok first appeared as a blip on the CIAÕs screens, he had been a graduate student of physics at Berkeley, employed at the huge Lawrence Livermore Laboratory complex in the Bay Area. A studious and intensely earnest young man, his after-hours interests and concerns included international disarmament and his ethnic heritage.

Neither of which was particularly out of place for a young American academic, but given the highly secretive nature of much of Lawrence LivermoreÕs work, it had rated him a spot check by laboratory security. Alarm bells rang.

Sun Chok was found to be associating closely with a small Korean nationalist group on the Berkeley campus, a group promoting, loudly, the national unification of Korea and the withdrawal of the United States military from the peninsula. It was also an identified front organization for North Korean espionage in the United States.

RandiÕs cab drew up in the long line of vehicles feeding through the tollbooth access to the airport expressway. Perhaps a dozen cars ahead, she spotted the taxi carrying Sun Chok and his security escort. All was still on track.

Sun Chok had been placed under intensive covert surveillance. He was tailed, his apartment was searched and bugged, and his telephone and Internet traffic was closely monitored. In short order it was confirmed that he was indeed spying for the North Korean government.

The evidence was adequate for an arrest warrant, but an alternative had been decided upon. Franklin Sun ChokÕs betrayal would be put to good use.

Randi glanced at her wristwatch and frowned. If this traffic didnÕt break soon, both she and the Koreans would be in trouble. Then she told herself not to be silly. The next flight to Pyongyang wouldnÕt be going anywhere until its VIP passengers were aboard.

No doubt to the delight of his North Korean controllers, Franklin Sun Chok was given a promotion at the Lawrence Livermore facility, complete with a handsome pay raise, a private office, an executive assistant, and a deeper access to the laboratoriesÕ secrets. In reality, he was being encapsulated in a technological fantasyland of the Central Intelligence AgencyÕs creation.

For over a year, Sun Chok was fed a carefully metered diet of solid, valid, low-grade information: research breakthroughs that were destined to be openly published in science journals in months to come, and minor military secrets that would be secret only until the next round of congressional budgetary hearings.

As eager and as innocent as a baby bird gobbling an offered worm, he had relayed this information to his contacts, building their confidence in him as a valid resource.

When U.S. intelligence assets monitoring North KoreaÕs internal R & D programs began to see this fed information being put to use, they knew that the Sun Chok line was being trusted. It was time to drive home the dagger.

Beijing Capital Airport looked little different from any other modernistic airline terminal anywhere else in the world. Drawing up at the departure entries, Randi caught only a glimpse of the Koreans as they entered the terminal, but that was as she wished it. If she couldnÕt see them, they couldnÕt see her.

Barring the usual large number of assault rifleÐcarrying PeopleÕs Armed Police, airport security was actually lighter than at an American airport. Randi was permitted access to the concourses after only a single pass of her shoulder bag through an X-ray machine. She had nothing to be concerned about here. She carried neither weapons nor any James Bondian gadgetry. None were needed for this tasking.

With the hook solidly set in the North Korean jaw, Franklin Sun Chok was cleared to an even higher security level and assigned work on a major new project involving the national antiballistic missile defense network. Information began to cross Sun ChokÕs desk that hinted tantalizingly at possible countermeasures to the system.

On the evening before Sun Chok left on his annual vacation from the laboratory, he remained late in his office, cleaning up his desk. As CIA observers looked on cybernetically, Sun Chok accessed and downloaded a long series of secure data files on the antiballistic missile network.

Unknown to him, each of his illicit computer accesses was diverted to a carefully doctored alternate file set, prepared just for this moment. Then, instead of heading for Las Vegas as he had told his coworkers, Sun Chok had driven north, for the Canadian border.

Clearing security, Randi strode through the luggage-burdened crowds. She was less apparent here, for Capital Airport handled all the international traffic for Beijing, and many of the tourists and business travelers bustling around her now were American or European.

Cathay Pacific had been chosen as the preferred carrier for the mythical Mr. Bellerman because its boarding gates were located immediately adjacent to those of Air Koryo. Crossing to the Cathay Pacific waiting area, she took a seat that gave her a peripheral view of the North Korean gate. Once more she removed the false file from her shoulder bag and focused her false attention upon it.

Sun ChokÕs flight across the Pacific had been a long and tortuous one: from Vancouver to the Philippines, from the Philippines to Singapore, from Singapore to Hong Kong, and from Hong Kong to Beijing. Pyongyang was not an easy place to get to from anywhere. Twice during the journey, Franklin Sun Chok had been contacted by North Korean agents, who had passed him falsified passports, visas, and identification, and in Hong Kong heÕd picked up his escort from the PeopleÕs Security Force.

At each stop Sun Chok had also acquired a CIA shadow. A network of American agents had been deployed to cover the primary Pacific travel nodes, monitoring the traitorÕs transit. In Singapore, the local station chief had even been forced to hastily intervene with the local authorities when a sloppily forged document had almost led to Sun ChokÕs arrest.

Randi Russell would be the last link in this chain. She would oversee Franklin Sun ChokÕs final passage into darkness.

Covertly she studied the youthful traitor. He kept glancing back down the concourse. Did he still fear some last-minute pursuit? Or could he be thinking back to San Francisco Bay and the apartment, life, and family he would never see again? Emoting to some idealized political principal was all well and good, but it was quite another thing to live out its reality.

Randi Russell knew full well what this reality was. She had been on the ground inside the last workersÕ paradise. The experience still occasionally made her wake up bathed in a chill sweat.

She wondered if the young man was having second thoughts about his decision. Could it be that his fashionable intellectualistÕs disdain for the United States was starting to wear thin? Could he now be sensing a ghost of what had made his parents flee to the Western world?

If so, such considerations were coming too late. Another delegation of black-suited North Koreans had been standing by at the Air Koryo Jetway, a security team from North KoreaÕs Beijing embassy. They closed around Sun Chok, a few curt words were exchanged, and the American was hustled down the extendable Jetway to the waiting airliner, past the Chinese PeopleÕs Police officer, who was careful to not see him or his escorts.

Randi caught his eyes as he looked back one last time, and then he was gone.

She closed her eyes and sat unmoving for a long moment. Mission accomplished.

She knew what would happen next. The information contained within Franklin Sun ChokÕs laptop computer and within Sun Chok himself would be poured into the North Korean ballistic missile program. The information would promise leads in the direction of a foolproof countermeasures system that could defeat the U.S. antimissiles and leave the cities of the American West Coast open to attack.

But one after another, each promising lead would reach a technological dead end after devouring a precious percentage of the North Korean military budget and thousands of equally precious research and development man hours.

Eventually it would become apparent to the North Koreans that they had been duped, that their intelligence coup had, in fact, been a time bomb planted within their armaments program by the United States.

North KoreaÕs Dear Leaders would be displeased. Specifically, they would be displeased with Franklin Sun Chok. The displeasure of the Dear Leaders would not be trifling.

Randi snapped her eyes open. If she were not careful with her memories, the cold-sweat nights would return.

From the concourse windows, she watched as the elderly Ilyushin jetliner climbed away from the airport on the final leg of Sun ChokÕs last journey. Returning to her seat, she waited for the next Cathay Pacific flight to come in and unload before making her call.

Mr. Danforth. This is Tanya Stewart out at Capital. Mr. Bellerman wasnÕt on his flight. What should I do now, sir?

Translation from agent doublespeak: the package has been successfully delivered.

Danforth sighed theatrically. Los Angeles strikes again! IÕll look into it, Tanya. In the meantime youÕd best get back here. SomethingÕs come up.

What is it, sir?

They need you back in the States as soon as possible. At the Seattle office.

Randi frowned. The States as soon as possible? This was a deviation, and a radical one. Upon completion of this assignment she was supposed to ease out of China over a period of days, maintaining her businesswomanÕs cover. And what the hell was in Seattle?

IÕm already setting up your travel arrangements, Danforth continued. YouÕll be flying out this evening on Asiana to Seoul, and from there by JAL. There will be a reservation waiting for you at the SeaTac Doubletree.

I see, Mr. Danforth. Should I swing by the office?

Yes. IÕll have your tickets, and we can go over the outlines of this new project. YouÕll be met by a Mr. Smith in Seattle. HeÕs with one of our associate firms, and youÕll be working with him on a joint venture.

Randi frowned. Mr. Smith? The Agency would never use a cover name like that. It must be the real thing.

Her frown deepened. It couldnÕt be. Not again.

Ê

San Francisco Bay

The diseased mind known in the Bay Area as the BART rapist settled back in his seat and luxuriated in the contemplation of the next woman he would destroy. The big Bay Transit Authority SuperCat passenger ferry was just backing away from the Market Street terminal, and he would have a full fifty minutes for his contemplation before their arrival in Vallejo. It pleased him that she was already his possession but still totally unaware of it.

The Bay AreaÕs public transport systems were his private stalking ground, and as with all his previous half-dozen assaults, this one would be a work of art, in its inception and execution and in his evasion of the police, a thing of great beauty. The actual debasement of his prey would merely be the delicious frosting applied to a master bakerÕs cake.

He never used the same persona twice. For this act he would be a cross-bay business commuter, recently moved from the city to the wine country north of the bay. His falsified identification would support the cover story, as would his assumed appropriate appearance: graying temples and wire-framed glasses, sweater and slacks and an expensive tweed jacket with suede elbow patches, Birkenstocks and dark socks. It would all match the image conjured in the mind of any stupid policeman or security guard who might question him.

Even the contents of the paper bag he carried primly on his knees would be justifiable to any random police check: two pint tins of interior enamel paint, a selection of small paintbrushes, a few cards of hardware screws and cupboard hooksÑall things a new DIY home owner would be justified in possessingÑcomplete with a purchasing slip drawn on a downtown San Francisco decorating store.

In such company, the roll of duct tape and the box cutter would be totally unremarkable.

He had taken equal care with his past assaults. In the last, he had been the grimy mentally deficient street person, and in the one before that, the slovenly truck driver, and so on. The police didnÕt have a clue whom they were truly pursuing.

A pity, in a way, that he could not be admired for his artistry and his genius.

Riding the thunder of its hydrojet drives, the SuperCat cut northeastward across the bay, its twin bladelike bows slicing cleanly through the low swells. Beyond the ferryÕs windows, shore lights glittered on as the misty dusk settled. This was the eight oÕclock run, the last of the day, and the ferryÕs commodious passenger bay with its multiple rows of seating was three-quarters empty.

The woman whom he had honored with his attention sat in the front row to port. Contentedly munching a crisp apple purchased from the ferryÕs snack bar, her attention was lost in the book resting on her crossed knee. She was beautiful, as were all his ladiesÑthe rapist was, after all, a connoisseur. A tall brunette, she was slender but full-breasted, her long midnight black hair worn up in a neatly pinned chignon. She was somewhere in her thirties, with flawless, creamy skin, lightly tanned and glowing with health.

Her eyes were gray, and they had glinted with good humor as she had bantered with the snack bar attendant. She was a regular. Every Tuesday and Thursday she crossed on the ten oÕclock morning run from Vallejo and returned on this, the last evening boat.

What she did in the city, he wasnÕt quite sure. But she was clearly a woman of fashion and means; her clothes were always of superb taste and quality. This night she wore a trim gray cord pantsuit that matched her eyes and stiletto-heeled black boots.

He might allow her to keep those boots after he destroyed the rest of her clothing; they would add something to the experience.

She always read her way across the bay with a book taken from the briefcase she inevitably carried. In his weeks of preattack surveillance he had made a point of positioning himself to see the book titles as a method of getting inside her head, of deepening his advantage.

But what he had seen had puzzled him: Anthony M. ThornboroughÕs Airborne Weapons of the West, The Greenville Military Manual of Main Battle Tanks, and the like. TonightÕs book was a crumbling yellow-paged volume in some Germanic tongue. From its illustrations it was concerned with cavalry warfare. Such topics were inexplicable for such a refined and totally feminine individual, and totally inappropriate. He would punish her for her interest in them.

The ferry slowed as it nosed up the Mare Island shipping channel, with the blazing city lights of Vallejo to starboard and the scattered work arcs of the old Mare Island Navy Yard to port. The great turbocharged diesels grumbled down into an idle as the catamaran came off plane. They were turning in toward the docking slips, the floodlights of the ferry terminal glaring in through the forward windscreen.

The BART rapist gathered himself. It was time for the final act.

He held back, just keeping his prey in sight as they descended the boarding ramps and passed by the big octagonal terminal building. He knew precisely where she was going. His rented minivan was already parked beside her dove gray Lincoln LS sedan out in the far parking lot of the terminal. Away from the lights of the terminal, he paused to hastily transfer the box cutter and duct tape to his jacket pockets, depositing his shopping bag in a trash can. He left the purchasing slip in the bag. Let the police chase this yuppie commuter; he would dissolve in a matter of a few more hours.

Perhaps he would become a Seventh-day Adventist missionary next.

His prey was crossing the broad asphalt expanse of the emptied parking lot now. The only thing that could delay her fate was the presence of some unexpected onlooker nearby. But no, the environment was entirely favorable. A few automobiles hissed past, uncaring, on the streets, and a small group of weary workers clumped at the bus stop a full block away. Probably even a scream would go unacted upon.

He hastened his steps, starting the rush that would close the distance as she reached her vehicle. In moments she would be in the shadowy gap between the car and the van, fumbling in her shoulder bag for her keys, diverted, ultimately vulnerable. Moments later, with wrists, mouth, and ankles taped, she would be under a concealing blanket on the floor of his vehicle.

But then the tall brunette stepped past the driverÕs door of the Lincoln. Turning abruptly at the front bumper, she put her back to the concrete bulkhead of the parking lot. Allowing her briefcase and shoulder bag to slip to the ground, she faced him, her arms loosely crossed over her stomach. In the dimness, she seemed to be smiling a wry, derisive smile.

Morally, I should just let nature take its course, she said, her voice a contralto rich with the same wry derisiveness, but I really donÕt need this kind of complication in my life. Her voice dropped an octave. So IÕll say it just once. Go away and leave me alone.

She...was...discounting...him. She viewed him and all his arts and efforts an irrelevancy to be shooed away. The elemental hate at the core of his being boiled up, sweeping away his warped pretensions.

His hand plunged into his pocket, the box cutterÕs razor wedge of blade snicking open as he drew it. He stepped forward, spitting out his first vile epithet.

She moved, her arm sweeping in a flat, inhumanly fast blur. Something struck him sharply in the abdomen with a soft whucking sound. For a moment there was just the shock of impact; then came the impossible, searing pain. Instinctively he dropped the box cutter and clutched at the agony, his fingers closing over the slender metal haft of a knife buried in his stomach.

This...was not...in the plan.

His legs buckled, and he went to his knees on the cracked asphalt, the bits of gravel biting through his trouser legs, faint echoes of the agony in the center of his body.

Paralyzed by the pain, he heard footsteps click closer with deliberation. Excuse me, that wry, now utterly terrifying voice said, but I believe thatÕs my property.

Then the boot heel rested against his shoulder, putting him flat onto his back with a sharp shove. There was a final impossible explosion of pain as the blade was twisted from his punctured stomach, and all consciousness faded.

A few minutes later someone dialed 911 from a waterfront public telephone and asked for the police department. The dispatcher picking up the call heard a pleasant contralto voice say, You will find a recently retired rapist in the C lot of the ferry terminal. He needs an aid car rather badly. If you do a DNA match with the BART attacker, you may be pleasantly surprised.

Valentina Metrace, professor of history, PhD, Radcliffe and Cambridge, hung up the phone and walked back to her car at the curb. As the sleek sedan whispered toward the Redwood Parkway, she called up a disk on the CD player, and a Henry Mancini collection pulsed softly from the multiple speakers.

Fourteen miles into the North Bay wine country, the Lincoln turned off the highway and drew up in front of a steel grille security gate in a gray-pink stuccoed perimeter wall. An understated bronze plaque was mounted beside the gate:

SANDOVAL ARMAMENTS COLLECTIONMuseum Hours: 10:00 to 5:00 Tuesday through Saturday.

The dab of a key card retracted the power gate, granting the professor entrance. She eased the car down the entrance loop road, past the F2H Banshee jet fighter banking on its gate guard pedestal, and the Matilda infantry tank on its display slab, to the turnoff drive that led to her quarters.

The Sandoval arms collection had been initiated at the turn of the previous century as the personal hobby of the wealthy scion of one of the old Californio families. Over the four generations since its inception, it had taken on a life and a justification of its own as one of the largest historical archives on weaponry and the tools of warfare in the United States.

A number of perks came with its prestigious curatorÕs position, including the neat little California mission bungalow behind the sprawling complex of display buildings, libraries, and restoration laboratories. Parking in its carport, Metrace paused for a brief techno-ritual before passing through the sliding glass doors that led into the kitchenette. The multiple rows of check lights for the museum compoundÕs extensive network of security systems all glowed green on the exterior alarm station.

Snapping on the kitchenetteÕs indirect lighting, she set her briefcase and shoulder bag on the carmine-tiled breakfast bar. It was good to be home, even with complications. With a sigh, she shrugged out of her jacket and slipped the elastic band of the nylon concealed-carry sheath over her left wrist. Drawing the slender black-bladed throwing knife from the sheath, she examined the shimmering blade edges for bone or belt buckle nicks.

She bit her lower lip and considered. She couldnÕt have just left the superb little weapon in its target; sheÕd hand-machined and balanced it in her own workshop. Besides, as with all the knives she made, her initials were scripted in silver on the blade. Admittedly a vanity on her part.

SheÕd wiped it off on her attackerÕs jacket, but that wouldnÕt be at all adequate in these days of CSI. An overnight soak in a panful of gasoline would eliminate any DNA trace evidence on the knife, and the sheath could go into the fire, but if her erstwhile rapist didnÕt do the world a large favor and terminally hemorrhage before the paramedics got to him, he might be able to give the police her description and license number.

She sighed again. There was no getting around it. She was going to have to contact her controller, just in case there was any rap-chilling to be done. Bay Area prosecuting attorneys could be peculiar at times, even in cases of flagrant self-defense. It might be suggested that she should have gone to social counseling with her attacker before implanting four inches of steel in his duodenum.

Mr. Klein wouldnÕt be at all happy if this incident went public. He much preferred that his mobile ciphers maintain a decidedly low profile in their private lives. And as a professor of history, she was supposed to know only about weapons, not about how to use them.

She set the knife and sheath on the breakfast bar and crossed the hall to her office. She kept her private collection here. A built-in gun cabinet took up one entire end wall, and more razor-edged steel glittered on display against the dark cherrywood paneling, a number of the blades bearing her silver signature. The polished horn of a great sable antelope curved saberlike above the mission-style desk.

The overall air of the room should have been masculine, yet it wasnÕt. A subtle stylistic femininity had been imprinted upon itÑsubtle, yet dynamic and profoundly individualistic.

Sinking down behind the desk, the professor found a recorded message light glowing on her answering machine: a call on her unlisted private number. She pushed the caller ID key, and an Anacosta, Maryland, area code flashed up. Her brow cocked. She didnÕt need to contact Covert One. Her alternate employers were trying to contact her.

Ê

Russian Long Range Aviation Headquarters,

Vladivostok, the Russian Pacific Maritime Provinces

Major Gregori Smyslov braced a hand against the dashboard as the GAZ command car lurched over the potholed base road. Glancing out of the moisture-streaked side window, he frowned at the passing vista of dilapidated barracks and abandoned operations buildings under a sodden lead-colored sky. Serving here must have really been something...once.

The huge air base complex was a ghost of what it had been. Only a few of the hundreds of hardstands lining its broad runways were still occupied. Where once entire regiments of sleek swept-wing Sukhois and Tupolevs had staged, only a couple of understrength squadrons remained on alert, nervously watching the Chinese border.

The remainder of the vast facility hadnÕt even been mothballed, just abandoned to the wind and the rot and the foxes.

Smyslov was a New Russian. He could recognize the elemental fallacies at the heart of Communism that had led to the collapse of the USSR, and he still had the hope of seeing the eventual success of a free and democratic Russia in the twenty-first century. But he could understand the bitterness in the hearts of some of the old hands. They could remember the days of power, of respectÑdays when they werenÕt a joke in the eyes of the world.

The command car drew up in front of the Pacific Air Forces headquarters building, a massive windowless bastion of rust and water-stained concrete. Dismounting, Smyslov dismissed his driver. Turning up the collar of his greatcoat against the chill hiss of the rain, he strode up the puddle-mottled walkway to the main entrance.

Just short of the great bronze doors he paused and knelt, picking up a stony fragment from the pavement. It was a small chunk of concrete, freshly flaked from the facing of the headquarters building. Such disintegration was an endemic problem with much of the old Soviet architecture. Smyslov applied pressure, and the concrete crumbled between his gloved fingers. The Russian officer smiled without humor and shook away the wet, sandy remnants.

He was expected. After verifying his identification, a respectful sentry accepted his uniform cap and greatcoat, and a second led him deeper into the core of the headquarters. Even this building seemed only partially occupied, with many of its offices darkened and its echoing gray corridors nearly empty.

Smyslov cleared through a second security checkpoint, and the sentry handed him off to a tense staff officer, who led him on to the innermost sanctum of the complex.

The well-appointed wood-paneled office belonged to the commanding general of all Pacific Zone Long Range Aviation Forces, but the man seated behind a massive dark mahogany desk had more authority than even that.

Major Gregori Smyslov of the Four forty-ninth Air Force Special Security Regiment, reporting as ordered, sir.

General Baranov returned the salute. Good afternoon, Major. As you have no doubt been advised, you never received those orders. You are not here. I am not here. This meeting has never taken place. Is this understood?

I understand, sir, fully.

BaranovÕs cold gray eyes drilled into his. No, Major, you do not, but you will presently. The general gestured to the chair positioned before the desk. Please be seated.

As Smyslov sank into the appointed chair, the general drew an inch-thick folder onto the center of the deskÕs black leather blotter, flipping it open. Smyslov recognized his own zapiska, his service record. And he knew what its facing page would say.

Name: Smyslov, Gregori Andriovitch

Age: 31

Height: 199 centimeters

Weight: 92 kilograms

Eyes: Green

Hair: Blond

Birthplace: Berezovo, Uralsky Khrebet, Russian Federation

The photograph that accompanied the facing sheet would show a strong, not unpleasant mixture of blunt and angular features and narrow, rather good-humored eyes.

What else might be contained in the zapiska, Smyslov did not know. It might be his life, but it was the Air ForceÕs concern.

General Baranov flipped through a few of the pages. Major, your regimental commander thinks highly of you. He feels you are one of the best officers under his command, if not one of the best in our service. Looking through your records, I am inclined to agree.

The general flipped another page of the file, looking not down at it but into SmyslovÕs face, as if attempting to match what he had read with the man behind the words.

Thank you, General, Smyslov replied, carefully keeping his voice neutral. I have always endeavored to be a good officer.

You have succeeded. That is why you are here. I trust your regimental commander briefed you on the Misha 124 affair and of your duties related to it.

Yes, sir.

And what were you told?

That I was to be attached to a joint Russian-American investigation team being dispatched to the Misha crash site, as the Russian liaison. I will be operating with a Colonel Smith of the United States Army, and certain other American specialists. We are to investigate the downed aircraft and ascertain if any active biological warfare agents remain aboard it. We are also to ascertain the fate of the Misha aircrew and to recover their bodies. All aspects of this mission are to be held in the highest state of security.

Baranov nodded. I have recently returned from Washington, where I established those mission parameters and arranged for you to be attached to the American investigation group. What else were you told?

Nothing, sir. I was only ordered to proceed hereÑthe corner of SmyslovÕs mouth quirked in spite of himselfÑto this meeting that is not taking place, for a final-phase briefing on this assignment.

Very good. That is as it should be. Baronov nodded with deliberation. Tell me this, Major. Have you ever heard of the March Fifth Event?

March fifth? Smyslov considered, frowning. There was a girl he had known when heÕd been attending the Gagarin Academy, the busty little redheaded barmaid. Her birthday had been March fifth, hadnÕt it? But that couldnÕt possibly be what the commanding general of the Thirty-seventh Strategic Air Army could be concerned with.

No, sir. I have no idea what you mean.

Baranov nodded again. That is also as it should be.

The general levered himself up from behind the desk and crossed the office to a second door. Come with me, please, Major.

The second door opened on a small, windowless briefing room, a gray steel map table centered in it. A single file folder was, in turn, centered on the table. A diagonal orange stripe ran across the fileÕs gray cover, with a second bloodred bar down the spine.

As a security officer, Smyslov instantly recognized the document coding: Ultrasecret. Access by presidential authorization only.

Smyslov found himself wishing he still had his greatcoat. The office and the briefing room suddenly seemed colder.

Baronov gestured toward the file. This is the March Fifth Event. It is possibly the single most critical state secret held by your motherland. Any unauthorized revelation of the contents of this file means an automatic death sentence. Is that understood?

Yes, General.

You are now authorized access. Read it, Major. I will return for you shortly.

Baronov departed, locking the briefing room door behind him.

Smyslov circled the table, the room growing colder still. Sinking into a gray metal chair, he drew the file to him, his mind racing. March fifth? March fifth? There was something else about that date that he couldnÕt quite pull in, perhaps from a history class. Something foreboding.

He opened the untitled file.

The general gave the younger officer forty-five minutes. The file was not extensive, but Baranov recalled how, when he had been granted his authorization, he had gone through the documents twice in stunned disbelief.

In due course, Baranov rose from the desk again and unlocked the briefing room door. Major Smyslov still sat at the table, the closed file on the table before him. His face was pale under his tan, and he did not look up. His lips moved in a whisper. My God...my God.

It was much the same with me, Gregori Andriovitch, Baranov said gently. There are perhaps thirty other men in the entirety of Russia who know of the full contents of that file. You and I are the thirty-first and the thirty-second.

The general closed and secured the soundproof door behind him and took the chair across from Smyslov.

The younger man looked up, mastering himself. What are my orders, General? My true orders.

Firstly, Major, I can now tell you that the anthrax reservoir is still aboard the aircraft. Obviously, it was never jettisoned. However, that is far from our primary concern in this affair. The March Fifth Event is!

SmyslovÕs eyebrows arched. I can see how that could be, sir.

Attached to the American investigation group, you will be our point man on Wednesday Island, Baranov continued. You will be our eyes and ears. We will be relying upon you to assess the situation there. But you will not be operating alone. A Naval Spetsnaz platoon, trained and equipped for arctic warfare, is being dispatched to the island by nuclear submarine. They will land shortly before your arrival, and they will deploy and remain in concealment. You will be given means to communicate with them, and they will await word from you.

What...word am I supposed to give, General?

Concerning the March Fifth Event, Major. The Misha 124Õs political officer was under orders to destroy any and all evidence of the event at the crash site. However, he was also to destroy the aircraft and its anthrax warload as well. This plainly was not accomplished. Beyond this, all communication with Wednesday Island was lost before any confirmation of this sterilization was received.

So the Misha 124Õs crew was never rescued? Smyslov asked, his voice quiet.

It was not feasible, Baronov replied with grim simplicity. It is our profoundest hope that they eliminated all evidence of the March Fifth Event before...Your mission is to verify that this was accomplished. If such is the case, or if you can successfully destroy this evidence yourself, then the joint mission with the Americans to destroy the anthrax can proceed as overtly planned.