Black Wolf

49

The first priority was securing the buildings and making sure there were no Wolves left. Boston took charge of that, organizing a room by room sweep of the main house. Meanwhile, the severely injured were tended to. Tiny had broken his leg in the fall, and his ribs had been shattered by the Wolf’s punch. The trooper shot in the leg had lost a great deal of blood. Danny decided to have the Rattlesnakes take both of them directly to the nearest hospital. The other wounds turned out to be relatively minor, handled by temporary stitches, and an ice pack and aspirin in the case of a sprained ankle.

They’d been lucky, Danny realized. They’d taken the Wolves by surprise with overwhelming force, protected by the best body armor in the world and aided by technology that should have made this a cakewalk. But in truth, they could have easily been overwhelmed if the Wolves had reached their weapons.

So who were these guys? And was Stoner here?

Danny asked himself both questions as he walked through the house. The muscles in his legs trembled ever so slightly, moving sluggishly, as if the op had changed the electrical impulses they used to communicate with the brain.

He stood over a body in the hallway on the second floor. It was facedown in a pool of blood, riddled with bullets — the man looked to have taken an entire magazine, if not two, before going down.

Was this Stoner?

Danny dropped to his knee in the pool of blood and turned the body over. It was heavy — he had to use both hands.

The body slumped against the opposite wall, head flopping. For a second Danny thought he was alive and jerked back.

A bit of skull fell away.

It wasn’t Stoner.

Danny rose, his stomach starting to turn.

Danny went from corpse to corpse, expecting each time to see Stoner. He was sure as he approached each body that this would be him — this would be the man, vaguely remembered, who had saved his life, and whose life he had saved.

Each time his throat thickened and his heart pounded faster. Each time his breath seemed to slip away. And then each time the face, battered by bullets and covered with blood, didn’t belong to Mark Stoner. It was too young, too long, too round, too blond, or too different.

As varied as their faces were, all of the Wolves had many physical traits in common. All were at least six feet, most much taller. They were bulked up with muscles that would have made a bodybuilder jealous. Several were wearing prosthetics and implants. The man who Nuri had killed after he jumped from the roof of the house had an artificial leg fused to his bone just below his hip. Another of the men, killed in the house, had an artificial arm. Three of the others had scars on their upper arms and calves; Danny guessed there were implants of some sort there.

They gathered the bodies so they could be evacked and inspected by the technical team that evening. Danny went down to the Moldovan police lines to look at the other Wolves who’d been killed.

The deputy minister met him on the road. Lacu’s face was ashen; for all his earlier enthusiasm, he clearly hadn’t counted on so much bloodshed.

“We’re just finishing a sweep right now,” Danny told him. “We want to make sure there are no more booby traps. We have specialists, bomb people. Once it’s secure, you can come in and take over.”

The Moldovan deputy minister nodded.

“Nuri?” he asked.

“He and your sharpshooter are fine. They, uh, they were shaken up a bit. But your man was very brave. They were both brave.”

Lacu didn’t smile, exactly, but his nod this time seemed more positive.

“I need to look at the dead men,” said Danny. “We’re going to have to do, uh, autopsies.”

“Autopsies?” The minister didn’t understand the English word.

“Inspect the dead, the… uh, have doctors look at the bodies.”

Lacu still didn’t understand. Danny decided he’d let Nuri explain it to him, and went over to check on the rest of the Wolves.

Stoner wasn’t among them. None of the men had exoskeleton gear either. A good thing, Danny decided; it would help preserve the fiction that this had only been a drug raid.

“One of my men will show you a clear path to the marijuana fields,” Danny told the deputy minister. “But you should approach it very, very carefully. We don’t think there are booby traps, but you never know. These guys were really well prepared.”

“Yes,” said Lacu. “I see that.”

One body remained unchecked — the man who had blown himself up in the building.

Was it Stoner?

The explosion had leveled the building, turning it into a pile of debris. It would take days to dig through it.

It must have been Stoner, Danny thought, staring at the ruins. Knowing he was about to be captured, probably realizing the force after him was American.

Did Stoner know that he was there?

A chill swept over Danny’s body as he stared at the twisted wreckage. He felt certain Stoner was buried underneath.

“What happened?” Danny whispered to the last wisps of smoke that furled upward. “What really happened?”

In theory, the house should have contained a trove of information about the organization, even if actual records weren’t kept there. But the men had no personal effects — no IDs, no wallets even, nothing besides wads of euros and Moldovan leu, the local currency.

There were filing cabinets in the guardroom. Thinking they might be booby-trapped, Flash brought in a small electronic scanning device and determined there were no live circuits in the drawers. He drilled the key locks gingerly, but not trusting the Wolves, rigged a rope to open the first cabinet from outside the house.

Instead of the explosion he feared, there was a soft sound, almost like a pillow being fluffed. Smoke curled from the unit, followed by a small deck of flames that consumed the entire row of folders.

Shortly afterward, convinced that the area was secure and they hadn’t missed anything important, Danny called Breanna to tell her what was going on. He thought he was waking her up back in the States; to his surprise, he found her on the C–20 over the Atlantic, en route to Prague.

“It went well,” he told her. “But they’re all dead.”

“All of them?”

“I’m afraid so. One blew himself up in one of the buildings when it was clear he wasn’t getting out alive. The others were in no mood to surrender. They were like supermen. They’re all extremely strong.”

Danny described some of what had happened.

“Was Mark one of them?” Breanna asked finally.

“I don’t — he’s not one of the dead,” said Danny. “But…”

His voice trailed off.

“Danny?”

“I think he may have been the one who blew himself up. I — it’s just a hunch, I guess. Maybe a gut feeling.”

“Do you have photos or—”

“Nothing. No evidence. I reviewed the video images. There’s no shot of his face. But I just — I guess I feel that it’s him. It’s not rational, I know.”

“All right. And, to find out we have to dig through the wreckage, right?”

“It’ll take days.”

“We’ll get more manpower,” she told him. “The medical team and the other experts will be there by this evening.”

“Right. I should get back to Kiev. Just, uh, in case they have more people.”

“Yes, absolutely. Listen, I’ll be in Prague in a few hours — should I come to Moldova?”

“I don’t know that it would be necessary,” said Danny. “Why Prague?”

“There’s an air show. We’ve taken an aircraft that some of the NATO members are interested in. And I’m going to surprise Zen — he and Teri and my niece are there for the show.”

“Oh.”

“Did Zen tell you he was going to Kiev for the NATO conference?”

“No.”

“He is. It was a last-minute substitution when Senator Osten had a heart attack.”

“No, jeez, I hadn’t known at all.”

“Yes, he’ll be there. Listen, I know you and Zen text each other. Don’t tell him I’m going to Prague. It’s a surprise. OK?”

“No sweat.”

They talked a little more. Breanna agreed to brief Reid herself, saving Danny from giving his whole rundown all over. She told Danny that the task force that had developed the information on the Wolves was being expanded. It was likely that, with the op over, Whiplash would be able to come home and regroup.

“After Kiev,” she said. “Assuming nothing happens there.”

“Right.”

While they had knocked out a good part of the organization, Danny was sure they hadn’t gotten the real leader or leaders.

“These guys were just the muscle,” he said, aware of the understatement. “Whoever put these guys together like this — he or she would be capable of doing just about anything. We can’t let our guards down.”

“We’re not going to.”

50

He saw it in his head.

The aircraft veered in the sky, wing tipping toward the ground. In the first moments, the spectators thought it was part of the show. They had come to be thrilled, were used to seeing aircraft pirouette dangerously close to the ground. This looked like one more maneuver.

Then a few realized it wasn’t intentional at all. The plane was moving unnaturally, sharply sideways and downward. There was something wrong with the wing and engine. Smoke.

A missile had struck.

The next three seconds would be a blur. Then everything would move in a strange sort of slow motion, time jumbled backward and forward at the same time. Black smoke would spout from the ground, even before the flames, before the shock of the explosion. A spiked yellow ball would veer from the center of smoke, rolling wildly through the air. Everything would turn white.

There would be a moment of peace, a tease before the pain.

A rush of air came next. The lucky ones would know death.

The man they called the Black Wolf closed his eyes, fighting off the vision, closing away his own memory, trying to return to the task at hand.

He could strike the aircraft with a missile from here, at the edge of the runway, during one of the shows. It would serve as a cover for the rest of the operation, the attack on the officials. With the proper timing, the horror would be multiplied.

But it added difficulty. Getting past the security was a solvable problem, but once the shot was taken, escape would be very difficult, probably unlikely.

Did he care? In some ways death would be a relief. It would end the pain that constantly attacked him from every direction at once.

But if he took the shot here, he would not be present for the rest of the mission. He would not lead the assault, and could not guarantee that it would succeed. It wasn’t hubris to think that he was the most important piece of the plan, the leader the others depended on for success. That was his real function. He was the Black Wolf.

Drama was not the goal of the mission. He would not attack the aircraft.

The Black Wolf folded his arms pensively. He would launch the op elsewhere.

A security guard stopped him on the way out of the airport. The Black Wolf rolled down the window, curious about the procedures. He had not anticipated being stopped on the way out.

“Do you have your papers?” asked the guard, speaking in Czech.

The Black Wolf handed them over. They claimed he was Slovak.

“I have a cousin who lives in Trencin,” said the man.

“I live outside the city,” replied the Black Wolf. “We have an old family farm.”

“It must be very nice.”

“Unfortunately, there is no money for the farm, but the scenery is very pleasing. That is why I have this job.”

The words flowed easily from his mouth. As long as he could remember, he’d had a way with words. The ability to use many different languages had blossomed after the change. Before, his languages were primarily Asian. Now he could wander Europe like a native as well.

They’d made him smarter. Stronger. Younger, in a way.

He’d trade that for relief from the pain. For peace, finally.

“It’s very bad,” agreed the guard. “A shame for common people.”

“We have worked hard,” said the Black Wolf. “But we must take outside jobs. My parents — eventually they will lose the farm. It seems a sin. It was taken from the family first by the communists, then restored. Now we lose it again.”

“And you are here on work? What do you do?”

“A mechanic. Fixing machines.” He smiled, then shrugged. “It is a knack I picked up.”

“I have ten thumbs, I think.”

“Will there be much traffic tomorrow?” asked the Black wolf. “I am supposed to arrive before dawn. They told us to be prepared. But I have such a long way to come. I couldn’t afford to stay in the city. I have a cousin, thank God, with a couch. But he lives an hour away.”

“Oh, that’s bad. I would give myself plenty of time. The security will be ferocious. Even for workers.”

“Which gate would be the shortest?”

The man thought for a moment. “I would use the one we use, at the south. There will be a few trucks, but you should get through the quickest.”

“Then I’ll have to drive across the runway.”

“You can take the inner road — ask for a pass.”

The soldier talked on. The Black Wolf nodded, taking mental notes. He had more than enough information to plan an attack here, but pumping the man was good habit. One never knew when plans had to be changed or what contingencies would have to be followed.

An American C–17 landed as they were talking, its engines so loud the guard fell silent.

“Quite a plane,” said the guard.

“Yes,” said the Black Wolf. I jumped from one, he almost added. The words appeared in his brain and almost made it to his tongue.

Had he really parachuted from a C–17?

Shards of the memory flickered into his head. He saw himself going out…

What life was that? What had he been before the crash?

A killer, as he always had been.

“Was there something else?” asked the guard.

The Black Wolf realized he’d been staring into the distance for a few seconds, lost in the muddled memory.

“Nothing,” he told the man, rolling up the window. “Thank you for your kindness. It was good to talk.”

51

With the success at the farm, the Wolf operation now entered a new phase, focused on figuring out who had organized the group. The task force that had originally developed the leads would now revisit everything obtained earlier, adding to it the data Whiplash had developed. Technically, the investigation had always belonged to them — Whiplash was in a sense a hired gun, called into action because of the eminent danger. While Whiplash’s job wasn’t over yet, the investigators would now take the lead. Whiplash was an operational unit; detective work was neither its raison d’être nor its forte.

Danny ordered the team to pack up and relocate to the Ukraine. He decided he’d arrange to officially join the security there, though he’d keep Hera and McEwen and the surveillance network they’d established under wraps for now. He would fly to the city immediately, leaving Boston to coordinate the load out here.

Someone had to orient the medical and technical investigators, as well as the task force coordinator, who were on the way. Nuri, as the lead CIA operative, naturally drew the assignment. And since he was doing that, he took charge of having the site secured and wrapping up the dozens of loose ends the operation had left behind.

It was tedious in the extreme. Rather than using the military base, he arranged to secure the dead bodies in a small food packing plant about thirty miles from the farm. Lacu, the Moldovan deputy interior minister, happily volunteered a dozen men to guard them. Nuri decided that wasn’t enough — he had Lacu detail two dozen more, along with the armored car. And then he made sure that a contingent of U.S. Marines from the embassy in Chisinau could beef them up.

He gave Gleeb a quick summary of what had happened, along with the developing official version — crazy drug dealers had decided to shoot it out with the Moldovan task force, which had shown great bravery while miraculously avoiding casualties.

Lacu’s men were taking plenty of photos of the marijuana. Eventually, someone would want to see the bodies and very likely the actual house, but with luck that could be pushed back a few days — long enough that Nuri would be gone by then.

Lacu arranged for an around-the-clock guard at the farm. Nuri assumed the technical team would want to dig through the ruins for more evidence, so he instructed the Moldovans to keep their distance, warning them there were countless booby traps that hadn’t been disarmed. The wreckage of the training building made the point more eloquently than he could have, and he was reasonably certain the policemen would keep their distance long enough for the technical team to arrive.

By four o’clock everything was under control, at least for the evening. Nuri decided it was time to get some rest. But where?

Back in the village where he’d rented a room? It was as good a place as any, he decided, hunting for a policeman who could drive him back to his car.

52

“Daddy, look at this room. It’s a real castle room!”

Zen chuckled as he rolled through the large reception room. The Czechs had arranged for some of the NATO air delegates to stay at a large, government-owned guesthouse about six and a half kilometers from Kbely Airport, where the show was taking place. Guesthouse was something of a misnomer — the place was literally an old castle, converted to government use following World War II.

“It is a real castle,” said Caroline.

“I wonder if there are any dragons in the closets,” said Zen. “What do you think, Caroline?”

“I think it’s a real possibility,” she said, winking at her uncle.

The late-afternoon sun cast long shadows on the floor, making it easy to imagine that there were strange creatures lurking nearby, but Teri was having none of it.

“There are no such thing as dragons,” she said definitively. “I’m not three, Dad. I know make-believe.”

“There could still be dragons,” said Zen. “I wouldn’t rule them out just because I never saw them.”

The main keep — the large building at the center of the facility — had been turned into a conference center and museum. The large central room, once used by the lord of the manor to receive accolades from the peasants he owned and hand out punishment for crimes, was now lined with armor and antique weapons. Teri, eyes wide, stared at everything, practically dizzy with excitement, or maybe just jet lag.

Their guide, a young woman about Caroline’s age, swept her hand and declared that all of the weapons on this side of the room had belonged to the last family to own the castle. All had been restored to superb condition.

“The weapons were in significant disrepair,” she said in sturdy English, “when the People took the property over. The People have done a very fine job with them, do not you think?”

“I do think,” said Zen, rolling over to one of the battle-axes. The blades gleamed with the light from the fixtures suspended above.

“Were these ever used?” asked Caroline.

“We cannot to be sure,” said the guide. “Similar weapons would have been intended for show in other families. Sometimes they might be used in ceremonies, certainly. They are very old, so it is hard to tell.”

“I think I see blood on that handle,” said Zen.

He was teasing, but the others all looked.

“Maybe senator is correct,” said the guide.

The tour continued through one of the two doors at the far end of the hall. A suite of conference rooms had been built in the courtyard. These backed into the keep, so that the great room was connected to the meeting area by a short hallway. This transitional space was lit by a large glass skylight. The effect was as if you were stepping into a time machine and materializing back in the twenty-first century.

Zen, tired from the flight, had a little trouble negotiating the threshold, his wheelchair veering with the bumps. He barely kept himself from cursing as he crashed into the wall, fortunately at a slow speed.

Caroline looked at him, but knew from experience that he didn’t want or need any help. The guide, unfortunately, didn’t, and came over and took the back of his chair.

“I’m all right,” said Zen, pushing the chair back a little too hard in annoyance. “It’s OK.”

“Daddy likes to drive himself,” said Teri.

“So I do, my princess,” said Zen. “Makes me feel like a king. Appropriate for a castle.”

Flustered, the guide started talking about the work the People had done on the castle.

Zen thought it was interesting the way she used the phrase “the People” instead of the government. On the one hand, it was a vestige from the old days of Communist party rule, still a sore subject for many Czechs. On the other, it was a reminder of who actually owned the country, and Zen couldn’t fault it.

Except for the communist connections, he’d recommend it for the U.S. He knew far too many supposed government servants, to say nothing of elected officials, who could use the reminder.

They moved on, down a ramp past a modern kitchen. It continued in a series of rectangular turns, leading them to a large stone room below the main hall.

“This is the dungeon, where prisoners were kept. And wine,” added the guide. “I’m not sure whether they really went together. You can see the chains still on the walls. And the old graffiti.”

Teri followed the guide, craning her neck toward the wrought-iron circles embedded in the stones.

“Uncle Jeff, I think Teri may be getting a little tired,” said Caroline. “Her eyes are droopy.”

“I think you’re right. We’re probably all good for an early bedtime. We’ll head over to the rooms after this,” he said. “Pretty interesting place, though, no?”

“It’s a little creepy,” said Caroline.

“You think?”

“This room especially. Can you imagine it before they took the wall away? There would have been no light. It would have been a horrible place to be held prisoner.”

“You do the crime, you pay the dime,” said Zen.

“Or if you disagree with the lord of the castle,” she added. “He was god, as far as the local peasants were concerned. If he didn’t like you, the chains went on.”

“That’s a point,” said Zen. “Though probably if you did something to really piss him off, he’d just have you killed. Why waste the space?”

53

“There’s no question about it,” said Hera, pointing at the computer screen. It displayed an image of the interior of the large building the Wolves had used on the farm. “This part here resembles the interior of the ministry where the NATO meeting is to take place. Look at the access path they took.”

Hera superimposed a diagram of the meeting hall on the photo, then had the computer show the paths the Wolves had taken inside.

“There are gaps in the walls here and here,” said Danny. “Those aren’t on the Kiev building.”

“True, but notice that they don’t go through those spaces. And they ignore this part as well. They could have run something across the space to block it off so the radar wouldn’t pick it up. A simple rope or ribbon. They might have realized that they could be scanned, and disguised the layout. Or maybe it’s something generic that they adapted.”

Danny rubbed his fingers across his scalp, scratching a nonexistent itch. He was extremely tired — he hadn’t slept in almost forty-eight hours, and if you added the time he’d actually slept the week before, the total would have come in under twenty. He’d already had one go-pill, but wanted to avoid taking another. While the doctors claimed they weren’t addictive, he just didn’t like the idea.

“I think they must have been planning to stash those robotic helicopters in one of these warehouse buildings,” continued Hera. She pointed to a row of buildings eight-tenths of a kilometer away. “They would have a straight shot right across the roadway here. Go over this fence — or blow it up — and they’re there.”

McEwen stared at the screen pensively.

“You don’t think that’s the place?” Hera asked.

“Oh, I think it’s definitely the place,” said the older CIA officer. “But those helicopters wouldn’t have taken them very far, according to what your scientists said. They had to have some other place in mind.”

“I think we should check out the warehouses,” said Hera.

“And the airport,” said McEwen. “Because the airport is within range of the helicopters. So they get in them, fly to the airport, and leave from there.”

“The airport would be shut down,” answered Hera.

“In ten minutes? I doubt it. You could have a private plane ready to leave. Or even a helicopter.”

“We should check into all of that,” said Danny, trying but failing to suppress a yawn.

“I think one of us should get some rest,” said McEwen.

“I’m OK,” said Danny. He got up from the chair. “All right, so they’re at the airport and they have an airplane. Where would they go?”

“Over the border, back to Moldova,” said Hera.

“No, they’d want to keep the country as a safe haven,” said McEwen. “They’ve clearly worked from there before. They’re going to go somewhere safe.”

“They’re being followed,” said Danny, yawning again.

“They parachute out,” said Hera.

“I could see that,” said Danny. “But where?”

The possibilities were endless. Danny scaled back, suggesting that they have MY-PID check for leases and plane charters that might be suspicious.

“No offense to the computer,” said McEwen, “but don’t you think we’re better off doing the legwork ourselves?”

“The computer can find things we can’t,” said Danny.

“And vice versa.”

“All right,” Danny agreed. “Let’s do it both ways.”

“We’ll take care of it,” McEwen told him. “In the meantime, why don’t you get some rest?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Hera.

“Ganging up on me?” Danny smiled.

“Your eyes are like slits, Colonel,” said McEwen. “I hate to be the one to say this, but you really do need your rest. There’s no substitute.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he said sarcastically.

She frowned.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “I’m off to bed. Wake me if you find anything important.”

54

Nuri was hungry as well as tired, and since it was dinnertime, the first place he stopped when he got to the village was the café. The hostess acted as if he was an old friend when he came in, taking him to the table at the front with great ceremony. Her tray of cordials quickly followed.

“Too tired to drink,” he said.

“No, no, tired good. Pep you up.”

Maybe he would have a drink, he decided. He felt pretty wound up, too keyed up to sleep.

“You should have a drink with me,” Nuri suggested as she began setting out the bottles.

“Oh, I cannot do that. Not with a customer.”

“You sure?”

“My husband is the cook,” warned the woman.

“He should have one as well.”

The woman laughed and said he would not like the effect even a single drink would have on his food.

Nuri picked a green bottle at random. To his surprise, the liqueur was pink.

To his even greater surprise, it actually didn’t taste bad.

“I think I should put myself in your hands,” he said, handing back the menu. “I’m very hungry.”

She nodded confidently.

“I imagine it will be different than what your Russian friends ordered last night,” he added.

Her smile turned to a frown. “They wouldn’t know good food if it bit them.”

“Why do so many Russians come here?” he asked. “To the village — not here. Here it’s obvious. Your food is so good. And the cocktails.”

He pointed at his empty glass.

“They only drink vodka,” she told him.

“What is it about the area? If they don’t really ride bikes?”

She shrugged. “It’s always been that way.”

Nuri got little else from her but food. She brought an appetizer dish that looked as if it were pancakes, though there were bits of what he thought were meat in them. The main course was familiar — beef with noodles, and very good.

Dessert consisted of two pastries. They looked exactly the same, but tasted very different. One, filled with some sort of fruit, was borderline delicious. The other, with a mystery filling, was borderline poisonous.

Maybe not so borderline. Nuri had one bite, felt his stomach start to turn, and got up to use the restroom.

When he came back, the hostess was clearing the table. He started another conversation, mentioning that someone had told him about a Russian doctor who helped train athletes for the Olympics before Moldova was independent.

“Russian doctors.” She made a face.

“Bad?”

“One struck my mother in the street twenty years ago. She could not walk forever after that accident. Did he even apologize? And he came back many times — still sometimes I see him.”

“He lived here?”

“Not lived. But stayed. Russians.” She shook her head.

“Came here a lot?”

“Not in my café.”

“But the town.”

“They come in. They think they own us.”

“I’m sure. What about this guy? He owned a house?”

“She has the house. A kilometer out of town. She is Russian, too. He pays, I’m sure. You know the kind. With a family. On the side, they play.”

“You know his name?”

“Pfff — all Russians. Who keeps track?”

She took the dishes and went back into the kitchen.

Nuri reached into his pocket for the MY-PID controller and called up a photo of the doctor.

“Is this him?” he asked when she returned.

The hostess made a face, then looked at him as if he had tricked and betrayed her.

“I’m an investigator for the Olympics,” he told her quickly. “We believe this man may have done some illegal things. If you have information about where he lived here, or any of his dealings, it would remain confidential. I would never say where I got it.”

It was one thing to complain about the Russians, and quite another to reveal that you were investigating them, especially when you had appeared to be just a benign tourist. The woman instantly turned cold, going so far as to pretend that she didn’t understand his English.

It had been a calculated risk, and Nuri knew he had had lost. But her reaction made it obvious that the doctor was in fact the same person. Finding which property he owned was simply a process of elimination, solved within a few minutes by MY-PID as it searched through property and utility records. These were somewhat sparse, but the computer filled in the gaps by accessing every possible record it could find. It finally gave Nuri two possible locations for the house.

There was no way he was going to sleep now, at least not until he checked them out. They were two kilometers away, one northeast and the other just slightly northwest of the hamlet.

He drove past both. Neither looked much like the sort of place a man who lived in the Chisinau mansion would choose. Both were over a hundred years old; neither measured more than eight hundred square feet. One leaned to the left; the other seemed to be missing a foundation pier on the right. The lights were on in both houses, but neither had cars out front.

Nuri debated what to do. The action at the farm had shown that the Wolves were extremely formidable, and he didn’t want to walk into an ambush. On the other hand, the longer they waited to talk to the woman, the less likely they’d find anything of use. He debated it back and forth and finally decided to see what he could find out.

Nuri parked in the driveway of the house that was missing the foundation pier. It was a muddy, rutted affair that cut diagonally across the front yard. He got out of his car. He was still working on his cover story when the door opened. The inside light framed a slender blonde in her early twenties standing in the doorway.

“Can I help you?” she asked in Moldovan.

“I am looking for Dr. Nudstrumov,” he said, using Russian.

“Dr. Nudstrumov? What are you saying?”

She was still speaking in Moldovan, and didn’t appear to recognize the Russian at all when Nuri repeated it.

“I don’t know a doctor,” she told him. “Do you have the right house?”

The woman was pretty, and certainly the sort that might be kept in a love nest, as the woman at the café had put it. But as soon as Nuri heard a male voice behind her, the theory lost a great deal of credibility.

Unless, of course, the man was one of the Wolves.

“Perhaps he uses a different name,” said Nuri, exhausting the phrases he had memorized with MY-PID’s help.

The woman shrugged. The man appeared behind her. He was only a little taller than she was, thin — not an overjuiced type like the men at the Wolf farm.

“I’m looking for the doctor’s relatives,” said Nuri, moving to English as the idea occurred to him. “Because we have news — we believe he is dead.”

“Who?” said the young man. He understood the English, but it quickly became clear that the doctor’s name meant nothing to either him or the girl. Nuri showed them the photo on the MY-PID without getting a reaction.

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” he told them.

The second house was so close to the road that Nuri couldn’t even park in front of it, fearing that his vehicle would be sideswiped. He found a wide shoulder about thirty meters farther down. Parking there, he walked back along the road’s edge. As he approached, he could see an old woman working in the kitchen, washing dishes. She had the wrinkled face of a woman who had seen much trouble in her life, but her movements were graceful, the sort of effortless gestures a ballerina might make.

Nuri stopped. What would she have looked like twenty years before, when the athletic training facility was still operating?

In her thirties, still attractive, but on the precipice of decline.

Nuri prompted MY-PID for a new set of phrases, rehearsing them as he walked to the house.

“The doctor sent me,” he said when he knocked on the door. “I was to collect the things.”

“What?” she answered harshly in Moldovan.

“I don’t know. He said that you would know.”

“Are you crazy?”

Remembering what the woman at the café had said, Nuri switched to Russian.

“The doctor sent me,” he told her.

“What language is that? Speak in Moldovan.”

He repeated the words the computer had told him.

“Moldovan,” insisted the woman.

“You don’t understand?” said Nuri, still in Russian.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” insisted the woman.

“You were a dancer,” said Nuri, guessing but knowing at the same time. “And still beautiful.”

Her frown deepened. Nuri held out his hands. “I am just a messenger.”

She frowned. Her lower lipped curled downward. Then she told him to come in.

There was nothing in the house to indicate that the doctor had ever been there, or had the slightest connection with the woman. There was very little in the house at all — the front sitting room where she led Nuri had only two places to sit, one a wooden chair, the other a very old sofa, badly frayed. The television at the side looked to be from the Soviet era.

The woman left Nuri sitting there and went back to washing her dishes. He was sure he was right about the connection, but he began to worry that she had somehow tipped off a helper. Finally, he heard the whistle of a teakettle. She stopped doing the dishes; after a few minutes she came out with a tray of cookies and tea. It was an old-world gesture, a show of culture and dignity at a moment of personal despair.

“I knew a day would come when he would end all things,” she said softly, speaking in Russian.

Nuri didn’t understand all the words, but the meaning of what she was saying was clear as she picked up the teacup, her hand trembling slightly. She sipped slowly. The heat from the liquid formed a light cloud of vapor, softening her face. Nuri thought he could see into the past, see what she would have looked like when the Russian first met her, already well past her prime as a dancer.

They drank in silence. Nuri wanted to tell her something to comfort her, but there was nothing he could say. Telling her the doctor was dead would surely not comfort her, and any mention of any sort of money or being taken care of would probably be an even worse insult. He was a voyeur to her pain, powerless to alleviate it.

She drank about half her cup, then abruptly but gracefully put it down and rose. He noticed for the first time that she walked with a slight limp, the product undoubtedly of injuries as a youth.

Was that how they had met? Had the doctor tried to cure her, and failed?

And knowing what he had done to the others — or what he seemed to have done — could he have cured her? If so, had he considered the trade-offs too much of a price for her to pay?

But it was worse than that, or more complicated, at least. She returned with a manila envelope.

“This is what you want,” she told him.

Nuri took it. As he was leaving, she stopped him.

“We met in hospital,” she told him. “A bad omen.”

She continued speaking. Nuri didn’t understand the words but nodded as she talked. MY-PID supplied a translation after he reached the car:

“I was desperate to extend my career. He promised me everything. I didn’t even get six more months.

Vanity has the greatest price.”

The envelope contained a small key that looked like it went to a safety deposit box. But there were no markings on it. Finding what bank it had come from, let alone what the box number there was, would be a long process.

As he drove back toward the guest house, he asked MY-PID for an update on the farm as well as its efforts to turn up more information on the Wolves and the slain doctor. The computer gave him a long list of seemingly trivial connections. Realizing he was starting to tune out, he asked it to tell him what was going on at the farm.

“No material change,” reported the computer.

“Are the Predators still on station?”

“Affirmative.”

“Detail one over to the facility Danny Freah checked out the other day. Have it look for buried bodies.”

“More specific information required.”

Nuri gave it what he could. Then he told the computer to look on the farm property as well. Maybe there had been some accidents there.

“No grave sites at property identified as farm,” answered the computer.

“You checked already?”

“Affirmative.”

The property had been gone over thoroughly by the radar scans; MY-PID had only to take the electronic equivalent of a glance to check.

“Wow,” said Nuri. “Nothing of use?”

“Question not understood.”

“Was there nothing buried on the property?” asked Nuri. “Besides the mines and the tunnel, I mean. And the sensors.”

“Foreign objects buried on the property,” said the computer, beginning a list of items that started with a collection of broken bottles.

Nuri stopped the computer when it mentioned a fireproof strong box.

“Describe the box and where it is located,” said Nuri. “Then direct me to it.”

55

What amazed Hera about McEwen was not her knowledge of the city, or even the ease with which she struck up conversations. The impressive thing was that she seemed to know everyone, or almost everyone, from the attendant at the parking lot at the airport to the after-hours security man patrolling the hangar area at the Kiev airport.

The attendant at the parking lot told her that the charter aircraft company whose owner she wanted to talk to had gone out of business six months before. She checked the office anyway — vacant — then took Hera to the terminal bar where the former owner generally hung out and occasionally slept. He wasn’t there, and neither of the two bartenders seemed to know who she was talking about when she asked.

“Damn,” said McEwen. “He knew everything that was going on.”

Her conversation with the security guard sitting at the far end of the bar was more fruitful. McEwen started by asking about the man’s mother, who’d been in poor health the last time they met. She was doing considerably better, thank you, said the man.

The conversation went on from there, the words flying by so quickly that even MY-PID couldn’t keep up.

There was too much of an age difference between them for the relationship to be sexual, Hera was sure. And yet it certainly seemed intimate — McEwen gave him a light kiss on the cheek before taking out some bills to pay the bartender so they could go.

“We’re going to need the car,” she told Hera. “Where we want to go is not far from here, but I’d prefer we weren’t seen.”

Hera drove as McEwen led her around the perimeter of the large airport, driving down empty access roads in the industrial park at the side of the airport. Finally they reached what looked like a dead end.

“Go down this alley to the right, then take a left,” said McEwen. “And turn off your lights.”

“It’s too narrow.”

“You can fit. You want me to drive?”

Hera declined. McEwen drove like a little old lady — who’d just inhaled a half pound of crack cocaine.

Even in the small Fiat they’d rented, she had trouble cutting the turn, but once in the alley there was plenty of clearance along the sides — as long as they kept the mirrors folded against the car.

“We want to check the fifth hangar,” said McEwen as they turned onto a wider street. “But park at the second. We’ll walk from there.”

The hangars were metal buildings dating from the seventies, too small now for anything but private planes. They were being used mostly to store parts and featured rusted padlocks and peeling paint. Hera followed McEwen out around the side of Hangar Two to a narrow back path, approaching Hangar Five from the rear.

“There’s a security camera on the hangar across the way,” McEwen explained. “This one is wide open, but it would be better if we weren’t seen, I think.”

“How do we get in?”

“You can’t pick a lock?”

“I can pick locks.”

Rusted barrels of refuse crowded along the back of the building. Hera had to squeeze over a pair of them and then push them away to get to the back door.

It was so old the lock had rusted in place. She couldn’t get her pick to move the tumblers.

“We’ll go to Plan B,” said McEwen.

McEwen disappeared around the corner. Before Hera could follow, she heard glass breaking.

“What was that?” asked Hera.

“Plan B,” said McEwen, standing in front of the broken window. “Why don’t you go first? It’s a little hard to climb in my dress.”

Hera’s small LED flashlight was just powerful enough to light up the entire interior, but then there wasn’t much to illuminate. A collection of rusted steel garbage cans and drums stood next to the wall near the front. Discarded cardboard boxes were stacked in a semineat pile near the back. Two roofs’ worth of shingles sat on pallets at the exact center of the building.

And that was it.

“Pretty empty,” said Hera, shining the light around.

McEwen leaned in the window. “Give me a hand,” she said.

Hera was surprised at how firm the petite woman’s muscles were. She was light, not much more than a hundred pounds, if that.

“All right then,” said McEwen, straightening her clothes. “Let’s see what we have.”

She walked over to the cardboard boxes, bending and turning a few of them over.

“Toilet paper, handouts for passengers,” she announced, straightening. “Interesting.”

Hera rolled her eyes.

“Let’s see what they’re throwing out,” said McEwen, walking over to the garbage.

Two-by-fours and assorted sticks in the first can. Roofing material in the second.

AK–47s and grenades in the third.

“Bingo,” said McEwen.

The hangar had been rented by a company named Vleta Servici Ltd. MY-PID quickly determined that Vleta was associated with a company named Duga TEF, which had a small number of dealings in Russia. It found two bank accounts associated with Duga, then began tracking transfers that had been made into and out of the accounts. Within a half hour it had profiled a spidery network in Ukraine and Russia.

By then Hera and McEwen had removed the rifles and grenades from the premises, and planted several video bugs around the interior of the hangar. They’d also cleaned up the glass, removing the shards and the shattered pane. Someone looking at it would realize it had been broken, of course, but it was only one pane and might be overlooked, especially by someone coming in from the front.

“You think they were planning a hijacking?” asked Hera as she prepared to back the car precariously down the alley.

“I think it’s more in the way of a backup plan,” said McEwen. “A cache of weapons in case something goes bad. A group coming into the airport could grab them; someone wanting to leave could take them, and maybe use the boxes as cover to get them aboard an airplane. It’s a contingency.”

“Why just a contingency?”

“Think about it. You do mostly covert action, right? If you were planning something, you’d have your best gear with you.”

“Sure.”

“You might pre-position it, but you’d take critical care of it. No one could just barge in and grab it, or come upon it accidentally. The Wolves are as professional as you are. These weapons were ridiculously easy to get to — they could get in just by breaking a window, like we did.”

“True,” said Hera. “But—”

“They may have been a backup,” said McEwen carefully. “Not their main cache but something they could grab quickly in an emergency.”

She paused, thinking

“Or they may be a blind,” she added. “A misdirection. Either way, we’re not done. Not by a long shot.”

56

The C–20B was an Air Force spec Boeing 737. While not nearly as luxurious as the standard corporate configuration of the plane, it was a VIP jet, with a number of features that anyone who ever had to fly in the belly of a C–5A or C–130 would have killed for.

Case in point: Breanna’s seat. It moved back, so it was essentially an inclined bed, about as comfortable as you could get in an airplane cabin without actually having a bed.

Breanna, however, found it uncomfortable. And even when she finally decided she’d be best off taking a nap before landing, had an almost impossible time dozing off. Finally she fell off into a fitful sleep, images flitting through her mind, ideas and arguments.

“Why didn’t you save me?”

The voice came from across the river. She jumped from the bed — she was still in the tent.

“Why didn’t you save me?” asked Mark Stoner.

She reached over to get Zen, but he was gone.

“Breanna — I saved you.”

“Mark? Are you out there?”

“Where are you?” he said.

She knew it was a dream — it could only be a dream — and yet it felt so real that it wasn’t a dream. It was something between a dream and reality, its own category.

“Where are you?” she asked. She pushed out of the tent, still in the sweats she had gone to sleep in. The air was cold. She felt goose bumps forming on her legs and neck. Her hands were so cold they were hard to move. She clasped them under her arms to keep warm.

“Why didn’t you help me?” he asked. “I saved you.”

“We saved each other,” she said. “Do you remember — we jumped.”

Had they jumped? Or was that with Zen? Now she couldn’t remember — Zen had saved her once, in India, had protected her and gotten them rescued. It was Zen, Zen who had saved her.

But she’d parachuted another time. Stoner was there — who had saved who?

God, she couldn’t remember.

They’d been together in the water.

It was a dream but it felt too real, as if they were there together now.

“Mark? Mark, are you OK?” she asked.

“I have to kill them now,” he said.

She screamed.

“Ma’am, you OK?”

Breanna opened her eyes and saw the Defense Department aide standing over her, a very concerned look on her face.

“I — just had a very, very bad dream,” Breanna told her.

“Can I get you something? Ambien?”

“No, that’s all right.” Breanna pushed the seat upright. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to sleep after that. In fact she was sure of it.

“We still have a long way to go,” said the aide. “We’re stopping in Sicily to refuel. We won’t be touching down in Prague until early morning. It’d be good to try and sleep if you can.”

“Thanks. If I need a pill, I’ll ask.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Breanna thought of calling Zen and Teri. She longed to hear their voices. Zen’s especially.

But she was being silly. The Wolf operation had been smashed, and while Danny thought Stoner might be the man who’d blown himself up in the building, Breanna realized that the DNA match must have been a fluke. Poor Mark had died in the crash fifteen years ago. Very possibly his body had disintegrated immediately.

She was sorry for him, dreadfully sorry. But she’d already grieved his passing.

“Maybe I will take the pill,” she told the aide. “If you can guarantee to have plenty of coffee to wake me when we get to Prague.”

57

Nuri pushed the spade into the dirt, hammering down with his right heel against the top of the shovel. The box had been buried quite a while ago; the ground was hard.

The radar had reported it was two meters below the surface — six feet. That didn’t sound like much, until you started digging. The first foot or so was tough — a shrub had grown almost exactly over the box, and there were tree roots on the side to contend with. The next foot or so was somewhat easier, though the clay soil only reluctantly gave way.

The rest was hell. It didn’t help that it was after midnight and he’d been awake for a millennium. Or so it seemed.

He pushed downward in a circle, working his way around as he created a funnel. The moon was nearly full, but the sky was filled with clouds, and the only light came from two battery-powered lanterns loaned by the Moldovan police contingent guarding the house.

He’d asked the deputy minister if they had a backhoe. Lacu wasn’t sure, but promised to look into it by morning. Nuri figured he’d be halfway to China by then.

Or maybe not. Five feet deep in the hole, and he was ready to drop his concerns about letting the Moldovans see whatever was in the box. But it didn’t make sense to stop now. He knew he was close. He poked and attacked with the shovel, using it as a pick.

Finally he hit something hard.

He scraped, pried, scrambled up for one of the lanterns.

Back in the hole, he dug at it with his hands.

It was a rock.

Ten minutes later, he pried the rock away and found the box.

Two of the men who were guarding the house came up as he was pulling it from the ground.

“I could have used you guys a half hour ago,” he said in English, pushing it ahead of him as he clambered up the side.

“Moltumesc,” said one of the men, taking the box.

“Give me a hand, would you?” Nuri asked.

“Da,” said the man.

The other smashed Nuri in the back of the head with his rifle, sending him tumbling back into the hole.

58

Hera was surprised to find Danny up and sitting at their laptop when she and McEwen returned to the hotel suite.

“I thought you were sleeping,” she said.

“I did.”

“What, for two hours?”

“You going to mother me, too, are you?” he asked, unfurling his bare feet from beneath him and standing. “Do either of you know how to work the coffee machine?”

“It’s busted,” said Hera. “I meant to ask for a new one.”

Danny frowned. “So what’s going on?”

McEwen told him about the guns. Hera, meanwhile, used the laptop to see if MY-PID had gotten any more information about the weapons and the hangar.

The serial numbers on the rifles indicated they were genuine, manufactured in 1953 for the Soviet army. They belonged to a lot that had been declared obsolete by the government more than a decade before. There was no other information about those specific guns, and the type was so common — literally ubiquitous — that trying to correlate them against known gun sales, legal and illegal, was impossible, even for MY-PID.

Information on Duga, the company that had leased the hangar, was far more limited — and therefore considerably more useful. It had leased a similar building at a regional airport in France two years ago; there had been an assassination tied to the Wolves there as well. Following transfers of money from its accounts, MY-PID discovered an HSBC bank account that had been tapped for cash in three different cities near where Wolf murders had taken place.

More interesting was the fact that the account had made a large transfer to an Austrian bank account, which in turn was tapped twice in the past two days in Prague.

“So there’s someone in Prague?” said McEwen.

“Maybe,” said Danny.

Hera asked the computer for more information on the bank account and the withdrawals. It didn’t have any — the account had only been opened a few days before.

“No other connections?” McEwen asked after the words null set appeared on the screen.

“Not yet,” said Hera. “It’s thinking.”

“Well let’s think ourselves — why would someone from the organization be in Prague?”

“Part of their getaway,” said Hera. “They need a clear path out. New identities, that sort of thing.”

“So whoever dropped the guns off then moved on to Prague,” suggested McEwen.

Hera tested the theory by trying to find correlations between the account and recent airline travel between Kiev and Prague. MY-PID found nothing usable.

“How much money did they take out?” Danny asked.

“Six hundred euros,” said McEwen. “Twice. Walking around expenses.”

“But why didn’t they bring it in themselves?” Danny asked. “If it was someone assigned to clear the way for an escape, they would come in with the money.”

“It could be a handoff to someone,” said McEwen. “You can’t carry too much cash across the border. Generally you’re not stopped, but if you have more than a few hundred euros, there will be questions.”

“This was only twelve hundred.”

“Twelve hundred is still a lot, at least where I come from,” said McEwen. “But you’re forgetting — these are the transactions we know about. There could be another ten. They could be planting the money for the people coming through. Hiding it for them. Or spending it.”

“Why escape through Prague, though?” asked Hera. “If you can fly anywhere, either go to Russia or go somewhere with more connections.”

“Damn,” said Danny.

Hera looked up from the computer as he continued.

“Get all the information you can about an air show in Prague,” he said. “And get some coffee up here from room service. Find out where Nuri is — call him and tell him I need to talk to him.”

“What are you doing?” asked Hera.

“Getting my shoes. Then going to Prague.”

59

The pain swirled around Nuri’s head. He felt as if he was flying through a wind tunnel, spinning around at the center of a cyclone.

Then he landed, crumpling into a pile in the corner of a dark room.

Something hit his chest, then his leg, then his chest again. It was diffuse, a cloud of weighted pain falling on him, like snowballs or rain.

Or shovelfuls of dirt.

Something hit his face. A rock.

Another shovelful on his legs.

Nuri couldn’t move. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was black.

60

“It is 12:05. You are five minutes late. Why are you late?”

The plainclothes security guard turned his eyes toward the carpet. Like the sergeant, he was Polish, a member of the state security force assigned to escort the Polish delegation to the air show.

“Who is your superior?” demanded the sergeant.

“Captain Klose.”

“Klose is an idiot. Take your position next to Stefan. Don’t move for the next four hours — not even to relieve yourself.”

The guard took his position opposite the other guard next to the hotel room door. The Polish air ministry had taken much of the hotel, including the entire top floor, where all eight rooms were reserved for the Polish air minister and his guests. This was a bit excessive; besides the minister’s suite, none of the other rooms were occupied. Two would be used for a reception later that night, and the others were available in case the minister decided to invite guests to stay.

But the security people weren’t in a position to complain about the minister’s spendthrift ways. Their rooms, scattered throughout the hotel, were hardly austere, and came fully stocked with alcohol and sweets.

They were also booked one to a room, a boon to the man who had just come on duty.

“What are you looking at?” demanded the sergeant, turning to the second man manning watch.

“Nothing, Sergeant.”

“The men from Warsaw think they are better than the Krakow detail, is that it?” The sergeant turned back to the man who had just arrived. “And you are Exhibit A of this.”

“I am sorry I am late.”

“You don’t know me, but you will,” continued the sergeant. “The minister is not to be disturbed. You will be relieved in four hours. Neither of you is to go anywhere. No one is to be admitted on the floor without the minister’s approval. A woman…”

The sergeant paused, deciding how to phrase what he was about to say. He looked at the guard from Warsaw.

“The minister may have guests,” he said finally. “Treat them professionally. Be — judicious.”

“Of course,” said the man.

“You will report to me at 0900 hours.” The sergeant pointed at the guard who had been late. “We will discuss the importance of promptness, and your future in the security forces.”

The guard glared at him, but said nothing. The sergeant shook his head, then stalked off.

“Five minutes, what a jerk,” said the guard who had been on time. “As if it would make a difference. You think he has a girl waiting?”

The other guard said nothing, adjusting his jacket above his bulletproof vest. He started to hitch his pants, then turned away out of modesty.

“You’re from Krakow. That’s the real problem. The sergeant hates everyone from outside Warsaw. The whole idea of drawing people from across the country, as if this were some sort of lark—”

The guard stopped speaking in mid-sentence and slumped to the floor, killed by a single shot to the brain from the silenced.22 in the Black Wolf’s hand.

The Black Wolf reached down and took the man by the shoulder, propping him against the wall. Then he slipped a passkey into the door of the hotel room, and let himself inside.

61

Danny was almost to the door when Hera stopped him. She had her MY-PID control unit in her hand.

“Nuri isn’t answering,” she said.

“Probably sleeping,” Danny told her.

“No — he’s at the farm. And look at his vitals — his heart’s pumping.”

Nuri’s pulse, recorded by his bracelet, was at 140.

“Something’s wrong,” said Hera.

“The deputy interior minister in charge of the state police who worked with us on that raid,” said Danny, reaching for his sat phone. “We need to talk to him right away. MY-PID should have the contact information somewhere. Get it quick.”

62

The weight on Nuri’s chest and arms was incredible. He pushed his head to his right, and at the same time scratched through the dirt with his right hand, trying to reach his nose and mouth. He got there finally, cupping a little space over it.

The bastards!

Buried alive!

Out!

He struggled, but the more he struggled, the more dirt seemed to fall. He tried to wiggle to the right. Dirt fell on him there. Left — more dirt.

He wasn’t too deep. He could dig himself out. He could.

His lungs were starting to feel tight, compressed. Nuri pushed his hand over his mouth, making a little pocket for air.

He should wait for them to go away. Wait.

For what? Death?

He was down five feet. Dig, for Christsake!

Nuri tried pulling his left arm up, pushing through the weight that kept it pinned by his side. He pushed hard, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he tried a softer approach, moving it as if it were a snake.

Or a worm. He was a worm. He had to think of himself as a worm, squeezing through the ground, getting out.

A worm.

Is this where he was going to die? In the middle of nowhere in a small country where people wouldn’t even be able to pronounce his name?

I have to get out now. Now!

He curled the fingers on his left hand into a claw and began pushing at the dirt. It seemed to give way slowly.

But it was too slow. He was starting to choke.

Everything! I need everything!

Nuri pulled his other arm up and began to push. He curled his upper lip over his lower lip and tried breathing through his mouth. There was dirt in his teeth. He tasted rot.

Nuri pushed.

Out! Out!

The ground seemed to give way. He moved his elbows toward his ribs, then levered them back against the ground beneath him.

Out! Out!

He couldn’t breathe. He was choking — it felt as if his lungs were full of dirt.

Out! Out!

He pushed with everything he had. And suddenly he felt air on his face.

People were yelling in the distance, calling his name. The two men who had buried him were gone.

Nuri pushed himself to his knees. He was still half buried, covered with dirt. He reached his hand into his pocket and found the MY-PID unit.

“I need the words for ‘seal off the area,’ ” he told the computer. “I need the words for ‘not one motherfucker leaves.’ ”

63

Jonathon Reid frowned as he scrolled through the list of intercepts. There were several screens full — more than a hundred messages.

The sheer number alone was significant. Add to that the fact that they came from military units spread around the country, and the conclusion was inescapable: the Ukraine army was about to revolt.

But Reid smelled a rat.

He moused over to the folders with the latest satellite images. There were unmistakable signs that two of the units in the eastern part of the country were mobilizing. And there were no corresponding orders indicating that they should do so.

Concrete evidence of a coup, especially when coupled with the intercepts.

Still — a coup with the NATO ministers about to descend on Kiev? How very convenient for the Russians.

“Mr. Reid, the director is waiting.”

Reid looked up at his assistant, Mark Dalton. Dalton, a field officer who had been rotated back home following an injury in South Asia, wore an exasperated expression — pretty much the one Reid always saw.

“I’m just reviewing the data he’s going to be interested in,” said Reid. He cleared his screen and got up from his desk.

“You don’t think it’s a coup?” asked Dalton. He’d come on duty at 6:00 A.M.; he’d been working for more than twelve hours and was very likely to be here for several more.

“I think someone wants us to think it is, yes,” answered Reid.

“But you don’t.”

“It looks so much like a coup it could come out of a textbook,” Reid answered. “And real life very rarely resembles what goes on in the classroom.”

Reid made the same argument upstairs in the director’s conference room twenty minutes later, this time in front of a packed house of CIA officials, including Herman Edmund, the Agency chief. Several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their aides were watching via video from the secure center at the Pentagon, and an equal number of NSC people were over in the White House situation room. Reid, speaking after the Agency’s in-house experts of Ukraine had made a case for the coup, patiently dissected the intercepts.

“What you’re saying is that it’s too perfect,” objected Stephen McGovern, the Agency’s ranking analyst for Eastern Europe. “That’s really a difficult argument, Jonathon. What would be the point?”

“The point would be to disrupt the NATO meeting. Showing that the country is unstable. Without, of course, having to go to the trouble of actually encouraging a coup.”

“It’s a lot of trouble,” said McGovern.

“Not very difficult to do,” said Reid. “The Russians break into the network and send a lot of messages. They get two divisions to move their units around. Bribe the right officer, and these trucks will drive to Paris. It’s no secret how badly most of these troops are paid.”

“But what would the point be?” said Edmund. “That’s the real question. Let’s say that it is fake — we’ll know it in a few hours.”

“A few hours’ indecision may be all it takes,” said Reid. “But we may only be seeing the opening act. There may be more. It may end up looking as if a coup was planned, and then aborted for some reason. And it’s not just us — every Western intelligence agency is seeing these intercepts. Even the French have them.”

“Well, that is an indictment,” said Edmund.

Everyone laughed.

The meeting proceeded quickly to the conclusion favored by the analysts: a coup might be under way in the Ukraine within a few hours. Reid succeeded only in getting them to emphasize the word “might” and add a few caveats to their alert. Given the tendency of the analysts to stay away from any definitive statement that might come back to haunt them, it wasn’t much of a victory.

Director Edmund stopped him at the door as he was leaving.

“If you have a moment, Jonathon.”

“Always for you, sir.” Reid stepped back as the others filed out.

“Whiplash was successful?” Edmund asked when they were alone.

“The action in Moldova eliminated everyone at the farm,” said Reid. “There were about a half-dozen people, Russians we think, and they all appear to have been associated with the Wolves.”

“Is it possible these intercepts were related to what they had planned?” said Edmund. The operation against the Wolves was still so secret that neither Reid nor Edmund had shared it with the others.

“I didn’t bring it up because the timing of this activity seemed wrong,” said Reid. “If there were a direct link, then we wouldn’t expect these messages until at least the day after tomorrow when the NATO ministers gather.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Edmund.

“Unless there’s something we’re missing.” Reid smiled. “It’s too pat. It seems so obvious I wouldn’t even give it to a junior officer as an exercise.”

“You do like complications,” said the director.

“A character flaw, I’m afraid. Hopefully, not fatal.”

64

The Black Wolf examined his face in the mirror. He didn’t look all that much like the dead man on the bed inside, but that wasn’t necessary — the people he had to fool wouldn’t be looking all that hard at him. All he had to do was look enough like the dead man that they wouldn’t bother with a second look until it was too late. Far too late.

Toward that end, he sprayed a little more gray into the side of his hair, dappling it with his fingers for a salt and pepper look.

Distinguished.

There was a knock on the outer door. The Black Wolf took his pistol from the counter and went to it.

“Yes,” he said, still speaking Polish.

“Wolf,” said the voice outside softly. He was speaking English.

“Black Wolf.”

“We are ready.”

The Black Wolf opened the door. Two of his assistants on the job — men he had not met until now — stood in the hallway. They were dressed in brown and gray suits, looking very much like the men he had killed earlier.

“Watches,” said the Black Wolf, holding his out.

They held out their arms and made sure their watches all had the same time. It was exactly 0432 local.

“We must be downstairs in exactly twenty-one minutes,” the Black Wolf told them. “It will take the car five minutes to arrive, and another ten for us to reach the Old State Castle. The others will meet us there. Are we ready?”

The men nodded.

“Let us proceed.”

65

Danny dropped a pair of bills on the front seat of the cab and hopped out, holding his small carryon bag under his arm as if it were a football. He had ten minutes to make the gate for his flight to Prague.

Impossible at most U.S. airports, even at this early hour. But the security at Kiev was extremely efficient — or incredibly lax, depending on your point of view. There were six different stations to handle the very light traffic, and the guards barely glanced at the X-ray screen as he tossed his bag on the conveyer belt. He stepped through the detector quickly, grabbed the bag, and trotted toward the gate where his plane to Prague was boarding.

He reached it just as the attendant was extending the rope. She smiled when she saw him, pulling it back as he held up his pass and ticket. She grabbed the printout, ripped it in half, and waved him through.

There were plenty of empty seats on the plane. Danny had his entire row to himself. He pushed his bag into the overhead compartment, then sat down and pulled out his sat phone and MY-PID ear set, wanting to check in with Washington to see what was going on.

He also wanted to talk to Zen, though he’d undoubtedly still be sleeping.

Nuri first.

Danny pushed an earphone into his right ear, then held the sat phone over it, pretending he was using the phone.

“Update on Nuri Lupo,” he asked the system.

“Lupo’s current status is undetermined.”

“Connect me with him.”

A few seconds passed.

“This is Nuri,” answered the CIA officer in a raspy voice. “Danny?”

“Are you OK?”

“Just barely. Two guys tried to bury me alive. They got away with a box. I’m pretty sure it belonged to the doctor. I don’t know what’s in it. I’m sorry — I’ll figure out where they went.”

“Get yourself checked out.”

“I’m fine.”

“Get some sleep at least.”

“I’m fine. Where are you going?”

“I’m playing a hunch in Prague.” Danny glanced around. The plane was moving. “You’ll have to get the whole story from Hera.”

“All right.”

Danny looked up to see the attendant walking toward him. The man wagged his finger.

“I gotta go,” he told Nuri.

“I’m sorry, sir, but cell phones must be turned off,” said the attendant. His English was thick with an accent that sounded Russian to Danny, but was actually Ukrainian.

Danny made a show of hitting the End transmit button. He pulled the phone down into his lap. Then, with the attendant behind him, he tapped out a text message to send to Zen.

“Sir?”

“Just making sure it’s turned off,” said Danny, smiling apologetically. “Sometimes you have to hit it a second time and even a third. The button is kind of screwed up.”

The attendant scowled, then pointed to his headset.

“Your iPod, too.”

“Up, everything’s off,” said Danny, pulling the ear set from his ear. “We can take off any time you want.”

“Thank you for permission,” said the man sarcastically, going back up the aisle.

66

“We’re about an hour from touchdown, ma’am,” the C–20 steward told Breanna, waking her. “You wanted me to let you know.”

“Thank you.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“That’d be great.”

Breanna pushed her seat back upright. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly five. Her early-rising husband and daughter were probably already up and on their way to breakfast.

Should she call them?

She’d love to talk to Teri.

Given all the travel, Teri would probably still be sleeping. Zen, though — he’d be on the prowl for coffee and the latest news.

No, she decided. Let it be a real surprise.

67

Zen never slept well when he was traveling. It wasn’t so much the time differences or jet lag as the fact that Breanna wasn’t with him. Feeling her body next to him at night relaxed him in a way he had never been able to explain in words, not even to her.

He pushed upright in bed and reached for the light, getting his bearings. Teri was sleeping with Caroline in the adjoining room. His wheelchair was just to his left. He leaned over and grabbed it, pulling it into position so he could ease into it. He rolled to the bathroom, shifting his weight subtly to cross the piece of marble at the threshold.

It was funny. The bathroom and its fixtures were arranged to make it easier for someone with a handicap — once inside, there was more than enough room for his chair, and the toilet was at an almost perfect height. Whoever had designed the room had given it a great deal of thought. But the plank of marble at the threshold was a full two inches high — a ridiculous barrier for a wheelchair.

When he’d first lost the use of his legs, annoyances like that bothered him greatly. Now he just shook his head.

There was a small coffeemaker on the counter. He set it up, started the water through, then ran the water to shave.

The coffee was coffee in only the most theoretical sense — it was black and liquid. He took two sips and decided he would do without the benefits of caffeine until he could get downstairs to the café.

He dressed casually, pulling on his favorite gray sweatshirt — a Nike shirt with a pancaked microfiber fabric that was thin yet very warm. The sleeves were a little frayed, and one of the elbows showed signs that his arm would soon poke through, but it was the most comfortable thing he owned.

Breanna would be scandalized if she knew he was wearing it in public. But she wasn’t here to give him the hairy eyeball of wifely disapproval. He’d told the girls they’d get up around seven — plenty of time, he figured, for them to recover from the trip. He didn’t want to wake them, but he also didn’t want to go without coffee for two hours. So he tucked his laptop next to his legs and went down to see if the cafeteria was open.

There was an attendant at the elevator, an older man dressed in an army uniform. He stood at full attention as Zen approached, stepping to the side though there was ample room for Zen to get in.

“Is the cafeteria open?” Zen asked as he wheeled toward him.

“Staff is on duty at all times, sir,” said the man.

“Is that year-round, or just for the show?”

“For the show. But often, we have special guests.”

“Your English is very good,” said Zen.

“Thank you. When I was young, I studied. Now, with the Internet and travel, everyone speaks English. It is a common language.”

“Lucky for me.”

The elevator operator pushed the button for the lower floor. The doors closed slowly.

“I don’t mean to take you out of a job,” said Zen as they started to descend, “but does this elevator need an operator?”

The man smiled. “Everyone needs a job.”

“True enough,” said Zen. He extended his hand. “Zen Stockard.”

“Yes, Senator,” said the attendant. Zen’s friendliness seemed to worry him a little. He took the hand hesitantly, then shook. “I am Sergeant Greis.”

“You’re in the air force?”

“Forty-two years.”

“That’s a lot of time.”

Greis nodded.

“I’ll bet you did other things besides running an elevator,” said Zen.

“I was a weapons specialist,” said Greis. He straightened a little, almost as if he’d been picked out of a review line by a commanding general and asked to present himself. “I worked with many different aircraft.”

“I was a fighter pilot,” said Zen.

“Yes, Senator. You have won many medals.”

“My fame precedes me, huh?”

Greis didn’t understand the phrase.

“We couldn’t have done our jobs without men like you,” said Zen. “Ordies, maintainers — heart of the air force around the world. But you guys don’t get the credit.”

“No, sir.”

“Well, you should.”

The elevator doors opened. Zen rolled out into a foyer whose stone walls looked as if they were part of the dungeon in the keep across the way. A red carpet ran down the center of the space.

He followed the carpet to a sharp left, then past a pair of thick wooden doors lined with black wrought iron. He found himself in a vestibule just before the cafeteria, which he could see through a set of glass doors. There were lights on inside, and a waiter was working at a buffet table not far from the entrance, laying out a platter of breakfast meats.

There was only one problem — the three narrow steps between the foyer and the doors.

One step too many to risk, Zen calculated. As much as he hated to ask for assistance, there was simply no alternative.

Well, he could get out of the chair, push it ahead of him, then crawl down after it. But that was a bit extreme.

Maybe if no one here knew he was a senator.

The waiter disappeared into the back without looking in his direction. Zen decided to go back to the elevator and see if the operator might be able to help him. He was just turning around when a tall, thin gray-haired man came around the corner.

“Not open yet?” said the man. He had a slightly tired British accent.

“It’s open, I just can’t get down the steps,” said Zen.

It took the man a second or two to understand. “Can I help?” he asked.

“If you kind of lean on the back and help balance as I go down, I think it would work,” said Zen.

“Ah, yes. Quite.”

“I’m Zen Stockard,” said Zen as he positioned himself. “From America.”

“Ah, yes, Senator Stockard. A pleasure to meet you. Colonel Lynch.”

Lynch went down to the door and pushed it open. A small latch at the bottom held it in place.

“Alley-oop,” he said, taking the back of the chair.

Zen leaned and pushed gently on the wheels, calibrating his force so he could control his movement down the steps.

As they reached the bottom, the waiter Zen had seen earlier came racing over.

“We are under control,” said the colonel. “We have come through with valor.”

“Can I buy you breakfast?” joked Zen. The breakfasts were complimentary.

“I would rather like that,” said the colonel.

68

The sentry at the complex put his hand up as the Mercedes approached the gate. The driver slowed to a stop, then rolled down his window.

“The deputy minister of Poland,” said the driver in Czech.

The guard bent slightly and peered in the back. He paused a moment, examining the face, then straightened and signaled that the gate be lifted.

The Black Wolf eased his pistol down. No need to use it yet.

He glanced around the courtyard as they entered. The field where the helicopter was to land was at the right, beyond the fence. The choice was counterintuitive — another man might have them picked up on the roof, which would be easy to reach from the guest building. But the helicopter would be an easy target, and survival in an operation such as this always required finesse and misdirection.

The Mercedes pulled up in front of the building. It was 0512.

They were two minutes ahead of schedule. The Ukrainian minister and air force general had landed at the airport a few minutes ago; things were running as smoothly as he could have hoped.

The Black Wolf reached below his seat and pulled out the backpack with his HK MP–5 submachine gun. Then he reached his left hand into his pants pocket and took out a small vial. The red liquid inside looked like blood. It was, in a way.

The package had arrived for him with the money. They were as good as their word — better.

He cracked the seal on the tube and drained it quickly.

“Ready,” he said, dropping the empty vial into his pocket. “Let’s move.”

69

“The golden days of manned dogfights are over,” said Lynch. “I think we all have to recognize that.”

“That may be,” said Zen. “But I think we’ll always have people in the loop. And not just on the ground.”

“Your own air force has shown the way,” said Lynch. “Your own experiences — they were the vanguard.”

“Yes, but my experiences are a case in a point,” said Zen. “The Flighthawks were always under someone’s control.”

“Really? I heard differently.”

“Can’t believe everything you read,” said Zen.

“Quite. More coffee?”

“Yes, please,” said Zen.

Lynch took his cup and headed over to the table where the urns stood.

Zen realized he hadn’t turned his phone on. He didn’t think his staff would be trying to get him at this hour, and didn’t care much to start going through e-mails. But Teri or Caroline might try to text him from upstairs to find out where he was.

“I am sorry, I am sorry,” said the waiter, rushing back out as Lynch returned. “I would get that for you.”

“Not a bother at all,” said Lynch. “I just went for the refill. My legs are working, after all.” He blanched, apparently realizing what he had said.

“I’m not offended,” Zen told him. “I used to call myself a cripple, just to see what kind of reaction I got.”

“How did they react?”

“Oh, they were horrified. It was kind of fun to watch.”

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” said the waiter, a pained expression on his face. “I wonder — we, uh, we were asked to set aside a little area for an early breakfast and I neglected to do so before you sat down.”

“Go right ahead,” said Lynch.

“You see, sir — the curtain usually would be placed right here.” The waiter pointed to a track in the ceiling above them. “I can seat you anywhere else you’d like.”

“How about a window seat?” asked Zen.

The waiter was nonplussed. They were in a basement without windows, and he wasn’t sure whether he understood.

“Just a joke,” said Zen. He picked up his coffee. “Where do you want us?”

“If I might suggest that table at the side,” said the waiter.

“Too far to eavesdrop,” joked Lynch.

“Sir?”

“It’s fine,” said Zen.

“Who needs a private room for breakfast?” asked Lynch.

“Some of our businesspeople are meeting with important people from the Ukraine,” said the waiter.

“Sales call,” Lynch told Zen as they took their places at the new table. “The Czechs are trying to sell their version of the Russian Spider rocket.”

“Oh, yes,” said Zen. “Is it really any good?”

“I think your AMRAAM-pluses are still light-years ahead.”

Zen, who’d seen the reports and knew that what the colonel was saying was true, played devil’s advocate, drawing the officer out. It was always instructive to get the unvarnished opinions of other air forces, even when they agreed with you.

The waiter went to the wall and moved one of the stones. Zen watched as the stones near it popped out, revealing a panel that pulled out into a room divider. The stones were actually only a half inch thick, the facade to a conventional plasterboard wall.

“I wonder if they have a screen that comes down from the ceiling,” said Lynch.

“No, but they probably have a knight hidden behind some of the stones,” answered Zen. “They pop it out if you don’t pay your bill.”

Two men in suits came in the door. Broad-shouldered and very tall, they would have looked like security types even without the ill-concealed armored vests under their jackets. Wires curled to earpieces at the back of their necks. One of the men had a small attaché case, the sort used to make an Uzi-sized submachine gun more discreet.

The waiter came out to meet them.

“You’re part of the security detail for the minister?” asked the waiter.

“Where is the meeting to be held?” asked the man with the case.

“This way, gentlemen.”

The two men glanced at each other. The one without the case nodded, then went with the waiter. The other man went up toward the door.

Another entered. Zen looked at the security agent as he walked past. He looked familiar.

Stoner, he thought.

But of course it couldn’t be. This man was taller and broader and younger — not to mention alive. Breanna’s project had put the idea into his head. It was ridiculous.

Once more he remembered his phone.

“I just want to turn my phone on,” he told Lynch. “My daughter might need to reach me.”

“Go right ahead.”

Zen pulled out the phone and powered it up. It beeped at him, then beeped again, telling him he had messages.

“You will hand the phone over to me.”

Zen looked up with a start. The man who’d gone to the door now stood next to the table, holding a submachine gun pointed directly at him.

70

Breanna snugged her seat belt and looked out the window as the C–20 dropped toward the runway, catching a glimpse of Prague in the dim blue haze of early dawn. The buildings had a brownish hue that made them look like a set of miniatures rather than part of a real city.

The sound of the plane’s engines increased as the wheels touched down. As the pilot took the plane to the end of the runway and onto a taxiway to the terminal, Breanna gathered her things, her excitement at surprising her husband and daughter rising.

Besides the aircraft on display, a number of VIPs were arriving this morning, and Breanna’s aircraft had been assigned a parking spot just beyond an Antonov transport. Standing on the ladder at the door, she got her bearings, then went down in a semijog, her suitcase with her.

She was surprised to see Turk, waving at her near the other plane.

“Hey, boss!” yelled the pilot, who was standing with several other men. He was still dressed in his flight suit. “About time you got here.”

“Turk!”

“Had to hook with the maintainers,” said the pilot. He gestured toward the hangars. “They just got here ahead of you like five minutes. They’re going over the plane now.” He turned to the men he was with. “I want you to meet some friends of mine — this is Major Andrei Krufts — I met him a while back at a Red Flag. He’s a great Ukrainian fighter pilot. And this is his boss, General Josef. He’s in charge of the Ukrainian air force.”

Breanna suddenly felt underdressed and unprepared — she hadn’t even done her lipstick.

“General, nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand to the Ukrainian official.

“My pleasure, Ms. Stockard. We have always admired the work of Dreamland.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t believe you know our defense minister,” added the general as a tall, elderly gentleman approached from the stairway of the Antonov. “Dr. Gustov.”

“No, I don’t think we’ve met,” said Breanna.

Despite his age — Gustov was seventy-seven — he moved quickly across the tarmac. Dressed in a blue pin-striped suit, with a full head of jet black hair brushed straight back against his scalp, he held himself perfectly erect, with an athletic air. His face was smooth and his gestures elegant; Breanna thought he must have been quite a ladies’ man in his youth.

Perhaps even now.

“Dr. Gustav, allow me to introduce Breanna Stockard, a member of the U.S. Pentagon,” said General Josef.

The minister took her hand. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss it in the old-world style, but instead he held it and bowed his head slightly. It was just as charming.

“A pleasure, Ms. Stockard. You are with the Pentagon?”

“I’m the director of the Office of Technology.”

“Stockard — I know the name.”

“She was a member of Dreamland,” said the general.

“Ah, Dreamland,” said the minister. “We heard of your battles.”

“We still study the encounters,” said Major Krufts.

“When you faced the Chinese and flew over their capital, were you scared?” asked Minister Gustov.

“I think you may be talking about my father,” said Breanna. “I don’t think he was scared of anything. Is scared,” she said, realizing she had talked about him in the past tense. “But I did have a few encounters with them,” she said hastily. “Some of their pilots were quite good.”

“Who were the best pilots you encountered?” asked the general.

“Hard to say.” They had all been difficult, and Breanna didn’t like to rank them. She was asked the question a lot, though, so she gave the answer she usually did. “Probably the Indians. Their technology at the time was very underrated. They took a lot of Russian equipment and upgraded it tremendously. And they trained very effectively.”

“And now you are on to other things,” said General Josef. He turned to the defense minister. “We saw the plane while you were on the phone. It’s quite an aircraft.”

“Turk already gave you a tour?” Breanna asked.

“He showed us the plane. But of course we would all like to see it fly.”

“I told them we could probably arrange a private fly-by in a couple of hours,” said Turk. “Have to do a check flight anyway.”

“By all means.”

“I’d go right now, but the minister has a meeting,” added Turk. “That’s one of the design benefits — plane can be turned around for a sortie like in nothing flat.”

You don’t have to sell them, thought Breanna. They can’t afford it.

“You feel like flying again so soon after coming across the ocean and continent?” asked the minister.

“There’s never a time I don’t feel like flying.”

Everyone, including Turk, laughed.

“It’s good be young,” said General Josef.

Major Krufts glanced at his watch. “General, I hate to be the one to remind you…”

“Contractors,” said the defense minister. “Always trying to sell us new toys.”

“Upgrades,” said the general. “Necessary.”

The minister gave a skeptical “Hmmm.”

“We have a meeting. Breakfast,” said the general. “We should get going.”

“Our meeting is at the Old Castle,” the defense minister explained to Breanna. “The Czechs have renovated the ruins to appear as if they are still in medieval times. You should tour the museum.”

“As a matter of fact, I’m on my way there to meet my husband and daughter.”

“Then you will go in our car, and we can continue this conversation,” said the minister. “General, wouldn’t you say?”

“I think it’s an excellent idea.”

Breanna glanced at Turk. “Is everything OK with the Tigershark?”

“I could take off in ten minutes if you want,” he told her.

“You should get some rest.”

“I’m fine.”

Breanna turned to the Dr. Gustov.

“It would be my pleasure to ride with you,” she told him. “Please lead the way.”

71

The early guests in the small restaurant were an inconvenience, not a complication. The Black Wolf had them brought into the kitchen with the workers, while he finished examining the room where the meeting was to take place.

There was not much to it — he would stand near the door and shoot the general, then the minister. It would be over in seconds.

Then they would leave. The helicopter would land moments after the alarm was sounded. He was sure of this, since he himself would sound the alarm.

He would take one of the civilians, someone from the kitchen staff, as a hostage, insurance just in case something unforeseen happened.

No — he would grab one of the men who had been having breakfast. They were important guests; their death would be more sensational.

“Done,” said Gray Wolf, coming back. “They are locked in the storage pantry.”

“And they can’t get out?” asked the Black Wolf.

“Blue is there.”

The Black Wolf nodded. The men used English to communicate, since they came from different countries. The teams were always mixed. The Black Wolf had worked with all of the men involved on this mission before, but not together.

“The one with the wheelchair was trying to make a phone call. I stopped him,” added Gray.

“A wheelchair?”

Gray repeated the word in German.

“I understood the word,” said the Black Wolf.

“Yes, a chair. Here is the phone.”

Gray handed him a BlackBerry. Black Wolf stuffed it into his pocket, then put his hand to his ear set.

“Cafeteria is secure. Red, what is the situation?”

“Nothing on the road.”

“We will wait,” said Black Wolf. “It should not be long now.”

Zen rolled the wheelchair back against the shelf unit in the storeroom, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. Besides himself and Lynch, there were three other people inside the large pantry storeroom — the waiter, a cook, and his assistant, a woman roughly Caroline’s age. All had been searched, the contents of their pockets emptied.

“Is this a robbery?” whispered Lynch.

“No,” said Zen. “My bet is they’re after whoever’s coming to that meeting the staff was setting up for. It’s a kidnapping or an assassination.”

“Bloody hell. Leave us out of it.”

“We’ll be lucky if they do,” said Zen. He thought of the girls upstairs. There was no way to get a message to them.

Had the man he’d seen been Stoner?

It couldn’t have been. And if it was, it wouldn’t help.

“There wouldn’t happen to be a trapdoor in the place?” Lynch asked the others. “A secret exit or something?”

“No,” said the waiter.

“How about a ventilation shaft?” asked Zen. “For the air conditioner or heating?”

The waiter said something to the cook. They spoke for a few minutes.

“No. There is no vent here — this is a closet,” said the waiter finally. “In the kitchen — over the range. That is where the ventilation is.”

“Is it wide enough for someone to get through?” asked Zen.

“You’re not thinking of climbing through, are you?” asked Lynch.

“I was thinking someone with legs would be more useful,” said Zen.

“Kess could fit,” said the waiter. “She’s thin.”

Zen glanced at her. She was fairly small.

“The shaft goes to the second floor and out,” continued the waiter, translating for the chef. “There are two large fans at the side, on the wall where the vent opens. She would have to push them out.”

“Could she?” asked Zen.

He turned toward the young woman. It was too dark to see much of her face.

“Do you think you can climb through?” he asked.

“I will try.”

“To do this, she would have to be in the kitchen,” said the waiter.

“How do we get in the kitchen?” asked Lynch. “The door is locked.”

“We’ll have to get them to open it,” said Zen.

72

Danny turned on his sat phone as soon as they landed, checking to see if Zen had replied to his message.

He hadn’t.

He decided to try him by phone. He punched in the number and waited for the call to connect, watching out the window as the plane trundled toward the terminal.

The call was just about to go to voice mail when the line clicked open.

“Zen?” said Danny. “Jeff — are you there? Zen? Yo, Zen?”

There was no answer. But there was definitely someone on the line.

“Zen? Hey, it’s Danny Freah. What do we have, a bad connection? Are you there? Zen?”

“Who are you looking for?” said the voice.

“Zen. I—”

The line clicked dead.

Danny looked at the phone, making sure the preset number had dialed correctly. It had. He tried again. This time it went to voice mail.

What the hell was going on? Had the lines crossed?

He gave another call. This time someone picked up, but there was no answer.

“Zen? Jeff? Zen?”

It clicked off.

The plane had stopped. The other passengers were starting to get off. Danny remained in his seat, punching the quick dial to get the night operator who handled Whiplash operations.

“I know it’s pretty late over there,” he told her when she came on the line. “But I want to talk to Ms. Stockard. Or Reid. Can you wake one of them up?”

“Ms. Stockard is in Prague,” said the operator. “At Kbley Airport. She just landed.”

“She did? Let me talk to her. Right away.”

73

Nuri’s head was pounding and his lungs felt as if they were coated with dirt. His clothes were caked with grit. But his fun time in the hole did bring one positive: he was wide-awake. Very, very awake, and thirsting for revenge.

The UAVs patrolling the area had returned to their base, but the Rattlesnakes were still at the staging area they had used a few miles away. After telling the others he was all right, Nuri called Boston, who was overseeing the load-out.

“I can have them in the air in ten minutes,” promised Boston. “We just have to get them off the pallet under the blimp.”

“Do it,” said Nuri.

Flash had left on the earlier blimp to supervise the load-out on the other end. Nuri hadn’t been trained to handle the aircraft directly, so Boston channeled control through MY-PID. He was as good as his word — Nuri heard the aircraft overhead before he reached the house.

The Moldovan captain in charge of the local security force wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. All he knew was that the deputy minister had just reamed him out, told him there were traitors in the force, and ordered him to secure the farm. Nuri filled in some of the blanks quickly, describing the men and the box he was looking for. Then he turned his attention to the Rattlesnakes, which were feeding their infrared scans to MY-PID.

The first thing he noticed on the small screen of his control unit was a car about a mile south, traveling at close to ninety kilometers.

“Stop the vehicle,” he told MY-PID.

The Rattlesnakes swooped toward it. One buzzed the vehicle from behind, then turned sharply in front of it, pivoting to spin its nose — and the Gatling gun there — directly toward the windshield. The other aircraft came at the car from the side, passing so close to the vehicle that its skid scraped the roof. The maneuvers had the desired effect — the driver turned the wheel hard, pushing the car off the side of the road and into the woods, where it hit a tree.

Nuri watched on the screen as the driver stumbled out of the car. It was a woman, not one of the guards.

An accomplice?

It took him a few minutes to explain where the vehicle was to the Moldovans. MY-PID, meanwhile, sent one of the helicopters back to continue searching the farm, while the other one orbited the wrecked car.

By now the Moldovans had tightened their line around the farm. It didn’t appear anyone was hiding on the property. But Nuri assumed that the two men who had attacked him and taken the box would blend in easily with the others — they were, after all, policemen just like the rest.

The captain had another theory: the men weren’t policemen at all, but imposters who had come in with the others. Insisting they weren’t among his men, he suggested they might be hiding in the trunk or somewhere else on the post.

“We are checking to see who left their post,” said the Moldovan. “So far we have not found anyone who was out of place. So, these must have been imposters.”

“Maybe,” said Nuri.

“Let us talk to the prisoner.” The captain gestured toward the driveway, where one of his cars was waiting. Nuri, a little wary, got in.

“MY-PID — keep watching the area,” he told the computer. “If anyone else leaves, let me know — and follow them with one of the Rattlesnakes.”

“Command accepted.”

Then he had another idea.

“Tell the people at the car scene that I’m coming, too,” he told the captain.

“Why?”

“Try it.”

The Moldovan gave the order.

Nuri watched on the small screen. Six officers had responded. They had the driver in custody and were seeing to her injuries. Two were searching the car. Suddenly they stopped searching and headed for one of the police SUVs.

“Flash — stop the police vehicle near the accident scene.”

“Identify vehicle,” said MY-PID.

“The one that’s moving, damn it.”

“Command unknown.”

“The SUV in the southwest.” Nuri thumbed up the grid markers. “Grid AB–23. Damn it. Stop it — don’t use weapons. No weapons. I want to talk to those bastards.”

And punch each one in the face when he was done. Maybe before that.

The captain was on the radio, barking his own commands. Their driver stepped on the gas, hurrying toward the stopped vehicle. He swerved down the road so sharply that Nuri thought they were going to spin off the road.

Someone ahead started shooting — a fireball shot up from around the bend.

“What the hell?” shouted Nuri.

“Unknown command,” responded MY-PID.

They skidded to a stop a few meters from the scene. The SUV was on fire, flames shooting in all directions.

Nuri got out of the car. He didn’t mind the fact that the bastards were burning to death — that part he liked. But the box was probably burning with them.

“MY-PID — have the helicopter put out the flames,” he said. “Beat them out with the rotor wash.”

“Command accepted.”

One of the Rattlesnakes swooped down. The wind from its counterrotating rotors sent a spray of dust and debris everywhere. Nuri had to turn his back to keep the grit from getting in his eyes.

One of the policeman was holding an RPG launcher. Why the hell had they blown up the SUV?

Oh shit.

“I’m going to check the prisoner,” said Nuri as calmly as he could. He began walking back up the road. As soon as he was out of earshot of the others, he asked MY-PID to review the Moldovan captain’s conversation.

“I need a translation,” he told the computer. “Word for word.”

“ ‘Unit 32,’ ” said the computer, reciting what it had heard in the background of Nuri’s earlier transmission. “ ‘Unit 32—are you reading me? Reading you. Blow up the SUV. There must be no survivors. Set it on fire. Destroy it completely.’ ”

“That’s what I thought,” mumbled Nuri.

“Command disregarded.”

“Now you’re learning.”

Nuri went back over to the woman who’d been stopped, already sure she wasn’t involved. Her head was bandaged and she gave him a dazed look, not sure what was going on.

“She claims she was on her way to work,” said one of the policemen in Moldovan.

“Maybe she was,” said Nuri. “Did you check with her employer?”

They were doing that right now. Meanwhile the car had been searched. There was no sign of the box.

Nuri wasn’t surprised. Most likely it had been in the SUV.

Although there was one other place where it might be.

He walked back down the road to the captain’s car. The fire was out now. The policemen were standing around the truck’s charred remains, looking at the smoldering metal and melted glass. The stench from the fire was incredible, a mixture of barbecued formaldehyde and pulverized iron.

The captain and his driver were with the others around the SUV. Nuri pulled open the driver’s side door, reached down and pulled the latch for the car trunk.

It didn’t open.

Nuri closed the door gently, trying not to make a sound. Then he walked over to the back of the captain’s car and took out his small lock pick. Cars were generally no more difficult to open than house doors, and the lock on this one proved ridiculously easy; he flicked and prodded, and felt the tumblers give within a few seconds.

Dropping to his knees, he pushed the lid of the car up slowly.

“You are a very clever man,” said the captain behind him. His English was vastly improved.

Nuri let go of the trunk and spread his arms, rising slowly.

“When did they approach you?” Nuri asked. “Were you always on their payroll?”

“Turn around and be quiet.”

Nuri turned slowly.

“Get away from the car. Go to the side.”

“You going to shoot me or arrest me?” asked Nuri.

The other policemen were all watching.

“Put your hands on the hood of the car,” said the captain. He turned to one of his men. “Handcuff him,” he said in Moldovan.

“They’re not all in on it, are they?” said Nuri loudly. “They must not be, because you would have shot me already. At least one of them must speak English. They’ll understand. Are you going to kill them, too?”

The captain told the man with the handcuffs to get them on.

“MY-PID, take him,” whispered Nuri.

“Target required.”

“The captain, the captain.”

Nuri threw himself to the ground. For a moment there was only silence, and he worried that he had miscalculated, that MY-PID didn’t have enough data or that somehow the Moldovan officer had managed to disable the Rattlesnake.

Then the aircraft began firing. Bullets crashed into the dirt, the 20mm shells tearing the Moldovan officer into pieces. The other policemen nearby dove for cover.

The policemen would have no compunction against killing him now. Nuri jumped up and grabbed a pistol that had been dropped by one of the policemen as they dove for cover. Then he turned back to the trunk for the strongbox. He grabbed the handle — it was heavier than he thought, and he needed both hands to carry it.

Which meant he couldn’t use the gun.

“MY-PID, I need the helicopter to pick me up,” he said.

“Rephrase.”

“Have Snake Two descend — I’m going to grab the skid. It has to lift me down the road.”

“Command accepted.”

“Get Snake One over here — intimidate these guys.”

“Unknown command.”

“Scare them.”

“Unknown command.”

“Circle the area, damn it. With Snake One. Lay down covering fire. Don’t hit them.”

“Command accepted.”

One of the policemen raised his head, then pulled up his weapon to fire. Snake Two fired first, sending bullets into the road only a few meters from him. The policeman quickly ducked back down.

The wash from the rotating blades nearly knocked Nuri over. He pitched his body to the side, then pulled his arm up over the skid, grabbing the box handle again.

“Go! Go! Go!” he yelled.

The robot helicopter practically tore his arm off as it lifted straight up.

“Just down the road! Not too far! Not too far!” Nuri yelled.

His arm hurt incredibly — it felt as if his shoulder had been dislocated. He glanced down. He seemed to be miles from the ground.

“Get me down safe. Safely!” he yelled as the robot helicopter flew southward. “Put me down in one piece. One fucking piece!”

“Unknown command.”

“Put me down!” yelled Nuri. “And learn how to understand profanity, you goddamned son of a bitch!”

74

The Black Wolf looked at the screen on the phone he had just answered. Instead of numbers, the call displayed as a series of D’s, something he’d never seen before.

Obviously an encryption.

The voice had been American. And it had asked for Zen.

Zen.

The word was familiar in a strange way. Of course he knew the word and what it meant, but there was something else. The association with a person…

Zen.

A memory nagged at him from behind the wall that closed off the present from the past.

Zen.

The man in the wheelchair.

“One of the prisoners claims to need the bathroom,” said Blue over the radio.

“Too bad.”

“The minister is late,” said Gray from out in the hall. “Has there been a problem?”

“His plane has landed,” said the Black Wolf. “We must have patience.”

He felt himself shaking. His energy running down. He reached into his pocket for another vial of the drug. It was his last. Ordinarily he would save it for the end of the mission, to carry him through, but he suddenly felt cold.

He broke off the top and drank.

Zen pounded on the door.

“Hey, I gotta go!” he said.

“Shut up in there or I will shoot you,” said the man outside.

“I don’t think they’re going to play,” said Lynch. “We need a new idea.”

“The idea is fine — we just have to push it further.” Zen turned to the girl. “You know what to do, right?”

She nodded.

“You’re not scared?”

“Scared, yes,” she said. “But we do it.”

Zen wheeled himself closer to the door.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Tell your boss out in the cafeteria there that Zen Stockard wants to talk to him. Major Stockard. Tell him we used to work together.”

“What are you yelling about?”

“Zen Stockard. Tell Black that Zen Stockard wants to speak with him.”

75

If there was one thing Breanna hated, it was being interrupted by a phone call.

Her phone buzzed as the minister’s car pulled out of the airport. She could feel her face shading with embarrassment as it continued to ring. She didn’t want to insult the minister or the general by answering, but the sound was incessantly loud.

“That might be important,” said the minister finally. “I won’t be offended.”

“I’m terribly sorry,” said Breanna. She took the phone out of her pocketbook. “Ordinarily it just rolls over to my voice mail, but whoever is calling is very insistent.”

She glanced at the screen as she took it from her purse.

A row of D’s indicated it was from Danny.

“Do you mind if I take this?” she asked. “It’s one of my people. He wouldn’t call unless it was important.”

“Please.”

“Breanna,” she said into the phone.

“Bree — where are you?” asked Danny.

“We just left the airport. We’re on our way to the Old State Castle.”

“Don’t go there!” Danny was practically shouting. “I just called Zen — something is up there.”

“With Zen?”

“Somebody else answered his phone.”

“Maybe it was Caroline, my niece. She’s traveling with him to watch Teri.”

“Bree, we think the Wolves may be in Prague.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

Breanna killed the line, then dialed Zen’s number. She went to voice mail. She pulled her niece’s cell phone number up from the phone book and tried her. She got her voice mail as well.

“Caroline, this is Bree. Please call me right away.” She hit the End call button. The minister and general were looking at her. “I — there may be a problem at the castle,” she told them. “We’re having trouble contacting my husband there. And my niece.”

She hit the redial and called Caroline again. This time she picked up.

“Aunt Bree, what time is it there?”

“Caroline, is Uncle Jeff there?”

“He’s in the next room,” said Caroline.

“Could you go get him?”

“I think he’s sleeping.”

“He’s always up by now, hon. Could you knock on the door?”

“Hang on.”

“Wait — is Teri there?”

“Yes. She’s sleeping.”

“No I’m not,” said a voice in the background.

“Let me talk to her while you check for Jeff. Hurry, please.”

“OK.”

“Hi, Teri. How are you sweetheart?”

“Mama! How are you?”

“I’m fine, honey. How did you sleep?”

“Very good.”

The car, meanwhile, had arrived at the gate. The general leaned forward and, using English, asked the guard if there had been any trouble.

The guard told him there hadn’t.

They drove through the gate, heading around the main part of the castle toward the hospitality area.

“He’s not answering the door, Aunt Bree,” said Caroline.

“Is the Do Not Disturb sign on his doorknob?”

“No.”

“Which room are you in?”

“Four B.”

“I want you to stay there with Teri, OK?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t think so,” said Breanna slowly. “Just stay there. I’ll call you right back.”

She hung up the phone and turned to the minister. By now she was sure he and the general were wondering if she was crazy and paranoid, or just the latter.

“The person you’re supposed to meet — could you call them?” Breanna asked. “See if they’re OK?”

“Is there a problem?”

“My husband’s not in his room, and someone strange answered his phone,” she said. “There have been threats against NATO ministers.”

“I’m not a NATO minister,” said Dr. Gustov, with the slightest hint of regret.

“I’m sorry, but could you please check?” asked Breanna.

He took out his phone and dialed. The contractor answered on the second ring. They spoke for a moment in English, then he hung up.

“He’s waiting downstairs,” said the minister. “He says there’s nothing wrong.”

“I see,” said Breanna, trying to stifle the uneasy feeling in her stomach. “I’m sure you’re right.”

76

The Black Wolf thumbed the End call button.

“They’re entering the courtyard now,” he said over the radio. “Be prepared.”

“Black Wolf, one of the prisoners says you know him,” Blue told him. “He says his name is Zen Stockard. Major Zen Stockard.”

Zen.

“I don’t know a Zen Stockard,” said the Black Wolf.

As the words left his mouth, a piece of a memory came back, a sharp shard striking the soft flesh of his brain.

He was in the sea… wet… someone was talking to him over a radio.

Zen.

Zen?

Zen heard footsteps coming toward the door.

“What’d he say?” he demanded.

“That he doesn’t know you. And that if you shout once more, I am to shoot you. And maybe I will shoot you now just for the pleasure.”

“There’s no answer in the restaurant kitchen,” Breanna told the minister. “There should be an answer.”

“Maybe they’re seeing to other guests,” said the general.

Major Krufts, General Josef, and Dr. Gustov got out of the car. Breanna, not sure whether to feel foolish or not, got out as well.

“I wonder if I could attend the sales presentation along with you,” she said, leaning back into the car. “Maybe we might be interested.”

“In Russian upgrades?” asked General Josef.

“We’re always trying to keep on track with what’s going on,” said Breanna.

The general frowned, but the minister remained polite. “I don’t see why not,” he said. “If they will sell to us, they would sell to you. Money is money these days.”

“My husband should come, too,” said Breanna. “He’s on the Senate Appropriations Committee. They have to approve purchases.”

It was a white lie — Zen had nothing to do with appropriations, at least not directly.

“Of course,” said Minister Gustov.

“Could you wait a minute while I go up and get him?”

“We can go as well,” said Gustov.

“Why not?” said the general. “I would like to meet your husband. I have many questions for him.”

“I would like to meet him as well,” said the minister.

“Good. Then we’ll all go,” said Breanna, trying to hide the relief in her voice.

“They’re moving inside. A woman is with them,” said Green, who was watching from the back of the keep. He was dressed as one of the security guards. “One other officer is with the minister and the general — there are four in all.”

“Do you have a shot on the minister?” the Black Wolf asked.

“Negative — not clean enough to guarantee.”

“Stay back.”

There were always wrinkles. One needed to be patient.

“In the lobby,” said White. “Four: three men, one woman. Going to the elevator.”

It would be over soon.

Breanna noticed a man watching them from the corner of the lobby as they walked in. They went straight to the elevator, where an attendant was waiting.

“Please close the door right away,” she told the elevator operator.

“What floor?” he asked.

Breanna waited until the door closed before answering. “Fourth. The man at the other end of the hall. Is he part of the hotel security force?”

“Could be,” said the elevator operator. “I didn’t see him.”

“Have you been here all morning?”

“Since four o’clock,” said the man, a lot more cheerfully than she would have expected.

“Did a man in a wheelchair use the elevator?”

“Oh, yes. I took him down for coffee about an hour ago.”

Breanna dialed Zen’s phone as soon as they stepped out of the elevator. It began to ring just as she reached Teri and Caroline’s room.

Someone picked up on the third ring but said nothing.

“Jeff?” she said. “Zen? Zen? It’s Bree. Honey?”

She could hear breathing on the other end, but not Zen.

It wasn’t him. Was it?

“Zipper me if it’s you,” she said.

It was an expression pilots used, or at least they had back when she flew combat. It meant to click the mike button or hit a key a few times to acknowledge, rather than talking.

The line clicked off.

“Mama!” shouted Teri, opening the door. “How did you get here?”

“Everybody inside the room,” said Breanna sharply, turning to the startled minister and general. “Someone is holding Zen prisoner in the restaurant.”

“They took the elevator upstairs, not down,” White told the Black Wolf. “Fourth floor.”

Zen.

Zen.

“You want me to go up and see where they are?” asked White.

“Have they seen you already?” the Black Wolf asked.

“The woman made eye contact in the lobby.”

“Hold your position. Green, come inside. Go to the fourth floor. See what’s happening.”

“On my way.”

“Blue. The man who asked for me — bring him here,” said the Black Wolf. “There’s something familiar about the name.”

The door to the storeroom opened abruptly.

“Who’s Zen?” said the man who’d been watching them.

“I am.”

“You in the wheelchair?”

“That’s me.”

“Come out.”

“I need some help.”

The girl moved forward quickly to push his chair, just as they had planned. The guard reached in and shoved her back.

I can grab his gun, thought Zen. But by then it was too late — the man had stepped back, out of reach.

“None of you move, or you all die,” said the man roughly. “Wheel yourself.”

Zen put his hands on the wheels and pushed out slowly, as if he were trying to heave himself up a steep hill.

“I could really use some help,” he started to say.

Before he could finish the sentence, the man put his foot in the back of the chair and shoved it with tremendous force. The wheels flew from Zen’s hands, and the chair rode straight across the kitchen, crashing into one of the counters. It rebounded backward, rolling nearly all the way to the man.

“Move yourself,” growled the man.

Stunned, Zen put his hands back on the wheels, starting slowly. He wasn’t acting now; the ride and crash had dazed him.

The man was big, but even so, his strength seemed disproportionate.

“Go,” he snarled. “On your own.”

Zen wheeled forward, trying to think of a Plan B.

“We need security in the building right away,” Breanna told Danny. “I think they have Zen.”

“I’m zero-five from the airport. I’ll have the Czech people over there ASAP,” Danny told her. “What room are you in?”

“Four B. We’re in the northeast corner.”

“All right.”

Breanna turned off the phone. Minister Gustov and the general had skeptical looks on their faces.

“I’m not some crazy female,” she told them. “I’m not having a panic attack. You know who I am. You know what I’ve been through.”

“That’s the only reason we’re still here,” said the general.

“I don’t know,” said Gustov. He looked as if he was going to leave.

“Listen…” Breanna glanced at Caroline and Teri. She didn’t want them to hear, but there was nowhere for them to go. “The CIA has been tracking a group hired to disrupt the NATO meeting.”

“That’s in Kiev in two days,” replied the general.

“Yes, but if they assassinated you here, that might achieve the same goal. The Russians would do that, don’t you think?”

“The Russians are capable of anything,” said Minister Gustov.

“Then wait for a few minutes more.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Don’t answer it,” said Breanna.

Danny Freah leaned forward in the car as the taxi pulled up to the Old State Castle gate.

“Who’s your commander?” he shouted.

The guard stared at him. Danny dropped fifty euros — about three times the fare — on the front seat of the cab and climbed out.

“Shut the gates,” he told the guard. “There’s an emergency in the hotel area. I need two men to come with me.”

“What? Who are you?” sputtered the man.

“Danny Freah. I’m with the American senator’s security team. We think he’s being held hostage.”

The phone inside the guardroom rang. It was the guard’s commander, ordering him to shut down all access to the facility. Help was on the way.

“There are two men near the museum,” said the guard, pointing. “I’ll call and they’ll meet you.”

Zen wheeled slowly toward the room divider, calculating that the longer he took, the more time the others would have to come up with a backup plan.

He was hoping one would occur to him as well, but ideas weren’t exactly popping into his head. He felt a little like he had the first time he rose to give a speech in the Senate — not just tongue-tied, but completely brain frozen.

“Who are you?” said a voice in English from behind the thick barrier.

Zen didn’t answer — he couldn’t. He concentrated on wheeling forward, around the barrier.

The Black Wolf stood with his arms folded across his chest. He held an MP–5 machine gun in his left hand, curled under his arm.

Was this Stoner? Zen looked at his face. It had been so long since he’d seen him.

“Who are you?” asked the man again.

“Zen Stockard.” The words came out haltingly. “Jeff.”

“I don’t know you.”

Zen’s brain unfroze. There was something in the snap of the answer — the sharp finality and sureness of tone — that told Zen it was Stoner.

“Mark. Do you remember? In the Pacific? You were with Bree. Remember the beer we had in the hospital? I smuggled them inside in my wheelchair?”

The man’s face didn’t change. But that only convinced Zen all the more.

Stoner had always seemed older to him, even though they were roughly the same age. Now he was much younger. He seemed almost not to have aged — his cheeks had hollowed, but his brow was smooth and his eyes unwrinkled. His hair was dappled gray, but it was full and thick.

“What happened?” Zen asked. He wheeled forward a foot and a half. “What happened after the helicopter crashed?”

“Quiet,” commanded the man, touching his earpiece to hear a radio transmission.

“This is security,” said the man outside the door to Teri and Caroline’s room. His English was heavily accented. “We have an important matter to discuss.”

“What matter is that?” Breanna demanded.

“There are reports of men with guns in the hotel,” said the man.

“We haven’t seen them.”

“I have been sent to protect you,” said the man.

“We’re fine.”

Major Krufts was desperately searching the room for something to use as a weapon. Breanna pointed to the lamp near the bed. But it was clamped to the side table.

The defense secretary and general were standing next to her. Caroline had taken Teri into the bathroom and closed the door.

“My orders are to protect you,” said the man.

“Great.” Breanna saw that the latch to the door had not been closed. She moved toward it quickly. “Stand guard in the hall.”

“I must see you to make sure you are not being held against your will,” said the man.

“Take my word for it,” said Breanna.

“I’m sorry. I cannot do that.”

Breanna reached the latch and pushed it closed. As she did, she heard a key entering the lock. She grabbed at the interior turning bolt, but couldn’t hold it back. The door opened, then caught abruptly at the latch.

Breanna threw her shoulder against the door, pushing it back to the frame. The latch caught. She pushed the lever closed, relocking it.

It was a momentary respite. The handle exploded, shot through from the other side. She spun back and to the side as the door flew open.

Danny heard the gunshot as he entered the building.

“The stairs!” he yelled. “Where are they?”

Even as the words left his mouth, he saw a door near the elevator at the far side of the hall. He raced to it, heart pounding.

“We are with you!” yelled one of the security men as he pushed into the stairwell. “Lead the way!”

Major Krufts jumped at the man as he came in. Krufts hit his arm and side, trying to grab the man in a bear hug. The intruder pushed him off as if he were no more than a fly, swatting him back with a sharp flick of his arm.

Krufts flew a good ten feet through the air, crashing into the wall near the bed.

The man turned and started to raise his gun. Breanna charged at him, her arm lassoing his neck. He remained upright, though her blow threw his aim off; three or four bullets crashed into the dresser and wall near the door.

Desperate, Breanna began kicking and clawing, trying to hit the man’s groin. He pushed his right arm up next to his chest and pried her off his body, flipping her down. As he did, General Josef hit him over the head with the heavy desk chair, which he’d managed to lift in front of him.

The man staggered to one side but didn’t go down. He grabbed Breanna, still flailing at him, and pulled his arm back to pistol-whip her.

“Stop!” said Dr. Gustov. “If you’re looking for me, I am here. Leave the others alone.”

Danny heard shouts as he reached the landing on the fourth floor. He grabbed at the door, then turned back as the first Czech security man reached him.

“Give me your pistol,” he told the man.

“But—”

“Don’t you have a backup weapon?”

The man hesitated, then reached down to his ankle where a small Glock was strapped. Danny took the gun and began to run toward the commotion.

Zen watched the Black Wolf’s face. There was obviously something going on, though it was impossible to tell exactly what.

Most likely the men he was going to kill were on their way here. What would happen when they arrived? Would Stoner kill him, too?

“Stoner, what’s going on?” Zen demanded. “Why are you doing all this?”

The man glared at him but said nothing, his hand pressed over his ear to listen to the radio.

“The Mark Stoner I knew was a patriot,” said Zen. “A CIA officer as dedicated as any person I’ve ever met.”

“Shut the hell up,” barked Stoner, pointing the gun at him. “Shut the hell up or I’ll shoot your tongue out.”

Breanna fell to the floor as the intruder released her. She saw Dr. Gustov, the minister, standing erect across the room, head high, jaw jutting forward, as if daring the man to shoot him.

The man grinned, and raised his gun.

“Don’t shoot him!” shouted Breanna. “Stop! Don’t shoot him!”

Three loud pops followed.

Breanna looked back toward Gustov.

He was still standing.

The intruder was lying on the ground, the back of his head shattered by bullets. Blood was spurting everywhere.

“Bree! Bree!”

Danny Freah loomed in the doorway.

The Black Wolf frowned. Green had gone off mission and entered the room without orders.

The Black Wolf pressed his hand to his ear, trying to hear what was going on.

“Green?” he demanded. “Report. What’s the situation? Green?”

“There’s gunfire upstairs,” said White.

“Investigate.”

“On my way.”

Green had obviously decided to take matters into his own hands. There was no excuse for that. He’d deal with him later, in the helicopter.

It should be only minutes away.

“What happened to you?” repeated Zen.

The Black Wolf looked over at him. He’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Who are you?” said the Black Wolf.

“Your friend,” said Zen.

“I don’t have any friends.”

“You did, fifteen years ago.”

“I didn’t exist then,” he answered.

The Black Wolf stared at the man in the wheelchair who called himself Zen.

It was so familiar, yet so far away.

Danny put his knee in the back of the man on the floor, dropping down to make sure he was dead. Blood was spurting from his head, flowing like water from a small fountain.

“Is everyone OK?” Danny asked. He looked across the room. The only one standing was an older gentleman, whose face was white. “You all right?”

“I am OK,” said Minister Gustov.

“It’s OK, it’s OK,” said Breanna, rising from the side of the room nearby. She leaped over the body and ran to the door on the left, yelling to her daughter and niece in the bathroom that it was all right.

The two Ukrainians on the floor groaned. Danny turned his gun toward the one against the wall on the far left, but it was obvious he wasn’t one of the Wolves — he was normal-sized, and a little pudgy.

One of the Czech officers yelled at someone in the hall.

“Stay here!” Danny told the others, bolting out of the room.

Gunfire erupted in the hallway as Caroline opened the door to the bathroom.

“Stay down. Get behind something — get in the bathtub,” Breanna yelled.

“Mama!” cried Teri.

“Stay down, Teri. I’m here.”

Breanna pulled the door closed, stayed outside — she could do more out here, she thought, racing to see what had happened to the dead man’s gun.

“The head! They’re only vulnerable in the head!” shouted Danny as the security officers began firing at the man near the elevator.

It was a mad, crazy scramble. Danny pressed against the side of the hallway, ducking down as bullets whizzed down the corridor.

“Danny, what’s going on?” hissed Breanna, crouching behind him.

“Get back in the room.”

“No. Who’s shooting?”

“He’s near the elevator. One of the guards who came with me tried to stop him.”

“He’s with the Wolves?”

“I don’t know — I haven’t seen them.”

“The man in the room, was he one of them?”

“I’m pretty sure. They’re all huge.”

There was fresh gunfire. Someone began screaming in pain.

“Stay down,” said Danny. He slid to one knee, steadied the Glock in both hands. It was a small pistol, 22 caliber — nothing against these guys.

Two more quick shots and the screaming stopped.

A bad sign.

“Aim for the head,” he said, raising his pistol.

The man turned the corner. Danny fired instantly, emptying the magazine.

His first shot grazed the man’s face; the second and third hit lower. The man swung his gun in Danny’s direction.

Something exploded in Danny’s ear. Again and again.

The Wolf assassin got off a single, errant shot before falling to the ground, dead.

The Black Wolf heard White go down. He’d been ambushed on the fourth floor.

It was time to abort.

“Blue, Red, we leave by the back,” he told the others over the radio.

“What’s going on?” asked Blue.

“We leave by the back.”

“What about the people in the locker?”

“Leave them. I have a hostage,” the Black Wolf said.

Zen braced himself as the Black Wolf approached, not exactly sure what he was going to do.

“You’re not going to shoot your way out of this, Stoner,” he said. “But I can help.”

“Shut up.”

“Listen, Mark—”

The Black Wolf grabbed the back of his wheelchair and spun him around. He pushed him toward the kitchen. Zen started to reach for the wheels, but they were moving so fast he realized he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“We’re taking a cripple as hostage?” said the gunman in the kitchen when they entered. “We should take someone who won’t slow us down. There’s a girl—”

“I’m a U.S. senator,” said Zen. “I’m worth more.”

Zen felt himself being lifted from his chair from behind.

“Shut your mouth,” growled the Black Wolf, flipping him over his shoulder as if he were a sack of potatoes.

Breanna clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking as she lowered the pistol. Her shots had hit the would-be assassin squarely in the forehead.

Danny Freah turned around and looked at her. Neither one of them spoke.

Breanna’s legs trembled as she rose.

“I can’t hear,” said Danny. “My ears.”

“Teri!” said Breanna, turning back to the room.

No one inside had moved. She ran to the bathroom.

“Teri! Caroline!”

“We’re OK!” yelled Caroline.

“It’s all right — you can open the door,” said Breanna.

They cracked the door cautiously, then pushed it open. Breanna pulled both of them close.

“The Czech security forces are surrounding the building,” said Danny, coming behind her.

“Zen — the elevator attendant said he went to the basement.”

Danny pointed to his ears. He still couldn’t hear well.

“Zen is downstairs. In the basement,” said Breanna, pointing downward.

“Zen? They’ll get him. The Czechs are surrounding the building.”

“Here’s a helicopter with troops now,” said General Josef, going to the window. “It’s landing right across the street.”

Zen tried to turn his eyes and brain into a human video camera, recording everything that he saw happening around him, in case it would be important later. Stoner carried him through a narrow, twisting hallway that zigged out from below the building, ending in a set of steps. They were up them in a flash. Light poured over him — they were out in a small open area, moving across gravel.

He’s going to have to put me down at some point, Zen told himself. That’s when I fight.

He’d hit him as hard as he could in any vulnerable area. Then he’d try to get him in a stranglehold.

Zen felt himself thrown against a fence, being pushed upward.

Escape!

He snagged a fence link with his left hand, then another with his right. He tugged — then felt his fingers being torn away. Someone punched or kicked his head. Zen flailed, but was hoisted up from the ground and carried over the fence.

Then he was falling.

He curled, and just barely managed to cover his face as he landed with a thud. The fall took his breath away, but he knew this was his chance — still free, he clawed at the ground, pushing himself like a crab.

Go, go, go!

Suddenly, he started to rise.

“Into the helicopter,” shouted the Black Wolf.

Breanna went to the window as the helicopter landed. It was a Mil Mi–17, an older troop-carrying helicopter used by many air forces in Eastern Europe. Painted in a light brown and green camo, the large helicopter spun its tail around as it set down.

The door at the side was open. Breanna watched, expecting troops or policemen to pour out, but none came.

Three men ran from the road that paralleled the castle grounds, racing toward the helicopter. One of them was carrying something over his shoulder — a person.

It looked like Zen in his old gray sweatshirt.

The man threw him into the helicopter head first. He rolled to his left, trying to push his way out, struggling. He grappled with his arms. One of the other men pushed him back into the helicopter. It started to climb. He rolled in her direction.

“Oh my God,” blurted Breanna. “They took Zen in the helicopter!”

77

“It’s just like a real plane,” said the Czech. “With real fuel and everything.”

“It is a real plane!” said Turk, indignant. He turned to Chief Master Sergeant Crawford, who headed the Tigershark maintenance team. Crawford was nearly red, trying not to laugh.

“You put him up to this, Chief?” Turk asked.

“Hey, not me, Cap.”

The Czech, who’d just finished loading the Tigershark with jet fuel, looked puzzled.

“It’s a real plane,” Turk told him.

“Captain Kirk,” said the Czech. “Star Wars.”

“Kirk is Star Trek,” said Turk.

“Very fast?” asked the Czech.

That was too much for Crawford, who practically exploded in laughter. He had to grab the airplane’s landing strut to keep from falling over.

“Uh, when you’re finished laughing, Chief Master Sergeant,” said Turk, “tell me when my plane will be ready.”

“You can fly it now,” said Crawford. Tears were flowing from his eyes. “Oh, God. Oh, jeez. Real plane. Real plane.”

Another maintainer, Tech Sergeant Paul Cervantes, came over to see what the fuss was about.

“The Czechs,” managed Crawford. “They’re too much.”

“What happened?” Cervantes asked.

“I can’t explain. It’s too much. And Turk—” Crawford started curling with laughter. “Captain Mako. He’s too much, too.”

“Hey, I’m glad I’m part of the entertainment,” said the pilot. He was more baffled now than angry.

“Hey, Cap, Shelly told me your gear’s like A-one ready to go,” said Cervantes.

“Thanks, Sarge. At least someone here is serious.”

Turk checked his watch. The Ukrainian minister wouldn’t be back for another two hours or so, but he had a lot to do — including figuring out who he needed to talk to in order to make sure his flight didn’t interfere with the rest of the air show. He was just about to go look for the show boss when his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, saw the caller ID, and flipped it open.

“Hey, boss,” he told Breanna, hoping she was going to tell him that Zen would join her for the fly-by.

“Turk! There’s a helicopter that just took off. It’s a Mil — it’s flying southeast. Southeast! Zen’s in it. We have to follow it.”

A minute or two later Turk pulled himself into the Tigershark’s cockpit.

“Engines,” he told the flight computer after plugging his oxygen and com gear in.

The top of the cockpit snugged down with a hard snap and the consoles powered up. The aircraft computer blew through the diagnostics, data flying across the screens.

The aircraft claimed it was in the green. That was good enough for him.

“Tower, this is U.S. Air Force Tigershark Oh-one, requesting immediate emergency takeoff,” he said over the control frequency.

“Tigershark Oh-one, repeat?”

“I have an emergency,” he said. “I need immediate takeoff.”

“I’m sorry, Tigershark. We have language difficulty. Thought you said flight emergency. We have you at base, at hangar. Please restate.”

“I need immediate clearance for takeoff,” he said, pulling off the brakes. He rolled forward about forty meters to the end of a taxiway, jammed the brakes and pushed up his engine power. Then he checked the control surfaces.

Working.

All systems green.

Get the hell into the air!

“Tigershark. We have a line of aircraft waiting on runway twenty-four,” said the controller. “You can join line.”

“How many planes in line?” he asked, starting forward. The runway was off to his left. He zoomed the Tigershark’s camera in that direction.

“You should be six when you get there,” said the controller. “Or maybe seven.”

The hell with that, thought Turk.

He had an open taxiway ahead — a good fifteen hundred feet — three hundred more than he needed balls out.

“Tower, I’m taking off from here,” he said, jamming the engine into full thrust.

Whatever curse words the controller replied with were lost in the roar of the engine. The Tigershark bolted forward. Within seconds it was near takeoff speed.

Turk tried to relax, keeping his pressure on the yoke light, waiting for the plane to tell him when it wanted to take off.

On his left he saw a blur moving in his direction.

A 757, turning onto the taxiway ahead of him.

In the way.

“Up!” he yelled, grabbing the stick.

The Tigershark jerked her nose upward. For a long, long second her rear end stayed on the ground.

The Boeing pilot was oblivious — if he’d even seen the small jet, he never would have believed it was moving so fast.

“Now!” yelled Turk, his hand firm against the electronically controlled stick. “Up, up, up!”

They cleared the tail of the airliner by a good two inches.

78

The Rattlesnake lowered Nuri in a whirl of dust, setting him and the box gently in a field about a mile and a half from the Moldovans.

“Protect me,” he told MY-PID as soon as he managed to get on his feet.

“Command accepted. Perimeter established,” said the computer, directing the two robot helicopters to orbit above him.

“Connect me with Boston,” said Nuri.

His arms felt as if they had been pulled from their sockets. His neck bulged, all the muscles spasming. It was as if everything between his skin and his bones had been turned into sharp rocks.

“Nuri, what’s going on?” asked Boston, coming on the line.

“I shot the captain. He was trying to kill me. I need backup.”

“I have Sugar on her way with help. I see your location. Can you stay there?”

“I’ll try. I have the helicopters above me.”

“I’m tapping into the feed… It looks like you’re clear. I don’t see any of the Moldovans heading in your direction.”

Not yet, thought Nuri. He wiped his face with his sleeve, trying to clear some of the grit that was caked around his eyes, then dropped down to look at the box. It was locked, but keyed with a pattern so simple he could have opened it with a paper clip.

Unfortunately he didn’t have a paper clip, and he’d lost the small lock picking tools he kept in his belt. He scrambled around looking for something to use, but the field was used for growing wheat, not thin shards of metal. Grabbing the box, he started walking in the direction of the road. As he reached it he saw a house about a half mile down the road.

He was about to head toward it to see if he could borrow something to open the box when he saw an oversized SUV truck heading in his direction. He almost ordered the Rattlesnakes to fire before realizing it must be Sugar.

He ran to the driver’s side as the car stopped. Sugar and two other Whiplash troopers jumped out, guns drawn, forming a defensive perimeter.

“I need a paper clip,” said Nuri.

Sugar looked at him as if he was insane.

“I gotta open this box,” said Nuri. “I just need a little piece of metal.”

“Will a bobby pin do?” she asked.

“Yeah, if you got one.”

Undoing the lock took only a few seconds. Starting to raise the lid, he realized belatedly that it might be booby-trapped, and ducked back.

Nothing happened.

“What’s it say?” asked Sugar, peering over his shoulder.

The box contained five small notebooks. Nuri took the first one out, examining it. The pages were filled with Russian script.

“I can’t really read Russian,” he told her, taking out his MY-PID controller. “I’ll have to get the computer to read it for us.”

“We better do it in the truck,” she said, holding her head to the ear set. “A couple of the people you pissed off up at the farm are headed in our direction.”

79

The Black Wolf needed more of the drug. It was a thirst, a ravenous hunger, a power he couldn’t resist. But he had none, and there was nothing he could do to fill the desire, to stop it, to calm his pounding heart.

He looked across the interior of the helicopter, staring at the man they’d brought as a hostage. Zen. He was lying prostrate on the deck of the chopper, a pathetic cipher.

Someone from his past.

It was a trick. He had no past.

But he did. And it involved a helicopter. There had been a flight. Something like this.

No. Not like this. Nothing was like this.

80

Czech Republic

Cleared of the traffic around the airport, Turk found he had open skies for miles and miles in front of him.

Not a good thing. He wanted to see a helicopter.

He tried reaching a Czech controller but couldn’t get anything on the frequency that he could understand. He tried switching the Tigershark’s communications section into its satellite com module so he could talk to Breanna on her satellite phone. But the call failed to go through.

What would the original Dreamland team have done in this situation fifteen years ago? They didn’t have instant com connections with everyone in the world.

They’d find the damn helicopter, first off.

Turk figured the helo had somewhere in the area of a twenty to thirty-minute lead over him. Traveling at 200 knots, tops, it could have gone one hundred miles from the Old State Castle.

“I need a standard search pattern, 150-mile radius of Kbely Airfield,” he told the flight computer. “I’m searching for a helicopter.”

The flight computer flashed a pattern on the screen, a series of crisscrossing arcs that would have him fly in a circle around the airport. It was a logical pattern, and to fly it he would have to turn immediately south and cut his speed.

But Turk resisted. It was too logical.

If he was the helo pilot, what would he do?

Fly like a bat out of hell.

Until he knew he was being followed. Then he’d stop somewhere, wait for the aircraft to go away, and start up again.

Which would help him, since once it set down, he could disable it safely and wait for the ground forces to surround it.

But the helicopter pilot didn’t know he was being followed. The Tigershark would be invisible to his radar until well after Turk saw the helo.

Turk could fix that. He tilted his wings, edging toward the outer radius of the search area the computer had outlined on the screen. Then he hit his flares.

81

Zen dragged himself to the bench seat at the side of the helicopter, then pulled himself upright.

It was definitely Stoner; he had no doubt. But in some sense it wasn’t Stoner — there was a curtain up behind his eyes, beyond the blank expression.

The others called him “Black” and “Black Wolf.” That was his identity now.

“You have a prosthetic leg,” said Zen, studying the way Stoner held himself against the bulkhead. “Both of them?”

Stoner stared at him.

“Did you lose them in the crash?” asked Zen. “We looked for you. We figured out later that you must have ordered the helicopter pilot to make your aircraft the target so the others could escape. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“It… made sense,” said Stoner.

Everything came back.

Mark Stoner, CIA officer.

I am Mark Stoner. American.

Romania. Moldova.

And Asia before that.

This was Zen Stockard. Zen. Breanna’s husband, Jeff.

He remembered the beer. He remembered Dog. And Bree. Danny Freah and everyone else.

“Where the hell were you fifteen years ago?” Stoner asked. “Why didn’t you help me?”

“We didn’t think anyone could have survived that crash.”

No, no one could have survived. No one had survived — they’d taken what was left of him and shoveled him into this — a body of two phony legs from the hips down, a phony arm, a brain held in what was left of his skull by plastic.

A body that needed drugs to survive, drugs he thirsted for now.

“Stoner, we have to go back,” said Zen.

“There’s no going back, Jeff. We’re gone.” He pointed at his legs. “You know that.”

“Black, there’s a flare ahead,” yelled the helicopter pilot from the cockpit.

“Evade,” said Stoner flatly.

Turk let off a volley of flares and checked his speed, lowering it to 200 knots. This was considerably slower than the aircraft liked, and it whimpered slightly, lowering its nose like a chastised pony.

“Contact at two o’clock, altitude sixty feet AG,” said the computer, telling the pilot its radar had spotted something about sixty feet off the ground to his right. “Distance at one-point-two miles.”

“Identify aircraft,” said Turk, glancing at the plot screen.

The helicopter was heading southeast at about 98 knots. He pulled to his left, starting a circle that would take him around so he could approach from the rear.

“Type is Russian-made Mil, Mi–16,” said the computer. It used the video cameras to capture the image and identify it in its library of types. “No identifying marks. Paint scheme similar to Czech air force.”

“Is it a Czech helicopter?”

“Camouflage is similar to Czech air force.”

“Similar but not the same?”

“Out of visual contact. Insufficient data.”

“We can fix that,” said Turk, coming out of his turn. The helo had ducked even lower: it was now just under ten feet from the ground, running along a road through the Czech hills.

Turk switched to the emergency or “Guard” band, a common frequency monitored by all aircraft.

“Mil helicopter, this is U.S. Air Force Tigershark. You are ordered to land at Kbely Air Field. Do you copy?”

There was no answer.

“Mil helicopter, I have orders to get you on the ground,” he said, improvising. “I can do that in any number of ways. Most of them not good for you.”

The helicopter took a hard turn right, flying over a field. Turk, who was already going almost twice as fast as the chopper, couldn’t follow; instead, he banked in the other direction and came around, lining up again on its tail.

What was he going to do? He had no missiles in his bays and no bullets in his gun. Even if he had, he’d be reluctant as hell to use them. His childhood hero was aboard the damn aircraft, for God’s sakes.

Only one option: bluff the crap out of him.

Stoner leaned over the pilot’s shoulder, looking at the terrain. They were five miles from Plegeau, a town outside of Mestecko and one of their alternate escape points. Two vehicles were stashed in a barn there.

The aircraft chasing them was American. It would be hard for him to coordinate with ground units. They could get away.

“Give me your map,” Stoner told the pilot.

The copilot handed him a folded-over chart. It took a moment for him to orient himself, then pick out the location.

“Fly to this spot,” he said, pressing his finger there. “You will see a barn painted green at the top of the hill. We will land next to a red barn on the next hill over, just to the east of that one. Do you understand?”

“The pilot of the aircraft is warning that he will shoot us down,” said the pilot.

“He’s an American,” replied Stoner. “He won’t dare.”

“Tigershark, are you on this channel?”

Breanna’s voice came loud and clear in Turk’s headset.

“Hey, roger that, boss — can you hear me?”

“Affirmative. What’s your situation?”

“I have the helicopter in sight. Not answering hails.”

“Describe the helicopter.”

“Hold on.”

Turk throttled back again as the helicopter jinked hard to the right. It was very close to the ground — so close that he thought it was going to hit a house as it turned.

“Mi–16. If this isn’t the helicopter, it’s sure doing a great impression,” he told Breanna. “Brown on tan camo in a scheme similar to the Czech air force, but not precisely the same.”

“I’m going to attempt to make contact,” Breanna told him. “In the meantime, I have a Czech air force staff officer ready to contact you. Stand by for the frequency.”

Zen looked at the two other men who’d gotten into the aircraft. They were watching Stoner, not him. But there was no way he could overpower even one of them, let alone both.

“Where are we going?” Zen asked them.

They pretended not to hear. He asked it again. It was Stoner who answered, coming back into the cargo area.

“We’re getting away,” he said. “We can go anywhere. Our network is worldwide.”

“Do you work for the Russians?” Zen asked.

“I work for myself.”

“Really? Who put you back together?”

Stoner frowned, then shook his head. “I wish it had never happened,” he said. “I wish I had died that day.”

“You don’t really wish that, do you, Mark?”

But he could see that Stoner did. There was real pain in his eyes — deep anguish.

Regret, maybe?

Zen wanted to say that they could fix things, but knew it would be impossible. He had to say something, though. Not to save himself, but because he felt as if they owed Stoner somehow.

He did owe him. Stoner had saved his wife.

“Mark, listen to me—”

Stoner reached into his pocket. His phone was ringing.

Not his phone. Zen’s.

“What do you want?” Stoner asked.

“Mark, this is Breanna Stockard. We know you’re in the helicopter. We’re following it. Listen, we found a box that has records of your treatment. They used powerful drugs on you. We can help reverse them.”

Breanna Stockard. It was full circle now.

“Mark, listen to me,” she continued. “You helped me once. I can help you. Let me help you.”

“I’m beyond help.” He reached his thumb for the End button.

“You’re not,” he heard her say before he clicked the phone off.

He tossed it at Zen.

“That was your wife,” he told him.

Two MiG–35s appeared on the radar screen just as Turk made contact with the Czech air force colonel assigned to liaison with him. The aircraft were coming off the runway at Caslave, a base about fifty miles north of him. They weren’t walking either — once off the tarmac, they poured on the afterburners, juicing over Mach 1.

Good luck with that, thought Turk. You’ll never stay close to the helicopter going that fast.

Their radars couldn’t locate the Tigershark, even when he gave them a position. The two aircraft turned a circle some 10,000 feet above him.

“American aircraft, please restate your position,” said one of the pilots.

“This is Tigershark. I am about ten angels below you, five miles south, uh, on your nine o’clock. Helo looks to be slowing down. He’s low, real low.”

“Tigershark, Checkmate One acknowledges,” said the Czech pilot, giving his call sign. “Please stand clear.”

“Uh, stand clear? Repeat?”

“Please remove from area. We are going to engage the enemy aircraft.”

“Negative, negative. Do not engage — they’ve got a hostage aboard.”

“We have orders, Tigershark. Please stand clear.”

Shit on that, thought Turk, pushing closer to the helicopter.

“Two kilometers,” said the pilot.

Stoner saw the green building ahead in the distance. The other barn was still out of sight.

“MiGs!” warned the copilot. “We are being tracked.”

It was exactly the same. Exactly.

“Keep going,” he said.

Turk banked hard behind the helicopter and loosed a group of flares. He spun back left, ahead and above the helicopter, and released some more.

“Tigershark, stand off!” repeated the Czech pilot.

“Yo, bro, I ain’t movin’,” said Turk.

“We see your flares. Your aircraft is in the way.”

“That’s the idea,” he answered.

Zen felt the helicopter weave and bob as the sky exploded around them. He thought for a moment that they were being fired on, then realized he was only seeing flares.

“Land the aircraft,” he told Stoner. “Get us down. You can surrender. We’ll fix you.”

Stoner frowned at him.

“We are landing,” he said. He turned to the other two Wolves and spoke to them in what Zen guessed was Russian.

The helicopter banked, then turned hard in the other direction, then dipped so quickly Zen felt weightless.

And then they were on the ground.

Stoner grabbed the back of Zen’s shirt as the helicopter settled down.

“Out!” he commanded. “Everyone out!”

He dragged Zen along the deck of the chopper, pulling him along as he followed the others outside. There were aircraft above — two MiGs, diving furiously in their direction, and another, smaller plane that ducked between them.

“Get the cars!” he shouted.

He still had Zen. What should he do with him?

Kill him, and make a clear break with the past. Or leave him here, as he’d been left.

But that wasn’t the same thing, was it? He’d been left to die. Zen would surely be found.

He looked toward the aircraft. The pilots, slowed by their seat harnesses, were just now getting out.

“Stoner, you can be helped,” said Zen.

“What are you doing with the American, Black?” asked Blue, shouting over the helicopter’s dying engines.

“We don’t need him anymore,” said Stoner, and he dropped Zen to the ground.

“We should take him,” said Blue. “We can always kill him later.”

“Get to the cars.”

“I wouldn’t have believed that you would turn soft for the Americans,” said Blue.

The pounding in Stoner’s head increased. His throat felt scratchy, as if it were made of sandpaper.

He knew what was coming. He saw it before it happened.

Blue spun, gun drawn. Stoner already had his gun out and shot once, through the right eye as he knew he must. Then he turned and caught Gray in the temple. The bullet struck one of the carbon plates that had been inserted in his brain, throwing Gray to the ground but not killing him. Stoner took two quick steps, leaning down as Gray struggled for his gun.

He shot him in the face. It was the only reliably vulnerable place.

Zen saw the gun fly from the Blue Wolf’s hand as it fell. He began crawling toward it.

The pilots began to run as soon as the Black Wolf shot Blue.

Neither was a member of the Wolves, but they were dangerous nonetheless. They would find a way to tell Gold what had happened.

They might even be wired to do that now, Stoner realized.

They had run to the barn. Stoner began walking after them. With his third stride he broke into a run.

Stoner heard the planes buzzing above him but ignored them.

He heard something else. Unlike some of the other Wolves, his hearing was not augmented, but the techniques they had taught him for focusing his mind helped him pick out different sounds from a cacophony of noises, in effect increasing his ability.

The engine of one of the cars.

He jumped back as the car crashed through the door. It veered right, lurching out of the driver’s control. He dropped to his knee and fired twice, each shot hitting a different rear tire. The car careened sideways, then flipped over.

Stoner walked slowly toward the car. He would kill the men.

And then, reluctantly, he would face Zen.

“They’re immobile on the ground,” Turk told Breanna. “Get the Czech air force to send ground troops.”

“They have police responding,” she said. “They can see your aircraft overhead — they must be only a few minutes away.”

Turk pulled back on his yoke so sharply he swore it would come out of the control column. The aircraft turned its nose straight up — just barely missing the MiG that had plowed through the air in front of him.

“Call the Czech air force off,” he said. “I think they’re a little peeved that I didn’t let them shoot down the chopper.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Zen was about ten feet from the pistol when he heard the Black Wolf coming. He pushed harder, clawing his way forward.

The gun was inches away.

A boot kicked it away.

Another slammed down hard on his hand. He felt so much pain he nearly blanked out.

“You should have searched harder for me,” Stoner told him.

“You’re right,” conceded Zen. “We should have.”

Stoner brought his gun down, aiming it at him.

“Let me call my wife and daughter and tell them I love them before you kill me,” said Zen.

“Be real, Jeff.”

“You gave me the cell phone.”

Stoner straightened his arm. Zen held his breath, then watched as Stoner raised the gun to his head.

Stoner remembered the crash perfectly now, the feeling that had come over him as the aircraft hit the ground. It seemed to take forever for death to come… and it hadn’t come.

Just pain, incredible, unending pain.

Like now.

He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

His pistol was empty. He hadn’t counted his shots.

Zen realized it a second before he did. It was just long enough for him to grab the gun on the ground.

“Shoot me!” yelled Stoner.

But his old friend didn’t. Instead, he started firing into the ground.

Stoner dove on him, desperate for one last bullet.

Turk saw the struggle, and the Czechs, running up the hill.

They weren’t going to make it.

What he needed was a stun grenade or something along those lines. But he didn’t have bullets. All he had was the Tigershark.

All the Tigershark had was speed and maneuverability.

Useless.

Maybe not, he realized, pushing his wing over.

Zen pulled the trigger again and again, knowing what Stoner would do — what he thought he had to do.

The gun jumped. He pulled. Stoner dove on his arm, trying to pull the gun toward his face.

“I’m not firing,” yelled Zen as Stoner wrestled for the trigger. “I’m not killing you.”

Years of exercise — much of it out of sheer frustration — had given Jeff Stockard an extremely strong upper body. But it was not up to Wolf standards. Slowly, he felt himself losing the battle.

“You’re not getting it,” yelled Zen, pushing himself toward Stoner’s chest. He fired the gun — the shot went wild.

Stoner grabbed the barrel and pulled it toward his face.

“No!” yelled Zen.

There was an explosion. Zen felt his head spin. Light cracked near him.

Then another boom — longer, harder — the cracking of the sound barrier only a few feet away.

Wind rushed over them.

Someone yelled at him. Someone else pulled him away. A third man was struggling with Stoner. A fourth and fifth jumped on Stoner. There was a loud crack, the zapping of a stun gun, and Stoner leapt upward.

Then Zen couldn’t see at all.

82

“Breanna Stockard.”

“And you, little girl?”

“Teri Stockard.”

The hospital attendant smiled at them. “You must wear these badges,” she told Teri. “Can you do that?”

“I can do it.”

“Very good.”

The woman handed the temporary hospital passes to Breanna. She pinned one on Teri, then clamped the other to the pocket of her blouse as she walked toward the elevator.

“Third floor,” called the woman behind them.

The elevator doors opened as they arrived. The car was empty. They got in. Breanna punched the number 3, then stood back.

“Is Daddy really all right, Mom?” asked Teri as the elevator started upward.

“Your father…”

Breanna’s voice trailed off. What did she want to say? That Zen was indestructible?

That certainly wasn’t true — his legs were proof of that.

That he was a remarkable man?

Teri already knew that.

“Daddy’s OK, honey,” she said finally. “He has to stay in the hospital for a day or so, but he’s fine. He’ll be as good as new when he gets out.”

“Promise?”

Breanna dropped down to her knees. “I’ll never lie to you, honey. Ever. Especially about that. OK?”

Teri nodded.

The doors opened. Breanna glanced to her right and saw the guards standing in front of the room where Mark Stoner was being kept under heavy sedation.

She wanted to see him, too. To thank him for not killing Zen.

And to tell him that they would figure out how to help him. How to end his pain, and get him back to what he had been. They owed him that.

“This way, Mom — Room 312.” Teri took her hand and led her in the other direction, down the hall. There was a guard in front of Zen’s room, too. He didn’t smile as they approached, but evidently he’d been briefed to let them through — he stepped to one side, making sure they could get to the door.

Zen was sitting up in bed, laptop open.

Working.

Working!

“My two favorite women in the world!” he said as they came in.

Teri ran to him and hugged him. Breanna, a tear slipping from her eye, hung back for just a second, watching her husband and daughter enjoy their embrace, before going ahead and joining them.