Cauldron

CHAPTER 33 Preemptive Strike

Moscow’s militia, the city’s police force, had its main headquarters in a large yellow-brick building on Petrovka Street, several blocks north of the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theater. The six floors aboveground contained offices for the militia’s investigators and administrators, forensic labs, an armory, and evidence storage rooms. Drunks and other petty criminals were dealt with by the district stations scattered across the capital and its outlying suburbs, but dangerous or politically important prisoners awaiting interrogation or trial were held in small cells buried deep in the building’s subbasement, below an underground parking garage.

Bone-weary after a sleepless night, Alex Banich sat hunched over on his cell’s only piece of furniture — an iron-frame cot inadequately cushioned by a single, folded wool blanket. He closed his eyes against the painful glare coming from the single, unshielded light bulb above his head. The light had been left on all night.

All night… Banich straightened up slightly. Since the guards had stripped him of his watch before they’d thrown him inside this cell, he couldn’t be sure of the exact time. But the exact time didn’t especially matter. What mattered was that it had to be close to dawn outside. That meant he and the others had been in militia custody for at least ten hours. So where were the FIS interrogators? He, Hennessy, and Teppler were all operating with false identification papers, but Erin and those French bastards certainly weren’t. Any case involving foreigners was clearly the province of the FIS — not the Moscow militia. Then why this delay in handing them over to the counterintelligence agency? Bureaucratic infighting? Some kind of clerical glitch or other administrative foul-up? Or something else, something more significant?

And what about the three DGSE agents who had survived that bloody encounter in the park? Had they already been released? He’d heard cell doors clanging open and muffled voices down the corridor some time ago. He nodded grimly to himself. For all practical purposes, France and Russia were already allies. Kaminov’s security chiefs might have some pointed questions about what the French had been up to, but they weren’t likely to jeopardize their leader’s hard-won ties with Paris just to have them answered. Not when they had four other captives to quiz.

Banich found himself running through different scenarios and options using his knowledge of the Russian agencies and personalities in play. Realistically he knew the effort was probably a meaningless mental exercise — akin to asking a blindfolded man to find one particular person in a crowded football stadium. Still, it helped him fend off his fears for Erin, his men, and himself for a little while longer.

Not that he had many illusions about his likely fate. Murder convictions under martial law carried one sentence — death. If the FIS broke his Ushenko cover story and identified him as a CIA agent, the sentence would be the same. Only the method of carrying it out would change — a secret death after prolonged interrogation and torture instead of swift public execution. The French were bound to insist on at least that much as compensation for their two dead spies.

Faced with the evidence against him, he doubted Langley would want to make much of a fuss over his “disappearance.” Senior Agency field operatives were not supposed to kill rival intelligence agents — especially in broad daylight in an ostensibly neutral capital. They certainly weren’t supposed to get caught.

And what about Erin and the others? Despite the close, confined, muggy air in his cell, Banich felt suddenly cold. He knew how Kaminov and those who toadied to him thought. Four “disappearances” were as easy to explain as one. Maybe even easier, since there would be no one left alive to dispute whatever story the marshal’s military junta concocted.

Boots rang on the bare concrete floor of the corridor beyond his cell, coming closer. They stopped right outside the cell door. A key grated in the lock, and he barely had time to stand up before the door slammed open. Four militiamen waited outside, a flabby, middle-aged sergeant and three leaner, fitter privates. All had their pistols drawn. Through the rising tide of his despair, Banich found a moment’s pale amusement in that. Clearly these Russians at least regarded him as a very dangerous fellow indeed.

“You! Come out of there.” The sergeant jerked his head back down the corridor. “You’re wanted upstairs for a little chat.”

Banich sighed. This was it, then. The Russian counterintelligence agency had finally shaken off its curious bureaucratic lethargy and come to inspect its prizes. He thought about squaring his shoulders, but then decided that a stoop-shouldered, dejected look would be more in character for a bewildered, hard working Ukrainian merchant caught up in events through no fault of his own. Although he doubted his cover identity would hold up for very long under determined investigation, he planned to play it out for as long as possible. Every hour that passed gave Len Kutner that much more time to find out what had happened to the four of them. If nothing else, he might be able to buy enough time for the rest of his field team to get clear.

He stepped warily out into the corridor. The militiamen closed in around him, with the sergeant and one private in back, and two more ahead.

“Move!” Banich felt a pistol barrel grind painfully into his back, just above his left kidney, prodding him onward. He stumbled into motion, trying to mask a sudden flash of anger beneath a properly submissive, frightened expression. Nikolai Ushenko was a man of money, not a man of action.

They marched him down the narrow basement corridor at a brisk pace, past rows of other locked cell doors. The clipboards hanging beside each bore only a number — never any names. Russia’s new military rulers hadn’t abandoned their old and ugly penchant for dehumanizing those who crossed them, he thought scornfully.

Banich’s guards led him up two flights of stairs and out into an empty hallway toward the rear of the militia headquarters. The marble floor, faded photographs and paintings of senior officials, and crowded notice boards told him they were somewhere in the more public areas of the building. This early in the morning there were very few militia officers or civilian clerical workers in evidence. Occupied offices were indicated only by a light under the door, and occasionally by the soft rattle of keys on a word processor or the low, whooshing hum of a photocopier in operation. The Petrovka Street headquarters, like the rest of Moscow, was just starting to come to life.

Despite his fatigue, Banich noticed that all of his senses were fully alert and finely tuned. Sights, sounds, and smells were all magnified as the animal side of his brain sensed danger ahead and began reacting — preparing to fight or flee. The world, even this small, sterile portion of it, seemed clearer and sharper than ever before.

The sergeant stopped outside a solid-looking, wood-paneled door and pushed it open. “Inside.”

Still in character, Banich turned toward the NCO with a pleading whine on his face and in his voice. “Please, Sergeant, I swear that I am an honest man, not a criminal…”

The sergeant snorted, “Of course.” He shoved Banich through the doorway. “Inside, pig!”

They pulled the door shut behind him.

The room was not what he’d expected. Instead of a drab interrogation chamber, he was alone in a handsomely appointed conference room — complete with dark wood paneling, carpet, a long, polished table, and upholstered armchairs. He sniffed the air, caught the scent of fresh, hot tea, and turned.

Tall glasses in metal holders stood on a sideboard next to a samovar. A nearby tray held slices of lemon, spoons, and a dish of fruit jelly. Banich arched an eyebrow in surprise. What the hell was all of this? A ploy to soften him up before the gloves came off? Was the tea drugged? he wondered.

He stood uncertainly for a few moments, then shrugged and moved toward the sideboard. He had to react as Nikolai Ushenko, not as a professionally suspicious American intelligence officer. The Ukrainian commodities trader he’d created would never pass up the chance for a free cup of tea. Even if it was drugged, at least pouring his own would give him some control over the dosage.

“I’ve always thought that you led a very interesting life for a simple merchant, Mr. Ushenko. Now I see I was right.”

Banich replaced the glass he’d selected and turned toward the familiar voice. Colonel Valentin Soloviev stood poised in the doorway, holding a dossier in one hand. As always, the Russian soldier’s dress uniform looked freshly pressed. He was suddenly conscious of his own bedraggled, unshaven appearance.

Soloviev came in and closed the door.

“I don’t see why I’m being held prisoner like this, Colonel,” Banich protested automatically, thinking fast. What was Soloviev doing here? “All I did was help a poor woman who was being mugged.”

“Killing two French security agents in the process.” The Russian seemed amused. “And the woman turns out to be an American diplomat who is also suspected of being a spy. A curious coincidence, indeed. Almost impossible to believe, in fact.” His voice turned harsher. “But not so hard when one realizes exactly how you came to be in that particular place at that particular time.

“Let’s be honest with each other. There was no good reason for a man named Nikolai Ushenko to be in Gorky Park yesterday afternoon, or for such a man to interfere in what must have looked very much like an official arrest — not a ‘mugging.’” Soloviev smiled thinly. “But we both know there was a very good reason for an American CIA officer to be there, don’t we, Mr. Banich?”

Shit. He tried to brazen it out. “Who?”

“Don’t play games with me. Neither of us has any time to waste.” Soloviev opened the dossier he was carrying and tossed two black-and-white surveillance photos onto the table.

Banich looked down at them. Both showed him in a suit and tie, holding a drink in one hand. They must have been taken at one of the innumerable trade conferences he’d attended shortly after arriving in Moscow. Damn it.

Soloviev nodded. “Unless you just happen to have an exact double stationed at the American embassy, those pictures identify you as Alexander Banich — ostensibly a somewhat simpleminded deputy assistant economic attaché.”

The colonel shook his head in mock disappointment. “It seems that my secret-police colleagues at the FIS have been rather sloppy, Mr. Banich. Their file describes you as ‘a nonentity, an Ivy League drone, and a borderline alcoholic.’” He shrugged. “I must admit that your work has been brilliant. I suspected that the man I knew as Ushenko might be feeding confidential information back to Ukraine. But I never dreamed you were an American espionage agent.”

Banich felt dizzy. He looked up sharply, suddenly tired of Soloviev’s cat-and-mouse game. “If you’re so goddamned sure of that, Colonel, where’s the FIS? Why aren’t they here to haul me away?”

The other man eyed him grimly. “For two very good reasons, Mr. Banich. First, they don’t know what I know about your identity. And second, they don’t yet know anything about what happened in Gorky Park yesterday afternoon.”

“What?” Banich couldn’t conceal his surprise. “Why not?”

“Because I am not the only Russian of rank opposed to this illegal regime and its insane policies, Mr. Banich. General Pikhoia is another.”

The American whistled silently. Major General Konstantin Pikhoia commanded the whole Moscow militia force. No wonder the word about Gorky Park hadn’t leaked yet. He found himself reappraising Soloviev. Allies that highly placed put the colonel in a very different context. Not as a lone wolf, after all, but instead as the point man for an opposition movement operating covertly inside Kaminov’s martial law government itself. Was such a thing possible?

Yes, he judged. The marshal’s purges had been directed primarily at the most outspoken supporters of democratic ideals in the military and the ministries. Officers and officials who were more discreet or more farsighted could easily have clung to their posts with an outward show of loyalty to Russia’s new rulers. Men like Soloviev.

Banich nodded. Playing that kind of double game must be familiar to those who had risen in rank during the old Soviet Union’s last days. For the first time he began to see a way out of the deadly box he’d put Erin and the others inside. Soloviev, Pikhoia, and their compatriots would have every incentive to hush this whole affair up. But then an unpleasant thought struck him. “What about the French? By now they must be back in their embassy screaming at the top of their lungs to anyone who’ll listen. And once the FIS starts asking pointed questions, both you and the general are going to be sitting pretty far out on a damned thin limb.”

Soloviev’s pale blue eyes grew cold. “I can assure you that those three gentlemen of the DGSE will not be shouting to anyone… ever.”

Oh. Banich’s estimation of the man in front of him as one ruthless bastard went up another notch. He gave in to a sudden impulse to needle the other man. “You don’t fool around very much, do you, Colonel? Someone gets in your way and bang, they’re dead.”

“Perhaps.” The Russian’s thin-lipped mouth tightened. “But then the same could probably be said of you, couldn’t it, Mr. Banich?”

Maybe so, Banich admitted to himself, remembering the two men he’d killed while trying to rescue Erin.

Soloviev shook his head in abrupt exasperation. “All of this is beside the point, however. We face much larger problems, you and I.” He pulled a chair out from the table and waved Banich toward another.

Somehow the Russian colonel looked older and wearier off his feet. “I’ve just come from an all-night negotiating session, Mr. Banich.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Kaminov has reached a final agreement with the French. Once he issues the go-ahead orders, my nation’s armed forces will cross into Poland. And our two countries will find themselves at war with each other within hours after that.”

This bad news, though expected, still hit Banich with sledgehammer force. If they were caught between two fires, the U.S., British, and Polish troops fighting in Poland were doomed. Russian intervention in the war would leave the U.S. policymakers with just two unpalatable options. Accept defeat and a Europe forcibly united under a hostile banner. Or prepare for a prolonged war that would make World War II look like a child’s tea party.

Banich swallowed hard, staring blindly down at the table in front of him. “It’ll be a goddamned bloodbath.”

Soloviev nodded somberly. “Yes, it will be. If we allow it to happen.”

Puzzled, Banich stared back at him. “What exactly do you mean by that, Colonel?”

The Russian’s eyes grew even colder. “The orders that will commit my country to this conflict have not yet been issued. In fact, they cannot be issued until Marshal Kaminov and the other members of the Military Council arrive back in Moscow and regain their access to the Defense Ministry’s secure-communications channels. Therefore, I believe the equation is simple: if we stop those orders from being given, we can stop this war before it escalates.”

Prevent Kaminov from contacting his field commanders? How on earth did Soloviev propose… The answer flashed into his mind. In that instant, the whole world seemed to narrow down to the Russian colonel’s grim face. “Are you serious?”

Soloviev nodded. When he spoke, his voice was flat, utterly without emotion. “Deadly serious, Mr. Banich.”

Flanked by armed guards, Erin McKenna followed the paunchy militia sergeant who had ushered her out of her cell. She kept her head held high. She didn’t want to give these people the satisfaction of seeing her frightened or distressed in any way. But she couldn’t stop the panic welling up inside as she contemplated the next few hours. Alex Banich had said she wasn’t ready to take prolonged torture and interrogation, and he was right. Oddly enough, though, she found the prospect of being forced to betray Soloviev and her friends and colleagues far more horrifying than the physical pain and mental anguish she expected to suffer.

Her guards came to a heavy metal door at the end of the hallway and halted, waiting while the sergeant fumbled with his keys and unlocked it. When the door swung open, a sickly-sweet stench wafted inside — the smell of diesel exhaust mixed with rotting garbage. Erin gasped softly. The door opened out onto the back of the headquarters building, into a narrow alley crowded with overflowing trash bins. Where were they taking her?

Several men wearing Russian Army uniforms were busy hurriedly loading an odd assortment of long crates and boxes onto a pair of canvas-sided URAL trucks parked just down the alley. Two officers, one tall and slender, the other somewhat shorter, stood with their backs to her, supervising the loading process. Another man, much younger and wearing civilian clothes, waited beside a black ZIL sedan — an official staff car of some kind. Five shapes swathed in drab-green army blankets lay on stretchers lining one side of the alley. When two soldiers picked up the first stretcher and carried it toward a truck, an arm fell out from under the blanket — dangling lifelessly until one of the men shoved it back out of sight. To her horror, she realized the blanket-shrouded shapes were corpses.

She hesitated in the doorway, unwilling to go further. Fears that until then had been largely abstract, the product of her own imagination, were rapidly becoming real.

“Let’s go, Little Miss Precious,” the sergeant grumbled. He grabbed her arm and hustled her down the small set of steps. She briefly considered resisting but decided against it. Fighting back would only give the odious twerp another excuse to paw her body.

Still gripping her arm, the militia noncom marched her up behind the tall army officer, stamped his feet as he came to attention, and loudly announced, “The female prisoner you wanted, Colonel!”

Erin had to stifle another astonished gasp when the soldier turned around.

Valentin Soloviev stared down at her without a hint of recognition. “An attractive specimen, Sergeant. You’ve enjoyed having her in your custody, eh?”

“Yes, Colonel.” The middle-aged jailer smirked. “Makes a nice change from the usual riffraff we get. A real tasty morsel.”

“Yes.” Soloviev pulled his eyes away from Erin to study the militia NCO. A look that mingled disdain and anger flickered across his face before he nodded toward the door in polite dismissal. “Thank you, Sergeant. That will be all. I’ll take charge of this prisoner now.” His voice hardened. “But you can be sure I will remember everything you have done.”

The words were pleasant enough, but something about the way he said them sent a shiver down Erin’s spine and wiped the self-satisfied smile off the militiaman’s pudgy face. Suddenly pale, her jailer hurried back into the headquarters building.

After the door swung shut behind him, Soloviev swung back to face her. “My dear Miss McKenna. I sincerely hope you’re all right?”

Speechless with relief, she could only nod.

“Good.” The Russian smiled then. He inclined his head toward where the other man wearing an army officer’s uniform stood, still with his back to them. “I would introduce you to my new aide-de-camp, but I believe you already know each other.”

He raised his voice. “Captain Banich?”

Erin could scarcely believe her eyes when Alex Banich spun lightly around to face her.

He grinned faintly. “Hello, McKenna.”

“Alex!” The knowledge that he was safe and free brought feelings she’d been holding back for months to the surface in a torrent. All the game-playing, teasing, and tiptoeing around real emotion disappeared in the abrupt realization that she was in love with this quiet man. Without thinking, she was in his arms.

Neither of them saw the fleeting look of sadness and disappointment cross Soloviev’s normally impassive face. It disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

Reminded of where they were by a discreet cough from the Russian, Erin pulled away slightly from Banich. She fingered the thick cloth of his uniform tunic and looked closely at him. “How on earth did you…”

“Not me. Him.” Banich nodded toward Soloviev. Talking fast, he filled her in on the events of the past several hours. When he came to the marshal’s decision to intervene on EurCon’s behalf, he slowed down and looked away as he continued, “The colonel has a plan to stop Kaminov in his tracks, but he needs our help to pull it off.”

“Our…” For the first time, Erin noticed Mike Hennessy and Phil Teppler among the Russian enlisted men loading the two trucks. Both saw her looking at them and grinned back. She turned her gaze on Soloviev. “Am I included in this plan of yours, Colonel?”

“Regrettably no, Miss McKenna. Mr. Banich and the others have weapons skills we will need. You do not.” The Russian sounded relieved more then regretful. He pointed to the young man waiting next to the ZIL sedan. “Plekhanov there will escort you back to your embassy instead. Taking you where we must go would only expose you to grave danger without purpose.”

Banich seconded that. “He’s right. Besides, somebody has to fill Washington in on what’s happened already and what may yet happen if we fail.”

Erin looked again at the uniform he was wearing. “Then at least tell me what you’re going to try to do.”

He shook his head sadly. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” she demanded. Fear for him made her tone sharper than she’d intended. “Don’t you trust me?”

“You know I do.” Banich put his hands on her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. His voice grew quieter. “But we’re about to do something that’s absolutely illegal. If we fail, I’ll probably be dead. Even if we succeed, I could still be crucified by the Agency, the Congress, or the courts. Whatever happens, I don’t want you dragged down with me. Keeping you at least partly in the dark is the only way I can make sure that doesn’t happen. Can you understand that?”

“Yes,” Erin whispered softly, fighting back tears. Crying now wouldn’t help either of them. She wiped her eyes and forced a smile. “But you’d better not get yourself killed, Alex Banich. I look awful in black.”

He grinned tightly himself, appreciating the effort she was making to keep her sorrow at bay. “Understood, McKenna.” Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

Soloviev’s voice broke in on them. “It’s time we were on our way, Mr. Banich. The trucks are loaded.”

“Coming, Colonel.” Banich gently disengaged himself from her embrace. He kissed her again, softly this time. “I’ll be back.” Then he stepped back.

The Russian moved in front of him. “I will say my goodbyes here, Miss McKenna. Whatever happens, I do not believe that we will see each other again.” The tall colonel bowed slightly, then straightened up. He smiled gravely. “You know, you really are a most remarkable woman.”

Erin had the strange feeling that the man wanted to say more and couldn’t.

Abruptly Soloviev turned away, striding toward the waiting trucks. Banich fell in beside him. One after the other, the two men swung themselves up into the cab of the lead truck.

As soon as they were inside, powerful diesel engines coughed to life and the trucks lurched forward. She lifted her hand briefly in a silent farewell, then stood watching as they rolled out of the alley onto Petrovka Street and disappeared from her sight.

The two canvas-sided trucks rumbled down the highway, rolling south at a steady sixty kilometers per hour, well within the legal speed limit. None of the men crowded aboard each vehicle wanted to attract any unnecessary attention to themselves or their cargo.

Inside the lead truck, Soloviev leaned forward, peering out through the windshield while studying the forest off to the right side of the highway. He nodded to himself and turned to their driver, a young Russian lieutenant wearing a private’s uniform. “The access road is just ahead, Pasha. You’ll see it when we come around the next bend.”

The lieutenant bobbed his head nervously.”Yes, Colonel.” He tightened his grip on the big URAL’s steering wheel.

Soloviev glanced at the man sitting on his right. “The checkpoint is only a few hundred meters up the access road. You know what to do?”

Alex Banich nodded. “Yes.” He checked the automatic lying in his lap one last time, making sure the silencer screwed on its barrel was secure and that he had a full clip. Then he slipped the pistol back inside his uniform jacket and settled back, trying to fight off the doubts crowding in on him.

What had seemed so necessary and so possible back in the militia headquarters conference room seemed more and more insane the closer they got to the isolated, wooded enclave surrounding Kaminov’s dacha. If this wild-eyed scheme of Soloviev’s backfired in any way, he thought, Russia would have a perfect excuse to act against the United States — a ready-made casus belli handed them by yours truly.

Banich shook his head grimly. Now, there was an unpleasant thought.

The truck wheeled off the main highway and turned onto a narrow, winding road heading west. Pine trees lined both sides, and the overarching branches broke the track ahead of them into a dappled stretch of alternating sunlight and shadow. Birds, frightened by their growling engines, took flight — screeching and wheeling through the clear air above the forest before fluttering away.

“There it is, Colonel.”

Banich looked up at the driver’s muttered warning to Soloviev. He squinted through the dust-streaked windshield.

The checkpoint was just ahead.

A wood barricade dotted with reflectors and painted a bright orange and white closed off the road, but a set of tire spikes pulled across the road behind the barricade was the real vehicle stopper. Two soldiers with AK-74 assault rifles lounged near a wooden sentry box on the left. Blue shoulder patches marked with a sword and shield identified them as uniformed members of an FIS security unit. Four more FIS troopers manned two sandbagged machine-gun nests — one sited on each side of the access road. An officer wearing a peaked cap was just stepping out of the sentry box, yawning and adjusting his pistol belt.

Banich frowned. This was going to be tricky. They were facing seven men with only six — Soloviev, Banich himself, Hennessy, Teppler, and the two young Russian Army officers the colonel had been able to round up at short notice. The trouble with the democratic conspiracy inside Kaminov’s government, the Russian colonel had remarked wryly, was that it had far too many chiefs and far too few Indians. Ostensibly, that was why he’d jumped at the chance to recruit Banich’s team. In the back of his mind, the CIA agent also had the sneaking suspicion the Russian planned to use the Americans as fall guys if anything went wrong. Soloviev struck him as a survivor, not a martyr.

The truck slowed and came to a complete stop within meters of the barricade. Their second vehicle stopped right behind them. The FIS officer, a captain, stepped forward smartly. “Your papers, please.” He recognized Soloviev sitting in the middle and started. “Colonel Soloviev? What are you doing there? Where’s your staff car?”

The Russian colonel shrugged. “Broken down about five kilometers back up the highway, Vorisov. Whichever idiot checked it last missed something pretty big. I must have been leaking oil since leaving Moscow.” He laughed sourly. “If I hadn’t been escorting these boys here, I’d have had to hitchhike.”

“Damned mechanics.” The FIS captain shook his head in sympathy. Then his eyes narrowed slightly. “But why are you here now, sir? Didn’t they tell you? These big hush-hush meetings are over. Everyone’s supposed to be heading back to the city any moment now.”

Soloviev chuckled. “So I hear. But you know the high brass. The marshal asked me to bring down some extra ’supplies.’ Cases of them.” He winked and tossed off an imaginary glass of vodka. “Seems they’re having themselves quite a party.”

Banich clamped down on a grin. Marshal Kaminov was an old-fashioned Russian — the kind of man who would insist on celebrating the birth of this new Franco-Russian military partnership with a liberally poured vodka baptism. And, from the look on the guard captain’s face, Soloviev’s story had struck a receptive chord.

“Supplies, eh?” the man said slowly. He rubbed his jaw, obviously debating with himself. But with temptation and duty both on the same side for once, the struggle was over quickly. “I suppose I should inspect those cases before I pass you through… just to be safe.”

Soloviev showed his teeth. “Ivan Andreivich, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll even help you.” He glanced at Banich. “In the meantime, Ushenko here and his boys can have a little stretch or take a leak. Right, Captain?”

Banich nodded briefly, hiding his relief. If the FIS officer hadn’t taken their vodka bait, things could have gotten messy fast. But Soloviev had been reasonably confident the ploy would work. Despite years of official antidrinking campaigns, alcoholism was still a major killer among Russian men. Even more important, underlings in rigid hierarchies take their cues from their superiors — and Kaminov and the men around him were all hard drinkers.

The American climbed down out of the truck cab and signaled Hennessy and the others in the second truck. “Everybody out! We’re taking a short break. Move it!”

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Soloviev leading the FIS officer around to the back of that second truck. His pulse accelerated. Any second now.

Banich began walking toward one of the machine-gun positions, stretching and twisting as though he were shaking loose the knots wound up by an uncomfortable journey. Fear, not fatigue, made him yawn once and then again, deeper and longer. With an effort, he shut his mouth and moved closer.

The two FIS guards manning the PK machine gun ignored him. Like their commander, they were more interested in the contents of the trucks. He saw one of them nudge the other and grin. Maybe they thought this Captain Vorisov would share the results of his “inspection” with them.

Phut. Phut.

The sound of Soloviev’s two silenced shots spurred Banich into action. His right hand darted inside his uniform jacket and came back out holding his own silenced automatic. Everything around him slowed as adrenaline altered his time sense.

One of the startled gunners saw the weapon in his hand and opened his mouth to yell a warning. Banich squeezed the trigger — firing again and again. Hit by two or three rounds apiece, both FIS men crumpled. One screamed and fell forward over the machine gun with a huge, red-rimmed hole in his back. He shuddered once and then lay still. Struck in the stomach and head, the second guard sprawled back against the sandbags, staring up at the sky with unblinking eyes.

The American turned rapidly, scanning for new targets. There weren’t any. The other checkpoint guards were already down and dead or dying. He tugged the partly empty magazine out of the Makarov and snapped in a fresh clip. Hennessy, Teppler, and Soloviev’s two Russian officers were doing the same thing with their own silenced weapons.

Soloviev himself came around the side of the truck, dragging the dead FIS captain by his arms. “Don’t stand there! Move! Haul those corpses off into the trees! We haven’t much time.” He dumped the guard officer out of sight and turned around, looking for the lieutenant who had driven the first truck. “Pasha! Clear those vehicles off to the side of the road. Hurry up!”

It took several minutes of frantic effort to restore the checkpoint to a semblance of normal order. While Banich and the others hauled the bodies of the guards they’d killed out of sight, Soloviev scrambled up into the lead truck’s cargo bay and began unloading the long, narrow boxes he’d commandeered from the militia headquarters armory — boxes containing RPG-16 antitank rocket launchers, ammunition, and more AK-74 assault rifles. As each man came back from his grisly task, the colonel handed him a weapon and a pair of gloves.

All of them started when the sentry box phone rang — shrill in the eerie silence hanging over the checkpoint. Soloviev jumped to answer it. He listened briefly, answered in a gruff voice, and then poked his head back out through the open door. “Get ready! The French delegation is leaving now. Kaminov and the rest will follow shortly.”

Three big black official sedans came barreling around a bend just minutes later. Tiny French flags fluttered from the hood of each car. The cars braked, waiting just long enough for them to pull the tire spikes off the road and shoulder the barricade aside. Then they accelerated again, whizzing past the checkpoint without stopping. With a treaty signed, sealed, and in hand, Ambassador Sauret and the rest of his negotiators were evidently in a tearing hurry to get back to Paris.

Once the last French limousine disappeared around another curve, Soloviev, Banich, and the others exploded into action. Hennessy, Teppler, and the two junior Russian officers replaced the barricade and tire barrier, grabbed loaded assault rifles, and trotted up the access road toward the dacha. Banich and the colonel both scooped up an RPG-16 launcher and a pack containing extra rounds and followed their men — staying well inside the trees lining the road.

They’d gone only a hundred meters or so when they heard the sound of several engines rumbling closer, but that was far enough to lose sight of the deserted checkpoint past a curve in the winding road.

At a hand signal from Soloviev, the rifle-armed men faded back into cover, hunkering down in the shadows under the trees. Their two leaders did the same. The Russian glanced at Banich. “The first vehicle, understand?”

Banich nodded impatiently. “I know.” He settled the RPG on his shoulder after making sure he’d remembered to remove the safety pin from its antitank warhead.

“Just checking.” Soloviev surprised him by grinning. “Take away the trees and this could be Afghanistan all over again… only I would be on the other side, of course.” He clapped the American on the shoulder. “Don’t miss!”

Then the Russian was gone, cradling his own rocket launcher as he hurried forward — dodging tree trunks and patches of sunlight. The engine noises grew louder.

Banich stayed absolutely still as the first vehicles came into view. The convoy was organized exactly the way Soloviev had said it would be. A GAZ-69 jeep with a light machine gun in a pintle mount was in the lead. The driver, machine gunner, and two passengers, both officers, all wore the blue shoulder flash of the FIS. Three armored limousines came next — each an identical black and with tinted windows that hid their occupants from public view. He tensed. Kaminov, the high-ranking officers who were his closest subordinates, and their personal bodyguards were riding inside those three vehicles.

An eight-wheeled BTR-80 armored personnel carrier with a turret-mounted heavy machine gun brought up the rear. Like the four-wheel-drive Blazers the U.S. Secret Service used as “war wagons” to carry extra agents, commo gear, and heavy weapons, the BTR was a formidable fighting machine. The FIS troops it carried rode up top, helmeted heads poking through open fighting hatches on the BTR’s deck. One man near the rear carried a shoulder-launched SA-16 for protection against air attack.

God. Banich blinked away the sweat trickling into his eyes. Odds that had sounded awfully high when Soloviev first outlined his hastily formulated plan now seemed insurmountable. This was not going to work. His hands started to tremble. Oh, Erin…

The jeep leading the convoy rolled past his position. Now! Banich stood up, all fear buried beneath the overriding need to make his shot count. He squinted through the rocket launcher’s sight, steadied on target, and fired.

Whummph.

The RPG round flashed across the intervening distance, slammed into the dashboard on the driver’s side, and detonated. Five pounds of high explosive tore the open-topped vehicle apart in a searing ball of flame. It flipped over and landed sideways across the road.

Through the smoke, Banich saw Soloviev rise, take careful aim, and fire a HEAT round directly into the BTR-80’s thinly armored flank. The APC exploded. Sheets of bright red fire flared out through every open hatch, fed by fuel and ammunition stored aboard. Pieces of burned bodies arced out from the exploding vehicle.

In that single horrifying instant, all hell broke loose.

Caught traveling just meters behind the jeep Banich’s warhead had mangled, the lead armored limousine roared ahead and crashed into the flaming wreckage at thirty kilometers an hour. The massive grinding impact threw both vehicles across the road and into the trees in a shower of sparks and shrieking metal. When they stopped spinning, both were locked together — completely blocking the access road.

The second black sedan skidded wildly, sliding sideways as it braked, narrowly avoiding the collision just ahead. But then the driver of the last car, less alert or maybe distracted by the blinding flash in his rearview mirror, smashed head-on into the side of the fishtailing vehicle. Broken glass, crumpled metal, and torn rubber flew outward from the impact point.

The world seemed to stand still for a moment — frozen at a lone point in time. Both ends of the narrow road were barred. Kaminov’s convoy was cut off — unable to go forward and unable to go back.

Car doors popped open, shattering the stasis. Dazed-looking men began scrambling out of the wrecked limousines, clawing their way past others who couldn’t move because they were too badly stunned or injured. A few, younger than the rest, clutched snub-nosed AKR assault carbines — staring wildly in all directions at the woods around them. Kaminov’s bodyguards, Banich realized.

He knelt down, pawing through the satchel in front of him for another RPG round.

With their targets out in the open now, Mike Hennessy, Teppler, and the Russian lieutenants opened up from the treeline, firing on full automatic. Men jerked wildly, spun around and ripped apart by the dozens of hollow-point bullets hammering the area around the wrecked cars. Panicked screams rose above the gunfire and then faded away.

Those few who survived the first murderous fusillade turned and tried to run, stumbling away into the trees. They didn’t get far.

Hennessy and the others stalked across the road and went after them, firing aimed three-round bursts on the move. When the firing stopped, silence fell over the ambush site — a silence broken only by the crackling flames consuming the destroyed jeep and APC.

Soloviev stepped out onto the corpse-strewn road, still carrying the rocket launcher he had used. “Pasha! Take Vanya and bring that second truck up here! The one with the dead Frenchmen inside. We’ll leave them here, by our weapons.”

The young lieutenant nodded sharply, slung his rifle, and signaled his counterpart. Both took off down the access road at a run. At the same time, Hennessy and Teppler came back from their hunt looking pale. They understood the need to make sure no one survived the ambush, but that didn’t mean they enjoyed butchering men who weren’t even trying to fight back.

Banich came out of the trees to join Soloviev by the second smashed limousine. He grimaced, trying to control his nausea as he surveyed the carnage. “Why waste time planting Duroc and his men, Colonel? No investigator in his right mind would tie them into this!”

The Russian looked up at the smoke billowing above the trees before glancing down at him. “We still have ten minutes or so before the first patrols will arrive here, Mr. Banich. As far as any investigation is concerned…” He shrugged. “In America, the truth may be of paramount importance, but in Russia, the truth is always what is convenient for those in power. And once the dust settles from this day, it will be very convenient to blame the French for this butchery.”

He shrugged again. “It makes a compelling story, you understand. Outraged by the heroic Marshal Kaminov’s refusal to stab Poland in the back, renegade French security agents took their revenge here and then fled in panic — leaving a few of their fallen comrades behind.” Soloviev nodded toward one of the corpses lying at Banich’s feet. “An old and tired story of foreign treachery, I agree — but one familiar to many of my older countrymen. It will make that man’s death easier for them to understand and accept.”

“I see.” Banich stared down at the corpse in front of him. The bulletproof vest the old man had been wearing hadn’t been good enough to stop high-velocity rounds fired at point-blank range. A faint breeze eddied across the road, stirring the thin wisps of white hair above a strong, square-jawed face now smeared with blood. He looked up. “So that’s Kaminov?”

The Russian nodded grimly. “Yes. That was Marshal Yuri Kaminov.” He turned away from the body of his former leader. “You and your men had better head back to the city now, Banich. Take one of the trucks, but leave the other for us. Those identity cards and uniforms should serve you long enough to find shelter or make your own way back to your embassy.”

“What about you, Colonel? What will you do now?”

Soloviev glanced dispassionately at the mass of burning wreckage and tangled corpses. Then he looked back at the American. “I have more work ahead, Mr. Banich. This was only a beginning.”