Day of Wrath

CHAPTER FOUR DATA STREAM

FBI Special Agent Helen Gray stared down at the jumble of scorched tubing and pieces of crumpled metal spread out across a folding table.

The NTSB’s chief investigator Robert Nielsen, Alexei Koniev, and Peter Thorn stood close by, studying the same pile of debris.

Even without looking directly at him, she could sense Peter’s rigid self-control and utterly expressionless face. Ever since that bastard Mcdowell had walked in on them yesterday, he had avoided anything but strictly professional behavior toward her. Whenever they met, it was “Special Agent Gray” this and “ma’am” that.

It didn’t take ESP or a degree in psychology to read his mind. Angry at himself for having caused her trouble, Peter was busy beating himself up — all in the name of some chivalrous, selfdenying impulse to spare her further humiliation. It was all very old-fashioned, and also absolutely unnecessary in her opinion.

Helen sighed silently in frustration. One of the things about Peter Thorn that had first attracted her to him was his readiness to admit her competence and to acknowledge her skills. Very few of the men she’d ever worked with — let alone dated — would do that. Even when she’d showed them she could beat them at their own games, most just patted her on the head and drifted off — probably wondering why this strange woman worked so hard to master “masculine” abilities.

Peter had been different. Even after she’d been wounded, he’d pushed her hard to get back on her feet and onto active FBI duty — just as hard as she had ever pushed herself. He’d also known that she had to fight her own battles. She’d loved him more than ever for that.

But he’d changed over these past few months. He seemed more hesitant — less sure of himself and of his place in her heart.

Part of that was her fault, Helen knew. She’d allowed herself to be swept up in the excitement of her new assignment. Tracking illegal drugs, money laundering, arms smuggling, and the other booming ventures of Russia’s organized crime syndicates was often a twenty-four-hour-a-day job — one that made maintaining a relationship across eight time zones and thousands of miles immensely difficult.

Of course, the time they’d spent together here hadn’t been very conducive to romance, Helen thought ruefully. She and Peter were two birds of a feather. Neither of them found it particularly easy to open their hearts to another person — even under the best of circumstances.

Being dead-tired most of the time made that more difficult still. And the lack of privacy only compounded their woes. It was tough to rekindle physical and emotional intimacy when you were liable to be walked in on at any moment. So far, they were exactly .000 for two on that score, Helen realized, blushing as she remembered the knowing leer on Mcdowell’s face.

“Have you seen enough, Miss Gray?” Robert Nielsen’s dry, precise voice broke in on her thoughts, tugging her back to the case at hand.

Helen refocused her attention on the wreckage heaped in front of her.

She turned to the head of the NTSB investigative team. “So what exactly am I looking at here, Mr. Nielsen?”

“Part of the An-3”-s port engine.” The tall, gaunt man nodded toward the table. “One of the recovery crews found it at the bottom of a pond last night.”

“And the starboard engine?” she asked.

Nielsen shook his head. “They haven’t recovered it yet.”

“But you’ve learned something about what caused this engine to seize up?” Helen prodded.

“Yes.” Nielsen pulled a length of gnarled, threaded sleeve off the table. “This is the housing for the engine fuel filter. Now take a look at what we found inside it.”

Straining slightly, the NTSB man unscrewed the sleeve — exposing another, smaller sleeve inside. Then he reached inside and extracted a blackened cylinder.

“That’s the filter itself?” Peter asked quietly.

Nielsen nodded. He held it up for closer inspection. “See that?”

“See what?” Helen peered intently at the filter. It looked pitchblack against the light. “I can’t see anything.”

“That’s exactly my point,” Nielsen replied. “You should be able to see the light shining through the mesh screens on this filter.”’

He tapped the cylinder with one gloved finger. “But this filter is clogged, Miss Gray. It’s choked with so many contaminants that I’m not surprised this engine seized up.”

Alexei Koniev raised an eyebrow. “Contaminants? What kind of contaminants?”

“Dirt. Metal shavings. Rust particles.” The NTSB man ticked them off on his fingers. “It’s all the kind of crap you expect to find in most aviation fuel — just multiplied about a thousand times over the normal levels.”

Helen framed her next question carefully, conscious that she was treading on touchy ground. Like most people in his profession, Nielsen hated being asked to arrive at hard-and-fast conclusions ahead of the evidence. “This fuel contamination. do you think it could have happened accidentally? Or does it look deliberate?”

“Was it sabotage, you mean?” Nielsen pursed his lips, looking down at the dirty filter he still held in his hand. Then he shook his head.

“I don’t know, Miss Gray. Not with any degree of certainty.”’

“So speculate, then,” Helen said sharply, momentarily losing patience.

With effort, she reined her irritation in and tried a winning smile instead. “Please.”

“Damn it, it’s not that simple,” Nielsen grumbled. “We’ve had bad fuel bring down planes in the U.S. And it’s an endemic problem here in Russia. What’s more, both engines would draw from the same fuel source. So when one engine died of fuel starvation, the second would follow in short order.”

“All of which is consistent with the last radio transmissions from the aircraft,” Helen reflected.

“Right.” Nielsen held the filter up again. “What we’re seeing here could just be sloppy maintenance. Contaminants like these always settle out over time. So we may have a case where somebody really screwed up. Maybe they didn’t replace an old, used filter when they should have. Or maybe they fueled the plane using aviation gas from the bottom of a tank …”

“Or maybe somebody did the same things — on purpose,” Peter finished for him.

“That is possible, Colonel,” Nielsen confirmed reluctantly.

“The mechanics are the same either way. And the equation’s the same, too: The more contaminants flow through the filter, the more clogged it gets. Eventually, there’s not enough fuel getting through to feed the engine.”

Koniev frowned. “Is there any way you will ever know the truth?” ‘ The NTSB investigator sighed. “Maybe. At least I hope so.”

He nodded at the tangled pile of engine components. “We’re shipping all this off to Moscow this evening for more detailed forensic analysis.”

Then Nielsen shrugged. “But there’s a limit to what we’ll learn about this accident through an electron microscope.” He turned his gaze on the three of them. “You might have more luck on your end.”

“Meaning that whatever went wrong at Kandalaksha had a human component?” Helen said calmly.

“That’s exactly what I mean, Miss Gray,” Nielsen agreed.

“Very well.” Major Alexei Koniev straightened up. He turned to Helen.

“So we go to Kandalaksha?”

Helen nodded firmly. “Yes, Alexei. I think that’s exactly what we’ll do.” Her eyes narrowed. “And then we’ll take a good, hard look at the maintenance operation there — and at the people who readied this plane for takeoff.”

“Good.” The Russian MVD officer turned toward Peter Thorn. “Will you accompany us, Colonel?”

Helen held her breath. Peter was already pushing the envelope of his watching brief as a liaison to the crash investigation. Especially since his superiors at O.S.I.A had been reluctant to let him come to Russia at all. And none of the paper pushers in Washington would be happy if they found out that their least favorite ex-Delta Force officer had actively joined the hunt for whatever, or whoever, had brought the An-32 down. That might even give them the ammunition they needed to force him out of the Army entirely. How could she blame him if he opted for the safer course and stayed behind? But she also knew that would probably spell the end of any future they might have as a couple. If she headed for Kandalaksha without him, they wouldn’t see each other again before he had to leave for the States. And if he chose the safer career course, his own wounded pride would always stand between them.

“Well, Colonel?” Koniev asked again.

Peter hesitated, visibly restraining himself from turning toward her, and then nodded decisively. “I’m in, Major.”

“You’re sure, Peter?” Helen heard herself ask.

“I’m sure.” He smiled tightly at her, a fleeting grin that flashed across his tanned, taut face and than vanished. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Colonel General Feodor Serov reached for the phone on his desk and then stopped. Instead he glanced again at the fax he’d just received from the Ministry of Defense — as though hoping he could find the inspiration for some alternative course of action in its terse directives.

No, he thought somberly, scanning the flimsy sheet of paper for the tenth time, there were no other options left. Much as he hated it, he would have to seek assistance — and quickly.

Without hesitating further, Serov turned back to the phone and punched in the emergency contact number he’d been given.

Then, while waiting for the call to go through, he flipped the 80 switch on the hightech scrambler his “business associates” had assured him would thwart electronic eavesdropping.

“Yes.” The voice on the other end was impersonal, emotionless.

Serov grimaced. “This is Colonel General Serov. I ned to speak to Reichardt. The matter is urgent.”

“Wait.”

The line went silent for several seconds while Reichardt’s subordinate patched the call through to his superior.

“What is the problem now, Feodor Mikhailovich?” the German asked icily.

Although the emergency number carried a Moscow prefix, Serov knew modern cellular telephone technology meant Reichardt could be anywhere in the world right now. He might be in London, Paris, or New York. He might also be right outside the headquarters building itself again — waiting with murderous intent inside yet another unmarked staff car. The ex-Stasi agent had already shown his ability to move through Kandalaksha’s security undetected and unchallenged. It was almost as though the German was a ghost, or a demon.

Serov suppressed a shiver. He was a man, a soldier, and a fighter pilot — not a babe in swaddling clothes to be frightened by old wives’ tales of werewolves and witches.

“Well?” Reichardt demanded.

“There are new... complications... in the crash investigation that may require your action, Herr Reichardt,” Serov said slowly, dragging the words through clenched, unwilling teeth.

“Complications?”

“I’ve received new orders from the Ministry of Defense,” Serov explained. “An investigator from the MVD is on his way here now to interview my maintenance crews. I’ve been directed to cooperate fully with his inquiry.”

“I see,” Reichardt said coldly. “So Captain Grushtin’s foolproof sabotage left traces.”

“Possibly,” Serov admitted. “Though if the aircraft had gone down over the White Sea as we hoped, we wouldn’t have to worry now.”

“Don’t mince words with me, Feodor Mikhailovich,” Reichardt snapped.

“You have the MVD about to swarm around your ears, correct?”

“Yes. A Major Koniev arrives tomorrow morning.”

“Koniev …” Reichardt paused momentarily, clearly pondering the name.

Then he continued: “Very well. What is it that you wish of me?”

Serov swallowed hard, hating what he was about to do. Betraying the official trust by dealing with the ex-Stasi agent and his employer had been difficult enough. Betraying one’s own comrades was harder still.

But then the faces of his wife and children rose in his mind, reminding him of the price of failure. He set his misgivings aside. “There is a potential weak link.”

“Grushtin,” Reichardt guessed.

“Yes,” Serov confirmed. “Nikolai is a talented mechanic and artificer, but I’m afraid he is not a good liar.”

“Unfortunate,” Reichardt said simply. “So where is the gifted Captain Grushtin now? On the base?”

Serov shook his head unconsciously. “No. I sent him on leave once he finished his work on the project. As a reward, you understand.”’ “Where is he then?” the German demanded.

“Moscow.”

“Moscow,” Reichardt repeated. “Where exactly?”

Serov told him.

Reichardt did not even bother to hide the sudden wolfish hunger in his voice.

“Excellent, Feodor Mikhailovich. It appears that Captain Nikolai Grushtin may yet perform another service for us, after all.”

Helen Gray leaned close to Peter Thorn’s ear and whispered, “Jesus Christ! If this is an example of Colonel General Serov’s full cooperation, I’d sure hate to see him stonewalling.”

Peter nodded grimly.

The Russian base commander had set aside an empty, unused hangar for their use. As a place to conduct confidential interviews it left much to be desired. With the doors open, the noise from the Kandalaksha flight line was deafening. With the doors closed, the unheated hangar’s thick concrete walls trapped both the nighttime cold and the lingering reek of spilled fuel, oil, and grease. Crude drawings and coarse jokes left spray-painted on the walls by long-discharged Russian conscripts added to the general air of disrepair.

Nor were the other aspects of Serov’s “cooperation” much better.

At the Russian general’s insistence, one of his top aides, a lean, hatchet-faced colonel named Petrov, sat in on every interview — perched across the table in full view of every hapless enlisted man they questioned. Tough-looking sentries wearing body armor and toting AK-74 assault rifles were also posted at the hangar entrance.

Serov had explained these steps as a necessary precaution, given the presence of nuclear weapons at Kandalaksha. “We take security very seriously here, Miss Gray,” he had said, and then, with a sidelong glance at Peter Thorn’s U.S. Army uniform, “although it is clear that others in the Ministry of Defense do not share my concerns.”

Bull, Helen thought. She’d bet cold, hard cash that the Russian general’s precautions were intended to intimidate potential witnesses — not to protect nukes that were stored in bombproof bunkers miles away.

If she was right, the worst of it was that Serov’s plan was working.

So far all of the ground crewmen they’d interviewed had insisted that nothing out of the ordinary occurred while the O.S.I.A inspection team’s An-32 was being readied for takeoff. She didn’t believe them. Nobody liked being questioned by the police, but there were too many hesitations, too many nervous glances at Serov’s aide, too many dry mouths, and too many sweaty brows for her to buy their stories.

No. Something had gone badly wrong out there on the Kandalaksha flight line. But they still didn’t know whether to pin the blame on sloppy procedures or deliberate sabotage.

Frustrated, Helen turned her attention back to the aircraft mechanic Alexei Koniev was questioning. She couldn’t follow the rapid-fire flow of Russian, but she could read body language plainly. The mechanic, a private, had flat, Asiatic features that marked him out as a native of Russia’s Far East. A nervous tic near the corner of one eye told her he was frightened.

Koniev snapped out a question, listened briefly to the private’s hesitant, uncertain reply, and then waved him away in disgust.

“No dice?” Helen asked.

“Nothing,” Koniev snorted. He nodded toward the mechanic, already hurrying out of the hangar. “According to that one, the sky was blue. The birds were singing. The flowers were in bloom. And he and his comrades did everything humanly possible to make sure that plane was ready to fly.”

Peter Thorn leaned over. “Who’s next?”

Koniev glanced down at the unit roster open on the table in front of him. “A Lieutenant Vladimir Chernavin.” He frowned.

“Perhaps the lieutenant will demonstrate his fitness to be a member of the officer class by telling us something resembling the truth.”

Helen shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe.”

Despite her skepticism, she had to admit that Chernavin made a better first impression than his subordinates. The lieutenant was short, an inch or so below her own five foot ten, but he was solidly built — carrying enough muscle to show that he did his own share of the grunt work out on the flight line. Closecropped brown hair topped a round, open, boyish face that proclaimed his youth. He also had a ready, infectious smile.

Chernavin took the chair Koniev indicated. His eyes took in Peter’s military uniform and widened. “You are American?” he asked in passable English.

After a quick glance at Koniev, Peter nodded. “Colonel Thorn, U.S. Army.” He indicated Helen. “And this is Special Agent Gray of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

The Russian lieutenant grinned excitedly. “I am very glad to meet you, Colonel! And you, Miss Gray.”

Helen didn’t even try to conceal her surprise. “Really, Lieutenant? Then you’re the first person I’ve run across here at Kandalaksha who’s happy to talk to us. Most of your subordinates seem to think we’re either spies or secret policemen.”

Chernavin’s open, friendly face clouded over. “Ah.” He shrugged. “Then they are ignorant peasants. Their heads are still stuffed full of the old Cold War propaganda. They have not studied America and its marvels as I have.”

The young Russian brightened again. “I hope to visit your country one day, you see! So I am not afraid.”

“You do know we’re here to investigate your unit’s work on the An-32 that crashed eleven days ago?” Koniev cut in impatiently.

“You understand that, Lieutenant Chernavin?”

“Of course.”

Helen fought to keep her face impassive. The Russian Air Force lieutenant seemed blissfully unconcerned by their inquiry.

Why? She leaned forward. “It doesn’t bother you that an aircraft you worked on went down in the woods shortly after taking off from here ― killing everyone on board?”

Chernavin lowered his gaze. “Oh, no. No. I did not mean that.” He looked up at Helen. “Of course, I am very, very sorry that all those people died. It is a great tragedy, naturally. A great tragedy.”

“A tragedy? Not an accident? Not a disaster?” Koniev said skeptically. “Explain that, Lieutenant.”

The young Russian officer spread his hands apart. “I only meant that, whatever caused the aircraft to go down, it had nothing to do with the work performed here at Kandalaksha.”

Helen smiled at Chernavin. If Koniev wanted to grab the tough guy spot in the good cop-bad cop routine, she would oblige. “You seem very sure of that, Lieutenant.”

He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

“Why?” Koniev rapped out. “Why are you so sure, Chernavin?”

“Because Captain Grushtin handled the preflight check himself,” the Russian maintenance officer said confidently.

Grushtin? Helen glanced down at the maintenance records in front of her. She’d spent enough time in Russia to puzzle out the Cyrillic alphabet, and Koniev had scribbled a hasty translation of the Air Force technical terms and jargon. She looked up at the young Russian officer. “Just who is this Captain Grushtin, Lieutenant?”

For the first time, Chernavin seemed unsure of himself. “Captain Nikolai Grushtin is one of the chief maintenance officers on the base.”

His gaze swiveled from Helen to Koniev and back again. “He is a brilliant mechanic. Brilliant. So you see, that is why I am confident that this crash had nothing to do with our work here.”

Koniev slid his own copy of the An-32 maintenance log across the table toward the younger man. “If this Captain Grushtin performed the preflight check himself, Chernavin, perhaps you can tell me why he is not listed in this log or anywhere else for that matter!”

Clearly surprised, the lieutenant stared down at the papers for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers and looked up. “Captain Grushtin is not listed because he was not officially assigned to supervise the ground crews on that day. The log would only show those of us on that morning’s flight line roster.”

Helen felt her heart rate quicken — aware that it was the same sensation she used to have on the Hostage Rescue Team firing range when the first real target popped up. She shook her head.

“So this Grushtin character just showed up unannounced and you let him handle the An-32 maintenance work?”

Chernavin nodded. “Of course. He is my superior officer.”

“And that didn’t seem strange to you?” she pressed further.

“No …” the Russian lieutenant said slowly. He tried to explain.

“The captain is a perfectionist and this was an important flight — one with so many foreigners aboard. I thought he just wanted to make certain the aircraft was readied according to his standards.”

I bet he did, Helen thought coldly. She sat back while Koniev took the ball.

“And you found nothing unusual in this ― even after the plane crashed?”

The MVD major glowered across the table at Chernavin.

“Why was that, Lieutenant?”

The Russian Air Force officer reddened. He lowered his gaze, unable to meet Koniev’s glare. “Well, you see, I …”

He wanted to duck any responsibility for the crash, Helen realized suddenly. And Grushtin’s intervention gave him a convenient out. If Kandalaksha’s most “brilliant” mechanic had missed something in the preflight check, then how could anyone blame a young junior officer like him? Her mouth twisted in distaste as she stared at Chernavin.

She’d never been able to stomach people who tried to dodge accountability for their own actions.

“If Captain Grushtin wasn’t managing the flight line that day, what was his official duty assignment?” Peter Thorn asked abruptly.

Chernavin looked startled. He glanced quickly at Serov’s aide and lowered his voice. “He was in charge of a special project.”’ The Russian lieutenant nodded pointedly toward Thorn’s American uniform and said knowingly, “The special engine project.”

What the hell was this “special engine project,” Helen wondered, and why did Chernavin seem to expect Peter to know all about it? Was there any connection at all between Gasparov’s heroin smuggling, the cryptic notation in John Avery’s inspection log, and this “project”? Or were they looking at a series of unrelated events?

“That’s quite enough, Lieutenant!” Colonel Boris Petrov loudly interrupted, breaking her train of thought.

Chernavin fell silent, looking more worried than ever.

Serov’s top aide scowled at Koniev. “Your authorization for this inquiry does not include prying into unrelated state secrets, Major! Especially not in front of foreigners! So you will confine your questions to matters involving the An-32 and the ground crews. Is that clear?”

Alexei Koniev stiffened in anger, and Helen braced herself for the explosion. Several months spent working closely with the MVD major had shown her that he had a deeply hidden temper.

It rarely showed itself, but interference in the performance of what he perceived as his duty was the one thing guaranteed to set him off.

Koniev’s cell phone chirped unexpectedly — heading off his intended reply. Impatiently, he flipped it open. “Yes. Koniev speaking.”

The MVD officer listened intently for a time, his face growing angrier by the minute. Finally, he gripped the phone tighter and responded, “I see. You’re quite sure? Very well. I’ll call you back.”

Koniev snapped his phone shut and turned toward Helen and Peter. His lips were compressed in a thin, tight line. “The lab tests on the recovered engine came back. There were fresh tool scrapes on the fuel filter.”

“Meaning what?” Helen asked softly.

“Meaning that Captain Grushtin or one of his men changed the engine fuel filter here at Kandalaksha — and deliberately installed a contaminated replacement,” Koniev said bluntly.

“The evidence is conclusive. The plane carrying Colonel Gasparov, his shipment, and your O.S.I.A inspection team was sabotaged.”

He whirled on Serov’s aide. “This investigation is now a formal murder inquiry, Colonel Petrov. Do you agree?”

The other man nodded reluctantly. “It appears so, Major. As difficult as I find that to believe.”

“I don’t give a damn what you believe, Colonel! And I don’t give a damn about your so-called state secrets,” Koniev said savagely. “I expect your full cooperation — real cooperation — this time?”

Petrov stiffened. “Very well.”

“Good.” Koniev eyed him carefully. “Then you, or Colonel General Serov, will tell us exactly where we can find this Captain Nikolai Grushtin. Or you and your commanding officer will explain your refusal to assist us in even less comfortable and less convenient quarters. In Moscow. Is that understood?”

Sitting rigidly upright in his chair, the other man nodded slowly. He seemed completely cowed.

But later Helen found herself wondering uneasily why the hatchet-faced Russian colonel’s lips had twitched briefly into what looked remarkably like a self-satisfied smirk.

Caraco’s Washington-area regional headquarters lay in the middle of the green, wooded countryside surrounding Dulles International Airport.

Broad streets, grassy lawns, and patches of oak and pine forest left standing around homes and office buildings gave the area something of a rural feel despite the fact that it was only a few scant miles from the western edge of Washington’s urban sprawl.

Seen from the outside, the Caraco compound was almost wholly unremarkable. It blended well with the neighboring modern-looking office parks and light industrial complexes fanning out from the airport. Its large, boxy buildings were pleasantly anonymous, practical, and architecturally uninteresting — similar in style to dozens of others bearing different corporate logos and names like “Vortech” and “EDC, Inc.”

Even the compound’s chainlink fence, perimeter floodlights, and twenty-four-hour guards were not out of the ordinary. Many of the area’s hightech electronics firms had tens of millions of dollars in manufacturing equipment and industrial secrets to protect.

But the fence, lighting, and guards were only the visible signs of a much more complete, almost sentient security system. A network of computer-controlled video cameras and motion sensors had been woven around the border of the compound to detect any unauthorized human or machine intrusion. All incoming phone, fax, and data lines were constantly monitored for signs of electronic eavesdropping, and all the external windows were double-paned and vacuum-sealed to thwart laser bugging.

Two of Caraco’s three buildings contained offices meeting rooms, computer centers, and file storage areas — all the run-of-the-mill trappings of any building owned by a large multinational corporation.

But the third building was different — very different.

Guards armed with Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns were stationed just inside the main door. Special identification badges were required to gain entrance — something none of Caraco’s American-born employees carried.

Inside, the warehousesized building was divided into several areas by movable partitions. All the activity was in one area, just off the main entrance. Racks of electronic equipment lined one wall, while the others were covered with wiring diagrams and enlarged photos of a twin-turboprop aircraft.

The floor was crowded with benches, each covered with tools and electronic equipment. Half a dozen technicians sat at the benches — peering at oscilloscope screens, or methodically assembling electronic components.

They conversed easily in low tones, their German mixing with country-western music playing from a boom box on a table next to a coffee machine.

The room had a hard, industrial feel, with nothing personal, no prints or photos, no newspaper clippings anywhere in sight.

The only item not related to the workplace was the radio, now belting out a Clint Black tune.

One of the technicians finished wiring a piece of gear, nodded to himself, and called across the room, “Klaus? Unit Number Three is ready.”

A man in his fifties, at least twenty years older than the rest of the technicians, balding with gray, close-cut hair on the sides, walked over from another workbench. “You remembered the interlocks this time, I hope?” he asked, half joking and half serious.

“Yes, Klaus. I checked them twice before calling you,” the young German technician answered respectfully.

They knew and used only first names in the project, and his was Franz, at least as long as this job lasted. He was in his early twenties with a smooth-shaven head, and he knew the older man still couldn’t get used to the small gold loop piercing his left eyebrow.

His training was good, however — the best available from one of Germany’s top technical schools. He knew electronics.

Caraco had recruited him straight out of school, promising only foreign work and high pay. Very high. Franz had hesitated only momentarily before agreeing to what he suspected was some sort of illegal activity.

After all, he had come to the United States on a tourist visa — not on one that permitted him paid employment.

The working conditions inside the Caraco compound were hard, almost Spartan. Security was tight. And his new employers had made it clear that questions, of any kind, were unwelcome — perhaps even dangerous.

None of that mattered much to the young technician. Germany’s “miracle” economy had stagnated over the past decade.

Most of his peers and friends were still unemployed — reduced to living on the public dole or squatting in abandoned buildings.

Well, not him. For this two months’ work, he would make enough to live decently while finding a more permanent position.

If Caraco wanted to bend a few petty American laws as part of the bargain, so be it.

To demonstrate his success, Franz, humming along with the radio, touched a test probe to several connections inside the device.

The older man watched carefully and then nodded, pleased.

“Very good. All right, let’s do a navigation check.”

Franz disconnected the unit from the bench’s power supply and picked it up by two built-in handles. Holding it with respect, he followed Klaus over to a long workbench in the far corner of the room.

Together, they fitted the new device, which had a curved underside, to the top of a similarly curved metal plate. Connectors in the device mated with sockets in the plate.

Referring to a checklist tacked up next to the workbench, Franz pressed a square green button on the front panel. Several small green LEDS lit up, and a display on the front came to life.

It was blank for only a moment, then showed the number 1. Another pause and it increased — flickering from 2, to 3, and then on up to 7 in rapid succession. After a few seconds more, an 8 appeared.

Below the green glowing number, several more numbers appeared latitude, longitude, and an elevation above sea level.

They matched the numbers posted prominently on the wall above the workbench, but both men had long ago memorized them.

In theory, it was possible to obtain a good global positioning system (GPS) fix using the signals transmitted by just three satellites, but first-rate accuracy demanded five. The precise number available depended both on the location of the receiver and the orbits of the twenty-four operational GPS satellites. There were always enough above any observer’s horizon for a decent fix, and often enough for an excellent one.

Another light glowed on the unit.

“Receiving GPS correction data,” Franz reported.

“Very good.” Klaus grinned. “Convey my thanks to the U.S. Coast Guard and all the other companies providing us with such services.”

The younger German matched the older man’s grin. The signals transmitted by the GPS satellites were carefully degraded so that civilian-owned receivers couldn’t match the accuracy of those used by the American armed forces. Differential GPS, or GPS, was a technique used to correct those errors. Software inside base station receivers matched their precisely known location against that supplied by GPS, and transmitted error correction data to mobile receivers within range.

The U.S. Coast Guard and a number of private companies had set up systems of radio beacons across North America — supplying constant error corrections to anyone with the appropriate equipment.

Standard civilian GPS sets could provide a navigation fix accurate to within one hundred meters horizontally and one hundred fifty meters vertically. Using five satellite signals and GPS error correction, those same sets could provide a fix accurate to within one meter.

Satisfied that the device’s GPS sub-system was on-line and working, the two men carefully checked yet another set of lights above the test panel. All were green.

Franz made a notation. “The computer is up and running, Klaus.”

“Good,” the older man grunted. He checked a pair of readouts on the workbench. “The processors are in sync. And the data feed is operational.”

The two German technicians tested several more functions on the panel, then, satisfied, disconnected the device. Then the man called Klaus watched as Franz placed it on a rack against one wall — next to several other pieces of electronics. He allowed the younger man one moment of satisfaction before ordering him back to work.

Caraco had them on a tight schedule.