First Team

1

Ferguson leaned back in the leather chair, waiting for the secure video screen at the front of the basement room in the embassy building to bleep to life. As secure communications facilities went, this was among the clubbiest — the couch and club chairs were thick leather, and there was a well-stocked bar at the side of the room. He’d watered down his bourbon considerably, but still felt the sting of it in his mouth as he waited for the connection to go through.

“Hey, Ferg,” said Corrigan, his face exploding onto the flat plasma screen.

“What’s the puss about, Jack?” said Ferg. “It’s not payday.”

“You’re not going to like this.”

Without any other explanation, Corrigan’s face dissolved into Slott’s.

“There’s a change in our organizational chart,” said Slott.

“Auditors finally caught up with you, huh?”

“One of these days, Ferguson, your wisecracks are going to catch you short. Today may just be the day.”

“Gentlemen, if we’re through with the fun and games, let’s begin.” Corrine Alston’s face flashed on the screen.

“Well, if it isn’t the White House lawyer,” said Ferg. “Don’t tell me you’re DDO now.”

“As a matter of fact, Mr. Ferguson, I’m not. But I am in charge of the Joint Services Special Demands Project Office. And by some quirk in the legislation, it appears that while I have to inform the DDO of what I do, I don’t actually answer to him.”

“Peachy,” said Ferg.

“What are you drinking?”

Ferg held the glass up. “Jack Daniel’s. Want some?”

“This is government time,” she said frostily.

“Yeah. I’m drinking in the line of duty.”

“Yuk, yuk,” said Corrine. “I understand the oil tanker was a bust.”

Ferg raised his hand. “Uh, Madam Lawyer? Actually, it was ethylene. And it was being outfitted as a covert minelayer. That information has been passed along and is of great value to the agencies responsible.”

“The information could have been gathered through DRO.” The initials stood for the Defense Reconnaissance Office, which was responsible for satellite tasking.

“Sure,” said Ferg. “And the Sisters of Charity might have stumbled across it during a fund-raising drive. But they didn’t. Now, if we could get timely data from DRO, that would be nice.”

“You don’t get timely data?” asked Corrine.

“We have trouble getting timely train schedules.”

“I thought the entire idea was to do away with the bureaucracy fettering you.”

Ferg snorted, and not just because of her somewhat naive notion about bureaucratic prerogatives. He’d never heard the word “fetter” used over a secure com net before.

“The bureaucracy you’re referring to,” said Slott, rallying to the defense, “is a set of different departments and agencies working together to provide timely support.”

“Or not,” said Ferg.

“Improvements will be made,” said Corrine.

“Hear, hear,” said Ferguson.

“In the meantime,” said Corrine, “we have a new program.”

“I like that. What the fuck is it supposed to mean?”

She frowned slightly at the curse word, which was his intention. She could pretend to be one of the guys, but underneath it she was just another one of those Beltway girls, let into the game because of abstract principles that had nothing to do with reality.

He sipped his drink as she continued, outlining a plan to follow a shipment of waste from Buzuluk in Russia.

“Excuse me, didn’t you just suggest we use DRO? The satellites and monitors already keep tabs, and, besides, the Russians guard the trains.”

“Maybe they don’t guard them very well.”

“OK,” said Ferguson. “But you’re about a week and a half behind the times. Why fool around with the train anymore when we know the waste is going to Chechnya?”

“You don’t know that at all.”

“Excuse me. Strongly suspect. What’s Kiro say?”

Somebody behind Corrine whispered something to her, bowing his head as if he were speaking to the queen. Ferg couldn’t believe they were all deferring to her already, waiting for her to speak. Slap the White House label on anything, and all of a sudden it rose to the top of the heap.

“Corrigan,” he said, growing impatient. “What’s new with Kiro? We’re interrogating him, right?”

“Nothing new, Ferg.”

“Did you guys apply the screws?”

“We’re not going to use drags,” said Corrine. “We want to bring him to trial.”

“So?” said Ferguson.

“Mr. Ferguson, there are certain legal constraints—”

“Uh-huh.” Ferg got up and went over to the bar. His refill wasn’t going to be watered down.

“We’ll launch our project from Moscow tomorrow evening,” said Corrine. “I’ll need three members of your team, Mr. Ferguson. I’d like at least one who’s already familiar with the operation.”

Since he only had two people with him, Ferguson would have been stupid indeed not to realize she was trying to clip his wings. Dealing with her was going to be a serious pain in the ass.

“Not a problem,” he said, turning and giving his best smile to the camera. “Give Corrigan the details. I’ll work it out.”

“Will you be there?”

“No, I’m due some R&R time.”

“That’s fine,” she said sharply. Then her feed went blank.

2

Slott’s reaction to being supplanted was so professionally cold that Corrine couldn’t decide whether it hid anger or relief. She saw no sign that he was in on the president’s game, though she was starting to realize that was no guarantee he wasn’t.

Slott claimed to have no free CIA personnel to assign to the Team; in fact, he told her, the Agency was desperately undermanned in all areas — a hint that perhaps she might use her influence to free up personnel lines. She did so, but all her phone calls succeeded in doing was shaking loose a previously approved but budgetarily frozen slot for a high-level analyst to help the Team. Corrine finally decided that the SF people could undertake the surveillance mission themselves without Ferguson or another Agency minder. The mission was relatively straightforward, with the Team members expected to stay out of harm’s way and simply gather intelligence.

Back at her White House office, she tried sorting through some of the other work that was piling up for her. She hadn’t gotten very far when the president summoned her by phone; he had left a few hours before for Chicago.

“How is Russia?” he asked when she picked up.

“Russia?”

“Well now, isn’t that where you are?”

“Mr. President, you know very well where I am. You called me.”

“Generally when I ask to speak to someone, the call is put through without bothering me with minor details such as the location of my callee,” he said. “But now that I reflect upon it, the line does not seem to have the usual Russia twang. There’s more a kind of static in the background, the sort of electronic fog I associate with Washington, D.C.”

“Why do you want me in Russia?”

“I want you running Special Demands. You outlined a project for the Team, and I expected you to see it through. In person.”

“But I’m not qualified—”

“I do wish you’d stop putting yourself down, young lady.”

“Yes, sir.”

McCarthy dropped his playful tone. “They have to respect you, Corrine. Make them see you’re a tough ol’ gal. As tough as me. I know you are.”

“Tough young gal.”

“Get.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, hanging up.

3

“I’ll give the nuns one thing,” said Conners, slapping the beer mug down on the polished blond wood bar. “They taught you how to do arithmetic, and grammar. They were hell on you, but you learned.”

“Yeah?” Rankin reached for the bowl of pretzel nuggets, selecting one and holding it up for examination. He turned it over and over, as if he were looking at a diamond. Both men had had a few shots to go with their two beers. The Foreign Club was an American-style bar, insulated from the Islamic masses by a squadron of security people and a hefty “membership fee.” The very expensive foreigners club would have been normally off-limits and out of reach for American soldiers, but Ferg’s unlimited connections and moxie had gotten them in. Even Rankin would have had to admit the CIA officer knew the meaning of R&R.

“You’re drinking too much,” Rankin said, as Conners pushed the shot glasses forward for another round.

“Yup,” said Conners. Rankin reminded Conners of a kid he’d known since grammar school, Peter Flynn. Flynn was an only child and a bit of a priss, and when in sixth grade he announced that he was going to be a priest no one was really surprised. Girls — and probably Flynn’s father — soon put an end to that, but Flynn always seemed a little angry about it, mad that he couldn’t fit into that square hole.

“I’ll be but drank in good company,” said Ferguson, slapping them both on the back.

“Hey, it’s the devil himself,” said Conners.

Ferg pointed at the beer for the bartender, ordering one for himself.

“What was that you said?” Rankin asked Ferguson.

“A quote. From Shakespeare.”

“He was an Irishman, you know,” said Conners.

“I’ll ne’er be drunk, whilst I live, but in honest, civil, godly company,” said Rankin, supplying the proper lines from Merry Wives of Windsor.

“Whoa, Skip — you know more than you let on.”

“Screw you, Ferguson.”

“How’d it go?” Conners asked.

“Peachy,” said Ferg, taking his beer. It was a Dortmunder export from Germany, “DUB” or Dortmunder Union Brauerei, which had a dryer, slightly stronger taste than the “normal” German lager. Ferguson drained the mug, then pushed it forward for a refill. “Drink up today, boys, for tomorrow we fly. That’s not a direct quote.”

Conners glanced over his shoulder, making sure that no one was nearby. The crowd was mostly rich businessmen, but a spy might easily mingle, and of course a good portion of the staff would be in the employ of some intelligence agency or another. “Where we going?” he asked Ferguson.

“Hither, thither and yon. Skip, here, is going to Moscow.”

“Moscow?” said Rankin.

“Russia, not New York. You’re meeting our new boss.” Ferguson pulled over the refilled mug. “Guns’ll meet you,” he said, taking a more sensible sip this time. “I have another SF guy going as well, out of the States. They call him Frenchie — he was on loan to French intelligence for a while and has an accent. Thinks he’s a frog.”

“What new boss?” said Rankin.

“Long story, Skip. We’ll get into it later. Any girls around here?” Ferg asked, turning around to survey the room.

“They don’t allow women,” said Conners.

“Well, then, we’ll just have to go somewhere that they do, eh?”

4

Rankin’s head throbbed as he made his way off the Airbus A330. He turned the wrong way and found himself staring into the stern face of a Russian policeman. He went back and found the route to the baggage area, though he already had all of his luggage, a small carry-on.

The signs were in English as well as Russian, but the glare hurt his eyes, and he squinted until he finally managed to find the proper Customs line. He unfolded his blue passport — it was his “real” passport, not the diplomatic one he could use in an emergency — and after presenting the lengthy Customs form answered a dozen questions about his stay for a twentysomething woman with hair nearly as short as his. Cleared through, he walked around the building, waiting for whoever was supposed to meet him — it hadn’t been worked out when he left — to do so.

“Yo,” said someone behind him on his third circuit. “What the hell are you doing?”

Guns was standing at the side, shaking his head. He was dressed in a black brushed-leather jacket and jeans and wearing an earring; he looked like a British soccer fan sizing up the country for a round of hooliganism.

“What are you doing?” Rankin said. He’d thought the Marine was in the hospital.

“Looking for you.”

“You OK?”

“Good as ever.”

“Where’d you get the earring?”

“Car’s out this way,” said the Marine.

“Where’d you get the earring?” repeated Rankin, following him outside. The light stabbed at his eyes, and he felt a quick wave of nausea, yesterday’s whiskey rumbling in his stomach.

“Like it?”

“No.”

Guns put his fingers up to it. “It’s a transmitter. I’m being tracked as we speak.”

“Get out.” Rankin grabbed the Marine and looked at his ear. The earring was a simple gold-colored post.

“You kiss me, and I’ll slug you,” said Guns.

“That’s no fucking tracking device.”

“Join the twenty-first century,” said Guns. “There’s our car.”

They got into a small Fiat at the far end of the lot. It was a manual; Guns stalled it twice getting out of the spot, grinding the gears when he finally got it into the lane. He managed to work the clutch right at the gate, however, and once they were on the highway he felt comfortable.

“How was Iran?” Guns asked Rankin.

“A fuck-up. Ferg got shitty intelligence and almost got himself wasted in a pirate-DVD operation. They made porn movies.”

“Yeah? Right there?”

“No, they just made copies. We gave a bunch to the submarine crew and the SEALs. They had a great time.”

“Did we get one?”

“You don’t want that shit,” said Rankin. He glanced at his watch, already set for Russian time. He still had an hour to go before he could take more acetaminophen for his hangover. “Where we going?”

“Another airport called Domodedovo.”

“Why?”

“ ‘Cause we’re flying out to someplace called Orenburg. Or actually near there. I’m starting to lose track.”

“Why?”

“Man, you ask a lot of questions.”

“How was Paris?” said Rankin, following along.

“Busy. We didn’t stay. We drove out to talk to somebody in Reims.”

“You see the cathedral?”

“There’s a cathedral there?”

“Guns, there are cathedrals in every city in Europe. Yeah. It’s pretty famous. Fantastic stained-glass windows.”

“How about that.”

“What’s the new boss like?” Rankin asked, changing the subject.

“New boss is a serious piece of eye candy, but a bit of a bitch,” said Guns. “Ferg don’t like her.”

“Yeah, well, that’s one thing in her favor.”

Guns laughed. “We’re going to track a shipment of waste to Kyrgyzstan.”

“We should’ve done that in the first place.”

“Yup. You want to stop and get something to eat?”

“Not really,” Rankin told him.

“Well, I have to stop anyway.”

“Go for it, Marine.”

“I never know how to take you, Rankin,” said Guns.

“What do you mean?”

“You making fun or me or what?”

Rankin bent over his seat belt and looked at him. “No.”

“You sound like you’re trying to bust my chops.”

“Jesus, Guns, I got a fuckin’ headache, and I feel like I’m being jerked around on yet another wild-goose chase. What the hell you want me to do?”

“Your problem is you need to get laid. I’ll tell you, at the infirmary, I met this nurse. First thing I did…”

“Oh Christ,” said Rankin, leaning his head back against the rest.

5

Baku was an oil town, the center of one of the most prolific producing areas in the world outside the Middle East. It was also a place where other things could be had and arranged; the Caspian washed its shores with the rhythmic sound of possibility, and if a foreigner didn’t find hospitality there, it was surely because he wasn’t trying hard enough.

Ferg and Conners sat at a table overlooking the sea, waiting to meet Ferg’s contact, who was running about an hour late. Rahil — Rachel in English — was a raven-haired beauty, the daughter of a smuggler who had inherited the business from her father. Ferguson had had occasion to do business with her once before, and so he wasn’t surprised or disappointed by the fact that she hadn’t yet shown up at the cafe. He nursed a coffee while Conners sipped at a vodka, staring through the yellowed plastic panel at the edge of the porch.

“My darling, you are here already,” said Rahil. She floated to them across the porch, her hand trailing across Ferguson’s shoulder. He rose; she kissed him. Four men in black pants and sweaters fanned out across the room behind her — the family business had not thrived for three generations without taking certain precautions.

“Your friend?” Rahil said.

“Dad,” said Ferg, pointing to him.

“Your father? But he’s so young.”

“Just a nickname.”

“Ma’am.”

“You must watch Mr. Ferguson,” Rahil advised him. “He will go light on the paycheck.”

“We merely deducted for expenses,” said Ferg. She was referring to their last encounter, which had involved smuggling a set of hard drives out of Russia. The disks had “been damaged — probably because Rahil had tried to have her people read them — and Ferg’s supervisors had insisted on delivering only partial payment.

“You will make it up today?”

“Maybe.”

Rahil let a waiter pull over a chair for her, then ordered champagne. She began telling Ferguson about how beautiful the sea was this time of year — how beautiful it was at all times of year.

Conners sipped his vodka, taking in only enough to sting his lips. Rahil looked to be about thirty, though like a lot of women he’d seen there she put her makeup on so thickly it made her look older. She had a thin body, but she moved it the way a dancer would, thrusting it around as she spoke. Her bodyguards eyed them jealously, and Conners guessed that she herself had at least two weapons, including a barely concealed pistol at the belt of her flowing skirt beneath her black blouse, which was not tucked into the waistband.

“I’m going to Groznyy,” said Ferg

“Yes?” she said. The waiter arrived with the champagne, a Tattinger brut, 1995.

“I’d like to stay in a convenient place there,” said Ferg, who took a glass of the wine.

“There are many hotels,” she told him.

“You know my tastes.”

“Expensive.”

“Not necessarily. Just discreet.”

“As I said, expensive. The authorities.” She shook her head. “Groznyy is not a nice place these days.”

“When was it ever?”

“True. The Chechens are a dirty people. Why go there? Stay here with us. Baku is a very rich place.” She turned to Conners. “You are not drinking my champagne?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ferguson is paying.” She laughed.

“Thanks anyway,” said Conners.

The waiter reappeared. Rahil called him over and ordered some blintzes, then told him to see to her men. There were three dozen tables on the veranda, more than half of them occupied, but the waiter had no trouble figuring out whom she meant.

“So, a place to stay. That’s it?” said Rahil. “The CIA needs my services as a travel agent?”

“I’d like some contact among the rebels.”

Rahil shook her head. “No.”

“No one who owes you a favor?”

“These sorts of favors would have me dead in a week,” she said. “We do not deal with the Islamic madmen.”

“They’re not all mad, are they?”

“The crazy ones are the sanest. Of course they’re mad. They’ve been mad for centuries. But now they are worse. In the past two years…” She waved her hand in the air, as if brushing away smoke. “Drink more champagne, Ferguson. Drink, drink.”

“They may have something I want to buy,” suggested Ferg.

“Such as?”

“Things,” he said.

“Stay away from them. Better to deal with the Russians.”

“I deal with them all the time.”

“See? I knew you were a wise man. Here, let me write you an address that may come in useful.”

Interesting woman,” said Conners, as they rode in a taxi toward the dock. Ferguson had hired a boat to take them north to Machachkala, where they’d hire a car to go to Groznyy. They were supposed to be German representatives from an oil company, though it didn’t seem as if anyone particularly cared. “Pretty, too.”

“Drug smugglers usually are,” said Ferg.

“We going to stay in her hotel?”

“Nah.”

“You wanted the guerrilla contact?”

“No.” Ferguson pointed out the dock and had the driver let them off. When the car had pulled away, he told Conners to grab his bag and follow him.

“Where?”

“There’s a ferry we’re taking. It leaves from that pier up there.”

“I thought you hired a boat.”

“I did,” said Ferg.

“You sharing information these days?”

“Only on a need-to-know basis.”

“What do I do if you get shot?” asked Conners, serious.

“Cash in the plane ticket in your pocket and go home.”

“Ferg.” Conners grabbed his shoulder. “You’ve been taking some awful chances lately.”

“Name one.”

“Walking into that police station, the DVD operation in Iran…”

“It’s okay, Dad. It’ll all make sense eventually.” Ferguson adjusted the shoulder strap on his leather duffel bag and started for the ferry.

“That I doubt,” said Conners.

Ferg waited until they were about halfway to Machachkala to call Corrigan. By then the clouds had thickened, and it looked as if they were sailing toward a storm. He stood out on the upper deck, wind whipping against his face as the call went through.

“Where you been?” Corrigan asked.

“Pulling my pud,” Ferguson told him. “What do you have for me?”

“The guy Kiro sent a message to is named Jabril Daruyev. You can download the full dossier anytime you want.”

“And the FSB investigator?”

“As far as we can tell, he’s back in Chechnya. I can’t run him down definitively.”

“You have him definitely ID’d as Kruknokov?” asked Ferg.

“If you had given us a better picture, I could be definitive,” said Corrigan. “But there’s a Kruknokov who was in Kyrgyzstan, then went to Chechnya. I have a picture and it looks like your guy. I see a yellow sports coat.”

“That’s got to seal it,” said Ferg.

He was being serious, though Corrigan thought he was making fun of him.

“Don’t you bust my chops,” said Corrigan.

“I wasn’t. How are Guns and Rankin making out with the Dragon Lady?”

“She’s not that bad. No worse than Slott.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Please stop busting my balls.”

“When I go online, am I going to have all that data on the prisons?”

“It’s waiting for you.”

“Fair enough, Corrigan. I take back everything I said about you.”

“What a guy.”

Ferg snapped off the phone.

6

Rankin reached over the seat, fishing for the bottle of water in the back of the car. He hadn’t screwed the top tightly enough when he’d put it on, and the carpet of the Fiat was soaked; worse, he had only a few small gulps left. Even though the train carrying the waste material had parked for the night on a siding, they’d have to stay there watching it, and that meant he wouldn’t be able to restock for another six hours, until Conners and Jack Massette took over. His few days in the Middle East had left him dehydrated, maybe permanently; he felt as if he could drink several gallons of water and not quench his thirst. Holding the bottle up in the dim light, Rankin gauged that there were four gulps’ worth left. He decided he’d have to parcel them out, a gulp an hour. Postponing the first gulp, he tightened the cap securely and rose in the seat to place the bottle more carefully against the transmission hump. Their gear was on the seat at least, and so remained dry.

A figure approached from the right side of the car. Even though he knew it had to be Corrine, Rankin tensed, caught awkwardly unprepared. He let go of the bottle and pulled his arm back as he saw her face, nodding, then reaching over to unlock the door for her.

“It’s cold,” she said.

“Everything seems cold to me,” he said.

She slid in, adjusting the seat though she’d fiddled with it several times since they parked there two hours before. Corrine had had to relieve herself at the edge of the woods. She hadn’t had to squat outdoors since a family camping trip when she nine or ten, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing she could talk to Rankin about. The Special Forces soldier had hardly said anything since they’d taken the shift together watching the waste train for the night.

“I didn’t see anything from the road,” she told Rankin. “I walked up and around. There’s a gravel road out to the town.”

“Yeah,” said Rankin. “Listen, I spilled a bunch of water in the back.”

“Oh.” She twisted around to look.

“It’s on the floor,” he said. “Nothing really got wet.”

“We have another bottle of water,” she said.

“That’s yours.”

“We can share. I don’t have cooties.”

“Thanks.”

A small video screen projected and magnified the view from a set of night glasses positioned on the dashboard. They could see all five cars carrying the waste material from where they sat, though they couldn’t see the three diesels that drove the train or the flatcar and four boxcars that had been tagged on to the back, the flatcar for the guards and the others merely cars going south.

Starting from Buzuluk earlier in the day, the train had been escorted by a small detachment of soldiers in a second train, along with a pair of helicopters. Now it had only a small contingent of guards — Russian sailors in civilian dress, according to their backgrounder — and two local policemen. Most of the dozen sailors were asleep in the boxcar nearest the containment cars; the policemen were dozing in a car near the tracks. Four members of the six-man train crew had left earlier, presumably going to the local hotel for the night.

“You get to the point where you almost wish something would happen,” said Corrine.

“You got that right.” Rankin shifted in the seat. His back muscles were starting to tighten. “Shoulda brought a book or something.”

“What book would you read?” she asked.

Rankin shrugged. “Whatever.”

“You read thrillers?”

“Nah. Biographies,” said Rankin.

“Really?”

Rankin didn’t like the surprised tone in her voice. “Brant’s history of James Madison,” he said, naming the work he’d started the last time he was back in the States. It was a six-volume set of the man who’d been the country’s fourth president and principal author of the Constitution.

“Is it interesting?” Corrine asked.

“It’s long.” He leaned back in the seat, trying to stretch his back. “It explains the War of 1812 a little better than I’ve seen before.”

“How’d you get into that?”

“I just did,” said Rankin.

They were silent a minute or so. Rankin decided he didn’t want her to think he was mad at her — he wasn’t, really. He just didn’t like people thinking he was a stupid shit, when he wasn’t.

“What do you read?” he asked.

“Depends. If I’m in a mood for a mystery, I’ll read something by Lawrence Block maybe, or P. D. James. If I want to laugh, I read Wodehouse.”

“Bertie and Jeeves?”

“You know the series?”

“Sure.”

“I think the TV shows they did, the BBC shows — they were better than the books.”

“Didn’t see it. Excuse me. Gotta take a leak.” He got out of the car and went into the woods to pee.

Corrine turned her attention back to the small viewer screen, where the large cars sat like unmoving ghosts. She knew she had offended him by being surprised at what he was reading — but she was surprised, and whether he was a soldier or not, biographies about James Madison weren’t exactly everyday reading.

That was the way it was going to be from now on — no matter what she did or tried to do, everyone from Slott on down would see her as an interloper. She’d just have to deal with it.

Corrine pulled her coat tighter around her, fighting off the chill.

7

Conners’s German was nonexistent, but Ferguson convinced him that if he spoke English with a quasi-German accent, he’d fool most anyone they encountered, since there were rarely German businessmen in Chechnya. Conners began practicing his inflections as they drove along the highway toward the Chechen capital. At some point Ferg found his accent too ridiculous not to laugh aloud, and it became a joke between them. At one point Conners began singing his Irish drinking songs with a German accent, and Ferguson joined in, words and accents morphing together into a new language punctuated by laughter.

The drive might have been interminable otherwise. There were checkpoints every ten or fifteen miles. Usually the two men were waved through with no more than a cursory glance at their papers and car. But several times the Russian soldiers ordered them out and conducted brief searches, which were more like shakedowns than pat-downs.

Carrying weapons was theoretically forbidden, but the realities of travel through the countryside meant that many Russians and even foreigners armed themselves, and in most cases a soldier who saw a rifle in the backseat of an otherwise unsuspicious car — that is, a car that clearly didn’t belong to a Chechen — wouldn’t blink, as long as the owner agreed to pay a nominal “fine” on the spot. On the other hand, it was also possible that the soldier might “confiscate” a weapon that looked much nicer than his own. They, therefore, carefully hid their Clocks and PKs — they had only pistols — and left a Makarova peeking out from under a blanket in the back to attract attention.

They got off the main highway about six miles from the city, driving north through the ruins of a village that had been burned two or three years before by Russian troops. The land that straddled the village had been farmed for centuries before the rebellions; now the fields were thick with weeds. Here and there the rotted carcass of a shed or a barn, its wood too deteriorated even to be burned for fuel, stood like the starched bones of a horse picked over by buzzards in the desert. They drove north for about five miles, then took a local road to the east. A town appeared off to the side; they found the road for it and drove up the main street, surprised that there were no patrols checking traffic in or out.

“German,” Ferguson told Conners as they got out of the car. A small house nearby had a handwritten sign advertising rooms in one of the windows.

“Ya-vole,” said Conners in pseudo-German. He started to crack up.

“Don’t schpecken ze jokes,” replied Ferguson. He knelt and retrieved his small Glock from under the seat. Palming the gun, he slid it into his pocket, then took his battered overnight bag and led Conners into the three-story brick building, which sat about a foot below street level. The structure probably predated the road, but it seemed as if it had slid into the earth, hunkering down to avoid the years of war.

The front hall smelled of fresh paint. A very short older woman with glasses appeared at the far end as they came in, her fingers layered with paint. She introduced herself in Chechen, then switched to Russian, eying them suspiciously. Ferg gave her the cover story — German businessmen who’d come to sell electronic switches for furnaces. They had business in the capital.

“Why aren’t you staying there?” she asked.

“Too expensive,” he told her. “Besides, this is such a lovely place. Do you speak German?”

She did not, but the promise of payment in euros allayed her suspicions and she showed them to a pair of rooms at the top of the first set of stairs. They decided Conners’s was more private, and after searching and scanning for bugs using a small frequency detector, Ferguson took the laptop from the bag, using the sat phone to connect to their encrypted Web site.

“That where we’re going?” asked Conners, pointing to the sat photos.

“This one,” said Ferg. He double-clicked on the thumbnail and a large.jpg file began filling the screen.

“Looks like an old castle.”

“It is. Supposedly built by the Turks about six hundred years ago.”

“The Turks were here?”

“Turks have been everywhere,” said Ferg. “It’s a jail now.”

“We’re going there?”

“What’s the matter? Don’t want to leave the Happy Acres Motel?”

“Well it does have TV,” said Conners, thumbing toward the set in the corner. It looked like it dated from the 1950s.

“True enough.”

“So what’s the deal, Ferg? What are we doing?” Ferguson still hadn’t explained what they were up to — unusual for him. The SF soldier didn’t need long-winded explanations, but he didn’t like it when people started acting differently than they had before. In his experience, it wasn’t a good sign.

Ferg killed the telephone connection. With the Web browser down, he launched a scrubber program to erase the history files and all traces of what they’d just seen.

“We got a lawyer poking around now, Dad. We have to watch what we do,” Ferguson told him.

“She told you not to tell me what was going on?”

Ferguson didn’t answer.

“We ain’t gonna get you in trouble, are we?” Conners stood against the door, his arms folded. “Ferg?”

“I’m just following my original orders until I’m told not to.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” said Conners. “I just want to know what the hell’s going on, that’s all.”

“Das is goot.” Ferguson took a beat-up black knapsack bag from the suitcase and slid the laptop into it. “Let’s go get something to eat.”

The roast beef not only tasted like beef, it seemed to be nearly fresh. The beer the cafe served was thin, but that made it easier to order a second. It was between lunch and dinnertime, and the cafe was nearly deserted; they sat in a booth at the back end of the dimly lit room, speaking mostly in English, though Ferg threw in Russian and a little German every so often.

“I want to get the guy Kiro’s guy talked to,” he told Conners. “Jabril Daruyev. He’ll know what’s going on.”

“How do you get him to talk?”

“Ve haf our vays,” said Ferguson.

Conners frowned.

“Personally, I’d like to just beat the shit out of him,” said Ferguson, “but the Russians have probably tried that.”

“Even if we grab this guy, Ferg, what makes you think he’ll talk?” asked Conners.

Ferg sipped his beer. Grabbing the Chechen was the right thing to do, but he was bound to take shit for it. Ferguson didn’t particularly mind; his dad had taught him that lesson long, long ago. The bureaucracy would get its pound of flesh from you no matter what; better to follow your conscience so you could live with yourself when they cut the rope. The old man had lived and died by that creed.

“They have this stuff similar to thiopental sodium,” said Ferg. “Only it works.”

“That like Sodium Pentothal?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s OK to use?”

“It works.”

“You have some?”

“No. They have it at Guantanamo, though. We’ll send him there.”

“Why didn’t they use it on Kiro?” asked Conners.

“Because the lawyer wants to put him on trial,” said Ferg. “If they shoot him up, she figures it’ll come out and queer the case.”

“That’s the only reason?”

Ferg shrugged. Sodium — TFh4 — the “street” name of the drug, whose chemical name ran about a paragraph long — would also do fairly serious damage to a person’s liver, but no one seemed to worry about that. “Daruyev doesn’t have to stand trial for anything he did in America. No objections to using the drags.”

“Lawyer told you that?” asked Conners.

“Not in so many words.” Ferg picked up his beer.

“If they’re building this thing in Chechnya, maybe they’re targeting the Russians,” suggested Conners.

“Could be,” said Ferg. “But you notice that the Russians weren’t all that concerned about Kiro until we blew up the commander’s car, right? You think we ought to count on them to stay on top of it?”

Even Ferguson realized that breaking a prisoner out of the Brown Fortress, as the Russians called the prison ten miles away, was impossible. So he had decided to let the Russians do it for him.

The idea had started to form when they were in Chechnya, as a hazy backup plan to the snatch of Kiro. The details remained slightly hazy, because a great deal of it depended on the Russians themselves. But it was already in motion.

Conners drove into Groznyy early in the evening, wending his way through the streets toward the address Rahil had given Ferguson in Baku. He now had a completely different cover story, one that accounted for his halting Russian — he was back to being an American, sent there as a sewer plant expert by UNESCO. Ferg assured him the cover wouldn’t be tested, though he had a folder on the car seat detailing various bacterial tests just in case. Rahil’s friend acted as if she had no idea who he was, and even mentioning Rahil — as Ferguson directed — brought no response. A hundred-dollar bill, however, got him a room with working electricity on the second floor of the small hotel.

Inside, he took out his pistol and sat in the armchair opposite the door, waiting.

The store looked more American than Russian, shelves crammed around a cash register at the side close to the door, displays of newspapers and candy in easy sight of the cashier. Ferg walked to the back cooler — it was filled with Coke — opening it as another customer came in. Then he let it snap closed and walked around to the right, where the door to the back room was ajar, a sagging chain lock holding it closed.

“I’m looking for Ruby,” he said in Russian. “Ruby?”

A tall, thin man with a black shock of hair hanging over his forehead stuck his face in the crack.

“I’m looking for Ruby,” Ferg said, this time in English.

The tall man said something in Chechen that Ferguson couldn’t decipher. Instead of answering, Ferg held up his wrist and slid off his watch.

“Where’s Ruby?” he repeated.

The tall man reached for the watch. Ferg drew it back. That brought a fresh spree of indecipherable Chechen. When the door did not open, Ferguson slid the watch back on his wrist and walked over to the cooler. He took out a Coke and walked toward the front of the store.

A gnomelike man with a closely cropped beard met him in the aisle. The man wore a long sweater that was so worn it looked like an old woman’s housecoat; thick as a brush, his short gray hair stuck up from his scalp as if he’d put his hand in an electrical socket.

“I’m Ruby,” he said. The accent was so thick that Ferguson at first wasn’t sure it was English. “Come.”

The man shuffled to the last cooler at the back of the store. He opened the door and slid the case rack back, passing into the storage area as if he were walking into the secret chamber of a haunted mansion. Ferg followed, waiting as Ruby slid the rack of soda back in place. His steps made a kind of snuffling sound as he went, not unlike the sound rough sandpaper makes as a craftsman finishes off the edge of a piece of furniture. Produce sat in wooden crates beyond the row of soda; behind them were large metal canisters for propane or some similar gas. At the very back of the space was a doorway; as he followed the gnome through it, Ferg slid the Glock down from his jacket sleeve and brought his hand up, and so both he and Ruby faced each other with loaded pistols in the dimly lit room beyond the store.

Ruby started to laugh. Ferg smiled.

Ruby pulled back the hammer on the pistol, a Zavodi Crvena Zastava.357 revolver that looked like a cannon in his tiny hand.

Ferg’s Glock, small for an automatic, permitted no such intimidating gesture, though at this range it would do sufficient damage to make the situation a draw.

“I think we can make a deal,” ventured Ferguson.

“Your watch is counterfeit.”

“No. It’s real.” Ferguson actually felt insulted.

“Bah.”

“Seriously. I got it in New York.”

“Now I know it’s fake.”

“I can arrange other payment.”

“Perhaps I will look at it.” Ruby held out his hand.

Ferg heard something behind him. His eyes and gun still frozen on Ruby’s face, he took a short step to the right, then another.

“I hope he’s coming back with a credit approval,” said Ferg.

Ruby shouted to the man outside, telling him to go back. The man outside began arguing with him. Ruby shook his head and lowered his gun.

“Children,” said the Chechen. He went to the door and leaned into the storage room, his body shaking as he unleashed a string of invective. The man outside — Ferg guessed it was the man he’d seen at the chained door, though he’d looked no more like Ruby than Ferg did — whimpered once or twice, then retreated.

Ruby returned to the room, gesturing wildly and mumbling to the effect that the world was a disappointing place, and there were no greater disappointments than sons. Without glancing at the American or otherwise acknowledging his presence, he walked to the only pieces cf furniture in the room — two large four-drawer filing cabinets, legal size, in the corner.

“Chay?” he asked, pulling open one of the drawers and removing a teapot.

“Good,” said Ferg. He kept his gun in his hand as Ruby removed the pot and two small cups from the drawer, then went back into the storage room and returned with a card table and an extension cord. Several more trips were needed before the kettle was bubbling with water and metal chairs had been unfolded around the table.

“Strong,” said Ferg, when he finally sipped the tea. The dark green liquid tasted as if it had been made of anise and cinnamon as well as tea leaves.

“Yes. There is no more good tea,” said Ruby, speaking in Russian. The Chechen had left his gun on the file cabinet and now had the air of a professor down on his luck. There was no hint in his voice whether he thought the liquid an exception to the rule, or proof.

“If anyone were to have good tea, it would be you,” said Ferg.

“It would. If anyone did.”

“I need weapons,” said Ferg.

“Why else would you be here?”

“Why else?”

Six AK-47s — Ruby would sell no fewer than that — and two RPG-18s, single-shot antiarmor missiles with a 64 mm warhead, were available for about three times what they should have fetched, according to the information Ferg had obtained through Corrigan. Which was a pain, not because he couldn’t pay it — he had a stack of counterfeit rubles with him — but because to do so would signal him as an easy mark and cause considerable trouble down the line.

A long series of negotiations followed, with Ferg starting at a quarter of the going rate — as much an insult as Ruby’s asking price — then working slowly toward one and a half times what Corrigan’s data indicated was a fair price. It took nearly twenty minutes for them to reach that point, and it was only the addition of two dozen grenades and six mines that sealed it. They celebrated the agreement by brewing a fresh pot of tea.

“Now a truck,” said Ferguson, and the bargaining began all over again. It took another half hour before he finally obtained a pickup with petrol at what he thought was a good price — he could judge that only by how long it took to reach agreement. By then his bladder was overflowing, and he excused himself, positioning some of the necessary cash in his pocket on the way back.

When he returned, Ferguson asked if it might be possible to obtain the services of a few men. The Chechen hesitated sufficiently to let him know it would not be easily done. When he did not protest when Ferguson told him to forget it, the American realized that there would be no way to hire the mercenaries he was hoping for. While that lack complicated his plan, it did not torpedo it, and after one last cup of chay he left a small deposit and went immediately with Ruby’s son to round up the truck. Ruby was so pleased with the entire day’s work that he gave Ferguson two VOG-25 grenades completely gratis — a thoughtful gesture, even if the grenades were useless without their rifle-mounted launcher.

The son complained about his father as soon as they left the store. When they reached the truck, he hinted that he deserved a tip. When Ferguson scoffed he insisted on one; when Ferg began laughing he started to sulk, almost in tears.

The CIA officer pulled a fifty-euro note from his pocket.

“I need a driver,” he said.

And so he obtained the services of Gribak Morkow, who, besides knowing the best roads to Groznyy, spoke surprisingly good English.

The real price of his services was a seemingly unending diatribe against Ruby. Gribak kept making sweeping statements about the sins of fathers in general and asking Ferguson if what he said wasn’t true.

Conners had almost fallen asleep in the chair when the rap came at the door.

“Come,” he said, his gun aimed at the opening.

Ferg pushed inside. “Still here, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on. Get your stuff.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, if they’re not going to arrest you, we’ll move on to plan B.”

“You didn’t want them to arrest me, did you?” asked Conners, taking his small bag.

“Just bustin’,” said Ferg.

Gribak had the truck idling down the street. Two AK-47s were beneath the front seat, along with several clips and two of the hand grenades.

“When the police come, make a commotion,” Ferg told Conners.

“That’s it?”

“Well, that and don’t get caught. Meet me back at Happy Acres when you’re done. Give Gribak fifty euros when you get there. Don’t go more than that; he’ll think you’re queer.”

“OK,” said Conners. Ferguson was so deadpan it was hard to tell if he meant it as a joke or not.

The smoke felt like a saw blade hacking at Ferg’s eyes as he entered the bar. He pushed into the crowd nonetheless, sauntering through a crowd of off-duty Russian soldiers and Chechens. The Red Star was not the most notorious bar in Groznyy, but it did rate in the top ten. Ferguson slid forward, pushing his way between two natives and making sure to address the bartender first in English, then in Russian. He took his vodka and walked toward a row of tables at the left side of the room. The tables seemed entirely occupied by soldiers, which would have made things much too obvious. It occurred to him that Gribak might not be as accomplished a source as he pretended to be.

Returning to the bar with his now-empty glass, Ferguson held it out for a refill. When the bartender came back he asked if he knew how one might find Novakich.

The bartender squinted at him as if he’d asked the way to the Statue of Liberty. Ferguson repeated the name. When he got a frown this time, he smiled at the bartender and let a ten-ruble note float to the bar as he disappeared.

The next club seemed more a smuggler’s hangout, at least to judge by the efficiency of the pat-down. Ferg once more repeated the routine, adding a visit to a table where he dropped Ruby’s name as well.

The third club had an American Western theme, with posters of fifties movies and a saddled horse in the corner. Unfortunately, the horse was stuffed. As Ferg walked to the end of the long bar, he wondered if he ought to ask for a sasaparilla. The bartender’s round nose sniffed the air as he approached; Ferg nearly looked at his boots to check if he’d tracked manure in.

“You know a Novakich?” he asked in Russian, holding on to his money.

The bartender looked at him, sniffed again, then shook his head.

“Oh, well,” said Ferg in English, letting the money drop before asking for a vodka. The bartender scooped up the money, replacing it with a shot glass and a bottle. Ferg slid around, sizing up the sparse crowd.

You sure that’s the police?” Conners asked Gribak as the small car sped down the road. The battered Lada looked like an ordinary passenger vehicle to him, though it did stop in the middle of the road in front of the bar Ferguson was in.

Gribak gave him an exasperated look.

“All right. I guess you’d know,” said Conners, pushing open the door. He trotted up the road toward the sewer opening, watching to make sure that the police car stopped. As the two plainclothes officers got out and headed toward the bar, he knelt and dropped the grenade through the grate, returning to the truck at a dead run. When he reached it, Conners pulled open the door and leaned back over the roof, aiming the automatic rifle down the block. He shot off a few rounds, then threw the gun into the street as Gribak cursed angrily and hit the gas. They drove through a maze of alleys and narrow streets, and in a few minutes the Chechen’s mood began to improve greatly; he started humming.

“Very good,” said Conners when he fell silent. “Do you know ‘Finnegan’s Wake’?”

The din in the bar was so loud that the grenade could barely be heard, though the muffled crack set off a chain reaction. Weapons appeared instantly; two men started for the rear exit. Ferg followed, only to find his way barred by a large man in a black turtleneck sweater at least two sizes too small for him. More impressive than his haberdashery was his gun, an H&KMP-5.

“Guess I’m going a different way,” said Ferguson, stepping back. He saw some men heading toward a door at the right; he followed and found that they were heading out a restroom window that opened onto an alleyway He followed, turning left away from the street as gunfire erupted in the front of the building. He knew it wasn’t Conners — there was too much of it for too long. Someone ahead of him jumped over a fence. Ferg followed, then found himself in the middle of four somewhat angry-looking Chechens.

“Hey—” he started to say as the one nearest him swung a fist at his face. Ferg ducked, but caught a stick from another in the ribs. As the men closed in he swung his fists in every direction, but something hard clipped him on the side of head. As he fell to the ground there was more gunfire in the alley behind him; he lost consciousness for a moment, and by the time he blinked his eyes open his wallet was gone, and so were his tormenters. He also had a thick swag of wet blood on the side of his neck and shirt.

Ferg sat back against the fence, trying to get his bearings. Finally, he pushed his legs under him, rising to his feet. He gripped the top of the fence and pushed upward, peering over into the eyes of a plainclothes policeman.

“Shit,” said Ferg, dropping to the ground.

The policeman said something similar in Russian, then began blowing his whistle.

8

Before Conners paid off Gribak, he made sure he understood how to work the starter and ignition on the truck, which had been modified to discourage thieves. Then he dropped the Chechen off at his father’s store and drove a few blocks to an empty lot where Gribak had said it was safe to leave the truck. He left the rifle under the front seat but took a few of the grenades from the back and walked to the hotel. When he reached the rooms he was a little surprised not to find Ferg there, even though they weren’t supposed to meet for another half hour; Ferguson was always showing up places ahead of schedule, the kind of guy who met you at the end of the bar a drink and a half ahead. Conners checked both rooms, then sat in his, waiting. The TV was old, the picture was fuzzy, and the only channel it seemed to receive was some sort of Russian cooking show. He left it on anyway.

Three hours later, Ferg still hadn’t appeared. Driving back into Groznyy to look for him was out of the question, but Conners felt as if he had to do something. He walked to the truck and started it up, driving around the town before realizing he was running a good chance of getting lost. It took twenty minutes of left-hand turns for him to find his way back to the lot. Frustrated and needing sleep, he parked and walked back to the hotel, where once again he was surprised that Ferguson wasn’t sitting there waiting for him.

“Well God,” said Conners, pulling off his shoes. “I’d make you a deal — I’ll give up drinking if you take care of the little bugger. He’s full of himself but in a good way, the bastard.”

He pushed under the covers, his clothes still on, his pistol in his hand. After a while, he fell asleep.

When he woke, Ferguson was sitting in the chair next to the bed.

“Jesus, Ferg,” said Conners, opening his eyes. “What happened to your face?”

“Before or after I got the shit knocked out of me?” said Ferguson, rising. His neck hurt like hell, but otherwise the wounds were mostly cosmetic.

As long as he didn’t breathe.

“Hey, Ferg, you OK?”

“Yeah.” Ferguson took a swig from the vodka bottle in his hand. “First I got robbed, then the police rolled me. Good thing I had a money belt.”

“ ‘Cause they didn’t find your cash?”

“Because there was cash for them to find.” The police had used some sort of pepper spray on him. Fortunately, the men were either locals or too intent on robbing him to check with the ministry office; they’d even left his fake passport on the dirt next to him.

“It’s part of the plan,” said Ferg, rising. “Get dressed. They have a strict dress code where we’re going — no jammies.”

“Where’s that?”

“Jail,” said Ferg.

9

Guns’s brain flip-flopped as Massette told him a story about watching a group of assassins in Morocco. Though a native of Tennessee, the warrant officer’s English had a decided French slant. Even without the odd inflections, the story he told would have been difficult to follow, tracking back and forth between Paris and the narrow streets of North Africa. Jack Massette had been “loaned” to the DGSE-Direction Generate de la Securité Exterienre, the French Defense Ministry’s General Directorate for External Security — for an investigation into a ring smuggling ricin poison into France, but the assignment had morphed far from its original outline. Massette and the two French agents he was working with discovered that a criminal group was targeting the terrorist ringleader, apparently because of a financial dispute; they’d been told to allow the assassin to kill their target. Their unspoken orders directed the DGSE agents to do the job if the assassins didn’t.

“And so I shot him,” said Massette, reaching the punch line, “with the police in the next room.”

“The Paris police?”

“No, this was in Algiers. We had to pay these guys five hundred bucks so we could leave. I thought it was pretty cheap.”

Guns was going to ask how he’d gotten to Algiers when the train started to move again. As he put the Russian Calina in gear, the engine revved like a psychotic lawn clipper. The Vaz-made car looked and drove like a Ford Focus that had gone through one too many rinse cycles, but it had the virtue of going relatively far on a tankful of watered-down Russian petrol.

The road veered sharply to the left, following the rugged line of the hills. The border with Kazakhstan was about five miles to the south; Rankin and Corrine had already gone across. The road gradually became narrower and soon changed from macadam to barely packed gravel. The train tracks ran off to the left, running through a shallow valley to the border crossing. Though they saw that the train was stopping, there was no place for them to pull off; the two men lost sight of the cars as they drove on, looking for a good place to stop.

By the time Guns found a lot in front of a roadside inn, they’d lost sight of the train. Massette got out and walked to the right; Guns took his pocket binoculars and went left, crossing the road and sliding down the hill about twenty yards before reaching a place where he could see the train. It had pulled onto a siding to let another train pass; the soldiers accompanying it milled around, waiting as the approaching passenger train climbed the grade, its single diesel engine spewing black smoke.

Guns began walking back toward the car, angling up the slope. He was just about back to the roadway when an old jeeplike vehicle pulled alongside and stopped. Two men got out; he stopped for half a second before realizing he was undoubtedly staring at members of the Russian Federal Border Service in civilian dress.

As nonchalantly as possible he continued across the slope. The men shouted at him. Guns looked up at them and waved, not sure exactly what to say or do until one of the men reached beneath his jacket and unsnapped the flap on his holster. Guns gestured meekly and began climbing the slope.

The man asked in English what he was doing with the binoculars.

Guns looked at them in his hand, trying to come up with an explanation that would make sense. Before he could find one, a voice on the road above began speaking in a jovial French.

“Permit me to introduce my colleague, Dr. Miles from the University of Paris,” said Massette, switching to English as he spoke to the two Russians. He pattered on about ornithology and the presence of a rare wren native only to these hills. Massette’s performance was aided by a bird book which he produced from his pocket, and within a few minutes he was quizzing the Russians about possible sightings. They were FSB agents, more dangerous than border guards, but he was so convincing that the conversation continued for more than ten minutes; had the Russians not been en route to an appointment they undoubtedly would have adjourned to the nearby inn, picking up the first round.

“Good thinking,” said Guns when they were back in the car.

“I learned with the French that bird-watching is a very valuable hobby,” said Massette. “As long as you take it to extremes.”

Corrine watched from the hilltop as the train rounded the bend and headed into the long tunnel. She put the glasses down, then checked the map. The train would change engines at a small yard about fifteen miles from here. Guns and Massette were supposed to cover the switch but had been delayed at the border crossing; Corrine had to decide whether to stay with the train and lose it as it went into the yard, or leave so they could circle northeast to get to the only point where the yard itself would be visible.

Given that the yard was the most likely place for something to happen, she opted to leave. She pulled out her phone as she walked back to the car, telling Massette and Guns what was up. Massette complained that the line to the border wasn’t moving.

“Don’t sweat it,” she told him. “Call me if anything happens.” She clicked off the phone. “We’ll go to the yard at Kadagac in their place,” she told Rankin.

“Your call,” he said.

Corrine glanced at him, unsure whether he was questioning her decision or not.

“My call,” she said, her voice a little sharper than she intended.

Guns let Massette drive after they got over the border, thinking it might get him to stop complaining about the guards who had held them up for a twenty-dollar bribe before letting them pass. Massette was outraged that anyone would sell out his duty so cheaply.

In fact, the men had been persuaded to do their duty for that fee; getting them to do something illegal would have cost a bit more. Since joining the Team and watching Ferguson, Guns had come to understand how money lubricated nearly everything; he tried not to get too cynical or angry about it. Ferg had told him it was simply a fact of life, there to take advantage of.

“You missed the road,” said Guns, as Massette blew by the turnoff. “The train line’s down there.”

“We’re so far behind,” said Massette. “They’re past the tunnel. They should be changing engines in the yard by now.”

“Yeah, but we were going to follow the line.”

The older man didn’t bother answering. He also didn’t bother turning back. Guns wondered if he ought to tell him to turn back and what to do if he wouldn’t. He decided he was being ridiculous — and as he thought that, he saw the line again through the front corner of the windshield. As Massette had predicted, the train was long gone.

The train moved slowly into the far corner of the yard, shunted there by an ancient switcher engine. At least two platoons of soldiers were deployed to guard it, ringing off the area.

Rankin and Corrine watched from a hill nearly a mile and a half away as the cars were pushed onto the new line. A row of freight cars as well as two small sheds blocked their view as a pair of American-made SD40s painted bright red began trundling toward the Y-shaped exit the train would take.

“We got a problem,” said Rankin. “We’re missing a car.”

“What? They’re all there.”

“One of the boxcars they tagged along at the end. It’s gone.”

“Shit. Are you sure?”

“I can’t see too well. Wait.”

Rankin pushed forward against the steering wheel, angling the glasses against the windshield. Impatient, Corrine opened the door and ran down the gravel embankment to the train line where they’d parked, standing on the rail and peering into the yard.

The boxcars had been unhooked from the rest of the train and were being towed to another track by the switcher. The cars with the waste remained on their own under heavy guard.

She looked to the left, scanning the yard for the missing car.

Rankin got out and climbed on top of the car to use his binoculars.

“Anywhere?” she asked.

“Can’t see it. Why would they take an empty freight car?”

“Maybe it wasn’t empty,” she said.

And now she realized how they did it — material was loaded surreptitiously at Buzuluk in what was supposed to be an empty car tagged on to the end of the train for transport. That was why the Russians couldn’t figure it out — the containment cars all made it. The waste that was being stolen wasn’t in the cars.

“We’re going to have to find it,” she told Rankin.

“We have to stay with the rest of the train,” he said. “Otherwise, we can’t be sure.”

She pulled out her phone, wanting to get the unpleasant task of telling them that she’d screwed up over with quickly.

That was what it was, she knew — they’d missed the decoupling and screwed up.

“They’re moving.”

“Shit,” she said. She was sure she was right — but what if she were wrong? The meter that had recorded the discrepancy was farther south.

What should she do?

Play it safe. She had to.

“Come on,” she told Rankin. “They’re moving. Let’s go. The others will have to look for the car.”

10

Ferg and Conners hadn’t gone to jail — they were merely staking out the road to it, waiting for the man in the yellow sports coat.

Though it rolled off the tongue easily, Ferguson had not chosen the name “Novakich” to spread around Groznyy simply for its phonetic value. It belonged to one of the people who had worked with Jabril Daruyev on the Moscow dirty bomb plot. Novakich had not been heard of in several years, and according to Corrigan the Russians believed he was dead — which ought to make Ferguson’s inquiries all the more interesting to them. If American agents were poking around looking for Novakich here, sooner or later the Russian FSB would want to see what Daruyev knew about him. Ferguson wasn’t sure the FSB officer assigned to find out would be Sergiv Kruknokov — the man in the yellow sports coat — but he hoped so; he already admired the agent and would enjoy outsmarting him once more.

If things went the way Ferg wanted them to, the inspector would have the man taken from the jail to be interviewed in the city. At that point, they would ambush the vehicle and take the prisoner themselves. They had taken both the truck and the car they hired earlier, stashing the truck in a wooded copse a short distance away while using the car for surveillance on the hillside dirt road.

“What if they bring a truckload of troops for escorts?” Conners asked, as they watched the road.

“First of all, they never do that,” said Ferg. “Troop trucks and convoys are too obvious a target. They move them in cars, with only two guards. The escort runs five minutes ahead and back.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Then I kick Corrigan’s ass,” said Ferguson. “We position the truck to cut them off and blow it up with one of the rockets. There’s a spot on the road where we can do that back by that creek.”

“Won’t stop them five minutes.”

“That’s all we need. Five minutes.”

“What if they resist? “

“We hope they don’t,” said Ferg.

“What if they do?”

“Then we deal with them,” said Ferg. “You’re beginning to sound like Rankin.”

“Me? You’re the one who’s blowing up allies.”

“Since when are the Russians our allies.”

“The Chechens sure as hell ain’t.”

Ferguson laid his head back on the seat rest. “Ah, don’t worry, Dad. We’ll give him back when we’re done. I’m betting Yellow Jacket’s smart enough to play it cool.”

“ Whiskey, you’re my darlin’,” sang Conners, changing the subject.

They sat in the car all night and through most of the next day. Finally, around 3:00 p.m. a familiar-looking Lada came out from town. Ferguson was surprised to see that the inspector was alone.

“You sure it’s our guy?” asked Conners.

The lone occupant of the car wore a yellow jacket, but of course Ferguson had no way of knowing until he uploaded the plates to Corrigan to check. Still, he cursed; the agent was obviously going to interview Daruyev in prison. The analysts had told Corrigan that the FSB didn’t trust the security system at the prison — like most Russian jails, it was essentially run by the prisoners and could best be described as ridiculously lax — and so routinely took people outside to talk to them.

“Fuckin’ Corrigan owes me one,” said Ferg.

“So now what?”

“Plan B.”

“Which is what?”

“I make a few phone calls, then get out the laptop and see if the printer I’ve used twice in its life will actually work. Then we talk about how safe it is to cut up the explosives in a mine.”

Conners whistled.

“And in the meantime,” added Ferguson, “you teach me more Irish drinking songs.”

The Russian inspector completed his interview around 7:00 p.m. and passed them on the road shortly afterward, alone as Ferguson had guessed he would be. The CIA officer immediately began setting up plan B. Shortly after midnight, he dialed a number Corrigan had set up so that calls from his sat phone would appear to originate from the FSB headquarters in Groznyy. He then dialed the prison, reporting to the half-asleep desk sergeant that Daruyev was wanted for additional questioning first thing in the morning back in the capital; he hung up before the sergeant could reach for his coffee and think of any questions to ask.

At five minutes after six, with the sun poking its nose at the red mist around the hills, a small car carrying a pair of Russian FSB officers turned onto the main road to the Brown Fortress. As it came within sight of the prison, it struck a mine apparently placed during the night.

Fortunately, the guerrillas had not set their ambush very well. Instead of obliterating the car as intended, the explosion managed only to take out the trunk. Still, the explosion compressed the vehicle’s gas tank, setting it on fire with an impressive flare of red and orange that could be seen over the nearby hills — and, most importantly, at the fortress itself. The flare and flash were accompanied by several other explosions, as several other nearby mines cooked off. One of the explosions took out the phone line south; while not entirely cutting communications out of the prison, it did complicate them.

The lights inside the fortress blinked on and off several times; before the blinking stopped, the watch commander had ordered a team of soldiers to respond to the disaster, and in the meantime locked down his facility and called all guards to action stations.

When the team of soldiers traveling up the road in an armored car arrived at the site of the rebel ambush, they found the two Russian FSB agents lying near their destroyed vehicle, their clothes singed. One of the men appeared to have had a concussion and spoke incoherently. The other, though his face and body were bruised and his clothes smeared with blood, managed to gain coherence in a few minutes. Some medicinal vodka carried for emergencies by the captain helped clear his senses. Like any good FSB man, he insisted that they must carry out their orders, adamantly cursing the bastard rebels and swearing that they would not keep him from doing his duty.

Which duty he documented with slightly burned and bloodied papers, copied via fax from Moscow, directing that the prisoner known as Jabril Daruyev be taken to Groznyy and reinterviewed by Commander Kruknokov, with a view toward removing him to Moscow for further interrogation.

The two Russian FSB officers — Conners and Ferguson in disguise — were piled into the back of the armored car and taken to the fortress. The nurse on duty at the dispensary marveled at their luck — both men were bruised and scraped, but nonetheless intact.

Officer Androv — Ferguson — said between his swollen lips that this was thanks to his mother’s offering prayers for him every day in Izveska. This was supposed to win him points with the nurse, who according to Corrigan’s research came from Izveska and was a devout member of the Orthodox Church. Either the information was wrong or Ferg’s puffy-mouthed mumbles sounded foreign to her, however; she frowned and started speaking to him quickly about why he had been out on the road when it was still dark. Ferg rubbed his forehead and mumbled again about his orders. The nurse then asked about some of the bruises, which looked a little less than fresh. He shrugged, and insisted God had saved him so he could squeeze the guerrilla rabble by the short hairs.

When they were taken up to see the watch commander, Ferg dropped the connection to Russia’s heartland, instead answering that he had been born in Georgia “before the cataclysm” when the commander asked about his background. Ferguson noticed their orders sitting on the desk and gestured toward them; the commander asked why Kruknokov hadn’t taken the prisoner back with him on his own the day before.

Embarrassed silence had no accent, and the inference that his fellow FSB officer had made a mistake was readily believed by the commander, who did not in fact like the FSB nosing around his domain. As far as he was concerned, the sooner the officers were away, the better. A car was found and the prisoner produced, wearing sets of chains on his hands and feet and a dark hood that made it impossible for him to see.

“Very dangerous,” said the commander, after checking his identity and entering the proper notes in his log and other paperwork.

Ferguson nodded grimly. Two men were assigned to drive them to town.

They were back in the front reception area when the nurse appeared at the end of the hallway, walking with the sort of grim step that could only foretell trouble. Ferg slid his hand into his coat, fingering his Glock. He kept it there as they entered the gate area, ushering the prisoner and their escorts through as the nurse reached the desk.

The guard at the desk called to them, but by now Ferguson had the door to the car open. He pulled at the prisoner and in the same motion jerked back, as if the man had hit him; he pushed the Chechen inside the car, cursing loudly.

One of the guards pulled down his rifle, ready to fire. Ferguson held his hand up, swearing that he would not let the vermin keep him from doing his duty.

“Slide over,” he told the driver, pushing him from behind the wheel. The man started to protest, but Ferguson was well into his act, lathering on anger; the man moved quickly, not wanting to get into trouble with a crazed intelligence officer.

As the guard and the nurse reached the doorway, Ferg turned over the ignition and jabbed the gas pedal. The vehicle stuttered forward through the courtyard, toward the first of the two gates they needed to pass to exit. The guards at the first gate pulled away the metal bars as Ferg approached; he fished into his pocket and waved a piece of paper as he sped through. But the second set of guards were not so easily flummoxed. They made Ferg stop and one took the papers from him, going over to the phone at the station next to the wall.

As he picked up the phone, Ferguson launched into a fresh tirade. It was vintage madman: He was fed up with the bureaucratic bullshit that had nearly cost him his life that morning and was undoubtedly responsible for his two brothers going home in bags three years before. Conners and one of the escorts jumped out of the car to calm him down.

As he did, something exploded beyond the wall of the courtyard. It was a grenade, tossed by Conners as the others stared at Ferguson.

Conners grabbed the rifle from the guard closest to him as the others ducked. He fired a burst at the wall, then ran to the gate, burning the clip at an imaginary group of rebels. Ferguson, yelling all the Russian curses he knew — a considerable collection — pushed the barrier aside.

“Get the bastards! Get the bastards!” yelled Ferguson, as if he’d spotted a pack of them.

The others shouted at him to get down; instead, he turned and vowed that no bearded shithead would ever drive him into the ground. The guerrillas outside answered with another grenade; as the others ducked, Ferguson jumped into the car and whipped forward through the gate.

Yet another grenade went off, this one in the courtyard, though a good distance away. Conners just barely managed to grab on to the car, brandishing the AK-47 — which suddenly had a fresh clip in it — as they zipped away.

“That was close,” said Conners, as they sped around the first bend. The turnoff for the truck was about a half mile away.

“Nah.”

“I thought you were going to shoot the guard with your Glock,” said Conners.

“Wasn’t even close,” said Ferguson, though he had in fact palmed the small gun before getting out of the car. “I thought they were going to find the grenades on you when they picked us up on the road. Good thing you have such a fat belly.”

“Smooth, Ferguson, real smooth.”

“Would have been a shitload easier if that nurse didn’t figure it out. Corrigan’s information must have been bad. Fucker couldn’t sift through an intelligence report with a shovel.”

“He’s an officer; what do you expect?” said Conners.

Ferguson slammed on the brakes about a hundred yards before the turnoff. He jumped out and ran to the truck, leaving Conners to take the prisoner. After he started it he climbed up to see if they were being followed. While he couldn’t see the fortress because there was a hill in the way, he could see a curl of dust coming from the road.

Conners, meanwhile, had the prisoner by the arm and dragged him to the truck. He put him in the front cab, then backed out of the hiding spot, rumbling toward the road.

The AK-47 Conners had taken from the guards lay on the ground. Ferguson picked it up and fired the last four bullets into the rear fender of the car. Then he took his shirt and draped it on the ground near the driver’s side door, which he left ajar. Finally, in an inspired bid for greater authenticity, he took off one of his shoes and threw it on the ground nearby.

There was no sense hopping around on one foot, so he yanked off the other and tossed it in the front seat. His soles were callused, but not nearly enough to take the sting out of the rocks and uneven gravel as he ran in his socks up the road about thirty feet. There he grabbed the Russian bazooka he’d hidden there the night before and fired point-blank at the front of the car. He was actually too close to the target; the missile shot upward and rather than hitting the engine compartment went through the windshield, exploding in the passenger compartment. The fireball blew Ferguson back in a tumble, and he smacked his head against the rocks.

By the time he got to his feet, Conners had the truck moving. Ferg started running, then slowed to a trot, the throb in his skull too fierce to permit anything faster. He made the running board on the second try, pulling himself into the cab as his head spun in a dizzy swirl, the world moving on an odd horizontal axis.

Blinking didn’t help; he put his hands to his temples, rubbing as Conners drove.

“Russians are coming,” Ferg told him.

“I figured.”

“Man, my head hurts.”

“Vodka’ll do it to you every time,” said Conners. “By the way, you have to give those Russian RPGs a little more room. They’re not meant for close range.”

“Now you tell me,” said Ferg.

“You’re Americans.”

Ferguson turned his head. “And you’re not,” he told the Chechen, who was trussed and hooded beside him.

“What are you doing with me?” The Chechen’s English was very good, and his accent shaded toward American, though it had an obvious foreign ring to it. Though that made it easier for Ferguson to talk to him, it angered him — Corrigan’s background data on him had not included any of this information. Once more, their intelligence had failed; the fact that it was in their favor was besides the point.

“We’re going to ask you some questions and get some answers,” said Ferg.

“Then what?”

“Then we’ll see. How do you speak English?”

The Chechen hesitated, suspecting an elaborate Russian trick.

“Last night, you were interviewed by a Russian FSB agent,” said Ferguson. “He asked you about a man named Novakich. He may or may not have explained why he was interested in him.”

“I’ve been interviewed many times,” said the prisoner.

“Yeah, but not about a dead man.”

“How do you know Novakich is dead?”

Ferguson’s head hurt too much to play games. The best thing at that point was just to ship the bastard back to Guantanamo and let the intelligence geeks put the drug into him.

“I might be able to help you,” said the prisoner after a few minutes. “If you got me away from the Russians.”

Ferguson ignored the Chechen — he figured it was just bullshit — and rummaged in his bag for some aspirin.

“How are you going to help us?” said Conners.

“A few weeks ago, someone came to me looking for information about radiological bombs.”

“What’s a radiological bomb?” asked Conners.

“A bomb built from waste,” said the Chechen.

“Who?”

“The Russians call him Kiro. He’s not the one you have to worry about,” added Daruyev.

“Who’s worried?” said Ferguson.

“Allah’s Fist is building a weapon. They’re taking hospital waste and storing it.”

“Yeah?” said Ferguson skeptically. “Where?”

The Chechen said nothing.

“How come you’re ratting on your friends?” said Conners.

“They’re not my friends.”

“Fair enough,” said Ferg. He waved at Conners, trying to make him shut up.

“Allah’s Fist is not part of the freedom movement,” said Daruyev. “And I do not think that Kiro is. He is slime.”

“Unlike you,” said Conners.

“Eyes on the road, Dad,” said Ferguson, exasperated.

Daruyev remained silent as they drove northward. There was a small town about four miles ahead; there were bound to be Russian troops there, and Ferg didn’t want to chance being stopped. Instead, they headed toward what looked on the sat photo to be an abandoned farm to the west, figuring they could sit in the ruins until nightfall. By then, he’d have hooked up with Van on an exfiltration plan; no way he was driving all the way to Georgia again.

“My war is against the Russians,” said Daruyev. “There was a time when Americans helped me, and because of that, I will help you now.”

Ferguson sighed wearily and slid sideways in the seat. “Well, fire away then,” he told the Chechen. “We’re all ears.”

11

Though he had been with the CIA for more than two decades, Thomas Ciello had never been in the Cube, otherwise known as Building 24-442. In fact, he had never physically been to the “campus” where it was located — campus being a somewhat overblown term for the collection of warehouse buildings on the cul-de-sac just off the Beltway.

While the warehouses and the small administrative building called 24-442 behind them looked like typical industrial architecture, they were anything but. Beneath the outer metal were thick concrete bunkers extending deep into the ground. Each held several floors of disk arrays organized according to an arcane system that even Ciello, an experienced Agency analyst, only partly understood.

Ciello had not been told why he was to report to Building 24-442. He hoped, however, that it had something to do with a memo he had sent to the director three weeks before. The memo detailed his findings on an unofficial research project he had been conducting practically since his first day in the Company’s employ: Ciello believed he had found definitive proof in the CIA records that extraterrestrial explorers had visited the earth.

Thomas knew, of course, that the CIA had purposely promulgated UFO reports over the years as part of a disinformation campaign to draw attention from various “black” programs ranging from overflights of the Soviet Union in the 1950s to the development of stealth aircraft and UAVs in the Nevada desert during the 1970s and ‘80s. But he had meticulously separated chaff from fact, lie from radar contact. His memo had been distilled from a six-hundred-page, single-spaced report; he planned on forwarding the entire report as soon as his memo was officially acknowledged. At that point, he reasoned, the hierarchy would establish a “committee” to investigate, along the lines of the British Ministry of Defense’s UFO Team.

Oddly, this had not yet occurred, and in fact he had started to believe the e-mail had somehow been misdirected before the request to appear at Building 24-442 arrived.

He showed his creds at the gate and drove quickly to the assigned parking slot behind the thick berm separating the buildings from the roadway. His pulse started to rise as soon as he locked his car, and by the time he cleared through the elaborate security at the entrance to 24-442, his hands were trembling uncontrollably.

A half hour later, Jack Corrigan entered the room Ciello had been sequestered in on the second subbasement level. Thomas was sweating so profusely that his white shirt was stained front and back. He nodded as Corrigan introduced himself, and unwisely agreed to the offer of coffee.

Corrigan pulled a small radio from his pocket — he used the short-distance device while in the building — and called for an assistant to bring some. Realizing Thomas was nervous, he tried to put him at ease by smiling and making some small talk about baseball. To Corrigan, Thomas’s jitters were a good sign; he’d be eager to please, at least at first. While this would have been a horrible trait in a case officer or someone out in the field, for a research dweeb it was just the thing.

“So, I guess you’re wondering exactly what the job is,” said Corrigan.

“Oh yes,” said Thomas, taking a sip of his coffee. The liquid promptly dribbled down his chin.

“We’re in great need of someone of your abilities,” said Corrigan. “Someone who works for us, but can interface with, you know, the other side.”

“Oh yes,” said Thomas. “My UFO theory.”

Corrigan had not heard of the UFO theory; by “other side” he meant the Directorate of Intelligence, the analytical side of the Agency. He in fact knew little of Thomas except that he was one of only a handful of people with the proper background available to do the work he needed. Thomas had worked with DO as well as DI; he’d been on the Collections Requirements and Evaluation Staff and done some work for the associate director of Central Intelligence for Military Support, who’d been briefly Corrigan’s boss. His folder was thick with commendations, and while the occasional supervisor remarked that he could be “eccentric,” this was hardly a disqualifier. Filtering information called for a certain amount of creativity, which noncreative supervisor types — Corrigan admitted freely he was one himself — naturally interpreted as eccentricity.

Besides, the other person available had filed a sexual harassment suit against her last two bosses.

“This is a unique job, a unique opportunity,” said Corrigan, deciding to sell the slot. “You’ll run your own show, providing real-time intelligence for people in the field. Important stuff.”

Corrigan described the duties of the position, which functioned like the military support division and could draw on resources from MS as well as DI as needed. They were supposed to have two other staff assistants available to help out soon, but in the meantime Corrigan would lend his own aides as needed. The person handling the position needed a wide range of clearances, which Thomas already had.

“I need someone who can really burrow in and put a picture together from disparate details,” added Corrigan. “Our missions are high-profile; everything very, very critical. This is the big leagues. We had someone running the mission support, but then she got pregnant, and you know how that goes.”

Thomas nodded, though he hadn’t considered pregnancy as a job hazard before.

“We’ve had nothing but problems ever since. My boss is on my ass about it,” said Corrigan. He didn’t want to diss the agency’s research departments, just the red tape, but it was impossible not to imply at least a small bit of criticism. “What I’m looking for is someone who can interface, who talks their language and can get into the nitty-gritty if they have to. You have that kind of reputation. You know, ferret out information.”

“Ferret?”

“Figure things out. I don’t mean gather it yourself. Well, if you do gather it, I mean, that’s all right. As long as you’re feeding us what we need.” Corrigan sensed the interview had taken a bad turn. He tried to remember Thomas’s resume. “You were trained as an historian, right?”

Thomas nodded. He was in fact an historian; his Ph.D. dissertation, completed on the day before he officially started work at the Agency, was on the East German Secret Police. He was, for all intents and purposes, the Western world’s expert on the East German police. Unfortunately, the day he went to work was the day the Berlin Wall was taken down and the East German police ceased to exist.

“You worked on the Mexico City plot in 2002, right?” prompted Corrigan. A plot to blow up the U.S. embassy had been foiled thanks largely to work by the analysts; it was a major coup.

“I headed the team,” said Thomas.

“The Olympics,” said Corrigan, mentioning another major accomplishment — Thomas had helped identify an Arab group that had tried to poison the drinking water at the 1996 games. The plot itself had been rather lame, but the work sorting through intercepts to identify the perpetrators was not.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.”

Corrigan smiled. Eccentric and humble and brilliant: Thomas would be perfect.

“Good,” said Corrigan, rising. “I’m going to put you right to work. We’re involved in a bit of a ticklish situation — actually, we have two ticklish situations. But I want you to concentrate on Chechnya right now. You’ve done work on dirty bombs.”

“Well of course. But as far—”

“Great,” said Corrigan. His radio beeped — they needed him back downstairs. “Debra will be in with you in a second. She’ll show to your office, make sure all the

clearance work is taken care of — you’ll have to take a new lie detector test, but in the meantime we’re going to put you right on this.”

“What about my UFOs?” asked Thomas.

“UFOs?” Corrigan stopped at the door, looking back at the researcher.

“I, uh, had done a memo. It went to the director.”

“Oh, right, right, right,” said Corrigan, who had no clue what he was talking about. “Focus on this right now, OK? Jenny’ll get you all the backups and the files — don’t forget to break for lunch.”

12

In 1996, a group of Chechen rebels — or “freedom fighters” in Daruyev’s phrase — planned to blow up a dirty bomb in central Moscow. The operation was doomed from the start — Russian intelligence had infiltrated the guerrilla network. But the project had proceeded to the point of moving approximately one thousand pounds of material into the city. The material had a relatively low alpha value — in other words, it wasn’t very radioactive. But no one exposed to the material itself was expected to die immediately; its primary value was as a weapon of terror. And while the bomb itself was never set off, the simple fact that the Chechens were willing to go to such lengths might have played a role in the Russian government’s decision to halt the offensive there and begin negotiations, even though the takeover of a hospital in Kizlyar in the province of Dagestan was generally credited with forcing their hands.

Daruyev had been one of the people responsible for planning the bomb. Before the war, he had been involved in research for food irradiation, and had spent considerable time in America as well as France studying the problem. He told Ferguson and Conners that he had originally argued against using such a weapon, though in the end he was as responsible as anyone for its design, as well as for the theft of some of the material used to construct it.

He had also apparently paid a price beyond his arrest and subsequent fifteen-year sentence — he had lung and thyroid cancer.

“The lung cancer, perhaps because I smoke,” he allowed. “But the thyroid cancer, a large dose of radioactivity, surely.”

“What stage?” asked Ferg.

Daruyev shrugged. “It hasn’t been operated on. I can feel the growth with my fingers,” he started to pull up his hand to show them, forgetting that they were in irons.

“If you can feel it, you’re probably pretty far gone,” said Ferguson. The surgeon had shown him how to palpate — the technical term for feel — his own growth before the operation.

“I guess.”

Other rebels knew of the plot, and of Daruyev. From time to time they contacted him. Kiro’s man was only the latest of a long series. Daruyev claimed that he only listened and never offered true advice.

“A man came to me from Bin Saqr more than a year ago. His questions were dangerous ones,” said Daruyev.

“Why?” asked Conners.

“Because he wanted to know if different types of radiation would cancel each other out, as a practical matter.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ferguson.

“They were wondering if in arranging the material a certain pattern should be laid out. They were more concerned about alpha radiation — you understand, alpha particles, as opposed to gamma?”

“Yup,” said Ferguson.

“They were concerned if there might be a cancellation effect when a bomb was exploded.”

“Is there?” asked Ferguson.

“Bah. It was a question designed to see if I would help them, not to elicit a true answer. An imbecile would know there is no such thing.”

Ferguson started to laugh — he had, in a roundabout way, just been called an imbecile.

“Did you help?” asked Conners.

“No. But if they are asking about alpha waste — that is a much more dangerous prospect than what we planned. Allah’s Fist — they are not against the Russians. They want to destroy all infidels, which means you. I would be wary.”

“So why are they in Chechnya?” asked Conners.

“I don’t know that they are.”

“Someone was to talk to you,” said Ferguson. “And what about Kiro?”

Daruyev made a disparaging noise with his mouth, dismissing Kiro. “Chechnya is a perfect place for the misfits of God,” he said. “The Russians control the cities, but the mountains and hills — they cannot be everywhere at once. Even where they do control, you are proof that their level of efficiency is not very high.”

“You speak like a plant manager, you know that?” said Ferg.

“It was another life.”

Conners stopped the truck in the field near the burned-out buildings they had seen on the sat picture. They took the Chechen out and sat him in the back while they looked over the rains. The cluster of buildings had been burned several years before; there were not only weeds but thick bushes between the ruins.

“Time to call home,” said Ferg. “Find him a good place to sit, then you can take off the hood.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Maybe it’ll inspire him.”

“Or get him more pissed off at the Russians,” said Conners.

“Same thing,” said Ferg. He took one of the AK-47s and walked across the dirt road they’d driven in on, climbing a hill that overlooked the ruins.

Jack, next time you give me background on something, get it right,” said Ferguson, as soon as Corrigan came on the line.

“What?” said Corrigan.

“That nurse almost got us wasted. I mentioned God, and she dialed up an exorcism.”

“Which? In the prison?”

“No, I had a date this morning,” said Ferguson.

“It’s not like we have unlimited resources,” protested Corrigan. “Besides, I told you I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of—”

“Then don’t give it to me.”

“That level of intelligence,” said Corrigan, remembering the information now. “Shit, Ferg, that was good stuff. When I was in the Army if we had that level of intelligence—”

“You’re not in the Army now, Jack. Intelligence is our middle name, remember?”

“Well, it’s going to improve exponentially from now on. I have a replacement for Lauren. A bit, you know, eccentric, but I think he’s a real home run hitter.”

“Good.”

Ferguson saw light glint off a windshield in the distance. He pulled up his binoculars; it was a Russian troop truck, driving on the road they’d taken.

“All right, listen Corrigan, I’d love to stand around and chat, but I’ve got work to do. Call Van and arrange a pickup for me. I want to get out tonight if we can.”

“No can do,” said Corrigan.

“Why not?”

“You’re in Chechnya.”

“Am I? No shit. I thought I was sitting in Disney World. I’m talking to Mickey Mouse, after all.”

“Working with you’s a barrel of laughs, Ferg.”

“Yeah, well listen, I have to go. See what you can figure out for me, Corrigan.”

“It may take a few days.”

“Pull something together tonight,” he said, snapping off the phone and running down the hill.

13

The boxcar seemed to have disintegrated into the air. Guns and Massette drove all the way to the yard and back to the border four times without spotting it on any of the sidings; they sneaked into the yard and searched for it there, going so far as to check several cars to see if they had been painted over. Twice yardmen asked what they were doing, and at one point Guns thought he would have to pull out his gun and shoot a worker who seemed a little too insistent in his questioning.

It wasn’t in the yard. Massette thought the tunnel must have something to do with the disappearance; they searched it without finding a siding or even a doorway, Guns’s heart pounding the whole time as he worried a train would come and flatten him inside. They used their Geiger counters on the sidings without finding anything, then as a last-ditch effort began walking the tracks with the detectors.

About a half mile north of the tunnel, the tracks ran level with a sandy road on the right. Massette realized there was something odd about it, and began madly kicking around in the dirt; Guns couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing until Massette stopped with a curse, then dropped down and scraped soil from the buried rails.

“That bulldozer,” said Massette, pointing toward the woods.

There was a gap between the buried rail spur and the tracks of about four feet, just long enough for a flanged section to be fitted in. They found the pieces — the pair looked like long, curved french fries, with triangular heads — in a pile of rocks near the woods with some blocks and metal bars and chain. A few yards farther on, the rails were no longer buried; they headed through some brush toward a clearing a few hundred yards ahead.

Guns took out his pistol, holding it behind his back as they walked up the rail line. Massette stopped suddenly, catching sight of something in the distance.

“Better flank me,” he said.

Guns trotted into the woods to parallel him. The tracks ran in a large semicircle to the east, back in the direction where the tunnel had been. A small clearing sat beyond a set of cement posts; a partially dismantled train car sat in the middle of them.

“And here we are,” said Massette loudly, arriving in the clearing. “Merde alors.”

It looked as if the flat casks from the French processing operation had been stacked on the bottom and sides of the car; at roughly a foot thick, they could have been easily missed by a casual inspection. The rad meters registered only trace amounts of material, bits of contamination that had been picked up inadvertently at the original waste site and left on the car. The casks — assuming of course that they had been there — would have contained high-alpha-producing waste, highly dangerous, but only if the containment vessels were broken and the material pulverized.

“Put it in trucks here,” said Massette. “Or one truck. We should probably follow this road,” he told Guns. He pulled out his map.

“It’s not on the map,” said Guns.

“Setting this up must have taken quite a long time.”

“Yeah,” said Guns.

“The fact that they would then blow up the train and leave the remains, leave the bulldozer, eliminate the possibility of using it again — they’re ready to go.”

14

The Russian truck drove up the road at a steady speed, not racing but not plodding either. Conners had pulled their vehicle behind the only large hunk of remains and done his best to obscure any tracks leading off the roadway; he hunkered in the ruins with their prisoner, ready with the RPG. Ferguson, crouched in a ruined basement closer to the road, aimed his AK-47 at the truck, even as he willed it to continue on its way.

It did not.

Jabbing off the side, the vehicle came to a shaky halt. A soldier jumped down from the cab, rifle in hand, walking around warily to the back. A minute later the driver got out, stretching his legs and hoisting his own rifle from the cab.

He walked directly toward the ruins where Ferguson was hiding. Ferg slid back into the shadows, aiming his gun, then realized what the driver was up to. He did his best to hold his breath as the Russian’s urine splattered on the blackened rocks nearby. The other man came up, making a joke about watering Chechen ashes.

They finished and zipped up, joking loudly as they walked back toward the truck. The driver had a hip flask; as they stopped to share a gulp Ferg pushed his way up through the ruins, trying to avoid the area they’d just wet down.

“Halt,” he said loudly in Russian, not more than ten feet behind them as they drank. “Drop your weapons or you’re dead.”

He gave a quick burst of gunfire as he spoke. The driver, whose gun was hanging at his side, dropped it, but the other man swung the rifle off his shoulder and squared to fire.

“No,” said Ferg, but it was already too late. As his finger squeezed the trigger, he caught a blur out of the corner of his eye. He just managed to duck as the rocket shot past, missing the KAMAZ and igniting in the hillside. Dirt and rocks sprayed everywhere.

Ferg’s burst had killed the Russian before he could fire. The driver meanwhile flattened himself against the dirt.

Ferguson kicked both guns away and waited for Conners, who ran up with his AK-47.

“I can’t believe I missed,” said Conners.

“You have to compensate,” said Ferguson, mocking Conners’s earlier advice. But he was glad his companion hadn’t hit the truck, and even more so when he pulled open the plastic tarp covering the back. Two small chests at the side held a cache of AK-74s, automatic rifles chambered for 5.45 mm ammunition. There were also two PKs, 7.62 mm light machine guns, oldish but very dependable squad-level weapons, and an AGS-17, an odd-looking grenade launcher that the Russians liked because it could loft its wares into overhead hills. Besides the ammunition for the guns, there were a dozen jerry cans of diesel.

“What do you say we give them our truck and take theirs?” Ferg asked Conners.

“Sounds like a fair trade.”

“Yeah, just about.” Ferguson hopped up and examined the AGS-17. Remembering the two small grenades Ruby had presented him with, he dug into the ruck and retrieved one.

“What is that?” Conners asked.

Ferg handed it over.

“This grenade doesn’t go in this gun,” said Conners, eying the fat slug.

“Figures.”

“It’s a Russian mebbe.”

“Mebbe.?”

“Maybe it goes off, maybe it doesn’t,” laughed the SF trooper. “They don’t have the highest quality control, and this sucker looks corroded to boot.”

“Har-har.”

“It’s a VOG-25L or something,” said Conners, his voice more serious. “It’s kind of like the 40 mm grenade you shoot from a 203. Russian launcher is shorter. More propellant here, see?” Conners held it up. “Plus this sucker, the nose detonates, and it kicks up again after it lands. It throws shrapnel all over the place. Nasty.”

“I’ll attend the seminar later,” said Ferg, stuffing the small grenade into his pocket. He took the AGS-17 grenade launcher and carried it to a point on the slope where he could see the entire compound. He slapped on the round drum that contained the grenade cartridges, then swiveled it up and down, not entirely sure how the mechanism worked. Russian weapons in general were known for their simplicity of operation, but the boxy gun looked more like something a mad scientist had invented than a weapon. Finally, he settled behind the trigger and fired. The grenade whizzed out across the compound, landing just beyond their truck. It took two more shots before he got the hang of it and scored a direct hit.

Conners meanwhile finished trussing the Russian, leaving him near the road. He took a single swig of the vodka, then thoughtfully offered a swallow to the man before tossing it away.

Daruyev spit in the dirt at them as Conners led him past.

“That’s not nice,” said Conners, chuckling.

“I have been thinking about what you said before,” Daruyev said to Ferguson, as he helped him into the truck.

“Yeah?”

“There are three possible places where they might storehouse material to prepare a bomb,” said Daruyev. “I can take you to each one of them.”

“Tell us where they are first.”

The Chechen shook his head. “Then you won’t need me.”

“I don’t need you now.”

“If I lead you to them, and you find a bomb, you will need me to help you neutralize it,” said the Chechen.

In truth, he could count on getting all sorts of help to dismantle a bomb. “What do you get?” asked Ferguson, though he suspected he knew the answer.

“If I help you, will you let me go free?” added Daruyev.

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Take me to America then. Put me in prison there.”

“America?” said Conners.

“Can you?” asked the Chechen.

Before Corrine Alston had “joined” the Team, Ferguson would have agreed easily — and sincerely. Now, though, with a lawyer looking over his shoulder, he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know if I can,” said Ferg truthfully. “Help me anyway.”

The Chechen stared at him. They had come from entirely different places to the same valley of gray, both living with the ambiguity of the death they inevitably faced. Ferguson’s prognosis might be slightly better, and his cause more clear-cut, but the two men walked in the same land of shades and shifting sands.

But Ferg was the one with the gun.

“If you say you will try, that will be enough,” said Daruyev.

“I will try,” said Ferg. “Take us to the closest spot.”