Mirror Image

CHAPTER SIX

When the coin slid under the door of the reception area, it passed through an electromagnetic CIS. The counterimpulse screen was designed to be disrupted by any signal that passed beneath it, down to the cadmium batteries that powered digital watches.

The disruption sounded a beep that overrode other information coming into the earphones of Operations Center Security Director Glinka. Though he wasn't an alarmist, Colonel Rossky was— especially with zero hour a little over a day away and a rumor that someone from the outside had been watching what was going on for the past few days.

He checked with the receptionist, who said that no one had come or gone. Thanking her, the short, muscular man slid his headset off, handed it to his aide, got up from his seat, and walked down the narrow corridor to the Colonel's cubicle.

He looked for any excuse to stretch his legs, having spent nine hours doing nothing but test open bugs in dozens of embassies around the world. This, after having spent four hours of running two of the Operations Center phone lines through a battery of tests for on-and-off hook voltages, on-line listen, tone sweep, high-voltage pulse test, and all-wire listen tests.

The central hallway was about the length and width of two bus aisles strung end-to-end. It was lit by three twenty-five-watt bulbs set in black fixtures and suspended from the ceiling. It was so thoroughly soundproof that nothing less than a cannon or jackhammer could be heard or felt by someone on the outside. Both interior and exterior walls were made of brick covered with a liquid foam coating and six alternating layers of spun fiberglass and inch-thick sheets of hard, black rubber. These were topped with tarpaulin to insulate the facility from moisture and then by a layer of pasteboard. A coat of matte-black paint absorbed the light which might otherwise leak through cracks in the floors above them.

Like a tree trunk, the corridor had several branches, each leading to several areas: computers, audio surveillance, aerial reconnaissance, communications, library, exit, and more. General Orlov's office was on one end and Colonel Rossky's on the other.

Glinka reached the Colonel's office and pressed the red button on the speaker beside the door.

"Yes?" the high voice crackled through the speaker.

"Colonel, it's Glinka. I've picked up a.98-second disturbance in the reception area. That isn't long enough for someone to have walked through, but you wanted me to tell you if there were any—"

"Where is the janitor?"

Glinka said, "He's working in the Kurgan wings—"

"Thank you," Rossky said. "I'll look into it myself."

"Sir, I can go and—"

"That will be all," Rossky snapped.

Glinka ran a hand across his blond crewcut. "Yes, sir," he said as he turned from the door and headed back to his post.

So much for a short walk up the stairs, he thought. But it was better to be miserable than to cross the unforgiving Colonel Rossky, which is what poor Pavel Odina had done when he stole equipment from the facility. Glinka had only mentioned the theft to the Colonel because he didn't want to be blamed for it himself. He never thought the computer software designer would meet with such a horrible fate, which everyone here knew that Rossky had orchestrated.

Shambling back to his seat, he retrieved his earphones and settled in for what he was sure would be another unbroken shift of five hours or more.

He quietly considered all the ways he would love to derail the strutting son of a bitch if he had the courage

Tucked into his old, crisply pressed black uniform, with its distinctive red lapel flashes and freshly blocked hat, short, lean Colonel Leonid Rossky left his office and strode toward the fireproof door that led to the staircase. Like all soldiers of the spetsnaz— a word formed from spetsialnoye nazhacheniye, "special purpose" — he had both nerves and character of granite. It showed in his hard expression. His dark eyebrows dipped severely above his long, straight nose, and his thin lips turned down at the edges where they blended with the deep, hard lines from his nose. He wore a thick mustache, which was unusual for the breed. But his gait was typical of the special forces: fast and assured, as though only an invisible leash kept him from racing toward a goal only he could see.

Opening the door and shutting it firmly behind him, Rossky pressed the keypad code to lock it, then hit a button on the intercom beside it.

"Raisa, lock the outside door."

"Yes, sir," she said.

Then he hurried along a dark corridor, up another flight of stairs, and through another keypad-controlled door to a TV studio. Ordinarily, he would have changed into civilian clothes before coming out here, but there wasn't time.

Workers in the studio were setting up permanent lights, monitors, and TV cameras. They ignored Rossky as he made his way through the cables, crates, and equipment. Beyond the glass-enclosed control booth was a steep, brightly lit stairwell. Rossky climbed and entered a small reception area at the top. Raisa rose from her desk and greeted him with a nod. She went to say something, but he put a finger to his lips to silence her and looked around.

Rossky saw the peso at once, lying innocuously under the receptionist's desk on the right side of the room. The two employees who were unpacking equipment stopped to look at him. He motioned them to keep talking. They continued discussing a soccer match as Rossky studied the coin. He circled it like a snake girdling its prey, never touching it and afraid to breathe on it. A glitch might have triggered the alarm in Glinka's headset, and the peso might be exactly what it seemed to be. But he hadn't survived twenty years in the special forces by taking anything for granted.

He saw that the peso was well-worn, as though it had been in circulation for years. The 1982 date seemed appropriate to its condition. He looked at the sides of the coin, at the faded ridges, at the dirt wedged between them. It all seemed very authentic. But the eye could be fooled. Pulling a long black hair from the back of his head, he held it near the coin. The hair dipped like a divining rod. Touching his index finger to the tip of his tongue, he gently dabbed the top of the coin with saliva. He looked closely at his finger and saw traces of dust; where he'd touched the coin, it was clean.

Static electricity had attracted both dust and the hair, which meant that something inside the coin was generating an electrostatic field. His lips tight with anger, Rossky stood and returned to the Operations Center. The transmitter in the peso wasn't very powerful. Whoever was listening through it had to be within a few hundred yards of the museum. The security cameras would tell Rossky who that might be, and then the spy would be dealt with.