The Cassandra Compact

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Swiss have one of the most highly organized terrorist-response teams in the world. Superbly trained, expertly equipped, the twenty-man unit known as the Special Operations Group was on its way to Zurich International Airport within minutes of receiving the go signal from the minister of defense.

By the time Swissair 101 was twenty minutes out, the commandos were in position. Half of them wore the uniform of the Swiss border patrol, whose ubiquitous presence at airports and railroad stations went unnoticed by travelers accustomed to visible security. The other half were dressed as mechanics, fuelers, baggage handlers, and caterers ― the kind of people anyone would expect to see around parked aircraft.

The plainclothes contingent, heavily armed with MP-5 submachine guns and smoke and stun grenades, would be the first-wave assault troops if the situation degenerated into a hostage crisis. The uniformed patrols were the second perimeter, ready to move if Beria somehow managed to slip past the invisible cordon that would be established around the aircraft.

Finally, there was a third ring, made up of Swiss Army sharpshooters who had positioned themselves on the roofs of the international terminal and the maintenance hangars. They would have an unobstructed view of the plane as it taxied to the last gate. There, an attempt would be made to collar the jetway to the fuselage. The attempt would fail. The captain would announce a malfunction and advise his passengers that a ramp would be wheeled up to the forward hatch.

Once the passengers started moving down the ramp, the snipers would try to pick out Beria and lock on to him. If successful, there would be no fewer than three rifles covering the target at any given moment. According to plan, the plainclothes commandos would execute the takedown, wrestle Beria to the ground, and neutralize him. But if for any reason there was a problem, the snipers were cleared for center-mass/head-shot fire.

Wearing a caterer's baggy white overalls, the SOG commander quietly radioed the control tower and received the latest word: flight 101 was on final approach. Word was passed along; the safeties of weapons were thumbed off.

The bus rattled into the St. Petersburg station just as Swissair 101 touched down in Zurich. Following the crowds, Ivan Beria drifted into the terminal, headed for the lockers. Removing a key, he opened a locker and pulled out a cheap suitcase.

The washroom was abominable, but a tip to the attendant got Beria a private stall that was reasonably clean. He took off his coat, jacket, and pants, and from the suitcase pulled out a new navy blue blazer, gray slacks, a sports shirt, and comfortable loafers. Also in the suitcase were a fleece-lined jacket, several plastic bags filled with souvenirs from the Hermitage Museum, and a billfold containing an airline ticket, passport, credit cards, and American currency. Beria flipped open the passport and scrutinized his picture, in which he wore the clothes he'd just put on. He thought he looked like a John Strelnikov, a naturalized American citizen who worked as a civil engineer for a Baltimore-based construction company.

Beria packed up his old clothes in the suitcase and left the bathroom. In the station, he stopped at a refreshment stand, put down the suitcase, bought himself a Coke, and moved on. Given the homeless population that meandered through the station, the suitcase would disappear before he reached the front doors.

Outside, he got into a cab and offered the driver ten American dollars over the negotiated rate if he got him to the airport in thirty minutes. The driver made it with two minutes to spare.

Beria knew that by now his photograph and particulars had been wired to every major transportation facility in the country. It didn't matter. He had no intention of coming into contact with the authorities.

Walking through the newly refurbished terminal, he reached the area reserved for tour groups and slipped into a gaggle of sixty-odd travelers clustered in front of the Finnair counter.

“Where's your badge? You need your badge.”

Beria smiled pleasantly at the harried young woman whose badge read OMNITOURS: TREASURES OF THE CZARS.

Handing over his passport and ticket, he mumbled, “Lost it.”

The woman sighed, grabbed his paperwork, and steered him to a counter where she brought out a paper badge.

“John Strel…” `

“Strelnikov.”

“Right. We'll just put down `John,' okay?”

Using a felt pen, she wrote the name on the badge, peeled away the backing to expose the adhesive, and pressed it firmly onto Beria's lapel.

“Don't lose it!” she scolded. “Otherwise you'll have problems at customs. Do you want to do any duty-free shopping?”

Beria said that might be nice.

“You'll get your passport and tickets back after immigration,” the woman said, already moving to quell another crisis elsewhere in the group.

Beria was counting on that. Much better to have some exhausted American tour guide deal with the exit visas and airline tickets.

After purchasing some cologne that he placed in his Hermitage souvenir bag, Beria joined the line shuffling through immigration. He watched as in the booth, two bored officials stamped the passports that the tour guide had brought them. Hearing his name, he stepped forward, retrieved his passport, and proceeded through customs into the departure lounge.

Beria took a seat beside a middle-aged couple who turned out to be from San Francisco. Since he pretended that his English was only passable, his new friends did most of the talking. Beria learned that the Finnair flight to Washington's Dulles Airport would take about ten hours and that the dinner service would likely be decent but certainly not memorable.

The Ilyushin C-22 executive jet had just crossed into German airspace when Smith received word that Beria was not onboard Swissair 101.

“That's a positive confirmation?”

“Absolutely,” Klein replied over the satellite phone. “They eyeballed every single passenger. He wasn't there.”

“The Paris flight comes down in nineteen minutes. Are they ready?”

“The people I talk to say yes. Privately, they're telling me that the government is passing peach pits. If something happens and later word gets out that they allowed the plane to land… well, you can imagine the fallout.”

“Do you think the government will spring a leak?”

“It's a real possibility. The French have an election coming up in two weeks. The opposition is looking for any kind of ammunition it can get its hands on.”

Smith returned to an idea that had occurred to him back in Moscow, but which he hadn't voiced.

“Sir, what if we were to give the French a hand?”

“How?”

“Their Airbuses aren't equipped with the SecFax system. American 1710 can receive secure satellite facsimile transmissions. You could talk directly to the captain, bring him up to speed, then ship him a photofax of Beria.”

Smith waited out the silence. What he proposed was, at the very least, dangerous. If his suggestion was carried out and something went terribly wrong on the American flight, the consequences would be nothing short of disastrous.

“Let me check something,” Klein said finally. "I'll get back to you.

A few minutes later, he was back. “I spoke with American's director of security in Dallas-Fort Worth. He says 1710 is carrying a sky marshal.”

“Even better. Get him―”

“Her, Jon.”

“Forgive my presumption. The pilot must have a way to communicate with her. Once he does, she can cover the plane.”

“We have to allow for the possibility that Beria is traveling incognito.”

“Kirov never mentioned that Beria was a master of disguise. Possibly that's because he's never operated outside familiar borders before. A trained agent would be able to see through makeup and prosthetics.”

“Do you propose we inform Kirov ― or anyone else?”

“It's our plane, sir. If the agent spots him, we can give the French the all-clear and warn the British that he's on the way. Any lead time we could give them would be invaluable.”

Another moment of silence followed.

“All right, Jon. I'll get things going on this end. The flight's ninety minutes out of Heathrow. Stay airborne until I call back.”

Catching a whiff of exotic perfume, Adam Treloar stirred in his spacious first-class seat. He heard the faint rustle of silk against flesh, then caught a pair of shapely buttocks swaying past his line of sight. As though she sensed she was being watched, the woman, a long-legged redhead, turned. Treloar blushed as her eyes settled on him; his embarrassment deepened as she smiled and raised her eyebrows as though to say, you naughty boy! Then she was gone, disappearing behind the partition into the area where the drinks and food were prepared.

Treloar sighed, not because he coveted the girl; females of any age did not interest him sexually. But he appreciated beauty in all its forms. In certain parts of the Caribbean, on private yachts, he had watched, rapt, as loveliness like that was subjugated in order to stimulate the appetites of the audience.

An announcement from the pilot interrupted his reverie:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to inform you that the latest weather in London calls for light drizzle, with a temperature of sixty-two degrees. We are on schedule, with an estimated time of arrival of one hour and five minutes from now.”

Boring, Treloar thought.

He was still musing about the inanity of such announcements when the woman reappeared. She seemed to be walking more slowly, as though taking time to stretch her legs. Once again, Treloar felt himself brushed by her cool gaze; his blush returned.

The woman's name was Ellen Diforio. She was twenty-eight years old, a certified martial arts expert, and championship shooter. She was in her fifth year in the federal marshal service, her second in the sky marshal division.

Wouldn't you know it? My last gig, and this has to happen.

Fifteen minutes earlier, Diforio had been thinking about a date she had that night with her Washington lawyer boyfriend. Her daydreams had been interrupted by a seemingly innocuous announcement that the in-flight duty-free shop had a special offer on jean Patou 1000 perfume. The code words had snapped Diforio back to reality. She had counted off ten seconds, picked up her bag, and left her business-class seat, heading in the direction of the washrooms. She had kept on going into first class, around the panel into the service area, and then, surreptitiously, into the cockpit.

Diforio read the security director's message and studied the photofax intently. Her orders were clear: determine whether or not this individual was onboard. If she spotted him, she was not to make any contact or attempt to restrain him. Instead, she was to report back to the cockpit immediately.

“What about a weapon?” Diforio had asked the pilot. “It doesn't say anything about a gun or a bomb. There's no bio, either. Who is this guy?”

The pilot shrugged. “All I know is that the British have scrambled the SAS guys. It's that serious. If he's onboard and we make it down, they take him out on the ground.” He looked pointedly at her handbag. “Do me a favor: no Annie Oakley stuff back there.”

Making her way through the first-class cabin, Diforio noted the embarrassment of the man with the funny, egg-shaped eyes.

Not this clown.

She was very much aware of the effect she had on men and planned to put it to good use. Seventeen or seventy, they all took notice; some were a little subtler than others. But if she wanted to, she could get them to look at her directly. A hint of a smile, a twinkle in her eyes was all it would take.

The first-class and business cabins were a wash. Not that she had expected to find the target there. Guys like this Beria character liked to hide themselves in a mob. Diforio pulled back the curtain and stepped into the economy section.

The cabin was configured for 3-3-3 sitting, the seats separated by two aisles. While pretending to check the magazine rack, Diforio scanned the first six rows along the left-hand aisle: retirees, kids on a college break, young families traveling on a budget. She began walking to the back of the plane.

A few minutes later, Diforio was at the lavatories at the end of the bulkhead. She'd gotten a good look at all the passengers in the perimeter, plus two who had exited the washrooms. The rest of the seats were filled; none of the occupants resembled the target.

Now the tricky part.

Diforio went back the way she'd come, stepped into the business section, came around the partition, then went back into economy. Arching her back, she made it look like she was trying to work out cramped muscles. Curious male faces turned sympathetic ― and appreciative ― when her breasts pushed against the shell beneath her jacket. She encouraged the ogling with a slight smile as she moved down the right-hand aisle, her gaze flitting over but never alighting on individual faces. Again, her luck held. All the seats were occupied; the male passengers either asleep, reading, or working on business papers. She was grateful that the movie had ended and most of the window shades were up, allowing the sunlight to pour in.

Once again, Diforio found herself at the back of the plane. She walked past the lavatories, then up the left-hand aisle, double-checking to make sure that she hadn't overlooked any seats. A moment later, she was in the flight deck.

“Negative on the target,” she reported to the pilot.

“You're sure?”

“First and business are clean. No one even remotely resembles this guy. You have a full house in economy ― two hundred thirty-eight people. One hundred seventeen are women ― and believe me, they are women. Twenty-two are children under the age of fifteen; forty-three are kids in their twenties. Out of sixty-three possible males, twenty-eight are over sixty-five and look it. Another sixteen are over fifty. That leaves nineteen possibles ― and no match.”

The pilot nodded with his chin at the copilot. “Danny'll set up a link with Dallas. Tell 'em what you found ― or didn't.” He paused. “Does this mean I can start breathing again?”

The communications gear on the C-22 allowed Smith to eaves drop on the French security operations channel. He listened as agents of the Deuxième Bureau reported on the disembarkation of Air France flight 612. Three-quarters of the passengers were off and still there was no sign of Beria. Smith was turning his attention to the American flight, less than twenty minutes from touchdown, when the satellite phone chirped.

“It's Klein. Jon, I just got a report from Dallas. The marshal on 1710 reports that there's no one onboard who resembles Beria.”

“That's impossible! The French have just about off-loaded. Nothing there. He has to be on American.”

“Not according to the air marshal. She's almost positive that Beria isn't there.”

“Almost isn't good enough.”

“I realize that. I've relayed her findings to the Brits. They're grateful, but they're not going to ease up. The SAS is in position and will stay there.”

“Sir, I think we have to consider the possibility that Beria took some other flight or that he's using another way to get into the States.”

Klein's breath whistled over the line. “Do you think he'd be so brazen as to try that? He must know that we've pulled out all the stops to bring him down.”

“Beria started a job, sir. He's killed in the course of carrying it out. Yes, I think he's determined enough to try to reach us.” He paused. “Moscow is the main point for flights to the West, but it's not the only way out.”

“St. Petersburg?”

“It handles a lot of flights to and from Scandinavia and northern Europe. Aeroflot, Scandinavian Airlines, Finnair, Royal Dutch ― they all have steady traffic in and out of there.”

“Kirov will have an embolism when I suggest that Beria might have gotten as far as St. Petersburg.”

“He's gotten awfully far as it is, sir. This guy isn't running; he's following a well-thought-out plan. That's what's keeping him one step ahead of us.”

Smith heard something on the French channel. He excused himself, listened briefly, then got back to Klein. “Paris confirms that their flight's clean.”

“What's your next step, Jon?”

Smith thought for a moment. “London, sir. That's where I get off.”