The Moscow Vector

Chapter One

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan “Jon” Smith, M.D., paused in the shadowed arch of the ancient Gothic tower at the eastern end of the Charles Bridge. The bridge, nearly a third of a mile long, had been built more than six centuries before. It crossed the Vltava River, linking Prague’s Stare Mesto, the Old Town, with its Mala Strana, the Little Quarter. Smith stood quietly for a long moment, carefully scanning the stone span before him.

He frowned. He would have preferred a different location for this meeting, one that was busier and had more natural cover. Wider and newer bridges carried the Czech capital’s motorized traffic and its electric trams, but the Charles Bridge was reserved for those crossing the Vltava on foot. In the dreary half-light of late afternoon, it was largely deserted.

For most of the year, the historic bridge was the centerpiece of the city, a structure whose elegance and beauty drew sightseers and street vendors in droves. But Prague now lay shrouded in winter fog, a thick cloud of cold, damp vapor and foul-smelling smog trapped along the winding trace of the river valley. The gray mist blurred the graceful outlines of the city’s Renaissance and Baroque-era palaces, churches, and houses.

Shivering slightly in the frosty, dank air, Smith zipped up his leather bomber jacket and moved out onto the bridge itself. He was a tall, trim man in his early forties with smooth, dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and high cheekbones.

At first his footsteps echoed faintly off the waist-high parapet, but then the sounds faded, swallowed by the fog rising from the river. It flowed slowly across the bridge, gradually hiding both ends from view. Other people, mostly government workers and shop clerks hurrying home, emerged from the concealing mists, passed him without a glance, and then vanished back into the haze as quickly as they had come.

Smith walked on. Thirty statues of saints lined the Charles Bridge, silent, unmoving figures looming up out of the steadily thickening fog on either side.

Set in opposing pairs on the massive sandstone piers supporting the long crossing, those statues were his guides to the rende7.vous point. The American reached the middle of the span and stopped, looking up at the calm face of St.

John Nepomnk, a Catholic priest tortured to death in 1393, his broken body hurled into the river from this same bridge. Part of the age-blackened bronze relief depicting the saint’s martyrdom gleamed bright, polished clean by countless passersby touching it for good luck.

Moved by a sudden impulse. Smith leaned forward and rubbed his own fingers across the raised figure’s.

“I did not know that von were a superstitious man, Jonathan,” a quiet, tired-sounding voice said from behind him.

Smith turned around with an abashed grin. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Valentin.”

Dr. Valentin Petrenko came forward to join him, holding a black briefcase gripped tightly in one gloved hand. The Russian medical specialist was several inches shorter than Smith and more solidly built. Sad brown eyes blinked nervously behind the pair of thick glasses perched on his nose. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me here. Away from the conference, I mean. I realize this is not convenient for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Smith said. He smiled wryly. “Believe me, this beats spending another several hours rehashing Kozlik’s latest paper on ty-phoid and hepatitis A epidemics in Lower Iamsodamnedlostistan.”

For a moment, a look of amusement flickered in Petrenko’s wary eyes. “Dr. Kozlik is not the most scintillating speaker,” he agreed. “But his theories are basically sound.”

Smith nodded, waiting patiently for the other man to explain why he’d been so insistent on this surreptitious rendezvous. He and Petrenko were in Prague for a major international conference on emerging infectious diseases in Eastern Europe and Russia. Deadly illnesses long thought under control in the developed world were spreading like wildfire through parts of what had once been the Soviet empire, breeding in public health and sanitation systems ruined by decades of neglect and the collapse of the old communist order.

Both men were deeply involved in confronting this growing health crisis.

Among other things, Jon Smith was a skilled molecular biologist assigned to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. And Petrenko was a highly regarded expert in rare illnesses attached to the staff of Moscow’s Central Clinical Hospital. For several years, the two men had known each other professionally and had developed a respect for each other’s abilities and discretion. So when a plainly-troubled Petrenko pulled him aside earlier in the day to request a private conversation outside the confines of the conference, Smith had agreed without hesitation.

“I need your help, Jon,” the Russian said at last. He swallowed hard. “I have urgent information that must reach competent medical authorities in the West.”

Smith looked closely at him. “Information about what, Valentin?”

“The outbreak of a disease in Moscow. A new disease … something I’ve never seen before,” Petrekno said quietly. “Something I fear.”

Smith felt a small chill run down his spine. “Go on.”

“I saw the first case two months ago,” Petrenko told him. “A small child, a little boy who was just seven years old. He came in suffering aches and pains and a persistent high fever. In the beginning, his doctors thought it was only a common flu. But then, and quite suddenly, his condition worsened. His hair began falling out. Terrible, bleeding sores and painful rashes spread across most of his body. He became severely anemic. In the end, whole systems—his liver, kidneys, and ultimately, his heart—simply shut down.”

“Jesus!” Smith murmured, imagining the horrible pain the sick boy must have endured. He frowned. “Those symptoms sound an awful lot like high-level radiation poisoning, Valentin.”

Petrenko nodded. “Yes, that is what we first thought.” He shrugged. “But we could not find any evidence that the boy had ever been exposed to any ra-dioactive material. Not in his home. Not at his school. Not anywhere else.”

“Was the kid infectious?” Smith asked.

“No,” the Russian said, shaking his head emphatically. “No one else around him became ill. Not his parents or his friends or any of those who treated him.” He grimaced. “None of our tests turned up signs of a dangerous viral or bacterial infection and every toxicology exam came back negative. We could not detect any traces of poisons or harmful chemicals that might have done so much damage.”

Smith whistled softly. “Very nasty.”

“It was terrible,” Petrenko agreed. Still clutching his briefcase, the Russian scientist took off his glasses, polished them nervously, and then pushed them on again. “But then others began showing up at the hospital, suffering the same horrible symptoms. First, an old man, a former Communist Party appa-ratchik. Then a middle-aged woman. And finally a young man —a sturdy day laborer who had always been as healthy as a horse. All died in agony in a matter of days.”

“Just those four?”

Petrenko smiled humorlessly. “Those four that I know of,” he said softly.

“But there may well have been others. Officials from the Ministry of Health made it clear that my colleagues and I were not supposed to ask too many questions, lest we risk ‘provoking an unnecessary panic’ among the general population. Or stir up sensationalist reports in the news media.

“Naturally, we fought the decision to the highest levels. But in the end, all of our requests for an expanded inquiry were denied. We were forbidden even to discuss these cases with anyone beyond a very small circle of other scientists.” The sadness in his eyes intensified. “A Kremlin official actually told me that four unexplained deaths were trivial, ‘mere statistical background noise.’

He suggested that we instead focus our efforts on AIDS and the other illnesses that are killing so many in Mother Russia. In the meantime, the facts surrounding these mysterious deaths have been classified as state secrets and buried in the bureaucracy.”

“Idiots,” Smith growled, feeling his jaw tighten. Silence and secrecy were the bane of good science. Trying to conceal the emergence of a new disease for political reasons was only more likely to lead to a catastrophic epidemic.

“Perhaps,” Petrenko said. He shrugged. “But I will not take part in a cover-up. That is win I have brought you this.” The Russian gently tapped the side of his black briefcase. “It contains all the medical information relevant to the four known victims, as well as samples of their blood and selected tissues. I only hope that you and others in the West can learn more about the mechanisms of this new illness before it is too late.”

“Just how much hot water are you going to be in if your government finds out that you’ve smuggled this data out?” Smith asked.

“I do not know,” the Russian admitted. “That is why I wanted to give you this information in secret.” I le sighed. “Conditions in my country arc deteriorating rapidly, Jon. I’m very much atraid that our leaders have decided that it is safer and easier to rule by force and fear than by persuasion and reason.”

Smith nodded his understanding. He had been following the news out of Russia with increasing concern. The nation’s president, Viktor Dudarev, had been a member of the old KCB, the Soviet Committee for State Security, stationed in East Germany. When the USSR crumbled, Dudarev had been quick to align himself with the forces of reform. He had risen fast in the new Russia, first taking charge of the KSB, the new Federal Security Service, then becoming prime minister, and finally winning election as president. All along the way many had wanted desperately to believe he was a man sincerely committed to democratic norms.

Dudarev had fooled them all. Since taking office, the ex-KCB officer had dropped the mask, revealing himself as a man more interested in satisfying his own ambitions than in establishing a genuine democracy. He was busy drawing more and more of the reins of power into his own hands and those of his toadies. Newly independent media companies were muzzled and then brought back under government control. Corporations whose owners opposed the Kremlin were broken up by official decree or had their assets confiscated in trumped-up tax cases. Rival politicians were coerced into silence or smeared into oblivion by the state-run press.

Satirists had dubbed Dudarev “Czar Viktor.” But the joke had long ago worn thin and now seemed well on the way to becoming a harsh reality.

“I’ll do what I can to keep your name out of it,” Smith promised. “But somebody in your government is bound to trace this information back to you once the news leaks. And it will leak at some point.” He glanced down at the other man. “Maybe you should come out with the data. It might be safer.”

Petrenko raised an eyebrow. “Seek political asylum, you mean?”

Smith nodded.

The scientist shook his head. “No, I do not think so.” He shrugged. “For all my faults, I am a Russian first and forever. I will not abandon the motherland out of fear.” He smiled sadly. “Besides, what is it the philosophers say? For evil to triumph, all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing? I believe that to be true. So I will stay in Moscow, doing what I can to fend off the darkness in my own small way.”

“Prosim, muzete mi pomoci?” The words came floating toward them out of the mist.

Startled, Smith and Petrenko turned around.

A somewhat younger man, hard-faced and unsmiling, stood just a few feet away with his left palm held out as though begging for money. Beneath a tangled mane of long, greasy brown hair, a tiny silver skull dangled from his right earlobe. His right hand was hidden inside a long black overcoat. Two other men, similarly dressed and equally grimy, stood close behind him. They too wore small skull-shaped earrings.

Reacting on instinct, Smith stepped in front of the smaller Russian scientist. “Promilite. Sorry,” he said. “Nerozumim. I don’t understand. Mlmn’te an-glicky? Do you speak English?”

The long-haired man slowly lowered his left hand. “You are American, yes?”

Something about the way he said it raised Smith’s hackles. “That’s right.”

“Good,” the man said flatly. “All Americans are rich. And I am poor.” His dark eyes flickered toward Petrenko and then came back to Smith. He bared his teeth in a quick, predatory grin. “So you will give me your friend’s briefcase. As a gift, yes?”

“Jon,” the Russian muttered urgently from behind him. “These men are not Czech.”

The long-haired man heard him. He shrugged blithely. “Dr. Petrenko is correct. I congratulate him on his acuity.” The folding knife he’d been concealing inside his coat came out in one, smooth motion. He flicked it open.

Its blade looked razor-sharp. “But I still want that briefcase. Now.”

Damn, Smith thought, coldly watching the three men starting to fan out around them. He backed up slightly —and found himself penned against the waist-high parapet overlooking the Vltava River. This is not good, he told himself grimly. Caught unarmed and outnumbered on a bridge in the fog. Really not good.

Any hopes he might have had about being able to just hand over the briefcase and walk away unharmed had vanished when he heard the other man use Petrenko’s name so casually and confidently. This was not a run-of-the-mill mugging. Unless he missed his guess, these guvs were professionals and professionals were trained not to leave witnesses behind.

He forced himself to smile weakly. “Well, sure … I mean, if you put it like that. There’s no need for anyone to get hurt here, is there?”

“No need at all, friend,” the knife-wielder assured him, still grinning cruelly. “Now. tell the good doctor to hand over that case.”

Smith drew in a single, deep breath, feeling his pulse accelerate. The world around him seemed to slow down as adrenaline flooded into his system, speeding his reflexes. He crouched. Now! “Policii! Police!” he roared. And then again, shattering the fog-laden silence. “Policii!”

“Fool!” the long-haired man snarled. He lunged at the American, stabbing upward with his knife.

Reacting instantly, Smith leaned aside. The blade flickered past his face.

Too close! He chopped frantically at the inside of the other man’s exposed wrist, hacking at the nerve endings there.

His attacker grunted in pain. The knife flew out of his suddenly paralyzed fingers and skittered away across the paving. Still moving fast, Smith spun back around, slamming his elbow into the long-haired man’s narrow face with tremendous force. Bones crunched and blood spattered through the air.

Groaning, the man reeled back and fell to one knee, fumbling at the red ruin of his shattered nose.

Grim-faced, the second man pushed past his fallen leader, thrusting with his own blade. Smith ducked under the attack and punched him hard, angling up to come in right under his ribs. The man doubled up in sudden agony, stumbling forward. Before he could recover, Smith grabbed him by the hack of his coat and hurled him headlong into the stone parapet of the bridge.

Stunned or badly injured, he went down on his face without a sound and lav still.

“Jon! Watch out!”

Smith turned fast, hearing Petrenko’s shout. He was just in time to see the shorter Russian scientist drive the third man backward with desperate, uncontrolled swipes of his briefcase. But then the wild glee in Petrenko’s eyes faded, replaced by horror as he looked down and saw the knife buried up to the hilt in his own stomach.

Suddenly, a single shot rang out, echoing across the bridge.

And a small, red-rimmed hole opened in the middle of Petrenko’s forehead. Pieces of shattered bone and brain matter flew out the back of his skull, driven by a 9x18mm round fired at pointblank range. His eyes rolled up.

Then, still clutching his briefcase, the dying Russian staggered and fell backward over the parapet, toppling into the river below.

Out of the corner of his eye, Smith saw the first attacker scrambling back to his feet. Blood ran red across the man’s face, dripping off his unshaven chin.

His dark eyes were hill of hatred and he held a pistol, an old Soviet-model Makarov. One spent cartridge rolled slowh across the uneven pavement.

The American tensed, knowing already that it was too late. The other man was too far away—well out of his reach. Smith whirled around and threw himself off the bridge, diving headfirst into the fog. Behind him, more shots crashed out. A bullet tore right past his head and another ripped through his jacket, sending a wave of white-hot pain searing across his shoulder.

He struck the surface of the Vltava in a white burst of spray and foam, plunging deep into its icy, ink-black waters. Down and down he slid into a freezing void of absolute silence and utter darkness. And then the river’s swift current caught him in its grip, tugging at his torn jacket and his arms and legs, sending him tumbling and rolling as it dragged him north, away from the bridge’s massive stone piers.

His lungs were on fire, screaming for air. Grimly, Smith kicked out, clawing his way up through the frigid, turbulent water. At last, his head rose above the rippling surface and he hung there tor a long moment, gasping and panting, straining to draw in the oxygen his body craved.

Still caught in the current, he swung around. The Charles Bridge was invisible in the sw filing fog, but he could hear shouts and panicked voices re-verberating across the river. The sounds of gunfire seemed to have roused Prague’s citizens from their late afternoon torpor. Smith spat out a mouthful of water and turned away.

He struck out toward the eastern bank, angling across the current sweeping him downstream. He had to get out of the river soon—before the hitter cold sapped his strength completely. His teeth began chattering as the chill penetrated his waterlogged clothes and bit deeply into his bodv.

For a long, despairing moment, the mist-shrouded shore seemed to hang just beyond his rapidly tiring reach. Aware that his time was running out fast.

Smith made one last desperate effort. He kicked out again and this time felt his flailing hands touch a bank of mud and small pebbles at the water’s edge.

Straining, he hauled himself out of the Vltava and onto a narrow strip of withered grass and neatly trimmed trees, apparently part of a small riverside park.

Shivering and wracked by pain in every muscle, he rolled over onto his back and lay staring up at the featureless gray sky. Minutes slid past. He drifted with them, too exhausted to go any further.

Smith heard a startled gasp. Wincing, he turned his head to the side and saw a small, elderly woman bundled up in a fur coat staring down at him in mingled fear and amazement. A tiny dog peered out from behind her legs, sniffing curiously. The air around them seemed to be growing darker with every passing second.

“Policii,” he said, forcing the words out past his chattering teeth.

Her eyes opened wide.

Summoning up the last of his broken Czech, Smith whispered, “Zavolejte policii. Call the police.”

Before he could say anything more, the fast-gathering darkness closed in around him and swallowed him whole.

Chapter Two

For hundreds of years Chernihiv had been called “the princely city,” serving as a fortified capital for one of the princedoms at the heart of the Kievan Rus, the loose confederation of Vikings who had made themselves the masters of what would later become Russia and the Ukraine. Several of its beautiful cathedrals, churches, and monasteries dated back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and their golden domes and spires lent a quiet elegance to the little city’s skyline. Every year, busloads of tourists made the short journey from Kiev itself, one hundred and forty kilometers to the south, to gawk at Chernihiv’s ancient sites and artwork.

Few of those tourists ever noticed an isolated complex of Soviet-era concrete and steel buildings on the city’s outskirts. There, behind a barbed-wire perimeter fence guarded by heavily armed soldiers, lay the administrative center for one of the three major combat organizations of the Ukrainian military—the Northern Operational Command. The sun had long since set, but lights were still on throughout the complex. Staff cars bearing flags from every major unit in the command filled the parking areas surrounding a floodlit three-story central headquarters building.

Inside the building, Major Dmitry Polyakov stood off to one side of a crowded briefing room. He had carefully chosen a position that gave him a good view of his boss, Lieutenant General Aleksandr Marchuk, the man in charge of the army’s Northern Operational Command. The tall young major checked the folder under his arm yet again, making sure that it contained every report and draft order the general might need for this emergency military conference. Polyakov was well aware that Marchuk was a hard-charging, thoroughly professional soldier, one who expected his senior military aide to be ready to respond instantly to any need or order.

Marchuk, his senior staff officers, and Northern Command’s division and brigade commanders sat around three sides of a large rectangular conference table. A detailed map of their operational zone stood on an easel set up at the head of this table. Each high-ranking officer had his own briefing folder, an ashtray, and a glass of hot tea set out before him. Cigarettes smoldered in most of the ashtrays.

“There’s no doubt that both the Russians and Belarussians have dramatically tightened security along our joint border,” the briefer, a full colonel, continued. His pointer tapped the map at several places. “They’ve closed every minor crossing point from Dobrjanka here in the north all the way to Kharkiv in the east. Traffic is only being allowed across at checkpoints set up on the major highways—and then only after intensive searches. Moreover, my counterparts at both Western and Southern Command report similar measures being taken in their areas.”

“That’s not all the Russians are doing,” one of the officers sitting at the far side of the table said grimly. He commanded a Covering Force brigade, a new combined-arms formation made up of armored reconnaissance troops, scout and attack helicopters, and infantry units heavily armed with anti-tank missiles. “My forward outposts have observed company-strength and battalion-strength reconnaissance forces operating at several points along the frontier.

They appear to be attempting to precisely locate the duty stations of our border security detachments.”

“We should also keep in mind those troop movement rumors passed to us by the Americans,” another colonel added. The crossed hunting horns on his shoulder tabs identified him as a member of the Signals Branch, but that was only a cover. In reality, he served as the head of Northern Command’s military intelligence section.

Heads nodded around the table. The American military attache in Kiev had been distributing intelligence reports suggesting that some of Russia’s elite airborne, tank, and mechanized infantry units had vanished from their bases around Moscow. None of the reports could be confirmed but they were disturbing nonetheless.

“So what is Moscow’s official excuse for all of this unusual activity?” a heavyset tank division commander sitting next to the intelligence chief asked. He was leaning forward, and the overhead lights gleamed off his bare scalp.

“The Kremlin claims these are merely precautionary antiterrorist measures,” Lieutenant General Marchuk answered slowly, stubbing out his own cigarette. His voice was hoarse and sweat stained his high uniform collar.

Major Polyakov hid a worried frown. Even at fifty, the general was ordinarily a strong, healthy man, but now he was ill —quite ill. He had not been able to keep any food down all day. Despite that, he had insisted on calling this evening conference. “It’s only the damned flu, Dmitry,” Marchuk had rasped.

“I’ll get over it. Right now, the military situation demands my full attention.

You know my rule: Duty first and last.”

Like any good soldier given an order, Polyakov had nodded and obeyed.

What else could he do? But now, looking at his leader, he was beginning to think he should have pushed harder to try to get the older man to seek medical attention.

“And do we believe our good Russian friends and neighbors, Aleksandr?” the tank division commander asked wryly. “About these so-called antiterrorist measures?”

Marchuk shrugged. Even that small movement seemed to take an effort.

“Terrorism is a serious threat. The Chechens and others will strike at Moscow and its interests whenever and wherever they can. We all know that.” He coughed hoarsely, paused for a moment to catch his breath, and then forced himself to carry on. “But I have not seen any information—either from our own government or from the Russians themselves—that would justify so much military activity on so large a scale.”

“Then what should we do?” one of the other officers murmured.

“We will take precautions of our own,” Marchuk said grimly. “To keep ‘Czar Viktor’ and his cronies in Moscow honest, if nothing else. A little show of force on our part should go a long way toward deterring any idiocy by the Kremlin.” He pushed himself to his feet and stood facing the map. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. His face was gray. He swayed once.

Polvakov started forward, but the general waved him back. “I’m fine, Dmitry,” he muttered. “Just a little light-headed, that’s all.”

His subordinates exchanged worried glances.

Marchuk forced a ragged smile. “What’s the matter, gentlemen? Never seen anyone with the flu before?” He coughed again, this time a prolonged, hacking cough that left him head down and panting for air. He looked up with another faint smile. “Don’t worry. I promise not to breathe on any of you.”

That drew a nervous laugh.

Recovering slightly, the general leaned forward, supporting himself with his hands. “Now, listen carefully,” he told them, plainly fighting for every word. “Starting later tonight, I want all Read}’ Force divisions and brigades brought to a higher alert status. All personnel leaves must be canceled. All officers away from their units for an}’ reason should be recalled—at once. And by dawn tomorrow morning, I want ever}’ operational tank, infantry fighting vehicle, and self-propelled gun in this command fitted out with a full load of ammunition and fuel. The same goes for ever}’ transport and combat helicopter fit to fly. Once that is done, your units will begin moving to their wartime deployment areas to conduct special winter maneuvers.”

“Bringing so many troops to full combat readiness will be expensive,” his chief of staff pointed out quietly. “Extremely expensive. Parliament will ask serious questions. The defense budget this year is very tight.”

“Screw the budget!” Marchuk snapped, straightening up in irritation. “And screw the politicians in Kiev! Our job is to defend the homeland; not worry about budgets.” Abruptly, his face grew grayer still and he swayed again. He shuddered visibly, plainly wracked by a wave of terrible pain, and then folded slowly forward, collapsing facedown across the conference table. An ashtray crashed to the floor, spilling soot and cigarette butts across the frayed carpet.

Stunned officers jumped to their feet, crowding around their fallen commander.

Polyakov pushed through them, heedless of rank. The major touched Marchuk’s shoulder gently and then felt his forehead. He yanked his hand away. His eyes opened wide in shock. “Mother of God,” he whispered. “The general is burning up.”

“Turn him over onto his back,” someone suggested. “And loosen his tie and collar. Give him room to breathe.”

Working quickly, Polyakov and another junior aide obeyed, tearing open shirt and jacket buttons in their haste. There were gasps from around the crowded room when parts of Marchuk’s neck and chest came into view. Almost even inch of his skin seemed covered in raw, bleeding sores.

Polyakov swallowed convulsively, fighting against the urge to throw up. He swung away. “Fetch a doctor!” he yelled, horror-stricken by what he had seen.

“For God’s sake, someone fetch a doctor now!”

Hours later, Major Dmitry Polyakov sat slumped forward on a bench in the hallway just outside the intensive care unit of the Oblast Clinic Hospital.

Bleary-eyed and depressed, he stared down at the cracked tile floor, ignoring the muffled, incomprehensible squawks of the PA system periodically summoning various doctors and nurses to different sections of the building.

A single pair of gleaming, highly polished boots intruded on Polyakov’s view. Sighing, the major looked up and saw a dour, thin-faced officer staring down at him with evident disapproval. For an instant he bristled, but then he caught sight of the twin gold stars of a lieutenant general on the other man’s white-and red-embroidered shoulder boards and jumped to his feet. He threw his shoulders back, and lifted his chin high, standing braced at attention.

“You must be Polyakov, Marchuk’s senior aide,” the other man snapped. It was not a question.

The major nodded stiffly, still at attention. “Yes, sir.”

“My name is Tymoshenko,” the much shorter, thin-faced officer told him coldly. “Lieutenant General Fduard Tymoshenko. I’ve been sent from Kiev to assume command here, by order of both the defense minister and the president himself.”

Polvakov struggled to hide his dismay. Tymoshenko was known throughout the army’s officer corps as a political hack, one of hundreds left over from the days before the Ukraine regained its independence from the disintegrat-ing Soviet Union. His reputation as a field commander was dismal. Those who had endured his leadership spoke bitterly of a man more concerned with mindless spit-and-polish than with real combat readiness. These days he spent most of his time in various posts inside the Defense Ministry, energetically shuffling papers from one side of his desk to the other while making sure that influential politicians regarded him as indispensable.

“What is General Marchuk’s present condition?” Tymoshenko demanded.

“The general is still unconscious, sir,” Polyakov reported reluctantly. “And according to the doctors, his vital signs are deteriorating rapidly. So far, he is not responding to any’ treatment.”

“I see.” Tymoshenko sniffed, turning his head to stare contemptuously at the drearv surroundings. After a moment, he looked back at the younger man.

“And the cause of this unfortunate illness? I heard some nonsense about radiation poisoning just before leaving Kiev.”

“No one knows yet,” Polvakov admitted. “The hospital is running a complete battery of tests, but the results may not come back for hours, perhaps even days.”

Tymoshenko arched a single gray eyebroyv. “In that case, Major, may I suggest there is no longer any purpose to be served by haunting these corridors like some little lost lapdog? General Marchuk will live —or he will die. And I am quite confident that he will do so with or yvithout your presence.” He smiled thinly. “In the meantime, it seems that I need an aide myself, at least until I can locate a more efficient and deserving young officer.”

Polyakov did his best to ignore the insult. Instead, he simply nodded expressionlessly. “Yes, sir. I will do my best.”

“Good.” Tymoshenko nodded toward the exit. “My staff car is waiting outside. You can ride back to headquarters with me. And once yve’re there, I want you to arrange temporary quarters for me. Something comfortable, I trust.

You can clear out Marchuk’s billet bright and early tomorrow morning.”

“But—” Polyakov began.

The dour little general stared up at him. “Yes?” he snapped. “What is it, Major?”

“What about the Russians? And the border situation?” Polyakov asked, not bothering to conceal his surprise. “General Marchuk intended to deploy the Command’s fighting formations to their maneuver areas at first light tomorrow.”

Tymoshenko frowned. “So I understand.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘Naturally, I canceled those orders as soon as I arrived.” He shook his head derisively. “Full-scale maneuvers in the dead of yvinter? With all the wear and tear on expensive equipment that entails? And all because of a few paranoid whispers about the Russians? Utter madness. I really cannot imagine what Marchuk thought he was doing. The fever must have addled his brain.

Why, the fuel bills alone would be entirely prohibitive.”

With that, the new leader of the Ukrainian army’s Northern Operational Command spun crisply on his heel and strutted off, leaving Major Dmitry Polyakov staring after him in growing dismay.

Corporal Matthew Dempsey of the Pentagon’s police force whistled softly under his breath as he walked his night beat along the massive building’s quiet, labyrinthine corridors. This was his favorite shift. The Pentagon never really shut down and lights still glowed under some office doors, but much of the grinding daytime hustle and bustle faded in the hours right around midnight.

The small radio receiver fitted in his ear squawked suddenly. “Dempsey, this is Milliken.”

Dempsey spoke into his handheld radio. “Co ahead, Sarge.”

“Dispatch reports an emergency call from an office inside the DIA’s JCS

Support Directorate. Somebody in there just punched in 911, and then left the phone off the hook. The operator thinks she can hear someone breathing, but she can’t get anyone to respond. I want you to go check it out.”

Dempsey frowned. The Defense Intelligence Agency’s several Pentagon office suites were incredibly sensitive areas—ordinarily completely off-limits to anyone without at least a Top Secret clearance. He was authorized to override those restrictions if necessary, but doing so was going to raise one hell of a hornet’s nest. Even if this was just a false alarm, he’d be spending the next several hours filling out non-disclosure forms and being interrogated.

He sighed and trotted off down the corridor. “On my way.”

Dempsey paused outside the locked outer doors of the DIA section’s office complex. A light on the electronic security station there shone bright red.

Anyone trying to force their way through would automatically trigger alarms throughout the massive building. With another frown, he dug the shift-issued special police ID card out of his uniform pocket and ran it through the machine. The light shifted to yellow, indicating that he had been granted emergency permission to enter.

He pushed through the security doors and found himself in another hallway, this one leading deeper into the building. Several soundproofed glass doors opened onto this corridor. Silently now, the policeman moved faster toward the office his sergeant had identified as the source of the abortive 911 call, trying very hard not to look too closely at anything in the rooms he passed.

A painted sign on the door he was looking for read DIRECTORATE FOR CURRENT INTELLIGENCE—RUSSIA DIVISION. Dempsey knew enough about the different intelligence outfits to realize that the men and women who worked here were directly responsible for briefing the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs on all significant military and political developments. They were the top analysts charged with pulling together the bits and pieces of information gathered by human agents, from satellite photographs, and from intercepted radio, phone, and computer transmissions.

“Police!” he called out as he went inside. “Is anyone here? Hello?”

The corporal looked around carefully. The room was a tangle of desks, chairs, filing cabinets, and computers. The faint voice of the 91I operator still trying to get a response guided him toward a desk in the far corner.

Dozens of file folders and prints of satellite photographs lay strewn across the desk and the carpeted floor around it. Despite his best efforts, the corporal could not help reading the tags on some of them: 4TH GUARDS TANK DIVISION — NARO-FOMINSK CANTONMENT, SIGNAL INTERCEPTS —45TH SPETSNAZ BRIGADE, R\IL TRAFFIC ANALYSIS —MOSCOW MILITARY DISTRICT. Red warning stamps marked them all as being classified TOP SECRET or beyond.

Dempsey winced. Now he was in for it.

The computer on the desk hummed quietly to itself. A screen saver hid the contents of whatever document its owner had been working on and the police corporal was very careful not to touch anything around the machine. He looked down.

There, curled up next to an overturned chair, lay an older man. The skin on his face and neck was strangely mottled. He groaned once. His eyes flick-red partly open and then closed as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

He was still clutching the phone receiver in one hand. Clumps of his thick gray hair were falling out, revealing grotesque bald spots covered in a bright red rash.

Dempsey dropped to one knee, taking a closer look at the sick man. He felt for a pulse. It fluttered rapidly and irregularly under his fingertips. He swore once and grabbed his radio. “Sergeant, this is Dempsey! I need a medical team up here, pronto!”

The ornate pinnacles and towers of the Kotelnicheskaya apartment block soared high above the city, offering an unsurpassed view west across the Moscow River toward the red brick walls and golden domes and spires of the Kremlin. Dozens of satellite dishes and radio and microwave antennae sprouted from every relatively open space on its elaborate facade. Kotelnicheskaya was one of Stalin’s massive “Seven Sisters”—seven enormous high-rises built around Moscow during the 1950s to close what the increasingly power-mad dictator believed was a humiliating “skyscraper gap” with the United States.

Once home to Communist Party officials and heavy-industry bosses, the enormous high-rise now mostly housed wealthy foreigners and members of the new Russian governing and business elite—those able to afford the rents on luxury flats that ran several thousand American dollars a month. The very highest floors, those immediately below a towering central needle topped by a giant gleaming gold star, commanded prices beyond the reach of all but the richest and most powerful men. To bring in even more money, several apartments at the very top had been converted into high-prestige corporate offices.

A tall, powerfully built man stood at a window in one of those renovated penthouse office suites. There were strands of gray in his pale blond hair, a color matched by his ice-gray eyes. He frowned, staring out across the darkened city. The long winter night still held Moscow in its freezing grip, but the sky overhead was turning faintly paler.

A secure phone chirped suddenly on the desk next to him. A digital read-out attached to the phone blinked to life, identifying the caller. He swung round and picked it up. “This is Moscow One. Go ahead.”

“This is Prague One,” a muffled, nasal-sounding voice said. “Petrenko is dead.”

The blond-haired man smiled. “Good. And the materials he stole from the hospital? The case files and biological samples?”

“Gone,” Prague One reported grimly. “They were in a briefcase that went into the river along with Petrenko.”

“Then the matter is closed.”

“Not quite,” the caller said slowly. “Before we caught up with him, Petrenko had arranged a rendezvous with another doctor, an American attending the same conference. They were talking together when we jumped them.”

“And?”

“The American broke free of our ambush,” Prague One admitted reluctant]}. “The Czech police have him in protective custody.”

The blond-haired man’s eyes narrowed. “How much does he know?”

The man known as Prague One swallowed hard. “I’m not sure. We think Petrenko managed to tell him something about the deaths before we arrived.

We’re also fairly sure that the Russian was planning to hand over the medical files and samples to him.”

Moscow One tightened his grip on the phone. “And just who is this interfering American?” he snapped.

“His name is Jonathan Smith,” the other man said. “According to the conference records, he’s a military doctor—a lieutenant colonel—assigned to one of their medical research institutes as a disease specialist.”

Smith? The blond-haired man frowned. He had the fleeting impression that he had heard that name before, but where? Somehow it seemed to ring a faint warning bell far back in his mind. He shook his head impatiently. He had more immediate concerns. “What are the Czech police doing now?”

“Dragging the river.”

“For the briefcase?”

“No,” Prague One replied. “We have an informant inside the police headquarters. They’re only looking for Petrenko’s corpse right now. For some reason the American is keeping his mouth shut about what he was told.”

The blond-haired man stared back out the window. “Will they find either one?”

“The body will turn up sooner or later,” the other man admitted. “But I am confident that the briefcase is gone forever. The Vltava is wide and its current is swift.”

“For your sake, I sincerely hope you are right,” the blond man said quietly.

“What about this man Smith?” Prague One asked after a moment’s uncomfortable silence. “He could become a serious problem.”

The blond-haired man frowned again. That was true enough. The American doctor might not yet have told the Czech authorities what he had learned, but eventually he would report Petrenko’s claims and the news of his murder to his nation’s intelligence services. If so, the CIA and others were likely to begin paying entirely too much attention to new reports of other mysterious illnesses. And that was something he and his employers could not risk.

Not yet anyway.

The man code-named Moscow One nodded to himself. So be it. Acting openly against this man Smith would be dangerous. If he disappeared or died, the Prague police would certainly begin asking even more awkward questions about the Petrenko murder, and passing those questions on to Washington.

But letting him live was potentially more dangerous. “Eliminate the American if at all possible,” he ordered coldly. “But do it carefully—and leave no one alive this time.”

Chapter Three

The tiny interrogation room near the back of the main Prague police station at Konviktska 14 was sparsely furnished. There were just two bartered plastic chairs and an old wood table covered with dents, gouges, and the scorch marks left by countless cigarettes carelessly ground out on its surface. Jon Smith sat stiffly in one of the chairs wearing borrowed slacks and a sweatshirt.

Even the slightest movement made him uncomfortably aware of his own aching cuts and bruises.

He frowned. How much longer were the Czech authorities going to hold him here? There was no clock in this little room, and his wristwatch had been ruined by its immersion in the icy waters of the Vltava. He glanced up. The faint light leaking in through a tiny window high on one wall showed that it was already past dawn.

Smith fought down a yawn. After they rescued him from the riverbank, the Czech police had taken down his account of the vicious attack that had killed Valentin Petrenko and brought in a medic to patch up the bullet crease across his shoulder. In the process, his belongings, including his wallet, passport, and hotel room key, had been hustled away for “safekeeping.” By that time, it had been very nearly midnight and, after bringing him a late supper of soup, they had “suggested” that he use a cot in one of their empty holding cells. He smiled wryly, remembering the long, cold, and mostly sleepless night. At least they had left the door unlocked, making it clear that he was not exactly under arrest, only “helping the authorities with necessary inquiries.”

Bells tolled somewhere close by, probably those of the Church of St. Ur-sula, calling the devout to early morning mass and voung children to classes at the adjoining convent school. As if on cue, the door opened and a lean, pale-eyed police officer, immaculate in a neatly pressed uniform, came in. His light gray slacks, blue shirt, carefully knotted black tie, and darker gray jacket marked him as a member of the Prague Municipal Police —the more powerful of the two rival law enforcement agencies operating in the Czech capital.

The ID badge clipped to his jacket identified him as Inspector Tomas Karasek. He dropped easily into the chair directly across from Smith.

“Good morning, Colonel,” the police officer said casually in clear, comprehensible English. He slid a pair of police artist sketches across the table.

“Please tell me what you think of these drawings. The) are based on the statement you gave my colleagues last night. Do they match what you remember of the man who you claim killed Dr. Petrenko?”

Smith took the drawings and examined them closelv. The first showed the face of a man with long, tangled hair, dark, brooding eyes, and a small skull earring. The second was identical, except that the artist had added a bandage over what appeared to be a badly broken nose and sketched in bruising all around it. He nodded. “That’s him. No question about it.”

“Then he is one of the Romany,” Karasek said coolly. He tapped the pictures with one forefinger. “I believe you would call him a Gypsy in your country.”

Smith looked up in surprise. “You’ve already identified this guy7”

“By name, no,” the Czech police officer admitted. “No one matching his precise description appears in our files. But the earring, the hair, the clothing … these are all signs which tell me that he is one of their people.”

He grimaced. “By their very nature, the Romany are criminals. Even their youngest children are raised to be petty thieves, pickpockets, and beggars.

They are nothing but troublemakers, scum, and vermin.”

With an effort. Smith concealed his distaste for this expression of unthinking bigotry. For all their very real faults, the Romany, a poverty-stricken and rootless people, were commonly used as scapegoats by the richer, more settled societies in which they roamed. It was an old game and all too often a deadly one.

“Dr. Petrenko’s death was not exactly an act of petty theft,” he said care-fullv, reining in his temper. “More like cold-blooded murder. These guys knew his name, remember? That’s prettv goddamned personal for a simple bunch of muggers.”

Karasek shrugged. “They may have followed him to the Charles Bridge from his hotel. These Romany street gangs often prey on tourists, especially if they scent rich pickings.”

Something in the way he said it sounded false to Smith. He shook his head. “You don’t really believe any of that crap, do you?”

“I don’t? Then what should I believe?” the other man asked quietly. The pale-eyed Czech policeman looked narrowly across the tabic. “Do you have some theory of your own. Colonel? One that you would like to share with me, perhaps?”

Smith stayed quiet. This was dangerous ground. There were limits to what he could safely tell this man. He was sure that Petrenko had been killed to stop him from handing over the medical files and samples he had smuggled out of Moscow, but there was no real evidence left to back that up. Both the briefcase and the Russian had vanished in the Vltava. In the meantime, pushing the idea that this was a political murder was too likely to entangle him in an investigation that could drag on for weeks, and risk revealing skills and connections he had sworn to keep secret forever.

“I’ve read your statement over quite carefully,” Karasek went on. “Frankly, it seems curiously incomplete in several important respects.”

“In what way?”

“This rendezvous of yours with Dr. Petrenko on the bridge, for example,”

the Czech police inspector said. “It seems rather an odd place and time for an American military officer and a Russian scientist to be meeting. You see my point, I hope?”

“My work for the U.S. Army is purely medical and scientific in nature,”

Smith reminded him stiffly. “I’m a doctor, not a combat soldier.”

“Naturally.” Karasek’s thin-lipped smile stopped well short of his pale blue eyes. “But I envy you your American medical training, Colonel. It must have been exceptionally thorough. I’ve met very few doctors who could survive hand-to-hand combat with three armed men.”

“I was lucky.”

“Lucky?” The Czech police officer left the word hanging uncomfortably in the air for a few moments before continuing. “Nevertheless, I would still like a more reasonable explanation of what you and Dr. Petrenko were doing together on the Charles Bridge.”

“There’s no great mystery,” Smith told him, regretting the need to lie. “After two days of lectures and symposia, I needed a short break from the conference. So did Petrenko. And we both wanted to see a bit more of Prague. The bridge just seemed a reasonable starting point.”

Karasek raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You were sightseeing? In the fog?”

The American said nothing.

The Czech policeman stared hard at him for a while longer and then sighed. “Very well. I see no reason to detain you here any longer.” He stood up smoothly, moved to the door, and pulled it open. Then, abruptly, he turned back. “One thing more, Colonel. I should tell you that we have taken the lib-erty of collecting your luggage from the conference hotel. It’s downstairs waiting for you at the main desk. I imagine that you will wish to shave and change your clothes before making your way to the airport. The next connecting flight to London and New York leaves in a few hours.”

Smith eyed him narrowly. “Oh?”

“In these unfortunate circumstances, I am sure that you will wish to cut short your stay in my country,” Karasek explained. “This is regrettable, of course, but entirely understandable.”

“Is that an order?” Smith asked quietly.

“At an official level? Not at all,” the other man said. “Our two governments are close allies, are they not?” He shrugged. “Consider it instead a strong un-official suggestion. Prague is a peaceful city, one whose prosperity depends largely on tourism. We try not to encourage Wild West-style shootouts on our scenic streets and historic bridges.”

“So you’re the sheriff and I’m the gunslinger you’re running out of town before there’s more trouble?” Jon said with a rueful grin.

For the first time, a hint of genuine amusement flashed across the inspector’s face. “Something like that, Colonel.”

‘Til need to contact my superiors,” Smith said pointedly.

“Certainly.” Karasek turned toward the hallway and raised his voice slightly. “Antonin! Please give our American friend here his phone.”

A taciturn sergeant brought in the cell phone they had found securely fastened inside the waterproof inner lining of his leather jacket.

With a brisk nod of thanks, Smith took the compact phone, flipped it open, and hit the power button. A small color display blinked on. Small icons flashed across the miniature screen as the machine ran a quick self-diagnostics check, making sure that it was undamaged and that no one had tampered with its special subroutines and codes.

“A very intriguing piece of equipment,” Karasek said coolly from the door.

“Our electronics experts were quite puzzled by several of its more advanced features.”

Smith made sure his face stayed blank. “Really? That’s a shame. They’re the hottest thing in the States right now. Next time, I’ll be sure to bring the user’s guide with me.”

With a slight smile, the Czech shrugged his shoulders, conceding defeat.

“I earnestly hope there will not be a next time, Colonel Smith. For now, I wish you a safe journey.”

The American waited until the door clicked shut and then punched in a preset code. He lifted the phone to his ear. There was a short delay before it began ringing on the other end.

“Hold one moment, please,” a woman’s soft voice said politely. Then, after a musical tone chimed twice, confirming that both ends of this call were being encrypted, she said, “We’re clear. Go ahead.”

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith calling from Prague,” Jon said carefully. “Look, I realize that it’s very late there, but I need to speak to

General Ferguson. This is important. Fully urgent, in fact.”

Anyone listening in would be able to confirm that Brigadier General Daniel Ryder Ferguson was the director of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. However, the number he had auto-dialed was not associated with any office at USAMRIID. Instead, his call was passed through an automated relay—one equipped to detect attempts to intercept the signal—before arriving at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of Covert-One.

Jon Smith led a double life. Most of his work was done out in the open, as a scientist and doctor assigned to USAMRIID. But there were also times when he took on special missions for Covert-One, a top-secret intelligence outfit, one that reported directly to the President of the United States. No one in Congress even knew it existed. Nor did anyone in the broader military and intelligence bureaucracy. Loosely organized around a small headquarters group, Covert-One relied on a clandestine network of operatives, professionals in a number of different fields with a wide range of skills and expertise.

Like Smith, they were largely free of family ties and other personal obligations that might hamper their secret work.

“General Ferguson has already gone home for the day, sir,” Maggie Templeton, the woman who ran communications for Covert-One, said without missing a beat, playing along with the fiction Smith was weaving. The phrase he had used —”Fully urgent”—was a piece of voice code, a shorthand way for a field agent to report that he was in serious trouble. “But I can patch you through to the duty officer.”

“The duty officer?” he repeated aloud. He nodded. “Yes, that would be fine.”

“Very good. Wait one moment.”

The phone went dead for a brief moment and then a familiar voice spoke in his ear. “Good morning, Jon.”

Smith sat up straighter. “Good evening, sir.”

The chief of Covert-One, Nathaniel Frederick Klein, chuckled drily.

“You’re not usually so formal, Colonel. I assume that the walls around you have ears. Maggie told me you were in hot water of one sort or another.”

Smith hid a smile. He was fairly sure that at least one hidden microphone was bus) recording his end of this conversation. Inspector Karasek was clearly suspicious of him. “I’m calling from a police station in Prague,” he said simply. “Three men tried to kill me yesterday afternoon. They did kill a colleague of mine, a Russian research scientist named Valentin Petrenko.”

There was a short silence on the other end.

“I see,” Klein said at length. “You were quite right to report in. This is serious. Extremely so. You had better brief me, Jon.”

Smith obeyed, recounting the attack on the bridge. For the moment, he was careful to stay within the framework of the story he had already told the police. If they were listening in, it made sense not to give them any more reasons to interrogate him further. And Fred Klein was smart enough to fill in the obvious gaps for himself.

“The men who attacked you were professionals,” Klein said flatly after Smith had finished. “A hit team, with training in close-quarters combat and small arms.”

“No question about it,” Smith agreed.

“Were they Russians?”

Smith thought back, mentally replaying what he could remember of the long-haired man’s voice. Once the lead attacker had dropped the beggar act and started speaking English, there had been some kind of faint, underlying accent, but Jon was not sure now that he could pin it down. He shrugged.

“Maybe. But I wouldn’t swear to it.”

Klein was silent for another few moments. “And where did Dr. Petrenko work in Moscow?” he asked.

“He was a disease specialist attached to the Central Clinical Hospital,”

Smith told him. “A top-notch guy. One of the best in his field.”

“The Central Clinical Hospital? That is interesting,” Klein mused. “Very interesting, indeed.”

Smith raised an eyebrow. From his position in the shadows, Klein had un-hindered access to an incredible range of information and analysis. Were other U.S. or Western intelligence organizations already probing the disease outbreak in Moscow?

“All in all, I would have to say that you have been extremely fortunate,” the older man continued. “By rights, you should be lying dead on that bridge.”

“Yes, sir,” Smith agreed. “By the way, the police here share your assessment of the situation.”

Klein snorted. “So I imagine that the Czech authorities have been asking awkward and inconvenient questions about just how you managed to survive this melee?”

“You could say that,” Smith said wryly. “Add the words non grata to my persona and you’ll get a pretty clear picture of my current status. They’re shipping me out on the next available flight to London.”

“Which is embarrassing, but not fatal. Either to your career or your cover,”

Klein commented. “More to the point: Are you still at risk from these men?”

Smith considered the question carefully. It was one he had been chewing on for most of the past night. Just how far would the agents who had murdered Petrenko go? Had eliminating the Russian scientist himself satisfied their orders or were they expected to silence anyone Petrenko had contacted? “It’s possible,” he admitted. “Not likely, maybe, but possible.”

“Understood,” Klein said quietly. The line went dead again. He was back in less than a minute. “I’m going to arrange some backup for you. It won’t be much, not given the tight time frame, but I don’t want you hanging out there all on your own. Can you sit tight for an hour or so?”

Smith nodded. “No problem.”

“Good. Call me back before you leave that police station.” Klein hesitated briefly. “And do try your best not to get killed, Jon. Filling out all the paperwork involved is pure hell on my end.”

Smith grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised.

A middle-aged man wearing a thick brown overcoat, gloves, a fur hat, and mirrored sunglasses hurried out the front entrance of the Konviktska police station. Without looking back, he walked briskly away, heading southwest toward the river.

Not far off, a black Mercedes sedan with tinted windows sat waiting for him in a narrow side street. Although the Mercedes was parked illegally, the diplomatic tag displayed prominently on its windshield had so far kept Prague’s notoriously overzealous traffic wardens at bay. Despite the overcast day, sunshades were drawn down across the sedan’s rear windows.

Still moving quickly, the man pulled open the driver’s-side door and slid inside behind the wheel. He took off his hat and sunglasses and tossed them onto the leather seat beside him. With one gloved hand he nervously smoothed down spiky tufts of newly cropped brown hair.

“Well?” asked a grim voice from the rear seat. “What did you find out?”

“The municipal police are still holding the American,” the driver, a Romanian whose name was Dragomir Ilionescu, replied, looking up into the rearview mirror. He could just barely make out the shape of the man sitting behind him. “But not for much longer. As you anticipated, they have arranged a flight out for him later today. First to London and then on to New York.”

“With what official security?”

“None, apparently. The Czechs expect him to make his own way to the airport.”

“How far can we trust our informant?” the voice asked.

Ilionescu shrugged. “He has always been reliable in the past. I have no reason to doubt him now.”

“Excellent.” Teeth gleamed in the shadowed interior as the man in the rear seat smiled coldly. “Then we will be able to provide Colonel Smith with a most exciting journey. Signal the rest of the unit. I want everyone readv to hove immediately. They know their parts.”

Obediently, Ilionescu reached for the car phone. He flicked the switch that activated its scrambler. But then he hesitated. “Is taking this risk necessary?” he asked. “I mean, Petrenko is dead and the material he stole is gone forever, washed away in the river. We have accomplished our primary mission. Given that, what real difference does the life of one American doctor matter one way or the other?”

The man in the rear seat leaned forward out of the shadows. Pale light streaming in through the tinted windshield danced off his shaven skull. Gently, very gently, he touched the thick bandages covering his shattered nose.

They were stained with patches of brown, dried blood. “Do you think the man who did this to me was only a doctor?” he said softly. “]ust a simple physician?”

Ilionescu swallowed suddenly.

“Well, do you?”

Sweating now, the Romanian shook his head.

“You show some sense, then. Good. So, whatever this man Smith really is, let us make an end of him,” the other man went on. His voice was now dangerously low. “Besides, our recent orders from Moscow were quite specific, were they not? No witnesses. None. You do remember the penalties for failure, I trust?”

A muscle around Ilionescu’s left eye twitched at the memory of the gruesome photographs he had been shown. He nodded urgently. “Yes. I remember.”

“Then carry out my instructions.” With that, Georg Liss, the man who bore the code-name Prague One, sat back again, hiding his ruined face in the darkness.

Chapter Four

Four twin-tailed Su-34 fighter-bombers roared low over the rolling, wooded hills west of Bryansk. Advanced onboard radar systems allowed the attack aircraft to fly just high enough to clear the tallest trees and power pylons in the area. Streams of incandescent flares designed to decoy heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles blazed in their wake, wafting slowly downward toward the snow-covered ground.

Suddenly the Su-34s popped up, briefly gaining altitude while their onboard systems acquired multiple targets, transferred the data to their weapons, and calculated release points. Seconds later a cloud of precision-guided bombs and missiles fell away from beneath their wings and plunged onward toward the distant forest below. Instantly the four jets broke hard right, again diving for the deck to shake off any hostile radars as they exited the strike area and vanished to the north.

Behind them the woods began exploding, erupting in huge pillars of blinding orange and red flame. Shattered trees were thrown high into the air, tumbling end over end for hundreds of meters before crashing back to earth.

Billowing clouds of smoke and lighter debris drifted downwind.

Nearly a dozen high-ranking Russian army and air force officers stood on the roof of an old concrete bunker dug into the forward slope of a nearby ridge, watching intently through binoculars. More than one hundred heavily armed airborne assault troops wearing snow smocks and bodv armor were deployed along the ridge, guarding the generals. Command and electronics vans were set up behind the bunker, well hidden among the trees beneath Infrared-resistant camouflage netting. Newly laid fiber-optic cables snaked awav through the forest, feeding back to a secure communications network.

To help preserve complete operational and strategic secrecy for this special set of maneuvers, dubbed WINTER CROWN, all radio, cellular, or standard landline transmissions were being severely restricted.

An army colonel, listening intently through a headset, turned to the short, slender man standing beside him. Alone among all the observers crowded onto the bunker roof, this man wore civilian clothes. He was snug in a plain black overcoat and scarf. The wind ruffled his sparse brown hair. “The exercise computers report all simulated enemy artillery batteries and mobile fire control radars destroyed, sir,” the colonel told him quietly.

Russian president Viktor Dudarev nodded calmly, still watching through his binoculars. “Very good,” he murmured.

A new wave of sleek ground-attack aircraft—ultramodern Su-39s—raced low over the nearest hills with their powerful turbojet engines howling. They flashed past the bunker at high speed, flying down the wide valley below the ridge. Hundreds of unguided rockets rippled out from the pods slung beneath their wings, streaking onward on trails of smoke and fire. The whole eastern edge of the forest vanished in a rolling series of thunderous explosions.

“All enemy SAM teams have been either suppressed or eliminated entirely,” the colonel reported.

The Russian leader nodded again. He swung his binoculars to the left, peering east down the valley. There, in a growing clatter of rotor blades, came a stream of mottled gray-black-and-white helicopters, Mi-17 troop transports, each carrying a team of Spetsnaz commandos. Moving at more than two hundred kilometers an hour, the fleet of winter-camouflaged helicopters swept by the bunker and vanished into the thick smoke clouds now rising above the bomb and rocket-shattered forest.

Dudarev glanced at the colonel, “Well?” he demanded.

“Our special-action forces have penetrated the enemy front lines and are en route toward their primary targets —headquarters units, fuel depots, long-range missile complexes, and the like,” his military aide, Colonel Piotr Kirichenko, confirmed, after listening closely to the reports streaming through his headset. He looked np. “The first echelons of our main ground attack force are deploying now.”

“Excellent.” The Russian president focused his binoculars on the distant opening to the vallev. Small specks appeared there, moving fast and spreading out across the rolling, open ground as the)’ drew nearer. They were tracked scout cars, BRM-ls, mounting 73mm cannons, missiles, and machine guns.

Behind the scurrying reconnaissance units came masses of heavier armor — T-90 tanks armed with 125mm main guns. The 1-90, clad in explosive reactive armor and equipped with 1R jammers and anti-laser aerosol defenses to defeat enemy anti-tank missiles, was a significant upgrade of the older T-72.

Designed to reflect combat lessons learned during the seemingly endless war in Chechnya, it was the Russian army’s most modern battle tank. New com-puterized fire control systems and thermal sights gave the T-90’s main gun range, accuracy, and firepower that was almost equal to that of the American M1AI Abrams.

Dudarev smiled to himself, watching the formations of tanks maneuvering at high speed down the vallev. Western intelligence believed most of Russia’s T-90s were deployed in the Far East, facing the People’s Republic of China But the West’s vaunted spy agencies were wrong.

Since gaining control over the Kremlin, the ex-KCB officer had worked hard to rebuild and reform his nation’s dilapidated armed forces. Thousands of corrupt or lazy or politically unreliable officers had been sacked. Dozens of poorly equipped or poorly performing tank and motor-rifle divisions had been ruthlessly disbanded. Only the best formations were kept in the army’s order of battle. And more and more money from Russia’s growing oil revenues had been spent on making sure this smaller force of elite divisions was far better-paid, better-equipped, and better-trained than the massed conscript armies of the old Soviet Union.

Dudarev glanced at his watch. He tapped the colonel lightly on the arm.

“Time to go, Piotr,” he murmured.

Kirichenko nodded. “Sir!”

As they turned to go, the generals nearest to them snapped to attention and saluted.

Dudarev wagged a teasing finger at them. “At ease, gentlemen,” he said.

“Remember, no formality is necessary. After all, I am not really here. Nor have I ever been here. According to the Kremlin press office, I am off on a short holiday, spending a day or so at my dacha outside Moscow.” A humorless smile creased his thin lips. He turned and motioned toward the dozens of tanks and tracked BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles now rumbling through the vallev below them. “Nor is any of this really happening. Everything you see is no more than a dream. WINTER CROWN is only a paper drill, a mere headquarters map exercise. Correct?”

The assembled senior officers chuckled dutifully.

Under the terms of various conventional arms treaties Russia had signed, all of its large-scale military maneuvers were supposed to be announced weeks and even months in advance. WINTER CROWN was a flagrant viola-tion of those agreements. None of the foreign military attaches stationed in Moscow had been notified. And every element of the exercise itself had been very carefully timed to ensure that U.S. spy satellites were not overhead whenever the thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles involved were actively maneuvering across the snow-covered fields and forests.

The same exquisite timing and elaborate security measures would soon be employed in other major exercises scheduled around the periphery of the Russian Federation, near the borders of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the break-away Central Asian republics. Anyone asking inconvenient questions about these intensive battlefield rehearsals would be informed that Russia was simply conducting “special antiterrorist training” for its rapid deployment forces.

By the time the deception became obvious, it would be too late. Far too late.

With Colonel Kirichenko close at his heels, he trotted down the steps cut into the hillside at the back of the bunker. A stocky, gray-haired man stood at the bottom waiting patiently for him. Like Dudarev, he wore a drab dark overcoat and stood bareheaded in the bitter cold.

The president turned to his aide. “Go ahead and make sure everything is ready for our departure, Piotr. I’ll be along shortly.”

The colonel nodded. He walked away without looking back. Part of his duties included knowing exactly when to vanish—and exactly what not to see °r hear.

Dudarev turned back to the gray-haired man. “Well, Alexei?” he asked softly. “Make your report.”

Alexei Ivanov, an old and trusted comrade from the KGB, was now the head of a little-known section in the KGB’s successor, the Federal Security Sen ice, or FSB. On formal organization charts circulated by the Russian government, Ivanov’s department carried the rather boring title of the Special Projects Liaison Office. But insiders called his shadowy domain “The Thirteenth Directorate” and tried very hard to stay out of its way.

“Our friends have signaled that HYDRA is in motion—and on schedule,” he told the Russian president. “The first operational variants are taking effect.”

Dudarev nodded. “Good.” He looked up at the bigger man. “And what of those information leaks you found so troubling?”

Ivanov scowled. “They have been … sealed. Or so it is claimed.”

“You are not sure?” Dudarev asked, raising an eyebrow.

The head of the Thirteenth Directorate shrugged his massive shoulders. “I have no real reason to doubt these reports. But I admit that I do not like this game of working by remote control. It is an imperfect process.” He frowned.

“Perhaps even a dangerous one.”

Dudarev clapped him briskly on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Alexei,” he said.

“The old ways are dead, and we must move with the times. Decentralization and power-sharing are all the rage these days, are they not?” His eyes turned cold. “Besides, HYDRA is a weapon best employed at a safe distance and with total deniability. True?”

Ivanov nodded heavily. “That is true.”

“Then you will continue as planned,” Dudarev told him. “You know the timetable. Keep a wary eye on our friends, if need be. But do not interfere directly unless you have no other choice. Clear?”

“Yes, your orders are clear,” the bigger man agreed reluctantly. “I only hope your faith is justified.”

Amused, the Russian president raised an eyebrow. “Faith?” His lips twitched upward in a brief, icy half-smile. “My dear Alexei, you should know me better than that. I am no true believer—in anything or anyone. Faith is for fools and simpletons. The wise man knows that facts and force are what truly govern the world.”

Georgia’s capital lay in a natural amphitheater, surrounded on all sides by high hills topped by ancient fortresses, crumbling monasteries, and dense forests. On a clear day like this one, the far-off snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus Mountains appeared on the northern horizon, standing sharply etched against a pale blue sky-Sarah Rousset, a correspondent for The New York Times, leaned on the railing of the balcony of her top-floor room in the five-star rated Tbilisi Mar-riott. She was only in her mid-thirties, but she had allowed her originally chestnut-colored hair to go mostly gray. Looking older than she really was somehow reassured both senior editors and potential news sources. With one eye shut, she focused through the viewfinder of her digital camera and began snapping pictures of the enormous crowd filling the wide, tree-lined avenue below.

She zoomed in on a diminutive white-haired woman holding a rose-colored banner aloft. Black mourning ribbons fluttered from the staff. Tears trickled unheeded down the woman’s wrinkled face. With one light tap of her finger, Rousset froze the powerful image and stored it in her camera’s memory. That one should make the front page, she thought. Right beside the lead article with her byline plastered on it.

“Marvelous,” she murmured, still taking pictures.

“I beg your pardon?” the tall, square-jawed man standing at her shoulder said coldly. He was the chief of mission for the U.S. embassy here.

“All those people,” Rousset explained, nodding at the Georgians packed below them. Beneath a sea of rose-colored flags and placards, the silent crowd was slowly flowing east toward the Parliament building. “There must be tens of thousands of people down there in the freezing cold. Maybe more. And all of them united in sorrow and grief. Just for one sick man.” She shook her head.

“It’s going to make a marvelous story.”

“More like a terrible tragedy,” her companion said tightly. “For Georgia certainly, and perhaps for the whole Caucasus region.”

She lowered the camera and glanced sidelong at him from under her long lashes. “Really? Would you like to explain why … in a way my readers can understand, I mean?”

“Not for attribution?” he asked quietly.

Rousset nodded. “No problem.” She smiled delicately. “Let’s say that you’ll appear in print as ‘an expert Western observer of Georgian politics.’”

“Fair enough,” the diplomat agreed. He sighed. “Look, Ms. Rousset, you need to understand that President Yashvili is more than just an ordinary politician to those people. He’s become a symbol of their democratic Rose Revolution, a symbol of Georgia’s peace, prosperity, and maybe even its continued existence.”

He waved a hand at the distant hills and mountains. “For centuries, this region was torn back and forth between rival empires, Persia, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols, and finally the Russians. Even after the Soviet Union imploded, Georgia was still a wreck, ravaged by ethnic infighting, corruption, and political chaos. When the Rose Revolution swept him into office, Mikhail Yashvili began changing all that. He’s given these people their first real taste of competent, democratic government in eight hundred years.”

“And now he’s dying,” Rousset prompted. “Of cancer?”

“Maybe.” The tall American diplomat shrugged gloomily. “But no one really knows. My sources inside the government say that his doctors haven’t been able to identify the illness killing him. All they know is that his vital organs are failing rapidly, shutting down one by one.”

“So what happens next?” the female New York Times reporter wondered aloud. “After Yashvili dies.”

“Nothing good.”

Rousset pressed harder. “Gould other regions break away—just like South Ossetia and Abkhazia?” Fighting in those two self-declared “autonomous republics” had killed thousands and lasted for years.

“Or maybe even escalate into another all-out civil war?” she went on. Filing reports from a war zone was a risky business, but it was also the path to journalistic stardom. And Sarah Rousset had always been ambitious.

“Possibly,” the tall man admitted. “Yashvili doesn’t really have a clearly defined successor, at least not anyone trusted by all the different political factions, nationalities, and ethnic groups in Georgia.”

“What about the Russians?” she asked. “There are still lots of native Russians living here in Tbilisi, right? If serious fighting broke out in and around the city, would the Kremlin send in troops to stop it?”

The diplomat shrugged again. “As to that, Ms. Rousset, your guess is as good as mine.”

Chapter Five

President Samuel Adams Castilla led his guest into the darkened Oval Office and flipped on the lights. With one hand, he loosened his carefully knotted bow tic and then unbuttoned his formal dinner jacket. “Take a pew, Bill,” he said quietly, motioning toward one of the two armchairs set in front of the room’s marble fireplace. “Can I get you a drink?”

His Director of National Intelligence, William Wexler, shook his head quickly. “Thank you, but no, Mr. President.” The trim, telegenic former U.S. senator smiled fulsomely, evidently hoping to take the sting out of his refusal.

“Your wine stewards were very generous at dinner tonight. I rather think that one more glass of anything might tip me right over the edge.”

Castilla nodded coollv. Some members of the White House social staff seemed to harbor the unexpressed conviction that guests at state dinners should always be offered enough rope to hang themselves —or, in this case, enough alcohol to put a whole regiment of U.S. Marines under the table.

Guests who were wise resisted temptation and pushed away their wineglasses before it was too late. Guests who were not wise were rarely invited back, no matter how influential or popular or powerful thev might be.

He glanced at the ornate eighteenth-century clock ticking softly on one curved wall. It was well past midnight. Again he waved Wexler into a chair and then sat down across from him. “First, I appreciate your willingness to stay on so late tonight.”

“It’s really no trouble, Mr. President,” Wexler said in a rich, professional politician’s baritone. He smiled again, this time revealing a set of perfect teeth. Although he was in his early sixties, his deeply tanned face showed very few lines or wrinkles. “After all, sir, I serve at your pleasure.”

Castilla wondered about that. Stung by a series of damaging and very public failures, Congress had recently enacted the first major reorganization of America’s intelligence-gathering apparatus in more than fifty years. The legislation had created a new cabinet-level post—the director of national intelligence. In theory, the DNI was supposed to be able to coordinate the U.S. government’s complex array of competing intelligence agencies, departments, and bureaus. In practice, the CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA, and others were still wag-ing a fierce bureaucratic war behind the scenes to severely limit his powers.

Overcoming so much powerful institutional resistance would take a very shrewd and strong-willed man, and Castilla was beginning to have serious doubts that Wexler had either the will or the mental dexterity. It was no real secret that the former senator would never have been his first choice for the position, but Congress had dug in its collective heels and refused to approve anyone but one of its own. With even nominal control over a total intelligence budget of more than fortv billion dollars, the Senate and House of Representatives were very interested in making sure the DNI post went to someone they knew and trusted.

Wexler had served as a senator from one of the smaller New England states for more than twenty years, compiling an earnest, if relatively undistin-guished, legislative record, and earning a reputation as a decent, hardworking member of the various Congressional committees overseeing the armed forces and intelligence agencies. Over his years of service, he had accumulated a great many friends and very few serious enemies.

A solid majority of the Senate had believed he was the perfect choice to head the U.S. intelligence community. Privately, Castilla was convinced that Bill Wexler was a painfully polite, well-intentioned pushover. Which meant that the reforms intended to streamline and strengthen the management of U.S. intelligence operations had only added yet another layer of red tape to the whole system.

“What exactly can I do for you, Mr. President?” the national intelligence director said at last, breaking the small silence. If he was at all puzzled by Castilla’s decision to pull him aside at the state dinner to arrange this unusual and highly irregular late-night conference, he hid it well.

“I want you to redirect our intelligence-gathering and analysis efforts,” the president told him flatly. Like it or not, he realized, he had to try working through this man—at least for now.

Wexler raised a single quizzical eyebrow. “In what way?”

“I want more focus on political and military developments inside Russia, and on events in the smaller countries around its borders,” Castilla said. “And that’s going to require extensive shifts in the allocation of satellite time, SIGINT translation priorities, and analyst assignments.”

“Russia?” Wexler was astonished.

“That’s right.”

“But the Cold War is over,” the intelligence director protested.

“So they tell me,” Castilla said drily. He leaned forward in his chair.

“Look, Bill, for anv number of overriding geopolitical reasons we’ve cut our good friend Viktor Dudarev a lot of slack over the past couple of years, right?

Even though that’s meant turning a blind eye to some of the nasty moves he’s made against his own people?”

Wexler nodded reluctantlv.

“Well, the trouble is that while we’ve been tied down in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a dozen other hellholes around the globe, Dudarev has been busy building a new autocracy in Russia, with him sitting on top of the heap as the supreme ruler of all that he surveys. And I don’t like that. I don’t like it one little goddamned bit.”

“The Russians have been extremely useful allies against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” the intelligence director pointed out. “Both the CIA and the Pentagon report that we’ve obtained a substantial amount of action-able intelligence from their prisoner interrogations in Chechnya.”

Castilla shrugged his big shoulders. “Sure.” He gave the other man a lopsided grin. “But, hell, even a two-bit thug will help you kill a rattlesnake—so long as you’re both stuck at the bottom of the same canyon, that is. That sure doesn’t mean you should turn your back on him.”

“Are you suggesting that Russia is again becoming an active enemy of the United States?” Wexler asked carefully.

Castilla made an effort to hold his temper in check. “What I’m suggesting is that I don’t like flying blind around a guv like Viktor Dudarev. And right now the intelligence analysis I’m getting from the CIA and the other agencies pretty much reads as though they’re just clipping newspaper articles.”

The DNI smiled weakly. “I’ve made the same comments to my staff,” he admitted. “I’ve even passed those complaints along through the various appropriate interagency coordinating committees.”

Castilla scowled. The “appropriate interagency coordinating committees?”

Leadership by memo and committee? And this was the guy who was supposed to be cracking the whip over the CIA and the other intelligence organizations? Wonderful. Just wonderful. He gritted his teeth. “And?”

“Apparently, there are … well … problems in some of the analysis sections,” Wexler said hesitantly. “I don’t have all the details myself yet, but I’ve been told that several of our best Russia specialists have fallen seriously ill over the past couple of weeks.”

Castilla stared hard at him for several seconds. “Maybe you had better fill me in, Bill,” he said grimly. “From the top, and starting right now.”

It was full daylight now. Pallid rays cast by the weak winter sun winked off the ice-choked Moscow River and sent back dazzling reflections from the windshields of the cars and trucks grinding slowly in both directions across the bridges visible from the windows of the Kotelnichcskaya high-rise. Even twenty-four floors up, their blaring horns could be heard faintly. The Russian capital’s morning rush hour was in full swing.

The blond-haired man sat at his desk, again rapidly skimming through the set of highly encrypted e-mails sent to his computer over the past several hours. Most were short, usually containing only a name and title, a location, and a single-line status report:

The list of those now ill and dying or already dead ran on and on, more than thirty men and women in all. He read to the end with growing satisfaction. It had taken years of painstaking research to perfect the biological weapon called HYDRA—the ultimate, precision-guided silent killer. Months of preparation had gone into selecting targets for the first HYDRA variants and then finding ways to deliver them undetected to the chosen victims.

Months more had been spent in secretly acquiring the necessary materials to build each specialized variant of the weapon. At last, all of that intricate planning and dangerous work was coming to fruition.

In retrospect, he thought dispassionately, those preliminary tests in Moscow had been largely unnecessary, a waste of resources and a breach of operational security, but HYDRA’s creator had insisted on running them.

Controlled experiments in the sterile confines of a laboratory were no substi-tute for field tests on real people, he had said. Only by setting HYDRA loose on random targets could they be sure that other doctors and hospitals, those outside the secret, would not be able to detect his creation, or to cure those infected by it.

The man code-named Moscow One shook his head. Wulf Renke was brilliant, ruthless, and, as always, utterly determined to have his own way. In the end, those sponsoring the HYDRA Project had yielded to his will, eager to see for themselves that the weapon’s performance matched his extravagant claims. Well, it had, but only at the cost of alerting Doctors Kiryanov and Petrenko and sending them haring off to warn the West.

Then he shrugged. What did it really matter? Kiryanov and Petrenko were both dead. And soon the only Westerner with whom they had shared their fears would join them.

He reached out for his phone and dialed a local number.

A cold, clear voice answered on the first ring. “Well?”

“The first phase is largely complete,” the blond-haired man said quietly.

“Have you informed Ivanov?”

“I gave him a preliminary report late last night,” he confirmed. “Before he left to join Dudarev for the WINTER CROWN maneuvers. I’ll brief him more fully once he returns to Moscow.”

“I assume our friend from the Thirteenth Directorate was pleased?” the voice said.

“I suspect Alexei Ivanov would be far more pleased if he filled my shoes—

or yours,” the man known as Moscow One said sardonically.

“No doubt,” the voice said. “Fortunately, his master is more sensible and more accommodating. Now, how soon can we begin the next phase? Our friends need to know when they can ramp up their military preparations.”

The blond-haired man checked the last status report on his computer screen, one sent by Wulf Renke himself. It would be best to confer personally with the scientist before deploying the next variants by courier. “I’ll need a plane out of Sheremetevo-2 later tonight.”

“I will arrange it.”

“Then I should be at the HYDRA lab early tomorrow morning.”

Chapter Six

With his overnight bag and laptop slung over one shoulder, Smith pushed through a crowd of patrolmen and traffic wardens coming back to work from their midmorning coffee break. Cold air rushed in through the open front doors of the Konviktska station, bringing with it the cloying reek of gasoline and diesel fumes trapped in the Old Town’s maze of narrow streets.

Jon stepped outside onto the pavement and immediately felt the frigid Prague winter climate wrap itself around him. He stopped and blew on his hands, already regretting the loss of his leather jacket, torn and soaked beyond repair. Before signing out of the police station, he had changed into a pair of jeans and a black turtlencck sweater, but the thin gray windbreaker he wore over the sweater offered little real protection against the piercing cold. Over his cupped hands, his eyes were busy scanning the surrounding environment.

There, he thought.

Just across the street from the police headquarters, a big, beefy, bearded man leaned casually against the side of a parked taxi, a Czech-made Skoda sedan. Beneath the caked-on grime and mud, the cab had so many dents and scrapes from minor accidents that it was hard to tell where its original paint job left off and the primer began. The driver looked Smith up and down, hawked once, spat to the side, and then slowly straightened up to his full height. “Hey, mister!” he called out in heavily accented English. “You need a taxi?”

“Maybe,” Smith said cautiously, crossing the street. Was this huge bear of a man his promised contact? “How much would you charge me for a ride to the airport?”

It was a natural question. Prague’s independent cabdrivers were notorious for doubling and even tripling their regulated fares for unwary or naive tourists. Even on the short run to Ruzyne, the city’s only international airport, that could add up to serious money.

The big man grinned broadly, revealing a mouthful of tobacco-stained teeth. “For a rich businessman? I would charge a thousand crowns.” He lowered his voice. “But for a scholar like you? A poor professor? Nothing. You will pay me nothing.”

Smith allowed himself to relax slightly. Scholar was the recognition word Klein had selected for this rendezvous. Against all appearances, that meant this rough, boisterous taxi driver was the Covert-One asset activated to help him get out of the Czech Republic in one piece. He nodded quickly. “Okay.

You’ve got yourself a deal. Let’s go.”

With one final look around, he slid into the back seat and waited while the driver squeezed himself in behind the wheel. The Skoda rocked under the big man’s weight.

Before putting the taxi in gear, the driver swung round to look the American in the eye. “I have been told that you wish to arrive at the airport safely and discreetly,” he rumbled.

“That’s right.”

“And that there may be others who do not wish to see this occur. Correct?”

Again, Smith nodded, tight-lipped this time.

The big man smiled widely again. “Do not worry, Scholar. All will be well.

You can rely on Vaclav Masek.” He unzipped his bright red ski parka just far enough for Jon to see the butt of a pistol in a shoulder holster, and winked theatrically. “And on my little friend here if there is any trouble.”

Smith tamped down a worried frown. The head of Covert-One had warned him not to expect too much. “I can only get one man to you in time, Jon,” Klein had said. “He’s a contract courier, not a field operative, but he is mostly reliable.”

Smith made a mental note to have Klein update his file on Masek. The bearded giant seemed too boastful and far too eager to flourish his concealed weapon. That was potential trouble. It meant that the Czech cabdriver was either badly frightened and talking big to hide his case of nerves—or that he was too aggressive, spoiling for a chance to prove himself ready for more exacting and rewarding assignments.

He staved quiet while the taxi driver took them through the labyrinthine streets of the Old Town, across the Vltava, and up the winding road east of the Castle, a massive complex of churches, convents, towers, and government buildings dating back centuries. Through it all, the other man kept up a running commentary, pointing out tourist sights, swearing profanely at other drivers, and offering repeated assurances that they were making good time.

Definitely nerves, Smith decided. For all his bulk and bravado, Masek was a small, scared man on the inside. The Czech driver might be a competent clandestine courier, but Klein should never have asked him to step so far out of the safety of the shadows. Be fair, Jon, his mind coldly reminded him. This guv probably knows that a hit team has already tried to kill you once and that it may try again.

He sighed. Hell, he was feeling pretty tw itchy himself. He stared out the window, seeking calm in the neatly manicured gardens visible on either side.

The roof of the Belvedere, a lovely royal summerhouse built during the Renaissance, rose above the surrounding trees, sheathed in blue-green copper.

Minutes after heading downhill again just north of the Castle, the Skoda Curved three-quarters of the way around a busy traffic circle and came out heading west on a wide boulevard. Smith sat up straighter. They were on Evropska, a modern thoroughfare that ran straight to the airport. Off to their left, he could make out a sprawling patchwork of suburban houses, schools, and small industrial parks. On the right, a chain of three hills crowned with evergreens, oaks, and beeches climbed steeply above more rows of detached houses and shops. These forested heights stretched away to the north and east, reaching toward the river behind them.

Masek accelerated, pushing the taxi up to and then beyond the posted speed limit. Signs sliding past overhead indicated that the airport was only a few kilometers away.

Soon Jon caught fleeting glimpses of a narrow artificial lake through the bare branches of the trees lining the north side of the boulevard. Beyond the lake, the ground fell away into a rugged, broken landscape of dark woods and gray limestone cliffs.

“That is the Divoka a Ticha Sarka, the valley of the Wild and Still Sarka, a place of legend and violence,” the taxi driver explained grandly, nodding his massive head toward the shadowed gorge visible on the other side of the stretch of gray-green water. “Some say men and women fought a cruel and blood)’ war there long ago, before the dawn of history. It was a war waged for absolute power and dominion. According to the stories, a beautiful young maiden named Sarka lured the chief warrior of the men into that forest.

There, she made love to him, plied him with strong drink, and then murdered him in his sleep.”

Smith grinned. “Not exactly a cheerful place, I guess.”

Masek shrugged his broad shoulders. “Well, actually, it is a nature preserve now. Many people from Prague swim and camp there in the summer, when it is hot. We Czechs may be romantic, but we are also very practical.”

Suddenly, brake lights glowed red as the cars in front of them began slowing down. A line of orange cones angled across the boulevard, closing off the fast lanes heading west. By the side of the road, a portable electronic sign blinked on and off, repeatedly flashing a warning message in Czech.

“Shit,” Masek muttered. He took his foot off the accelerator and stomped down hard on the Skoda’s brakes. The taxi decelerated sharplv. Frowning and grumbling under his breath, he swung into the suddenly crowded right lane, forcing his way into the narrowing gap between an old Volvo and a brand-new Audi. Horns blared behind them in protest.

Smith leaned forward. “Road construction?” he asked quietly. “Or an accident?”

“Neither,” the big man replied, nervously chewing at his lower lip. “That sign says the police have set up a special traffic checkpoint and that we must be prepared to stop.”

“What are they looking for?” Jon heard himself ask.

Masek shook his head irritably. “I do not know. Drunk drivers? Drugs?

Stolen goods? Or maybe only bald tires and broken taillights.” His knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “It could be any of those things. The authorities greatly enjoy handing out tickets and collecting special fees.”

Smith peered through the windshield as the taxi inched slowly ahead.

They were roughly one hundred meters from the exit marked Divoka Sarka. It fed onto a much narrower side road that veered off into the woods. A lone patrolman wearing the peaked cap, black winter jacket, and blue snow pants of the Czech national police stood there, rhythmically waving a bright orange baton to keep the traffic moving. Even’ so often, he would step out with an up-raised hand and signal one or more of the oncoming cars or trucks off onto the exit beside him, emphasizing his orders with short, sharp jabs of the baton.

The American watched closely, looking for a pattern in the way vehicles were selected. He frowned, unable to detect one. The bored-looking patrolman seemed to be allowing most cars and trucks to roll right on past him, only occasionally pulling others off the boulevard in ones or twos. That meant this was probably just a random spot check.

Probably.

“Shit,” Masek muttered again as the policeman jabbed his baton at them.

Thev had been plucked out of the passing parade. Glumly, the cabdriver spun the steering wheel sharply to the right. They turned onto the exit, trailing the short line of other cars and trucks already diverted off Evropska.

Smith glanced back through the Skoda’s rear window. A late-model black Mercedes with tinted windows swung onto the park access road close behind them. Frowning now, he turned around.

They were in among the trees now. Light filtered down through a maze of bare branches overhead. The police checkpoint was just ahead. He could see a pair of unmarked cars, also Czech-manufactured Skodas, parked on the shoulder, near another row of orange traffic cones. Two more uniformed patrolmen were posted there, apparently asking the drivers of each vehicle a few quick questions before waving them on.

One of them approached the taxi. He looked old for his rank, with a gaunt, sallow face. Under his peaked cap, his eyes were expressionless. He bent down and rapped sharply on the driver’s side window.

Masek quickly rolled it down.

The policeman held out his hand. “Show me your driver’s license. And your taxi permit,” he snapped in rapid-fire Czech.

Hurriedly, the big man obeyed, handing over the required papers. Visibly fretting, he waited uneasily while the patrolman skimmed through them. Apparently satisfied, the sallow-faced officer contemptuously tossed both the license and the permit back into Masek’s lap. Next, he peered into the backseat.

One dark eyebrow went up. “Who is this fellow? A foreigner?”

Smith kept his own mouth shut.

“Nobody important. An American businessman, I think. He’s just a fare I’m taking to the airport,” Masck mumbled in answer. The big man was openly perspiring now. Tiny droplets of sweat slid down his forehead. Smith could sense the fear growing inside the cabdriver, gnawing away at his confidence and self-control. “He says he has a flight out this morning.”

“Don’t panic,” the patrolman said with a disinterested shrug. “The American should still make his trip on time.”

“Then we can go now?” the cabdriver asked hopefully.

The policeman shook his head. “Not quite yet, friend. I’m afraid this is not your lucky day. The government has another flap on about vehicle safety, especially for taxis. That means a complete inspection.” He turned away, calling toward his colleague. “Hey, Edvard! We’ll take this one.”

Smith’s eyes narrowed. Something about this man’s profile tugged at his subconscious, sounding a faint but insistent alarm. Looking more closely, he noticed a tiny perforation, some kind of piercing, in the man’s earlobe. That was odd, he thought. How many middle-aged Czech cops wore jewelry off-duty?

The policeman looked back at Masek. “Park over there,” he said, pointing toward the side of the road, indicating a space between the two unmarked cars. “Then just sit tight. We’ll have you out of here as soon as possible.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.” With a shaky smile, the taxi driver nodded obse-quiously, bobbing his massive head up and down. He steered the Skoda over onto the grassy shoulder, backed in carefully between the parked cars, and then slowly reached down to switch off the ignition. His hands were trembling.

“No, don’t,” Smith said abruptly, still looking out the window. “Leave the engine running for now.” Both of the Czech policemen were bending down to talk to the driver of the black Mercedes. There were no other cars waiting to go through the checkpoint. The tree-lined access road behind them was completely empty.

He shook his head, irritated at himself. What was lie missing? Those little alarm bells inside his head were growing louder. It was time to play it sate, lie

decided. “Give me your pistol, Vaclav,” he said quietly. “Now.”

“My pistol?” The big man’s eyes widened in surprise. Warily, he glanced over his shoulder. “Why?”

“Let’s just say that I’d like to avoid any unfortunate accidents,” Jon told him, careful to speak calmly. There was no point in spooking the other man — not yet, anyway. Not until he could figure out why his fight-or-flee instincts were hammering so hard on the gates of his conscious mind. He thought fast.

“Do you have a permit for that weapon?”

Reluctantly, Masek shook his head.

“Swell. Just swell.” Smith frowned. “Look, these cops are already looking for trouble. Getting a ticket for something like a burned-out brake light is bad enough, a real pain in the ass. But do you really want to get nailed for carrying an illegal firearm?”

The cabdriver turned even paler beneath his full, tangled beard. He swallowed hard. “No, I do not,” he admitted. “The penalties for such offenses are very … severe.”

“Then give it to me,” Smith said forcefully again. “Let me handle this.”

Eagerly, Masek unzipped his parka and tugged the pistol out of his shoulder holster. His big hands were shaking even harder now.

Jon reached across the seat and took the weapon away before the other man could drop it. The pistol was a CZ-52, a Czech-manufactured au-toloader using the same 7.62mm round as the Second World War-era Soviet Tokarev. Once a standard Warsaw Pact military sidearm, thousands had been sold as “surplus” to private citizens—both legally and illegally. He made sure the manual safety was still set in the middle “safe” position and then hit the magazine release. There were eight rounds inside the small clip, the standard load for a pistol of this make. He slid the magazine back in and again glanced out the window.

Outside, the two Czech policemen slowly straightened up from the black Mercedes. After exchanging a few muttered words, they turned in unison and stalked back toward the parked taxi.

Smith stiffened.

Each man’s face had become a rigid, unreadable mask, utterly without any discernible emotion. It was as though some terrible force had erased all traces of humanity from them, leaving the surface features, but wiping away any real Slgn of life and personality. One of them, the older patrolman who had checked Masek’s papers reached down almost casually and drew the sidearm holstered at his side.

And suddenly Jon knew where he had seen this man before.

On the Charles Bridge, he realized grimly. Fading back before Valentin Petrenko’s wild, desperate swings right after burying a knife deep in the Russian scientist’s stomach. Like his two comrades, the gaunt-faced man had been wearing a small silver skull, a death’s head, in that tiny piercing in his right ear.

This “police checkpoint” was a trap, a carefully arranged killing ground.

For one long, terrible moment, time itself seemed to stop, but then Smith’s trained reflexes kicked in. A sense of movement and the ability to act came flooding back into the once-frozen world around him. “Get us out of here!” he shouted to Masek. “It’s a setup! Go! Go!”

Horrified, the big man slammed the Skoda into gear, stamped down on the accelerator, and reversed, frantically trying to get enough maneuvering room to pull forward out onto the narrow road. Smith thumbed off the safety on the pistol he had taken from Masek, pulled back on the slide and let it go, moving a 7.62mm round from the magazine into the firing chamber.

And then he was thrown forward as the taxi crashed into the empty car parked close behind and rocked to a stop. Glass and torn metal crunched.

Jarred by the collision, the Skoda’s engine stalled out and died.

Desperately, Masek fumbled with the gearshift and ignition, trying to restart his battered cab.

It was too late, Smith realized abruptly, watching the gaunt-faced man bring his Russian-made Makarov up on target in what seemed like slow motion. The second phony cop had his pistol out, too. Hell.

Jon was already diving sideways toward the right-side passenger door when the windows on the left side shattered. Cubed shards of safety glass flew inward, shattered by the impact of several shots fired rapidly at close range.

One round hit Masek just above the left ear. The big man’s head exploded, blown apart by a copper-jacketed bullet moving at more than a thousand feet per second. Blood and bone fragments sleeted across the Skoda’s front seat and dashboard.

Another round punched into the cloth-covered seat close by Smith and ripped through a tangle of coils and springs. It ricocheted off the cab’s steel frame, tumbling upward in a shower of sparks, smoldering pieces of torn fabric, and white-hot metal splinters. Christ! He grabbed the handle, shoved the rear door open, and threw himself out onto the ground.

Moving fast, he rolled to the right and came back up crouched behind the taxi’s right rear tire. He risked one quick glance over his shoulder. Not far behind him the ground fell away sharply, descending ever deeper into the surrounding woods. Most of the trees here were ancient oaks and beeches, standing tall and leafless against the gloomy, overcast sky. There was almost no undergrowth, just a few small saplings and withered weeds.

Not really enough cover, Jon thought coolly. Just the tree trunks themselves. Anyone in pursuit would not have to work too hard to get a clear shot at him. If he wanted to run, he would somehow have to buy himself a decent head start.

More shots rang out and the Skoda rocked sharply, hit several times in rapid succession. More glass shattered. More metal tore. Ricochets spanged off the engine block and frame and whirred off into the trees, splintering branches and twigs.

Smith breathed in. One. Two. Three. Now.

With his pistol held ready in both hands, he reared up over the back of the taxi. His narrowed eyes flickered rapidly from side to side, hunting for the men who were trying to kill him. There! One of the fake cops, the older man, was standing just meters away, steadily squeezing off aimed rounds from his sidearm, methodically shooting up the taxi from front to back.

Smith whirled toward him, moving fast. Both the front and rear sights of his Czech-made pistol settled on the other man’s chest. He squeezed the trigger and the pistol barked once, bucking upward as the slide slammed back, reeding in another round. Quickly, he brought the weapon back down on target and fired again.

Blood splashed high in the air. Hit twice, the gaunt-faced gunman spun toward the American who had shot him. His mouth fell open in stunned disbelief. Then, slowly, he fell to his knees and pitched forward onto the road. More blood pooled red on the black asphalt.

His colleague, a younger, heavier man, dropped prone. Grim-faced, he •immediately fired back at Smith without bothering to aim carefully. He was Nearly shooting wildly in an effort to drive the American back into cover.

One bullet from the Makarov whipcracked through the air close to Smith’s ear. Another ripped across the top of the taxi’s trunk, tearing a fiery crease through the rusting metal and cracked and peeling paint.

He ignored them. Instead, he swung his own pistol through a short arc, zeroing in on the prone gunman. He squeezed off two more rounds. The first missed narrowly, sending broken chunks of asphalt and bits of gravel spinning away. But the second 7.62mm bullet tore off the top of the younger gunman’s skull.

An eerie silence fell across the little clearing.

Smith breathed out slowly, scarcely able to believe he was still alive. He could feel his heart beating at an incredible tempo, only gradually falling off as his pulse settled. Now what? he wondered.

Suddenly he heard car doors slamming open. The people inside that black Mercedes were coming out, he realized. Still kneeling behind the bullet-riddled taxi, he swiveled. He caught a quick glimpse of two men, both of them wearing thick brown overcoats and fur hats, dropping into cover on the other side of the big luxury sedan. They were heavily armed. Each carried a compact Heckler & Koch MP5K submachine gun cradled in his gloved hands.

Smith grimaced. One of those men had bandages plastered across his narrow face —no doubt covering the mangled remains of the nose Smith had crushed yesterday on the Charles Bridge. So he was facing two more enemies, and there was no chance whatsoever of surprising them.

He glanced down at the pistol he held in both hands. Four rounds. He had just four rounds left in the magazine. He shook his head. That was not enough. Not against two high-powered automatic weapons that could easily shred the taxi he was crouching behind into a smashed heap of mangled metal.

Staying here meant dying. It was time to go.

He dropped back behind the ruined Skoda. Then, staying low, he loped away, sliding right over the edge of the steep slope leading down into Divoka”

Sarka, the shadow-filled valley of the Wild Sarka.

Chapter Seven

Georg Liss rose slowly from behind the Mercedes, sighting carefully along the short barrel of his MP5K submachine gun. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Nothing moved anywhere on the narrow stretch of road or behind the bullet-torn taxi slewed awkwardly across the shoulder. His face darkened. Two of his best field agents lav sprawled on the ground. They were both dead, gunned down by this damned American. The corners of his mouth turned down in frustration. First the near-catastrophe on the Charles Bridge, and now this disaster. The ambush he had planned should have been perfect, a mere matter of killing an unarmed man, like a sheep led to the slaughter. Instead, it had come apart in sheer bloody ruin. Where had that devil Smith gotten his hands on a weapon?

Still peering intently at the wrecked cab, Liss stood motionless, waiting for something, for anything, to shoot at. Suddenly, he heard the distant sound of dead leaves crackling somewhere in the woods bevond the road. The American was already running, heading straight down into the rugged Sarka valley.

What would the men in Moscow say to him if Smith escaped now? More to the point, he thought grimly, what would they do to him?

Dragomir!” he snapped to his driver. “Signal Eugen and get him up here from the main road.” He nodded toward the two dead men wearing Czech police uniforms. “Shove those bodies into the trunk and take the American’s luggage. Then both of you clear out. Head for the airport. If you see Smith arrive, kill him if you can. Otherwise, make for the safe house. I will contact you there later.”

“What about our other vehicles?” the Romanian asked.

“Leave them,” Liss growled through gritted teeth. “They are clean. Nothing inside can link them to us.”

“Understood.” Ilionescu nodded. He hesitated. “But what will you do?”

The man code-named Prague One glared back at him. “Me?” He nodded down at the compact submachine gun gripped in his hands. “I am going …….”

Jon Smith bounded down the steep, wooded slope, skidding and slipping across patches of loose soil and damp rock. He was running all-out now, letting gravity work in his favor, narrowly dodging tree trunks and low-hanging branches as they loomed up suddenly in front of him. He knew he was going too fast, much too fast, but the danger he sensed somewhere behind kept him moving at top speed.

And then his feet slipped out from under him as he raced through a pile of dead leaves. He came down hard and started sliding, completely out of control now. Swearing silently, Smith rolled and tumbled downhill, clawing frantically with his hands, stabbing his fingers into the dirt in an effort to slow his descent. Instead, he slammed shoulder-first into the trunk of an old gnarled oak. Pain flared across the whole left side of his bodv. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs.

For several endless seconds, he lay right where he had fallen, groggily trying to reclaim his scattered wits. Get up, his mind demanded at last. Get up if you want to live.

Still winded, Smith sat up slowly. He winced as muscles driven well beyond their natural limits protested wildly, sending sharp flashes of agony spik-ing all along his nerves and into his brain. Ignoring the pain with an effort of will, he pushed himself back to his feet. He flexed his dirty, cut, scraped, and aching fingers, and then stopped.

His pistol! Where was it?

Smith spun around, staring back up the steep slope he had just come tearing down. Heart pounding, he started climbing, closely examining the swathe 0f torn and gouged earth and the scattered drifts of fallen leaves.

There! He spotted the pistol beside the base of another tree, a towering beech still dappled with a few red, orange, and brown leaves. He leaned down, scooped it up, and checked the weapon over, quickly brushing away ť clumps of dirt caked around the muzzle and the hammer.

Then a submachine gun chattered, firing a short, three-round burst from somewhere up the hillside. Nine-millimeter rounds snapped past him and | smacked into the tree trunk at waist-level, spraying jagged chunks of bark across the forest floor. Reacting instantly, Smith threw himself flat and rolled behind the trunk.

Another burst tore the ground just to his right.

With the pistol extended out in front of him, Jon rolled back out to the left, squeezed off a single shot, firing blindly uphill, and kept rolling across the slope. He ended up crouched behind another tree. The submachine stuttered again. More bullets hissed past, tearing at the forest around him. Smaller tree boughs and branches shattered. Other rounds whirred away, bouncing off boulders farther down the gorge in showers of rock splinters and fragments.

Smith risked a quick glance around the bole of the tree. He caught a glimpse of a man in a brown overcoat and fur hat moving cautiously downhill toward his position. There were bandages plastered across the man’s narrow face.

He ducked back into cover. Hell. The range was about a hundred meters.

Too far for a pistol —especially one with only three rounds left in its magazine. He would have to keep running, trying to stay out of the gunman’s sights long enough to break clear or find a better fighting position. Frowning, he looked back over his shoulder, rapidly considering his options. None were especially good.

Below, the ground fell away even more suddenly, plunging down a steep, iort-degree incline all the way toward the distant floor of the Sarka gorge.

Smith shook his head. Trying to move fast in that direction meant risking another wild, rolling tumble. And he couldn’t afford that, not with an enemy close behind him and in hot pursuit.

That left only one real alternative.

Smith took a deep breath and then exploded out from behind the tree he had been using for cover, sprinting fast across the slope to the left. Caught off-guard by this sudden move, the gunman who had been advancing downhill stopped in his tracks and swore aloud. Then lie opened up again with his MP5K, firing a series of rapid, aimed, three-round bursts at the American crossing his front.

Smith saw the ground ahead of him kicking up, ripped apart by 9mm bullets. He angled left again, dodged another tree, hurtled over a small boulder half-buried in the ground, and kept going.

The man hunting him stopped shooting.

Jon ran on through the woods, zigzagging wildly between trees and around little clumps of saplings to avoid giving the gunman a steady target.

The downhill slope on his left grew ever steeper. Soon it fell almost vertically to the valley floor, well over forty meters below. There were fewer trees and the ground near the edge of this cliff was rockier, dotted here and there by cracked and weathered slabs of limestone spearing up through the soil.

He raced on, straining to draw enough air into his lungs. He stumbled once, forced himself upright again, and kept moving. The spot right between his shoulder blades tingled as he anticipated the sudden agonizing impact of a 9mm round fired at close range.

Suddenly Smith came out into a large clearing, a wide, open meadow carpeted in winter-browned grass and tufts of taller weeds. Another copse of sheltering trees beckoned on the far side, but those woods were at least three hundred meters away. To his right, the meadow stretched all the way to the distant upper rim of the valley. On the left, the clearing ended abruptly in the craggy limestone cliff he bad been following, which plummeted toward the bottom of the gorge.

He grimaced. Trying to cross that open space would be a fatal error. Long before he could possibly make it back into cover, the gunman pursuing him would have a clear shot. He had run right into another damned kill zone.

Good move, Jon, he thought wryly. He’d managed the difficult trick of leaping out of a frying pan straight into a nuclear furnace.

Smith spun around, looking back the way he had come. The forest there, a mix of widely scattered evergreens and small, leafless saplings, was too thin to offer real concealment. Nor were any of the rock slabs poking through the earth big enough to provide decent cover.

That left the cliff.

Heart pounding, Smith turned again and moved out into the clearing.

With his pistol in hand, he loped along the edge of the precipice, trying to spot a path—or even just a series of handholds and ledges—that he could use to make his way down to the forested valley floor. He craned his head over the side, peering intently down the jagged, jumbled rock face. Up close, he could see that there were clumps of brush and even a few small trees growing out of the cliff, clinging somehow to narrow fissures and outcroppings in the angled layers of gray limestone. In other places, rivulets of water seeped from cracks, trickling slowly down the rock wall.

He stopped, again considering his chances. They narrowed down awfully fast, ranging from pretty damned slim on that cliff face to none at all up here out in the open. Sighing, Jon made sure the pistol’s safety was on and then shoved it into the waistband of his jeans. He leaned farther out over the precipice, breathing deeply now, mentally preparing to lower himself over the edge. The trees and moss-covered broken boulders at the base looked tiny, as though they were miles away. His mouth went dry. Go on, Smith told himself angrily. There isn’t much time left.

And then, quite suddenly, there wasn’t any time at all.

Another sharp, staccato burst of gunfire rang out, shredding the earth and air all around him in a sudden hailstorm of lead.

From fifty meters away, Georg Liss heard the American cry out, and saw him spin round and topple over the edge of the cliff. He bared his teeth in a vicious, satisfied grin. So much for Dr. Smith, he thought coldly.

Slowly, very slowly, the dark-eyed man lowered the smoking muzzle of his MP5K and rose from behind the shallow slab of limestone he had used for cover. He moved forward cautiously, stripped the nearly empty clip out of his submachine gun, and slapped in a full magazine. Then he brought the weapon back up, slowly swiveling from left to right, scanning the open ground before him over the MP5K’s front and rear sights. He kept his finger poised on the trigger.

There was only silence—and then, still far off in the distance, the sound of s’rens drawing nearer.

Liss scowled. He would have to break away soon, before the Czech police arrived and began searching the woods. The American must be dead, he thought. No one could survive a fall from that height. Nevertheless, it would be best to make sure. If nothing else, Moscow One would insist on a confirmation of the kill.

Still grinning in cruel satisfaction, the man code-named Prague One prowled closer to the precipice. He leaned out over the rim, peering straight down that jagged wall of rock, eager to see Smith’s corpse lying broken at the foot of the cliff.

]on Smith lay sprawled on a shallow ledge only a few meters down the cliff face, with his back wedged against the trunk of the small evergreen that had helped brake his rapid, nearly uncontrolled descent. Through narrowed eyes, he stared up through the sights of his own weapon, holding it extended in a two-handed marksman’s grip—waiting, just waiting.

Then he saw the dark-eyed man’s head and shoulders appear over the edge.

This close, he could even see the faint dried bloodstains on the bandages covering the man’s broken nose.

Say good-bye, Smith thought grimly. He pulled the trigger twice, holding the pistol down firmly as it kicked back after each shot.

The first 7.62mm round hit the bandaged man in the throat, shattered his spine, and tore out through the back of his neck. The second blew a neat hole right between his eyes.

Already dead, the dark-eyed man dropped to his knees and then tumbled headlong off the rim of the cliff. His limp body thudded onto a rock outcropping, bounced off, and plunged downward, cartwheeling and spinning in eerie silence all the way down the jagged wall.

Smith lay quietly for several seconds, staring up at the cloud-covered sky.

Every bone and muscle in his bodv ached, but he was alive. When that last submachine gun burst had ripped through the air around him, he had taken the biggest chance of his life so far, allowing himself to fall backward toward the tiny shelf of rock he had just marked as the start of a relatively safe path down. By some miracle, his wild-eyed gamble had paid off, using up every ounce of luck he could reasonably expect in any one lifetime.

Slowly, he lowered the pistol, flipped the safety on, and tucked it inside the pocket of his windbreaker. His hands shook slightly as the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream ebbed away.

Still feeling weak and with his nerves twitching, Jon turned over, sat up, and then looked carefully over the side of the narrow shelf of rock. There, forty meters below, the body of the man he had killed lay twisted and broken atop a large boulder. Blood smears around the corpse marked the final point of impact.

In the distance, he heard sirens, still faint, but growing steadily louder. It was way past time to get out of Dodge, Smith thought wearily. NATO allies or not, there was no way the Czech government was going to look kindly on an American military officer involved in a murderous, gangland-style shootout on the outskirts of its national capital. Again he glanced down at the dead man heaped at the base of the cliff.

Smith frowned. Before he ducked back into the shadows, he needed a closer look at that guy and at whatever he was carrying. Right now Jon had no idea what the hell was going on. One thing was only too clear, though. Somebody was very interested in making sure that he wound up dead.

Slowly at first, and then with growing speed and confidence, Smith climbed down the rugged limestone bluff, making his way from outcropping to outcropping and handhold to handhold. He dropped the last meter or so onto the floor of the Sarka gorge and then moved determinedly toward the shattered corpse splayed across a nearby boulder.