by Larry Bond
“And just when will that be?”
“Not very long.” The other man pursed his lips, making a pretense of giving the matter some thought. “Not longer than half an hour, I would guess. Certainly not more than forty-five minutes.”
“Forty-five minutes?” Thorn held a tight rein on his temper. He’d only picked Stannard’s because some of the other officers in the Pentagon mess had described the place as a Washington landmark. He was beginning to realize that wasn’t any kind of guarantee of good service. More and more, John F. Kennedy’s description of the capital city as a place that combined southern efficiency with northern courtesy seemed right on target.
The maître d’s bored eyes slid past him and brightened. “Ah, Senator! It is delightful to see you.”
“Thank you, Henry. My committee meeting ran a little over tonight. Can you squeeze me in?”
Thorn glanced around far enough to catch a profile made famous by years of network television news coverage and tabloid scandal.
“Of course, Senator.” The maître d’ snatched up a leather-bound menu from his stand and gestured toward the dining room. “Please follow me, I have just the right table for you.”
Thorn watched him go through narrowed eyes. Why, that pompous, lying, no-good son of a bitch. Overhearing snatches of some of the snide, cynical conversations going on around him only fed his growing anger.
“So the chairman said to him, ‘You either play ball on this amendment, Phil, or you can kiss that new overpass good-bye …’”
“… the old bastard’s screwing his administrative assistant worse than he is the taxpayers …”
“We slipped some language into the rider to smooth the hicks over, but Morgan may be a problem …”
Thorn shook his head in disgust. D.C. landmark or not, this was not his kind of place. Worse, he was probably batting a big fat .000 in Helen’s eyes. He heard a muffled chuckle from her direction and turned toward her.
The look of amused sympathy on her face restored some of his good humor. If she wasn’t holding this fast-developing fiasco against him, it still wasn’t too late to salvage something from this evening. He shrugged ruefully. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
She grinned back. “Yep. I certainly am. I say we blow this Popsicle stand. I prefer eating without all the pomp, circumstance, and hot air.”
Thorn started to relax. Maybe he’d been trying too hard to impress her. “How about Thai food?”
Helen nodded vigorously. “Now, that sounds wonderful. And the hotter the better.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, smiling. “There’s a little mom-and-pop Thai place not far from my house that’s pretty good. If you don’t mind following me out there, that is.”
She arched an eyebrow. “I think I can manage it. You are looking at an Academy grad with straight As in surveillance and close pursuit, you know.” She paused. “Do they offer takeout at this restaurant of yours?”
He nodded.
“Great. Then we can eat at your place.”
“My place?”
Helen laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those messy bachelors, Peter. The kind that lets dirty clothes and dirty dishes pile up.”
He felt a slow, wide grin forming on his face. “Nope. I come from a long line of God-fearing men with clean bodies and dirty minds.”
She reached out and took his arm. “Oh, good. Those are the best kind.”
When Thorn first moved to the Washington, D.C., area, he’d seriously considered renting a studio apartment in one of the cookie-cutter Crystal City high-rises overlooking the Pentagon. Living there would be convenient and reasonably inexpensive, he’d thought. Three days spent in one of the neighboring hotels had wiped that plan right out of his mind. Holding down a staff billet in the Pentagon’s bureaucratic swamp was draining enough. Combining that with being cooped up in a noisy cage a couple of hundred feet above street level seemed a surefire recipe for going buggy in record time.
Determined to keep as much of his sanity as possible, he’d gone house-hunting with a vengeance, scouring the northern Virginia neighborhoods he’d ringed on a map until he found quarters he could tolerate for a year. He’d finally decided to rent the upper half of a red-brick town house right on the border between Falls Church, Arlington, and Alexandria. It was just off the Columbia Pike and an easy twenty-minute commute to the Pentagon. Better still, the town house complex backed onto a tiny, wooded state park. It was quiet and private enough so that he could at least pretend he wasn’t living elbow-to-elbow with several million other people.
Thorn pushed the front door open with his foot and stepped aside to let Helen in first. His arms were full of warm take-out containers. Delicious smells wafted up from them—a mouthwatering blend of garlic, peanut sauce, onion, chicken, and shrimp.
Helen was already down the hall and inspecting his kitchen by the time he finished closing the door. He followed her in and deposited their dinners on a tile counter near the empty sink.
She straightened up from his open refrigerator. “Well, I see you have plenty of the two basic bachelor food groups—beer and microwave dinners.”
“Hey!” He pretended to be hurt. “I’m not totally uncivilized. There are plates in one of those cupboards over there. Heck, I’ve even got silverware somewhere around here.”
Her eyes sparkled again. “My, oh, my. I am impressed.”
Helen drifted out into the combination living and dining room while he pulled out plates, forks, and spoons. Except for a sofa, a coffee table, and a wall unit for his CD player and television, the room was empty. Boxes stacked neatly beside the sofa held an assortment of hardbacks, paperbacks, and professional military journals. There were no pictures on the walls. A sliding glass door opened onto a narrow balcony overlooking the woods.
“It certainly looks like you’re settling right in, Peter,” she teased, poking her head back into the kitchen.
“Now, there’s a direct hit,” he admitted. “I left most of my stuff in storage. The people renting my house outside Fort Bragg said they were looking for a furnished place anyway.”
She nodded. “Plus, I guess that moving everything up here and unpacking it would give this new assignment of yours an awfully permanent feel?”
“Exactly.” Thorn smiled at her. “Mind you, there are compensations for being so close to Quantico.”
“Really?”
“No doubt about it.”
Helen lowered her eyes, looking even more pleased. She nodded toward the living room again. “I thought you’d at least have some pictures of you and your father together. You told me so much about him when we first met that I’ve been dying to see what he looks like.”
Dying. Thorn felt the smile on his face freeze solid.
“Peter?” She was staring at him now. “What’s wrong?”
He swallowed hard and forced another faint smile. “Sorry. It’s just that my dad passed away last year. It still takes some getting used to, I guess.”
“Oh, Peter.” Helen touched his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” he murmured. “I’m fine.”
That wasn’t true, he realized. Whenever he thought the sorrow of his father’s death was finally behind him, some word or phrase or picture would conjure up that whole bleak period all over again. His mind was still wrestling with images of the proud, strong man who’d raised him. And with the images of that last terrible year.
His father had fought hard against the cancer that had invaded his body—just as hard as he had fought against the NVA in the Vietnamese jungles. In the end, though, even big, tough John Thorn hadn’t been able to beat impossible odds.
Thorn knew that he should have visited the hospital more often during that long, lonely battle. He should have been there when his father died. But he hadn’t been able to stand it. Watching the powerful man who had been his first and only boyhood hero growing weaker with every passing day—slipping away by inches—had been too painf
ul to bear. And his father had understood, even forgiven, his absence. Somehow that only made his betrayal seem worse.
He forced himself back to the present. His guilt over his father’s death was a burden for him to shoulder alone, not to inflict on Helen.
“Are you sure that you’re okay?” she asked softly, shared sorrow clear in her warm blue eyes.
He nodded decisively, determined to keep his memories and his grief to himself. “Oh, yeah. No problem.” He motioned toward the living room, seeking refuge in rough good humor. “Now clear out and let me work, woman. Unless you want cold food, that is.”
“Oh, no. Anything but that.”
Grateful that Helen understood his reluctance to dwell on the past, Thorn followed her out of the kitchen. He finished laying out their place settings on the coffee table and started opening containers with a flourish. In an attempt to chase away the blues, he announced, “Dinner is about to be served, madam. Would you care for a single main course, or would you prefer a gourmet sampling of the best of Thai haute cuisine?”
“A little bit of everything, of course.” Helen sat down on the sofa and watched him closely. “Does this mean that I don’t get a guided tour of the upstairs?”
“You actually want to see the vast, inner expanses of my mansion? All two bedrooms and two baths?” Thorn asked casually, instantly aware that he awaited her answer with anything but casual interest. He leaned over the steaming assortment of different dishes, carefully doling out portions onto each plate.
“I’d love to.” She watched his head come up in a hurry and laughed gently. “But after dinner, Peter.”
To Thorn’s considerable relief, the Thai restaurant hadn’t let him down. Each dish tasted as good as it had smelled—a rare achievement for any prepared meal, let alone takeout.
At last Helen pushed her empty plate away with a small sigh. “Now, that was worth waiting for.”
“Better than Stannard’s?”
“Much better than Stannard’s,” she agreed. She leaned back against the sofa and closed her eyes for a moment. “This is really nice, Peter. It’s peaceful and quiet, and best of all, it’s away from work. Miles and worlds away.”
“Have a bad week?” he asked quietly.
Helen opened her eyes and made a face. “Just a typical week.” She shrugged. “Sometimes I think half the senior men in the Bureau believe I’ve gotten to where I am on the Hostage Rescue Team solely because I’m a woman … a real affirmative action aberration. The rest only want to trot me out as a showpiece for Congress or the media. You know, with a little sign around my neck that reads, ‘See, we do get it. We’re hip. We’re with it on equal rights.’”
Thorn snorted. “Not many showpieces kick Sergeant Major Diaz’ butt in a shooting-house competition.”
Helen smiled in fond memory. “That’s for sure.” Then she shook her head in frustration. “It just doesn’t seem to matter to the older guys in gray suits, though. I still have to prove myself to them all over again every single day.”
“But not to your section,” Thorn suggested.
“No. Not to them.” She smiled. “They’re a pretty good bunch of guys. For Neanderthal door-kickers, that is.”
“Yeah. I’ve heard that some of us are even almost human.” Thorn started clearing dishes. “So what made you decide to go for the HRT anyway?”
“You mean as opposed to choosing the normal career path for a young, ambitious FBI agent?” Helen shrugged again. “I wanted more action and excitement than I thought I’d get behind a desk in Omaha or Duluth or Topeka. Besides, it was a chance to break some new ground. To be one of the first to do something.”
She looked up at him. “Does that make any sense?”
Thorn nodded. It made a lot of sense—especially to him. They were a lot alike despite their very different upbringings, he realized. Both of them were driven to win, to succeed, to be perfect. If anything, Helen had it a little harder than he did. As one of the first women assigned to the FBI’s traditionally male counterterrorist unit, she would always have to fight the unspoken presumption that she was only there as a token female. He knew her well enough now to realize just how galling that must be.
He was also positive that Helen Gray would never take anything she hadn’t earned in a fair and open competition—not a job, not a promotion, and not a trophy. The day after they’d first met, he’d gone back to Fort Bragg to review the videotapes of her section’s winning run through the House of Horrors. Any thoughts that her victory was a fluke had gone right out the window after seeing those tapes. She was good. Very good. Her assault tactics were brilliant, she improvised rapidly when things went wrong, and she was a crack shot. She made up in agility, accuracy, and intelligence whatever she might lack in raw physical strength.
Helen touched his shoulder lightly. “What are you thinking, Peter?”
Honesty overrode his native caution and fear of sounding corny. “Just that you’re the most beautiful and intelligent woman I’ve ever met.”
She laughed deep in her throat. “One hundred points for flattery, Colonel Thorn.” She shook her head in wonderment. “Louisa Farrell said you were dangerous. And she was right.”
Still sitting, Helen stretched lazily, arching her back and shoulders in a way that sparked a definite rise in Thorn’s pulse. He moved closer.
Helen turned her face toward his, her lips slightly parted. He kissed her, gently at first, then harder. After he’d spent what seemed an eternity exploring a soft, warm sweetness, she leaned back and looked intently into his eyes. “And what are you thinking now, Peter Thorn?”
He smiled slowly. “I was wondering just when you had to report back to Quantico.”
She pulled him down to her again. “Not until tomorrow night.”
JULY 11
Sofia, Bulgaria
(D MINUS 157)
Colonel Shalah Haleri paced across his small, shabby room, reached the faded, yellowing far wall, and turned back toward the window. There was nothing much to see. Bulgaria’s capital city sprawled at the foot of 2,300-meter-high Mount Vitosa, but he had chosen this run-down hotel for its anonymity, not its tourist value. The thick smog hanging over this industrial working-class neighborhood hid any clear view of the mountain’s forested slopes and ski runs.
Abruptly, he stopped pacing and returned to the battered chair and scarred writing table that were the room’s only other pieces of furniture besides an iron-frame bed and a washstand. Fifteen years as a covert operative in Iran’s intelligence service had taught him many things—patience among them. When you were deep in an enemy land, haste was almost always the path to failure and to death.
Mentally, he reviewed his cover story yet again. He could not afford any mistakes. This meeting he had scheduled was too important to his mission.
The fractured states of the former Warsaw Pact were rich with pickings—if you had the money to spend. And Bulgaria had special items that were available nowhere else. General Taleh intended to add those resources to his arsenal. Haleri was the man charged with making the general’s intentions a reality.
Haleri’s lips twitched upward in a one-sided smile as he examined his passport. It had been issued under the name of Tarik Ibrahim, and even an intensive search would only lead any hunters back along a false trail laid all the way to Baghdad. It amused him to travel as a member of Iraq’s spy service. There was a delightful irony there, he thought.
A soft knock on the door brought him to his feet. Instinctively, his hand slid under his jacket and then stopped. He was unarmed. Even in postcommunist Bulgaria, carrying a firearm was more trouble than it was worth. If things went wrong, he would simply have to trust in God, and in the suicide capsule his masters in Tehran had thoughtfully provided.
“Come in.”
The colonel relaxed as his visitor stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him. It was the man he had been expecting—the go-between. He called himself Petko Dimitrov—at least this week. The Iranian suspec
ted his real name was long forgotten.
Dimitrov was as nondescript as himself—a middle-aged man with gray hair, a plain face, and expressionless eyes. We are two of a kind, Haleri thought with a touch of perverse pride. We are men who can walk through life without leaving any lasting trace of our coming or going.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ibrahim.”
“And to you.” Haleri indicated the single chair. “Please, be comfortable.”
Dimitrov set his briefcase carefully on the writing table and sat down.
The Iranian sat across from him, perched on the edge of the bed. He cleared his throat. “You have news for me?”
The Bulgarian nodded. A faint smile flashed across his lips and then vanished. It never reached his eyes. “I have spoken to my principal,” he said slowly. “The work you have requested can be done. And it can be completed in the time you have allotted.”
“Good.” Haleri paused briefly. “And the price?”
Dimitrov shrugged. “The price will be high.” He lowered his voice. “The encryption software you need is easy. The other …” He shook his head. “The other item is difficult. It will take a great deal of thought and effort.”
Haleri nodded. He understood that. A complex task required a complex and extraordinary weapon. He pursed his lips. “How much?”
“Eight million.” Dimitrov’s eyes hardened. “There will be no bargaining, you understand? That is our price—no more and no less.”
“Very well,” Haleri agreed readily. The price was higher than he had hoped, but no one in Iran could produce the weapon he sought. “Eight million dollars?”
“Dollars?” Dimitrov smiled wryly. “I hardly think so. You will pay us in German marks. Half in a week’s time. The rest on delivery.”
Again, the Iranian agreed. Within minutes their business was concluded.
As he escorted the Bulgarian to the door, Haleri asked, “Does it have a name, this weapon of yours?”
Dimitrov shrugged again. “Once you have paid, you may call it whatever you wish.” He smiled coldly. “We call it OUROBOROS.”