Pipeline

  Notwithstanding the early hour, Moscow’s streets were clogged. Just as well, Tony thought. He was in no hurry to get back to the hotel and face Packard. The notion of going straight from his night’s excitement to a showdown with the CIA director and her cold aloofness worried him. He wondered if he was really ready to face her.

  Suddenly, the thought of Martha Packard connected with a slamming jolt of horrible realization. It was like an electric stab. His stomach turned and he suddenly felt sick. Tony Ruiz shot up in his cab seat, ramrod straight.

  It couldn’t be. Please. It just couldn’t be true. His brain suddenly echoed with one loud voice—Nina’s voice. He recalled her chiding him to get dressed quickly so that the “terrible CIA woman” would let him out to see her again tonight. How had she known about Packard? How could she have known?

  Tony Ruiz’s mind became mush. He couldn’t think straight. His fingers quivering, he tried to replay the chronological events of the previous evening in his mind. The mental pictures would not stay in order. Trying to slow his brain, thoughts jumbled together, coming and going too fast to control.

  Nina clearly had wanted the night to end in her bed. Sure, he had been seduced; he had known it was happening. It had gone fast, but nothing about the evening had been suspicious or out of place. Until this morning. Until the conversation about the tunnel. Until her out-spoken support of the Bering Strait project.

  Until she had warned him, in that single, fast nanosecond of chill, that he had to be for it.

  And then she had mentioned Packard. Sickened and pale, Tony realized there was no other way to read what had happened. The quick, offhand comment about the American intelligence chief had been Nina’s cold warning. Her threat. Her way of putting Tony on official notice that he had been duped. Blackmailed.

  Nina knew about Packard because it was her job to know.

  The implication was obvious. The Russians probably had the whole night on videotape. The toothbrush, the sex, the caressing words, his desperation to see her again.

  For one fleeting instant, Tony’s mind grasped at straws. Perhaps Uggin had innocently told her about Packard’s presence in Moscow. Couldn’t that be possible? Wasn’t that the obvious explanation?

  That thought was a natural human reaction. In desperation, humans clutch at any small inkling of optimism. Tony knew that his life would be over without that single strand of hope. Finished. Devoid of that tiny flicker of confidence, he knew that his career and his soul would be distilled down to a choice between a humbling resignation or spending the rest of his life at the behest of Russian intelligence services blackmailing him into ever-deeper waters.

  Alas, the thought was futile. The excuse was a sham, vanishing as quickly as it had come. Tony was in sufficient control of his mind to know that no matter how chatty Uggin was, he would never have told her about Packard. He was a Russian bureaucrat. He didn’t reveal things accidentally to just any pretty girl.

  Unless the pretty girl was an FSB agent.

  MOSCOW

  SEPTEMBER 4, 8:05 A.M.

  THE METROPOL HOTEL

  One hour later, Tony Ruiz descended in the Metropol’s elevators to the fourteenth floor and walked down the hall. He had considered calling ahead, but had discarded the idea.

  He rapped loudly on the door. No answer. Tony hesitated momentarily. Alone in the hotel hallway, he shrugged. No choice. An hour ago, he had been nervous about having to face down a senior U.S. government official acting contrary to the president’s instructions.

  Instead, he was now here for a very different reason.

  He knocked again. Louder.

  This time he heard the locks open. Martha Packard opened the door and stared blankly at her visitor.

  She was dressed in an outfit that was the photographic negative of yesterday’s clothes. This time her skirt and jacket were a light brown, her brass-buttoned blouse a dark navy blue. The stockinged feet meant that she had not yet had time to put on shoes. Behind her, on the coffee table in the suite’s living room, was a breakfast tray surrounded by papers piled neatly on the sofa and chairs.

  “Mr. Ruiz,” she said coldly, not moving an inch. “Good morning. What can I do for you?”

  “We need to talk, General.” Tony felt a shiver. The next ten minutes would be the most important ones in his life.

  “Yes, I guess we do. I’ve been waiting for your inevitable outburst.”

  He had been prepared for a million excuses to avoid this conversation. Tony was taken aback by her absolute directness.

  “Can I come in?” Tony asked.

  She thought about it for a second and then silently moved away from the door. Packard motioned him to a chair.

  The director of central intelligence sat down directly in front of him. She stared sullenly in his direction. The message was clear. He had sought out this meeting. He needed to start. Tony took a deep breath.

  “General Packard, you look like a person who prefers straight talk. I will respect that. I’ve come here to ask you—no, sorry, to tell you—that you’re overstepping your authority.”

  If Tony had expected some big bang after that statement, he’d been severely mistaken. Martha Packard’s staring eyes were cold and empty. He felt compelled to continue.

  “I did not request this trip. I was asked to accompany you to Moscow. Not because I have any particular knowledge about this country or about the subject we’re here to discuss. My instructions were to protect the president. I was told that we were to come to Moscow on a fact-finding mission. Instead, I find that you are in the midst of negotiating an agreement with our Russian counterparts to build a Bering Strait tunnel. That is way beyond the White House’s expectation of what this trip is all about.”

  For one split second, Tony thought he saw a sparkle of respect in her eyes. He decided to press the point. With a false calm, he slammed forward his conclusion.

  “It’s my suspicion that you are preparing to present President Gene Laurence with a deal that’s a fait accompli. I believe that it is your plan to leak the details upon your return to Washington. Once the story is out, you’re betting that the president will feel compelled to sign. To me, that constitutes a real danger to my boss.”

  Packard crossed her legs, buying time. Tony took it as a sure sign that his words had hit home.

  “You’re not enamored of the idea of a Bering Strait tunnel, are you, Mr. Ruiz?”

  “That is an understatement,” Tony snapped.

  “And is your disdain for this idea grounded in reality? Or are you just another of those environmental doomsday believers who think any fossil fuel will shorten our planet’s existence?”

  “General, with all due respect, that is a smart-ass question,” Tony answered coldly. “It would be like me asking you whether the fact that you were born in Alaska is clouding your judgment of the Russians. I hold you in greater respect than to ask that.”

  Ruiz could see Martha Packard looking at him with newfound admiration. He was more than holding his own.

  “Okay, Mr. Ruiz. Fair enough. The Russians are not the prettiest government in the world. But they have something that we want. No, cancel that. They have something we need. We can’t let another California occur in our country. One more of those catastrophes and the United States will be on its knees. We will become the world’s laughingstock. We don’t have choices. Alternative energies sound nice. But whatever small promise they hold may take years to develop.”

  “We have to start somewhere, General. We can’t go on depending on foreigners—and, in particular, foreigners who don’t like us—for our energy. The decision to put our future in Russia’s hands may come back and bite us in the ass. Isn’t it time to take a first step to liberate ourselves from foreign control of energy? The United States can’t postpone tough decisions forever.”

  Packard stared at him for a long time. She weighed her words carefully.

  “We can debate this until kingdom come. Let’s be practical. What do you propose,
Mr. Ruiz?”

  He was ready for the question.

  “Go negotiate your tunnel, General. With one condition. No press. No announcement. No leaks. Laurence can’t be made to feel that he is in a trap, with no choice other than to sign. If word gets out, the deal is broken. Irreparably. If you stick to it and there is no public pressure, I’ll join you in recommending that Laurence adopt the deal as long as it’s joined at the hip with specific measures to foster alternative fuels.”

  Packard was stunned. He had expected this.

  “I’m surprised,” she stuttered. “I expected a fight to the death with you. I postponed our meeting with the Russians until midday, expecting to spend the next hours in furious conference calls with Washington. I even had the secretary of energy and the secretary of state on standby, ready to back me up.”

  Tony saw her struggling with a question she had no way of answering. If this had been a better day, he might even have been amused. He allowed himself a sad smile as he put himself in her shoes. He could imagine her question: Why was this guy capitulating so easily?

  He cleared his throat, doing everything possible not to show the pit he felt in his stomach.

  This would be the moment on which the rest of his career—his life—depended. The bait had been laid. She would get her damn tunnel. Now he would reveal the price, the quid pro quo.

  “General, I imagine that you must be asking yourself why this little discussion went so smoothly. I can understand your surprise. You see, I actually have some advice to ask of you.”

  Packard was too much of a pro to ask questions. She knew when to be quiet.

  “Last night,” Tony continued as steadily as possible, “was an interesting one. I accepted an invitation to go out with one of our hosts. Daniel Uggin invited me out on the town. He brought with him two very beautiful women. We had a very nice time going from bar to bar. This is actually a great city.”

  Tony did his best to form his lips into a smile.

  “Now it’s my impression that the women were brought to seduce me. The cloak-and-dagger trade is your department, not mine, General Packard. But I’ve read my share of spy stories and I presume that the old Soviet game of sexual blackmail is still alive and kicking. Am I right?”

  He saw her nodding slowly. Warily. He continued, choosing his words with great care.

  “So, as tempted as I might have been to fall into one of these women’s arms, I decided to come to you first and ask for your suggestions or, umm, advice. I want to be sure to do the right thing for my country.”

  General Martha Packard’s eyes narrowed for just a moment. Her answer would reveal no emotion. She was a senior intelligence professional. There was no need for any further explanation from Tony. She understood the half-truth.

  “Mr. Ruiz, there is no doubt that you have done the right thing. Telling me what happened was your only course of action.”

  Tony felt every muscle in his body relax. There it was. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the best he could do. He felt relieved, but heart-broken. It was a stiff price to pay for his freedom. He had not only given up his deep disdain for this putrid project, he had also confessed to the head of the CIA that he had fallen for a Russian agent’s attempt to recruit him. In return for her silence, Martha Packard would always own his chit.

  As tears of regret welled up in his eyes, Tony Ruiz realized that his American dream was dead. All his life, Tony Ruiz had seen his parents struggle for survival. Their son had been proof of their ultimate success; he had fought the odds and had always come out on top.

  Not this time.

  Though Tony Ruiz had calculated that it was preferable to be indebted to a powerful American than to a foreign power, his decision didn’t make him feel any better. It was a devil’s pact. Yes, Tony’s quick thinking had avoided the potential of future damaging blackmail by a foreign power. But in exchange, he had acquired a lifetime of debt to a military woman he profoundly mistrusted.

  UNITED STATES

  CULPEPER, VIRGINIA

  SEPTEMBER 4, 7:00 A.M.

  THE IT’S ABOUT THYME INN

  After a night of fitful tossing, Blaise Ryan had given up trying to go back to sleep once her eyes had shot open at 5:30 A.M. It was her second night at the small rural Virginia inn located an hour and a half outside the nation’s capital.

  This past night had gone even worse than the previous one.

  Nestled just above a restaurant of the same name, the three-room bed-and-breakfast was a cute mix of country furnishings and Victorian decoration set on Culpeper’s Main Street, just fifteen miles from the Blue Ridge Mountains. She had found it—and loved it—a few years back while attending a friend’s wedding in the bucolic cow-studded pastures of the Virginia piedmont.

  The past forty-eight hours had been the most difficult ones of her life. Blaise Ryan was a tough fighter. Years of clashing with government officials and heads of corporations had inured her to the scrapes and pains of conflict with powerful interests. In all those fights, replete with accusations and insults, she had never known fear. Bruises, yes. Humiliation, sure. Insults, of course. But never fear.

  Yet in the last two days, Blaise had been filled with the unfamiliar feeling of paralyzing terror. Her life had been transformed three times over in the past months—from scrappy policy fighter to witness of the California energy crisis’s pain and suffering and now to potential victim of physical violence. Those were a lot of changes in too short a time. The weight of events was doing her in.

  Losing one’s way in life is painful for anyone. But Blaise’s moment of darkness could not have come at a worse time. She was in serious danger. She knew the Russians were looking for her. What she didn’t know was what to do about it.

  Too scared to leave the inn, she had survived her stay in Culpeper on only pots of coffee and the occasional croissant brought up by the worried innkeepers. Blaise moved emptily around the room—from her bed to the small country French desk to the bathroom and back again. Only the shower seemed to assuage her fears, the hot jets of water temporarily washing away the memories of Matta and Lima.

  But the minute she stepped out of the white porcelain tub to dry off in front of the mirror, the dread flooded back, immobilizing her mind.

  Blaise had made only one decision once the U.S.-bound flight had taken off from Lima. A few minutes after her American Airlines Boeing 767 landed in Miami, she had gone to the counter to change her final destination. Rather than returning to San Francisco, Blaise had requested paying the $100 change fee to connect to Washington, D.C. There was nobody in California who could help her. Her only chance was to get to Washington.

  But once on the two-hour flight from Miami to Reagan National Airport, she had succumbed to another attack of dark desperation. What was she going to do in Washington? The only people she really knew in the nation’s capital were the senior officers of environmental organizations and the few congressional staffers who supported green causes. She needed the protective guns of the FBI and the CIA. Instead, all she had were tree-hugging ecologists.

  Not knowing whom to trust, Blaise had panicked upon her arrival in D.C. Though she had come to find help, seeing the people-filled airport suddenly spurred a change of mind. Surmising that staying overnight in Washington was too risky, Blaise had rented a car. Once behind the wheel, she had instinctively driven out of town and watched in a silent trance as the road signs of Route 66 flew by her windshield. Blaise had kept driving, not knowing where she was going until she saw the directions to Shenandoah National Park. That was when she had remembered the It’s About Thyme Inn.

  She had hoped that the quiet of Culpeper’s Main Street would somehow help reboot her frozen brain. Instead, the opposite had happened. The terror of knowing she was being hunted had begun to consume every waking moment. Beyond her own fears, Blaise had trouble warding off the painful pangs of deep, lonely guilt about Anne-Sophie, whom she had not contacted for fear that a phone call to Russia could be traced. After the run-in wit
h the Russian Embassy goon who had known her friend’s name, there was no doubt in Blaise’s mind that Anne-Sophie was under surveillance.

  After more than an hour and a half awake, she stood now in front of the mirror, glancing momentarily at her reflection and turning away, disgusted by the lines of anxiety that traversed her gaunt face. She went back to bed. She loathed her paralysis, but she was a woman reduced to a state of utter confusion, unable to decide on any course of action.

  Blaise stared emptily at the ceiling from the inn’s wrought-iron bed. Without any real thought or interest, she reached across to the night table, picked up the remote, and zapped on the television. She heard the sound, but couldn’t be bothered with focusing on the screen.

  “Nearly two months after the lights went out here in this state, the streets of Los Angeles are still patrolled by uniformed soldiers of the Hundred-and-Second Mechanized Division of the California National Guard. Not for much longer, though. The looting may have stopped and the guns may have fallen silent, but yesterday’s announcement by Governor Cyrus Moravian that the National Guard was returning to its bases tomorrow has shaken the fragile confidence of this city’s residents. In neighborhoods all over Los Angeles, citizens have gathered with signs begging the National Guard to stay. Notwithstanding the welcome rains and cooler temperatures, it’s a sign—a symbol, an indication—of the still-fragile state of mind of California’s residents.

  “I interviewed Governor Moravian yesterday and he…”

  Sprawled limply on the unmade bed, Blaise found herself slowly focusing on the television reporter’s familiar voice. She struggled to raise her head toward the screen. Seeing CNN’s Anna Hardaway, Blaise felt her mind involuntarily engage for the first time in days. Her brain was out of practice. It took a while to concentrate on the words emanating from the television. She remembered reading somewhere that Anna Hardaway had won a Pulitzer Prize for her courageous, emotive reporting during the California energy crisis.