The goal of tonight’s exercise was to simply get past the guards waiting for them and wreak some benign havoc. The coming nights would bring increasingly difficult exercises that more closely matched the mission’s goals.
Jurens checked his depth gauge: twelve feet. One of the drawbacks of their LAR VII rebreathers was that it fed them pure oxygen, which quickly turned toxic at pressures below twenty feet. The beauty of LAR was that it created no bubble stream for enemy eyes to spot.
Jurens depressed the chin button inside his mask, then called, “Everybody with me?”
He got three double clicks in return.
Jurens resisted the impulse to glance back. The water was pitch black, visibility less than four feet. Under such conditions it was all too easy to lose someone. Here it was forgivable, but in real life, when one man made up a quarter of your team, it could be disastrous.
He checked his compass against the map on his diveboard. “Rally on my chemlite.”
He plucked the tube off his harness, crushed it to release the phosphorus, then dropped it. One by one the rest of the team swam forward out of the murk. They formed a ring and clasped forearms for what was jokingly called the “dead check”: If you were there, you weren’t dead.
“Going up,” Jurens said. “Standby.”
He clipped his diveboard to his harness, peeled back the glove covering his index finger, then flicked his fins until he felt his finger break the surface. The relatively cold air felt like an electric charge on his skin. He gave another flick of his fins. The top of his mask came clear.
The ice-rimmed shoreline lay fifteen feet away; beyond that, fifty yards inland, lay their Quonset hut and the three storage sheds, all illuminated by pole-mounted spotlights. Jurens knew the sentries were there, but not where and how many.
A flicker of movement near the corner of the Quonset caught his eye: A darker shadow against the blackness. There’s one. Sconi hovered still for the next five minutes, until sure he’d spotted all of them. There were eight guards—five on roving patrol and three hunkered down in the shadows.
Jurens let himself sink, then finned down to the team.
“How’s it look, Boss?” Dickie asked.
Jurens explained what he’d seen. “Let’s go play a little hide-and-seek.”
Loosening the ice along the shoreline was the easy part, since all they needed was a gap through which they could squeeze. The hard part was moving each chunk aside then replacing it behind them without making any noise. As it was, the roving guards periodically strolled along the shore, shining their flashlights into the water as Jurens and his team waited, mere shadows beneath the ice.
Once onto the beach, Jurens led them inland, following the shore to the tree line, where they slipped into the under-brush.
Sconi pulled out his binoculars and scanned the beach. All guards were accounted for. He watched for a few more minutes until sure the rovers hadn’t altered their routes, then set out again.
Giving the huts a wide berth, they slipped east through the trees along the ridge then across a field to the main road, where they found an irrigation ditch overgrown with scrub brush.
Jurens felt a tap on his shoulder. Smitty pointed toward their three o’clock: A hundred yards away, a Humvee sat blocking the road. Smitty gestured: Two inside, two outside.
That’s a mistake, Jurens thought. Better to sit back in the trees and wait for us to stumble onto them. He keyed his headset. “Anybody feel like taking a ride?”
Twenty minutes later they pulled the humvee to a stop in front of the Fort’s administration building. A pair of soldiers armed with M-16s stood on either side of the entrance. Jurens climbed out, followed by Smitty, Zee, and Dickie. One of the guards stepped forward, his gun coming up slightly.
Jurens flashed his temporary ID. “Son, go get your duty officer.”
The soldier eyed the ID. His eyes went wide. “Uh, yes, sir. Hold on.”
He trotted inside. Sixty seconds later he returned with a sleepy-eyed major wearing pajama bottoms and slippers. “What the hell is going on here?”
“Just wanted to return your property, Major,” Jurens said, then walked to the rear of the Humvee and opened the hatch. Inside, bound and gagged, were the four soldiers.
“Christ,” the Major muttered. “Are they—”
“They’re fine, Major. A little embarrassed, probably a lot pissed off, but fine. Now, if you don’t mind, could you point us to the chow hall? We’ve got some thawing out to do.”
Beijing
Guoanbu director Xiang was enjoying his first cup of tea of the day and scanning the overnight reports when he came across a flagged message. He punched the intercom button. “Eng, come in here.”
His aide, Eng, was there in seconds. “Yes, sir?”
“This is a routine contact report,” Xiang said. “Why is this flagged?”
“Check the name, sir.”
Xiang scanned the message. “Officer Myung Niu—”
“The contact’s name, sir.”
“Chang Moh-Bian. So?”
“Bian’s an official at the Ministry of Agriculture. He’s on a watch list.”
Well, that doesn’t narrow the field much, Xiang thought. At any given time, the Guoanbu’s watch list contained thousands of names. “Regarding what?”
“General Han Soong. We’ve long suspected Bian of being an underground supporter of his.”
That got Xiang’s attention. “And what is he suspected of now … Fiddling with a fence post?”
“The next day the PSB checked it. It looked like it had been hollowed out. Could be a dead-letter drop. Add to that Bian’s demeanor and history, and I thought it might be worth your attention.”
Xiang considered this. It was probably nothing, but still, anything to do with Soong warranted caution. “Assign a detail to watch him. Might as well give it to this … Officer Niu.”
Williamsburg, Virginia
Two hours after a jogger found Samantha lying in the street, the phone rang in the Latham home. Whether from mother’s instinct or simply coincidence, Bonnie answered instead of Charlie. Hovering on the edge of sleep, he heard her say, “Oh, God. Where? Okay … yes, we’re on our way.”
He sat up. “Bonnie, what?”
She turned to him; her face was pale. “Charlie, it’s Samantha … She’s hurt.”
One call to Owens was all it took to get a helicopter dispatched to the Germantown airstrip near Latham’s home. As they were boarding the helicopter and heading south, Owens placed another call that cleared them for landing at the Newport News/Williamsburg airport, where a James City county sheriff was waiting to take them to Williamsburg Community Hospital Trauma Center.
They were met by the ER’s attending physician. “Agent Latham, Mrs. Latham, she’s still unconscious, but aside from a concussion, we haven’t found any head trauma. The CAT scan looked good, and she’s showing all the reactions we would hope to see—”
“You said she was unconscious,” Bonnie said. “What does that mean?”
“Her pupils are equal and reactive, and she’s reacting to pain stimulus. Those are all good signs. Her legs, however, worry us. Both of her femurs were fractured—the left one pretty badly.”
“Oh, God,” Bonnie cried. Charlie put his arms around her.
“Define ‘bad,’” Charlie said.
“We’re concerned about her distal pulse—the one farthest from the point of injury, in this case, the ankle. It’s weak, which might suggest artery damage. She’ll be heading to surgery shortly. We’ll know more in a couple hours.”
“And if there’s artery damage?” Bonnie asked.
“Let’s just cross that bridge if we come to it.”
Irreparable artery damage, Latham thought. Amputation.
Bonnie asked, “Can we see her?”
“Sure, I’ll take you to her.”
Latham felt like he was in a fog. Somebody hurt my girl … my G
od, somebody hurt my child.
15
Williamsburg, Virginia
Oaken pushed through the ER doors and immediately saw Paul Randall.
“Hey, Walt.”
“How is she?”
“Still in surgery.” Randall explained Samantha’s injuries. “They’ve got a good vascular department here. If it’s fixable, they’ll do it.”
“Where are they?”
“Upstairs in the lounge. Come on.”
Oaken found a bleary-eyed Charlie Latham pacing the hallway near the elevators. He saw Oaken and walked over. They embraced. “Thanks for coming, Walt.”
“How’s Bonnie?”
“She’s okay.”
“What happened?”
“The cops are saying hit-and-run. They’re still canvassing, but so far there are no witnesses.”
“What can I do?” Oaken asked. “Tell me how I can help.”
“When she gets out of surgery, we’ll talk. I’m going to need a favor, Walt. A big one.”
Oaken and Latham had met nearly ten years before during an antiterrorism conference, Oaken from the State Department’s INR, Latham from the FBI, and had been friends ever since, having lunch and coffee as their schedules permitted. Oaken always assumed Latham knew Holystone’s role with the CIA went beyond mere consultation, but Charlie had never pressed the issue.
Until now, Oaken thought. He felt certain Latham had called him in search of more than moral support. It would have something to do with Samantha, but what?
She got out of surgery three hours later. Though severe, the damage to the artery had been repaired. She would be hospitalized for another week, in double leg casts for three months, and in physical rehabilitation for six months after that, but by this time next year she would be as good as new.
Oaken and Randall left Charlie and Bonnie to be with their daughter and wandered down to the cafeteria. An hour later, Latham joined them. His eyes were red rimmed, but he was smiling. “She’s okay, she’s gonna be okay.”
Randall clapped him on the shoulder and Oaken said, “Thank God.”
Latham poured himself a cup of coffee. “Walt, this wasn’t an accident.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Samantha’s awake; we talked. Now she’s remembering she’d seen the car that hit her around campus the last few days. It stuck with her because it had Maryland plates and the hood ornament was missing; an older model, light blue Cadillac. The more she thought about it, the more she remembered seeing it. She would come out of a class, and there it was; after lunch, there it was.”
“An old boyfriend maybe?”
“No. I’ve got nothing to back this up, but … you heard about the Baker murders?”
“Just what I read in the papers.”
Latham spent the next twenty minutes taking Oaken through the case: the murders, their suspicions about the Guoanbu, Baker’s secret bank account, the former LRRP Mike Skeldon, and finally his suspension from the case. “I know it’s a big leap, but I can’t help feeling like somebody wants me to drop this—or at least get sidetracked.”
A very big leap, Oaken thought. Though he knew better than to discount Charlie’s instincts, Oaken was skeptical. Latham’s little girl had nearly been killed; that was enough to cloud anyone’s thinking. “Supposing that’s true, why go after Samantha? You were already off the case.”
Randall answered: “Look at it this way: If somebody kills or kidnaps the child of a cop or FBI agent, the weight of the whole U.S. law enforcement system crashes down on them. On the other hand, if the child is hurt, say in a random accident, all you get is a distraught mother or father. The last thing that agent is thinking about is his or her caseload.”
Oaken spread his hands. “Charlie, I’m not unsympathetic, but this is a real stretch.”
“Humor me. A Commerce Department employee is murdered; he’s involved with a foreign intelligence agency; he’s paying an Army commando hundreds of thousands of dollars; and just as I’m starting to make headway, I’m jerked off the case.”
“You think the Justice investigation is bogus?”
“I think it’s too convenient. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. No harm done. Walt, somebody ran down my little girl. I can’t afford to assume anything—not until I’m sure.”
Looking into Latham’s eyes, Oaken found himself thinking of his own daughters. If there was even a chance—even one in a million—that someone was trying to hurt them, how would he react?
Oaken nodded. “Tell me what you need.”
Irkutsk, Republic of Sakha, Siberia, Russian Federation
Lieutenant General Vasily Basnin stared at the peeling yellow paint on the ceiling and thought, An old library for a headquarters building … what’s the army coming to? Of course, he admitted, it could be worse. The city of Irkutsk was nearly 350 years old, and some parts of it looked older still.
From that perspective, this place was brand-new.
Founded as an ostrog, or fortress, in 1661 at the confluence of the Irkut and Angara rivers, Irkutsk was known locally as the “Jewel of Siberia,” a nickname, that had never quite caught on. If not for its proximity to gorgeous Lake Baikal, Basnin thought, Irkutsk would be all but worthless.
Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Basnin’s assignment as the Irkutsk Army Garrison’s commandant felt like a slap in the face. This was the most reviled command slot in the Far East District, and yet here he was, servant of the Motherland, protecting this backwater village from … what, exactly? Protesting fur traders? Surly lumberjacks?
Though the population of Sakha—which the locals called Yakutia—was predominantly Russian, the formerly indigenous population of Buryats, Dolgans, and Yukagirs, emboldened by glasnost, had begun to protest discrimination on the part of their Russian masters. With the rolls of the Sakhan government dominated by Russians, little had changed for Yakuts since the Federation’s birth—or since the birth of the Soviet, for that matter.
At least one thing has changed, Basnin thought. Unionization. All the downtrodden natives had banded together into unions. A goddamned coalition of horse breeders, lumberjacks, and fur traders! Of course, it might pay to coddle the hunters, Basnin thought. With Moscow cutting the army’s funding at every turn, he’d been forced to supplement his garrison’s rations with local game. And what of the fur traders and horse breeders? If the money continued to dwindle, would his men be wearing beaver coats and riding around on horses instead of in armored personnel carriers?
With any luck the upcoming elections in Moscow would bring some relief. If the polls were correct, that Bulganin fellow might soon be the Federation’s new president, which might be good for the army—if, that was, Bulganin kept his promise to resume the military restructuring Putin had abandoned the previous year.
Basnin checked his watch. Almost supper time. A quick bite, then back to his quarters for some television. At least tonight we would have some peace. Thus far, the unionists had been cooperative enough to register their protest plans with the city. Tonight they were taking a break, which in turn meant a break for his troops.
Basnin had just drifted off to sleep when the knock came at his door. He rolled over and looked at the clock: Almost midnight. He got up, threw on his robe, shuffled to the door, and opened it.
“Apologies for disturbing you, General,” a soldier said. “The duty officer sent me—”
“What is it?” Basnin growled. “What’s the problem?”
“The protesters, sir. They’re back.”
So much for the niceties of schedules. “Where? How many?”
“At the Railway Monument. Several hundred. It looks like they’re preparing to march.”
“They’re probably headed for city admin building. Wait in the truck. I’ll get dressed.”
Goddamned natives, Basnin thought. Just one night of peace …
They were nearing the corner of Karl Marx Street when Basnin saw it: Flickering
flames on the street bordering the river. “What is that?” Basnin asked.
“Torches, sir. They’re carrying torches.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, sir,” the soldier replied, then laughed. “Just like Frankenstein, eh, sir?”
“What?”
“The angry villagers in Frankenstein. You know—”
“Yes, Corporal, just like Frankenstein. Turn around. Circle up Gagarina; no sense trying to drive through the mob.”
Five minutes later they were driving along the river’s edge. Two hundred meters from the monument, Basnin ordered the driver to stop, then got out.
At least three hundred strong, the protesters milled around the base of the monument. At their center, the monument’s red granite obelisk rose into the night sky, reflecting the light from the torches. Amid the cacophony of voices, Basin could hear the occasional bark of a soldier’s voice as troops hurried to set up a perimeter “Where are the riot control troops?” he asked his driver.
“On the other side of the crowd, posted at the Okhiopkov Theater. The IFVs are—”
“IFVs?” An Infantry Fighting Vehicle was essentially a light reconnaissance tank. But Basnin knew in the eyes of civilians, a tank was a tank. Disorganized mobs tended to run from them; well-organized mobs tended to challenge them. “Who ordered IFVs deployed?” he demanded.
“All our trucks are down for maintenance, sir. The duty officer decided—”
Now Basnin saw them: Two BRT-70s parked on the museum lawn, their 14.5 mm cannons pointing toward the mob. “Get the unit commander on the radio,” he barked. “I want those BRTs pulled back immediately! And for God’s sake, get those turrets turned away from the crowd! If—”
From the trees around the library Basnin saw a flash of light, followed by what looked like a smoke trail streaking through the darkness. A half-second later one of the BRTs rocked sideways and burst into flames.
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