CHAPTER 34
THE GAMES CONTINUE

   As happens in all aspects of life, things settled into a routine. Chavez and his people spent most of their time with Colonel Wilkerson's people, mainly sitting in the reaction force center and watching the games on television, but also wandering to the various venues, supposedly to eyeball security matters up close, but in reality to see the various competitive events even closer. Sometimes they even wandered onto the event field by virtue of their go anywhere passes. The Aussies, Ding learned, were ferociously dedicated sports fans, and wonderfully hospitable. In his off-duty time, he picked a neighborhood pub to hang out in, where the beer was good and the atmosphere friendly. On learning that he was an American, his "mates" would often as not buy a beer for him and ask questions while watching. sports events on the wall-hung televisions. About the only thing he didn't like was the cigarette smoke, for the Australian culture had not yet totally condemned the vice, but no place was perfect.

   Each morning he and his people worked out with Colonel Wilkerson and his men, and they found that in this Olympic competition there was little difference between Australian and American special-operations troopers. One morning they went off to the Olympic pistol range, borrowing Olympic-style handguns.22 automatics that seemed like toys compared to the :45s the Rainbow soldiers ordinarily packed-then saw that the target and scoring systems were very difficult indeed, if not especially related to combat shooting in the real world. For all his practice and expertise, Chavez decided that with luck he could have made the team from Mali. Certainly not the American or Russian teams, whose shooters were utterly inhuman in their ability to punch holes in the skinny silhouette targets that flipped full-face and sideways on computer-controlled hangers. But these paper targets didn't shoot back, he told himself, and that did make something of a difference. Besides, success in his form of shooting was to make a real person dead, not to hit a quarter-sized target on a black paper target card. That made a difference, too, Ding and Mike Pierce thought aloud with their Aussie counterparts. What they did could never be an Olympic sport, unless somebody brought back the gladiatorial games of Rome, and that wouldn't be happening. Besides, what they did for their living wasn't a sport at all, was it? Neither was it a form of mass entertainment in the kinder and gentler modern world. Part of Chavez admitted that he wondered what the games in classical Rome's Flavian Amphitheater had been like to watch, but it wasn't something he could say aloud, lest people take him for an utter barbarian. Hail, Caesar! We who are about to die salute you! It wasn't exactly the Super Bowl, was it? And so, "Major" Domingo Chavez, along with sergeants Mike Pierce, Homer Johnston, and George Tomlinson, and Special Agent Tim Noonan, got to watch the games for free, sometimes with "official" jackets to give them the cover of anonymity.

   The same was true, rather more distantly, of Dmitriy Popov, who stayed in his room to watch the Olympics on TV. He found the games a distraction from the questions that were running their own laps inside his brain. The Russian national team, naturally enough his favorite, was doing well, though the Australians were making a fine showing as hosts, especially in swimming, which seemed to be their national passion. The problem was in the vastly different time zones. When Popov was watching events live, it was necessarily an ungodly hour in Kansas, which made him somewhat bleary-eyed for his morning horseback rides with Maclean and Killgore – those had become a very pleasant morning diversion.

   This morning was like the previous ten, with a cool westerly breeze, the rising orange sun casting strange but lovely light on the waving fields of grass and wheat. Buttermilk now recognized him, and awarded the Russian with oddly endearing signs of affection, which he in turn rewarded with sugar cubes or, as today, an apple taken from the morning breakfast buffet, which the mare crunched down rapidly from his hand. He had learned to saddle his own horse, which he now did quickly, leading Buttermilk outside to join the others and mounting up in the corral.

   "Morning, Dmitriy," Maclean said.

   "Good morning, Kirk," Popov replied pleasantly. In another few minutes, they were riding off, to the south this time, toward one of the wheat fields, at a rather more rapid pace than his first such ride.

   "So, what's it like to be an intelligence agent?" Killgore asked, half a mile from the barn.

   "We are called intelligence officers, actually," Popov said to correct the first Hollywood-generated misimpression. "Truthfully, it is mainly boring work. You spend much of your time waiting for a meeting, or filling out forms for submission to your headquarters, or the rezidentura. There is some danger-but only of being arrested, not shot. It has become a civilized business. Captured intelligence officers are exchanged, usually after a brief period of imprisonment. That never happened to me, of course. I was well trained." And lucky, he didn't add.

   "So, no James Bond stuff, you never killed anybody, nothing like that?" Kirk Maclean asked.

   "Good heavens, no," Popov replied, with a laugh. "You have others do that sort of thing for you, surrogates, when you need it done. And that is quite rare."

   "How rare?"

   "Today? Almost never I should think. At KGB, our job was to get information and pass it upwards to our government-more like reporters, like your Associated Press, than anything else. And much of the information we gathered was from open sources, newspapers, magazines, television. Your CNN is perhaps the best, most used source of information in the world."

   "But what sort of information did you gather?"

   "Mainly diplomatic or political intelligence, trying to discern intentions. Others went after technical intelligence-how fast an airplane flies or how far a cannon shoots--but that was never my specialty area, you see. I was what you call here a people person. I met with various people and delivered messages and such, then brought the answers back to my station."

   "What kind of people?"

   Popov wondered about how he should answer, and decided on the truth: "Terrorists, that was what you would call them."

   "Oh? Like which ones?"

   "Mainly European, but some in the Middle East as well. I have language skills, and I can speak easily with people from various lands."

   "Was it hard?" Dr. Killgore asked.

   "Not really. We had similar political beliefs, and my country provided them with weapons, training, access to some facilities in the Eastern Bloc. I was as much a travel agent as anything else, and occasionally I would suggest targets for them to attack-as payment for our assistance. you see."

   "Did you give them money?" Maclean this time.

   "Yes, but not much money. The Soviet Union had only limited hard-currency reserves, and we never paid our agents very much. At least I did not," Popov said.

   "So, you sent terrorists out on missions to kill people?" This was from Killgore.

   Popov nodded. "Yes. That was often my job. That was," he added. "why Dr. Brightling hired me."

   "Oh?" Maclean asked.

   Dmitriy wondered how far he could take this one. "Yes. he asked me to do similar things for Horizon Corporation."

   "You're the guy who ramrodded the stuff in Europe?"

   "I contacted various people and made suggestions which they carried out, yes, and so, yes, I do have some blood on my second hands, I suppose, but one cannot take such matters too seriously, can one? It is business, and it has been my business for some time."

   "Well, that's a good thing for you,Dmitriy. That's why you're here," Maclean told him. "John is pretty loyal to his people. You must have done okay."

   Popov shrugged. "Perhaps so. He never told me why he wanted these things done, but I gather it was to help his friend Henriksen get the consulting contract for the Sydney– Olympics that I've been watching on TV."

   "That's right," Killgore confirmed. "That was very important to us." Might as well watch, the epidemiologist thought, they'll be the last ones.

   "But why?"

   They hesitated at the direct question. The physician and the engineer looked at each other. Then Killgore spoke.

   "Dmitriy, what do you think of the environment?"

   "What do you mean? Out here? It is beautiful. You've taught me much with these morning rides, my friends," the Russian answered, choosing his words carefully. "The sky and the air, and the beautiful fields of grass and wheat. I have never appreciated how beautiful the world can be. I suppose that's because I grew up in Moscow." Which had been a hideously filthy city, but they didn't know that.

   "Yeah, well, it's not all this way."

   "I know that, John. In Russia-well, the State didn't care as you Americans do. They nearly killed all life in the Caspian Sea-where caviar comes from-from chemical poisoning. And there is a place just east of the Urals where our original atomic-bomb research created a wasteland. I haven't seen it, but I have heard of it. The highway signs there tell you to drive very fast to be through the zone of dangerous radiation as quickly as possible."

   "Yeah, well, if we're not careful, we might just kill the whole planet," Maclean observed next.

   "That would be a crime, like the Hitlerites," Popov said next. "It is nekulturny, the work of uncivilized barbarians. In my room, the tapes and the magazines make this clear."

   "What do you think of killing people, Dmitriy?" Killgore asked then.

   "That depends on who they are. There are many people who deserve to die for one reason or another. But Western culture has this strange notion that taking life is almost always wrong-you Americans cannot even kill your criminals, murderers and such, without jumping through hoops, as you say here. I find that very curious."

   "What about crimes against Nature?" Killgore said, staring off into the distance.

   "I do not understand."

   "Well, things that hurt the whole planet, killing off whole living species, polluting the land and the sea. What about that?"

   "Kirk, that is also a barbaric act, and it should be punished severely. But how do you identify the criminals? Is it the industrialist who gives the order and makes the profit from it? Or is it the worker who takes his wages and does what he is told?"

   "What did they say at Nuremberg?" Killgore said next.

   "The war-crimes trial, you mean? It was decided that following orders is not a defense." Not a concept he'd been taught to consider in the KGB Academy, where he'd learned that the State Was Always Right.

   "Right," the epidemiologist agreed. "But you know. nobody ever went after Harry Truman for bombing Hiroshima."

   Because he won, you fool, Popov didn't reply. "Do you ask if this was a crime? No, it was not, because he ended a greater evil, and the sacrifice of those people was necessary to restore the peace."

   "What about saving the planet?"

   "I do not understand."

   "If the planet was dying, what would one have to do--what would be right to do, to save it?"

   This discussion had all the ideological and philosophical purity of a classroom discussion of the Marxist dialectic at Moscow State University-and about as much relevance to the real world. Kill the whole planet? That was not possible. A full-blown nuclear war, yes, maybe that could have such an effect, but that was no longer possible. The world had changed, and America was the nation that had made it happen. Didn't these two druids see the wonder of that? More than once, the world had been close to loosing nuclear weapons, but today that was a thing of the past.

   "I have never considered that question, my friends."

   "We have," Maclean responded. "Dmitriy, there are people and forces at work today that could easily kill off everything here. Somebody has to stop that from happening, but how do you do it?"

   "You do not mean simply political action, do you?" the former KGB spook observed.

   "No, it's too late for that, and not enough people would listen anyway." Killgore turned his horse to the right and the others followed. "I'm afraid you have to take more drastic measures."

   "What's that? Kill the whole world population?" Dmitriy Arkadeyevich asked, with hidden humor. But the reply to the rhetorical question was the same look in two sets of eyes. The look didn't make his blood go cold, but it did get his brain moving off in a new and unexpected direction. These were fascisti. Worse than that, fascisti with an ethos in which they believed. But were they willing to take action on their beliefs? Could anyone take action like that? Even the worst of the Stalinists-no, they'd never been madmen, just political romantics.

   Just then an aircraft's noise disturbed the morning. It was one of Horizon's fleet of G's, lifting off from the complex's runway, climbing up and turning right, looping around to the east-for New York, probably, to bring more of the "project" people in? Probably. The complex was about 80 percent full now, Popov reflected. The rate of arrivals had slowed, but people were still coming, most by private car. The cafeteria was almost full at lunch and dinnertime, and the lights burned late in the laboratory and other work buildings. But what were those people doing?

   Horizon Corporation, Popov reminded himself, was a biotech company, specializing in medicines and medical treatments, Killgore was a physician, and Maclean an engineer specializing in environmental matters. Both were druids, both nature-worshipers, the new kind of paganism spawned in the West. John Brightling seemed to be one as well, judging by that conversation they'd had in New York. That, then, was the ethos of these people and their company. Dmitriy thought about the printed matter in his room. Humans were a parasitic species doing more harm than good to the earth, and these two had just talked about sentencing the harmful people to death-then made it clear that they thought of everyone as harmful. What were they going to do, kill everyone? What rubbish. The door leading to the answer had opened further. His brain was moving far more quickly than Buttermilk was, but still not fast enough.

   They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then a shadow crossed the ground, and Popov looked up.

   "What is that?"

   "Red-tail hawk," Maclean answered, after a look. "Cruising for some breakfast."

   As they watched, the raptor climbed to five hundred feet or so, then spread his wings to ride the thermal air currents, his head down, examining the surface of the land for an unwary rodent through his impossibly sharp eyes. By unspoken consent the three men stopped their horses to watch. It took several minutes and then it was both beautiful and terrible to behold. The hawk folded its wings back and dropped rapidly, then flapped to accelerate like a feathered bullet, then spread its wings wide, nosing up, its yellow talons leading the descent now

   "Yes!" Maclean hooted.

   Like a child stomping on an anthill, the hawk used its talons to kill its prey, twisting and crushing, then, holding the limp tubular body in them, flapped laboriously into the sky, heading off to the north to its nest or home, or whatever you called it, Popov thought. The prairie dog it killed had enjoyed no chance, Dmitriy thought, but nature was like that, as were people. No soldier willingly gave his foe a fair chance on any battlefield. It was neither safe nor intelligent to do so. You struck with total fury and as little warning as possible, the better to take his life quickly and easily-and safely-and if he lacked the wit to protect himself properly, well, that was his problem, not yours. In the case of the hawk, it had swooped down from above and down-sun, not even its shadow warning the prairie dog sitting at the entrance to its home, and killed without pity. The hawk had to eat, he supposed. Perhaps it had young to feed, or maybe it was just hunting for its own needs. In either case, the prairie dog hung limp in its claws, like an empty brown sock, soon to be ripped apart and eaten by its killer.

   "Damn, I love watching that," Maclean said.

   "It is cruel, but beautiful," Popov said.

   "Mother Nature is like that, pal. Cruel but beautiful." Killgore watched the hawk vanish in the distance. "That was something to see."

   "I have to capture one and train it," Maclean announced. "Train it to kill off my fist."

   "Are the prairie dogs endangered?"

   "No, no way," Killgore answered. "Predators can control their numbers, but never entirely eliminate them. Nature maintains a balance."

   "How do men fit into that balance?" Popov asked.

   "They don't," Kirk Maclean answered. "People just screw it up, 'cuz they're too dumb to see what works and what doesn't. And they don't care about the harm they do. That's the problem."

   "And what is the solution?" Dmitriy asked. Killgore turned to look him right in the eyes.

   "Why, we are."

   "Ed, the cover name must be one he's used for a long time," Clark argued. "The IRA guys hadn't seen him in years, but that's the name they knew him by."

   "Makes sense," Ed Foley had to admit over the phone. "So, you really want to talk to him, eh?"

   "Well, it's no big thing, Ed. He just turned people loose to kill my wife, daughter, and grandson, you know? And they did kill two of my men. Now, do I have permission to contact him or not?" Rainbow Six demanded from his desk.

   In his seventh-floor office atop CIA Headquarters, Director of Central Intelligence Edward Foley uncharacteristically wavered. If he let Clark do it, and Clark got what he wanted, reciprocity rules would then apply. Sergey Nikolay'ch would someday call CIA and request information of a delicate nature, and he, Foley, would have to provide it, else the veneer of amity within the international intelligence community would crumble away. But Foley could not predict what the Russians would ask about, and both sides were still spying on each other, and so the friendly rules of modern life in the spook business both did and did not apply. You pretended that they did, but you remembered and acted as though they did not. Such contacts were rare, and Golovko had been very helpful twice in real-world operations. And he'd never requested a return favor, perhaps because the operations had been of direct or indirect benefit to his own country. But Sergey wasn't one to forget a debt and-

   "I know what you're thinking, Ed, but I've lost people because of this guy, and I want his ass, and Sergey can help us identify the fuck."

   "What if he's still inside?" Foley temporized.

   "Do you believe that?" Clark snorted.

   "Well, no, I think we're past that."

   "So do I, Ed. So, if he's a friend, let's ask him a friendly question. Maybe we'll get a friendly answer. The quid pro quo on this could be to let Russian special-operations people train a few weeks with us. That's a price I'm willing to pay.

   It was ultimately a futile exercise to argue with John, who'd been the training officer to him and his wife, Mary Pat, now Deputy Director (Operations). "Okay, John, it's approved. Who handles the contact?"

   "I have his number," Clark assured the DCI.

   "Then call it, John. Approved," the DCI concluded, not without reluctance. "Anything else?"

   "No, sir, and thank you. How are Mary Pat and the kids?"

   "They're fine. How's your grandson?"

   "Not too bad at all. Patsy is doing fine, and Sandy's taken over the job with JC."

   "JC?"

   "John Conor Chavez," Clark clarified.

   That was a complex name, Foley thought, without saying so. "Well, okay. Go ahead, John. See ya."

   "Thanks, Ed. Bye." Clark switched buttons on his phone. "Bill, we got approval."

   "Excellent," Tawney replied. "When will you call?"

   "How's right now grab you?"

   "Set things up properly," Tawney warned.

   "Fear not." Clark killed that line and punched another button. That one activated a cassette-tape recorder before lie punched yet another and dialed Moscow.

   "Six-Six-Zero," a female voice answered in Russian.

   "I need to speak personally with Sergey Nikolayevich. Please tell him that this is Ivan Timofeyevich calling," Clark said in his most literate Russian.

   "Da, " the secretary replied, wondering how this person had gotten the Chairman's direct line.

   "Clark!" a man's voice boomed onto the line. "You are well there in England?" And already it started. The Chairman of the reconfigured Russian foreign-intelligence service wanted him to know that he knew where he was and what he was doing, and it wouldn't do to ask how he'd found out.

   "I find the climate agreeable, Chairman Golovko."

   "This new unit you head has been rather busy. The attack on your wife and daughter-they are well?"

   "It was rather unpleasant, but yes, thank you, they are quite well." The conversation was in Russian, a language Clark spoke like a native of Leningrad-St. Petersburg, John corrected himself. That was another old habit that died hard. "And I am now a grandfather."

   "Indeed, Vanya? Congratulations! That is splendid news. I was not pleased to learn of the attack on you," Golovko went on sincerely. Russians have always been very sentimental people, especially where small children are concerned.

   "Neither was I," Clark said next. "But it worked out, as we say. I captured one of the bastards myself."

   "That I did not know, Vanya," the Chairman went on – lying or not, John couldn't tell. "So, what is the purpose of your call?"

   "I need your assistance with a name."

   "What name is that?"

   "It is a cover identity: Serov, losef Andreyevich. The officer in question-former officer, I should think-works with progressive elements in the West. We have reason to believe he has instigated operations in which people were killed, including the attack on my people here in Hereford."

   "We had nothing at all to do with that, Vanya," Golovko said at once, in a very serious voice.

   "I lave no reason to think that you did, Sergey, but a man with this name, and identified as a Russian national, handed over money and drugs to the Irish terrorists. He was known to the Irishmen from years of experience, including in the Bekaa Valley. So, I think he was KGB at one time. I also have a physical description," Clark said, and gave it.

   "'Serov,' you said. That's an odd-"

   "Da. I know that."

   "This is important to you?"

   "Sergey, in addition to killing two of my people, this operation threatened my wife and daughter directly. Yes, my friend, this is very important to me."

   In Moscow, Golovko wondered about that. He knew Clark, having met him eighteen months before. A field officer of unusual talent and amazing luck, John Clark had been a dangerous enemy, a quintessential professional intelligence officer, along with his younger colleague, Domingo Estebanovich Chavez, if he remembered right. And Golovko knew that his daughter was married to this Chavez boy-he'd just found that out, in fact. Someone had given that information to Kirilenko in London, though he couldn't remember who.

   But if it were a Russian, a former chekist no less, who was stirring up the terrorist pot, well, that was not good news for his country. Should he cooperate? the Chairman asked himself. What was the upside and what might be the downside? If he agreed now, he'd have to follow through on it, else CIA and other Western services might not cooperate with him. Was it in his country's interest? Was it in his institution's interest?

   "I will see what I can do, Vanya, but I can make no promises," Clark heard. Okay, that meant he was thinking about it at least.

   "I would deem it a personal favor, Sergey Nikolay'ch.'"

   "I understand. Allow me to see what information I can find."

   "Very well. Good day, my friend."

   "Dosvidaniya. "

   Clark punched out the tape and put it in his desk drawer. "Okay, pal, let's see if you can deliver."

   The computer system in the Russian intelligence service was not as advanced as its Western counterparts, but the technical differences were mainly lost on human users. whose brains moved at slower speed than even the most backward computer. Golovko had learned to make use of it because he didn't always like to have people doing things for him, and in a minute he had a screenful of data tracked down by the cover name. POPOV, DMITRIY ARKADEYEVICH, the screen read, giving service number, date of birth, and time of employment. He'd retired as a colonel near the end of the first big RIF that had cut the former KGB by nearly a third. Good evaluations by his superiors, Golovko saw, but he'd specialized in a field in which the agency no longer had great interest. Virtually everyone in that sub-department had been terminated, pensioned off in a land where pensions could feed one for perhaps as much as five days out of a month. Well, there wasn't much he could do about that, Golovko told himself. It was hard enough to get enough funding out of the Duma to keep his downsized agency operating, despite the fact that the downsized nation needed it more than ever before . . . and this Clark had performed two services that had benefited his nation, Golovko reminded himself-in addition, of course, to previous actions that had caused the Soviet Union no small harm . . . but again, those acts had helped elevate himself to the chairmanship of his agency.

   Yes, he had to help. It would be a good bargaining chip to acquire for later requests to be made of the Americans. Moreover, Clark had dealt honorably with him, Sergey reminded himself, and it was distantly troubling to him that a former KGB officer had helped attack the man's family-attacks on non-combatants were forbidden in the intelligence business. Oh, occasionally the wife of a CIA officer might have been slightly roughed up in the old days of the East-West Cold War, but serious harm? Never. In addition to being nekulturny, it would only have started vendettas that would only have interfered with the conduct of real business, the gathering of information. From the 1950s on, the business of intelligence had become a civilized, predictable one. Predictability was always the one thing the Russians had wanted from the West, and that had to go both ways. Clark was predictable.

   With that decision made, Golovko printed up the information on his screen.

   "So?" Clark asked Bill Tawney.

   "The Swiss were a little slow. It turns out that the account number Grady gave us was real enough-"

   "Was?" John said, thinking that he could hear the bad news "but" coming.

   "Well, actually it's still an active account. It began with about six million U.S.dollars deposited, then several hundred thousand withdrawn-and then, the very day of the attack at the hospital, all but a hundred thousand was withdrawn and redeposited elsewhere, another account in yet another bank."

   "Where?"

   "They say they cannot tell us."

   "Oh, well, you tell their fucking Justice Minister that the next time he needs our help, we'll fuckin' let the terrorists kill off their citizens!" Clark snarled.

   "They do have laws, John," Tawney pointed out. "What if this chap had an attorney do the transfer? The attorney-client privilege applies, and no country can break that barrier. The Swiss do have laws that govern funds thought to have been generated by criminal means, but we have no proof of that, do we? I suppose we could gin something up to get around the law, but that will take time, old man."

   "Shit," Clark observed. Then he thought for a second. "The Russian?"

   Tawney nodded sagely. "Yes, that makes sense, doesn't it? He set them up a numbered account, and when they were taken out, he still had the necessary numbers, didn't he?"

   "Fuck, so he sets them up and rips them off."

   "Quite," Tawney observed. "Grady said six million dollars in the hospital, and the Swiss confirm that number. He needs a few hundred thousand to purchase the trucks and other vehicles they used-we have records on that from the police investigation-and left the rest in place, and then this Russian chap decided they have no further use of the funds. Well, why not?" the intelligence officer asked. "Russians are notoriously greedy people, you know."

   "The Russian giveth, and the Russian taketh away. He gave them the intel on us, too."

   "I would not wager against that, John," Tawney agreed.

   "Okay, let's back up some," John proposed, putting his temper back in its box. "This Russian appears, gives them intelligence information on us, funds the operation from somewhere-sure as hell not Russia, because, A, they have no reason to undertake such an operation and, B, they don't have that much money to toss around. First question: where did the money-"

   "And the drugs, John. Don't forget that."

   "Okay, and the drugs-come from?"

   "Easier to track the drugs, perhaps. The Garda say that the cocaine was medical quality, which means that it came from a drug company. Cocaine is closely controlled in every nation in the world. Ten pounds is a large quantity, enough to fill a fairly large suitcase-cocaine is about as dense as tobacco. So the bulk of the shipment would be the equivalent of ten pounds of cigarettes. Say the size of a large suitcase. That's a bloody large quantity of drugs, John, and it would leave a gap in someone's controlled and guarded warehouse, wherever it might be."

   "You're thinking it all originated in America?" Clark asked.

   "For a starting point, yes. The world's largest pharmaceutical houses are there and here in Britain. I can get our chaps started checking out Distillers, Limited, and the others for missing cocaine. I expect your American DEA can attempt to do the same."

   "I'll call the FBI about that," Clark said at once. "So, Bill, what do we know?"

   "We will assume that Grady and O'Neil were telling us the truth about this Serov chap. We have a former-presumably former-KGB officer who instigated the Hereford attack. Essentially he hired them to do it, like mercenaries, with a payment of cash and drugs. When the attack failed, he simply confiscated the money for his own ends, and on that I still presume that he kept it for himself. The Russian will not have such private means-well, I suppose it could be the Russian Mafia, all those former KGB chaps who are now discovering free enterprise, but I see no reason why they should target us. We here at Rainbow are not a threat to them in any way, are we?"

   "No," Clark agreed.

   "So, we have a large quantity of drugs and six million American dollars, delivered by a Russian. I am assuming for the moment that the operation originated in America, because of the drugs and the quantity of the money."

   "Why?"

   "I cannot justify that, John. Perhaps it's my nose telling me that."

   "How did he get to Ireland?" John asked, agreeing to trust Tawney's nose.

   "We don't know that. He must have flown into Dublin-yes, I know, with such a large quantity of drugs, that is not a prudent thing to do. We need to ask our friends about that."

   "Tell the cops that's important. We can get a flight number and point of origin from that."

   "Quite." Tawney made a note.

   "What else are we missing?"

   "I'm going to have my chaps at `Six' check for the names of KGB officers who are known to have worked with terrorist groups. We have a rough physical description which may be of some use for the purposes of elimination. But I think our best hope is the ten pounds of drugs."

   Clark nodded. "Okay, I'll call the Bureau on that one."

   "Ten pounds, eh?"

   "That's right, Dan, and doctor-quality pure. That's a real shitload of coke, man, and there ought to be a blank spot in somebody's warehouse."

   "I'll call DEA and have them take a quick look," the FBI Director promised. "Anything shaking on your end?"

   "We're giving the tree a kick, Dan," John told him. "For the moment we're proceeding on the assumption that the operation initiated in America." He explained on to tell Murray why this was so.

   "This Russian guy, Serov, you said, former KGB, formerly a go-between for terrorists. There weren't all that many of those, and we have some information on the specialty."

   "Bill's having `Six' look at it, too, and I've already kicked it around with Ed Foley. I talked to Sergey Golovko about it as well."

   "You really think he'll help?" Director Murray asked.

   "The worst thing he can say is no, Dan, and that's where we are already," Rainbow Six pointed out.

   "True," Dan conceded. "Anything else we can do on this end?"

   "If I come up with anything I'll let you know, pal."

   "Okay, John. Been watching the Olympics?"

   "Yeah, I actually have a team there."

   "Oh?"

   "Yeah, Ding Chavez and some men. The Aussies wanted us down to observe their security operations. He says they're pretty good."

   "Free trip to the Olympics, not a bad gig," the FBI director observed.

   "I guess so, Dan. Anyway, let us know if you turn anything, will ya?"

   "You bet, John. See you later, pal."

   "Yeah. Bye, Dan." Clark replaced the secure phone and leaned back in his chair, wondering what he might be missing. He was checking everything he had thought of, every loose end, hoping that somewhere someone might come up with another seemingly innocent factoid that might lead to another. He'd never quite appreciated how hard it was to be a cop investigating a major crime. The color of the damned car the bad guys drove was or could be important, and you had to remember to ask that question. too. But it was something for which he was not trained, and he had to trust the cops to do their jobs.

   They were doing that. In London, the police sat Timothy O'Neil down in the usual interrogation room. Tea was offered and accepted.

   It wasn't easy for O'Neil. He wanted to say nothing at all, but with the shock of the information given him by the police that could only have originated with Sean Grady, his faith and his resolve had been shaken, and as a result he had said a few things, and that was a process that once begun could not be taken back.

   "This Russian chap, Serov, you told us his name was," the detective inspector began. "He flew into Ireland?"

   "It's a long swim, mate," O'Neil replied as a joke.

   "Yes, and a difficult drive," the police inspector agreed. "How did he fly in?"

   The answer to that was silence. That was disappointing, but not unexpected.

   "I can tell you something you don't know, Tim," the inspector offered, to jump-start the conversation.

   "What might that be?"

   "This Serov bloke set you up a numbered Swiss account for all the money he brought in. Well, we just learned from the Swiss that he cleaned it out."

   "What?"

   "The day of your operation. someone called the bank and transferred nearly all the money out. So, your Russian friend gave with one hand, and took away with the other. Here"-the inspector handed a sheet of paper across-"this is the account number, and this is the activation number to do transfers. Six million dollars, less what you chaps spent to buy the trucks and such. He transferred it out, to his own personal account, I'll wager. You chaps picked the wrong friend, Tim."

   "That bloody fucking thief?" O'Neil was outraged.

   "Yes, Tim, I know. You've never been one of those. But this Serov chappie is, and that's a fact, my boy."

   O'Neil swore something at odds with his Catholicism. He recognized the account number, knew that Sean had written it down, and was reasonably certain that this cop wasn't lying to him about what had happened with it.

   "He flew into Shannon on a private business jet. I do not know where from."

   "Really?"

   "Probably because of the drugs he brought in with him. They don't search plutocrats, do they? Bloody nobility, they act like."

   "What kind of aircraft, do you know?"

   O'Neil shook his head. "It had two engines and the tail was shaped like a T, but no, I do not know the name of the bloody thing."

   "And how did he get to the meeting?"

  "We had a car meet him."

   "Who drove the car?" the inspector asked next.

   "I will not give you names. I've told you that."

   "Forgive me, Tim, but I must ask. You know that," the cop apologized. He'd worked hard winning this terrorist's confidence. "Sean trusted this Serov chap. That was evidently a mistake. The funds were transferred out two hours after your operation began. We rather suspect he was somewhere close, to watch, and when he saw how things were going, he simply robbed you. Russians are greedy buggers," the cop sympathized. His eyes didn't show his pleasure at the new information developed. The room was bugged, of course, and already the Police of the Metropolis were on the phone to Ireland.

   The Irish national police force, called the Garda, had almost always cooperated with their British counterparts, and this time was no exception. The senior local Gardai drove at once to Shannon to check for flight records-as far as he was concerned, all he wanted to know was how ten pounds of illegal drugs had entered his country. That tactical mistake by the IRA had only enraged the local cops, some of whom did have their tribal sympathies with the revolutionary movement to the north. But those sympathies stopped well short of drug-trafficking, which they, like most cops in the world, regarded as the dirtiest of crimes.

   The flight-operations office at Shannon had paper records of every flight that arrived or departed from the complex, and with the date, the assistant operations manager found the right sheet in under three minutes. Yes, a Gulfstream business jet had arrived early in the morning, refueled, and departed soon after. The documents showed the tail number and the names of the flight crew. More to the point, it showed that the aircraft was registered in the United States to a large charter company. From this office, the Irish police officer went to immigration/customs control, where he found that one Joseph Serov had indeed cleared customs on the morning indicated. The Gardai took a photocopy of all relevant documents back to his station, where they were faxed immediately to Garda headquarters in Dublin, and then on to London, and from there to Washington, D.C.

   "Damn," Dan Murray said at his desk. "It did start here, eh?"

   "Looks that way," said Chuck Baker, the assistant director in charge of the criminal division.

   "Run this one down, Chuck."

   "You bet, Dan. This one's getting pretty deep."

   Thirty minutes later, a pair of FBI agents arrived at the office of the charter company at the Teterboro, New Jersey, airport. There they soon ascertained that the aircraft had been chartered by one Joseph Serov, who'd paid for the charter with a certified check drawn on an account at Citibank that was in his name. No, they didn't have a photo of the client. The flight crew was elsewhere on another flight, but as soon as they came back they would cooperate with the FBI, of course.

   From there the agents, plus some photocopied documents, went to the bank branch where Serov kept his account, and there learned that nobody at the branch had ever met the man. His address, they found, was the same damned post-office box that had dead-ended the search for his credit card records.

   By this time, the FBI had a copy of Serov's passport photo-but those were often valueless for the purposes of identification, intended more, Director Murray thought, to identify the body of a plane-crash victim than to facilitate the search for a living human being.

   But the case file was growing, and for the first time Murray felt optimistic. They were gradually turning up data on this subject, and sooner or later they'd find where he'd slipped up-trained KGB officer or not-because everyone did, and once you appeared on the FBI's collective radarscope, nine thousand skilled investigators started looking, and they wouldn't stop looking until told to stop. Photo, bank account, credit card records . . . the next step would be to find out how the money had gotten into his account. He had to have an employer and/or sponsor, and that person or entity could be squeezed for additional information. It was now just a matter of time, and Murray thought they had all the time they needed to run this mutt down. It wasn't often that they bagged a trained spook. They were the most elusive of game, and for that reason all the more pleasing when you could hang the head of one over the mantelpiece. Terrorism and drug trafficking. This would be a juicy case to give to a United States Attorney.

   "Hello," Popov said.

   "Howdy," the man replied. "You're not from here."

   "Dmitriy Popov," the Russian said, extending his hand.

   "Foster Hunnicutt," the American said, taking it. "What do you do here?"

   Popov smiled. "Here, I do nothing at all, though I am learning to ride a horse. I work directly for Dr. Brightling."

   "Who--oh, the big boss of this place?"

   "Yes, that is correct. And you?"

   "I'm a hunter and guide," the man from Montana replied.

   "Good, and you are not a vegan?"

   Hunnicutt thought that was pretty good. "Not exactly. I like red meat as much as the next man. But I prefer elk to this mystery meat," he went on, looking down with some distaste for what was on his plate.

   "Elk?"

   "Wapiti, biggest damned deer you're ever gonna see. A good one's got maybe four, five hundred pounds of good meat in him. Nice rack, too."

   "Rack?"

   "The antlers, horns on the head. I'm partial to bear meat, too."

   "That'll piss off a lot of the folks here," Dr. Killgore observed, working into his pasta salad.

   "Look, man, hunting is the first form of conservation. If somebody don't take care of the critters, there ain't nothing to hunt. You know, like Teddy Roosevelt and Yellowstone National Park. If you want to understand game, I mean really understand them, you better be a hunter."

   "No arguments here," the epidemiologist said.

   "Maybe I'm not a bunny-hugger. Maybe I kill game, but, goddamnit, I eat what I kill. I don't kill things just to watch 'em die-well," he added, "not game animals anyway. But there's a lot of ignorant-ass people I wouldn't mind popping."

   "That's why we're here, isn't it?" Maclean asked with a smile.

   "You bet. Too many people fucking up the place with electric toothbrushes and cars and ugly-ass houses."

   "I brought Foster into the Project," Mark Waterhouse replied. He'd known Maclean for years.

   "All briefed in?" Killgore asked. "Yes, sir, and it's all fine with me. You know, I always wondered what it was like to be Jim Bridger or Jedediah Smith. Maybe now I can find out, give it a few years."

   "About five," Maclean said, "according to our computer projections."

   "Bridger? Smith?" Popov asked.

   "They were Mountain Men," Hunnicutt told the Russian. "They were the first white men to see the West, and they were legends, explorers, hunters, Indian fighters."

   "Yeah, it's a shame about the Indians."

   "Maybe so," Hunnicutt allowed.

   "When did you get in?" Maclean asked Waterhouse.

   "We drove in today," Mark replied. "The place is about full up now, isn't it?" He didn't like the crowding.

   "That it is," Killgore confirmed. He didn't, either. "But it's still nice outside. You ride, Mr. Hunnicutt?"

   "How else does a man hunt in the West? I don't use no SUV, man."

   "So, you're a hunting guide?"

   "Yeah." Hunnicutt nodded. "I used to be a geologist for the oil companies, but I kissed that off along time ago. I got tired of helping to kill the planet, y'know?"

   Another tree-worshiping druid, Popov thought. It wasn't especially surprising, though this one struck him as verbose and a little bombastic.

   "But then," the hunter went on, "well, I figured out what was important." He explained for a few minutes about the Brown Smudge. "And I took my money and hung it up, like. Always liked hunting and stuff, and so I built me a cabin in the mountains-bought an old cattle ranch-and took to hunting full-time."

   "Oh, you can do that? Hunt full-time, I mean?" Killgore asked.

   "That depends. A fish-and-game cop hassled me about it . . . but, well, he stopped hassling me."

   Popov caught a wink from Waterhouse to Killgore when this primitive said that, and in a second he knew that this Hunnicutt person had killed a police officer and gotten away with it. What sort of people did this "project" recruit?

   "Anyway, we all ride in the morning. Want to join us?"

   "You bet! I never turn that down."

   "I have learned to enjoy it myself," Popov put in.

   "Dmitriy, you must have some Cossack in you." Killgore laughed. "Anyway, Foster, show up here for breakfast a little before seven, and we can go out together."

   "Deal," Hunnicutt confirmed.

   Popov stood. "With your permission, the Olympic equestrian events start in ten minutes."

   "Dmitriy, don't start thinking about jumping fences. You're not that good yet!" MacLclean told him.

   "I can watch it done, can I not?" the Russian said, walking away.

   "So, what's he do here?" Hunnicutt asked, when Popov was gone.

   "Like he said, nothing here, exactly, but he helped get the Project going in one important way."

   "Oh?" the hunter asked. "How's that?"

   "All those terrorist incidents in Europe, remember them?"

   "Yeah, the counterterror groups really worked good to shut those bastards down. Damned nice shooting, some of it. Dmitriy was part of that?"

   "He got the missions started, all of 'em," Maclean said.

   "Damn," Mark Waterhouse observed. "So, he helped Bill get the contract for the Olympics?"

   "Yep, and without that, how the hell would we get the Shiva delivered?"

   "Good man," Waterhouse decided, sipping his California Chardonnay. He'd miss it, he thought, after the Project activated. Well, there were plenty of liquor warehouses around the country. He would not outlive their stocks, he was sure.

CHAPTER 35
MARATHON

   It had become so enjoyable that Popov was waking up early, in order to relish it more. This day he woke up just after first light, and admired the orange-rose glow on the eastern horizon that presaged the actual dawn. He'd never ridden a horse before coming to the Kansas facility, and he'd found that there was something fundamentally pleasing and manly about it, to have a large, powerful animal between one's legs, and to command it with nothing more than a gentle tug on the leather reins, or even the clucking sound one made with one's tongue. It offered a much better perspective than walking, and was just . . . pleasing to him at a sub-intellectual level.

   And so he was in the cafeteria early, picking his breakfast food plus a fresh red apple for Buttermilk just as the kitchen staff set it out. The day promised to be fine and clear again. The wheat farmers were probably as pleased as he was with the weather, the intelligence officer thought. There had been enough rain to water the crops, and plenty of sun to ripen them. The American wheat farmers had to be the most productive in all the world, Popov reflected. With this fine land and their incredible mobile equipment. that was little surprise, he thought, lifting his tray and walking to the accustomed table. He was halfway through his scrambled eggs when Killgore and the new one, Hunnicutt, approached.

   "Morning, Dmitriy," the tall hunter said in greeting.

   Popov had to swallow before replying. "Good morning, Foster."

   "What did you think of the riding last night?"

   "The Englishman who won the gold medal was marvelous, but so was his horse."

   "They pick good ones," Hunnicutt observed, heading off to get his breakfast and returning in a few minutes. "So, you were a spy, eh?"

   "Intelligence officer. Yes, that was my job for the Soviet Union."

   "Working with terrorists, John tells me."

   "That is also true. I had my assignments, and of course I had to carry them out."

   "No problem with me on that, Dmitriy. Ain't none of those folks ever bothered me or anybody I know. Hell, I worked in Libya once for Royal Dutch Shell. Found 'em a nice little field, too, and the Libyans I worked with were okay people." Like Popov, Hunnicutt had piled up eggs and bacon. He needed a lot of food to support his frame, Dmitriy imagined. "So what do you think of Kansas?"

   "Like Russia in many ways, the broad horizons, and vast farms though yours are far more efficient. So few people growing so much grain."

   "Yeah, we're counting on that to keep us in bread," Hunnicutt agreed, stuffing his face. "We have enough land here to grow plenty, and all the equipment we need. I may be into that myself."

   "Oh?"

   "Yeah, well, everybody's going to be assigned Project work to do. Makes sense, we all gotta pull together in the beginning anyway, but I'm really looking forward to getting me some buffalo. I even bought myself a real buffalo gun.

   "What do you mean?"

   "There's a company in Montana, Shiloh Arms, that makes replicas of the real buffalo rifles. Bought me one a month ago Sharps .40-90-and it shoots like a son of a bitch," the hunter reported.

   "Some of the people here will not approve," Popov said, thinking of the vegans,clearly the most extreme of the druidic elements.

   "Yeah, well, those people, if they think they can live in harmony with nature without guns, they better read up on Lewis and Clark. A grizzly bear don't know about this friend-of-nature stuff. He just knows what he can kill and eat, and what he can't. Sometimes you just gotta remind him what he can't. Same thing with wolves."

   "Oh, come on, Foster," Killgore said, sitting to join his friends. "There has never been a confirmed case of wolves killing people in America."

   Hunnicutt thought that was especially dumb. "Oh" Well, it's kinda hard to bitch about something if a wolf shits you out his ass. Dead men tell no tales, Doc. What about Russia, Dmitriy? What about wolves there?"

   "The farmers hate them, have always hated them, but the state hunters pursue them with helicopters and machine guns. That is not sporting, as you say, is it?"

   "Not hardly," Hunnicutt agreed. "You treat game with respect. It's their land, not yours, and you have to play by the rules. That's how you learn about them, how they live. how they think. That's why we have the Boone and Crockett rules for big game hunting. That's why I go in on horseback, and I pack 'em out on horseback. You have to play fair with game. But not with people, of course," he added with a wink.

   "Our vegan friends don't understand about hunting,' Killgore told them sadly. "I suppose they think they can eat grass and just take pictures of the life-forms."

   "That's bullshit," Hunnicutt told them. "Death is part of the process of life, and we're the top predator, and the critters out there know it. Besides, ain't nothing tastes better than elk over an open fire, guys. That's one taste I'll never lose, and be damned if I'll ever give it up. If those extremists want to eat rabbit food, fine, but anybody tells me I can't eat meat, well, there used to be a fish and-game cop who tried to tell me when I could hunt and when I couldn't." Hunnicutt smiled cruelly. "Well, he don't bother anybody no more. Goddamnit, I know the way the world's supposed to work."

   You killed a policeman over this business? Popov couldn't ask. Nekulturny barbarian. He could just as easily have bought his meat in a supermarket. A druid with a gun, surely that was an unusually dangerous sort. He finished his breakfast and walked outside. Soon the others followed, and Hunnicutt pulled a cigar from the saddlebags he was carrying and lit it as they walked to Killgore's Hummer.

   "You have to smoke in the car?" the doctor complained, as soon as he saw the thing.

   "I'll hold it out the fuckin' window, John. Christ, you a secondhand-smoke Nazi, too?" the hunter demanded. Then he bent to the logic of the moment and lowered the window, holding the cigar outside for the ride to the horse barn. It didn't take long. Popov saddled the affable Buttermilk, fed her the apple from the cafeteria food line and took her outside, mounted the mare and looked around the green-amber sea that surrounded the facility. Hunnicutt came out on a horse Dmitriy had never seen, a blanket Appaloosa stallion that he took to be the hunter's own. On a closer look-

   "Is that a pistol?" Popov asked.

   "It's an M-1873 Colt's Single-Action Army Revolver," Foster replied, lifting it from the equally authentic Three persons holster. "The gun that won the West. Dmitriy. I never go riding without a friend," he said with a self-satisfied smile.

   "Forty-five?" the Russian asked. He'd seen them in movies, but never in real life. "No, it's a .44-40. Caliber forty-four, with forty grains of black powder. Back a hundred years ago, you used the same cartridge in your handgun and your rifle. Cheaper that way," he explained. "And the bullet'll kill just about anything you want. Maybe not a buffalo," he allowed, "but damned sure a deer-"

   "Or a man?"

   "You bet. This is just about the deadliest cartridge ever made, Dmitriy." Hunnicutt replaced the revolver in the leather holster. "Now, this holster isn't authentic, really. It's called a Three persons, named for Billy Three persons. I think. He was a U.S. Marshal back in the old days-he was a Native American, too, and quite a lawman, so the story goes. Anyway, he invented the holster late in the nineteenth century. Easier to quick-draw out of this one, see?" Foster demonstrated. It impressed Popov to see it in real life after so many movies. The American hunter even wore a wide-brim Western hat. Popov found himself liking the man despite his bombast.

   "Come on, Jeremiah," Hunnicutt said, as the other two entered the corral, and with that he led them off.

   "Your horse?" Popov asked."Oh, yeah, bought him off a Nez Perce Indian pal. Eight years old, just about right for me." Foster smiled as they walked out the gate, a man fully in his element, Popov thought.

   The rides had become somewhat repetitive. Even here there was only so much land to walk and examine, but the simple pleasure of it hadn't changed. The four men went north this morning, slowly through the prairie-dog town, then close to the interstate highway with its heavy truck traffic.

   "Where is the nearest town?" Popov asked.

   "That way"-Killgore pointed-"about five miles. Not much of a town."

   "Does it have an airport?"

   "Little one for private planes only," the doctor replied. "You go east about twenty miles, there's another town with a regional airport for puddle jumpers, so you can get to Kansas City, from there you can fly anywhere."

   "But we'll be using our own runways for the Gs, right?"

   "Yep," Killgore confirmed. "The new ones can hop all the way to Johannesburg from right here."

   "No shit?" Hunnicutt asked. "You mean, like, we could go hunting in Africa if we want?"

   "Yeah, Foster, but packing back the elephant on a horse might be a little tough." The epidemiologist laughed.

   "Well, maybe just the ivory," the hunter replied, doing the same. "I was thinking lion and leopard, John."

   "Africans like to eat the lion's gonads. You see, the lion is the most virile of all the animals," Killgore told them.

   "How's that?"

   "Once upon a time, a nature-film crew watched two males servicing a female who was in season. They averaged once every ten minutes for a day and a half between 'em. So, the individual males were going three times an hour for thirty-six hours. Better than I ever did." There was another laugh that the men all shared. "Anyway, some African tribes still believe that when you eat a body part off something you killed, you inherit the attribute of that part. So, they like to eat lion balls."

  "Does it work?" Maclean asked.

   Killgore liked that. "If it did, wouldn't be many male lions left in the world, Kirk."

   "You got that one right, John!" And there was more general laughter that dawn.Popov wasn't as amused by this discussion as his companions. He looked off at the highway, and saw a Greyhound bus pass by at about seventy miles per hour but then it slowed and stopped at an odd little square building. "What's that?" he asked.

   "Bus stop for the intercity buses," Mark Waterhouse replied. "They have them out here in the boonies. You sit there and wait, then you wave for the bus to stop, like the old flag stops for trains."

   "Ah." Dmitriy filed that one away as he turned his horse to the east. The hawk, he saw, the one that lived around here, was up and flying again, looking down for one of those tubular rodents to eat for its own breakfast. He watched, but evidently the hawk didn't see one. They rode for another hour, then headed back. Popov ended up next to Hunnicutt.

   "You been riding how long?"

   "Hardly more than a week," Dmitriy Arkadeyevich answered.

   "You're doing okay for a tenderfoot," Foster told him in a friendly voice.

   "I want to do it more, so that I can ride better at a faster pace."

   "Well, how about tonight, just 'fore sundown, say?"

   "Thank you, Foster, yes, I would like that. Just after dinner, shall we say?"

   "Sure. Meet me around six-thirty at the corral."

   "Thank you. I will do that," Popov promised. A night ride, under the stars, yes, that should be very pleasant.

   "I got an idea," Chatham said when he got to work in the Javits Building.

   "What's that?"

   "This Russian guy, Serov. We got a passport photo, right?"

   "Yeah," Sullivan agreed.

   "Let's try the flyers again. His bank, it's probably within walking distance of his apartment, right?"

   "You'd think so, wouldn't you? I like it," Special Agent Tom Sullivan said with some enthusiasm. "Let's see how fast we can get that done."

   "Hey, Chuck," the voice said over the phone.

   "Good morning-afternoon for you, I suppose, John."

   "Yeah, just finished lunch," Clark said. Any luck with this Serov investigation?"

   "Nothing yet," the assistant director for the criminal division answered. "These things don't happen overnight, but they do happen. I have the New York field division looking for this mutt. If he's in town, we'll find him," Baker promised. "It might take a while, but we will."

   "Sooner is better than later," Rainbow Six pointed out.

   "I know. It always is, but stuff like this doesn't happen overnight." Baker knew that he was being kicked in the ass, lest he allow this hunt to become a low-priority item. That would not happen, but this Clark guy was CIA, and he didn't know what it was like to be a cop. "We'll find the guy for you, John. If he's over here, that is. You have the British cops looking, too?"

   "Oh, yeah. Thing is, we don't know how many identities he might have."

   "In his place, how many would you have?"

   "Three or four, probably, and they'd be similar so they're easy for me to remember. This guy's a trained spook. So, he probably has a number of `legends' that he can change into about as easy as he changes shirts."

   "I know, John. I've worked Foreign Counterintelligence before. They are elusive game, but we know how to hunt 'em. Are you sweating any more stuff out of your terrorists?"

   "They don't talk all that much," the voice replied. "The cops here can't interrogate very effectively."

   So, are we supposed to roast them over a slow fire? Baker didn't ask. The FBI operated under the rules established by the U.S. Constitution. He figured that CIA most often did not, and like most FBI types he found that somewhat distasteful. He'd never met Clark, and knew him only by reputation. Director Murray respected him, but had his reservations. Clark had once tortured subjects, Murray had hinted once, and that, for the FBI, was beyond the pale, however effective it might be. The Constitution said "no" on that issue, and that was that, even for kidnappers, even though that was one class of criminal that deserved it in the eyes of every special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

   "Trust the Brit cops. They're damned good, John, and they have a lot of experience with IRA types. They know how to talk to them."

   "You say so, Chuck," the voice responded somewhat dubiously. "Okay, anything else we get comes right to your desk."

   "Good. Talk to you later if we get anything here, John."

   "Right, see ya."

   Baker wondered if he should visit the bathroom to wash his hands after that conversation. He'd been briefed into Rainbow and its recent activities, and while he admired the military way of doing things-like many FBI agents, he'd been a Marine officer, recruited right out of the Quantico Marine Base into the Bureau-it differed in several important areas from the Bureau's way of doing things.. . like not violating the law. This John Clark was a hardcase son of a bitch, a former Agency guy who'd done some spooky things, Dan Murray had told him, with a mixture of admiration and disapproval. But, what the hell, they were on the same side, sort of, and this Russian subject had probably initiated an operation that had gone after Clark's own family. That added a personal element to the case, and Baker had to respect that.

   Chavez turned in after another long day of watching athletes run and sweat. It had been an interesting couple of weeks, and though he sorely missed Patsy and JC, whom he'd hardly had a chance to meet, he couldn't deny that he was enjoying himself. But soon it would be over. Sports reporters were tallying up the medals America had done quite well, and the Aussies had done spectacularly well, especially in swimming events-in anticipation of announcing which nation had "won" the games. Three more days and they'd run the Marathon, traditionally the last Olympic event, followed soon thereafter by the closing ceremonies and the dousing of the flame. Already the runners were walking and/or driving along the course, to learn the hills and turns. They didn't want to get lost, though that would hardly be possible, as the route would be lined with screaming fans every step of the way. And they were working out, running in the training/practice area of the Olympic Village, not so much so as to tire themselves out, but just enough to keep their muscles and lungs ready for the murderous exertion of this longest of footraces. Chavez considered himself to be in shape, but he'd never run a twenty-plus-mile course. Soldiers had to know how to run, but not that far, and running that distance on paved roads had to be pure murder on the feet and ankles, despite the cushioned soles of modern running shoes. Yeah, those bastards had to be in real shape, Ding thought, lying down in his bed.

   From the opening-day ceremonies, when the Olympic flame had been lit, through today, the games had been wonderfully managed and run, as if the entire national soul and strength of Australia had been devoted to one task-as America had once decided to go to the moon. Everything was superbly organized, and that was further proof that his presence here was a total waste of time. Security hadn't had even a hint of a problem. The Aussie cops were friendly, competent, and numerous, and the Australian SAS backing them up were nearly as good as his own troopers, well supported and advised by the Global Security people who'd gotten them the same tactical radios that Rainbow used. That company looked like a good vendor to use, and he thought he might recommend that John talk to them along those lines. It never hurt to have an outside opinion.

   About the only bad news was the weather, which had been sultry-hot for the entire Olympiad. That had kept the medics busy at their heatstroke kiosks. Nobody had died yet, but about a hundred people had been hospitalized, and thirty times that many treated and released by the firemen paramedics and Australian army medical orderlies. That didn't count the people who just sat down on the curb and tried to cool off without getting any proper medical assistance. He didn't mind the heat all that much-Chavez had never been afraid of sweat-but he also paced himself, and, like everyone else in the Olympic stadium, was grateful for that fogging system. The TV guys had even done a story about it, which was good news for the American company that had designed and installed it. They were even talking about a version for golf courses in Texas and elsewhere, where it got about this hot. Traveling from ninety-five degrees to an apparent temperature of eighty or so was a pleasant sensation indeed, not unlike a shower, and the concourses were often crowded with people in the afternoons, escaping from the blazing sunshine.

   Chavez's last thought of the night was that he would not have minded having the sunblock concession. There were signs everywhere telling people to be mindful of the hole in the ozone layer, and he knew that sun-caused skin cancer wasn't a pleasant death. So, Chavez and his men liberally slathered the stuff on every morning just like everyone else. Well, a few more days and they'd go back to Britain, where their tans would be noted by the pasty pale Englishmen, and the weather would be a good twenty degrees cooler on what the Brits called a "hot" day. Anything over seventy-five over there and people started dropping dead in the street-which made Ding wonder about the old song that claimed only "mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun." They must have been a lot tougher back then, Chavez thought, falling off to sleep.

   Popov saddled Buttermilk at about six that evening. The sun wasn't setting yet, but that was less than an hour away, and his horse, having rested and eaten all day, was not the least bit averse to his attention-besides, he'd given Buttermilk another apple, and the mare seemed to relish them as a man might enjoy his first glass of beer after a long working day.

   Jeremiah, Hunnicutt's horse, was smaller than Buttermilk, but appeared more powerful. An odd-looking animal, his light gray coat was covered from hindquarters to neck with an almost perfectly square matlike mark of deep charcoal, hence the name "blanket Appaloosa,"the Russian imagined. Foster Hunnicutt showed up, hoisting his large Western-style saddle on his shoulder, and tossing it atop the blanket, then reaching under to cinch the straps in. His last act, Popov saw, was to strap on his Colt pistol. Then he slid his left foot into the left-side stirrup and climbed aboard. Jeremiah, the stallion, must have liked to be ridden. It was as though the animal transformed himself with this new weight on his back. The head came up proudly, and the ears swiveled around, waiting for the command of its rider. That was a clucking sound, and the stallion moved out into the corral alongside Popov and Buttermilk.

   "He is a fine horse, Foster."

   "Best I've ever had," the hunter agreed. "The App's a great all around critter. They come from the Nez Perce Indian tribe. The Nez Perce captured the original Western horses-they were the ones who escaped from the Spanish conquistadors, and bred out in the wild. Well, the Nez Perce learned how to breed them back to the Arabian roots of the Spanish breed, and came out with these." Hunnicutt reached down to pat his horse's neck with rough affection, which the animal seemed to like. "The Appaloosa's the best horse there is, if you ask me. Smart, steady, healthy breed, not dizzy like the Arabians are, and damned pretty, I think. They aren't the best at any one thing, but they're damned good in all things. Great all around mount. Jeremiah here's a great hunting and tracking horse. We've spent a lot of time in the high country after elk. He even found my gold for me."

   "Excuse me? Gold?"

   Hunnicutt laughed. "My spread up in Montana. It used to be part of a cattle ranch, but the mountains are too steep for the cows. Anyway, there's a stream coming down from the mountain. I was letting Jeremiah drink one afternoon, and I saw something shiny, okay?" Hunnicutt stretched. "It was gold, a big hunk of gold and quartz-that's the best geological formation for gold, Dmitriy. Anyway, I figure I got a fair-sized deposit on my land. How big? There's no tellin', and it doesn't matter much anyway."

   "Not matter?" Popov turned in the saddle to look at his companion. "Foster, for the last ten thousand years men have killed one another over gold."

   "Not anymore, Dmitriy. That's going to end-forever, probably."

   "But how? Why?" Popov demanded.

   "Don't you know about the Project?"

   "A little, but not enough to understand what you just said."

   What the hell, the hunter thought. "Dmitriy, human life on the planet is going to come to a screeching halt, boy."

   "But "

   "They didn't tell you?"

   "No, Foster, not that part. Can you tell me?"

   What the hell, Hunnicutt thought again. The Olympics were almost over. Why not? This Russkie understood about Nature, knew about riding, and he damned sure worked for John Brightling in a very sensitive capacity.

   "It's called Shiva," he began, and went on for several minutes.

   For Popov it was a time to put his professional face back on. His emotions were neutralized while he listened. He even managed a smile which masked his inner horror.

   "But how do you distribute it?"

   "Well, you see, John has a company that also works for him. Global Security-the boss man's a guy named Henriksen."

   "Ah, yes, I know him. He was in your FBI."

   "Oh? I knew he was a cop, but not a fed. Anyway, they got the consulting contract withthe Aussies for the Olympics, and one of Bill's people will be spreading the Shiva. Something to do with the air-conditioning system at the stadium, they tell me. They're going to spread it on the last day, see, and the closing ceremonies. The next day everyone flies home, and then, like, thousands of people all take the bug home with them."

   "But what protects us?"

   "You got a shot when you came here, right?"

   "Yes, Killgore said it was a booster for something."

   "Oh, it was, Dmitriy. It's a booster, all right. It's the vaccine that protects you against Shiva. I got it, too. That's the `B' vaccine, pal. There's another one, they tell me, the `A' vaccine, but that one's not the one you want to get." Hunnicutt explained on.

   "How do you know all this?" Popov asked.

   "Well, you see, in case people figure this out, I'm one of the guys who helped set up the perimeter security System here. So, they told me why the Project needs perimeter security. It's pretty serious shit, man. If anyone were to find out about what was done, hell, they might even nuke us, y'know?" Foster pointed out with a grin. "Not many people really understand about saving the planet. I mean, we do this now, or in about twenty years, hell, everything and everybody dies. Not just the people. The animals, too. We can't let that happen, can we?"

   "I see your point. Yes, that does make sense," Dmitriy Arkadeyevich agreed, without choking on his words.

   Hunnicutt nodded with some satisfaction. "I figured you'd get it, man. So, those terrorist things you got started, well, they were very pretty important. Without getting everybody all hot and bothered about international terrorism, Bill Hendriksen might not have got his people in place to do their little job. So," Hunnicutt said as he fished a cigar out of his pocket, "thanks, Dmitriy. You were really an important part for this here Project."

   "Thank you, Foster," Popov responded. Is this possible? he wondered. "How certain are you that this will work?"

   "It oughta work. I asked that question, too. They let me in on some of the planning, 'cuz I'm a scientist-I was a pretty good geologist once, trust me. I know a lot of stuff. The disease is a real mother. The real key to that was the genetic engineering done on the original Ebola. Hell, you remember how scary that was a year and a half ago, right?"Popov nodded. "Oh, yes. I was in Russia then, and it was very frightening indeed." Even more frightening had been the response American president, he reminded himself.

   "Well, they-the real Project scientists-learned a lot from that. The key to this is the `A' vaccine. The original outbreak may kill a few million people, but that's mainly psychological. The vaccine that Horizon's going to market is a live-virus vaccine, like the Sabin polio vaccine. But they've tuned it, like. It doesn't stop Shiva, man. It spreads Shiva. Takes a month to six weeks for the symptoms to show. They proved that in the lab."

   "How?"

   "Well, Kirk was part of that. He kidnapped some folks off the street, and they tested the Shiva and the vaccines on them. Everything worked, even the first-phase delivery system that's set up to use in Sydney."

   "It is a big thing, to change the face of the world." Popov thought aloud, looking north to where the interstate highway was.

   "Gotta be done, man. If we don't-well, you can kiss all this good-bye, Dmitriy. I can't let that happen."

   "It's a terrible thing to do, but I seethe logic of your position. Brightling is a genius, to see this, to find a way, of solving the problem, and then to have the courage to act." Popov hoped his voice wasn't too patronizing, but this man Hunnicutt was a technocrat, not one who understood people.

   "Yep," Hunnicutt said around the cigar, as he lit it with a kitchen match. He blew the match out, then held it until it was cold before letting it fall to the ground, lest it start a prairie fire. "Brilliant scientist, and he gets it, you know? Thank God, he has the resources to make all this happen. Setting all this up must have cost near onto a billion dollars-hell, just this place, not counting the one in Brazil."

   "Brazil?"

   "There's a smaller version of the complex down there, somewhere west of Manaus, I think. I never been there. The rain forest doesn't interest me that much. I'm an open country sort of guy," Hunnicutt explained. "Now, the African veldt, the plains there, that's something else. Well, I guess I'll get to see it, and hunt it."

   "Yes, I would like to see that, to see the wildlife, how it lives and thrives in the sun," Popov agreed, coming to his own decision."Yep. Gonna get me a lion or two there with my H&H .375." Hunnicutt clucked and got Jeremiah to go faster, an easy canter that Popov tried to duplicate. He'd done this pace before, but now he found that he had trouble synchronizing with Buttermilk's rather easy motions. He had to switch his mind back into his body to make that happen, but he managed it, catching up with the hunter.

   "So, you will transform this country to the Old West, eh?" The interstate was about two miles off. The trucks were passing by swiftly, their trailers lit in amber lights. There would be intercity buses, too, similarly lit, he hoped.

   "That's one of the things we're going to do."

   "And you'll carry your pistol everywhere?"

   "Revolver, Dmitriy," Foster corrected. "But, yeah. I'll be like the guys I've read about, living out here in harmony with nature. Maybe find me a woman who thinks like I do, maybe build me a nice cabin in the mountains, like Jeremiah Johnson did-but no Crow Indians to worry me there," he added with a chuckle.

   "Foster?"

   He turned. "Yeah?"

   "Your pistol, may I hold it?" the Russian asked, praying for the correct response.

   He got it. "Sure." He drew it and passed it across, muzzle up for safety.

   Popov felt the weight and the balance. "It is loaded?"

   "Nothing much more useless than a handgun that ain't loaded. Hell, you want to shoot it? Just cock the hammer back and let go, but you want to make sure your horse is reined in tight, okay? Jeremiah here's used to the noise. That mare might not be."

   "I see." Popov took the reins in his left hand to keep Buttermilk in check. Next he extended his right hand and cocked the hammer on the Colt, heard the distinctive triple click of this particular type of revolver, and took aim at a wooden surveyor's stake and pulled the trigger. It broke cleanly at about five pounds.

   Buttermilk jumped slightly with the noise, so close to her sensitive ears, but the horse didn't react all that badly. And the bullet, Popov saw, grazed the two-inch stake, six meters or so away. So, he still knew how to shoot.

   "Nice, isn't it?" Hunnicutt asked. "If you ask me, the SingleAction Army's got the best balance of any handgun ever made."

   "Yes," Popov agreed, "it is very nice." Then he turned. Foster Hunnicutt was seated on his stallion, Jeremiah, not three meters away. That made it easy. The former KGB officer cocked the hammer again, turned and aimed right at the center of his chest, and pulled the trigger before the hunter could even be surprised by the action. His target's eyes widened, either from his unbelieving recognition of the impossible thing that was happening or from the impact of the heavy bullet, but what it was didn't matter. The bullet went straight through his heart. The body of the hunter stayed erect in the saddle for a few seconds, the eyes still wide with shock, then it fell lifelessly backward away from Popov and onto the grassland.

   Dmitriy dismounted and took the three steps to the body to make sure that Hunnicutt was dead. Then he unsaddled Jeremiah, who took the death of his owner phlegmatically, and removed the bridle, too, surprised that the animal didn't bite him for what he'd just done, but a horse wasn't a dog. With that done, he smacked the stallion heavily on the rump, and it trotted off for fifty meters or so, then stopped and started grazing.

   Popov remounted Buttermilk and clucked her to a northerly direction. He looked back,saw the lit windows of the Project building complex, and wondered if he or Hunnicutt would be missed. Probably not, he judged, as the interstate highway grew closer. There was supposed to be that little village to the west, but he decided that his best chance was the bus stop hut, or perhaps thumbing a ride on a car or truck. What he'd do after that, he wasn't sure, but he knew he had to get the hell away from this place, just as fast and as far as he could manage. Popov was not a man who believed in God. His education and his upbringing had not aimed him in that direction, and so for him "god" was only the first part of "goddamned." But he'd learned something important today. He might never know if there was a God, but there were surely devilsand he had worked for them, and the horror of that was like nothing he'd ever known as a young colonel of the KGB.

CHAPTER 36
FLIGHTS OF NECESSITY

   The fear was as bad as the horror. Popov had never experienced a really frightening time as a field-intelligence officer. There had always been tension, especially at the beginning of his career, but he'd quickly grown confident in his fieldcraft, and the skills had become for him a kind of security blanket, whose warm folds had always made his soul comfortable. But not today.

   Now he was in a foreign place. Not merely a foreign land, for he was a man of cities. In any such place he knew how to disappear in minutes, to vanish so completely that scarcely any police force in the world could find him. But this wasn't a city. He dismounted Buttermilk a hundred meters from the bus hut, and again he took the time to remove the saddle and bridle, because a saddled, riderless horse was sure to attract notice, but a horse merely walking about on its own probably would not, not here, where many people kept such animals for their pleasure. Then it was just a matter of easing his way through the barbedwire fence and walking to the bus hut, which, he found. wasempty. There was no schedule on the blank, whitepainted walls. It was the simplest of structures, seemingly made of poured concrete, with a thick roof to stand up against the heavy winter snows, and perhaps survive the tornadoes that he'd heard about but never experienced. The bench was also made of concrete, and he sat on it briefly to work on making his shakes go away. He'd never felt like this in his life. The fear-if these people were willing to kill millionsbillions-of people, surely they would not hesitate as long as a blink to end his solitary life. He had to get away.

   Ten minutes after arriving at the hut, he checked his watch and wondered if there were any buses at this hour. If not, well, there were cars and trucks, and perhaps

   He walked to the shoulder and held up his hand. Cars were passing by at over a hundred thirty kilometers per hour, which left them little time to see him in the darkness, much less brake to stop. But after fifteen minutes, a creamcolored Ford pickup truck eased over to the side of the road.

   "Where you headin', buddy?" the driver asked. He looked to be a farmer, perhaps sixty years of age, his face and neck scoredby lines from too many afternoon suns.

   "The airport in the next town. Can yoga take me there?" Dmitriy said, getting in. The driver wasn't wearing a seat belt, which was probably against the law, but, then, so was coldblooded murder, and for that reason alone he had to get the hell away from this place.

   "Sure, I have to get off at that exit anyway. What's your name?"

   "Joe-Joseph," Popov said.

   "Well, I'm Pete. You're not from around here, are you?"

   "Not originally. England, actually," Dmitriy went on, trying that accent on for size.

   "Oh, yeah? What brings you here?"

   "Business."

   "What kind?" Pete asked.

   "I am a consultant, kind of a go-between."

   "So, how'd you get stuck out here, Joe?" the driver asked.

   What was the matter with this man? Was he a police officer? He asked questions like someone from the Second Chief Directorate. "My, ah, friend, had a family emergency, and he had to drop me off there to wait for a bus."

   "Oh." And that shut him up, Popov saw,blessing his most recent lie. You see, I just shot and killed someone who wanted to kill you and everyone you know . . . It was one of those times when the truth simply didn't work for him or for anyone else. His mind was going at a very rapid speed, faster by a considerable margin than this damned pickup truck, whose driver seemed unwilling to push the pedal much harder, every other vehicle on the road whizzing past. The farmer was an elderly man and evidently a patient one. Had Popov been driving, he'd soon establish how fast this damned truck could go. But for all that, it was only ten minutes to the green exit sign with the silhouette of an airplane tacked onto one side. He tried not to pound his fist on the armrest as the driver slowly took the exit, then a right turn to what looked like a small regional airport. In another minute, Pete took him to the US Air Express door.

   "Thank you, sir," Popov said, as he left.

   "Have a good trip, Joe," the driver said, with a friendly Kansas smile.

   Popov walked rapidly into the diminutive terminal, and then to the desk, only twenty meters inside.

   "I need to get to New York," Popov told the clerk. "First class, if possible."

   "Well, we have a flight leaving in fifteen minutes for Kansas City, and from there you can connect to a US Airways flight to La Guardia, Mr.?. . . "

   "Demetrius," Popov replied, remembering the name on his single remaining credit card. "Joseph Demetrius," he said, taking out his wallet and handing the card over. He had a passport in that name in a safe-deposit box in New York, and the credit card was good, with a high limit and nothing charged on it in the past three months. The desk clerk probably thought he was working quickly, but Popov also needed to visit a men's room and did his best not to show that urgent requirement. It was at that moment he realized he had a loaded revolver in the saddlebags he was carrying, and he had to get rid of that at once.

   "Okay, Mr. Demetrius, here's your ticket for now, Gate 1, and here's the one for the Kansas City flight. It will be leaving from Gate A-34, and it's a first-class aisle seat, 2C. Any questions, sir?"

   "No, no, thank you." Popov took the tickets and tucked them in his pocket. Then he looked for the entrance to the departure concourse, and headed that way, stopped by a waste bin and, after quickly looking around,very carefully took the monster handgun out of the bags, wiped it, and dumped it into the trash. He checked the terminal again. No, no one had noticed. He checked the saddlebags for anything else they might contain, but they were completely empty now. Satisfied, he headed through the security checkpoint, whose magnetometer blessedly didn't beep at his passage. Collecting the leather saddle bags off the conveyor system, he looked for and found a men's room, to which he headed directly, emerging in another minute feeling far better.

   This regional airport, he saw, had but two gates, but it did have a bar, to which Popov went next. He had fifty dollars of cash in his wallet, and five of those paid for a double vodka, which he gulped down before taking the next hundred steps to the gate. Handing the ticket to the next clerk, he was directed out the door. The aircraft had propellers, and he hadn't traveled on one of those for years. But for this flight he would have settled for rubber bands, and Popov clambered aboard the Saab 340B short-haul airliner. Five minutes later, the propellers started turning, and Popov started to relax. Thirty-five minutes to Kansas City, a forty-five-minute layover, and then off to New Yorkon a 737, in first class, where the alcohol was free. Best of all, he sat alone on the left side of the aircraft, with nobody to engage him in conversation. Popov needed to think, very carefully, and though quickly, not too quickly.

   He closed his eyes as the aircraft started its takeoff roll, the noise of the engines blotting out all extraneous noise. Okay, he thought, what have you learned, and what should you do with that knowledge? Two simple questions, perhaps, but he had to organize the answer to the first before he knew how to answer the second. He almost started praying to a God in whose existence he did not believe, but instead he stared out the window at the mainly dark ground while his mind churned away in a darkness of its own.

   Clark awoke with a start. It was three in the morning at Hereford, and he'd had a dream whose substance retreated away from his consciousness like a cloud of smoke, shapeless and impossible to grab. He knew it had been an unpleasant dream, and he could only estimate the degree of unpleasantness by the fact that it had awakened him, a rareoccurrence even when on a dangerous field assignment. He realized that his hands were shaking-and he didn't know why. He dismissed it, rolled back over, and closed his eyes for more sleep. He had a budgeting meeting today, the bane of his existence as commander of Rainbow group, playing goddamned accountant. Maybe that had been the substance of his dream, he thought with his head on the pillow. Trapped forever with accountants in discussions of where the money came from and how it would be spent . . .

   The landing at Kansas City was a smooth one, and the Saab airliner pulled up to the terminal, where, presently, the propellers stopped. A ground-crewman came up and attached a : ape to the propeller tip to keep it from turning while the passengers debarked. Popov checked his watch. They were a few minutes early as he walked out the door into the clean air, then into the terminal. There, three gates away from his flight at A-34-he checked to make sure it was the correct flight-he found a bar again. They even allowed smoking in here, which was unusual for an American airport, and he sniffed in the secondhand fumes, remembering the youthin which he'd smoked Trud cigarettes, and almost asked one of these Americans for a smoke. But he stopped short of it and merely drank his next double vodka in a corner booth, facing the wall, wanting no one to have a reason to remember him here. After thirty minutes, his flight was called. He left ten dollars on the table and walked off, carrying the empty saddlebags, then asked himself why he was bothering. But it would appear unusual for a person to board a flight carrying nothing, and so he retained them, and tucked them into the overhead bin. The best news of this flight was that 2-D was not occupied, and he took that, facing the window to make it harder for the stewardess to see his face. Then the Boeing 737 backed away from the gate and took off into the darkness. Popov declined the drink offered to him. He'd had enough for the moment, and though some alcohol helped him to organize his thoughts, too much of it muddled them. He had enough in his system to relax, and that was all he wanted.

   What exactly had he learned this day? How did it fit in with all the other things he'd learned at the building complex in western Kansas? The answer to the second question was easier than the first: whatever hard datahe'd learned today contradicted nothing about the project's nature, location, or even its decor. It hadn't contradicted the magazines by his bedside, nor the videotapes next to the TV, nor the conversations he'd overheard in the corridors or in the building's cafeteria. Those maniacs were planning to end the world in the name of their pagan beliefs-but how the hell could he persuade anyone that this was so? And exactly what hard data did he have to give to someone elseand to which someone else? It had to be someone who would both believe him and be able to take action. But who? There was the additional problem that he'd murdered Foster Hunnicutt-he'd had no choice in the matter; he'd had to get away from the Project, and that had been his only chance to do so covertly. But now they could accuse him rightfully of murder, which meant that some police force might try to arrest him, and then how could he get the word out to stop those fucking druids from doing what they said they'd do? No policeman in the known world would believe his tale. It was far too grotesque to be absorbed by a normal mind-and surely those people in the Project had a cover story or legend which had been carefully constructed to shunt aside any sort of official inquiry. That was the mostrudimentary security concern, and that Henriksen fellow would have worked on that himself.

   Carol Brightling stood in her office. She'd just printed up a letter to the chief of staff saying that she'd be taking a leave of absence to work on a special scientific project. She'd discussed this matter with Arnie van Damm earlier in the day and gotten no serious objection to her departure. She would not be missed, his body language had told her quite clearly. Well, she thought with a cold look at the computer screen, neither would he, when it came to that.