Covert One 6 - The Moscow Vector (34 page)

“I do.” Voronov wiped at his own eyes. “Our boy was a brave little man that day.”

“Pardon me?” Fiona said carefully. “But which study was this?”

“I will show you.” Voronov rose to his feet and went into the back bedroom.

For a moment, they heard him rummaging around among some papers, and then he returned, holding out a large, handsomely embossed certificate of appreciation. He offered it to Smith.

With Fiona reading over his shoulder, Jon scanned the ornate script. Essentially, the certificate thanked the Voronov family for their “vital participa-tion in the Slavic Genesis study conducted by the European Center for Population Research.” It was dated the year before.

He exchanged a startled glance with Fiona. She nodded slowly in dawning comprehension. So someone had been collecting DNA from these people; and collecting it only months before the Voronov’s seven-year-old son contracted a previously unknown disease—a fatal disease that destroyed systems and organs throughout the body.

For a moment longer, Smith sat still, staring down at the certificate in his hands. His eyes narrowed. Now, at last, he knew what they might be looking for.

Zurich Airport

Nikolai Nimerovsky paused briefly at the door to the Alpenblick Bar, looking for his contact. His gaze roved over the mostly solitary business travelers seated at different tables and stopped when he saw a pale, gray-haired man sitting with a copy of yesterday’s International Herald Tribune conspicuously open before him. He moved closer, noting the man’s black leather briefcase—virtually identical to the one in his own hands—and the small, double-helix lapel pin in his plain blue sport coat.

The Russian drew even nearer, conscious that his pulse was speeding up.

Years of service as a clandestine agent for Ivanov’s Thirteenth Directorate had taught him caution. He stopped in front of the gray-haired man and motioned to the empty chair. “Do you mind?” he asked in American-accented English.

The other man looked up from his newspaper. His eyes were appraising.

“Not at all,” he said slowly. “My flight is almost ready to leave. I’m only in transit.”

Sign, Nimerovsky thought, hearing the slight emphasis on the last word.

He sat down and set his briefcase on the floor next to its counterpart. “So am I. My flight has only a short layover here in Zurich. The world grows ever more connected, does it not?”

Countersign.

The gray-haired man smiled slightly. “So it does, friend.” He folded his newspaper, stood, picked up one of the two briefcases, and then left with a polite, disinterested nod.

Nimerovsky waited a few moments more before retrieving the briefcase the other man had left behind from under the table. He opened it quickly. It contained a sheaf of papers, business magazines, and a small gray plastic box marked “SC-1.” Inside that heavily insulated box, the Russian knew, nestled a tiny glass tube. He closed the briefcase.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” a woman’s voice said politely over the public-address system, speaking first in German, then French, Italian, and English.

“SwissAir announces that its Flight 3000, with nonstop service to New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport, is now ready for passenger boarding.”

The Russian stood up and left the bar, carrying with him the unique HYDRA variant destined for President Samuel Adams Castilla.

Cologne, Germany

It was midmorning. Sheets of freezing rain spattered against the towering twin spires of Cologne’s massive Gothic cathedral, hiding them from the view of people hurrying along the paved streets far below. Inside the cathedral, a few hardy tourists milled around the enormous nave, staring in awe at its many priceless treasures —among them, beautiful stained-glass windows, finely sculpted stone and marble statues, and an ancient wood-carved crucifix, the Cross of Gero, which dated back more than a thousand years. Here and there, lone worshippers either knelt in private prayer or paused briefly to light small candles on their way back out to take up the ordinary burdens of the workaday world. Otherwise, the vast, shadow-filled space was almost deserted, seemingly frozen in an ethereal, eternal silence.

Gray-faced with fear and wearing a gray raincoat, Bernhard Heichler gen-uflected before the high altar. He crossed himself, entered one of the nearby pews, and then laboriously went to his knees. He bowed his head as though deep in meditation.

Footsteps echoed across the stone floor, drawing ever closer. Heichler closed his eyes, feeling his heart pounding wildly in fear. Please, God, he thought desperately, let this cup pass me by. Then he bit his lip, suddenly appalled by the grotesque blasphemy of his own thoughts. Of all men in this sacred place, he had no right to echo the agonized plea made by Christ in the Garden. He was a Judas, a betrayer.

And Bernhard Heichler knew that he had much to betray. He was a senior officer in the Bundesamtes fur Verfassunsschutz, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The BfV was Germany’s principal counterintelligence agency, its equivalent of the British MI5. His security clearances gave him unfettered access to some of his government’s most closely held secrets.

Someone slid into the next pew behind him.

Heichler raised his head.

“Do not turn around, Herr Heichler,” a man’s voice said quietly. “You are prompt. I congratulate you.”

“I had no choice,” Heichler replied stiffly.

“That is true,” the other man agreed. “You became our man the moment you took our money. You will remain our man until the day you die.”

Heichler winced. For six long years he had waited in fear for his benefac-tors to collect the debt he owed them. For six long years he had hoped that horrible day would never come.

But now it had.

“What is it that you want of me?” Heichler muttered.

“A gift,” the other man replied. He sounded amused. “The Shrine of the Magi lies just behind that altar, correct?”

The BfV official nodded uneasily. The Shrine, a golden box encrusted with precious gems, was said to contain relics of the three Magi, the wise men who had come from the east bearing gifts for the Christ child. Brought from Milan in the twelfth century, the reliquary was the cathedral’s greatest treasure, the very reason it had been built.

“You can rest quietly,” the other man told him. “You need not bring us gold or frankincense or myrrh—only that which is already yours to command.

Information, Herr Heichler. We want information.”

A missal thudded onto the pew beside Heichler, startling him.

“Open it.”

Trembling, he obeyed. The prayer book contained a single slip of paper bearing a twelve-digit telephone number.

“You will fax the information we require to that number. And you will do so within the next two hours. Is that clear?”

Heichler nodded. Reluctantly, he took the slip of paper and tucked it away inside his raincoat. “But what is this information you need?”

“The registration and license numbers of all vehicles currently operated by the Berlin Station of the American Central Intelligence Agency.”

Heichler felt the blood drain from his face. “But that is impossible!” he stammered.

“On the contrary,” the man behind him said coldly, “it is perfectly possible—for a high-ranking officer in Section V. For someone like you, in fact, Herr Heichler.” With implacable precision, the man went on. “Section V oversees all foreign intelligence organizations operating on German soil, including those of allied countries like the United States. Liaison officers from these organizations provide your staff with regular updates on the equipment they are using, the names of their field agents, and other aspects of their clandestine work within our borders. Isn’t that so?”

Slowly, the BfV official nodded.

“Then you can obtain the data we need, and you will follow our instructions.”

“The risk is too great!” Heichler whined. He was ashamed to hear the note of panic’ in his voice and desperately fought to regain some measure of control over himself. “Accessing the information you require so quickly will inevitably mean leaving traces that might incriminate me. And if the Americans ever find out what I have done — “

“You must choose which you fear more,” the other man said harshly. “The Americans or us. A sensible man would weigh the odds carefully.”

Heichler squirmed under the awful knowledge that he had no real choice.

I Ic must obey these orders, or pay the terrible price for his earlier crimes and

betrayals. His shoulders slumped in surrender, and he nodded drearily. “Very well. I will do what I can.”

“You have chosen wisely,” the other man commended him sardonically.

“Remember, you have just two hours. And failure will not be tolerated.”

Near Orvieto, Italy

Professor Wulf Renke ran a magnifier slowly over the printout of the results of his most recent DNA sequencer run. Carefully, he studied the intricate patterns the printout showed, hunting for the unique patches of the genetic sequence —rare single-nueleotide polymorphisms — that were needed to continue sculpting this next HYDRA variant. But then his watch beeped insistently, reminding him that it would soon be time to inspect the next batch of E. coli cultures. He had only a few more minutes to complete an analysis that should take at least another hour.

The German weapons scientist frowned, irked by this latest evidence of excessive haste. Constant demands from Moscow for faster production were forcing him to run the lab, his staff, and their equipment at a dizzying, break-neck pace. Each HYDRA variant was a miniature work of art, one ideally requiring ample time to design and craft with loving precision. Instead, Malkovic and Viktor Dudarev expected him to churn out new lethal strands on an assembly-line basis, as though this facility was only an old-fashioned armaments factor)’ mass-producing high-explosive artillery shells.

Renke thought it would have been wiser to wait longer before unleashing his creation on the world. With only a few more months of preparation, none of this rushing about would have been necessary. He could have had all the necessary HYDR\ variants stockpiled and ready for use on command. Unfortunately, his employers were impetuous and angry men. Worse, from his viewpoint, the men in Moscow were still wedded to an outdated belief in the power of massed armor, infantry, and bombers. As a result, their timetable for ZHUKOV revolved entirely around considerations of the weather, Russia’s ability to deploy military forces by rail and road, and how long it might take those Russian troops to capture their objectives once the shooting started.

He sniffed in contempt. Neither Malkovic nor the Russian president had any real appreciation of the subtler and more lasting power conveyed by their control over a weapon like HYDRA. His creations could have been used to terrify prospective opponents, frightening them into toeing the Russian line without the need for any wasteful, large-scale violence. But instead, his employers saw HYDRA as just one more means of killing. Typical Slavs, Renke thought derisively. They understood the application of power only in its most brutal and obvious guise.

Renke shrugged. Error compounding error. And folly feeding on folly. It was an old story in his career—whether in East Germany, the Soviet Union, or in Iraq. One could never trust laymen to think and act with clarity. Their greed and basic ignorance always interfered with rational decision-making.

Fortunately, he was immune to such weaknesses.

“Professore?” one of his assistants called, holding out a phone. “Signor Brandt is on the secure line.”

Impatiently, Renke yanked off his face shield, surgical mask, and gloves.

He tossed them into a bin and then took the phone. “Yes?” the white-haired scientist snapped. “What is it, Erich?”

“An update on our two most troubling security problems,” Brandt said tersely. “The ones we face in Berlin and here in Moscow.”

Renke nodded to himself. In this case, the other man was right to interrupt him. “Go ahead.”

He listened intently while Brandt filled him in on recent events. The news from Berlin reassured him. Once Lange and his hit team had the information they needed, their success seemed certain. The news from Moscow was far less pleasing. “There’s still no sign of these Americans?” he asked in disbelief.

“None,” Brandt said. “None of Alexei Ivanov’s vaunted militia checkpoints have turned up so much as a hint of their whereabouts. He believes Smith and Devin may have gone to ground at a safe house outside the city—or that they have already escaped from Russia.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think Ivanov is too optimistic,” Brandt replied. “Ms. Devin may only be an amateur spy, but Colonel Smith is most certainly a hardened professional.

He will not abandon a mission so easily.”

Renke contemplated that. The former Stasi officer’s evaluation of his opponent seemed accurate. “So? What is your next move, then?” he asked coolly.

Brandt hesitated. “I am not sure.”

The scientist raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Come now, Erich,” he snapped. “Smith and Devin are not fools. Surely you know what they will find in Vedenskaya’s notes?”

“Herr Professor,” the other man said through gritted teeth, “you forget that I am not a scientist. My skills lie in other directions.”

“The names,” Renke said in exasperation. “The Americans will learn the names of those we used as the first test subjects for HYDRA. Whatever else Colonel Smith is, he is also a scientist, a medical researcher. Faced with a strange disease, he’ll try to determine the vector. Now, all you have to do is bait

the proper trap, and then wait for them to walk right into it.”

Berlin

Deep in the interior of a multistory public parking garage a few kilometers from the Grunewald district, Gerhard Lange heard a static-laden voice squawk over his radio. Between the interference and the man’s obvious excitement, it was impossible to make out what he was trying to report. Frowning, Lange straightened up slowly and pushed the tiny receiver deeper into his ear.