“Well, you weren’t supposed to leave your post”
“Yes, sir”
Sergeant Gurion looked beyond Tsarev to the shadows. “See anything”
“No, sir. Everything looks fine” This time the sergeant looked critically at him. “You sure as hell don’t, Rothstein. What’s the matter with you”
“I think I’m a little sick” Tsarev said, and it wasn’t a lie. He felt terrible. He could feel the sweat on his brow and his uniform was stained dark with it.
“There’s nothing to be worried about” Sergeant Gurion said not unkindly. For some reason he had taken a liking to Tsarev from the beginning. “I know what you’re thinking”
“It’s that, but I still don’t feel good, Sergeant” Tsarev said. The man was a fool, but at this moment he was a ticket out of here.
“All right, get yourself over to sick bay. I’ll arrange for your replacement”
“Yes, sir”
Sergeant Gurion patted him on the arm. “You’ll be okay. “What was it, Sergeant? The alarm”
“Nothing” the sergeant said. “And get your hand looked at, you’ve cut it on something” Tsarev looked at his hand and the dried blood. “Yes, sir, he mumbled.
Outside, Tsarev got in his jeep and crossed the huge facility that was bathed in strong lights night and day. Instead of heading over to the barracks area, however, he drove directly to one of the back gates where he turned in his security badge and left the compound.
The night was extremely dark. Tsarev kept looking in his rearview mirror at the receding lights of the plant. His foot on the gas pedal was shaking, at times so uncontrollably that he had difficulty maintaining a constant speed. He was very sick to his stomach, and two miles from the facility he threw up down the front of his fatigue blouse.
He stopped the jeep and got out where he was sick again at the side of the road. When he was finished he looked back toward the facility. It sounded to him as if he was hearing another siren. But then the sound faded. Climbing weakly back behind the wheel he forced himself to drive toward the town of En Gedi eight miles away. When he didn’t show up at sick bay they would come looking for him. “He was behind the air vents” the sergeant would say. Twice more Tsarev was sick, but he did not bother to stop until he passed an Esso gas station a mile outside of the town. The station was closed at this hour of the morning, but there would almost certainly be a telephone inside. He brought the jeep to a stop, made a U-turn on the narrow highway, and drove back to the station. Taking his Uzi submachine gun he stumbled across the driveway past the pumps and without hesitation shot out the lock in the front door with a quick burst. Inside, he dragged himself across the office where he found the telephone. He picked it up, got a dial tone, and called his contact number in Jerusalem. It was answered on the first ring. “It is there. Hundreds of them. It is there” he said. “Have you photographs” a man’s voice asked calmly. “No time”
“A serial number”
“No! Haven’t you heard me” Tsarev cried. “It’s there. Hundreds of them.
More than we ever suspected”
“Yes, and now listen to me An army truck screeched to a halt outside, and immediately a dozen soldiers sprang out of the back. Tsarev crashed down the telephone and rushed to the door. He never felt the shots that killed him.
BOOK ONE
Paris was a magical city. As lieutenant colonel Brad Allworth got out of his taxi in front of the Gare de I’Est and paid his fare, one part of him was sad to be leaving, while another part was looking forward to what was coming. Hefting his B4 bag, he crossed the broad sidewalk and entered the train station’s busy main concourse. He was a tall man, handsome in a rugged out-of-doors way, his stride straight and purposeful. He was a career Air Force officer and at thirty-five he figured he had a shot at full bird colonel within the year, and afterward … War College and his first star by forty. The concierge at his hotel had arranged for his tickets to Kaiserslautern in Germany’s Rheinland-Pfalz, so he went directly down to trackside. It was a few minutes past eleven thirty. His train was due to leave at midnight, getting into the German city by morning. He stopped at the security gate and placed his bag on the moving belt that took it through the scanning device. Something new in the last six months. He placed his wallet and a few francs in loose change on a plastic dish, handed it to one of the gendarmes, and stepped through the arch. “Your tickets, monsieur” the guard asked. Colonel Allwordi handed over his ticket as well as his passport. The gendarme quickly flipped through them, looked from the photograph to his face. Technically he could travel all over Europe using only his military ID. But because of the terrorist attacks in recent years, American officers traveling via civilian transportation were required to travel in civilian clothes and use their passports for identification. It had been dubbed Project Low Profile. Allworth didn’t mind. The gendarme handed back his passport and ticket, waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the gates, and as Allworth was collecting his money and B4 bag, the cop was checking the papers of the next man in line. Allworth crossed to his gate, and a porter directed him to his first-class car. He boarded, found his compartment, switched on the light, tossed his bag on the couch, and closed the window shades on the corridor and outer windows. Joanne had flown out from Omaha with him, while their two children stayed with her sister in Minneapolis. They’d had a lovely thirty days in Paris and the surrounding countryside; canal barge trips, ballooning through the Bordeaux wine country, a weekend on the Riviera, and they had relaxed with each other for the first time in what seemed like years. Too many years. But everything was all right between them now. He had seen her off from Orly this afternoon. She would be closing down their house, collecting the kids, and would join him at Ramstein Air Force Base within the month. It was, he decided, going to be a busy though lonely month. Someone knocked at his compartment door.
Allworth turned. “Yes”
“Porter, monsieur” Allworth opened the door. An older man in a crisp white jacket smiled up at him. “May I turn down your bed for you, monsieur”
“Not just yet” Allworth said. He pulled out a two-hundred-franc bill.
“Can I get a bottle of cognac and a glass”
“Naturellement, monsieur” The porter smiled, accepting the money. “It will be just a few minutes”
“No rush” Allworth said. Technically he was still on leave. He meant to enjoy his last day before he had to get back to work. Loosening his tie he took off his jacket, slipped off his shoes, and opened the bi-fold door to his tiny bathroom with its pull-down sink. He splashed some cool water on his face, and drying off he smiled at himself in the mirror.
SAC Headquarters at Omaha had been a career necessity. It’s what brought him a step closer to the bird, and as a direct result got him his new job as missile control officer, even if he hadn’t liked SAC. He was making progress, and that’s all that counted. He switched off the light in the bathroom, opened the outer window shade, and sat down on the couch. Lighting a cigarette he looked down at the rapidly clearing platform. The train would be pulling out momentarily, and for just a brief instant he felt a twinge of uncertainty. “Comes with the territory” his father the general had told him once. “You can’t move every few years without feeling dislocated. Make the service your home, then find a good woman and keep her. You’ll do just fine” Someone knocked at his door. “Porter” Allworth opened the door and took the cognac and glass from the man, received his change, and handed him back two ten-franc coins.
“Merci”
“I don’t think you’ll need to turn down my bed tonight”
“No”
“No” Allworth said with a grin.
“If you need anything else, just ring, monsieur. I will be happy to serve you”
“VAAT time will we get into Kaiserslautern”
“At seven, monsieur”
“Good, thanks”
