your concern. And there is absolutely no reason for him to be interested in you.”
“Don't lie to me!” Treloar hissed. “You think I don't know about Smith's role in the Hades horror?”
“Smith is no longer with USAMRIID,” Price replied. “And here's something you may not know: his fiancee was killed during Hades. Her sister works in Moscow for a venture capital firm.”
“Are you saying Smith was there for personal reasons?”
“Could well be.”
“I don't know…” Treloar muttered. “I don't like coincidence.”
“But sometimes that's all it is,” Price said soothingly. “Adam, listen to me. I have you flagged at Dulles. You'll breeze through customs and immigration. One of our people will be waiting for you with a car. You're home free. So just relax.”
“Just make sure nothing goes wrong. If they find?”
“Adam!” Price said sharply. “We don't need to get into that.”
“Sorry…”
“Call me as soon as you're in the car. And don't worry.”
Price broke the connection. Treloar had always been the weak link in the chain. But also indispensable. He was the only member of the Compact who had established a reason for going to Russia on a regular basis. He was also a scientist who knew how to handle smallpox. But that didn't stop Price, who hated the weak, from despising him.
“Just make it home, Adam,” he whispered to the sky. “Make it home and you will certainly get your just rewards.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After leaving the Washington city limits, Nathaniel Klein drove along U.S. 15 until he reached Thurmont, Maryland. There he took Route 77, slipped past Hagerstown, and followed Hunting Creek until he reached the Catoctin Mountain Park Visitors Center. Skirting the forest ranger's station, he headed up two-lane blacktops until he came to a sign that read NO STOPPING, SLOWING, TURNING OR STANDING HERE. To reinforce the message, an army Humvee rattled off the shoulder and into the middle of the road.
Klein pulled over his nondescript Buick sedan, lowered his window, and held out his ID. The officer, who had been alerted to expect Klein, scanned the card. Satisfied, he instructed Klein to proceed. As soon as he was under way, the car phone sounded.
“Klein here.”
“Kirov in Moscow. How are you, sir?”
By the sounds of it, better than you. But all he said was, “Fine, General.”
“I have information.” There was a slight hesitation, as if the Russian was trying to find the right words. Finally, they came out in a rush: “Beria made it to St. Petersburg, just as you suspected. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand how this is possible.”
“You're sure?” Klein demanded.
“Positive. A bus driver was stopped at a checkpoint on the Moscow-St. Petersburg highway. He was shown a photograph and identified Beria.”
“How far outside St. Petersburg was this checkpoint?”
“A little bit of luck here: only an hour. I immediately concentrated my resources in the city, particularly the airport. No American carriers had left up to that point.”
Klein breathed a little easier. Wherever Beria was going, it wasn't here.
“But there was a Finnair flight that left almost ten hours ago,” Kirov said. “It's carrying an American tour group.”
Klein closed his eyes. “And?”
“The immigration officer remembers the tour leader giving him a stack of passports. He took his time going through them. One of the names caught his attention because it was a Russian name on an American passport. Ivan Beria now calls himself John Strelnikov. If the Finnair flight is on schedule, it will land at Dulles in fifteen minutes.”
Klein stared through the windshield at the lodges coming into view.
“General, I'll have to call you back.”
“I understand. Godspeed to you, sir.”
Klein drove past the rustic dwellings until he saw the largest one, fronting a small pond. He pulled in, got out, and hurried to the front door. Nathaniel Klein had arrived at Aspen, the presidential lodge at Camp David.
Developed in 1938 as a retreat for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the area known as Camp David had been called the Catoctin Recreational Demonstration Area (RDA), used by federal employees and their families. Its security fence surrounded one hundred and twenty-five acres sheltered by a thick growth of oak, hickory, aspen, poplar, and ash. The guest lodges ? used by foreign dignitaries, the friends and family of the president, and other visitors ? were set in private surroundings and connected to Aspen by a series of footpaths.
Through the trees Klein caught a glimpse of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. Under the circumstances, he was glad that the flying time to Washington was only thirty minutes.
The Secret Service agent opened the door for him and Klein stepped into a small, pine-paneled foyer. A second agent escorted him through the homey living room to the large, comfortable room that served as the presidential office.
Samuel Adams Castilla, the chief executive, sat behind a stressed-pine desk, going through paperwork. Wearing a cardigan over a denim shirt, the former New Mexico governor rose and offered Klein his large, weathered hand. Behind titanium-rimmed glasses, cool, slate-gray eyes appraised the visitor.
“Usually I'd say it's good to see you, Nate,” the president said. “But since you mentioned it was urgent…”
“I'm sorry to intrude on your privacy, Mr. President, but this can't wait.”
Castilla ran a palm across his five o'clock shadow. “Does it relate to what we talked about in Houston?”
“I'm afraid it does.”
The president gestured at one of the couches. “Bring me up to speed,” he said crisply.
Five minutes later, Castilla knew more than he had ever wished to know.
“What's your recommendation, Nate?” he asked quietly.
“Commence FIREWALL,” Mein said tightly. “We don't want a single one of those passengers walking out of the terminal.”
Developed in collaboration with the FAA, the FBI, and the Pentagon, FIREWALL was a dedicated response to any terrorist incursion into the United States. If the warning came early enough, every port of entry would be flooded by security officials waiting for a target whose description and particulars were already in hand. Klein knew that it was too late to do this at Dulles. The best he could do was to alert every available uniformed and undercover officer in the complex and initiate a hunt. Even as agents were scrambling, the FAA would be faxing a passenger manifest to the central command post.
The president stared at him, nodded, and reached for the phone. In seconds he had Jerry Matthews, the head of the FBI, on the line, and was explaining what had to be done.
“I don't have time to give you all the details right now, Jerry. Just get FIREWALL going. I'm faxing you a description of the suspect as we speak.”
The president took the sketch Klein held out and fed it into the machine.
“His real name is Ivan Beria, Jerry. He's a Serb national. But he's calling himself John Strelnikov and is traveling on a fake U.S. passport. He is not, I repeat not, an American citizen. And Jerry? This is a level-five situation.”
Five was the highest designation, meaning that the individual in question was to be considered not only armed and dangerous but a clear and immediate danger to national security.
The president hung up and turned to Klein. “He'll get back to me as soon as the ball's rolling.” He shook his head. “He asked ? respectfully, mind you ? what my sources were.”
