“Look, Bill, for anv number of overriding geopolitical reasons we’ve cut our good friend Viktor Dudarev a lot of slack over the past couple of years, right?
Even though that’s meant turning a blind eye to some of the nasty moves he’s made against his own people?”
Wexler nodded reluctantlv.
“Well, the trouble is that while we’ve been tied down in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a dozen other hellholes around the globe, Dudarev has been busy building a new autocracy in Russia, with him sitting on top of the heap as the supreme ruler of all that he surveys. And I don’t like that. I don’t like it one little goddamned bit.”
“The Russians have been extremely useful allies against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” the intelligence director pointed out. “Both the CIA and the Pentagon report that we’ve obtained a substantial amount of action-able intelligence from their prisoner interrogations in Chechnya.”
Castilla shrugged his big shoulders. “Sure.” He gave the other man a lopsided grin. “But, hell, even a two-bit thug will help you kill a rattlesnake?so long as you’re both stuck at the bottom of the same canyon, that is. That sure doesn’t mean you should turn your back on him.”
“Are you suggesting that Russia is again becoming an active enemy of the United States?” Wexler asked carefully.
Castilla made an effort to hold his temper in check. “What I’m suggesting is that I don’t like flying blind around a guv like Viktor Dudarev. And right now the intelligence analysis I’m getting from the CIA and the other agencies pretty much reads as though they’re just clipping newspaper articles.”
The DNI smiled weakly. “I’ve made the same comments to my staff,” he admitted. “I’ve even passed those complaints along through the various appropriate interagency coordinating committees.”
Castilla scowled. The “appropriate interagency coordinating committees?”
Leadership by memo and committee? And this was the guy who was supposed to be cracking the whip over the CIA and the other intelligence organizations? Wonderful. Just wonderful. He gritted his teeth. “And?”
“Apparently, there are … well … problems in some of the analysis sections,” Wexler said hesitantly. “I don’t have all the details myself yet, but I’ve been told that several of our best Russia specialists have fallen seriously ill over the past couple of weeks.”
Castilla stared hard at him for several seconds. “Maybe you had better fill me in, Bill,” he said grimly. “From the top, and starting right now.”
It was full daylight now. Pallid rays cast by the weak winter sun winked off the ice-choked Moscow River and sent back dazzling reflections from the windshields of the cars and trucks grinding slowly in both directions across the bridges visible from the windows of the Kotelnichcskaya high-rise. Even twenty-four floors up, their blaring horns could be heard faintly. The Russian capital’s morning rush hour was in full swing.
The blond-haired man sat at his desk, again rapidly skimming through the set of highly encrypted e-mails sent to his computer over the past several hours. Most were short, usually containing only a name and title, a location, and a single-line status report:
MARCHUK, A., CINC, NORTHERN COMMAND, UKRAINE — INFECTED. CONDITION: TERMINAL.
BRIGHTMAN, H., SIGINT SPECIALIST, CCHQ, CHELTENHAM, UNITED KINGDOM-INFECTED. CONDITION: DEAD.
YASHVILI, M., PRESIDENT, REPUBLIC OF GEORGIA — INFECTED. CONDITION: TERMINAL.
SUNDQUIST, P., SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, CIA, LANG-LEY, U.S.A.-INFECTED. CONDITION: DEAD.
HAMILTON, J., MANAGER, A2 (RUSSIA GROUP), NSA, FORT MEADE, U.S.A.-INFECTED. CONDITION: TERMINAL.
The list of those now ill and dying or already dead ran on and on, more than thirty men and women in all. He read to the end with growing satisfaction. It had taken years of painstaking research to perfect the biological weapon called HYDRA?the ultimate, precision-guided silent killer. Months of preparation had gone into selecting targets for the first HYDRA variants and then finding ways to deliver them undetected to the chosen victims.
Months more had been spent in secretly acquiring the necessary materials to build each specialized variant of the weapon. At last, all of that intricate planning and dangerous work was coming to fruition.
In retrospect, he thought dispassionately, those preliminary tests in Moscow had been largely unnecessary, a waste of resources and a breach of operational security, but HYDRA’s creator had insisted on running them.
Controlled experiments in the sterile confines of a laboratory were no substi-tute for field tests on real people, he had said. Only by setting HYDRA loose on random targets could they be sure that other doctors and hospitals, those outside the secret, would not be able to detect his creation, or to cure those infected by it.
The man code-named Moscow One shook his head. Wulf Renke was brilliant, ruthless, and, as always, utterly determined to have his own way. In the end, those sponsoring the HYDRA Project had yielded to his will, eager to see for themselves that the weapon’s performance matched his extravagant claims. Well, it had, but only at the cost of alerting Doctors Kiryanov and Petrenko and sending them haring off to warn the West.
Then he shrugged. What did it really matter? Kiryanov and Petrenko were both dead. And soon the only Westerner with whom they had shared their fears would join them.
He reached out for his phone and dialed a local number.
A cold, clear voice answered on the first ring. “Well?”
“The first phase is largely complete,” the blond-haired man said quietly.
“Have you informed Ivanov?”
“I gave him a preliminary report late last night,” he confirmed. “Before he left to join Dudarev for the WINTER CROWN maneuvers. I’ll brief him more fully once he returns to Moscow.”
“I assume our friend from the Thirteenth Directorate was pleased?” the voice said.
“I suspect Alexei Ivanov would be far more pleased if he filled my shoes?
or yours,” the man known as Moscow One said sardonically.
“No doubt,” the voice said. “Fortunately, his master is more sensible and more accommodating. Now, how soon can we begin the next phase? Our friends need to know when they can ramp up their military preparations.”
The blond-haired man checked the last status report on his computer screen, one sent by Wulf Renke himself. It would be best to confer personally with the scientist before deploying the next variants by courier. “I’ll need a plane out of Sheremetevo-2 later tonight.”
“I will arrange it.”
“Then I should be at the HYDRA lab early tomorrow morning.”
Chapter Six
With his overnight bag and laptop slung over one shoulder, Smith pushed through a crowd of patrolmen and traffic wardens coming back to work from their midmorning coffee break. Cold air rushed in through the open front doors of the Konviktska station, bringing with it the cloying reek of gasoline and diesel fumes trapped in the Old Town’s maze of narrow streets.
Jon stepped outside onto the pavement and immediately felt the frigid Prague winter climate wrap itself around him. He stopped and blew on his hands, already regretting the loss of his leather jacket, torn and soaked beyond repair. Before signing out of the police station, he had changed into a pair of jeans and a black turtlencck sweater, but the thin gray windbreaker he wore over the sweater offered little real protection against the piercing cold. Over his cupped hands, his eyes were busy scanning the surrounding environment.
There, he thought.
Just across the street from the police headquarters, a big, beefy, bearded man leaned casually against the side of a parked taxi, a Czech-made Skoda sedan. Beneath the caked-on grime and mud, the cab had so many dents
