the best.
To his relief, both of Mikhail Voronov’s parents were eager to give him the blood and other samples he wanted. Somehow he had feared more resistance to the idea of being poked and prodded by needles.
“What else can these poor people do now that would give more meaning to their lives?” Fiona murmured softly, while she helped him sort out the test kits, syringes, Dacron-tipped swabs, and other pieces of medical equipment provided by one of Kirov’s contacts in the black market. She looked up at Smith w ith a serious expression. “You’re offering them another chance to fight back against the disease that murdered their child. Most parents I know would gladly walk through fire for that opportunity. Wouldn’t you?”
Smith nodded slowly. Humbled, he turned back to the Voronovs. “Let’s start by obtaining samples of your DNA.” He offered them each a long swab.
“Now, what I’d like you to do?”
To his surprise, before he could give them any instructions, both Russians began using the swabs to scrape away at the insides of their mouths, collecting the soft tissue cells that were the most useful for DNA analysis. Jon stared at them in astonishment. “Have you done this before?” he asked quietly.
Both of them nodded.
“Oh, yes,” the boy’s father told him. He shrugged. “For the big study.”
“And so did little Mischka,” his wife recalled softly. Tears welled up in her eyes. “He was so proud that day.” She looked across at her husband. “Do you remember, Yuri? How proud he was?”
“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 participation 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.
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.
Chapter Thirty-One
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 genuflected 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
