“That is certainly suggestive,” another Air Defense force major general said grimly. He commanded one of the MiG-29 regiments stationed near Kiev. “No rational commander asks his pilots to fly into a new base on radio silence for training purposes. Not in the winter! Not unless he is willing to lose aircraft and pilots in otherwise avoidable accidents. Why should the Russians do that unless they are trying to hide their movements from us?”
The colonel conducting the briefing nodded. “Yes, sir. And in fact, all Russian military transmissions have fallen off dramatically over the past twenty-four hours, those involving air, ground, and missile forces… the lot of them.”
Faces around the table frowned. Transitioning to radio silence was a security measure sometimes employed to conceal forces massing for combat. In peacetime, it was faster, easier, and safer for aviation, tanks, artillery, and infantry units to communicate with each other and with their headquarters using radio signals.
“Are there any other signs of possible imminent action?” one of the missile complex commanders asked quietly.
“The Russians are flying significantly more sorties very near and along our common frontier,” the colonel told him. “In several cases, they have ‘accidentally’ penetrated our airspace?sometimes by as much as twenty or thirty kilometers.”
“They’re testing us,” another of the generals said bluntly. Thick-necked and in his early fifties, he commanded a key radar site near the eastern Ukrainian town of Konotop. “They’re probing our defenses to evaluate our detection capabilities and to find out how fast we can react to hostile aircraft crossing into our territory. In all probability, they have electronic intelligence aircraft flying close by during these ‘accidents,’ monitoring our radar frequencies, communications, and intercept patterns.”
He turned toward the head of the table, where the gray-haired commander-in-chief of the Air Defense Force, Lieutenant General Rustern Lissenko, sat with his head down, apparently listening to their discussion while intently examining the notes prepared by his staff. “What is your impression, General?”
Lissenko said nothing.
“General?”
One of the officers sitting next to him reached over and gently touched Lissenko on the shoulder. The gray- haired man fell forward onto his notes. Tufts of his hair fell out, revealing a virulent rash across his scalp. He began shaking, clearly wracked by a skyrocketing fever.
There were astonished gasps around the room.
The colonel who had touched Lissenko stared down at his hand in horror.
Then he grabbed for the nearest command phone. “Connect me to the medial center! This is an emergency!”
An hour later, a short, nondescript Air Defense Force captain stood at the window of his small office. He looked down into the Ministry’s inner courtyard, watching the panicked activity below in undisguised satisfaction. Doctors and medical technicians wearing biohazard suits were busy shepherding a long line of worried-looking generals into waiting ambulances. So many high-ranking soldiers and political leaders had fallen ill over the past week that no one still in authority in Kiev was taking any more chances. Everyone present at the command conference had been ordered into strict quarantine.
He smiled. Three days ago, he had added the contents of a vial to General Lissenko’s customary breakfast, a bowl of kasha, or seasoned porridge. Now, the results of this one, simple act far exceeded his expectations. In effect, the
Ukrainian Air Defense Force had just been decapitated, stripped of its most senior and experienced officers at the worst possible moment.
The captain, Ukrainian by law but a Russian by ethnicity and loyalty, turned away from the window and picked up a phone. He dialed the secret number he had been given weeks before.
“Yes?” a quiet voice asked.
“This is Rybakov,” the captain said calmly. “I have good news to report.”
The Kremlin
Russian President Viktor Dudarev looked across his desk at the stocky, gray-haired man standing before him. He frowned. “Castilla is organizing a meeting of his allies to discuss ways to confront us? A secret meeting? You are sure about this?”
Alexei Ivanov nodded coolly. “The report from our special asset in the White House is quite detailed. And reliable sources inside the other invited governments confirm this report.”
“When?”
“In less than two days,” the head of the Thirteenth Directorate answered.
Dudarev rose from behind his desk and stalked over to one of the windows of his private office. For a moment, he stood peering down into the floodlit courtyard below. Then he glanced back at Ivanov. “How much do the Americans know?”
“Not enough,” Ivanov assured him. “At most, they have rumors and speculation.” He shrugged. “But we know that they are probing ever more desperately, seeking the answers they lack.”
The Russian president nodded curtly. He glowered. “Your courier with the HYDRA variant has arrived in the United States?”
“Yes,” Ivanov confirmed. “He is in New York now, en route to Washington, D.C.”
“Good.” Dudarev turned back to look out the window. His own distorted reflection stared back at him from the glass. His scowl deepened. “Signal our mole. I want Castilla out of the way at the earliest possible moment. I want him dead or dying before he can conduct this secret conference of America’s allies.” He swung back to Ivanov. “Is that clearly understood?”
“It is,” the other man assured him quietly. “It will be done.”
Chapter Forty
Randi Russell stiffened suddenly, feeling a wave of pain race through her body. For a few terrible seconds, the pain was so intense that the third-floor conference room around her seemed to turn red. Her forehead felt both boiling hot and freezing cold, all at the same time. Slowly, she breathed out through her clenched teeth, forcing herself to relax. The pain ebbed slightly.
“Stings a bit, doesn’t it?” the embassy doctor said cheerfully, taking a close look at the cut he had just finished stitching up.
“If by ‘a bit,’ you mean ‘a hell of a lot,’ well then, yes,” Randi said drily.
“It does sting.”
The doctor shrugged, already turning away to pack up his medical gear.
“If I had my say-so, we would be having this conversation in a hospital emergency room, Ms. Russell,” he told her calmly. “You have enough cuts, scrapes, and minor burns for any three people, let alone one young woman.”
Randi eyed him. “Are any of my injuries disabling?” she asked pointedly.
“In and of themselves? No,” the doctor admitted reluctantly. He shrugged again. “But if you ever slow down long enough for your body to figure out how badly it’s been hurt, you’re going to wish you were lying quietly in a nice, soft hospital bed, hooked up to an IV loaded with the best painkillers on the market.”
“So I guess the trick is to keep moving,” Randi said, grinning crookedly.
“Well, Doctor, I should be able to manage that. I’ve never been really comfortable just sitting still.”
The doctor snorted. Then he shook his head, accepting defeat. He set a small, capped medicine bottle down on the table in front of her. “Look, Ms.
Russell, if the pain you’re suffering ever does spill over that rather high thresh-old of yours, at least promise me that you’ll take two of these pills. They’ll help you cope with it.”
