“You are a brave woman, Fiona,” Kirov said seriously. “You humble me.”
He kissed her lightly on the forehead and then turned away to open the hidden compartment in the second coffin.
Jon Smith crawled out through the opening and fell onto the deck. His muscles, already bruised and battered by Brandt and his thugs, felt as though they were on fire. Wincing, he stripped off his oxygen mask and took a deep, shuddering breath. He saw Kirov and Fiona looking down at him with concern and forced a twisted grin onto his face. “Never again,” he said with heart-felt passion. “Never, ever again. The savings just aren’t worth it.”
They both looked blank. “Pardon, Colonel?” Fiona said, puzzled.
Smith pushed himself up into a sitting position. He motioned toward the cramped compartments concealed inside the coffins. “No more super-economy class for me. Next time I’ll pay full fare,” he explained.
Kirov chuckled. “I will be sure to pass your complaints on to the management, Jon.” He turned more serious. “Or you can do that yourself, as soon as you are ready.”
“Do we have secure contact with Covert-One?” Smith asked.
“We do,” Kirov replied. He nodded back up the darkened cargo deck toward the cockpit. “I’ve patched through the TranEx system, using one of our own scramblers. Mr. Klein is standing by.”
Ignoring his aches and pains. Smith levered himself upright. Fiona did the same. With Kirov coming behind to help steady them, the two Americans hobbled forward, feeling their knotted muscles gradually starting to loosen up. By the time they reached the cockpit, Jon was walking on his own.
The 747’s pilot and copilot sat in their seats, apparently intent on monitoring the aircraft’s controls. Neither seemed to take any notice of their unexpected “guests.”
“As far as they are concerned, we do not exist,” Kirov explained quietly. “It is safer for them that way.”
Smith nodded his understanding. Once again, Fred Klein had demonstrated a remarkable ability to pull strings from his position in the shadows.
He took the headset offered by Kirov. “Smith here.”
“It’s very good to hear from you, Colonel,” Klein’s familiar voice said. Even at a distance of several thousand miles, his relief was audible. “I was beginning to get rather worried.”
“Me, too,” Jon admitted. “The thought of you having to handle all that extra, death-related paperwork brought tears to my eyes.”
“I’m touched,” Klein said drily. “Now, what can you tell me about this disease?”
“First, that it’s not a disease?not in the classic sense, anyway,” Smith said seriously. “My best guess is that we’re facing a very sophisticated biological weapon, a weapon set up to attack individual genetic sequences. Based on the symptoms, I’ll bet that Renke is engineering each variant to interfere w ith cell reproduction in some fashion.” He sighed. “I don’t know how the victims are infected, but it could be as simple as introducing it into their food or anything they drink. And once this weapon is inside the person who’s been targeted, I doubt that there’s any way to stop the process or to reverse it. Of course, in anvone but the intended victim, this material would be completely harmless.”
“Which is why those who get sick don’t seem to be infectious to anyone else around them,” Klein realized.
“Bingo,” Smith said. He frowned. “Basically, Renke has invented the perfect precision weapon.”
“Assuming you can gain access to your target’s DNA,” Klein commented.
“Yeah. And that’s where this Slavic Genesis study comes in,” Smith told him. “The researchers at the ECPR have been sampling DNA in Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and the other former Soviet republics for years. If we dig hard enough, I’m pretty sure that we’ll learn that most of those who’ve been killed were also participants in one or more ECPR projects.”
“What about those who weren’t part of these research studies?” Klein wondered. “How is this illness being tailored for use against so many of our intelligence analysts and military people? Or the Brits, the French, and the Germans, and others?”
Jon shrugged. “If it came down to that, Fred, I could isolate your DNA from your fingerprints on a dirh glass ?or from hair clippings given to me by your barber. It’s not as easy or as cost-effective, but it can be done.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting that Renke or the Russians or Malkovie have been bribing even barber and bartender in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin to collect samples for them, are you?” Klein asked wryly.
Smith shook his head. “No, sir. Not en masse.”
“Then how?”
Jon stiffened suddenly as a horrible possibility occurred to him. “lake a good hard look at anyone with unrestricted access to the OMEGA medical database,” he advised grimly.
There was a long silence on the other end as Klein considered his suggestion. OMEGA was a top-secret program designed to ensure the ability of the U.S. government to continue functioning in the event ot a catastrophic terrorist attack on Washington and its suburbs. The OMEGA medical database was just one small part of that much larger program. To assist in identifying the dead from any large-scale attack, it contained tissue samples taken from tens of thousands of American government and military personnel.
“Good God,” the head of Covert-One said at last. “If you’re right, this country is in even graver danger than I had first supposed.” I Ic sighed. “And it also seems that we’re running out of time faster than I had anticipated.”
“Meaning?” Smith asked.
“Meaning this is not just a biological weapons threat, Jon,” Klein said quietly. “Those rumors Kirov passed on from his FSB contact were solid. It now appears almost certain that Dudarev and his allies in the Kremlin are ready to launch a major military campaign, one designed to take advantage of the confusion caused by this new weapon.”
Smith listened elosely while the other man brought him up-to-date on the most recent military and political developments along Russia’s frontiers. If anything, the Pentagon’s time estimate struck him as optimistic. Russian tanks and aircraft could begin rolling to the attack at any moment. His blood ran cold, thinking about the carnage that would be caused by a war of the scope Klein feared. “What countermeasures are we taking?”
“The president is scheduled to meet with representatives of our key allies in less than twenty-four hours,” Klein told him. “His goal is to persuade them that we must act to deter Russia before it is too late, before the first bombs fall.”
“Will they listen to him?”
The head of Covert-One sighed again. “I doubt it.”
“Why not?”
“We need evidence, Colonel,” Klein said flatly. “The problem is still the same as it was when I ordered you to Moscow. No matter how persuasive they may be, we need more than theories. Without better proof that the Russians are behind this disease, we cannot persuade our allies to act?or force the Kremlin to stand down by ourselves.”
“Listen, Fred, get us to Italy with the right equipment, and we’ll do our damnedest to find that evidence,” Smith promised.
“I know you will, Jon,” Klein told him somberly. “The president and I are counting on the three of you.”
Chapter Forty-Five
Nathaniel Frederick Klein looked up from his desk to the large monitor on the wall of his office. It was set to display a computer-driven map of Europe. A small icon blinked on the map, showing the position of the aircraft earning his three agents. He followed its progress for a moment, watching as it slowly slanted southwest through Hungarian airspace, en route to the U.S. Air Force base at Aviano, in the northeast corner of Italy. Another aircraft icon indicated the heightened alert status of the U.S. fighter wing based there.
He touched a key on his computer and saw more aircraft icons appear on the map, some in Germany, others in the United Kingdom. Like the icon at Aviano, they depicted the tactical fighter, bomber, and refueling wings alerted by Sam Castilla for possible emergency deployment to Ukraine, Georgia, and the other threatened republics
