rear ramp, watching carefully through their night-vision goggles. In flight, their job was to help warn the pilots of any obstacles that could endanger the helicopter ?mostly trees and power lines.
Slowly, the Pave Low lifted off the runway. Wind whipped up by the pounding rotors screamed through the crew compartment. Smith tightened his seat belt. He noticed Kirov helping Fiona with hers and hid a grin.
For a few minutes more, the huge black helicopter hovered in place while the crew finished its last-minute navigation and systems checks. Then, with its engines howling, the MH-53J spun right and flew south at nearly one hundred and twenty knots, racing low over the Italian countryside with all of its running lights off.
Erich Brandt struggled to control his mounting impatience. The main HYDRA lab was a hive of activity as Renke shepherded his assistants through the time-consuming task of crating up their DNA databases and specialized equipment. The work was necessarily complex, but once it was complete, the scientist and his team would be able to vanish, and then restart their lethal production line in a new and even more secure location. Almost as important, any American agents investigating the European Center for Population Research would find only an ordinary lab dedicated to routine genetic analysis.
He turned to Renke. “How much longer?”
The scientist shrugged. “Several more hours. We could cut that time significantly, but only at the cost of leaving precious equipment behind.”
Standing at Brandt’s side, Konstantin Malkovic frowned. “How much delay would that cause in reopening your lab?”
“Perhaps as much as several weeks,” Renke told him.
The billionaire shook his head firmly. “I have promised Moscow that HYDRA will be back in operation by the time their armies go into action.
Even with Castilla already marked for death, our Russian allies want the abil-itv to act directly against others in Washington if the new president is also stubborn and refuses to accept their fait accompli.”
“Dudarev will still deal with you?” Renke asked curiously.
Now it was Malkovic’s turn to shrug. “What choice does he have? The secrets of the HYDRA weapon are mine, not his. Besides, I’ve promised him that our security problems are being resolved. Once your equipment and scientists are safely out of Italy, what proof can Washington possibly find in time ?especially with its agents in Moscow already dead? Anyway, once the shooting starts, it will be far too late for the Americans to intervene.”
The financier’s secure cell phone beeped suddenly. He flipped it open.
“Malkovic here. Go ahead.” He glanced at Brandt. “It’s Titov, reporting from Moscow.”
Brandt nodded. Malkovic had left the manager behind to monitor developments in the Russian capital.
Malkovic listened intently to his subordinate’s report. Slowly, his face tightened to a rigid, expressionless mask. “Very well,” he said at last. “Keep me informed.”
He flipped the phone closed and turned back to Brandt. “It seems that the Moscow militia have found two bodies outside that old, ruined monastery you use for vour dirty work.”
“Alas for poor Colonel Smith and Ms. Devin,” the former Stasi officer quipped, with grim amusement.
“Save your sympathy for them,” Malkovic snapped icily. “Smith and Devin are still alive. The dead men were yours.”
Brandt stared back at his employer in shock. Smith and Devin had escaped? How could that possibly be true? For a moment, he felt a shiver of superstitious dread course down his spine. Who were these two Americans?
Chapter Forty-Six
With its rotors churning, the Pave Low helicopter swept low over a steep, wooded ridge and dove into the broader valley beyond. Treetops flashed by only meters below. Bathed in moonlight, a narrow river, the Paglia, snaked south, roughly paralleling the wide autostrada and the railway. Vineyards, groves of gnarled olive trees, and rows of tall, shapely cypresses spread across the gently rolling landscape. Patches of square black shadow marked the location of old stone farmhouses. Lights that seemed to float in the sky ahead outlined the towers and spires of Orvieto, set high on its volcanic plateau. More lights gleamed on a shallow ridge west of the city.
“ECPR in sight,” one of the pilots commented. “Two minutes out from in-filtration point.”
Gradually, the MH-53J began decelerating, slowing as it began its approach to the designated landing zone. Occasionally, the nose of the helicopter flared higher as the pilots climbed sharply to avoid colliding with taller trees or the telephone and power lines crisscrossing the Paglia valley.
Jon Smith hung on tight to a strap dangling from the ceiling. His stomach lurched.
“Hell of a ride, isn’t it, Colonel?” one of the crewmen commented, flashing a quick grin over his shoulder. “Beats the best roller coaster in the whole wide world!”
Smith forced himself to smile back. “I was always more partial to the bumper cars myself.”
“That’s a sure sign you were meant to be a ground-pounder, Army-type, sir,” the same crewman said with a laugh, again craning his head out through the open hatch to keep a careful eye on their flight path. “Begging your pardon, of course.”
“Guilty as charged, Sergeant,” Smith said, smiling more genuinely now.
He hung his head in mock surrender.
Fiona Devin, sitting across from Jon, offered a sympathetic shrug. Beside her, Oleg Kirov appeared to be deeply asleep, leaning back against the bulk-head with his eyes closed.
The Pave Low slowed further, turning more to the west as it crossed the ridge well to the north of the ECPR compound. It slid lower, flying over a spur of forest spilling down across the slope. Tree branches swayed and rocked behind the large helicopter, pummeled by its powerful rotor wash.
“LZ dead ahead. One hundred feet, fifty knots,” the flight engineer drawled out.
Smith let go of the strap and sat up straighter. His right foot nudged the bag wedged under his seat, making sure that it was still in easy reach. It contained an assortment of clothing, weapons, and other equipment drawn from U.S.
Special Operations Command caches stored at Aviano. He glanced up and saw Kirov and Fiona making their own preparations for landing. The silver-haired Russian gave him a quick thumbs-up.
Guided by constant chatter from his crew, the Pave Low pilot edged slowly forward and brought his big helicopter safely into their landing zone, a wide clearing in the woods. The ridge running south toward the ECPR compound rose off on the left, a dark mass against the paler, moonlit sky. The wheels thumped down. Immediately, the engine noise began fading, descending rapidly from a shrill, howling roar, to a deepening whine, and then to absolute dead silence. The rotors slowed and stopped turning.
The helicopter crew had orders to wait here until Smith or one of the others called for a pickup. But the six Air Force officers and enlisted men aboard the big MH-53J were also under strict orders to sit tight and do nothing else. Once their feet touched the ground, the improvised Covert-One team would be completely on its own. If they met with disaster while breaking into the ECPR labs, this mission had to be completely deniable by the U.S. government.
Smith unbuckled his seat belt with a feeling of intense relief. It wasn’t that he minded hazardous, nap-of- the-earth flying so much, he told himself, it was just that he preferred having his fate in his own hands. He bent down and tugged the heavy duffel bag out onto the metal deck. Fiona Devin and Kirov followed suit. Together, they slung the bags over their shoulders, trotted down the ramp, and moved off to the east, heading straight across the clearing and into the deeper darkness among the trees.
Jon led the way, pushing up the gentle slope at a fast walk until they were well away from the helicopter. Near the top of the ridge, they entered another clearing, this one much smaller. A little heap of roughly hewn stones, mostly covered by moss and bracken, lay in the center of the clearing. Were those tumbled stones all that remained of an ancient shrine? he wondered. This was an old, old land, fought over for thousands of years by the Umbrians, Etruscans, Romans, Goths, Lombards, and other peoples. Their ruins and tombs dotted the landscape, buried in some places by new towns and cities, swallowed up by forests and ivy in others. Seen by moonlight, the
