FSB?” Randi asked sardonically.
“I have friends in shipping,” Kirov said calmly.
“Right,” the CIA officer said drily. She looked all three of them up and down, clearly noting all of their weapons and other equipment. “And these friends of yours… in shipping … just happened to be able to provide you with all this nifty hardware?”
Smith grinned at her. “Not quite. That was my part. Remember, I have friends in the Air Force.”
“Naturally.” Randi sighed, apparently accepting defeat, at least temporar-ily. “Okay, Jon. I give up. You three are just the pure, accidental heroes you claim to be.”
“Then perhaps it’s your turn to tell us what you’re doing out here in the dark, Ms. Russell,” Fiona Devin suggested coolly.
For a second, Randi bristled. Then, surprisingly, she smiled. “My what big teeth you have, Ms. Devin.” She shrugged. “It’s pretty simple, actually. You’re hunting for the source of this genetically aimed biological weapon. Well, I’m hunting the man who undoubtedly created it.”
“Wulf Renke,” Smith said quietly.
“That’s the guy,” Randi agreed flatly. She ran through the long and bloody trail that had led her all the way from Baghdad to Berlin, and then, finally, here to Orvieto. “I had to guess at the end,” she admitted. “The phone network we were tracing went dead before my technical experts could nail down any specific locations. But when I did some research on my own, this place popped out as the best fit for Renke in Umbria. There are other medical research facilities around, but the KCPR seemed a natural ?plenty of money, plenty of scientists from all parts of Europe working together, and all the top-of-the-line equipment his black little heart could desire.”
“So you hopped a flight down here?”
“To Rome, and then up here by car,” the CIA officer confirmed. “I’ve been in position since early this afternoon.”
Smith heard a strained note in her voice, one that he had been noticing for a while. “You keep saying ‘I,’ Randi,” he commented. “Where’s the rest ot our team?”
“There is no team,” she said grimly. “Just me. And nobody at Langlev or anywhere else knows where I am right now. Al least I hope not.”
Now it was Smith’s turn to be surprised. “You’re working without a net?
Without any Agency support? Why?”
Randi grimaced. “Because Renke, or maybe this Malkovic bastard you mentioned, has a mole somewhere high up, someone who’s been feeding him everything I’ve learned.” Her mouth tightened to a thin, angry line. “Playing by the rules has cost the lives of three good people already. So now I’m not taking any more chances.”
Smith, Fiona, and Kirov nodded slowly, understanding both her reasoning and her fury. Betrayal by someone in your own ranks was the ultimate nightmare for every intelligence agent.
“We should join forces, Ms. Russell,” Kirov told her quietly. “It is unorthodox, I admit, but when we are faced by such dangerous enemies, working together is only common sense. And time is very short. We cannot waste any more of it arguing among ourselves.”
Jon and Fiona nodded in agreement.
Randi stared at them for a long, painful moment. Then she nodded slowly.
“All right, you people have a deal.” Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “After all, this isn’t exactly the first time Jon and I have stumbled across each other in the field.”
“No, it isn’t,” Smith said quietly.
“Perhaps you’re fated to be together,” Fiona Devin suggested, with just a hint of mischief in her voice.
Randi snorted softly. “Oh, sure. Jon and I are a regular dynamic duo ?the Mutt and Jeff of the espionage business.”
Smith wisely decided to keep his mouth shut. This was one of those wonderful moments when anything he said was bound to land him in hot water.
Or maybe even boiling water, he thought warily, eyeing the tight-lipped expression on Randi’s face.
But then she shook herself back to the present. “You’d better come and see what we’re up against. Because, believe me, whatever you heroes have in mind is not going to be easy.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
A large display map of Russia and its neighbors occupied one concrete wall of the elaborate command center buried far below the surface of the earth. Symbols scattered across the map showed the current position and readiness of the major military units slated for ZHUKOV. The room itself was filled with rows of consoles, each equipped with the latest secure communications to allow staff officers to maintain constant contact with the troop commanders in the field.
Russian President Viktor Dudarev stood at the back of the room watching as the array of generals, colonels, and majors moved unhurriedly through the intricate work of bringing his long-held plans ever closer to reality. One of the last yellow symbols?depicting the two divisions assembled secretly in the snow-bound Caucasus Mountains?turned green.
“Colonel-General Sevalkin reports that his command is in position,” Major Piotr Kirichenko, his military aide, murmured. “All ZHUKOV ground forces are now deployed to their final pre-war bivouacs. The senior commanders will begin briefing their regimental and battalion leaders in twelve hours.”
Dudarev nodded in satisfaction. The decision to hold back those operational briefings until practically the last possible moment had been his, one intended to prevent leaks that could jeopardize ZHUKOV’s success. He glanced at Kirichenko. “Are there any signs of a reaction among our targets?”
The younger man shook his head. “No, sir. Intelligence confirms that the Ukrainian and other armies are still in their peacetime quarters, with absolutely no sign of any higher alert status.”
“What about the Americans or NATO?”
Kirichenko frowned slightly. “We are picking up fragmentary signs that American aircraft squadrons at bases in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom may have been ordered to higher readiness, but there is no indication of any significant movement of those planes toward our frontiers.”
Dudarev turned to the stocky, gray-haired man standing behind him. He raised an eyebrow. “Well, Alexei?”
“So far the Americans have been denied any permission to move aircraft eastward,” Ivanov confirmed. “The European governments have their heads well down in the sand. Each is waiting to see what, if anything, Castilla can prove about our intentions.”
“And he will find it very difficult to prove anything from an intensive care ward,” the Russian president said with a cold smile. “In the meantime, let us hope that the Europeans continue to choose wisely over the next twenty-four hours. By the time they wake up to the new balance of power on this continent, it will be far too late.”
“See the problem, Jon?” Randi murmured. They were lying next to each other in her camouflaged hiding place overlooking the brightly lit ECPR
building she had picked out as Wulf Renke’s lab facility.
Smith slowly lowered the powerful binoculars she had lent him. He handed them back to her with a tight, worried nod. “Yeah, I do. The damned place is practically a fortress.”
“A fortress is right,” Randi agreed, ticking off on her fingers the defenses she had observed. “We’re talking about lights, remotely controlled security cameras, motion sensors, bullet-proof windows, a solid steel main door, bank-vault quality locks ?plus maybe a dozen highly alert armed guards inside.”
He nodded again, grimly this time. “I think it’s time we held a council of war.”
Jon and Randi slid cautiously out of the shallow drainage ditch and faded back into the vineyard. Kirov and Fiona had set up some of their gear in a spot where a small fold in the ground offered concealment from the
