She stopped typing and looked up with a frown. “Yes? What is that?”
“The president’s meal, ma’am,” the steward told her politely.
Estelle Pike nodded to the empty corner of her desk. “You can leave it there. I’ll take it in to him in a moment.”
One of the steward’s eyebrows went up in astonishment. The president’s secretary was well known and widely disliked among the White House household staff for her strict insistence on protocol and rank. She only rarely, if ever, volunteered for duties she considered beneath her station.
“The president is extremely busy, Anson,” she explained coolly. “He does not wish to be disturbed at the moment.”
The steward looked at the closed door behind her and then shrugged. “Yes, ma’am. Please don’t wait too long, though. Otherwise the salad will start to wilt.”
Estelle Pike waited until the door closed behind him and then bent down to open her purse. Inside, wrapped in tissue paper, she found the small sealed glass vial she had retrieved earlier from the Maryland countryside. Then, moving calmly and precisely, she opened the vial, lifted the silver cover off Castilla’s salad and sprinkled the liquid contents liberally over the tossed greens, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and pieces of grilled chicken. She dropped the vial back into her purse and stood up, reaching for the tray.
“That won’t be necessary, Ms. Pike,” a quiet voice said from behind her.
Startled, she froze and then slowly turned around toward the door into the Oval Office. Nathaniel Frederick Klein stood there, framed in the open doorway. His narrow, long-nosed face was impassive. Two uniformed Secret Service agents stood reach on either side of him, both with drawn weapons.
“What is the meaning of this, Mr. Klein?” Estelle Pike demanded icily, trying to brazen it out.
“The meaning, Ms. Pike,” Klein said bluntly, “is that you are under arrest.”
“On what grounds?”
“The attempted assassination of President Samuel Adams Castilla will do for a start,” he replied. His eyes were cold. “No doubt other charges will arise as we dig deeper into vour conduct and background.”
Later, sitting across from a visibly shocked Castilla, Klein slid the glass vial across the president’s big pine table desk. “We’ll have what remains of the contents analyzed, but if Jon Smith’s suspicions are accurate, I doubt that we’ll find much of use inside.”
Grimly, Castilla nodded. His mouth turned downward. He shook his head in disbelief. “Estelle Pike! She’s been with me for years, ever since I came to the White House.” He looked up at the head of Covert-One. “What made you suspect her?”
Klein shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Suspicion is too strong a word, Sam. Once we learned how easily this targeted biological weapon might be administered to its victims, I had a quiet chat with the head of your Secret Service detail. They’ve been monitoring every aspect of White House food preparation ever since. Ms. Pike’s domain was the only potential gap in our security, so it was one I’ve had closely ohserved. When she started finding reasons to send her people awav after vou called down to the kitchens for that salad. I thought it would he a good idea to see what she might he planning.”
Castilla tapped the vial gently. His eyes were still troubled. “But why? Why would she do this?”
“I rather think we will find that your Ms. Pike has a great many hidden depths,” Klein said flatly. “I’ve sometimes wondered about her. Her position here at the White House gave her access to an enormous range of secret information. And her background ?widowed at an early age, no family, no real friends?well, it just seems too convenient, too perfect. If I wanted to create a legend, a cover, for a deep-penetration mole, that’s exactly the sort of thing I would work toward.”
“You think she’s a Russian spy?” the president asked.
Klein nodded again. “Almost certainly.” He stood up. “But we’ll find out for sure. You can count on that.”
“I do, Fred,” Castilla said with a grateful smile. “I always do.” Then his smile slowly faded. “Just as I am counting on Colonel Smith and the others.”
Konstantin Malkovic stared down at the decoded message on his laptop in dismay. “Impossible!” he muttered. He turned to Brandt, who was standing at his shoulder. “How could this be?”
“The Americans are closer to us than we realized,” Brandt snapped, reading through the urgent warning sent by the financier’s agent in Germany.
“That’s all.”
“But what can we do?” the other man asked. His voice, usually a deep baritone, now sounded shrill.
Brandt stared at his employer in disgust. Malkovic was crumbling in front of him. All of the rich man’s bluster, all of his famous self-confidence, was largely a charade, the gray-eyed man realized coldly. Oh, the Serbian-born financier was brave enough when he was winning, or when he speculated in abstractions ?like currencies, or oil and natural gas, or other men’s lives ?but he was a physical coward, a man who flinched when his own life was in peril.
Like mam greedy men, always hungry for more power or for more money, he was fundamentally hollow inside.
“We must evacuate at once,” Brandt said carefully. “Professor Renke’s DNA databases and his design files are ready to go. We’ll take them, and Renke, and leave now.”
Malkovic stared back at him in confusion. “But his equipment?”
“Can be replaced,” Brandt said brutally.
“What about Renke’s assistants? His lab team?” the financier stammered.
“The helicopters won’t arrive until it is too late, and we don’t have room for them in the cars.”
“No,” Brandt agreed coolly, looking out into the main lab where the scientists and technicians were still working hard, preparing their expensive machines for a move that would now never be made. He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “We’ll have to leave them behind. Along with the Italian security guards.”
Malkovic paled. “What? Are you mad? When the Marines storm this building, they will be captured and then they will talk.”
“No,” Brandt said bluntly. “They won’t.” He drew the Walther pistol from his shoulder holster and inspected the weapon quickly. As a last measure, he checked that he had a full fifteen-round magazine, and then slid the clip back in.
The financier looked sick under the lab’s bright fluorescent lights. He sat down heavily, staring at the sterile tile floor between his feet.
Turning slightly, Brandt waved one of the bodyguards over.
“Yes, Herr Brandt?” the man said, sounding bored. “What is it?’
“Order the staff to assemble in the lounge, Sepp. Everyone, without exception.” The former Stasi officer lowered his voice slightly. “Then tell Karl and the others that we have some necessary killing ahead of us. And ask Fyodor to bring his cases from the car trunk. We will need his explosives after all.”
For the first time, the bodyguard’s dull eyes flickered to life. “It will be a pleasure.”
Brandt nodded coolly. “I know. That is why I find you and your comrades so useful.” For a few seconds, he watched the man move away and begin herding the fatigued scientists and technicians out of the main lab.
Renke came over. A slight tightening around his mouth betrayed his supreme irritation at seeing his assistants ushered away, leaving their work un-finished. “What are you playing at, Erich?” he demanded.
“Read that,” Brandt told him flatly, nodding toward the message still displayed on Malkovie’s laptop.
The scientist skimmed through the warning of an imminent American assault. One thin, white eyebrow slid up in mild, annoyed surprise. “Unfortunate,” he murmured. Then he looked back over his shoulder at Brandt. “We’re leaving?”
“Correct.”
“When?”
“Within minutes,” the gray-eyed man said. “Retrieve what vou need from your office as quickly as you can.” He nodded coolly toward Malkovic, still sitting slumped over in his chair. “Take him with vou. And keep an eye on him, Merr Professor. His resources and connections are still of use to us.”
With that, Brandt swung away, stalking toward the lounge with his pistol out and ready.
