Asian Front

going down, that’s all. We’re lucky Johnny Ferrago didn’t get to tell them anything.” Ferrago had been the foreman of another cell. They’d done their job poisoning the New York water supply earlier in the war, but Ferrago had ended up being taken out in a SWAT team firefight.

Alex quietly stepped to his left on the pathway to let a weaving ghetto blaster with skateboard attached fly through them. Closing the gap, he told Stefan, “All four of ‘em,” his tone unchanged. “Rush hour’s the best time for eeny. Meeny, early morning between two and three. Miney and mo anytime after that. Have you got the rats ready?” he asked Stefan.

“Yeah. Listen, Alex — you sure all four are going down? I mean — man, it’s gonna be an asylum.”

“Well,” Alex said, watching another ghetto blaster approaching, “it wasn’t meant to be a tea party, was it?” Not waiting for an answer, he continued. “By the book, remember. None of your families leave. That’s the first thing they’ll be looking for — a sudden move to another city. All you’ve gotta do is just follow the instructions to the letter and you’ll be okay.”

“Alex?” It was Mike, trying not to look as worried as Stefan, but he was bothered, too. It had come as a bit of a shock. They’d been living with a secret for so long that by now they’d stopped worrying about it ever getting out. And now suddenly they were going to do it. Their lives would never be the same — not after a job this big.

They were approaching Bethesda Terrace, the sun already lost to the skyscrapers. “It’d sure help to know there were others in the same boat,” Mike said. “I mean, I know— yeah, sure we shouldn’t ask.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Alex said. “Are you nuts? Christ, it’s basic. Right, Stefan? Only one of us knows two others— ever. That way we could lose a cell but not the whole group.” Alex cupped his hands to warm them against his mouth. “What is it?” he asked them, sensing a sudden reluctance. “You all want to hold hands? Your wives? You going soft!” He was looking at both Stefan and Mike. “We’ve had perfect cover for over fifteen years, and now you’re going slack-ass on me? Like Gregory?” Gregory was the floater whom the police had found in the East River. “Too old for it?” Alex pressed. “Is that it? Mommy’s boys?”

“Jesus—” Stefan said. “Jesus, Alex. It was — we were only asking.”

Alex turned on him. “Well don’t. Just do your fucking jobs. Or I can send your request for ‘layoff’ to Cheerio.” “Cheerio” was the name they used for Chernko. “He’s got the master list. Knows where everybody lives. We can replace you two quick as I did Gregory. You aren’t the only fish in the tank. We’ve got understudies all me way.”

“Okay, Alex,” Mike said. “Relax. We’re ready to go. No problem.”

“Stefan?” Alex snapped.

“Yeah. Fine, no problem.”

Alex was so angry with Stefan he was about to tell him to clean his goddamn teeth.

When they reached Bethesda Terrace, where the footpath they were on, an extension of East 72nd Street, wound westward, a silence reigned over the three as they approached the winged statue fountain, the water falling from the tapered tier in an uninterrupted veil, the air remarkably clean, a small boy kneeling, trying to crack a thin crust of ice at the edge to put in a sailboat. Alex watched him, automatically looking for any sign that the older man reaching down holding the boy’s jacket was carrying a parabolic pickup mike, using the kid as cover. Even though he knew Mike was carrying a detector, there was always the possibility that its batteries were on the fritz. But then he realized his sudden anxiety was merely a result of Mike and Stefan asking too many questions.

“This is the last meet,” he told them quietly. “After it’s done you fade back into the woodwork.” He told them, if they hadn’t already seen it for themselves, that the ad, like the one for a man in his “early thirties desiring a live- in companion, sexual preference not important, must like cats-no Republicans,” which had activated the Ferrago cell earlier in the war, was now appearing in every major newspaper across the United States. It was Chernko’s “go” signal for Spets “sleepers,” who had so easily infiltrated the U.S. during the KGB’s vershina— ”high summer”—of the West’s honeymoon with Yeltsin and the CIS.

Before they parted, they spoke a little longer about incidental family concerns, Alex trying to ease things up a little, showing he understood how they felt, complaining about his kids’ dental bills. “Christ — they’ll break me,” he said, smiling.

“You’d be covered by the Con Ed benefits?” Mike said.

“Yeah but not ‘preexisting conditions.’ “

“What the hell does that mean?” Mike asked.

Alex shrugged. “Anything they don’t want to pay for, I guess.”

Stefan nodded toward the boy across the pool. “That kid’ll fall in if he’s not careful.”

“The weather should help us,” Alex said. “They say there’s a cold front moving down from Canada.”

He was half right. There was a cold front moving down from Canada, but it was the storm brewing over Virginia and moving up the coast that would help them most of all to shatter American morale.

“Oh shit,” Stefan said, and started off around the edge of the pool — the kid with the boat having fallen in and the old man frantically reaching for him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Over three thousand miles away, on the other side of the world, the old Mongolian herdsman entered his gher, reached down toward the four sleeping SAS/D men, first grabbing David Brentwood by the collar, then shaking Choir Williams, Aussie Lewis, and Salvini. Instantly Aussie slipped his hand beneath the del for his pistol. The Mongolian stopped him. “Dogs,” he said quietly.

“Dogs?” Brentwood asked sleepily. “What do you—”

The old man put his finger to his mouth and motioned to listen. “We tell you dogs. They are—”

“Jesus!” Salvini said, whipping the sheepskin cover off him. “Tracking dogs.”

It wasn’t yet dark — no way could they risk a daylight trek from the gher through the desert.

“How far away?” David asked.

The old man made a circling motion with his hand. “Helos. Minutes.”

“Bastards are probably searching every settlement,” Aussie said.

“Right,” David instructed. “Sal, get on your blower and call in our map reference for a FUST — we’ve got no choice. We’re in too far for our helos to help.”

Within a minute Salvini had his whip aerial up through the gher’s smoke opening and broke radio silence, giving their position for a FUST.

“Choir,” Brentwood instructed. “You go first.”

“Ta!” It was an ironic Cockney thank-you.

“Aussie, you and I’ll provide covering fire if any Spets show up to intercept. Sal, you stay here. Aussie and I’ll fan out outside the gher and see whether we can spot them first.” Suddenly Brentwood turned to the old man. “How do you know there are helos and dogs coming?”

The old man was astonished that the American didn’t know. “Herdsmen,” the old man explained — one camel herdsman told another and so on. Then the old man had a stroke of genius for Aussie and Brentwood if they were to make a reconnaissance outside the gher. Camels.

Dressed in their dels high atop the animals, they would be able to see for miles across the plain toward the mountains, and this way everyone else could stay under cover in the gher. Salvini was inside the gher, manning the radio. He’d only used a burst message, and hopefully there had not been time for any enemy intercept to backplot him. No sooner had Brentwood and Aussie mounted their respective camels than a bulbous-eyed Hind E passed low overhead, heading further to the northeast, Aussie waving up at them.

“Silly bastard!” Choir called out.

“Gotta play the part, ‘aven’t we, squire?” Aussie said.

“What are you going to do,” Choir asked, “when they come back and let out some dogs sniffing for us? Thanks to that bastard Jenghiz they’ll have scent from stuff we handled back at the drop-off.”

“Not to worry, sport,” Aussie said flippantly. “The old CT’ll be here in a jiff.” He meant the Combat Talon