'This is important. You know it is.' Herbert was right. Regardless of the intelligence chief's desire to see the terrorist captured, tried, and executed, the Harpooner was a man who deserved to be out of circulation.
'I'll call,' Hood said.
'Before you do, what about President Lawrence?' Rodgers asked.
'How did things go over there?'
'I'll fill you in after I talk to Orlov,' Hood said as he accessed his secure phone list on the computer. He found Orlov's number.
'But from the look of it, we're facing a lose-lose situation. Either the president is suffering from some kind of mental fatigue, or we've got a group of top officials running a black ops action of some kind--'
'Or both,' Herbert said.
'Or both,' Hood agreed.
'I've got Liz Gordon coming in later to talk about what the president might be experiencing.' Before punching in Orlov's home telephone number, Hood called Op-Center's linguistics office. He got Orly Turner on the line. Orly was one of Op-Center's four staff translators. Her area of expertise was Eastern Europe and Russia. Hood conferenced her in to the call. Though Orlov spoke English well enough. Hood wanted to make sure there were no misunderstandings, no delays if technical terms or acronyms had to be explained.
'You want to know what my gut tells me?' Herbert said.
'What?' Hood asked as he punched in Orlov's number.
'That all of this is related,' Herbert said.
'The president being out of the loop, Fenwick dealing secretly with Iran, the Harpooner showing up in Baku. It's all part of a big picture that we haven't figured out yet.' Herbert left the office. Hood didn't disagree with him. In fact, his own gut was willing to go one step further. That the big picture was bigger than what they imagined.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 3:58 a.m.
When Tom Moore went down. Pat Thomas ran toward the hospital door. He was halfway out when he saw blood pulsing from the side of Moore's head. Thomas stopped and jumped back just as a shot blew out the glass in the door. The bullet punched into his left thigh and knocked him down. He landed in a sitting position and continued to scuttle back. A second bullet chewed up the green tile inches in front of his foot. Thomas hurried backward along the floor, propelled by his palms and right heel. The wound burned viciously, and each move was agony. He left a long smear of blood behind him. It was a few moments before the hospital staff realized what had happened. One of the nurses, a young woman, ran forward and helped pull Thomas back. Several orderlies followed. They dragged him behind the admissions desk. Another nurse called the police.
A bald-headed doctor knelt beside Thomas. He was wearing off-white surgical gloves and shouted instructions in Azerbaijani to other hospital workers who were in front of the counter. As he did, he took a pocket knife from his white coat and carefully cut away the fabric around the wound. Thomas winced as the khaki fabric came away. He watched as the doctor exposed the wound.
'Will I live?' Thomas asked. The doctor didn't answer. Suddenly, the bald man started to rise. But instead of getting up, he straddled the American's legs. He sat on the wound, sending fire up through his patient's waist. Thomas wanted to scream, but he could not. A moment later, the doctor slipped a hand behind the America's head, holding it in place, and pushed the knife blade through his throat. The metal entered the skin just behind Thomas's chin and pinned his mouth shut. The blade continued upward until Thomas could feel the point of the blade under his tongue. Thomas choked as he coughed blood into his closed mouth. He raised his hands and tried to push the bald man back. But he was too weak. Calmly and quickly, the bald man angled the knife back. Then he drew the knife down until it reached Thomas's larynx. He cut swiftly to the left and right, following the line of the jaw all the way to the ears. Then he removed the blade, rose, and allowed Thomas to flop to the floor. The doctor pocketed the knife and walked away without a glance back. The American lay there, his arms weak and his fingers moving aimlessly. He could feel the warm blood flowing from both sides of his throat as the flesh around it grew cold. He tried to call out, but his voice was a burbling whisper. Then he realized that his chest was moving but no air was going to it. There was blood in his throat. Thomas's thoughts were confused. His vision swirled black. He thought about flying up to Baku, about meeting with Moore. He wondered how Moore was. And then he thought about his children. For a moment, he was back playing ball with them on the front lawn. Then they were gone.
Saint Petersburg, Russia Tuesday, 4:01 a.m.
General Sergei Orlov was standing in the snow in the small town of Nar'yan Mar on the Arctic Ocean when a peeping bird caused him to start. He turned to look for it and found himself staring at his alarm clock. He was back in his one-bedroom apartment in Saint Petersburg.
'Damn you,' Orlov said as the phone rang again. The former cosmonaut did not often dream of the town where he grew up. He hated being taken away from it and from his loving parents.
'Sergei?' his wife Masha said groggily beside him.
'I have it,' Orlov told her. He picked up the receiver of the cordless phone. He held it to his chest to stifle the ringing.
'Go back to sleep.'
'All right,' she said. Orlov listened enviously to the cozy rustle of the sheets as his wife curled up on her side. He got out of bed, pulled a bathrobe from the edge of the door, and pulled it on as he stepped into the living roomEven if this were a wrong number, Orlov would have trouble getting back to sleep. He finally answered the telephone.
'Hello,' Orlov said with a trace of annoyance.
'General Orlov?' said the voice on the other end. It was a man.
'Yes?' Orlov said as he nib bed his eyes vigorously with his free hand.
'Who is this?'
'General, it's Paul Hood,' said the caller. Orlov was suddenly very much awake.
