“If the rag heads were behind it,” snapped Gerard O'Neill, “we'd have heard from ten different terrorist groups by now, all claiming responsibility.”
“Probably true,” Dare conceded.
“And Hizballah has never kidnapped a woman.”
“So who do we blame, Dare?” Bigelow den-landed.
The real question, after all the perambulation. She drew a deep breath.
“We believe the sophistication and timing of this particular hit rule out the lesser Middle Eastern organizations. In our opinion, three groups could be responsible: a German cell trained by the Saudi-in-exile, Osama bin Laden; one dispatched by the Palestinians-Ahmad Jabril or the PFLP-GC; or a group operating under the 30 April Organization.”
“Germany's always been lousy with terrorists,” muttered General Phillips. “They send in kids with student visas, marry them to frauleins, wait for a convenient moment to activate.”
Bigelow sighed. “Sort it out for me, Dare.”
“As I'm sure you're aware, Mr. President, Osama bin Laden has been able to strike the U.S. significantly in the past, despite our constant efforts to monitor his terrorist network worldwide. He's independently wealthy and he works through a variety of front organizations, some legitimate, some less so.”
“I thought he liked to operate outta the third world,” the President said.
“But he may well have established a foothold in the new German capital years ago. You'll remember that bin Laden's father made his fortune in construction. Building contractors of every description have been the most visible commercial enterprise in Berlin for the past decade.”
“And he sure loves taking out U.S. embassies,” muttered Gerard O'Neill. The memory of rubble in Tanzania and Kenya still had the power to enrage him.
Bigelow glanced at his watch.
“I know enough about bin Laden. Go on.”
“Ahmad Jabnl, head of the PFLP-GC,” Dare said.
“An old PLO hand who broke with Yasir Arafat decades ago. Jabril styles himself as an ideologue, a man who offers no quarter while Israel exists. But he likes hits with a lot of public relations value. His men bombed our troop trains in Germany in 1991.”
“Then I'd say blowing the Brandenburg Gate is tame by comparison.” Bigelow's eyelids flickered.
“Why Sophie?”
Dare shrugged.
“Jabril's lieutenant is serving a life term in a German prison. Maybe he wants him released.”
“It's after nine o'clock in the evening over there,” Bigelow said impatiently. “Why the hell don't they give us a call?”
“And the last group, Director?” the President asked.
She felt a flutter of disquiet in her stomach.
“The 30 April Organization.”
Bigelow frowned.
“Neo-Nazis, right? The ones you think assassinated Schroeder?”
“We suspect they murdered Schroeder because he championed NATO air strikes against Belgrade. Mrs. Payne might very well have been next on their list.”
The President stretched painfully. A ruptured disk in his lower vertebrae caused chronic back pain.
“The guy who runs that organization is a war criminal.”
“Mian Krucevic. A Croat biologist. We believe he's operating out of Germany. Here's his bio.”
Bigelow reached for his reading glasses and scanned the document swiftly. Then he thrust it at Matthew Finch.
“I'll have to ask my pal Fritz why he isn't cutting the ground from under this joker's feet.”
“Too much money in pharmaceuticals,” Matthew Finch murmured.
“The German police have tried to snare Krucevic for years,” Dare said, “but 30 April is an organization that leaves few tracks. Rather like our own right-wing militia groups.”
“Who's funding them? Or is this nut case an independent operator?”
“Krucevic never lacks for funds,” Dare told Bigelow. “He shifts money through a variety of numbered Swiss accounts. We think he channels most of it through a front company in Berlin called VaccuGen. It produces and exports legitimate livestock vaccines, although there is strong evidence to suggest it also does a healthy trade in illegal biological agents. Krucevic has a reputation in the gray arms world for concocting deadly bugs. I've placed the company on the NSA's target list. We should have everything that goes in or out of the place fairly soon.”
“Do you have anybody inside?”
She repressed a sharp breath, although Bigelow's question seemed innocent enough.
“Not really, but we've been targeting them for some time.”
Clayton Phillips glanced up from his doodling. He was a kind-looking grandfather of a man, despite the rows of brass gleaming on his uniform. He had raised three girls himself and had a soft spot for the Vice President. Dare detected the marks of strain around the general's eyes; he was chafing at inactivity, at his own sense of uselessness. The word target, however, had caught his attention.
“Could we send in some cruise missiles against their operational base?”
“We'd have to locate it first,” Dare answered.
“Krucevic has a genius for self-protection. His identity and movements are so closely held, we've never even seen a picture of him.”
Matthew Finch fluttered the bio.
“This is picture enough. Krucevic is ruthless, he's efficient, and he's got no compunction about butchering Germans. He's nuts. But why snatch Sophie Payne? If revenge was the point, why not just shoot her in the square?”
“Then we should expect a demand,” the President said sharply. “Krucevic's agenda for Sophie's release. Tit for tat. So what exactly will this asshole want?”
“A Europe cleansed of the non-Aryan races,” Dare replied. “And that, Mr. President, you will never give him.”
There was silence as everyone in the room considered the implications of what she had said. “They killed Nell Forsyte,” Bigelow said quietly. “Shot her in the head. It would take that a direct hit to stop Nell in her tracks. She had a four-year-old daughter.”
“I'm sorry, Mr. President.” Dare folded her hands over her briefing book. The topaz winked and was swiftly covered.
“For Ms. Forsyte and all the others.”
“Mr. President?”
Maybelle Williams, his executive secretary, peered apprehensively around the Oval Office door.
Bigelow folded his reading glasses and smiled at her as chough nothing really bad could ever happen.
“Yes, darling'?”
“The Situation Room just called. Embassy Prague has got a videotape of the Vice President.”
Eleven
Prague, 8:15 p.m.
The man Sophie thought was Michael sliced the bonds at her ankles and wrists and hauled her down a corridor to the bathroom. Windowless, like everything in the subterranean compound, it offered no chance for escape. Michael stood in the doorway with a gun poised while she used the toilet. She tried to ignore him, knowing that Krucevic would use this sort of humiliation to wear her down. When at last she stole a look at Michael, she
