senior men in the Bureau believe I’ve gotten to where I am on the Hostage Rescue Team solely because I’m a woman… a real affirmative action aberration. The rest only want to trot me out as a showpiece for Congress or the media. You know, with a little sign around my neck that reads, ‘See, we do get it. We’re hip. We’re with it on equal rights.’ ”
Thorn snorted. “Not many showpieces kick Sergeant Major Diaz’ butt in a shooting-house competition.”
Helen smiled in fond memory. “That’s for sure.” Then she shook her head in frustration. “It just doesn’t seem to matter to the older guys in grey suits, though. I still have to prove myself to them all over again every single day.”
“But not to your section,” Thorn suggested.
“No. Not to them.” She smiled. “They’re a pretty good bunch of guys. For Neanderthal door-kickers, that is.”
“I’ve — heard that some of us are even almost human.” Thorn started clearing dishes. “So what made you decide to go for the HRT anyway?”
“You mean as opposed to choosing the normal career path for a young, ambitious FBI agent?” Helen shrugged again. “I wanted more action and excitement than I thought I’d get behind a desk in Omaha or Duluth or Topeka. Besides, it was a chance to break some new ground. To be one of the first to do something.”
She looked up at him. “Does that make any sense?”
Thorn nodded. It made a lot of sense especially to him. They were a lot alike despite their very different upbringings, he realised. Both of them were driven to win, to succeed, to be perfect. If anything, Helen had it a little harder than he did. As one of the first women assigned to the FBI’s traditionally male counterterrorist unit, she would always have to fight the unspoken presumption that she was only there as a token female. He knew her well enough now to realize just how galling that must be.
He was also positive that Helen Gray would never take anything she hadn’t earned in a fair and open competition not a job, not a promotion, and not a trophy. The day after they’d first met, he’d gone back to Fort Bragg to review the videotapes of her section’s winning run through the House of Horrors. Any thoughts that her victory was a fluke had gone right out the window after seeing those tapes. She was good. Very good. Her assault tactics were brilliant, she improvised rapidly when things went wrong, and she was a crack shot. She made up in agility, accuracy, and intelligence whatever she might lack in raw physical strength.
Helen touched his shoulder lightly. “What are you thinking, Peter?”
Honesty overrode his native caution and fear of sounding corny. “Just that you’re the most beautiful and intelligent woman I’ve ever met.”
She laughed deep in her throat. “One hundred Coins for flattery, Colonel Thorn.” She shook her head in wonderment. “Louisa Farrell said you were dangerous. And she was right.”
Still sitting, Helen stretched lazily, arching her back and shoulders in a way that sparked a definite rise in Thorn’s pulse. He moved closer.
Helen turned her face toward his, her lips slightly parted. He kissed her, gently at first, then harder. After he’d spent what seemed an eternity exploring a soft, warm sweetness, she leaned back and looked intently into his eyes. “And what are you thinking now, Peter Thorn?”
He smiled slowly. “I was wondering just when you had to report back to Quantico.”
She pulled him down to her again. “Not until tomorrow night.”
Colonel Shalah Haleri paced across his small, shabby room, reached the faded, yellowing far wall, and turned back toward the window. There was nothing much to see. Bulgaria’s capital city sprawled at the foot of 2,300- meter-high Mount Vitosa, but he had chosen this rundown hotel for its anonymity, not its tourist value. The thick smog hanging over this industrial working-class neighborhood hid any clear view of the mountain’s forested slopes and ski runs.
Abruptly, he stopped pacing and returned to the battered chair and scarred writing table that were the room’s only other pieces of furniture besides an iron-frame bed and a stand. Fifteen years as a covert operative in Iran’s intelligence service had taught him many things patience among them. When you were deep in an enemy land, haste was almost always the path to failure and to death.
Mentally, he reviewed his cover story yet again. He could not afford any mistakes. This meeting he had scheduled was too important to his mission.
The fractured states of the former Warsaw Pact were rich with pickings if you had the money to spend. And Bulgaria had special items that were available nowhere else. General Taleh intended to add those resources to his arsenal. Haleri was the man charged with making the general’s intentions a reality.
Haleri’s lips twitched upward in a one-sided smile as he examined his passport. It had been issued under the name of Tarik Ibrahim, and even an intensive search would only lead any hunters back along a false trail laid all the way to Baghdad. It amused him to travel as a member of Iraq’s spy service. There was a delightful irony there, he thought.
A soft knock on the door brought him to his feet. Instinctively, his hand slid under his jacket and then stopped. He was unarmed. Even in postcommunist Bulgaria, carrying a firearm was more trouble than it was worth. If things went wrong, he would simply have to trust in God, and in the suicide capsule his masters in Tehran had thoughtfully provided.
“Come in.”
The colonel relaxed as his visitor stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him. It was the man he had been expecting the go-between. He called himself Petko Dimitrov at least this week. The Iranian suspected his real name was long forgotten.
Dimitrov was as nondescript as himself a middle-aged man with grey hair, a plain face, and expressionless eyes. We are two of a kind, Haleri thought with a touch of perverse pride. We are men who can walk through life without leaving any lasting trace of our coming or going. ~~
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ibrahim.”
“And to you.” Haleri indicated the single chair. “Please, be comfortable.”
Dimitrov set his briefcase carefully on the writing table and sat down.
The Iranian sat across from him, perched on the edge of the bed. He cleared his throat. “You have news for me?”
The Bulgarian nodded. A faint smile flashed across his lips and then vanished. It never reached his eyes. “I have spoken to my principal,” he said slowly. “The work you have requested can be done. And it can be completed in the time you have allotted.”
“Good.” Haleri paused briefly. “And the price?”
Dimitrov shrugged. “The price will be high.” He lowered his voice.
“The encryption software you need is easy. The other…” He shook his head. “The other item is difficult. It will take a great deal of thought and effort.”
Haleri nodded. He understood that. A complex task required a complex and extraordinary weapon. He pursed his lips. “How much?”
“Eight million.” Dimitrov’s eyes hardened. “There will be no bargaining, you understand? That is our price no more and no less.”
“Very well,” Haleri agreed readily. The price was higher than he had hoped, but no one in Iran could produce the weapon he sought. “Eight million dollars?”
“Dollars?” Dimitrov smiled wryly. “I hardly think so. You will pay us in German marks. Half in a week’s time. The rest on delivery.”
Again, the Iranian agreed. Within minutes their business was concluded.
As he escorted the Bulgarian to the door, Haleri asked, “Does it have a name, this weapon of yours?”
Dimitrov shrugged again. “Once you have paid, you may call it whatever you wish ” He smiled coldly. “We call it OU,~OS.”
