way. You are in command of the train, and you are to take whatever measures you deem necessary to see that the cargo reaches its destination.'
'I understand, sir, and thank you,' Nikita said. He did not ask what the cargo was, nor did it matter. He would treat it as carefully as if it was nuclear warheads, which it could well be. He had heard that the Primorsky region of which the city was a part had designs on becoming politically or economically independent from Russia. This could be a preemptive move by newly elected President Zhanin to disarm the area before that happened.
'You will be in touch with me as you reach each station on the Trans-Siberian route,' Rossky said, 'but I repeat, Lieutenant: you are to take any and all measures to protect your cargo.'
'Understood, sir,' Nikita said.
Returning the telephone to the operator, the Lieutenant ordered his men into action. Snatching up their gear, they ran across the field to the Gulfstream, increasingly invisible in the thickening snows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Andrei Volko had never felt so alone or frightened. In Afghanistan, even during the worst of it, there were fellow soldiers with whom to commiserate. When he was first approached by 'P' to work for DI6, he felt sick to his stomach at the thought of betraying his country. But he took consolation from the fact that his country had abandoned him after the war, and that he had new friends in Britain and here in Russia— even though he didn't know who they were. No one would benefit, he knew, if he was captured and began rattling off the names of other spies. It was enough to know that he belonged to something, and that knowledge had sustained him in the bitter years when he was forced to deal with the aftermath of a back that had been broken in a dive into a trench.
But the tall, thick-waisted young man had none of that as he approached the terminal. He had been startled during dinner by a beep from the telephone Fields-Hutton had given him. It was hidden inside a Walkman, an item so desirable in Russia that he had an excuse to keep it with him always. His nameless contact had informed him of the death of both Fields-Hutton and another agent, and told him to try and make his way to St. Petersburg within the next twenty-four hours, where he was to await further instructions. As he'd hurriedly dressed, leaving only with the clothes he was wearing, the Walkman, and the U.S. and German currency Fields-Hutton had given him for just such an emergency, Volko no longer felt like he had Britain behind him. Getting to St. Petersburg was going to be lonely and difficult, and even now he wasn't sure he'd be able to make it. He didn't own an automobile, and flying from even one of the smaller airports, like Bykovo, was risky. His name would already be at all the counters, and agents might ask for two pieces of identification instead of the fake one with which he'd been provided. His only chance was to take the train to St. Petersburg.
Fields-Hutton had once told him that if he ever had to leave the city, not to head for the airports or railroad at once. He wasn't as fast as a fax machine. Enthusiasm among clerks tended to wane as lunch or late evening neared. So he'd walked the streets until now, moving as though he had an immediate destination when he had none, mingling with the decreasing number of people heading home from work or from food lines, circuitously making his way from his apartment off Prospekt Vernadskovo through side streets where black market goods were being hawked from car trunks to the nearby Metro station. From there, he rode the crowded train to the Komsomol'skaya Metro stop, with its distinctive six-columned portico, ribbed dome, and majestic spire, in the city's northeast. He walked around for nearly an hour before strolling toward the St. Petersburg Station, which services St. Petersburg, Tallinn, and all points in northern Russia.
The four-hundred-mile railroad that connected Moscow and St. Petersburg was designed by American engineer Lieutenant George Washington Whistler, the father of painter James McNeill Whistler, and constructed by peasants and prisoners who were flogged by railroad personnel and forced to work long hours under often unendurable conditions. Shortly thereafter, in 1851, the Nikolayevskiy Station was constructed. Now known as the St. Petersburg Station, it was the oldest terminal in Moscow and one of three stations situated off busy Komsomol'skaya Square. On the left side of the square was the art nouveau Yaroslavl Station, built in 1904, which is the final stop of the Trans-Siberian Railway. To the right is the Kazan Station, a baroque collection of buildings completed in 1926 from which trains to the Urals, western Siberia, and central Asia departed.
The St. Petersburg Station stood beside the Komsomol'skaya pavilion, just northwest of the Yaroslavl Station. As Volko approached, he used his sleeve to dab perspiration from his high forehead and pushed his longish, dirty- blond hair from his head. Calm, he thought. You have to act calm. He put a big smile on his large, friendly mouth, like a man going off to meet his lover— though he knew the smile wasn't reflected in his eyes. He only hoped no one looked closely enough to notice.
Volko turned his large, sad brown eyes up at the tall, lighted clock tower. It was just after eleven. Trains departed four times a day, starting at eight in the morning and ending at midnight, and Volko's plan was to purchase a ticket for the last train and watch to see if passengers were being stopped by the police. If so, he had two options. One was to engage another passenger in conversation as he headed toward the train, since the police would be watching for someone traveling alone. The other option was to boldly walk up to one of them and ask directions. Fields-Hutton had told him that operatives who skulk in a fast-moving environment only call attention to themselves, and that it was human nature to ignore people who seemed to have nothing to hide.
The lines at the ticket windows were long, even at this hour, and Volko stood in one in the center. He had bought a newspaper and looked at it as he waited without really assimilating anything he read. The line crept along, though Volko, usually an impatient man, did not mind. Every minute he was free gave him more confidence, and also meant that he would have to spend less time as a captive in the train before it departed.
He purchased his ticket without incident, and though police officers were watching people who came and went, and questioned a few men traveling alone, Volko was not stopped.
You're going to make it, he told himself. He passed beneath the ornate arch that led to the track, where the Red Arrow Express was waiting. The ten cars dated back to before the First World War; three were freshly painted a bright red, one green, though that didn't detract from their antique charm. A tour group was standing beside the second car from the rear. Porters had tossed their luggage in a disorderly pile, and militiamen were looking at their passports.
Searching for me, no doubt, Volko thought as he walked right past them. He entered the train one car forward of the tourists and sat in one of the thinly cushioned seats. He realized that he should have brought a suitcase. It would look suspicious for someone to be going to a distant city without at least a change of clothes. He looked around as the car filled up and saw someone pushing several bags into the overhead rack.
He sat under one of them, by the window.
Settling in with his newspaper in his lap and his Walkman in his jacket pocket, Volko finally allowed himself to relax. That was when the cabin went quiet behind him and he felt the cold mouth of a Makarov pistol against the back of his neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bob Herbert loved being busy. But not so busy that he felt like wheeling his chair out of Op-Center and not stopping until he hit his hometown— 'No, not that Philadelphia' — in Neshoba County not far from the Alabama border. Philadelphia hadn't changed much since he was a kid. He loved going back and reflecting on happier times. They weren't necessarily more innocent times, because he remembered well the chaos that everyone from the Communists to Elvis Presley caused when he was a boy. But they were problems that, for him, went away when he buried himself in a comic book or squirrel gun or behind a fishing pole at the pond.
Now his pager told him that Stephen Viens at the National Reconnaissance Office had something for him to look at, and after cutting short a briefing for Ann Farris, he swung his wheelchair into his office, shut the door, and called NRO.
'Please tell me you've got photos of the nude swimmin' hole back in Renova,' he said into the
