America

center. Which would work if this were the only computer center she had.

Tomorrow she would go to the backup location and have Zipper send her the updated critical files. She would back them up and hide the disks.

Oh, the irony. The CIA had named Kolnikov and his crew the Blackbeard team. Kolnikov! Now Jouany and Willi Schlegel, those two were pirates Two of the blackest scoundrels God ever made, and both wore business suits, pontificated to the press, made flashy charitable donations, and took their wives to the opera.

And she was going to take huge piles of money from them!

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jake Grafton walked from the Pentagon to the SuperAegis liaison spaces on the eighth floor of a Crystal City office tower. He paid little attention to traffic or anything else — he had too much on his mind. Tom Krautkramer, the FBI agent, was waiting in his office with Toad Tarkington.

'I've been talking to General Alt, Admiral Stalnaker, and Vice-Admiral Navarre,' he said. 'I thought I might as well drop by and fill you in on what we have.' Krautkramer looked as if he hadn't gotten any sleep last night.

'We've got a number of leads to check. We are working with the phone company to get the long-distance records for the telephones where these people stayed, we're talking to neighbors, going over the apartments with forensic teams, basically pulling out all the stops.'

'Cut to the chase. What have you got right now?'

'A civilian technician who worked on the holographic simulator is missing, guy named Leon Rothberg. His supervisor says Rothberg has been asking for lots of unpaid time off — apparently his private life is a mess. The supervisor said that sometimes bill collectors call wanting to talk to him. Anyway, his landlord says he hasn't been around for several days.' He produced a photo and passed it to Jake, who glanced at it and handed it back. 'He may be one of the two men who wasn't on the Blackbeard team.'

'This guy know the America's system?'

'According to his supervisor, Rothberg was a computer Ph.D. candidate who dropped out of MIT before turning in his dissertation. We're checking that out. The supervisor says he is a certified genius who knows every line of software code in America.'

'Bullshit,' said Jake Grafton.

'I'm quoting the supervisor,' Krautkramer replied.

'Sorry.' Jake felt like a jerk. Krautkramer was probably as tired as he was.

'One of the missing Americans is a petty officer named Callahan. The general opinion of the others is that he is dead, but no one knows for a fact. Callahan could be alive and well and on that ship. He was a reactor specialist.'

'The man who prevented the SCRAM.'

'Perhaps,' Krautkramer admitted. 'It is possible. Callahan is or was in the midst of a nasty divorce and had a pregnant girlfriend. He was an above-average petty officer, but he may have been tempted. Or he may have been as honest as the day is long and killed by the hijackers because he didn't jump fast enough. We don't know.'

'Okay.'

'The leader of the Blackbeard team was Vladimir Kolnikov. Here is a copy of his file.' The FBI special agent passed a red folder to Jake, who glanced through it. Most of this stuff he had already seen. 'We're doing our best here and in Paris,' Krautkramer continued, 'to come up with more information on this guy, who his friends are, where and how he lived, what he drinks, what he reads, essentially the works. It's going to take a few days.'

'Who knew him best in Connecticut?'

'The simulator training officer. He spent up to eight hours a day with him for several weeks.'

'Let's fly him to Washington. I want to learn everything he knows about Kolnikov. Toad, see what you can do.' Yes, sir.

'When you get more, Mr. Krautkramer, day or night, call me. Commander Tarkington will give you some phone numbers.'

When the FBI man was gone, Jake said to Toad, 'Okay. How is it going in the office today?'

'If anyone here knew that the submarine was going to be stolen,

I didn't get a hint of it,' Toad said gloomily. 'They've talked of nothing else today. The general assumption is that the sub will attack the Goddard launch platform with a Tomahawk.'

'Ilin and the other spies?'

'The only time they've been outside is to go to lunch in the Crystal City mall. We went as a group. I stuck with Ilin like chewing gum on his shoe. He was not out of my sight. I even went to the men's room with him. We talked about submarines, baseball and football, politics, economics, the euro…' Toad shrugged.

'Any chance Ilin did a drop?' In other words, was Ilin given enough rope to leave something — anything — somewhere for a Russian courier to retrieve?

'The FBI had three agents watching us every second. They even bused the table after we left. I don't see how he could have. They had a video camera and directional mike aimed at us every minute. I felt like I was surrounded by the Secret Service, but they were so unobtrusive I don't think anyone else noticed.'

'Bet they all did,' Jake muttered and glanced at the stuff in his in-basket. 'And tonight?'

'A covert surveillance team for each of them. The agent I talked to said there are fifty people involved. No one will tail these people, yet they will be under surveillance every minute. They've bugged their hotel rooms and installed video cameras in the lobbies, hallways, stairwells, and bars. The FBI has been damned busy. I don't know what priority you asked for, Admiral, but you got the highest one they have.'

After the war room session that evening, the foreign liaison people would undoubtedly go straight to their embassies to report to their governments. And yet, why was Ilin wearing a mike in his belt? He could go to his embassy and talk face-to-face with his colleagues any time he wished. Was he dirty?

Waiting for Flap Le Beau to call was difficult. Jake thumbed unenthusiastically through the paper in his in- basket. He signed several letters that Toad placed before him, then stared out the window at the jets coming and going at Reagan National Airport. He was lost in thought when the intercom buzzed. The secretary said, 'General Le Beau, sir.'

'The White House bought it,' Flap said. 'The Joint Chiefs will be there. We'll get a complete briefing on the efforts being made to find America. If anyone asks a question that I think is out of line or not germane, I'll stop the show.'

'Thank you, sir.'

When Jake hung up, Toad dashed through the door. 'Bring in the spies,' the admiral told him.

He greeted them by name: Jadot, the Frenchman; Mayer, the German; and, of course, Barrington-Lee, English as strong tea. All of them had spent a large portion of their careers in military intelligence, as they freely admitted.

All except the Russian, Janos Ilin, tall, reserved, taciturn. He was a bureaucrat, according to his cover story, even though he made no pretense of knowing anything about missiles or defense systems. Jadot had asked him which directorate he worked for and had received a blank stare to reward his curiosity.

When everyone was seated, Jake brought them up to date on the stolen submarine. For the first time he told them the identities and nationalities of the thieves and the fact that they were being trained to operate a submarine with a minimum manning level.

'Trained by whom?' asked Barrington-Lee.

'The United States Navy.'

'Guess you Yanks are really getting serious about shrinking your navy,' Barrington-Lee commented when he realized Jake was not going to give an explanation for the team's training. 'And then the blighters swiped your submarine. First you lose the killer satellite, now this. The press will eat you alive.'

'Typical British understatement,' Toad Tarkington remarked.

'So difficult to find honest people these days,' Helmut Mayer said with a straight face.

'Certainly it is,' agreed Maurice Jadot, who flashed a quick grin at Jake. 'I am still waiting to meet my first