“Wasn’t even close,” said Ferguson, though he had in fact palmed the small gun before getting out of the car. “I thought they were going to find the grenades on you when they picked us up on the road. Good thing you have such a fat belly.”
“Smooth, Ferguson, real smooth.”
“Would have been a shitload easier if that nurse didn’t figure it out. Corrigan’s information must have been bad. Fucker couldn’t sift through an intelligence report with a shovel.”
“He’s an officer; what do you expect?” said Conners.
Ferguson slammed on the brakes about a hundred yards before the turnoff. He jumped out and ran to the truck, leaving Conners to take the prisoner. After he started it he climbed up to see if they were being followed. While he couldn’t see the fortress because there was a hill in the way, he could see a curl of dust coming from the road.
Conners, meanwhile, had the prisoner by the arm and dragged him to the truck. He put him in the front cab, then backed out of the hiding spot, rumbling toward the road.
The AK-47 Conners had taken from the guards lay on the ground. Ferguson picked it up and fired the last four bullets into the rear fender of the car. Then he took his shirt and draped it on the ground near the driver’s side door, which he left ajar. Finally, in an inspired bid for greater authenticity, he took off one of his shoes and threw it on the ground nearby.
There was no sense hopping around on one foot, so he yanked off the other and tossed it in the front seat. His soles were callused, but not nearly enough to take the sting out of the rocks and uneven gravel as he ran in his socks up the road about thirty feet. There he grabbed the Russian bazooka he’d hidden there the night before and fired point-blank at the front of the car. He was actually too close to the target; the missile shot upward and rather than hitting the engine compartment went through the windshield, exploding in the passenger compartment. The fireball blew Ferguson back in a tumble, and he smacked his head against the rocks.
By the time he got to his feet, Conners had the truck moving. Ferg started running, then slowed to a trot, the throb in his skull too fierce to permit anything faster. He made the running board on the second try, pulling himself into the cab as his head spun in a dizzy swirl, the world moving on an odd horizontal axis.
Blinking didn’t help; he put his hands to his temples, rubbing as Conners drove.
“Russians are coming,” Ferg told him.
“I figured.”
“Man, my head hurts.”
“Vodka’ll do it to you every time,” said Conners. “By the way, you have to give those Russian RPGs a little more room. They’re not meant for close range.”
“Now you tell me,” said Ferg.
“You’re Americans.”
Ferguson turned his head. “And you’re not,” he told the Chechen, who was trussed and hooded beside him.
“What are you doing with me?” The Chechen’s English was very good, and his accent shaded toward American, though it had an obvious foreign ring to it. Though that made it easier for Ferguson to talk to him, it angered him — Corrigan’s background data on him had not included any of this information. Once more, their intelligence had failed; the fact that it was in their favor was besides the point.
“We’re going to ask you some questions and get some answers,” said Ferg.
“Then what?”
“Then we’ll see. How do you speak English?”
The Chechen hesitated, suspecting an elaborate Russian trick.
“Last night, you were interviewed by a Russian FSB agent,” said Ferguson. “He asked you about a man named Novakich. He may or may not have explained why he was interested in him.”
“I’ve been interviewed many times,” said the prisoner.
“Yeah, but not about a dead man.”
“How do you know Novakich is dead?”
Ferguson’s head hurt too much to play games. The best thing at that point was just to ship the bastard back to Guantanamo and let the intelligence geeks put the drug into him.
“I might be able to help you,” said the prisoner after a few minutes. “If you got me away from the Russians.”
Ferguson ignored the Chechen — he figured it was just bullshit — and rummaged in his bag for some aspirin.
“How are you going to help us?” said Conners.
“A few weeks ago, someone came to me looking for information about radiological bombs.”
“What’s a radiological bomb?” asked Conners.
“A bomb built from waste,” said the Chechen.
“Who?”
“The Russians call him Kiro. He’s not the one you have to worry about,” added Daruyev.
“Who’s worried?” said Ferguson.
“Allah’s Fist is building a weapon. They’re taking hospital waste and storing it.”
“Yeah?” said Ferguson skeptically. “Where?”
The Chechen said nothing.
“How come you’re ratting on your friends?” said Conners.
“They’re not my friends.”
“Fair enough,” said Ferg. He waved at Conners, trying to make him shut up.
“Allah’s Fist is not part of the freedom movement,” said Daruyev. “And I do not think that Kiro is. He is slime.”
“Unlike you,” said Conners.
“Eyes on the road, Dad,” said Ferguson, exasperated.
Daruyev remained silent as they drove northward. There was a small town about four miles ahead; there were bound to be Russian troops there, and Ferg didn’t want to chance being stopped. Instead, they headed toward what looked on the sat photo to be an abandoned farm to the west, figuring they could sit in the ruins until nightfall. By then, he’d have hooked up with Van on an exfiltration plan; no way he was driving all the way to Georgia again.
“My war is against the Russians,” said Daruyev. “There was a time when Americans helped me, and because of that, I will help you now.”
Ferguson sighed wearily and slid sideways in the seat. “Well, fire away then,” he told the Chechen. “We’re all ears.”
11
Though he had been with the CIA for more than two decades, Thomas Ciello had never been in the Cube, otherwise known as Building 24-442. In fact, he had never physically been to the “campus” where it was located — campus being a somewhat overblown term for the collection of warehouse buildings on the cul-de-sac just off the Beltway.
While the warehouses and the small administrative building called 24-442 behind them looked like typical industrial architecture, they were anything but. Beneath the outer metal were thick concrete bunkers extending deep into the ground. Each held several floors of disk arrays organized according to an arcane system that even Ciello, an experienced Agency analyst, only partly understood.
Ciello had not been told why he was to report to Building 24-442. He hoped, however, that it had something to do with a memo he had sent to the director three weeks before. The memo detailed his findings on an unofficial research project he had been conducting practically since his first day in the Company’s employ: Ciello believed he had found definitive proof in the CIA records that extraterrestrial explorers had visited the earth.
