The Arctic Event (10 page)
“Of course.”
Randi kept her eyes fixed on the blandly patterned wallpaper. “USAMRIID was one of the first agencies called in to try and isolate the disease and find a cure. While working with the plague, my sister caught it.”
“And she died as well.” Valentina Metrace’s voice softened into compassion. The test was over.
Randi could meet the other woman’s gaze now. “Since then I’ve found myself working with Jon on a number of different assignments. For some reason we just keep getting tangled up with each other.” She continued with a wry, self-derogatory smile. “I’ve come to recognize that he’s a good operative and essentially a good person. I’ve also come to recognize that what’s happened in the past is...past. I promise you, Professor, that I’ll have no problem working with him as my team leader. He knows his business. It’s only that I have some memories to work through whenever we first come together.”
Valentina nodded. “I see.”
She turned for the door but paused halfway through the move. “Miss Russell, would you like to have breakfast with me tomorrow, before we get on the plane?”
She put no special emphasis on the “we” in the sentence. It was offered as a given.
Randi’s responding smile was open this time. “I’d like that, Professor. And call me Randi.”
“And Val for me. I apologize for coming on quite so strong. I was a bit uncertain about the scenario. I wasn’t sure if I might not be getting caught up in the fallout of some former romantic entanglement.”
“Between Jon and me?” Randi chuckled ruefully. “Not likely.”
The other woman’s smile deepened. “Good.”
After Valentina Metrace had left, Randi frowned. There had been no reason for the black-haired historian to look quite so pleased with that last answer she had been given.
Over the Straits of Juan de Fuca
The Alaska Airlines 737-400 swept over the island-studded band of water separating the Olympic Peninsula and the United States from Vancouver Island and Canada. With cloud tendrils licking at its belly, it angled away to the northwest. As the Boeing leveled off at its cruising altitude, Jon Smith loosened his seat belt. The midweek morning flight to Anchorage was half empty, and he had the dual luxuries of no seat partner and a spot in the spacious A row just behind the cockpit bulkhead.
For the first time in weeks he was in civilian clothes, his uniform exchanged for Levi’s and a well-worn bush jacket. The change was a pleasant one. Glancing over the seat back, he could see Randi Russell and Professor Metrace spaced out farther back in the cabin.
Since last night Randi had apparently reestablished her equanimity with him. Looking up from the helicopter flight manual she’d been studying, she gave him a brief smile.
The professor was also reading, her nose buried in a massive bookmark-studded study of the Warsaw Pact Air Forces.
Professor. It still sounded odd.
His own briefcase rested under his seat, loaded with the latest USAMRIID downloads on the rapid diagnosis and identification of anthrax variants and their treatments. He’d get to them presently, but for the moment it felt good to sit back, stretch his legs out, and close his eyes against the warm morning sun pouring through the cabin window. Soon he’d have no time or opportunity to unload so totally.
“Mind if I sit down, Jon?”
He snapped out of the semidoze he’d drifted into. Valentina Metrace was standing in the aisle, a cup of coffee steaming in her hand and a mildly amused expression on her face.
Smith grinned back. “Why not?”
She flowed past him to curl up in the window seat. The professor was apparently one of those women who preferred to be elegant at all times. This morning she wore a form-molding black sweater and ski pants set, and her hair was up in the sleek chignon she seemed to favor. Smith found himself wondering for a moment how far that dark, glossy cascade might flow down her back should it be set free.
Despite the pleasant distraction, he still shot a fast look around, checking the immediate environment. The seat rows across and behind them were still unoccupied, granting them a pocket of privacy.
Valentina was security wary as well, for when she spoke she kept her voice pitched below the whine of the fan jets.
“I was thinking we could use this opportunity to talk freely before our liaison joins up. Tell me, Colonel, what’s your policy going to be toward our gallant Russian ally?”
It was a good question. “Until proven otherwise, we are to assume all of the brothers are valiant and all of the sisters virtuous,” Smith replied. “As long as the Russians appear to be playing straight with us, we’ll do the same for them. But the operative word is ‘appear.’ Our instructions are to play like the deck is loaded. We’re to assume the Russians have another layer on this thing.”
Metrace took a sip of her coffee. “I think that we may call that a blinding flash of the obvious.”
They had to lean close to speak, and Smith couldn’t help but note that his executive officer smelled pleasantly of Guerlain’s Fleurs des Alpes. So if the Russians are trying to pull a fast one,” Smith interlaced his
fingers over his stomach, “what is it and why? What aren’t we seeing?”
“I daresay it would be better to approach this as a question of what is it they don’t want us to see,” she replied. “I’ve been networking with some of my fellow history buffs since catching this rocket, and I’ve discovered something rather interesting about the Misha 124 crash.
“Since the end of the Cold War there has been a huge...I suppose you could call it a glasnost under way between military historians on both sides of the conflict. Without having to worry about security restrictions, we’ve been asking why was this done, where, and by whom. For the most part, we’ve been getting answers.
“To date, our opposite numbers in the Russian Federation have been remarkably forthcoming, even about their major military bloopers like sunken atomic submarines and nerve gas spills.
“But not on this point. Prior to the discovery of the Misha crash site, in all of the ex-Soviet air force service records we’ve been granted access to, there has been no mention of any TU-4 squadron losing any aircraft in March of 1953, on any kind of routine exercise, anywhere.”
“And no mention of a biological broken arrow in the Arctic involving two tons of anthrax?” Smith prompted.
She shook her head, then brushed back a lock of raven hair from above her brow. “Not a whisper, until the Russians brought the subject up with our President.
“Now, information on a bioweapons warload being carried by a specific aircraft might very well have been compartmentalized for security purposes. But this particular Bull and its entire aircrew have been completely erased from all standard Red Air Force documentation. They urgently wanted to make it go completely away. And I think the only reason the Russian Federation is admitting to its existence now is because it’s sitting there in front of God and everybody.”
Smith looked past Valentina for a moment and out the glare-bright window, digesting the information. “That is interesting,” he replied slowly. “Here’s one I’ve been wondering about. It seems damn peculiar to me that anyone would risk uploading a live biowar agent as part of a training exercise. Common sense would dictate you’d use some kind of harmless inert testing compound.”
Valentina shrugged. “You’d think so, and so would I. But then, we aren’t Russian. They tend to do things differently.
“Consider the Chernobyl disaster,” she went on. “We wouldn’t build a big electric power reactor with a combustible graphite core, but the Russians did. We wouldn’t build a big nuclear reactor of any kind without a proper radiation containment dome, but the Russians did. And we wouldn’t run a series of radical systems-failure tests on a big, unsealed graphite-core power reactor while it was up and critical, but the Russians most certainly did. I don’t think we can make any assumptions on that point.”
Smith nodded. “Then we won’t. Now, let’s move on to something else. I know the status of the Russian Federation’s current biowar program, but you’re our expert on past Soviet systems. What’s the possibility that bomber might be carrying something other than plain old anthrax?”
She sighed. “It’s difficult to say. The Misha 124 was the kind of aircraft that would have been used on a one-way transpolar strike mission against strategic targets in the United States. With that as a given, and given the plane was armed, it would have been carrying some kind of ABC warload: atomic, biological, or chemical. The Soviets wouldn’t expend a long-range bomber and an elite aircrew to deliver anything less potent.”
She took another sip of her coffee and squirmed around to face him directly, tucking her feet under her in the seat. “As for the specific agent, those were the days before the exotics like Ebola and before advanced genetic engineering. You had to make do with what Mother Nature provided. The big three everyone was fooling with were anthrax, smallpox, and the bubonic plague. Anthrax was favored because it was simple and cheap to manufacture in bulk, and militarily controllable because it isn’t a contagion.”
Smith frowned and considered. “If it were the plague or smallpox, we’d likely have nothing to worry about. The pathogens would probably be long inert by now. Besides, why lie about it? All three of the alternatives would have been equally nasty, and once we reach the crash site we’d know anyway.”
“Exactly.” Valentina gave an acknowledging tilt of her head. “That’s why it can’t just be the presence of the bioagent alone. They’ve already confessed to it. There must be some X factor involved that we don’t understand. Beyond that, the present deponent knoweth not. But I can be reasonably certain about one other thing.”
“What would that be?”
She took another sip of her coffee. “Something damn peculiar is going to happen when we get inside that airplane.”
Anchorage, Alaska
Three hours out of Seattle the 737 popped its flaps and airbrakes and began its descent into the Anchorage bowl. Snowcapped ridgelines and the steel blue waters of Cook’s Inlet panned past the liner’s windows as it spiraled down into the contradiction of a twenty-first-century American city set in the heart of an essential wilderness.
Settling on its landing gear, the little Boeing taxied to the south terminal of Ted Stevens International Airport. A uniformed Alaska State Policeman from the airport security detail stood waiting for Smith and his people at the head of the Jetway.
“Welcome to Alaska, Colonel Smith,” the state trooper said gravely. “We’ve got a vehicle waiting for you out in the police lot.” He passed Smith a set of car keys. “It’s a white unmarked Crown Vic. Just leave it at Merrill Field. We’ll send someone to collect it.”
It was obvious that Director Klein’s invisible but potent presence had passed this way, smoothing their path. “Thank you, Sergeant,” Smith replied, accepting the keys. “It’s appreciated.”
The trooper also handed over a small, heavy case of black pebbled plastic. “This was also sent over for you, Colonel. Somebody seems to think you might need it.”
Smith matched the trooper’s rather pointed smile. “They could be wrong.”
They had limited themselves to carry-on luggage, so there was no need to join in the battle around the baggage carousels. Smith led his team out of the terminal building and into the crisp Alaskan noon. The oddly angled sun was warm, but the air was cool in the shadows, and the surrounding peaks of the great Chugach range were dusted with fresh snow—pointed hints that time was running out in the North.
As promised, a mud-streaked Ford with Alaskan state plates was waiting for them. After stowing their luggage in the sedan’s commodious trunk, Smith tossed the keys over to Randi. She slid in behind the wheel, with Smith taking the front passenger seat and Valentina the back. Automatically they paused to arm up.
Taking the pistol case onto his lap, Smith popped the slide catches and flipped open the lid.
Since joining the profession Smith had developed a theorem about weapons preference. It was a profound personality statement about the individual and the way they related to a potentially hostile world. It was also an absolute truth because it was something one was entrusting one’s life to.
He passed a black leather and nylon fanny pack across to Randi and watched as she ripped open the heavy Velcro fasteners and flipped the pouch section down and off the concealed crossdraw holster. Revealed also were the rosewood grips and stainless steel finish of a Smith and Wesson model 60, the Lady Magnum variant ergonomically optimized for a female shooter. With deft, practiced movements she dunked a speedloader of .357 hollowpoint into the revolver’s chambers.
Point proven. Randi Russell was a lady, and she carried a lady’s gun. But as she was a very serious lady, it was a very serious lady’s gun.
For himself, there was simple mil-spec practicality, a Department of Defense alternate-issue SIG-Sauer P-226 with a stack of 9mm clips and a Bianchi shoulder holster and clip carrier. The armed forces had expended a great deal of time and effort proving up the SIG as an effective and efficient personal firearm. Smith found no reason to argue with their decision.
Finally there was a small, elongated bundle wrapped in soft black cloth. “What’s that?” Randi asked as Smith lifted it from the case.
“Those are mine,” Valentina replied, resting her chin on her crossed hands atop the seat back. “Have a look.”
Smith opened the bundle. It contained a brace of throwing knives, but knives such as he had never seen before. Intrigued, he drew one from its nylon slip sheath.
Only eight inches long and barely the width of his ring finger, it was half haft, half blade. The blade itself was almost spikelike, with a flattened, diamond-shaped cross-section, the junctures of all four oiled facets honed to a shimmering edge. Both the doctor and the warrior within Smith were impressed. Like a rapier or one of the old triangular-bladed trench knives, it would produce a wound channel that would be a perfect horror to try and close.
There was no guard, but an indented thumb brace circled the top of the checkered hilt. And the knife hadn’t been assembled; it had been carved, expertly cold-machined out of a single bar of some exceptionally heavy metal.
The knife bore a certain family resemblance to the tonki throwing darts used in Japanese martial arts, and when Smith laid it across his extended finger to test its balance he found it perfect. Except for the blade edges and a minute silver “VM” scripted on one blade facet, it was finished in jet black.
“It’s beautiful,” Randi whispered in honest appreciation. And it was. There was a sense of design and proportion to the little knife that made it a work of art beyond the weapon.
“Thank you,” Valentina Metrace replied. “That’s DY-100 steel—hellish stuff to work but incredibly strong, and if you can get an edge on it, it lasts forever.”
Smith glanced back at her. “You made these?”
Valentina gave a modestly acknowledging tilt of her head. “A hobby.”
Randi smiled indulgently as she buckled the belt of the fanny pack/ holster around her waist. “They’re pretty, Professor, but if a situation develops you might want something a little more substantial.”
“Never underestimate the point and the edge, darling.” Valentina accepted the knives from Smith. “Blades have killed more people than all of the bombs and bullets ever created, and they continue to do so with undiminished efficiency.”
One of the throwing knives vanished up the historian’s left sweater sleeve, the other into a boot top. “My little pets are silent, jamproof, and far easier to conceal than a gun. You never have to worry about running out of ammunition, and they can punch through soft body armor that would stop a conventional pistol round cold.”
Randi gave her gun belt a final settling tug and cranked over the Crown Victoria’s ignition. “I’ll stick with a gun, thanks.”
“Hopefully we won’t need either flavor of ordnance on this job, ladies.”
“Hopefully, Jon?” Randi replied, backing the car out of its slot.
“Well, let’s call it a nice thought.”
The next step was a call to a number he’d committed to memory before leaving Seattle that morning. As they worked their way out of the airport lot Smith keyed his cell phone. A deep voice speaking a mildly accented but excellent English replied, “This is Major Smyslov.”
“Good afternoon, Major, this is Colonel Smith. We will be picking you up in front of your hotel in about fifteen minutes. A white Ford sedan, Alaska license, Sierra...Tango...Tango...three...four...seven, one man, two women. Civilian clothes.”
“Very good, Colonel, I will be waiting.”
Smith flipped the phone shut. This would be his next critical unknown. There had already been a couple of interesting turns in his team’s makeup. What would this last member add to the already exotic brew?
Clad in anorak, khaki slacks, and climbing boots, Major Gregori Smyslov stood outside the lobby entrance of the Arctic Inn, his flight bag at his feet and his thoughts paralleling those of Jon Smith.
He had been briefed to expect an army doctor, a historian, and a civilian helicopter pilot. But who would they truly be? Already Smyslov had the sense they would be something more. The way Smith had set up the contact and pickup, the crisp identifiers he had given—they had the flavor of an experienced field operative.
Impatiently he lit a Camel filter with a disposable butane lighter, not of a mood to enjoy the superior American tobacco. Soon his performance would begin.
Already Smyslov didn’t like the feel of this job. It had the stink of desperation about it, a stench all too common in Russian governmental circles in these days. Someone somewhere in the Moscow bureaucracy was not thinking, just reacting.
He took a hard drag on the cigarette. It wasn’t his place to decide such things.
The white automobile he had been told to expect turned off the street and rolled to a halt under the hotel canopy, its license number and passengers matching the given description. Smyslov flipped the cigarette to the ground, crushing it deliberately with his boot heel. Presently he would know, or at least he would have an idea, where the Americans stood and what they suspected.
Collecting his bag, Smyslov strode out to the car.
Within five minutes Smyslov indeed knew, and any hope that the Americans might be naively accepting the Russian line on the Misha 124 crash was irrevocably gone. As he was flying a false flag, so was everyone else.
The two women might look like American fashion models, but they most certainly were something else. The taciturn, wary blonde driving the car, theoretically the “helicopter pilot,” was maintaining a spy’s situational awareness, as was the more openly relaxed and vivacious brunette “history professor.” As she lounged in the backseat beside him, overtly chatting about the Alaskan climate, her vision scanned in a regular pattern, checking the paralleling traffic and skipping from one rearview mirror to the other, watching for potential tails.
Smyslov judged them as CIA or as members of one of the associate intelligence agencies that made up what the Americans called “the Club.”
He wondered if the striking attractiveness of the two female agents was a mere coincidence or if one or both of them might include seductive interrogation as part of their arsenal.
That could prove disconcerting.
As for the team leader, he might be an Army surgeon but he was also American Spetsnaz, probably attached to their defense intelligence agency. The feeling of alert, focused confidence radiating from him was unmistakable, as was the bulk of the military-caliber automatic riding under his jacket. The least they could have done was to give the poor fellow a decent cover name. Jon Smith indeed!
And if he had caught their scent, they most certainly had his. When Smith had reached back over the seat to shake Smyslov’s hand, there had been a glint of humor deep in his penetrating dark blue eyes, a shared, cynical joke of “Shhh, we’ll play the game for as long as you will.”
Madness!
Smyslov jerked his attention away from his thoughts. “What did you say, Colonel?”
“I was just asking if your people had come up with anything new on the circumstances of the crash,” Smith said amiably, looking back over the seat once more. “Do you have any better idea of what brought her down in our territory?”
Smyslov shook his head, aware of the three pairs of eyes regarding him, two sets directly and one in the rearview mirror. “No. We have reexamined our records and we have interviewed certain personnel who were serving in Siberia at the time of the Misha 124 training flight. Communications failed sometime between two routine position reports, and no distress call was heard. There was some evidence of environmental radio interference over the Pole. We believe this is the explanation.”
“What was the last solid fix you had on her? The plane’s position, that is?”
So it began. “I don’t have the exact latitude and longitude to mind, Colonel; I’ll have to check my documentation, but they were somewhere north of Ostrova Anzhu.”
“We’ve been wondering what she was doing so far over on our side of the Pole on a training exercise.” The woman professor, (Metrace, was it?) smoothly took over the flow of the questioning. “From what we know about the B-29-TU-4 family of aircraft, a crash on Wednesday Island would have put your bomber almost beyond her point of no return for your Siberian bases.”
Smyslov gritted his teeth for a moment and parroted the answer he had been programmed to give. “The training flight was never intended to come close to the North American coastline at any point. We theorize that the plane’s onboard gyrocompasses tumbled. Given the difficulties of aerial navigation near the Pole, the crew must have accidentally flown a reciprocal course toward Canada instead of back to Siberia.”
“That’s funny,” the woman behind the wheel murmured almost to herself as she deftly maneuvered around a lumbering SUV.
“What is, Randi?” Smith said almost casually.
“It’s still dark over the Pole in March, and the B-29 was a high-altitude aircraft. It should have been flying well above any cloud cover. Even if they did lose their gyros, I wonder why the navigator wasn’t able to shoot a star sight and get his bearings.”
Smyslov felt the sweat start to prickle under his anorak. Now he knew what it felt like to be a mouse under the claws of a pack of exceptionally playful and sadistic cats. “I don’t know, Miss Russell. Possibly we will learn more at the crash site.”
“I’m sure we will, Major,” Smith said with a pleasant smile.
This...was...madness!