The Cassandra Compact

  “You were on-camera the whole time?”

  “There was nothing I could do about that. I told your people—”

  “When are tapes reviewed?”

  “At the beginning of the new shift, about four hours from now. What does it matter? It’s not like I’ll be going back.”

  “There was no problem at the gate?”

  Yardeni was a very smooth liar; he just didn’t know the kind of man he was up against.

  “None.”

  “I see. And you managed to get out before the Special Forces arrived.”

  Yardeni couldn’t hide his surprise. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he barked. “Listen, I’m tired. You have anything to drink?”

  Silently, Beria withdrew a pint of brandy and handed it to Yardeni, who examined the label.

  “French,” he remarked as he tore off the foil seal.

  Yardeni raised the bottle, took a generous swallow, then sighed. After unlacing his boots, he removed his parka and folded it into a pillow. As he stretched out, Beria stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Yardeni asked.

  “To the bathroom. Don’t worry. I won’t wake you when I return.”

  Beria stepped into the corridor, locked the door behind him, and walked to the end of the car. He lowered the top half of a window just enough so that the antenna on his cell phone would protrude through the crack. Seconds later, the connection to Moscow was established, the voice on the other end as clear as if the party was standing next to him.

  Chapter 11

  The pounding on the door wrenched Smith out of a light sleep. He fumbled for the bedside lamp as two militiamen burst in, followed by Lara Telegin.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

  “Please come with me, Doctor,” Telegin replied. Stepping closer, she lowered her voice. “There have been developments. The general needs to see you in his office immediately. We’ll be waiting outside.”

  Smith dressed quickly and followed Telegin to a waiting elevator. “What happened?”

  “The general will brief you,” Telegin said.

  They walked through an empty lobby to a sedan idling at the curb outside. The ride to Dzerzhinsky Square took less than ten minutes. Smith detected no unusual activity in the building until they reached the fifteenth floor. The halls were filled with uniformed personnel rushing from office to office, dispatches in hand. In the cubicles, young men and women were hunched over computer keyboards, talking quietly into headsets. A keen urgency crackled in the air.

  “Dr. Smith. I would say good morning except it is anything but that. Lara, close the door, would you?”

  Smith took stock of Kirov, thinking that he too must have been rousted from his bed not long ago.

  “What do you have?”

  Kirov passed him a glass of tea set in a filigree metal holder. “Earlier this morning, President Potrenko ordered the Special Forces contingent outside Vladimir to surround the Bioaparat complex and establish a cordon sanitaire. This was done without incident.

  “For the next several hours, everything was quiet. However, thirty minutes ago, a roving patrol reported that two guards had been found dead—murdered—at their post.”

  Smith felt a cold sensation deep in his stomach. “Did the Special Forces intercept anyone coming out?”

  Kirov shook his head. “No. Nor did anyone try to get in.”

  “What about the security inside the complex—specifically Building 103?”

  Kirov turned to Telegin. “Play the tape.”

  She aimed the remote at a wall-mounted monitor. “This is the video from the security cameras inside 103. Please note the time stamp in the lower-right corner.”

  Smith watched the black-and-white images on the screen. A big, uniformed guard walked down a corridor and disappeared into Zone Two. Another set of cameras picked him up in the changing rooms in the decontamination areas.

  “Freeze that!” Smith pointed to the canister that the guard, now in full biohazard gear, was holding in his left hand. “What’s that?”

  “You’ll see for yourself in a minute. Lara?”

  The tape rolled on. With growing incredulity, Smith watched the guard enter the refrigerated walk-in safe and begin removing ampoules.

  “Tell me that’s not smallpox.”

  “I wish I could,” Kirov replied.

  The suited-up thief completed his work and returned to the first of the decontamination chambers.

  “Where are the backup security measures?” Smith demanded. “How the hell could he just walk in like that?”

  “The same way your security personnel at USAMRIID can walk into your vaults,” Lara Telegin snapped. “Our system is almost a duplicate of yours, Doctor. We rely just as heavily on coded locks and electronic countermeasures as you do in order to reduce the risk of the human factor. But in the end, it always comes down to one man.” She paused. “Bioaparat guards are subjected to an intensive screening procedure. Still, you cannot see into a man’s soul, can you?”

  Smith’s eyes were riveted on the screen, which showed a close-up of Grigori Yardeni’s face.

  “He doesn’t care if the camera captures him. It’s as though he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.”

  “Precisely,” Kirov said, and quickly explained why the guards on duty could not tamper with the tapes made during their watch.

  “If we hadn’t installed this feature, it would have taken far longer to identify the thief. As it is—”

  “As it is, he knew he was never coming back. How the hell could he have gotten through the quarantine?”

  “Please note the time,” Kirov said, pointing to the corner of the screen. “The theft occurs before the Special Forces are in position. This one had the devil’s own luck: he managed to get out only minutes before Colonel Kravchenko began deploying his troops.”

  “Is that why he killed the guards at the post—because he was in a hurry?”

  “I’m not sure.” Kirov looked at him carefully. “What are you getting at, Doctor?”

  “This guy had to have had a solid plan,” Smith said. “Okay, he knew he was going to get caught on camera. He didn’t care; he must have made some provisions for that. But I don’t believe he intended to kill the guards. It makes no sense. Why take the chance that the bodies might be discovered before he completes his escape? I think he had to act sooner than he’d anticipated, that he knew the Special Forces were on their way—and why.”

  “Are you suggesting he had an informer, an accomplice, on the outside?” Telegin demanded.

  “How does it look to you, Lieutenant?” Smith retorted.

  “We will consider that possibility later,” Kirov said. “Right now, we must track down this Grigori Yardeni. The amount of smallpox he took…”

  Smith closed his eyes. A hundredth of that amount could, if properly dispersed, infect a population of a million or more.

  “What countermeasures have you initiated?”

  Kirov pressed a button on his desk and a wall panel slid back to reveal a giant screen. The action it depicted was in real time.

  He indicated a moving red dot. “An Ilyushin transport from the Medical Intelligence Division—our virus hunters—is en route to Vladimir. They will be the ones to enter Bioaparat—no one else.”

  He pointed to a blue circle. “This is the quarantine established by the Special Forces team. Here”—he gestured to three yellow dots—“we have the reinforcements from Sibiyarsk, already in the air. They consist of a battle-ready battalion that will cordon off Vladimir.”

  He shook his head. “Those poor people will wake up to discover they’re prisoners.”

  Smith turned to the monitor, which still showed the hulking figure in the antiplague suit. “What about him?”

  Telegin’s fingers danced across the keyboard and a military record appeared on the screen. As she ran the translation software, Smith got an even clearer look at Yardeni. Then the Cyrillic alphabet morphed into English.


  “Not exactly the kind of guy you’d expect to pull something like this,” he murmured. “Except this.” He pointed to the paragraph dealing with Yardeni’s history of violence.

  “True,” Kirov agreed. “But aside from his bad temper, there was nothing to indicate that Yardeni would contemplate this sort of treason. Consider: he has no relatives or friends living abroad. He accepted the Bioaparat assignment as a way to do penance and reinstate himself in the armed forces.”

  He looked at Smith. “You are familiar with Bioaparat, especially its security. Unlike our other facilities, it is on par with anything in the West, including the CDC. International inspectors—Americans among them—were more than satisfied with our systems.”

  Smith understood what Kirov was trying to do: make him an advocate. The Russians had not been negligent. Their security was good. This was internal sabotage, impossible to predict or to prevent.

  “We all suffer the same nightmares, General,” Smith said. “You just happened to wake up to one.”

  He forced himself to sip some tea. “How long has Yardeni been on the loose?”

  Telegin punched up the medical report. “According to the Special Forces battle surgeon, the guards were murdered around 2:30 A.M.”

  “Just over three hours ago…He could have gone a long way in that time.”

  She threw up another image on the big screen, displaying concentric circles—green, orange, and black.

  “Bioaparat is in the center. The smallest circle—black—represents the distance that a reasonably fit man could cover, like a soldier on a training run. The orange circle extends the range if Yardeni has a car or a motorcycle.”

  “What are those triangles?” Smith asked.

  “Checkpoints established by the local militia. We’ve faxed them his photo and particulars.”

  “What are their orders?”

  “Shoot on sight, but not to kill.” She noted Smith’s startled expression. “Our directive describes him as a multiple killer. Also, that he is HIV-positive. Believe me, Doctor, no militiaman will touch Yardeni after he’s down.”

  “I was thinking more about what he’s carrying. If a bullet shatters the container—”

  “I understand your concern about the container, but if Yardeni is spotted, we cannot let him walk away.”

  “What’s the last circle?”

  “The worst possibility of all: Yardeni had a conspirator with a plane waiting at the Vladimir airfield.”

  “Have there been any takeoffs?”

  “None recorded, but that doesn’t mean anything. The new Russia has a surplus of experienced pilots, most of them former air force. They can land on a highway or in a field, pick up their load, and be gone in minutes.”

  “President Potrenko has ordered interceptors into the area,” Kirov added. “Any light aircraft will be challenged. If it does not comply with instructions, it will be brought down immediately.”

  The wall monitor fascinated Smith. It seemed a living organism, constantly mutating as the symbols winked and moved. But he felt that in spite of the impressive array marshaled against the renegade officer, something was missing.

  Moving over to the screen, he traced his finger along a white line that began east from Vladimir and ran west to Moscow.

  “What’s this?”

  “The rail line between Kolima in the Urals and Moscow,” Kirov replied. He looked at Telegin. “Was there a train scheduled through Vladimir last night?”

  Telegin went to work on the keyboard.

  “There was,” she announced. “It pulled into Vladimir at three o’clock.”

  “Too soon for Yardeni to have caught it.”

  Telegin frowned. “Not necessarily. According to the schedule, it should only have been there a few minutes. But it didn’t depart on time. It stayed an extra twelve minutes.”

  “Why?” Kirov demanded.

  “No reason given. In fact, it stops only when there are soldiers headed to Moscow on leave—”

  “But there were no soldiers, were there?” Smith said.

  “Good guess, Doctor,” Telegin said. “No one was scheduled to go on leave.”

  “So why did the engineer hang around?”

  Kirov stepped over to the computer console. The time of the murder of the two guards was juxtaposed against the time when the train left Vladimir. Then that window was measured against the amount of time it would take a man to get from Bioaparat to the train station.

  “He could have done it!” Kirov whispered. “He could have made the train because it didn’t leave on time.”

  “It was late because somebody held it up!” Smith said savagely. “Yardeni took the most obvious route. That son of a bitch knew the roads would be blocked sooner than later. He didn’t have a plane. He had an accomplice, someone who, if necessary, could hold up the train long enough for him to get to it.”

  He turned to Telegin. “Then all he had to do was ride it into Moscow.”

  She was punching the keyboard furiously, then looked up. “Sixteen minutes,” she said hoarsely. “It gets into Moscow’s central station in sixteen minutes!”

  Ivan Beria shifted with the sway of the train; beyond that, he did not move.

  Nor had he taken his eyes off Grigori Yardeni. The stress of the theft and the subsequent flight, coupled with the effects of the brandy, had done its work. The Bioaparat guard had fallen asleep within minutes of the train’s leaving Vladimir.

  Beria leaned toward Yardeni. He lay so still as to appear dead. Beria cocked his ear and caught the rattle of shallow breathing. Yardeni was in a very deep sleep. It wouldn’t take much to make it deeper still.

  He slapped him on the cheeks, twice. “We’re almost there. Time to get up.”

  Beria looked out the window as the train threaded its way through the giant railyard. In the reflection, he watched Yardeni yawn and stretch, roll his head to work out the kinks in his neck. His voice was thick with sleep.

  “Where do we go from here?”

  “Our separate ways,” Beria replied. “I will get you through the station and into a taxi. After that, you’re on your own.”

  Yardeni grunted and made a move toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Beria demanded.

  “To the toilet—with your permission.”

  “Sit down. Everybody in the car has the same idea. You’ll end up in line. No point in giving anyone that good a look at you, is there?”

  Yardeni considered, then sat down again. He ran his hand over one of the parka pockets to reassure himself that the documentation and money were where they should be. Satisfied, he thought he could hold his water until they reached the station.

  When the train entered the tunnel between the yard and the station, the overhead lights flickered, went out briefly, then flickered back on.

  “Let’s go,” Beria said.

  The corridor was filling up with people. Because of his height, Yardeni had no problem keeping Beria in sight, even in the sputtering light. Oblivious to the muttered curses, he elbowed his way to the exit.

  The train eased into its siding and shuddered to a stop. The conductor lifted the platform that covered the steps. Beria and Yardeni were the first ones off, walking swiftly to the front of the train and toward the doors leading to the station proper.

  The big van boomed along Moscow’s still-empty boulevards. Inside, Smith, Kirov, and Telegin sat in captain’s chairs bolted to the floor. Telegin was in front of a monitor displaying the city’s traffic patterns; every few seconds she spoke to the driver on her headset.

  Kirov, too, wore a headset. Ever since leaving Dzerzhinsky Square, he had been in constant communication with an elite unit of the Federal Security Service.

  He swiveled his chair around to face Smith. “The train is in—right on schedule, wouldn’t you know.”

  “How far away are we?”

  “Thirty seconds, maybe less.”

  “Reinforcements?”

  “On the way.” Kirov paus
ed. “Are you familiar with our flying squads?” When Smith shook his head, he continued. “Unlike your FBI SWAT, we prefer to send ours in undercover. They dress like tradesmen, greengrocers, street workers—you wouldn’t recognize them until it was too late.”

  “Let’s hope it isn’t.”

  Through the one-way window, Smith saw the station, a massive, nineteenth-century structure. He braced himself as the driver veered into a sharp turn and braked hard in front of the main building. He was on his feet even before the van stopped rocking.

  Kirov grabbed his arm. “The flying squad has Yardeni’s picture. They’ll take him alive, if possible.”

  “Do they have mine—so they don’t shoot me by mistake?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. But stay close to me anyway.”

  The three ducked under the ornate portico and ran into the station. The interior reminded Smith of a museum, all polished granite, bas-relief, and three massive glass domes. There were few travelers, but the sound of their footsteps was like the rumble of a distant herd. In the center was a large area with rows of benches; along the sides were souvenir shops, refreshment stands, and news kiosks, most of them still shuttered. Smith glanced at the large black arrivals/departures board suspended from the ceiling.

  “How many others are due in?”

  “We’re in luck,” Lara Telegin replied. “This is the first one. But in twenty minutes, the commuter trains arrive. The crowds will be unmanageable.”

  “Which track?”

  She pointed to the right. “Over there. Number seventeen.”

  As they ran for the doors leading to the sidings, Smith turned to Kirov and said, “I don’t see any of your people around.”

  Kirov tapped the plastic receiver in his ear. “Believe me, they’re here.”

  The air on the platforms was heavy with diesel fumes. Smith and the others ran past orange and gray electric locomotives, resting in their sidings, until they came up against a stream of people going the other way. Moving to the side, they began scanning faces.

  “I’m going to find a conductor,” Telegin said. “Maybe if I show him Yardeni’s picture, he’ll remember the face.”

  Smith continued to study the passersby who trudged along, their faces puffy from sleep, their shoulders bowed under the weight of suitcases and packages bound with string and rope.