Polyakov started forward, but the general waved him back. “I’m fine, Dmitry,” he muttered. “Just a little light-headed, that’s all.”
His subordinates exchanged worried glances.
Marchuk forced a ragged smile. “What’s the matter, gentlemen? Never seen anyone with the flu before?” He coughed again, this time a prolonged, hacking cough that left him head down and panting for air. He looked up with another faint smile. “Don’t worry. I promise not to breathe on any of you.”
That drew a nervous laugh.
Recovering slightly, the general leaned forward, supporting himself with his hands. “Now, listen carefully,” he told them, plainly fighting for every word. “Starting later tonight, I want all Ready Force divisions and brigades brought to a higher alert status. All personnel leaves must be canceled. All officers away from their units for any reason should be recalled—at once. And by dawn tomorrow morning, I want every operational tank, infantry fighting vehicle, and self-propelled gun in this command fitted out with a full load of ammunition and fuel. The same goes for every transport and combat helicopter fit to fly. Once that is done, your units will begin moving to their wartime deployment areas to conduct special winter maneuvers.”
“Bringing so many troops to full combat readiness will be expensive,” his chief of staff pointed out quietly. “Extremely expensive. Parliament will ask serious questions. The defense budget this year is very tight.”
“Screw the budget!” Marchuk snapped, straightening up in irritation. “And screw the politicians in Kiev! Our job is to defend the homeland; not worry about budgets.” Abruptly, his face grew grayer still and he swayed again. He shuddered visibly, plainly wracked by a wave of terrible pain, and then folded slowly forward, collapsing facedown across the conference table. An ashtray crashed to the floor, spilling soot and cigarette butts across the frayed carpet.
Stunned officers jumped to their feet, crowding around their fallen commander.
Polyakov pushed through them, heedless of rank. The major touched Marchuk’s shoulder gently and then felt his forehead. He yanked his hand away. His eyes opened wide in shock. “Mother of God,” he whispered. “The general is burning up.”
“Turn him over onto his back,” someone suggested. “And loosen his tie and collar. Give him room to breathe.”
Working quickly, Polyakov and another junior aide obeyed, tearing open shirt and jacket buttons in their haste. There were gasps from around the crowded room when parts of Marchuk’s neck and chest came into view. Almost every inch of his skin seemed covered in raw, bleeding sores.
Polyakov swallowed convulsively, fighting against the urge to throw up. He swung away. “Fetch a doctor!” he yelled, horror-stricken by what he had seen. “For God’s sake, someone fetch a doctor now!”
Hours later, Major Dmitry Polyakov sat slumped forward on a bench in the hallway just outside the intensive care unit of the Oblast Clinic Hospital. Bleary-eyed and depressed, he stared down at the cracked tile floor, ignoring the muffled, incomprehensible squawks of the PA system periodically summoning various doctors and nurses to different sections of the building.
A single pair of gleaming, highly polished boots intruded on Polyakov’s view. Sighing, the major looked up and saw a dour, thin-faced officer staring down at him with evident disapproval. For an instant he bristled, but then he caught sight of the twin gold stars of a lieutenant general on the other man’s white-and red-embroidered shoulder boards and jumped to his feet. He threw his shoulders back, and lifted his chin high, standing braced at attention.
“You must be Polyakov, Marchuk’s senior aide,” the other man snapped. It was not a question.
The major nodded stiffly, still at attention. “Yes, sir.”
“My name is Tymoshenko,” the much shorter, thin-faced officer told him coldly. “Lieutenant General Eduard Tymoshenko. I’ve been sent from Kiev to assume command here, by order of both the defense minister and the president himself.”
Polyakov struggled to hide his dismay. Tymoshenko was known throughout the army’s officer corps as a political hack, one of hundreds left over from the days before the Ukraine regained its independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union. His reputation as a field commander was dismal. Those who had endured his leadership spoke bitterly of a man more concerned with mindless spit-and-polish than with real combat readiness. These days he spent most of his time in various posts inside the Defense Ministry, energetically shuffling papers from one side of his desk to the other while making sure that influential politicians regarded him as indispensable.
“What is General Marchuk’s present condition?” Tymoshenko demanded.
“The general is still unconscious, sir,” Polyakov reported reluctantly. “And according to the doctors, his vital signs are deteriorating rapidly. So far, he is not responding to any treatment.”
“I see.” Tymoshenko sniffed, turning his head to stare contemptuously at the dreary surroundings. After a moment, he looked back at the younger man. “And the cause of this unfortunate illness? I heard some nonsense about radiation poisoning just before leaving Kiev.”
“No one knows yet,” Polyakov admitted. “The hospital is running a complete battery of tests, but the results may not come back for hours, perhaps even days.”
Tymoshenko arched a single gray eyebrow. “In that case, Major, may I suggest there is no longer any purpose to be served by haunting these corridors like some little lost lapdog? General Marchuk will live—or he will die. And I am quite confident that he will do so with or without your presence.” He smiled thinly. “In the meantime, it seems that I need an aide myself, at least until I can locate a more efficient and deserving young officer.”
Polyakov did his best to ignore the insult. Instead, he simply nodded expressionlessly. “Yes, sir. I will do my best.”
“Good.” Tymoshenko nodded toward the exit. “My staff car is waiting outside. You can ride back to headquarters with me. And once we’re there, I want you to arrange temporary quarters for me. Something comfortable, I trust. You can clear out Marchuk’s billet bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“But—” Polyakov began.
The dour little general stared up at him. “Yes?” he snapped. “What is it, Major?”
“What about the Russians? And the border situation?” Polyakov asked, not bothering to conceal his surprise. “General Marchuk intended to deploy the Command’s fighting formations to their maneuver areas at first light tomorrow.”
Tymoshenko frowned. “So I understand.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Naturally, I canceled those orders as soon as I arrived.” He shook his head derisively. “Full-scale maneuvers in the dead of winter? With all the wear and tear on expensive equipment that entails? And all because of a few paranoid whispers about the Russians? Utter madness. I really cannot imagine what Marchuk thought he was doing. The fever must have addled his brain. Why, the fuel bills alone would be entirely prohibitive.”
With that, the new leader of the Ukrainian army’s Northern Operational Command spun crisply on his heel and strutted off, leaving Major Dmitry Polyakov staring after him in growing dismay.
The Pentagon
Corporal Matthew Dempsey of the Pentagon’s police force whistled softly under his breath as he walked his night beat along the massive building’s quiet, labyrinthine corridors. This was his favorite shift. The Pentagon never really shut down and lights still glowed under some office doors, but much of the grinding daytime hustle and bustle faded in the hours right around midnight.
The small radio receiver fitted in his ear squawked suddenly. “Dempsey, this is Milliken.”
Dempsey spoke into his handheld radio. “Go ahead, Sarge.”
“Dispatch reports an emergency call from an office inside the DIA’s JCS Support Directorate. Somebody in there just punched in 911, and then left the phone off the hook. The operator thinks she can hear someone breathing, but she can’t get anyone to respond. I want you to go check it out.”
>
Dempsey frowned. The Defense Intelligence Agency’s several Pentagon office suites were incredibly sensitive areas—ordinarily completely off-limits to anyone without at least a Top Secret clearance. He was authorized to override those restrictions if necessary, but doing so was going to raise one hell of a hornet’s nest. Even if this was just a false alarm, he’d be spending the next several hours filling out non-disclosure forms and being interrogated.
He sighed and trotted off down the corridor. “On my way.”
Dempsey paused outside the locked outer doors of the DIA section’s office complex. A light on the electronic security station there shone bright red. Anyone trying to force their way through would automatically trigger alarms throughout the massive building. With another frown, he dug the shift-issued special police ID card out of his uniform pocket and ran it through the machine. The light shifted to yellow, indicating that he had been granted emergency permission to enter.
He pushed through the security doors and found himself in another hallway, this one leading deeper into the building. Several soundproofed glass doors opened onto this corridor. Silently now, the policeman moved faster toward the office his sergeant had identified as the source of the abortive 911 call, trying very hard not to look too closely at anything in the rooms he passed.
A painted sign on the door he was looking for read DIRECTORATE FOR CURRENT INTELLIGENCE—RUSSIA DIVISION. Dempsey knew enough about the different intelligence outfits to realize that the men and women who worked here were directly responsible for briefing the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs on all significant military and political developments. They were the top analysts charged with pulling together the bits and pieces of information gathered by human agents, from satellite photographs, and from intercepted radio, phone, and computer transmissions.
“Police!” he called out as he went inside. “Is anyone here? Hello?”
The corporal looked around carefully. The room was a tangle of desks, chairs, filing cabinets, and computers. The faint voice of the 911 operator still trying to get a response guided him toward a desk in the far corner.
Dozens of file folders and prints of satellite photographs lay strewn across the desk and the carpeted floor around it. Despite his best efforts, the corporal could not help reading the tags on some of them: 4TH GUARDS TANK DIVISION—NARO-FOMINSK CANTONMENT, SIGNAL INTERCEPTS—45TH SPETSNAZ BRIGADE, RAIL TRAFFIC ANALYSIS—MOSCOW MILITARY DISTRICT. Red warning stamps marked them all as being classified TOP SECRET or beyond.
Dempsey winced. Now he was in for it.
The computer on the desk hummed quietly to itself. A screen saver hid the contents of whatever document its owner had been working on and the police corporal was very careful not to touch anything around the machine. He looked down.
There, curled up next to an overturned chair, lay an older man. The skin on his face and neck was strangely mottled. He groaned once. His eyes flickered partly open and then closed as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was still clutching the phone receiver in one hand. Clumps of his thick gray hair were falling out, revealing grotesque bald spots covered in a bright red rash.
Dempsey dropped to one knee, taking a closer look at the sick man. He felt for a pulse. It fluttered rapidly and irregularly under his fingertips. He swore once and grabbed his radio. “Sergeant, this is Dempsey! I need a medical team up here, pronto!”
February 16
Moscow
The ornate pinnacles and towers of the Kotelnicheskaya apartment block soared high above the city, offering an unsurpassed view west across the Moscow River toward the red brick walls and golden domes and spires of the Kremlin. Dozens of satellite dishes and radio and microwave antennae sprouted from every relatively open space on its elaborate facade. Kotelnicheskaya was one of Stalin’s massive “Seven Sisters”—seven enormous high-rises built around Moscow during the 1950s to close what the increasingly power-mad dictator believed was a humiliating “skyscraper gap” with the United States.
Once home to Communist Party officials and heavy-industry bosses, the enormous high-rise now mostly housed wealthy foreigners and members of the new Russian governing and business elite—those able to afford the rents on luxury flats that ran several thousand American dollars a month. The very highest floors, those immediately below a towering central needle topped by a giant gleaming gold star, commanded prices beyond the reach of all but the richest and most powerful men. To bring in even more money, several apartments at the very top had been converted into high-prestige corporate offices.
A tall, powerfully built man stood at a window in one of those renovated penthouse office suites. There were strands of gray in his pale blond hair, a color matched by his ice-gray eyes. He frowned, staring out across the darkened city. The long winter night still held Moscow in its freezing grip, but the sky overhead was turning faintly paler.
A secure phone chirped suddenly on the desk next to him. A digital readout attached to the phone blinked to life, identifying the caller. He swung round and picked it up. “This is Moscow One. Go ahead.”
“This is Prague One,” a muffled, nasal-sounding voice said. “Petrenko is dead.”
The blond-haired man smiled. “Good. And the materials he stole from the hospital? The case files and biological samples?”
“Gone,” Prague One reported grimly. “They were in a briefcase that went into the river along with Petrenko.”
“Then the matter is closed.”
“Not quite,” the caller said slowly. “Before we caught up with him, Petrenko had arranged a rendezvous with another doctor, an American attending the same conference. They were talking together when we jumped them.”
“And?”
“The American broke free of our ambush,” Prague One admitted reluctantly. “The Czech police have him in protective custody.”
The blond-haired man’s eyes narrowed. “How much does he know?”
The man known as Prague One swallowed hard. “I’m not sure. We think Petrenko managed to tell him something about the deaths before we arrived. We’re also fairly sure that the Russian was planning to hand over the medical files and samples to him.”
Moscow One tightened his grip on the phone. “And just who is this interfering American?” he snapped.
“His name is Jonathan Smith,” the other man said. “According to the conference records, he’s a military doctor—a lieutenant colonel—assigned to one of their medical research institutes as a disease specialist.”
Smith? The blond-haired man frowned. He had the fleeting impression that he had heard that name before, but where? Somehow it seemed to ring a faint warning bell far back in his mind. He shook his head impatiently. He had more immediate concerns. “What are the Czech police doing now?”
“Dragging the river.”
“For the briefcase?”
“No,” Prague One replied. “We have an informant inside the police headquarters. They’re only looking for Petrenko’s corpse right now. For some reason the American is keeping his mouth shut about what he was told.”
The blond-haired man stared back out the window. “Will they find either one?”
“The body will turn up sooner or later,” the other man admitted. “But I am confident that the briefcase is gone forever. The Vltava is wide and its current is swift.”
“For your sake, I sincerely hope you are right,” the blond man said quietly.
“What about this man Smith?” Prague One asked after a moment’s uncomfortable silence. “He could become a serious problem.”
The blond-haired man frowned again. That was true enough. The American doctor might not yet have told the Czech authorities what he had learned, but eventually he would report Petrenko’s claims and the news of his murder to his nation’s intelligence services. If so, the CIA and others were likely to begin paying entirely too much attention to new reports of other mysterious illnesses. And that was something he and his employers could not risk. Not yet anyway.
r /> The man code-named Moscow One nodded to himself. So be it. Acting openly against this man Smith would be dangerous. If he disappeared or died, the Prague police would certainly begin asking even more awkward questions about the Petrenko murder, and passing those questions on to Washington. But letting him live was potentially more dangerous. “Eliminate the American if at all possible,” he ordered coldly. “But do it carefully—and leave no one alive this time.”
Chapter Three
Prague
The tiny interrogation room near the back of the main Prague police station at Konviktská 14 was sparsely furnished. There were just two battered plastic chairs and an old wood table covered with dents, gouges, and the scorch marks left by countless cigarettes carelessly ground out on its surface. Jon Smith sat stiffly in one of the chairs wearing borrowed slacks and a sweatshirt. Even the slightest movement made him uncomfortably aware of his own aching cuts and bruises.
He frowned. How much longer were the Czech authorities going to hold him here? There was no clock in this little room, and his wristwatch had been ruined by its immersion in the icy waters of the Vltava. He glanced up. The faint light leaking in through a tiny window high on one wall showed that it was already past dawn.
Smith fought down a yawn. After they rescued him from the riverbank, the Czech police had taken down his account of the vicious attack that had killed Valentin Petrenko and brought in a medic to patch up the bullet crease across his shoulder. In the process, his belongings, including his wallet, passport, and hotel room key, had been hustled away for “safekeeping.” By that time, it had been very nearly midnight and, after bringing him a late supper of soup, they had “suggested” that he use a cot in one of their empty holding cells. He smiled wryly, remembering the long, cold, and mostly sleepless night. At least they had left the door unlocked, making it clear that he was not exactly under arrest, only “helping the authorities with necessary inquiries.”