Arctic Gold (3 page)

Anxiously he watched the front of the warehouse, waiting for Lia and Alekseev to emerge. Smears of wet illumination from a couple of streetlights up on Kozhevennaya Liniya

cast just enough of a mist- shrouded glow for him to see the main door and a line of loading docks above a parking lot.

Opening his workman toolbox, he extracted his weaponan H&K MP5K PDWa compact little submachine gun chosen precisely because its fourteen- and- a- half- inch length would fit into a standard tool kit. He opened the folding stock and felt it lock, snapped in a thirty- round magazine, and dragged back the charging lever to chamber a round.

Come on, come on

, he muttered, half- aloud.

Deep Black 7 - Arctic Gold

2

DeFrancesa

Operation Magpie

Waterfront, St. Petersburg

0029 hours

LIA USED AN AEROSOL SPRAY from a canister the size of a lipstick to mist over one corner of the metal. She then twisted the cylinder of her flashlight sharply clockwise. The visible beam snapped off, but in its place, the wet corner of the metal took on a magical green- blue luminosity, glowing brightly in the near darkness.

What is

that? Alekseev asked.

A solution of sulfonated hydroxybenzoquinoline, Lia replied, rattling off the tongue twister with practiced ease. It fluoresces in the presence of beryllium and an ultraviolet light source. It was all the proof she needed.

It is as I told you, yes?

Yes, it is. You did good, Sergei. Hold the board for me.

As Alekseev held the crate open, she took a final device from a pouch, a flexible bit of metallic foil the size and thickness of a postage stamp, its surface precisely the same dull gray as the beryllium shipment. Reaching gingerly into the crate, she slapped the rectangle onto the metal at one corner, pressing it hard to activate the sticky

side. Then she nodded to Alekseev, and he lowered the loosened slat, working the protruding ends of the staples back into the wood so that it was not evident that the crate had been opened.

She checked her cell phone, this time tuning it to the low- level signal emitted by the tracking device they’d just planted. When she sent a low- frequency RF signal, the microtransponder on the chip caught the pulse and flashed it back, a good, sharp signal.

Verona, Juliet, she said, just in case they were reading her back at the Art Room. We found the shipment. Tracking device is in place, transponder test positive. We’re initiating our E and E.

Still, nothing but static.

They started for the front of the warehouse.

Akulinin

Operation Magpie

Waterfront, St. Petersburg

0030 hours

The sound of a vehicle engine startled Akulinin. It was coming from behind,

moving toward him along the concrete wharf. He turned, crouching low to stay out of sight behind another pile of discarded rust- and rat- infested trash. One no, two cars were approaching, driving up the wharf with their lights off. They raced past, then turned into the trailer- loading area in front of Lia warehouse.

Not

good.

Lia! he called urgently. Lia! We have company!

Car doors slammed as men tumbled out into the night. He counted ten, five in each vehicle. It was tough to see in the dim light, but they appeared to be wearing civilian clothing. Reaching into the tool kit again, he fished out a set of OVGN6 binoculars, a compact handheld unit with

two eyepieces but only a single light amplifier tube. Switching the unit on, he pressed it to his eyes.

Under LI, details sprang into sharp, close focus.

He could see their weapons.

DeFrancesa

Operation Magpie

Waterfront, St. Petersburg

0030 hours

Lia and Alekseev were halfway back to the warehouse entrance when Akulinin warning came through. An instant later, they heard the bang of car doors outside.

This way! Lia hissed, tugging at Alekseev elbow. She moved off to the right, ducking behind the shelter offered by a stack of wooden crates. It took her a moment to realize that Alekseev hadn’t followed her, that he was still standing in the open with a deer- in- the- headlights look to him.

A hollow boom echoed through the warehouse, followed by the sound of the main door sliding open. An instant later, the lights snapped on, the overhead lights first, then the glare of a powerful spot from the main entrance.

Stoy! a voice boomed from behind the light. Ktah v’ takoi?

Nyeh strelyaii!

Alekseev screamed, throwing his hands straight up in the air.

But Lia was already moving, plunging out of the light and into the shadows cast by stacks of crates to her right. She pulled her weapon from its holster, an accurized .45-caliber H&K SOCOM pistol fitted with an under- barrel laser sight and with the muzzle threaded to accept a suppressor. She was already pulling out the sound suppressor and screwing it down tight as more shouting sounded from behind her.

Alekseev, she thought, had been pretty damned quick to surrender, and she wondered if she’d been set up. It was possible. Alekseev was Desk Three link to one of the local branches of the Organizatsiya, the Russian mafia.

It was the Organization that Desk Three was up against this time. That radioactive beryllium in the crate back there had come from a nuclear power facility in Rybinsk, stolen by members of the Russian mafia either in or working with the Russian military.

And the word was that the shipment had been sold to the highest bidderwhich in this case happened to be the nation of Iran.

Beryllium possesses some interesting properties that make it invaluable within the nuclear industry. It doesn’t absorb neutrons well, which makes it ideal as a neutron reflector and moderator in atomic piles. More significant, if the sphere of plutonium within a nuclear weapon is surrounded by a beryllium shell, preventing neutrons from escaping, much less plutonium is necessary in order for the weapon to achieve critical massand detonation.

American! a harsh voice snapped in English, echoing through the warehouse. You cannot escape! Throw down your weapons and come out!

Were the attackers mafia enforcers? Police? Or military? She had to find out. Moving silently, staying in the shadows, she worked her way around behind the stacks of warehoused crates, edging closer to the front entrance. There were several other doors to the building as well, she knew from her studies of the structure blueprints before her deployment, but she also knew that those would be watched. She would have a better chance where the opposition had already entered the building.

Maybe.

Akulinin

Operation Magpie

Waterfront, St. Petersburg

0031 hours

Akulinin watched as several of the men pushed through the open front door on the southeastern face of the warehouse. Others were spreading out to the left and right, moving to cover other entrances. He could hear shouting coming from inside, in Russian.

Through the light- intensifier binoculars, he could clearly see that the newcomers were wearing civilian clothing, which meant nothing. They might be OMON, MVD, or local militia, or they could even be Russian Army wearing low- profile civvies. The weapons they carried were definitely military- issue assault rifles, however, AK-74s and AKMs.

It was also distinctly possible that they were Organizatsiya enforcers. Alekseev had been a member of one of the major organized- crime groups, the Blues, but when Desk Three approached him, had been willing to help in exchange for asylum for himself and his family.

Lia? Akulinin called over the tactical channel. You reading me?

Yeah. She sounded out of breath. Who are

these guys?

Not sure. They’re wearing civvies with military weapons. Are you okay?

So far. Stay put. I’m trying to reach the southwest door.

He swung his night- vision device in that direction. You’ve got two goons outside, he told her. Just waiting.

Can you take them down?

Not without alerting half of St. Petersburg. The MP5K did not have a sound suppressor, unlike some of its larger and more cumbersome cousins. Besides, the range to those two sentries was better than seventy yards a hell of a long range to tap someone with that weapon. To make matters worse, a sheet- tin storage shed built just off the corner of the warehouse was partially blocking his view. He couldn’t be sure there were only

two men there.

Copy, Lia said. Wait a second.

The Art Room

NSA Headquarters

Fort Meade, Maryland

1632 hours EDT

Ghost Blue is now inside of Russian airspace, Rubens said. He held the telephone handset to his ear while looking up at the big screen above him. The map zoom had been pulled back to show the entirety of the St. Petersburg area, from Primorsk on the Gulf of Finland to Kirovsk, twenty- five miles east of the city. At this scale, the white pinpoints marking Lia and Akulinin had merged into a single point on the southern point of Vasilyevsky Island; a new flashing icon had just appeared at the extreme left, moving in across the Gulf of Finland on a heading straight for St. Petersburg.

Is there any sign of a reaction from the Russians? Dr. Donna Bing wanted to know.

Not so far, ma’am, Rubens replied.

The President will have to be informed, the National Security Director said. She sounded angry, and Rubens knew she had cause. Ghost Blue had been built into Magpie from the beginning as a backup in case of unforeseen technical difficulties, but no one had actually expected that option to be put into play.

The big danger was that Bing would use this in her power- play shenanigans against Desk Three. She’d tried it before.

How long before the plane is over the city?

It won’t actually overfly the city, ma’am, Rubens replied. It will orbit about ten miles out, out over the Gulf of Finland. That should be close enough for them to pick up our agents’ transmissions. He should be at his loiter point in five more minutes.

I don’t like this, Rubens, Bing told him. Not one damned bit. We have no business putting a military aircraft that deep into Russian airspace.

Rubens, always the diplomat, did not point out that the United States had no outwardly legitimate business putting human agents into Russian territory, either or that both Russia and the United States had a very long history of intruding into each other territories when they needed to do so.

Of course, both countries had long used all kinds of assets to keep tabs on each other, from human agents to spy satellites to submarines to ELINT and reconnaissance aircraft. Of those various means of gathering intelligence, though, aircraft made the people in Washington the most nervous.

No doubt the shoot- down of Captain Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 over Sverdlovsk in May of 1960 had something to do with that.

Ghost Blue knows what he doing, Rubens told the National Security Director. He’ll know if he being picked up by the St. Petersburg air defense net, and he has means by which he can evade any hostiles.

A rather sweeping generalization, that. Rubens wasn’t trying to be misleading, but he was oversimplifying to a rather alarming degree. So very much could go wrong in

an op like this one. It was impossible to predict how it would come together.

Or fall apart.

Your tail is riding on this one, Mr. Rubens, Bing told him. Keep me in the loop.

Yes, ma’am.

But Bing had already hung up on him.

He glanced at Rockman as he replaced the handset. We’d better tell Dean, too.

Pistol Range

Fort Meade, Maryland

1633 hours EDT

Charlie Dean squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession, tapping off two rounds, the bangs echoing down the white- painted room. Two shots, two hits squarely at the center of mass and less than two inches apart.

Recovering, he shifted his aim, gripping the pistol firmly in the classic Weaver stance, right hand holding the grip at full extension, finger lightly caressing the trigger, left hand cupping and holding the right. Accuracy in the Weaver stance depended on the interplay of forces as he pushed with the locked right arm and pulled with the supporting left.

Two more shots, two more hits, this time in the target head.

Target left! a voice growled from beside and slightly behind him. Dean shifted instantly, bending his left elbow slightly to pull his right arm into line with a second target, ten yards beyond and behind the first. Again, two taps at the center of mass, followed by a third and then the slide on his .45 locked open.

Raising the muzzle, he hit the magazine release and

dropped the empty magazine, before racking the slide once more to make sure the firing chamber was empty. Clear! he called.

Behind him, Gunny Mark Strieber mashed his thumb down on a button, and the two targets, each bearing the head and body of a vaguely human- shaped black silhouette, whined toward the firing line on their overhead tracks.

Not bad, Marine, Strieber said. Not too shabby at all, in fact. A bit of spread on your third group.