"Like you said, hopefully we won't need it," Bauer said.
"I'll be in here until they're back on the main highway headed to Astana. I've enabled priority search strings on all of our live intercept feeds and I'll be looking for anything that might indicate a problem for them. We're focused on Russian side communications and any satellite transmissions leaving the area in the vicinity of Kurchatov."
"Sounds like you have all the bases covered. Keep me in the loop. I'll have a lot of explaining to do if we are forced to sacrifice one of the Air Force's Predator drones."
"That's why you get paid the big bucks, Deputy Director Bauer."
"Thanks."
"There's something else I'm keeping an eye on," Berg said.
"Related to this?"
"I'm not sure, but I have a hunch it's connected. My analysts came up with a string of Reznikov search parameters, which we inputted into the data analysis system a few days ago. This system looks at everything and puts up flags—"
"I'm aware of how it works, Karl. I haven't been out of the trenches that long," she said, shaking her head jokingly.
"My sincerest apologies for suggesting that you might be more of a bureaucrat than a CIA agent," he said.
"Touché. So what's up?"
"Reznikov grew up in an industrial city south of Murmansk called Monchegorsk. He was sent to live there after his father and mother died when he was eight. The circumstances surrounding his parents' death was suspicious according to one of my Russian sources. Anyway, something really strange is going on in Monchegorsk. ELINT is catching all kinds of military and civilian chatter about quarantines and roadblocks. Communications to Monchegorsk are down, and I'm trying to confirm what's going on, but we don't have any HUMINT assets on the ground there. Assets in Murmansk and St. Petersburg are on the road as we speak. I expect to confirm the presence of roadblocks within the next few hours. The link to Reznikov is too strong to ignore at this point."
"I agree. Do you think he's responsible? Why would he poison the city he knew as a child?"
"Maybe it wasn't a good childhood. I have no idea, and we don't even know if Reznikov is still alive. Muslim extremists have a tendency to clean up after themselves. I'd be surprised if he was still alive, but I'm not taking any chances."
"Good work as usual, Karl. I'll be in the building until this is over. Let's hope we can wrap this up cleanly," she said.
"I'm not counting on it," he said.
Chapter 22
Daniel stared out of the front passenger window of their Toyota Land Cruiser at the rolling hills covered with pine trees. They had travelled over two hundred miles south of Astana along the same highway and had seen very little change in topography, though the grass and bushes had started to green slightly over the past hour. Checking the map, he noted that they were passing through the edges of a national forest, which explained the dense pines. Several miles in the distance he saw a few small mountains, similarly covered with deep green trees.
To his left was a different scene altogether. The highway here served as an informal border between roughly carved, pine strewn hills and a vast steppe that extended hundreds of miles to the Russian border. Low, flattened hills kept him from staring at the empty land to the east, which had served as Russia’s primary nuclear testing ground for over four decades. They would be driving into the heart of this wasteland, which they had been assured by "Dusty" to be utterly unremarkable.
Dusty had unexpectedly joined their team in Astana and had spent most of the ride silently sulking in the third row, wedged uncomfortably between the team's gear. Assigned to the embassy in Astana as the Economic Development Attaché, he met them upon their arrival in Astana. Karl Berg had insisted that they would need someone familiar with the terrain and local operations, and also presumably to keep them in check. So far he hadn't proved annoying, and according to Farrington, he had proved to be invaluable dealing with Brown River.
The equipment handover didn't go smoothly when the contractors tried to pass off badly damaged, previously confiscated rifles to the team. Farrington took one look inside the oversized duffle bag and zipped it back up, telling them that the weapons were not acceptable. He didn't need to inspect them any further to know that they hadn't been fired or maintained in a long time. One of the folding stocks had been bent, and he saw no optics devices. He did spot one badly twisted front sighting post. A heated argument ensued, and phone calls were exchanged. He never heard what Dusty said, but their tune instantly changed, though the contempt was still palpable in their mannerisms.
They left Brown River's compound with five AKS-74 assault rifles, all equipped with the latest optics. One of them had a 4X ACOG (Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight) scope that was handed to Daniel as soon as he arrived with Andrei at the oversized garage that had been provided by Dusty for their preparations. The ACOG scope gave the rifle a long distance sighting advantage over the red dot sights attached to the rest of the rifles. He was the best suited in the group to make use of the sight.
The weapons were stowed in the back, easily accessible by the three men in the wide back seat, but hidden from view in case they were stopped. Each member of the team, except for Dusty, carried a Russian semiautomatic pistol hidden somewhere. They didn't expect any immediate problems, but didn't want to take any chances. Reznikov had stirred up a hornet's nest of Russian activity, and they had all been assured by Berg and Dusty that the Russians didn't fuck around.
In addition to the weapons, they had various forms of digital recording equipment, night vision gear, biological testing kits and a satellite communications rig. The satellite rig would transmit everything they found from the site, as soon as they had finished their sweep of the structures. Dusty carried their satellite phone, which would be their emergency contact to Langley in case of trouble. They had been assured the support of an armed UAV drone, but were told that it would not be a quick response asset. The drone was located in Kyrgyzstan, with a three-hour flight time to their area. Dusty reinforced the fact that committing the drone to this flight would necessitate a life or death situation, since the drone would have to fly well past its recovery range to reach them. Daniel wasn't exactly sure how they could make use of it, but it made him feel a little better to know that it was an option.
"How much further to the turnoff?" Farrington asked.
"About fifty miles. We'll still have roughly an hour of light when we make the turn. We should be able to make it halfway from the turn to the site before it's pitch black. The last half will take us at least another hour. The roads are pretty shitty out there in the daytime. At night, fucking brutal. I uploaded satellite maps into our GPS. We should have no trouble navigating to the site. Just slow going," Dusty said.
Great, another three hours or so of driving, Daniel thought, watching the deep red sun dip closer to the horizon.
Chapter 23
The site proved to be nearly impossible to find in the dark, and the road conditions turned out to be far worse than Dusty had anticipated. These unexpected factors added two more hours to the trip. Finally, the Land Cruiser slowed in front of a horizontal yellow and black striped pole that served as a makeshift barrier. No sign hung from the pole, but Daniel could see that crudely attached links of thick chain held the pole in place, locked to the side posts with padlocks that shined in the SUV's headlights. He wasn't sure why anyone would have bothered with the gate, since you could drive a dump truck around either side of it. Beyond the hastily constructed obstruction, they could see the scarce outline of several buildings roughly a hundred meters away, superimposed against the faint orange glow of Kurchatov's city lights. He decided to take a closer look at the gate.