Frederick Shelby immediately opened the pictures, which filled his screen.
"Christ, that's a lunch killer," he said, minimizing the image of Josif Hadzic's suspended body.
Chapter 41
Thomas Manning interlocked his fingers and turned away from the forty-two-inch flat-screen monitor mounted to his office wall. Audra waited for him to speak. Surprisingly, she hadn't been nervous about this meeting. The potential disaster looming over the United States and its European allies dwarfed the potential issues raised by the breaches of protocol and procedure she had authorized. If Manning chose to focus on these aspects instead of a confirmed bioweapons threat, there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't know Thomas Manning well enough to make a personal assessment of how he would respond, but he had a solid reputation for being practical. Still, nobody rose to the rank of National Clandestine Service director without a solid foundation in political maneuvering. This was the only facet of Thomas Manning that concerned her.
"We have a serious problem on our hands. Don't make any plans for the day and cancel any meetings you have scheduled. I expect to walk this up to the director's office within the hour. From there, we'll be on immediate standby to meet with the national security advisor. I can't imagine the Helsinki lab will sit on these results for very long, and if Reuters can confirm any of the story passed to them from Monchegorsk, this will break wide open. The White House will want to stay slightly ahead of this, if that's even possible at this point."
"The lab assured me complete discretion. I reinforced the need for that discretion with some scary-looking operatives and cash, which was accepted."
"I'm not even going to ask any questions about who you have running around Europe," he said.
"You really don't want to know," she said.
"I bet I don't," he said and paused before continuing. "Excellent work on this, Audra. All of it."
"Thank you, sir," she said.
"Now that I got that out of the way, I needed to know about the Predator drone as soon as you requisitioned it," he said.
"But you wouldn't have authorized an armed Predator drone for this mission. Nobody would have, based on the scant information available at the time," she said.
"And your initiative in the case still falls under the 'excellent work' category. Still, I should have been notified when it was used to attack Russian forces."
"We still don't know they were Russian. The helicopters were unmarked and the ground forces were dressed like locals. If they were Russian, the Kazakhstan government should be happy that we defended their sovereign borders."
"Luckily, the threat you uncovered far overshadows things like unauthorized Predator strikes or illegal invasions on Russian soil," he said.
"A simple snowmobile trip to the Kola Peninsula. It's a popular destination this time of the year," Audra said smoothly.
"Most tourists don't return with a severed head in a cooler. I assume they avoided customs?"
"Presumably," she said, smiling.
"When the dust settles, I'm sure we'll…I mean you'll have to answer some questions, along with your partner in crime, Karl Berg. I'm promoting him to the position of assistant deputy director. Effective immediately."
"I didn't know that position existed."
"Everyone complains that we lack the resources to fight the War on Terror. I've just enhanced our capabilities…and when we talk to the White House, I need this to look like a consolidated effort by the National Clandestine Service. "
"He'll be happy to hear that."
"Don't count on it. Karl Berg likes to operate in the shadows. In many ways, he's most effective on the fringes, just out of sight. Give me a few minutes to process all of this and stay close. We could be walking down the hall at any minute," he said.
Chapter 42
Alexei Kaparov closed the small window on his desktop monitor and tapped another cigarette out of the pack he now kept in plain view on his desk. If the Internal Affairs Division monitored his smoking habit, they would have noticed that he had started smoking three packs a day since the beginning of the weekend. That alone should have alerted them to the fact that he was up to no good.
Agent Prerovsky's friend in Special Operations had turned out to be more than Kaparov had expected. Lucya was a senior analyst in the division, with a computer software engineering degree from Moscow University. Far from the desk clerk that Kaparov's prejudiced mind had imagined. She had access to the Special Operations Division's (SOD) inner sanctum, often serving as lead data technician for live operations. She was in the perfect position to feed them information, and after several expensive, romantic dinners, she had agreed to help them.
Fortunately, the two had started dating well before the Reznikov fiasco had surfaced, or he would likely be sharing a cell with Prerovsky on charges of treason. She had responded well to his request, especially when he told her the truth about Monchegorsk. Even within the Special Operations Divisions, the situation had been described as a violent political revolt, sustained by an armed insurgency. Everyone with the Operations Center knew this sounded like nonsense, but early details about Monchegorsk had been suppressed.
The window he had just closed was fed by a direct link engineered by Lucya. The Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) was deploying Spetznaz assets to Stockholm, Sweden, where they would wait for further instructions. She felt confident that they didn't have a specific address or location for Reznikov, but she sensed they were getting close to a breakthrough.
The deployment of SVR Spetznaz on foreign soil was a risky venture under any circumstances; a decision never taken lightly by the Special Operations Division. Given the serious, yet sensitive nature of the mission, Kaparov had little doubt which assets they would use. SVR leadership would activate "Zaslon" operatives from Directorate S, the Foreign Intelligence Service's "Illegals" division. Comprised of deep cover operatives living abroad, Zaslon Spetznaz were considered to be the most elite and specialized covert operations group ever produced by the Russian Federation. The group was all that truly remained of the original Cold War era Vympel Spetznaz and its existence had never been acknowledged by Russian authorities.
He flipped open his cell phone and punched in a text message that would reach halfway around the world in less than a minute.
Karl Berg felt his cell phone vibrate against his chest. He reached into his sport coat and pulled the phone out of the inner breast pocket. He stopped halfway up the stairwell that emptied onto Audra Bauer's floor. He had been summoned to meet with her quite suddenly, and she had asked him to "dress it up" a little. She also informed him that he would probably be out of the office for most of the day, which left him a little concerned. He just hoped that he'd be allowed to return with a job. She hadn't said a word about her earlier meeting with Thomas Manning.
He read the text.
"Recommend a visit to Stockholm. Very pleasant to visit this time of year, but can be a little crowded. Make sure to properly outfit. Be ready to jump at some of the early attractions."
He dialed a number kept on speed dial.
"How can I help you, Mr. Langley?"
"Very funny. Move your team to Stockholm immediately. They'll need to be ready to roll at a moment's notice. We don't have a specific location, but I'm getting real time information. You should assume they'll be up against Vympel Spetznaz. Our team has to move fast. We need Reznikov alive," Berg said.