“What do you do if there’s a power failure?” Berg said.
“We have generators to keep that from happening, but the door automatically opens if the house loses power for more than ten seconds,” Sheffield said.
He pushed the heavy door open to expose a walk-in-closet-sized room lined with racks of military-grade weaponry.
“Expecting an invasion?” Berg said.
“Some of our guests commanded private armies in their previous lives,” Sheffield said.
He reached to the right, just out of sight and withdrew a semiautomatic pistol fitted with a short suppressor. He pulled back on the slide, locking it in the open position before handing it to Berg.
“This should do the trick. Sig Sauer P250 compact. Magazine holds fifteen rounds, not that you’ll need that many…I hope.”
“I’m not that bad of a shot,” Berg said.
“Not saying you are. There’s no safety on this pistol, so—”
Berg released the slide, chambering a round. “Double action only?”
“Correct. But it’s a light pull. 5.5 pounds.”
Berg placed the pistol inside an easily accessible Velcro pouch within his briefcase. The nylon bag held a mock file and a 750 milliliter bottle of expensive vodka, which Reznikov would never taste.
“All right,” Berg said.
“Perfect. Reznikov has ordered breakfast for 8 o’clock, which is earlier than usual. I’ll send a cleanup crew down instead,” Sheffield said.
Berg nodded, feeling suddenly anxious about what he had calmly envisioned doing for the past month. The look on his face must have betrayed his apprehension because Sheffield put a hand on his shoulder.
“You don’t have to do this. In the three years I’ve been here, we’ve retired eight guests. Nobody from Langley has ever showed up for one of the retirement ceremonies,” Sheffield said.
“Do you really call it a retirement ceremony?”
“That’s what they’ve always been called,” Sheffield said.
“This guy doesn’t deserve the euphemism. I’ll take you up on the coffee and breakfast when I get back. I might have a shot of this vodka too,” Berg said.
“Fair enough, Mr. Berg. I’ll show you out.”
A few minutes later, Berg turned down path number five and entered a thick stand of pine trees that concealed Reznikov’s soon-to-be-vacated residence. He rang the doorbell, expecting to wait several minutes for the drunken maniac to answer. Reznikov had used his fifth satellite phone call yesterday afternoon to confirm that Vektor bioweapons program had been successfully destroyed. His Solntsevskaya contact confirmed that the operation had succeeded at the laboratory. A brief description of several simultaneous plumes of fire at the site had been enough to convince Reznikov that Berg’s team had succeeded. Sheffield said he celebrated well into afternoon before passing out without ordering dinner.
Berg was caught slightly off guard when Reznikov opened the door. He’d expected to find the scientist stumbling around in a cotton robe, nursing a massive headache and rubbing his perpetually bloodshot eyes. Instead, Reznikov looked rested and alert, wearing an outfit suitable for a day hike in the mountains. Something seemed off about this.
“Oh. It’s you?” Reznikov said.
“Going for a walk?” Berg said.
“Uh, well. Now that I am a permanent resident, I figured it might be time to embrace my surroundings. So, I suppose congratulations are in order?” he said, glancing nervously over Berg’s shoulder.
“They are. I thought we’d celebrate,” Berg said.
Berg withdrew the bottle of vodka from his briefcase and offered it to Reznikov, who accepted it reluctantly.
“I really do feel like getting some fresh air this morning. I celebrated a little too hard yesterday afternoon,” Reznikov said, taking a step forward.
Berg blocked the doorway, flashing a disingenuous smile. “I insist that we take a moment to celebrate. It should help you take the edge off. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Reznikov took a moment to consider Berg’s offer, displaying an anguished look out of character with someone who routinely downed a bottle like this before ten in the morning. The Russian’s eyes shifted to the forest again before he finally relented and stepped back into the cottage.
“Where are my manners? Of course. A quick toast, then I really should get out for some fresh air. You’re welcome to join me,” Reznikov said.
Berg pulled the door shut and followed him inside, sliding his hand into the black nylon briefcase. He felt for the Velcro flap that covered the hidden compartment, suddenly hardened for what he needed to do.
Greg Marshall yawned and rubbed his eyes. A few more minutes and his eight-hour shift monitoring the compound’s remote sensor network would come to an end. He’d eat a massive breakfast and crash out for several hours upstairs, until his natural biorhythms forced him out of bed. He closed his eyes and imagined the grease-laden farmer’s breakfast waiting for him in the sunroom. Security work at the compound might be tedious, but the food was plentiful and he had plenty of time between shifts to work it off. He could imagine worse work within the agency.
When he opened his eyes, he immediately saw that one of the eastern-based sensor arrays had detected movement. Damn it. Now his watch turnover would be delayed by at least fifteen minutes while a team was dispatched to investigate what would undoubtedly turn out to be another bear. The system could eliminate most non-human signatures based on speed, size and thermal characteristics, but it had a hard time differentiating between a young black bear and a human being. The system would track the bear accurately while it ambled along on all fours, but suddenly flash an alert when it rose up on its hind legs to pick berries. Now his breakfast would have to wait. He pulled his chair up to the desk and started the checklist.
The fifty-inch LED screen mounted at eye level in front of his desk displayed a digital map of the area surrounding the compound. Two sectors showed movement, which was a little unusual. He moved his hand to the red phone at the edge of the workstation and considered ringing Sheffield. Not yet. Sheffield hated when they rang him without gathering any information. He dragged the cursor over to the closest red sector and double-clicked, activating the two screens flanking the center monitor.
The top screen displayed multiple camera feeds from the sector, which he could change from traditional full color day view to thermal imaging. The bottom screen presented information from the motion sensors, pressure plates and thermal scanners in numeric and map form. The sector boundary map on this screen indicated that the signals were rapidly approaching the fence line. Multiple signals. The data flowing next to the map told him which cameras to search for a view of the targets, presenting hyperlinks that would change the view on the top screen to reflect what he had selected. He clicked on of the links and momentarily froze in his chair. What the fuck? Two heavily armed men sprinted toward the only section of fence exposed directly to the security complex beside the front gate. He didn’t bother to check the second sector before charging the entire eastern fence line and picking up the red phone.
The former Russian GRU Spetsnaz soldier raced toward the ten-foot-high section of chain-link fence directly ahead of him and threw himself to the ground several feet in front of it. He quickly extended the bipod attached to his RPK-74S Light Machine Gun and pressed the weapon firmly into the ground. Through the 3.4X ACOG sight attached to the RPK’s top rail, he sighted in on the front door of the gray two-story house and disengaged the weapon’s safety.