Her eyes were drawn to a black Lexus crunching into the gravel parking lot. Her gaze lingered on the Virginia license plates as the vehicle eased up against the curb, just beyond the porch rail. The driver, a late middle-aged man with short, steel gray hair and a face that was still handsome despite a deeply-etched map of worry lines, lowered his window without turning off the engine.
“Pardon me,” he said, “but I think I might be lost.”
“If you think you are lost,” Asya replied with a smile, “then it’s probably true. Where are you wanting to be?”
“I’m supposed to meet a friend at the Bible Campground.”
“Ah, you are true believer. You are not as lost as you think. Is close. I happen to be going that way.”
The weary face cracked with a grin. “My lucky day. Hop in.”
She descended the steps and found the passenger door of the Lexus open and waiting. She climbed in and slipped the Monster can into the center console cup holder before closing the door. “I think I am supposed to say something about not accepting rides from strange men,” she said.
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but never ‘strange.’” He gazed at her sidelong. “You look just like him.”
She knew exactly to whom the man was referring; with her dark hair and lean features, Asya bore more than a passing resemblance to her brother — her much older brother — Jack Sigler. “Thomas thought you would say that. Is why he sent me to meet you.”
The man, Domenick Boucher, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking spot. “So how is your brother?”
“I don’t really know him as well as I…” She realized how ridiculous the statement was and didn’t finish. “Older and wiser, I think you would say. Turn right and follow this road.”
Boucher drove in silence, clearly preoccupied with whatever matter had brought him so far from the nation’s capital, and Asya was content to let him do so. They drove into the wooded outskirts of the small town and through the open gate of the Pinckney Bible Conference Grounds. Although a fully functional campground for religious retreats, its funding anonymously came from the headquarters of a very secret security organization known as Endgame, which was partially located under the grounds. Although the campground gate was never closed, it was by no means unsecure. Asya knew that their every move was being followed, and that at the first hint of danger, an armed security force would materialize out of one of the rustic cabins they were driving past, and descend on them like the proverbial ton of bricks. The park was technically open, but mid-week the place was deserted of campers.
The Lexus cruised past the small welcome center, turned right and passed the ‘Snack Shack.’ The road became dirt as they drove into the woods, past the campground’s trailer park and onto a narrow path that wended into the forested foothills of an imposing block of granite called Fletcher Mountain. The trail ended at an overgrown trailhead parking area. Asya directed Boucher to stop there. They got out, and she led him to a small wooden outhouse near the trail signpost.
Boucher wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Actually, I don’t really have to go that bad.”
Asya grinned. The smell was overpowering, but the knowledge that it was just a mix of tert-butyl mercaptan and other odor-causing chemicals, and not actually raw sewage stewing in the New England sun, made it a little more tolerable. “This way, Mr. CIA.”
The door to the outhouse was barricaded with two-by-fours and a sign proclaiming ‘Closed,’ but like the aroma, the look was merely for cosmetic effect. The door swung open revealing a spotless room, tastefully decorated in muted hues of green, and sans all plumbing fixtures, primitive or otherwise. A strong smell, like coffee mixed with cinnamon, filled the space, overpowering the offensive odor outside. When Boucher stood beside her, Asya pulled the door shut. There was a hiss and then a feeling of lightness as the floor began to descend.
“Ah, the old secret elevator in the outhouse trick,” Boucher said. “It’s like something from a James Bond movie.”
“Who is James Bond?” Asya said, in her thickest possible Slavic accent. She laughed as he struggled to come up with an answer. “Relax, Mr. CIA, everyone in Russia knows who James Bond is. When I was young, he was symbol of Western decadence. When I was older… come to think of it, he is still symbol of Western decadence.”
A faint tremor marked the end of the descent, and another door slid open to reveal a luxurious room that might have been the lobby of a high-rent office building or a four-star hotel. There was only one person in the room, a fit man who looked to be in his late forties, with extremely short salt and pepper hair. It was starting to recede from a forehead that was, like Boucher’s, creased with the deep wrinkles that come with years and experience. He was the man Asya had called ‘Thomas’ but her brother and his friends always referred to him as ‘Deep Blue.’
Boucher had a different name for him.
“Mr. President,” he said. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
“You had better start calling me ‘Tom.’”
“Tom and Dom. Sounds like a bad comedy routine, but your house, your rules.”
Deep Blue turned to Asya. “He give you any trouble?”
She grinned mischievously. “No. I am a little disappointed.”
“I’m glad you could come, Dom,” Deep Blue said. “I’d love to give you the nickel tour, but we’re kind of on a crisis footing at the moment, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to do business before pleasure.”
“Ah… sure. Fire away.”
“We’ve got a loose ball on the field.” Deep Blue briefly related the details of Chess Team’s failed mission in Suez.
When he finished, Boucher’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “I wish you’d read me in on this, Tom.”
“There were reasons why I couldn’t do that.” Deep Blue glanced at Asya, but he didn’t explain. “I couldn’t come to you until we had positive independent verification that there really was a bomb in play. We were thirty seconds from securing it when that chopper showed up. We did verify the radiation signature at least.”
“So who was it?”
“We don’t have a clue. My source in Moscow assures me that it wasn’t a Russian Spetsnaz unit. Honestly, I was hoping that it might be your people.”
“You were right to turn this over to me. I’ll make sure word gets to the right people.”
Asya got the impression that Boucher wasn’t nearly concerned enough about a missing tactical nuclear device in the hands of an unknown rogue element. Evidently, Deep Blue felt the same way. “Dom, is there something you’re not telling me?”
Boucher looked away, nervous or possibly embarrassed. “Tom, is there somewhere we can talk?”
“We’re in a top secret, underground facility that less than a hundred people in the world know about. I’d say you can talk anywhere you like.”
Boucher’s gaze flicked to Asya. Sensing his apprehension, she cleared her throat. “I will let you two catch up.”
Surprisingly, it was Boucher that forestalled her. “No. Wait. Actually this is probably going to involve you as well.”
“Me?”
“You. Your brother. The whole team. You should all hear what I’ve got to say.”
8
Boucher felt their eyes on him, but he could only guess at the thoughts swirling behind those stares.
More than twelve hours had passed since the debacle on the edge of the Suez Canal, a period of time in which they had had very little to do aside from sitting idle in a safe house outside Cairo, second-guessing everything they had done. The Chess Team looked thoroughly beat, as they sat around the table in the briefing room. The story he’d told them had not improved their collective mood.