“Thank you very much,” said Natalya Tomachenko, and she left the phone booth.
The drop point to which Ivanovitch had sent her was an ancient hotel struggling for its existence against far more luxurious competition. Natalya’s instructions for the meet were contained in the room box belonging to a nonexistent guest whose name the KGB man had passed on during the course of their conversation.
The instructions stated that she should proceed immediately to the National Museum of Fine Arts, specifically the African exhibit on the second floor, where Ivanovitch would meet her. Natalya hoped to arrive before him, to give her an opportunity to make sure all was clean on the premises. But as soon as she stepped into the second-floor hall she found the KGB man standing before a tapestry of an ancient warrior.
“Long time no see, Victor,” she said softly.
He stared at her in shock. “Natalya …”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she told him, aware it was difficult not to, given the numerous small cuts on her face from shattered car glass.
“No, no. It’s just—”
“You’re surprised to see me.”
He calmed a bit. “It’s just that I was expecting it to be someone else.”
“Who?”
“Anyone.” He paused, settled down even more. “An agent of your clearance is a rare find in Algiers. Small pickings, as the Americans say.”
But Natalya was not convinced. The KGB man still seemed nervous, as if his thoughts were not his own.
“What is it I can do for you?” he asked.
“I need a direct line to the General Secretary. You know the codes and clearances.”
“The … General Secretary?”
“The explanations don’t concern you. Suffice it to say I had a private channel but it’s been disconnected.”
“No, it’s not that. This sort of thing is new even to me. You’re asking a lot.”
“But you can deliver. I know that. The problem is procedure. It must be a direct link, no middleman involved.”
“My channel will have to be red flagged. There’ll be questions.”
“Which you won’t be able to answer. All you’ll have is my name, but that will be enough. The General Secretary will understand the importance of contact, rest assured.”
“If not, my career, my reputation …”
“Neither is in jeopardy. My latest assignment,” she said, almost whispering, “was uncoded. My channels were closed upon completion, but completion was not achieved. Am I making myself clear?”
He smiled. “Of course not. But I’ll do what you ask.” He thought briefly. “We are set up for this here. The hardware is in place. You know the Sidi Fredj holiday resort?”
“At the far end of the Bay of Algiers, yes.”
“The complex contains a marina. Many boats are docked there this time of year. One is called the Red Tide.”
“How fitting.”
“In terms of color as well. A thirty-six-foot cabin cruiser. You can’t miss it. The equipment is on board. We had to move it out of the embassy when the CIA set up shop around the corner.” Ivanovitch checked his watch. “I’ll meet you there in three hours. Go below as soon as you arrive.”
“The call came from Greece,” CIA chief Stamp reported to the President. “Athens specifically. We’ve flooded the city with agents, focusing on all avenues of potential transit.”
“But you don’t expect to catch him, do you?”
Stamp paused. “Honestly, sir, no.”
“This cloak-and-dagger business was uncalled for,” Lyman Scott said. “You should have simply got on the line and laid out the situation for McCracken to see.”
“If he’d refused, we would have had nothing.”
“And what do we have now?”
Natalya arrived at the Sidi Fredj marina ten minutes before the three hours had elapsed. She had taken a route which provided her the opportunity to view the marina from the other side of the bay. She saw the red cabin cruiser. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t figure out what. Ivanovitch’s tone had been off. There was too much shifting in his voice. Why?
It didn’t matter. The Red Tide held a direct line to Chernopolov, and the General Secretary would be waiting for her call. But something still felt wrong.
Eight minutes remained to her rendezvous with Ivanovitch when she started down the dock for the Red Tide. Several men were at work on their boats, and they eyed her as she passed. Any of them or none could have belonged to the KGB man.
She stepped lightly from the wharf down a set of steps leading from the gunwale to the deck. The entire boat was spotless. She gazed around her for signs of something wrong but found nothing. The Red Tide was just as it should have been.
She opened the door to the cabin and descended the three steps into it. Somewhere in the exquisitely furnished interior was the communications equipment to effect a patch-through to Moscow. Technologically, that road would be long and complicated, the transfers made in milliseconds from channel to channel and all originating here.
Like the exterior, the cabin was spotlessly clean. Except….
The thin carpet covering the cabin floor was damp in patches, with the outlines of footprints visible. Not sneakers or boat shoes. Loafers, with thin, slippery heels. And the wet footprints had to be recent, left by men who had departed only minutes before her arrival.
Yes! She should have seen it earlier. Ivanovitch had so much as told her, not with words but gestures, tones — subtle indications she should have picked up then. But there was still time; there had to be!
The explosion came seconds later. It obliterated not just the Red Tide but a good portion of the dock and boats two deep on either side of it. Showers of flaming wood and steel covered the area, falling up to two hundred yards away, out to sea, onto the parking lot, and into the nearby Sidi Fredj recreational area. The nearby hospitals took in seven emergency patients suffering from lacerations and contusions.
Fire officials were reasonably quick to appear on the scene, but they could do nothing more than watch as the last remains of several ships sank into the bay dragging the dying flames with them.
Chapter 23
After learning that the bastards occupying the town had turned his jailhouse into their armory, Sheriff Junk knew there was only one option available to him for spiriting some of the weapons out.
Much of Pamosa Springs was built over mining veins whose hidden entrances had been sealed for generations. Heep had located several as a boy, including one which lay directly beneath the jailhouse. Years later he had covered up the entrance himself so this latest generation of kids wouldn’t be tempted by it. Since the front of the jailhouse was well guarded, his sole chance for gaining access to the weapons stored in the rear was to approach the building from the abandoned mines beneath it. Once inside, he would grab as much as he could carry and then retrace his path out.
The soldiers’ new commander, like the old, agreed to let town council members move freely through Pamosa Springs during the day, mostly to keep people at ease as to what was going on. Such permission not only served to keep the leaders separated, but it also cast them in the role of being unwitting accomplices to the takeover. The other residents would resent their freedom of movement and inwardly hold it against them. Thus, subtly, their authority was undermined. If it came down to depending on their orders, the people would resist. The strategy was one of factionalization, a classic of occupational forces.