Spangled fish danced before his eyes and he was suddenly on his kayak racing cross the quicksilver waves of the Chesapeake Bay, feeling so light and nimble it was like walking on water. In his mind he dipped his hand into the water, took a handful, thinking… this is the shape of water… and splashed it on his forehead, soaking his shirt…
Derek said, “I turned her over to the FBI…”
Ling inserted the needle once again. Again, Derek felt the flames engulf him, but somewhere deep, deep in his brain there was water…
39
Richard Coffee left Ling’s trailer, his mind in turmoil. He felt as if his brain were segmenting, fragmenting into shards of memory. The past had doubled back on him, a past he had spent years trying to forget. Where was Nadia?
The thought was a whisper, a chorus of voices in his head. Where was Nadia? For Nadia Kosov was Irina Khournikova. Yes. Nadia was Irina.
He stood in the expanse of pavement between trailers and felt a wave of confusion nearly overwhelm him. Irina Khournikova. The Russian woman from the ‘T’ Directorate who had been hunting him for so many years. With an effort he tried to control the explosion of memories spinning in his head.
He blinked, back in Chechnya. What year was it? It was ‘94? Maybe? Surkho Andarbek had been high in the Chechen rebellion, a tactician and leader. His particular skill had been in stalking Russian military units and assassinating high-ranking officers. Even then, his name was known — Strong Warrior.
There had been a visitor touring their sector, a Lieutenant Colonel from the Russian Army. His name was Sergei Dobrovnik. He was evaluating the Russian mission in Chechnya, which was not going well at all. It was never ending, Russia’s second Vietnam, as if the Afghanistan war hadn’t been bad enough, now this mess.
Coffee’s intelligence network was prized by the Chechens and feared by the Russians, who only knew that their intelligence leaked like a broken water main. Their routes for the tour of the city were kept highly secret, known to only a few. Yet Coffee — Surkho Andarbek — had killed him with a rocket propelled grenade as his convoy passed through the streets. The boldness of his attack had made his name known throughout the country.
And two years later, now the head of the rebels, Surkho Andarbek heard that he was being hunted by a woman, Irina Khournikova. This woman was more than just a top anti-terrorist agent. Her lover had been Sergei Dobrovnik. Khournikova had sworn an oath to hunt the man who had killed her lover.
Coffee, then close to his fall, began to study this hunter. Indirectly, Irina Khournikova was responsible for the depth and breadth of Surkho Andarbek’s intelligence network in Russia and the rest of the world. It was because of her that he began even more recruiting of spies from within and without, developing contacts, spinning a web.
Coffee blinked, back in contact with reality. He glanced at his wristwatch, puzzled, wondering if he had actually been standing in the one spot for ten minutes. He looked around at his followers, busy preparing for the rest of the operation. Coffee knew they believed his trances brought visions.
And maybe they did, he thought. Because you cannot escape the past. The past has a way of unfolding and folding back in on itself. History does repeat itself, even if you remember it.
Like Derek. Derek had appeared like a phantom from his past.
Grimly, Coffee strode across the pavement to the double-wide trailer Derek had noticed, the one with the elaborate ventilation system. At the front of the trailer was an intercom. He punched the button and waited. After a moment a metallic voice said, “Yes?”
Coffee switched to Korean. “What’s the status of your tests?”
“Fallen. They are progressing.”
“Are you comfortable with the results so far? I want to proceed with the next stage.”
More silence. Finally the speaker said, “I do not have one hundred percent confidence in the vaccine. It has not been thoroughly tested.”
“It works on the animals?”
“Yes, Fallen. So far they seem effective, though not enough time has passed.”
“Yes. Yes. Do you need to test it on a human being?”
There was a longer silence. Finally, “Yes.”
Coffee smiled, thinking of Derek Stillwater. “I will bring you your test subject then. Your guinea pig.”
“One… one of The Fallen?”
“No. A guest.”
“Ah. Soon?
“He’s with Ling. When Ling is done.”
“We need him alive.”
“Ling knows what to do.”
“Very well. We will make preparations.”
Coffee walked away, toward another trailer at the far end. As people passed, they nodded their heads in respect. His people. His Fallen Angels. He pushed his way into Trailer F. Three people were working at computer workstations. They were tapped into various news organizations and government agencies. The room was stacked with computers and TVs tuned to CNN and FOX and the other news networks.
“I need you to determine if the FBI has custody of Irina Khournikova.”
The man he spoke to was a slim Malaysian man, who nodded. He moved into the FBI logs and computer system, tapping at keys. He nodded. “Yes. It indicates that she is in an interrogation room on the fifth floor, in the Strategic Information Operations Center.”
Coffee nodded, thinking. Then he said, “I need e-mail. I need a direct e-mail, non-traceable, to our source in the Bureau.”
The Malaysian tapped keys. “O’Hara?”
Coffee nodded, thinking of sacrifices. He was going to sacrifice Derek Stillwater. Blood for blood.
40
Jude O’Hara sat in his cubicle in the anti-terrorism division of the FBI, sifting through computer files. He wore the typical FBI uniform of dark suit, white shirt, though his was as wrinkled and sweat-stained as the rest of the staff’s. Hell, everyone was saying, had broken loose. They were mobilizing, but slowly, with so many cabinet members dead. He brushed a hand through his short sandy hair and closed his eyes, ignoring the pressure behind his ears and the pounding behind his eyes. His mind was a blank, frozen. Everyone was mobilized, the anti-terrorism division was going absolutely apeshit, and he was sitting there trying to come up with a game plan.
Because he knew more about The Fallen Angels than anyone in the entire division. It had been his job over the years to make sure that the FBI knew nothing about the group. Whenever hints came across other agents’ desks, it had been his job to question the veracity of the intelligence. Whenever he heard hints about The Fallen Angels, he had made the intelligence vanish.
He had been doing this for seven years, ever since a lengthy trip through the former Soviet republics in search of terrorists and thieves who were wholesaling stolen Russian military hardware to the highest bidders. He had been approached in a Moscow casino by a woman named Ekatarina, a voluptuous blonde in a shimmery silver dress that could not contain her exuberant body. It had not been a difficult seduction… and by the end of it he had found himself with a Swiss bank account and a connection to the very group he was looking for. By the time Osama bin Laden’s boys had changed the tenor of the war on terrorism, he was stuck. It was either continue or face a life in prison with a possible execution order.
He considered disappearing numerous times. Over the years he diversified the money, created a number of false identities, set up the pathways for a disappearance.
The Fallen Angels confused him. Originally they appeared to be about money. Over time, the closer he found himself to the group, the more they seemed like some sort of whacked-out ideologues, an odd doomsday cult that believed themselves to be the eventual instigators of a New World Order.