“Move all strategic forces to Snapcount,” Doron demanded.
“All of them?” Modine asked.
“All of them.”
Mordechai’s heart was in his throat. The Samson Option was no longer an option. It was reality.
Siren wailing, Hamid raced north toward Moscow.
Bennett speed-dialed Mordechai, but there was no answer. He hit redial, but again there was no answer. Then came an emergency broadcast over the police radio.
“All units, this is Moscow Base. We have reports of a multiple shooting on the northbound lane of the M2, about half a mile from the Stroitelej interchange. Be advised a CIA or Mossad hit team may be in play. Repeat, American and Israeli operatives or special forces may be on the ground. Proceed with caution.”
Bennett was stunned. Were U.S. and Israeli forces really on the ground? Or were the police on to them?
There was only one way to find out.
“Hamid, give me the radio.”
“Why?”
“Hamid, just give me the radio.”
Reluctantly, Hamid pulled the handheld microphone off the receiver and stretched the cord to the backseat.
“How much time do we have?” Bennett asked.
“We are about a mile out from the roadblock. You only have a few seconds before they will see you.”
Bennett took a deep breath, then pressed Send and started talking in rapid-fire Russian. “Moscow Base, this is Unit 225. Repeat, this is Unit 225. Can confirm shots fired along the M2, but be advised I have a suspect in custody.”
Bennett saw Hamid glance back at him through his rearview mirror. His eyes were wide with fear, but for the moment, he said nothing.
“Unit 225, this is Moscow Base. Please repeat — you have a suspect in custody?”
“Affirmative, Moscow Base.”
“We need a description.”
“Male, about six feet, a hundred and ninety pounds, dark brown hair, green eyes. I found a Russian passport on him — stamped in Astrakhan — but he looks American. Repeat, he looks American. Please advise.”
Bennett could only imagine the explosion he’d just caused. Would they take the bait?
“Unit 225, this is General Barovka of the FSB. Do not proceed to Moscow Base. Repeat, do not proceed to Moscow Base. Proceed directly to Lubyanka. We will have agents waiting out front. Confirm.”
“Roger that, General. Request immediate clearance across the Krymski Bridge.”
“Done.”
Krymski Bridge?
They were coming through Gorky Park. They were coming right to her.
McCoy bolted to her feet. She turned her police scanner up, but there was no doubt in her mind that was Bennett’s voice.
“That’s him,” she half shouted to the Zorogins, then caught herself and whispered, “That’s him. That’s Jon. He’s coming.”
She picked up Mikhail’s satellite phone and dialed Mordechai. No answer. Desperate, she tried again. Nothing.
McCoy tried not to panic. They had less than twenty-four hours until the U.N. deadline, but they had less than fifteen minutes — maybe twenty — before the FSB realized Bennett was playing a con game.
So where in the world was Mordechai?
McCoy was an optimist by nature. She kept telling herself everything would work out. It had to. But they’d never finalized the extraction plans. Neither she nor Mordechai — nor Bennett, presumably — could afford to spend more than two minutes on the phone with each other without dramatically increasing the likelihood that the call would be intercepted — or worse, that their locations would be compromised.
It had been Mordechai’s job to nail down an extraction point. It was Mordechai’s job to manage this operation. She hit Redial.
He didn’t pick up.
Doron scanned the target package.
One hundred nuclear missiles would be simultaneously launched at Russia.
Fifty would hit the former Soviet republics allied with Gogolov.
Twenty-five more would target Iran. Fifteen would be launched at Germany and Austria, eight at Saudi Arabia, and six each at Syria and Turkey. The remaining missiles would hit the capital cities of the rest of the coalition arrayed against them, and all the troops massing on Israel’s borders.
The carnage to come was incalculable.
But so far as he could tell, he had no choice.
The Krymski checkpoint lay ahead.
Barbed wire and tire spikes lined the pavement as heavily armed soldiers walked patrols, backed by battle tanks and a phalanx of surface-to-air missile batteries.
“Last chance, Jonathan,” Hamid whispered as they came around the bend and found themselves staring into the barrels of at least a dozen machine guns.
“Flip your lights on and off,” Bennett replied through clenched teeth, his hands behind his back, gripping a pistol.
Hamid complied and slowed to a stop.
Mordechai felt for his phone.
But it was gone, of course — taken by the security team when he’d first arrived at the office of the prime minister. He glanced at his watch and bit his lip.
Bennett and Hamid had to be there, or close, and he had never tied off the details of the extraction. He’d been too surprised by Doron’s call, too excited at the chance to talk to his old friend at this critical hour. And he had never expected to stay so long.
Now he was seven stories below Jerusalem. Even if he had his phone, there wouldn’t be any reception anyway.
Bennett could feel every eye on him.
He watched as soldiers checked their license plates and removed the tire spikes from their path, as ordered by the top brass at FSB headquarters.
Still, they needed a miracle.
Hamid’s Russian was passable, but far from perfect. Despite the dead officer’s hat and jacket that Hamid was wearing, he had no uniform, no ID. He was wearing blue jeans, for crying out loud! What if Hamid was asked to step out of the car for some reason? There was a bloodstained bullet hole in the back of the jacket.
Bennett looked down the Moskva River to the left and right.
All tour boats were shut down. There were no tourists. The only vessels on the water now were some speedboats and a barge or two. Everyone in his right mind was heading for the hills as fast as he could. Except fools like them.
A soldier approached the driver’s-side window.
Just then, the radio crackled to life.
“Unit 225, this is Lubyanka. You are cleared for immediate passage. Proceed to the Naina Petrovsky Center — back entrance — immediately. Repeat, proceed to the Naina Petrovsky Center — back entrance. You’ll be met outside.”
The blood drained from Bennett’s face.
That was McCoy’s voice. She was in Naina’s old apartment? How was that possible? Was it possible? Or was it a trap?
A soldier tapped on the glass with the butt of his pistol. Another approached from the passenger side, his finger nervously tapping the trigger of his AK-47.
Bennett looked at both men, then at the road ahead. It was clear.
“Gun it, Hamid — go, go, go!”
Both soldiers looked startled as Bennett yelled and Hamid hit the gas.
The sudden acceleration thrust Bennett against the back of the seat. He could hear men screaming for them to stop, and as he leaned forward again, he heard the crackle of machine-gun fire. The back window exploded.