“Don’t worry about my fellow academic. I can take care of him.” The tall brunette regarded Smith and smiled, without humor but with empathy. “Driving the bloody train isn’t the easiest of jobs, is it, Colonel?”

Smith forced the last hint of expression from his face. “I’ve been told it’s good for me, Professor.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Washington, DC

It was an ordered and lonely upper-middle-class man’s bedroom in an unobtrusive town house in a quietly respectable Washington suburb. Totally unexceptional save for the bank of color-coded telephones on the Danish modern bedside table.

The piercing squall of the gray agency phone blasted Fred Klein awake, the integral lighting circuit kicking on the golden-shaded bedside lamp at the first ring. Klein had the phone in hand before he was technically awake.

“Klein here.”

The voice at the other end of the line was hollow with distance and laced with static. “This is Jon Smith, sir, aboard the Haley. We have a situation.”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Klein listened without speaking as Smith brought him up to speed in a few terse sentences.

“From what I can see, sir, somebody else has gotten there first and is moving to secure the Misha’s payload.”

“If they have, they must have come in by air or by submarine, and they are very good at maintaining a low profile,” Klein replied. “The last NSA reconsat pass over the Queen Elizabeth Archipelago indicates there are no other surface ships within five hundred miles of Wednesday and no visible activity on the island itself.”

“Understood, sir. The second possibility is that we are seeing some aspect of the Russians ‘alternative agenda’ coming into play.”

“Do you have any idea what it could be yet?” Klein questioned. “We’re not showing anything from this end.”

“I’m not sure, sir, but I’m getting odd vibes off Major Smyslov,” Smith replied. “I suspect he’s either lying about something or he’s not giving us the full story.”

“Do you consider Smyslov a mission risk, Jon?”

There was a space of dead air. “Potentially, yes. However I’m also keeping him with the team. He seems like a good officer and decent guy, and to date he has been an asset. He also seems to be giving off mixed signals. If we do have an alternate game plan in play, I don’t think he’s happy about it. Properly managed, he may continue to be an asset.”

“Watch your back with him, Jon. The decent guys are the ones who can kill you the easiest.”

“Understood, sir. I am taking appropriate precautions.”

Klein rubbed the last of the sleep grit from his eyes and fumbled for his glasses on the lamp table. “What are your intentions at this time?”

“To continue the operation as projected, sir. We will be landing on Wednesday at first light tomorrow.”

“Under the circumstances, do you consider that prudent, Jon? We’ve currently got that arctic ranger platoon and a RAID biowar containment team standing by at Eielson Air Force Base, along with a couple of Air Commando Ospreys and an MC-130 tanker to lift them in with. We can commit them in support.”

“No, sir, not at this time.” The reply was decisive. “I’m not ready for them. If the intent of this mission is to prevent an international incident, we can’t go completely overt yet. We don’t know enough to make the call.

“Maybe the anthrax is still aboard the Misha 124 or maybe it isn’t,” Smith continued. “Maybe we have hostiles on Wednesday or maybe the search party is just stuck on a glacier with a busted radio waiting for daylight to extract themselves. We don’t know. But there is one thing we can say for certain. If we go in with foot, horse, and artillery now, the operation will be blown beyond all recall. Any potential for controlling the situation will be gone. It will become almost impossible to keep this from going public.”

In spite of himself Klein chuckled dryly. “I’m supposed to be making that speech, Jon. But what happens if you land on Wednesday and we do have hostiles present, and in force?”

“Well, sir, we’ll drop off the scope and then you’ll know for certain.” Klein could see the faint, wry smile that would go with the words. “Mission accomplished.”

“Carry on, Jon, and good luck.”

“We’ll keep you advised, sir.”

The link broke. Klein returned the gray phone to its cradle and picked up the yellow one next to it, the direct link to the armed men in the small security and communications center in the town house basement.

“Please have my car and the launch standing by. I will be moving to headquarters. Then give me five minutes and put me through to the National Command Authority.”

The director of Covert One rose and started to dress.

Chapter Twenty-two

The USS Alex Haley

The hangar bay door had been retracted, and the cutter’s aviation detail moved through the glare of the overhead strip lighting and the frosty mist of their own breath. The Long Ranger, with its floats cradled on a service trolley and heater cords plugged into its sleek flanks, stood ready to be rolled out onto the helipad. To the southeast, beyond the stern of the ship, the horizon lay outlined in a thin, steely streak of gray, pitching lightly with the ice-suppressed roll of the sea.

It had been a long, sleepless night, consumed in fifteen-minute bites between the radio checks with Wednesday Island, the decks shuddering and bucking underfoot as Captain Jorganson staged his last-ditch assault on the ice pack. It was good to be finally taking action.

Because of weight and space considerations, the Long Ranger’s interior had been stripped of everything but the two pilots’ seats. Jon Smith supervised the securing of the team’s equipment to tie-downs on the cabin deck: the four backpacks and frames loaded with climbing and survival gear, the SINCGARS portable radio transceiver, and the hard-sided aluminum transport case loaded with the medical and field-testing equipment.

A pair of Coast Guard deckhands lugged the final item into the hangar bay: a dark green sausage-shaped carrier bag made out of heavy-gauge nylon.

“Here’s the last of it, sir,” one of the deckhands said uneasily as they set the carrier on the deck. Possibly his unease had to do with the prominent markings on the bag:

US ARMY GRAVES REGISTRATION

BAGS-BODY-ONE DOZEN.

“Thanks, Seaman.” The sealing tag was still in place on the carrier’s zipper. The camouflage labeling had done its job well: no one had been inclined to fool with the carrier’s contents.

Stepping over to the bag, Smith broke the seal and ran the zip open. As the hangar bay crew looked on soberly, Smith began to pass out the carrier’s true contents, the equipment that a routine crash identification and body recovery team wouldn’t have needed.

White camouflage snow smocks and overtrousers. Fanny packs containing Army MOPP III biochemical warfare suits and filter masks. And the weapons.

“I see you’re an aficionado of the great spray-and-pray school,” Professor Metrace murmured as Randi checked out a Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine gun.

“It works for me,” Randi replied briefly, clearing the breach and snapping out the stumpy little weapon’s folding stock. “Ammunition?”

“Six magazines,” Smith replied, handing her the loaded clip pouches. Lifting the next padded case out of the bag, he unzipped it and grunted in satisfaction. They’d gotten him the SR-25 tactical sniper he’d asked for. Protective lens caps were clipped over the rifle’s telescopic sights, and white camo tape had been lapped around the composite stock and foregrip.

There was something oddly familiar about the feel of this particular weapon, and Smith checked its serial number. He wasn’t mistaken; it was the same SR-25 he’d dialed in with and carried through his mountain warfare course. Fred Klein’s meticulousness had struck again.