She lifted her hand from the action of the model 70 and flexed her black-gloved fingers, studying them. “I found myself becoming a uniquely lethal individual, all on a purely theoretical level, of course. But then I visited Israel, following up a lead on a cache of genuine ‘garage factory’ Sten guns from their War of Independence. And one evening I found myself having dinner with a fellow historian from Tel Aviv University.”

Valentina’s voice grew softer. “He was a totally fascinating little man who not only taught history but had lived it. He was a holocaust survivor and had seen action in the first three of Israel’s wars of national survival.

“We were dining at a small outdoor restaurant near the University. I recall we were discussing the historic Mideastern Jewish communities as a possible bridge between the European Jewish and Arabic cultures. Our meals had just been brought to the table. I’d ordered steak and I’d just picked up my knife when the smartly-dressed Arabic couple at the next table stood up and started killing people.”

Smith listened and studied the subtle emotions playing across Valentina’s face. He could sense it wasn’t the remembering of a fear or revulsion, but an abstract reexamination of a defining moment in a life. A time and place this woman had revisited many times before.

“I heard gunshots and I was sprayed by the blood and brains of my dinner partner as he took a bullet through the head. Then the female terrorist shoved her pistol in my face and screamed ‘God is great…’”

The historian’s voice trailed off.

Gently Smith rested his hand on her back, letting the gesture grow into a few inches of caress. “And then?”

Valentina came back into herself. “And then I was standing over the thoroughly shredded bodies of the two Hamas terrorists. I was saturated with blood, none of it my own, and that steak knife was still in my hand, dripping. I had, in the vernacular, ‘flipped the switch’-spectacularly, although I have no conscious memory of doing so. My studies were no longer abstract, but very much applied.”

Smith could understand the spark that had jumped between them now; like had recognized like. He’d had his own defining moments, his own flipping of switches. “How did you feel afterward?”

“That’s the interesting point, Jon,” she mused. “I didn’t ‘feel’ anything. They were dead and I was alive, and I was quite pleased with that outcome. I found my only regret to be that I hadn’t reacted quickly enough to save my friend and the others in that restaurant. I’ve been told that I have the perfect sniper’s mentality. I can rationally divorce myself from the emotional trauma of physical violence.”

She shrugged and made a face. “If I work at it for a bit anyway.”

“And that incident brought you to the attention of Covert One?”

“That and a couple of under-the-table research and acquisition projects I’d done for the Departments of Defense and Justice. Mr. Klein seemed to think my rather esoteric talents might prove useful to his little organization. And they have. Now I view myself as following in my father’s footsteps. I’m a game control officer eliminating the rogues and man-eaters from our societal jungle. Maybe, eventually, I can make up for being slow that one night in Tel Aviv.”

“Fred Klein knows how to pick his people.” Smith smiled at her. “I’m pleased to know you, Professor Metrace.”

“Thank you, sir.” She nodded. “It’s a pleasure to be appreciated. Some men tend to look around for the garlic and holy water after delving a little too deeply into my past.”

Smith smiled without humor and looked over the barrel of the SR-25. “I make no claim on moral superiority.”

“That’s a relief. And now, Colonel Jon Smith, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“I have a fair idea of how you ended up with Mr. Klein, but just who are you? Where do you come from?”

Smith squinted at the sky. The cloud cover was definitely edging lower again. “My biography’s not nearly as interesting as yours.”

“I’m easily amused.”

Smith was considering his answer when a small clump of dislodged snow rolled over the edge of the cave overhang, dropping in front of them with a soft pelp.

“Oh, dear,” Valentina murmured, her eyes going wide.

Instantly, Smith snaked his legs under himself. Then he launched out of the cave mouth in a headlong dive. Landing flat on his stomach, he rolled onto his back, sweeping the long barrel of his rifle in an arc to bear on the cliff face above the cave.

The Spetsnaz trooper in arctic camouflage was a pale wart on the frost-streaked basalt. Stealthily, he had edged out along an almost nonexistent ledge to a point some thirty feet above the cave mouth. The gloved fingers of one hand were hooked into a fissure in the rock, those of the other were closed tightly around the object he carried.

Looking down, the Russian’s mouth opened in a scream as he saw Smith’s explosive emergence from the cave. The sound of the cry was drowned out by the flat crash of the SR-25 as Smith squeezed off half a dozen rounds of 7.62mm as rapidly as he could pull the trigger, the copper-jacketed mil-spec slugs blasting the enemy off the cliff face.

The limp body of the Russian soldier landed almost on Smith, piling up a couple of feet to his left with a sodden, dead-meat thud. There was a second, softer thump to his right, and Smith twisted to find a hand grenade lying beside his head, a thick jacket of puttylike plastic explosive wrapped around its spherical body to enhance the demolition effect.

For an instant Smith’s heart stalled in his chest; then he realized that the grenade’s pin and safety lever were both still in place.

An instant more, and terror of the grenade was forgotten. Splintered ice sprayed as automatic weapons raked the glacier around him. The dead Spetsnaz trooper saved Smith’s life. Convulsing grotesquely, it absorbed bullets meant for him. Valentina was screaming something, and he heard the piercing reports of the model 70 as she returned fire.

Unseen things tugged viciously at Smith as he rolled onto his stomach and scuttled backward into the cave like a frightened lobster. He made it behind the low snow wall across the cave mouth. Throwing his arm around Valentina, he hauled her down beside him, and for a long second they huddled together as a storm of vengeance-aimed gunfire sparked and shrieked off the sides of the tunnel.

Out on the glacier, clips emptied and guns fell silent. The hollow ghost-moan of the wind returned.

“Val, are you all right?”

“No hits. What about you?”

Smith noted a couple of bullet rips through the loose cloth of his snow smock. “Close, but nobody won the cigar.”

“Cuban, no doubt.” Valentina squirmed loose and eased a look over the snow wall. “Damn, but this lot is good! I never had a hint they were out there until they opened up and I could pick out their muzzle flashes. They have us targeted from at least half a dozen different positions.”

Smith had been given vivid proof of that. The cave mouth was covered by a complete arc of fire. Come the inevitable nightfall, that arc would begin to contract as patient, deadly men wormed closer across the ice. The climax would be a concentrated and overwhelming blast of high explosives and autofire poured down the throat of the tunnel.

He and Valentina could retreat deeper into the cave, but they would merely be rats retreating deeper into the trap, to be systematically grenaded out of existence. Nor did surrender appear to be an option.

There had to be something else. There had to be!

“Can you hold the fort here for a while, Val? I want to go check a few things out.”

“I can manage,” she replied, thumbing reloads into the magazine of her rifle. “I don’t think they’ll be in a mood to play any more pranks for a time.” She nodded toward the corpse sprawled beyond the cave mouth.