“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded, trembled violently, then steadied herself on his arm. He walked her to a shallow brick retaining wall where they both sat down. Yuri made a call on his cellular phone while Katrina’s eyes fixed on the corpse sprawled face down on the cement, centered on a dark, wet pool.
“We’ll have reinforcements here in a few minutes. By the way, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a case like this?”
“You were following me,” she said, teeth chattering.
“I was out for a walk. A coincidence.” He looked toward the construction area. “Just like your prowling around this building—the Patent and Trademark Office?”
She nodded, shivering.
“We’ll have to make sure they build it securely—won’t we?”
She gritted her teeth. “You killed that man.”
“Yes Ma’am, I did.” Yuri made his fingers into a gun, and blew on the ‘muzzle.’ “Good thing.” Even in the dim light, he could see her lips turning blue. “Here. Take my coat.” He wrapped her up, then walked to the corpse. “You know him?”
She shook her head in a ‘No.’
“How about the other one—the one that got away?”
“No.”
“Well, I got a good look at his face. How about you?”
“I’ll never forget.”
* * *
In the darkened conference room, the raspy-voiced Security Chief narrated video footage of a UFO near the Groom Test Area. The video showed a bright light rising over White Mountain. The object performed impossible aerial maneuvers.
“This is combined footage from a handheld palmcorder in Area 51 and a fixed position video camera at the Malebolge site.”
He waited as the footage played out. The craft hovered, then accelerated instantly. The Security Chief continued the narrative.
“The flight profile is typical of what we’ve seen in the past. Witnesses say it came in from the North, executed several very wide turns and departed toward White Mountain... Here you see it circling the Malebolge Site. We think it’s a probe.”
The footage ended. Room lights went on. Faces around the table became visible. The Security Chief continued his analysis. “We found levels of thirteen short-lived radionuclides in the area where the rats died, including Europium 146 and Tellurium 199m. Each has a half-life of about four and a half days.”
“Your point,” Chandra asked, “is that there was a radioactive anomaly coinciding in time with the appearance of the probe and in space with the site of the dead animals?”
“Correct.”
Henry interrupted. “But the probe occurredafter the test andafter the death of the rats.”
The Security Chief nodded. “Yes.”
“So we don’t really know what is cause and what is effect?”
“Correct.”
“Do you think the ETs can listen in?”
“We’ve had Richard wired for 24 years. Why would they start showing interest now?” Billy asked.
The Chief thought for a moment. “Maybe our test made them curious.”
* * *
Katrina Fontanova, still wearing Yuri’s coat, clutched his arm as they rode in the back of a police car to her Crystal City apartment.
Outside, pinpricks of icewater stabbed at the windows as windshield wipers dueled with intermittent thrusts. Yuri felt Katrina’s body transmit a shivering spasm.
The driver finally stopped. Yuri opened the door against the push of wind and helped her out.
He knew she still saw him as the enemy. “I’m sorry it took so long with the police paperwork.”
“I’m exhausted,” she said, gripping his arm tighter as the wind gusted.
They stood outside Crystal International Suites for a moment, holding each other, listening to the branches of a cherry tree scrape against the light-filled glass entranceway. “You’re a decent man,” she said, returning his coat.
She looked toward the building, hesitated, then stood on tiptoes, holding his face, kissing him quickly, gently. Then she smiled and walked inside.
He knew it was nothing—the emotions of the moment, played out in the press of warm flesh. He put the jacket back on as a cold wind tapped on the glass.
* * *
She had carefully warmed the drink, hoping it would revive her spirit, but the hand holding the glass trembled as it moved toward her lips. Alcohol flowed down her throat, but a shivering spasm spilled brandy on her nightgown, staining it.
Get a grip, she thought, removing the gown, covering her body with a blanket. She put the gown into the washing machine, turned it on, watched it fill. Soon, the water churned with an inexorable chug-chug-chug, like some boiling, frothing undertow.
She huddled in a corner near the phone and dialed Vladimir’s number—no answer.Partying, again ! She didn’t bother trying Gallagan. He was staying overnight on an industrialist’s yacht.He’s probably making deals , she thought, walking to the living room window.Tonight, I’m alone—no parties, no deals, just my own mortality . She turned off the light and looked onto the street below.
Why would two people try to kill me? What do I have that they wanted? My body? My purse? My knowledge? My life? There is so much violence here. More than Russia. Psychopaths. Gangsters. They’ll kill you for a dime. The way you look. The way you smile.
She remembered how he smiled.This Sverdlov is a decent man. Yuri. He could have—
Her gaze turned from the lighted area near the hotel entrance, to more distant, hidden recesses and labyrinthine passages—places where light struggled with shadow. The bright thought about Yuri spawned its negative.He’s an FBI man. His mission is to track me. Expose me. I can’t get close.
She trembled again.The world is filled with illusions. Maybe the encounter was not what it seemed.
She downed the last drop of brandy, then drew the curtains closed.
* * *
Morning sunlight dispelled shadows, but Katrina still felt the persistent cold wind in downtown Washington, D.C.
As she approached the Russian Embassy, she saw a man in a sweater reading the newspaper. It reminded her of danger. She slowed her pace.
He folded the paper and looked up. It was Yuri Sverdlov.
They watched each other.
Yuri smiled first, then Katrina.
She touched his shoulder—a stiff touch, without the warmth of the previous night. “Good to see you,” she said.
“Feel okay this morning?”
She nodded, “yes,” but felt unsure.
“We haven’t been able to get much on the muggers. We’ll keep trying. You were lucky.”
“Yes,” she said. “Lucky. You’re on duty—watching me?”
He nodded. “We all have a job to do. I happen to like mine.”
She shivered, not knowing why, then talked into the box. “Fontanova here.”
There was a low buzz. The gate opened. She entered. On the other side, she turned to look at Yuri.
Their eyes met for a long moment as the gate closed and locked.
31. TOWN MEETING
29 April 1994
Rachel, Nevada
“Royce, do you think we can get started here?”
“Sure thing, Colonel.” Royce waded through the crowded barroom and climbed precariously onto the counter, accompanied by hoots and whistles from a rude clientele. He raised his arms, like a conductor cueing an orchestra. Noise from the multitude subsided.
“I’m glad you could all make it, here!” he yelled.
The audience clapped.
“This, over here, is Colonel Joe Blazosky from the Base and Mister Barney Wills from the Bureau of Land Management. They’re gonna tell us why the Air Force needs to expropriate 4,000 more acres of land for the Nellis Range Complex.”
The white-haired, ramrod-straight 0-6 in a spotless blue uniform acknowledged with a raised hand. There was a mixture of clapping and booing. The thin, hawk-nosed BLM representative didn’t bother to look up f
rom his soda.
“Before I turn it over to you, Colonel,” the barkeeper said, “I just want to say that this establishment is proud to do its civic duty. Not only are we hosting this town meeting, but all drinks are half price until eight o’clock.”
He jumped off the bar amid clapping and cheering.
“Can we cut the bank of lights over the screen?” the Colonel asked.
The barkeeper hit a couple of switches on the wall. Half the room went dark.
“That’s better,” the Colonel said.
He looked at the room, waiting for the noise to die down. When it finally did, he spoke.
“I’m the Deputy Commander of the Nellis Range Complex. I’m here to tell you about the planned annexation. I’ll try to answer any questions you might have toward the end of the presentation.”
He turned on the projector. A chart about Nellis, with the USAF logo in the upper right, popped onto the screen.
“Nellis has been critical to the defense of the United States of America. The Military Lands Withdrawal Act of 1986, as amended in 1988, withdrew some of the land currently in the Nellis Range Complex. Certain elevations on the east side of the range were not included as part of the original withdrawal.”
He showed a montage of aerial combat slides, with corkscrew jet trails, air-to-air missiles and square-jawed fighter pilots. “At Nellis, we train pilots to achieve victory in the skies. However, high performance maneuvers over the range are dangerous. An aerial view of Freedom Ridge, taken from Groom, popped up on the screen.
“If an aircraft crashed into this ridge on public land, it could kill the observers. We want to make our operations as safe as possible and avoid risking the lives of civilians.”
“White Mountain,” he continued, “poses a similar risk. Aircraft practicing Air Combat Maneuvers could stray into the mountainside with lethal consequences.”
He switched the projector off.
“There are valid reasons for annexing this land. Not only will it contribute to the defense of our great nation, but it could save the lives of civilians. I urge you to support the annexation. Now, I’d like to take questions.”
He looked around the room and spotted Deke with a hand in the air. “Yes, Sir?”
“Could you tell us about UFOs at the base?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“Is there an echo?”
“Maybe we could help each other.”
“How’s that?”
“Let us continue to observe the base from Freedom Ridge and White Mountain. We’ll report all the sightings to you. Then you’d know.”
“Sorry. Too much of a safety risk. Next question?”
A tall, bearded man in a black suit stood up, clamping his lapels with both hands. “I’d like to inject some reality into this discussion,” he said, eyeing Deke.
“Thank you, sir,” the Colonel said, gratefully. “And you are?”
“Marvyn Marvin the Third, Ambassador from the Planet Draconis. What I want to know—”
“I’m sorry. We’ve run out of time. Let’s give somebody else a turn.”
The Colonel switched the projector off. He pointed toward another man in the audience. “Yes, Sir?”
“I’m Harry.”
“Hello, Harry.”
“I’m a Shoshone. Er... at least three-quarters Shoshone.”
“Okay.”
“The land you’re after, and most of the land at Nellis, was deeded to the Shoshone Nation by treaty in the 1800s.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Get off our land. Stop trying to grab more.”
“Do you have an actual copy of the treaty?”
“I don’t have the copy. I’m told it’s somewhere in Washington.”
“I’d have to see it before I could comment. Next question?”
Harry sat down. A well-dressed woman stood up. She was not from Rachel.
“This is the State of Nevada, isn’t it?”
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Why isn’t the Air Force dealing with the state?”
“Excuse me?”
“You are annexing the land, and you are talking only to the Bureau of Land Management.”
“We were told to. They own the land.”
“It is ironic, isn’t it,” she said, looking around the room, “that a sizable part of a State of Nevada is not owned by the people who actually live in the state?”
“Care to respond to that, Mister Wills?” the Colonel asked.
Barney Wills, the BLM rep, stopped sipping soda, issued a silent burp and stood up. “Repeat the question?”
“Why isn’t the annexation decision a state decision?” the woman asked.
“Because BLM owns the land,” he responded, matter-of-factly.
The audience, quiet up to this point, erupted in hisses and boos. They threw paper cups.
“Stop that!” he yelled. “This is unprofessional!”
The noise subsided as some residents shouted, “Let him talk!”
“It’s true, he said, “that most of Lincoln County is public land. BLM just happens to be the landlord. I didn’t make those rules, but there they are.”
“When Nevada was founded, Mister Wills,” the well-dressed woman said, “the state was given authority to manage public lands. BLM has authority only if the state delegates it to you. And we haven’t.”
The crowd whistled and cheered at the woman’s show of irreverence. She continued.
“If you believe you have authority in this matter, Mister Wills, then I have come all the way from Las Vegas to ask you for proof. Here is a Freedom of Information request to see the documents that prove you have such authority.”
She handed him a typed letter.
“I’m the wrong guy. It’s not my bailiwick.”
“Who is the right guy?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Could you find out?”
“Not my job. Call the BLM office in Washington, D.C.”
People yelled curses. They threw more cups—some full of beer. Colonel Joe Blazosky and Mister Barney Wills beat a hasty retreat out the back door. Royce climbed onto the bar and tried to provide a sense of finale.
“Well, that about wraps it up,” he said. “Drinks are on me for the next ten minutes.”
32. MAJOR PUZZLES
30 April 1994
“I measured a small current in the shield, so I began a careful inspection, looking for a fault,” Dmitry said. “What I found was this.” He pointed at an exposed tuck in the wire grid that looped down close to the floor in the interior of the SIGINT Operations Center. “I discovered it was connected to something else—this transparent polymer thread. I smelled a rat.”
Katrina looked carefully through a magnifying glass. The transparent, conductive polymer was nearly invisible. Even if you saw it, you might think it was a snagged thread of cloth, or a spider’s web. The shield it connected to, called a Faraday cage, was supposed to stop leakage of signals from the Center. Leakage was bad. Computers and other equipment inside the Center radiated electromagnetic energy which could be picked up, amplified and read by foreign agents.
She noticed a small glob of polymer. “It’s heat-fused to the metal.”
“Correct.”
“Where does the other end go?”
He pulled up a section of false floor, then pointed to a small metal box that looked like part of a structural member. “Here. There is another thread that connects to the Center’s internal power.”
“Clever.”
“They used the Center’s power supply to distribute intercepted signals,” he continued. “Our own radiation shield acted as an antenna. The spread spectrum modulation would have been nearly impossible for us to detect.”
“But we did detect it. Through the printer.”
Dmitry shrugged. “I’m not sure the two things are related. They may have built backup paths t
o get the signal out. Maybe it was a technical glitch that exposed their operation.”
Katrina nodded. “Good work. But I want you to search outall paths. Tell me how those paths were inserted. Tell me about the printer. We can’t have any leaks.”
Dmitry frowned at the difficulty of what she asked.
Katrina gripped his shoulder. “This is a good Russian detective problem, hmm?”
Dmitry nodded and grinned. “Like a chess game,” he said.
* * *
Yuri’s cellular phone rang as he walked toward his car, parked in a garage on K Street, not far from the Russian Embassy. He picked up. “Sverdlov.”
“Yuri, this is Briggam.”
He pushed the phone into his ear to block street noise. The call was important. Elliott Briggam’s FBI office handled homicide-related crimes.
“I’ve got some bad news about the NSA guy you were working with,” Briggam continued.
“Jack Dugan?”
“Yeah. He’s dead. They found his body in an alley a couple of hours ago.”
Yuri held the phone, mind racing, emotions soaring, stunned by the news.
“You there?” the voice asked.
Yuri closed his eyes, shook his head and exhaled a long breath. He felt like he had just been kneed in the groin. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said, after a moment.
“We need to talk to you and take statements. There’s a lot of paperwork.”
“I’ll come down.”
* * *
Katrina and Vladimir worked late in Katrina’s office. It was a medium-sized room consistent with the character, habits and eclectic interests of an intelligence analyst. A high rise of paper jutted upward from the desk. Large shelves cradled books and reprints of a very technical nature—physics, geology, electrical engineering and manufacturing processes. Some were in Russian, others were in English.
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