Additional signal intelligence interpretation was being handled back in Crypto City and provided on an as-needed basis.
“All we have to worry about is what happens outside the Kremlin,” she told Dean. “Inside is moot — unless we’re part of his security team we’ll never be close enough to detect something before it happens.”
“So we look for the sniper.”
“Yes,” she told Dean. “They already have.”
“You think they know what they’re doing?”
Her answer was to pound the keyboard of one of the laptops. A map of the city appeared with several dotted lines in yellow.
“He has a meeting at the new Education Building down here at two P.M. These are his likely routes. After that, he’s supposed to go to a senior citizen housing project for a dedication. He’ll be there at five.”
“What’s it look like?” asked Dean.
She pounded the keys again. A 3-D view appeared on the screen. Dean leaned down to look at it, brushing lightly against her arm. She didn’t react; neither did he.
“That would be a pretty good place for an ambush,” he said.
“Where would the sniper be?”
“I’d have to see it in person.”
“Let’s go there,” said Lia.
“I thought we were going to watch their gear.”
“Bullshit on that. I guarantee they’ve had more sleep in the past forty-eight hours than we’ve had in a week.” She went to the door of the bathroom, listening for a moment before pushing in. Dean, who was standing behind her, saw Austin sitting naked on the toilet bowl.
“Hey!” he said.
“We’re going to check the housing site for snipers. We’ll be back.”
“Shit!”
“Yeah, I can smell it from here.”
60
Malachi had flight control of the second plane in the two-plane element, wingman to Train’s lead. They flew a sucked echelon, a formation that had Malachi’s F-47C riding a sixty-degree angle off Train’s tail. Their altitudes were offset as well; Malachi tracked 5,000 feet higher than Train, who was at 35,000 feet. Their indicated airspeed was pegged at 580 knots, a bit under Mach 1.
The two MiGs approached from the southwest at high speed. According to the RWR, they hadn’t spotted the two Birds — but they had a perfect intercept plotted out.
Interesting coincidence.
“We’ll bracket,” said Train.
“Roger that.”
“Intercept in zero ninety seconds.”
“Roger that.”
Malachi leaned forward in his seat, heart thumping so loudly it could have set the beat for Fat Joe. Their formation was aggressive — arguably too aggressive for manned fighters since it limited defensive maneuvering and made it easier to cull off one of the fighters, usually the wingman. But the unmanned planes were designed to be aggressive. The formation allowed them to concentrate their attack in a variety of ways, most of which a pilot in a teen jet — an F-15, for example — would have salivated over.
The top screen of Malachi’s cockpit area showed the enemy planes coming toward them, rendering them as red double triangles. The screen had a yellow bar and letters at the top, telling the pilot that his Sidewinder AIM-9 M missiles were ready. Just as in a “real” plane, the all-aspect Sidewinder would growl when it sniffed the MiG in the air ahead. Either Whacker or the pilot could make the call on when to fire the missile; in this case it was Malachi’s decision.
Malachi felt the muscles in his forearm and fingers starting to freeze on him. He glanced sideways toward Train and for some reason was reassured by the veteran pilot’s quizzical stare.
“Break,” said Train.
Malachi leaned on his stick a little too hard, then got befuddled by the transmission delays. The plane dropped two thousand feet as he backed off, and now he started to fall behind it — the nose of the small robot pointed too far east, then too far west as he found himself wallowing through the turn. He was a far better pilot than this — far better — but he lost his concentration and then his target; if it weren’t for the dedicated sitrep or bird’s-eye-view screen sitting between the two flying stations, he might have lost himself as well.
He wasn’t that far from where he was supposed to be. He started to nudge back on the stick, and the enemy plane came across the top edge of his screen. The Sidewinder growled, but Malachi hesitated. The target pipper included a distance-to- target reading that told him he was 3.5 miles away, which was at the far end of the Sidewinder’s range.
He was gaining on the MiG. If he could hold off a few seconds he’d have him.
“Fire Fox Two,” Train called his shot on the lead plane. Fox Two was a heat-seeking missile.
Train added something else, but Malachi lost it as the MiG he was attacking jerked to his right, aware that he was being hunted. Malachi went to follow but lost the MiG as it started a series of zigging turns — though it was extremely maneuverable, the slight time lag in the control system made it impossible for the F-47 to stay with the MiG. Instead, Malachi backed off his throttle, waiting for the MiG to commit to a real turn. That was stock MiG strategy — use his plane’s extreme maneuverability to cut inside his pursuer, ending up behind him in what would have looked like a swirling ribbon if the movements were painted on the sky.
Rather than following him, Malachi would aim at the point where he came out of the turn, hoping to nail him there. A larger plane, of course, would never be able to make that sharp a cut. The MiG moved left, then right, then left, committing itself. Malachi went for the gas—“Fire Fox Two,” said Train.
A second later, the lead plane’s missile flashed into the side of Malachi’s screen and merged with the tailpipe of the other plane.
“Splash two MiGs,” said Riddler from the back.
“Fuck,” said Malachi as the screen blanked. The simulation over, he put his head over the back of the seat.
“You took way too long,” said Train, who had swiveled to the side.
Malachi nodded. “Yeah.”
“You had trouble on the bracket,” said Whacker. “You went at it too hot and you got sucked into a pursuit. There’s too much lag in the controls. That second is a killer. Use your missiles. You could even have launched the AIM-9 when the MiG first started to cut. At that point I think you would have gotten him.”
“He would have gone to flares and stuff.”
“Yeah, but you would’ve had a shot.”
“I sucked,” admitted Malachi. “I got the jitters when we picked them up.”
Train stood up. “All right, guys. Take five. Germany should be ready for us soon. You OK, Reese?”
“Yup.”
Train had the option of flying both planes in a combat intercept; the computer would actually take the wingman position, following a prescribed routine based on Train’s movements as well as those of the bandits and a tactical library. But Malachi had shown a million times that he could beat the computer.
A million times in simulations, that is.
“Malachi, you all right?”
“Major, I’m kick-ass OK,” he said. “Just need a quick kick from Speedball and I’m set.”
“Speedball?”
“Music group,” said Malachi, taking the MP3 player from his pocket. “Only on break. I promise.”
61
Karr stayed in the shower until his toes wrinkled. The hot water washed away seven thousand miles’ worth of grime, then ground away at his skin, shaving off several epidermal layers. Back in the kitchen in fresh clothes, he made a whole pot of very strong coffee and sat at the table, reading an old issue of Car and Driver stowed here at his request. The magazine was several years old and he’d already read it cover to cover perhaps three dozen times; one of the cars it featured was no longer even offered for sale. But he read it eagerly, even thoughtfully, his mind absorbed by details of the Mazda RX-8’s cornering ability and a rant about how hard you had to mash the Z car’s gas pedal to get it really mo
ving.
Between the coffee and the shower, Karr decided he was awake enough to forgo a stimulant patch; the time-released amphetamine made him feel a little too jumpy and he’d only used it once since coming to Russia. It allegedly wasn’t habit-forming, but he figured that was complete bull. His concept of the body as temple for the spirit did not preclude trading vodka shots, eating double cheeseburgers, or forgoing some of the precautions they preached in health class, but he was enough of a control freak to dislike operating in a submerged haze of consciousness.
He closed his magazine and got up from the table. He retrieved a large metal attache´ case from the bottom cabinet next to the stove, opened it, and took out a laptop. Then he went back to the table, pulled out the chair he’d been sitting on, and got down on his hands and knees, feeling carefully for the right tile — he could never remember which of the four beneath the table it was. Finding it, he pressed on one corner and tried lifting it with his fingernails, but they weren’t quite long enough. He tried two more times — he’d actually managed to get it the last time he was here — then gave up and got a pair of knives whose thin blades were hooked slightly; he jostled up the tile with a flick of his wrists, retrieving a large coaxial cable from a compartment next to the plug.
The system took a while to boot up and then check itself. Karr poured himself a cup of coffee in the meantime, sliding back into the chair. As the test pattern came up, he took out his satellite phone and called Blake Clark in St. Petersburg, an MI6 contact whom he’d asked to meet Martin when he arrived. The British agent answered the phone with a sharp “Clark.” Glasses clinked in the background.
“How’d my package do?”
“Arrived and left.”
“Take the flight to Finland?”
“Said you’d told him there was a change in plans,” said Clark.
“Yeah. Which plane?”
“You didn’t tell me I had to baby-sit the chap.”
“He’s gone now?”
“At least an hour.”
“You’re sure he got on a plane.”
“He didn’t come out of any of the entrances. My people were watching for him.”
“Thanks, Blake. I owe you one.”
“Actually, if we’re keeping track, you owe quite a bit more.”
Karr hit end, then keyed Bori Grinberg. Grinberg answered on the first ring.
“Da?” Grinberg’s accent — and language — always started out somewhere around Berlin but could range over to Paris, up to Krako´w, and back to Moscow depending on the circumstances.
“It’s Karr. So?”
“Meter never moved.” Grinberg’s English had a Russian tint to it, which made Karr suspect that he was in fact Russian, though definitive information was impossible to come by. His first name was Norse — but names meant nothing.
“You’re at the terminal?”
“Da.”
“OK, I need you to walk through the building, back near the gate, rest rooms, all that, see if the marker was offloaded. Keep the line open.”
“Walking.”
Karr had slipped three pimple-sized “markers” onto Martin’s clothes before packing him onto the aircraft. The markers contained radioactive isotopes, chosen for their uniqueness and ability to excite the detector Grinberg had in his hand. Karr had told him to wait at the airport and see if the meter flipped.
Grinberg was a freelancer believed to retain ties to Russian intelligence. Karr found him valuable nonetheless, though admittedly he had to use some precautions — such as, in this case, not identifying whom Grinberg was looking for.
Unfortunately, to get Grinberg to do the job, Karr had had to blow one of his equipment cache points in St. Petersburg. Such points were difficult to come by, and replacing it would take several days of angst — not to mention a trip to St. Petersburg, a city he didn’t particularly like. It also meant he compromised all of the technology in the cache, which Grin-berg could be counted on to help himself to.
Which was why all of the technology — the most notable items beyond the tracking gear were some eavesdropping kits and a pair of stun guns that looked like wristwatches — had been purloined from the Russians themselves.
“How we doing?” he asked Grinberg. He could hear him walking through a crowd.
“Nee-yada.”
“You trying to say ‘nada’?”
“Da.”
“You have to work on your slang. But before you can do that, you have to figure out your nationality, ja?”
“Hai!” he said.
“I haven’t heard Japanese from you before. Thinking of moving?”
Grinberg let off a string of Russian curses, apparently aimed at someone who had bumped into him in the airport. It was already clear to Karr that Martin had in fact boarded an airplane — that or bribed Grinberg and Clark to make it look as if he had — and so he turned his attention to the laptop. After clearing himself into the system, he initiated a program that put him on the Internet, spoofing a German gateway into thinking he was in Du¨sseldorf. From there he accessed a file on a server and downloaded a program to his laptop’s prodigious RAM — there was no hard drive. With two keystrokes Karr hacked into the reservation system controlling flights out of St. Petersburg, a destination he had chosen specifically because he found this system so easy to access.
“Ne rein,” said Grinberg.
“French, right?” said Karr, recognizing the phrase for “nothing.” “No trace anywhere in the airport?”
“Nope.”
“Now comes the hard part — I’m going to give you a plane to check out.”
“Plane?”
“Yeah. Actually, it’s still at the gate. I know the flight.” If Grinberg didn’t find the markers on the plane, then Martin had to be still wearing them, which would make the next step considerably easier. Karr keyed his computer and saw that the flight would be leaving in exactly forty-five minutes. “I need you to check the trash and then the plane — they won’t have vacuumed it.”
“Mon dieu.”
“Yeah — uh, you’ll find a ticket waiting at the gate. Round-trip.” He hesitated, waiting for the screen to refresh. The hack was perfect, but the system wasn’t particularly user-friendly — he had to enter Grinberg’s name with an asterisk before each letter. He screwed something up and it came out as “Grinnberg,” which he figured was close enough. “You’re misspelled in the computer, just so you know.”
“They will ask for my credit card,” said Grinberg.
“So give me the number and it’ll be there.”
“You’re going to make me burn a good card?”
“You buy them by the hundreds, don’t you?”
“Karr—”
“Come on, plane’s boarding. It’s worth another thousand euros. Going into your account now.”
Grinberg got the card out quickly. Dean put in the number, then told him he’d call back in about forty minutes, by which time he expected him on the plane.
Twelve flights left St. Petersburg in the hour or so since Clark had lost contact with Martin. Karr looked through the different passenger lists, looking for single passengers paying cash and added to the manifest at the last minute. He found three likely candidates on three different planes — one flying to London’s Heathrow Airport, one to Poznan in Poland, and one to Moscow.
London wasn’t worth checking out, Karr decided; if Martin really was coming west he would have taken the flight Karr had arranged. Poznan was in central Poland, not particularly handy to anything — which would make it a clever choice. But if Martin was being clever, he would have simply bribed someone and taken his ticket, gambling that the airline wouldn’t bother matching passengers.
Not a good gamble these days, but maybe worth the risk.
Nah. Not after everything else he’d been through.
But Moscow seemed too easy.
Karr backed out and went over to an airline Web site that helpfully provided flight information. The plane from St. P
etersburg was due in about an hour.
Tight, doable.
Easy, though. But maybe he was due. He did live a good life.
62
Certain habits are so ingrained that they are impossible to change — the way a man sucks in the last swirl of beer at the bottom of a glass, the way he moves over a woman when making love, the way he squints into the high sun when he’s been up too long for too many days running.
Among Charlie Dean’s many inherent habits was one of considerable benefit under the current circumstances — the ability to look at a site and read it for the best possible sniper locations. Standing at the chain-link fence around the construction site Kurakin was scheduled to visit, he spotted a dozen great ones, another four or five good ones, and even a few marginal ones that might be chosen for specific reasons. Dean wanted to check them all.
Lia held him back. “Hold on. We have some work to do first.”
“Like?”
“For one thing, figuring out how to get past the guards at the gate. For another, eliminating some of the possibilities. At least a few will be covered by video devices our friends have already planted. So are the entrances.”
“The guy could’ve come in days ago.”
“We’ll check everything out that needs to be checked,” said Lia. She crossed and began walking up the street, part of a residential area in southeastern Moscow.
“You’re going in the wrong direction,” Dean told her.
“You know, Charlie, sometimes I wonder how you get your clothes on right in the morning.”
“You know, I think it’s about time you and me had a talk,” said Dean.
“Not the birds and the bees again.”
“You always have to be a wiseass, huh?”
A look of regret flickered across her face but changed quickly into a sneer. Lia quickened her pace.
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