The Cassandra Compact Read online

  They also possessed one factor that disqualified so many Klein looked at: their lives were strictly their own. They had little or no family, few encumbrances, and a professional reputation that would stand up to the closest scrutiny. These were invaluable assets for an individual sent in harm’s way thousands of miles from home.

  Klein closed the folder on the report he had been reading, removed his glasses, and rubbed his weary eyes. He was looking forward to going home, being greeted by his cocker spaniel, Buck, and enjoying a finger of single-malt scotch followed by whatever dinner his housekeeper had left in the oven. He was about to get up when the connecting door to the next room opened.

  “Nathaniel?”

  The speaker was a trim woman a few years younger than Klein, with bright robin’s eyes and graying blond hair done in a French twist. She wore a conservative blue business suit accented by a string of pearls and a filigree gold bracelet.

  “I thought you’d gone home, Maggie.”

  Maggie Templeton, who’d been Klein’s assistant for the ten years he had worked at the National Security Agency, arched her neatly sculptured brows.

  “When was the last time I left before you did? Good thing I didn’t, too. You’d better have a look at this.”

  Klein followed Maggie into the next room, which was really one large computer station. Three monitors were lined up side by side, along with a host of servers and storage units, all driven by the government’s most advanced software. Klein stood back and admired the dexterity and proficiency with which Maggie worked her keyboard. It was like watching a virtuoso performance by a concert pianist.

  Besides the president, Maggie Templeton was the only person familiar with the entire workings of Covert-One. Knowing he would need a skilled and trusted right hand, Klein had insisted on Maggie’s being involved from the get-go. Besides having worked for him at the NSA, she had better than twenty years’ experience as a senior CIA administrator. But most important to Klein, she was family. Maggie’s sister, Judith, had been Klein’s wife, taken by cancer years ago. Maggie too had had her share of tragedy: her husband, a CIA covert operative, had never returned from a mission abroad. As fate would have it, Maggie and Klein were the only family each had.

  Finished on the keyboard, Maggie tapped on the screen with an elegantly manicured fingernail.

  VECTOR SIX.

  The two words pulsed in the center of the screen like a blinking traffic light at an empty intersection in a country town. Klein felt the hairs on his forearms push against his shirtsleeves. He knew exactly who Vector Six was; he could see his face as clearly as if the man were standing next to him. Vector Six: the code name, if it ever appeared, was to be construed by Klein as a panic signal.

  “Shall I pull up the message?” Maggie asked quietly.

  “Please….”

  She touched a series of keys and the encrypted message of letters, symbols, and numbers shot up on the screen. She then repeated the process with different keys to activate the decryption software. Seconds later, the message appeared in clear text:

  Dîner—prix fixe—8 euro

  Spécialité: Fruits de mer

  Spécialité du bar: Bellini

  Fermé entre 14–16 heures

  Even if a third party somehow managed to decode the message, this menu of a nameless French restaurant was both innocuous and misleading. Klein had set up the simple code the last time he had met Vector Six face to face. Its meaning had nothing to do with Gallic cuisine. It was the call of last resort, a plea for immediate extraction.

  Klein didn’t hesitate. “Please reply as follows: Reservations pour deux.”

  Maggie’s fingers flew over the keys, tapping out the secure response. The single sentence bounced off two military satellites before being sent back to earth. Klein didn’t know where Vector Six was at that moment, but as long as he had access to the laptop Klein had given him, he could download and decrypt the reply.

  Come on! Talk to me!

  Klein checked the time stamp on the message: The message was less than two minutes old.

  A reply flashed across the screen: Reservations confirmées.

  Klein exhaled as the screen faded to black. Vector Six would not stay on-line any longer than was absolutely necessary. Contact had been established, an itinerary proposed, accepted, and verified. Vector Six would not use this channel of communications again.

  As Maggie shut down the link, Klein sat down in the only other chair in the room, wondering what extraordinary circumstances had prompted Vector Six to contact him.

  Unlike the CIA and other intelligence agencies, Covert-One did not run a string of foreign agents. Nonetheless, Klein had a handful of contacts abroad. Some had been cultivated during his days at the NSA; others were the results of chance meetings that had blossomed into a relationship based on both trust and mutual self-interest.

  They were a diverse group: a doctor in Egypt whose patients included most of the country’s ruling elite; a computer entrepreneur in New Delhi who provided his skills and equipment to his government; a banker in Malaysia adept at moving, hiding, or ferreting out offshore funds anywhere in the world. None of these people knew each other. They had nothing in common beyond their friendship with Klein and the computer notebook he had given each one of them. They accepted Klein as a midlevel bureaucrat but knew that secretly he was much more than that. And they agreed to serve as his eyes and ears not only out of friendship and belief in what he represented, but because they trusted him to help them if, for any reason, their respective homelands suddenly became a dangerous place for them.

  Vector Six was one of the handful.

  “Nate?”

  Klein glanced at Maggie.

  “Who gets the call?” she asked.

  Good question….

  Klein always used his Pentagon ID when traveling abroad. If he was going to meet a contact, he made sure it would be in a public place, at a secure location. Official functions at a U.S. embassy were the best choices. But Vector Six was nowhere near an embassy. He was on the run.

  “Smith,” Klein said at last. “Get him on the line, please, Maggie.”

  Smith was dreaming of Sophia when the insistent beep of the telephone intruded. He was watching the two of them sitting on a riverbank, in the shadows of immense triangular structures. In the distance was a great city. The air was hot, filled with the attar of roses and of Sophia. Cairo…They were at the pyramids of Giza, outside Cairo.

  The secure line…

  Smith sat up fast on the couch where he had fallen asleep, fully dressed, after coming home from the cemetery. Beyond the windows streaked with rain, the wind moaned as it drove heavy clouds across the sky. A former combat internist and battlefield surgeon, Smith had developed the gift of waking up fully alert. That ability had served him well during his time at USAMRIID, where sleep was often snatched between long, grueling hours of work. It served him well now.

  Smith checked the time at the bottom right-hand corner of the monitor: almost nine o’clock. He had been asleep for two hours. Emotionally spent, his mind still filled with images of Sophia, he had driven himself home, heated up some soup, then stretched out on the couch and listened to the rain churn overhead. He had not intended to fall asleep, but was grateful that he had done so. Only one man could call him on that particular line. Whatever message he had could signal the beginning of a day of infinite hours.

  “Good evening, Mr. Klein.”

  “Good evening to you too, Jon. I hope I’m not disturbing your dinner.”

  “No, sir. I ate earlier on.”

  “In that case, how soon can you get out to Andrews Air Force Base?”

  Smith took a deep breath. Klein usually had a calm, businesslike demeanor. Smith had seldom found him curt or abrupt.

  Which means there’s trouble—and it’s closing fast.

  “About forty-five minutes, sir.”

  “Good. And Jon? Pack for a few days.”

  Smith stared at the dead phone in
his hand. “Yes, sir.”

  Smith’s drill was so ingrained that he was hardly aware of going through the motions. Three minutes for a shower and shave; two minutes to dress; two more to double-check and add a few things to the ready bag in the walk-in closet. On his way out, he set the security system for the house; once he had the sedan out in the driveway, he armed the garage using the remote.

  The rain made the ride to Andrews Air Force Base longer than usual. Smith avoided the main entry and turned in at the supply gate. A poncho-covered guard examined his laminated ID, checked his name against those on the list of approved personnel, and waved him through.

  Smith had flown out of Andrews often enough to know his way around. He had no trouble finding the hangar housing the fleet of executive jets that, most times, ferried around the brass. He parked in a designated area well away from the aircraft taxi lanes, grabbed his ready bag from the trunk, and splashed his way into the immense hangar.

  “Good evening, Jon,” Klein said. “Crappy night. It’ll probably get worse.”

  Smith set down his bag. “Yes, sir. But only for the navy.”

  The age-old joke didn’t get a grin out of Klein this time.

  “I’m sorry to have dragged you out on a night like this. Something’s come up. Walk with me.”

  Smith looked around as he followed Klein to the coffee station. There were four Gulfstream jets in the hangar, but no maintenance personnel. Smith guessed that Klein had ordered them out to ensure privacy.

  “They’re fueling a bird with long-range tanks,” Klein said, glancing at his watch. “Should be ready in ten minutes.”

  He handed Smith a Styrofoam cup filled with steaming black coffee, then looked at him carefully.

  “Jon, this is an extraction. That’s the reason for the rush.”

  And the need for a mobile cipher.

  Given his army background, Smith was familiar with the term “extraction,” as Klein had used it. It meant getting someone or something out of a place or a situation as quickly and quietly as possible—usually under duress and on a tight schedule.

  But Smith also knew that there were specialists—military and civilian—who handled this kind of work.

  When he said as much, Klein replied, “There are certain considerations in this case. I don’t want to involve any other agencies—at least not yet. Also, I know this individual—and so do you.”

  Smith started. “Excuse me, sir?”

  “The man you are going to meet and bring out is Yuri Danko.”

  “Danko…”

  In his mind’s eye Smith saw a bearlike man, a few years older than he, with a gentle moon face pockmarked by childhood acne. Yuri Danko, the son of a Dobnets coal miner, born with a defective leg, had gone on to become a full colonel in the Russian army’s Medical Intelligence Division.

  Smith couldn’t shake his surprise. Smith knew that before signing the security agreement that had made him part of Covert-One, Klein had put his entire life under a microscope. That meant Klein was aware that Smith knew Danko. But never in all the briefings had Klein ever hinted that he had a relationship with the Russian.

  “Is Danko part of—?”

  “Covert-One? No. And you are not to mention the fact that you are. As far as Danko is concerned, I’m sending a friendly face to bring him out. That’s all.”

  Smith doubted that. There was always more to Klein than met the eye. But one thing he was sure of: Klein would never place an operative in harm’s way by not telling him everything he needed to know.

  “The last time Danko and I met,” Klein was saying, “we established a simple code that would be used only in an emergency scenario. The code was a menu. The price—8 euros—indicates the date, April 8, two days from now. One, if we’re working on European time.

  “The specialty is seafood, which stands for the way Danko will be coming: by sea. The Bellini is a cocktail that was first made in Harry’s Bar in Venice. The hours that the restaurant is closed, between two and four in the afternoon, is the time the contact is supposed to be at the rendezvous point.” Klein paused. “It’s a simple but very effective code. Even if the encryption was compromised and the message intercepted, it would be impossible to make sense of the menu.”

  “If Danko isn’t due in for another twenty-four hours at least, why hit the panic button?” Smith asked.

  “Because Danko hit it first,” Klein replied, his concern obvious. “He might get to Venice ahead of schedule; he might run late. If it’s the former, I don’t want him twisting in the wind.”

  Smith nodded as he sipped his coffee. “Understood. Now, for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: What made Danko jackrabbit?”

  “Only he’ll be able to tell us his reasons. And believe me, I want to know them. Danko is in a unique position. He would never have compromised it…”

  Smith raised an eyebrow. “Unless?”

  “Unless he was on the verge of being compromised.” Klein put down his coffee. “I can’t say for sure, Jon, but I think Danko is carrying information. If so, it means he thinks I need to have it.”

  Klein glanced over Smith’s shoulder at an air police sergeant who entered the hangar.

  “The aircraft’s ready for takeoff, sir,” the sergeant announced smartly.

  Klein touched Smith’s elbow and they walked to the doors.

  “Go to Venice,” he said softly. “Pick up Danko and find out what he has. Find out fast.”

  “I will. Sir, there’s something I’ll need in Venice.”

  Smith needn’t have lowered his voice as they stepped outside. The drumbeat of the rain drowned out his words. Only Klein’s nod indicated that Smith was talking at all.

  Chapter 3

  In Catholic Europe, Easter week is a time of pilgrimages and reunions. Businesses and schools close their doors, trains and hotels are overbooked, and the denizens of the Old World’s landmark cities brace themselves for an onslaught of strangers.

  In Italy, Venice is one of the most popular destinations for those seeking to combine the sacred and the profane. The Serenissima is a rich tapestry of churches and cathedrals, enough to satisfy the spiritual needs of even the most devoted pilgrim. Yet it is also a thousand-year-old playground whose narrow streets and cobblestone alleys shelter enterprises catering to a whole spectrum of earthly appetites.

  At precisely one forty-five in the afternoon, just as he’d done the past two days, Smith threaded through the rows of tables set out in front of the Florian Café on the Piazza San Marco. He always chose the same table, close to a small, raised platform upon which stood a grand piano. The pianist would arrive in a few minutes, and punctually on the hour, notes written by Mozart or Bach would dance above the chatter and footsteps of the hundreds of tourists who crowded the square.

  The server who had waited on Smith the last two days hurried over to his customer. The American—he could only be that, given his accented Italian—was a good customer; that is to say, one who didn’t recognize bad service and so tipped generously anyway. Judging by the smart charcoal-gray suit and hand-tooled shoes, the waiter took Smith for a prosperous business executive who, having concluded his transactions, was enjoying a few days’ sightseeing at his company’s expense.

  Smith smiled at the waiter, ordered his usual caffe latte and prosciutto affumicatio sandwich, and flipped open the day’s edition of The International Herald Tribune to the business section.

  His late-afternoon snack arrived just as the pianist struck the opening chords of a Bach variation. Smith dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee and took his time stirring. As he opened his newspaper, he scanned the open area between his table and the Doge’s Palace.

  Most anytime, St. Mark’s, with its inevitable crowds, was the perfect place to pick up a running man. But the runner was a day late. He wondered if Yuri Danko had even made it out of Russia at all.

  Smith had been with USAMRIID when he had first met Danko, his counterpart in the Russian army’s Medical Intelligence Divisio
n. The venue was the palatial Victoria-Jungfrau Grand Hotel near Berne. There, representatives of the two countries came together in an informal setting to brief one another on the progress of the gradual shutdown of their respective bioweapons programs. The meetings were an adjunct to the formal verifications made by international inspectors.

  Smith had never been in the business of recruiting agents. But, like every other member of the U.S. team, he had been thoroughly briefed by CIA counterintelligence officers as to how the other side might make its approaches and overtures. During the first few days of the conference, Smith found himself partnered with Danko. Always careful, he nonetheless took a liking to the tall, burly Russian. Danko did not hide the fact that he was a patriot. But, as he told Smith, his work was important to him because he did not want his children to live with the possibility of some madman unleashing a bioweapon for terror or revenge.

  Smith was very much aware that such a scenario was not only possible but a grave likelihood. Russia was in the throes of change, crisis, and uncertainty. Meanwhile, it still had an enormous stockpile of bioweapons stored in rusting containers under the halfhearted supervision of researchers, scientists, and military personnel who, more often than not, weren’t paid enough to feed their families. For these men, the temptation to sell a little something on the side could be overwhelming.