"I will, because you look like you're putting on a few pounds there, Maya."

"Ames, enough," snapped Hansen. "Get back to your hotels. Pack up. We're out of here. I'll call Grim, and we'll work out what to do with this body."

ON the flight back home, Hansen dozed off, and in the shadows between consciousness and dreaming he strained to see a face. . . . the flight back home, Hansen dozed off, and in the shadows between consciousness and dreaming he strained to see a face. . . .

Then he heard Gillespie's voice echo: "You came back from Russia a hero." "You came back from Russia a hero."

A hero.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hansen took himself back to that fateful day when he'd marveled over the NSA office complex and gone in to receive his very first mission. . . .

3.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY THIRD ECHELON HEADQUARTERS FORT MEADE, MARYLAND EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO.

WALLS of obsidian-colored gla.s.s rose from the Maryland countryside and reflected swaths of deep blue and green across their mottled surfaces. A series of barbed wire and electrical fences cordoned off the grounds, and gatehouses were placed at designated intervals to allow entrance into parking lots that could accommodate more than eighteen thousand cars. The length and breadth of the NSA complex repeatedly amazed Hansen, and he sometimes felt like pinching himself as a reminder that, yes, even though he was still so young-- of obsidian-colored gla.s.s rose from the Maryland countryside and reflected swaths of deep blue and green across their mottled surfaces. A series of barbed wire and electrical fences cordoned off the grounds, and gatehouses were placed at designated intervals to allow entrance into parking lots that could accommodate more than eighteen thousand cars. The length and breadth of the NSA complex repeatedly amazed Hansen, and he sometimes felt like pinching himself as a reminder that, yes, even though he was still so young--painfully young, as Grim had once put it--this was his life now. young, as Grim had once put it--this was his life now.

The agency was, according to the rest of the world, not in the business of covert field operations. They were the technology geeks, the code makers and code breakers who built supercomputers and called those seventy-two-hour workweeks "good times." They were the a.n.a.lysts who could gain access to, and examine, every piece of information available, no matter the media--from highly encrypted satellite phone calls between heads of state to extremely low-frequency transmissions from naval vessels to the e-mails and text messages pa.s.sed between average citizens. They were rarely in direct compet.i.tion with the military services, although most military folks wished for a one-handed intelligence representative--not because they wanted to hire the handicapped but because p.r.o.nouncements like "On the one hand they could attack, and on the other hand they could retreat," never helped in military decision making.

That these geeks would ever be involved in the covert and/or human angle of intelligence would surprise some individuals within the agency. Moreover, if Third Echelon's existence were ever made public, accidentally or otherwise, liberal- minded bureaucrats across the United States might very well clutch their chests and drop to the waxed wooden floors of their offices. Obviously, the often morally ambiguous business of protecting the nation could not be left to the faint of heart.

Enter Third Echelon's Splinter Cells.

Splinter Cell operatives aggressively collected intelligence vital to U.S. security. They protected critical U.S. information systems and kept all operations invisible to the public eye. They worked outside the boundaries of international treaties, knowing full well that if captured the United States would neither acknowledge nor support their operations. They bridged the gap between gathering intel and acting upon it, and Hansen could not be more honored or more proud to dedicate his life to something as important as protecting the country he so dearly loved. Perhaps that sounded cheesy or naive; he didn't care and a.s.sumed that in ten years he'd be just as cynical as any other government employee. But right now he believed in the ideals and in the fact that freedom was, of course, never free.

To that end, Hansen now stood deep within the subterranean confines of the NSA, in a sector that did not exist. With some trepidation, he swiped his ID badge through the reader, listened for the muted beep, and the LED turned green.

He found Grim seated alone at the diamond-shaped conference table inside the situation room. All around her, intelligence seemed to course through the room's veins, the unseen servers reverberating like a thousand heartbeats per second. Big-screen LCD status boards hung from the walls, and three-dimensional maps, streaming security-camera videos, and electronic dossiers of known terrorists flashed and scrolled and rotated like the collected imagery extracted from some colossal brain. In fact, the entire power grid was in a constant state of upgrade in order to accommodate the agency's ever-increasing demand for electricity. As Grim liked to muse, "The beast must be fed."

Hansen shuddered as he made eye contact with her. All right, she was his boss. She had hired him. But d.a.m.n if he didn't feel a connection. Act on it? That would take some serious courage. Nevertheless, there was something deliciously reckless about l.u.s.ting after a woman ten years his senior, especially one as strong-willed and incredibly intelligent as Anna. Hansen imagined some serious fire lurking beneath her conservative exterior. Her short, medium brown hair barely touched her shoulders, and she frequently wore shirt/jacket combinations in earth tones or pastels, along with matching skirts and those gla.s.ses that Hansen longed to see removed. Her eyes were a blue-green flecked with gold, and as she stood, he forced himself not to probe anywhere near her ample chest, unsuccessfully hidden beneath her jacket. She moved silently around the table in her flats, rubbed a sore spot on her lower back, then gestured to their left.

"So this is it, Ben. I'm sending you to Russia. This will be your first real field operation. Think you can handle it?"

A chill worked its way across Hansen's shoulders. Finally, a chance to prove himself in the field after six months of hard training. He took a deep breath, but before he could answer, Grim added, "That's a rhetorical question. I wouldn't have picked you if I didn't think you could do this."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I've never seen anyone challenge our trainers the way you have. . . . Well, maybe one other. But the point is that we've been very impressed with your skills. Who knew that a country boy from Fort Stockton would end up here?" She grinned broadly and gestured to the web of technology spanning the room.

Hansen shrugged. "I wasn't much of a cowboy."

"Lucky for us. And, you know, when I met you at the bar that night, I knew you were Splinter Cell material. And I knew you were wasting your talent at the CIA. So this moment is, in fact, unsurprising. You belong with us. And you belong out there, in the field."

He wanted to say, I belong with you I belong with you, but instead said, "I'm ready, ma'am."

"All right, then." She crossed to a computer terminal, where she called up several photographs of a balding, bearded man in his late forties. He wore a dark brown parka and stood beside a snow-covered sedan, lighting up a cigarette. Hansen focused on the two most significant aspects of the man's appearance: his large hoop earring and the ponytail that writhed down his coat like a snake. Hansen also recognized the area behind the man as Lubyanka Square, in downtown Moscow, not because he'd visited but because he'd learned that Russia's old KGB had once been headquartered there.

Grim sipped her coffee. "This is Mikhail Bratus, a longtime agent with the GRU."

The GRU (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije) is the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff. It gathers human intelligence through military attaches and agents and relies upon a vast network of SIGINT (signals intelligence) satellites.

A recent defector from the GRU warned that all of the United States had been penetrated by agents who had orchestrated the delivery of secret arms caches--including suitcase nukes--that were hidden and waiting for Russian special forces poised to invade the country. Government leaders in every state were being watched and targeted by a.s.sa.s.sination squads that were ready to strike once war got under way.

It was quite a story, and not a word of it had ever been verified, but Hansen was fascinated by the account and had read the interviews several times.

"Bratus is a very clever and well-respected agent. He has dangerous ties to several drug cartels, both in the Russian Federation and Afghanistan. He employs many of the drug runners to serve as his eyes and ears while they move their drugs on the trains and highways out of Vladivostok."

As Grim spoke, Hansen had a hard time concentrating. Her perfume was intoxicating.

"Ben? Are you listening? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm sorry, I was just, uh, thinking about Bratus. Is there information I need to get from him?"

Grim took a deep breath, then removed her gla.s.ses and rubbed the corners of her eyes. "I wish it were that easy." She called up another photograph. A lean Chinese man with gray hair at his temples was getting out of an economy car. Other than the hair, he was quite nondescript, one Chinese man among 1.4 billion. Typical. Forgettable. And that was exactly how they wanted him.

"This is Yuan Zhao. We've identified him as a field agent with the Guoanbu. Works out of their technology bureau."

China's Ministry of State Security, or Guoanbu, was the government's largest and most active foreign intelligence agency. Headquartered in Beijing, the agency's operations encompa.s.sed a broad geographical scope and included the stealing of secrets and technology from other nations as well as thwarting operations against the government. It was a well-known fact that Guoanbu agents had penetrated and been living and working in the United States for decades. Hansen had read and studied reports by a few of the agency's defectors, and those doc.u.ments were as enlightening as they were disturbing.

The Guoanbu also engaged in domestic operations, including the monitoring of political dissidents and the repression of internal dissent. These actions caused Chinese citizens to refer to the agency as a secret police. Other internal efforts included acts against nonofficial churches and the censoring of the Internet to prevent China's population from knowing what was going on outside the country. No surprise there.

Grim went on: "Now, we've picked up some intel that indicates Zhao and Bratus have had several meetings in the past month at a small town about ninety minutes north of Vladivostok, right near the Chinese border."

"Maybe Bratus is selling drugs to the Chinese military, and Zhao's their point man. Wouldn't be the first time agents turned to drug running, especially those guys. It's not like they're making a fortune as spies."

"That's an interesting premise, but this is where it gets even more interesting . . . and more troubling."

"What do you mean?"

She hesitated, then finally said, "We think Kovac is somehow involved."

Hansen blinked. Hard. Then he shook his head, as if to clear the noise. "Can you say that again?"

"We think the deputy director of the NSA is negotiating something with Zhao and Bratus, but there's nothing conclusive at this point, and we need to know what's going on."

Nicholas Andrew Kovac was the NSA's chief operating officer, who guided strategies and policy and served as chief advisor to the director. He had a resume so long and detailed, so perfect, that Hansen a.s.sumed the man was a cyborg and did not sleep. Kovac had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, received multiple graduate degrees in computer science and engineering, served as an officer and pilot, and had been a visiting professor at West Point. He had joined the NSA and, through a.s.signments with the Directorate of Operations, had worked his way up the ranks to become the deputy director for a.n.a.lysis and production. After a three-year stint as a special U.S. liaison officer in London, he'd been promoted to deputy director. Reading his resume left you bored or green with envy, perhaps a little of both.

Hansen would not have known so much about him except that Grim had sometimes implied that Kovac did not exactly trust Third Echelon. Hansen thought something in the man's character or past experiences might've had something to do with that, so he'd done a little research, as was his wont, but had come up empty.

Still, the obvious fact remained that while Third Echelon and its Splinter Cells had pulled off some remarkable operations, they had also had some monumental failures, including the deaths of not one, but three veteran field operatives in the last two years on an operation that Grim would not disclose, even to Hansen. That tragedy had prompted the organization to more aggressively recruit replacements.

Then there was, of course, Sam Fisher . . . and what his actions had done to tarnish Third Echelon's reputation. . . .

Hansen thought for a moment, then said, "How do you know it's Kovac?"

"Because we have an agent working closely with him."

"You mean Third Echelon is spying on its own bosses?"

Grim wriggled her brows. "Why not?"

Hansen snorted. "Well, I'm sure they're returning the favor."

"I'm sure they are."

"Has it occurred to you that I could be a mole, working for them?"

"No."

Hansen furrowed his brows. "Why not?"

"Because they hate you. Because I had to fight to bring you here. And because you keep staring at my chest."

That last part caught him completely off guard. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Then . . . "Uh, I'm sorry. Uh, why didn't you tell me--"

"Forget that." She worked the touch screen. "This is Michael Murdoch." A well-groomed businessman in his fifties, with closely cropped gray hair, glowed on the screen. In another picture Murdoch was having lunch at an expensive restaurant with a man about the same age. A third pic showed Murdoch playing golf with Kovac himself, and in a small video frame Murdoch was being interviewed on one of the cable business channels. He had a commanding baritone voice and perfect teeth.

"Murdoch has a half dozen different companies, some importing and exporting out of Vladivostok, but he also has two technology companies in Houston, both with military contracts."

"So what's the deal? You think Kovac is helping Murdoch sell secrets to the Chinese and the Russians?"

"I'm not sure. He could be using Murdoch to sell them chicken feed. At any rate, Zhao, Bratus, and Murdoch are scheduled to meet soon. I need you there. I need to know what they're talking about."

"How much time do we have?"

"You'll be on a plane tonight, because we want a very deliberate and slow insertion. No HAHOs from a 130, if that's what you're thinking."

"Would've been fun. Do I get a runner?"

Grim took a deep breath, as though bracing herself before she spoke. "Sergei Luchenko will meet you in Vladivostok."

Hansen winced. "Sergei? Really? I haven't seen him in a few months. You think he's gotten over it?"

"I think he has. He wanted to be in the field. He got his wish. He's just not a Splinter Cell, and that proves that my intuition isn't always correct."

Luchenko had, for all intents and purposes, flunked Third Echelon's training program and been forced to either become a runner or wind up behind a desk. Hansen felt badly for the man, since they'd both been recruited out of the CIA and known each other for a few years. Still, it would be nice to see a familiar face in a sea of red-nosed strangers.

"Ma'am, I won't let you down."

"I know you won't." She lifted her chin to a table across the room. "There's a folder with your credentials and cover."

Hansen started for them.

"And one more thing."

He hoisted his brows.

"When you get your gear, you'll find a knife. Take good care of it. It was given to me by an old friend, and now I'm pa.s.sing it on to you. Despite everything, I think it'll bring you luck."

"It was Fisher's. Wasn't it?"

She nodded.

"Kind of an odd gift."

"From an odd man. Now, one last thing. Make no mistake. If you're captured, you will be killed."

"Tortured first. But, yes, I understand. Thank you." Hansen scooped up the folder, headed for the door, but before he left, he turned back to Grim. "Ma'am, I'm sorry about the--" He gestured to his eyes, trying to apologize for ogling her.

"Just get out of here . . . kid kid."

Ouch! That hurt.

Once in the hallway, Hansen dug out his pa.s.sport, which had been heavily stamped and dog-eared by one of Third Echelon's doc.u.ment engineers, a man known only as Perez. He was a Mexican national sent to prison for making fake credentials to help illegal immigrants cross the border. He'd been serving the last few years of his sentence when he'd been offered an early release if he came to work for Third Echelon. Perez was an artist--the best forger the agency had ever employed.

And, at the moment, Hansen wished Perez had chosen the cover name instead of Grim, because the woman had a cruel sense of humor.

Hansen was now Vyacheslav Zamolodchikova.

Say that three times fast.

4.

FUSHIKI, j.a.pAN.

HANSEN had flown from Baltimore to Tokyo; then he had traveled by taxi for six hours to the port city of Fushiki, walled in by majestic mountains whose summits were now veiled in fog. had flown from Baltimore to Tokyo; then he had traveled by taxi for six hours to the port city of Fushiki, walled in by majestic mountains whose summits were now veiled in fog.

Dressed like an ordinary businessman in suit and overcoat, and clutching a duffel bag with toiletries and a garment bag with a few changes of clothing, Hansen walked along the dock, where ahead lay the MV Rus MV Rus, a thirteen-thousand-ton ferry whose dark blue hull glinted in the neon floodlights strung along the walkway. Although it was just 4:00 P.M., the shadows had already grown long as vehicles rumbled up the gangways and into the hold.

The ferry was primarily an auto transporter, with new and used cars from j.a.pan being exported to Vladivostok by individuals and Russian businessmen. There were 114 cabins to service four hundred pa.s.sengers and crew, and, surprisingly, the ferry was equipped with phones and air conditioners in every cabin, though at the moment Hansen could use a good blast of heat, as his breath came thick in the frigid February air. He had learned from the taxi driver, who spoke a little Russian (Hansen's cover language), that the restaurants were good and that he should definitely visit the veranda casino.