"They leave the Fish Farm area and steal some trucks," Castillo said. "And then truck it out. But where to?"

"Any field where a Tupolev Tu-934A can get in," Jake Torine said. "And that wouldn't have to be much of a field."

"You know about the Tu-934, Jake?" Tom asked.

"I've never seen one but, oh yeah, I know about it," Torine said.

"I don't," Castillo said.

"Ugly bird," Torine said. "Can carry about as much as a Caribou. Cruises at about Mach point nine. h.e.l.luva range, midair refuelable, and it's state-of-the-Russian-art stealth. And it can land and take off from a polo field. The story I get is that the agency will pay a hundred twenty-five million for one of them."

"You do know about it," Barlow said, raising his drink in a toast, demonstrating he was clearly impressed.

Torine returned the gesture, and they both sipped their Sazeracs.

"Okay, picking up the scenario," Castillo said. "The Spetsnaz load their six barrels of Congo-X onto their stolen trucks and drive it to some dirt runway in the middle of Africa, and then load it and themselves onto this ... what was it?"

"Tupolev Tu-934A," Torine furnished.

"... which then takes off and flies at Mach point nine to where? To Russia?" Castillo pursued.

"No. They don't want Congo-X in Russia. They know how dangerous it is," Svetlana said. "They remember Chern.o.byl. That's why the Fish Farm was in the Congo."

"Could this airplane make it across the Atlantic?"

"Sure. With an en-route refueling, it could fly anywhere," Torine said.

"Where's anywhere? Cuba? Mexico?"

"Distance-wise, sure," Barlow said. "But politically ..."

"They'd spot it on radar, right?" Castillo said.

"Charley, it has stealth technology," Torine said. "And even if it didn't, it could fly under the radar."

"So why not Cuba, Tom?" Castillo asked.

"The Castro brothers would be too expensive," Barlow said. "Both in terms of cash and letting them in on the secret. More the latter. Sirinov doesn't like to be obligated to anybody."

"Then right into Mexico," Edgar Delchamps said. "Getting it across the border into the States would be easy."

"I think we could say getting it across the border was was easy," Castillo said. "But I have a gut feeling Mexico is not-was not-the final stop." easy," Castillo said. "But I have a gut feeling Mexico is not-was not-the final stop."

Alex Darby then said, "Drop off the Congo-X and enough people to get two barrels of this stuff into the States via Mexico, then fly the rest of it on to ... where?"

"Venezuela," Delchamps suggested. "Hugo Chavez is in love with Communism, and has yet to be burned by the Russians, as the Castros were burned. And, G.o.d knows, Fat Little Hugo is no rocket scientist. Sirinov could easily have put him in his pocket."

Barlow pointed at Delchamps, and said, "You're on it, Edgar."

"Okay, then. Now what?" Leverette said. "We've located the Congo-X in Venezuela. What do we do about it?"

"We start to prove-or disprove-the scenario," Castillo said. "First step in that will be when we get from Aloysius the intel he's going to get from the DCI."

"You don't know know that's who's giving him the intel he's promised to send, my darling," Svet said. that's who's giving him the intel he's promised to send, my darling," Svet said.

Castillo, at the last split second, kept himself from saying something loving and kind-for example, What part of "Don't offer a G.o.dd.a.m.n opinion unless I ask for it" didn't you understand, my precious? What part of "Don't offer a G.o.dd.a.m.n opinion unless I ask for it" didn't you understand, my precious?

Instead, he said: "Who else could it be?"

Svetlana replied, "The value of the intel we get from Casey is only as reliable as the source, and we don't know know it's coming from the CIA, do we? So I suggest we take what Casey sends us with a grain of salt." it's coming from the CIA, do we? So I suggest we take what Casey sends us with a grain of salt."

"She got you, Ace," Delchamps said. "Listen to your consigliere."

"Yeah, she did," Castillo admitted. "Okay, Sweaty: Give us your take on the 'Come home, all is forgiven' letter from Cousin Vladlen."

"You haven't figured that out? It is meant to let your government off the hook, my darling. It'll come out that we've returned to Russia-"

Castillo interrupted, "What do you mean, 'we've returned to Russia'?"

"You asked me a question: Let me finish answering it," Svetlana said. "Maybe I should have said if if we return to Russia and it comes out-and it would-then your government couldn't be accused of cruelly and heartlessly sending us home to the prison on Lubyanka Square. Your press will get that letter. It says 'All is forgiven.' Your government can then say all they did when they loaded us aboard an Aeroflot airplane was help us go home to our loving family." we return to Russia and it comes out-and it would-then your government couldn't be accused of cruelly and heartlessly sending us home to the prison on Lubyanka Square. Your press will get that letter. It says 'All is forgiven.' Your government can then say all they did when they loaded us aboard an Aeroflot airplane was help us go home to our loving family."

"Score another one for Sweaty," Delchamps said.

"The U.S. government is not going to put you on an Aeroflot plane," Castillo said.

"You better hope, Ace," Delchamps said.

"Over my dead body," Castillo said.

"Thank you, my darling," Svetlana said. "I will pray that it doesn't come to that."

"Me, too," Tom Barlow said. "May I offer a suggestion, Charley?"

"Sure."

"Before we get whatever Casey is going to send us, why don't we all, independently, try to find fault with our scenario?"

Castillo nodded. "Sure. Good idea."

"And while we're all doing that, independently come up with a scenario on how to deal with this?"

"Another good idea," Castillo said.

"Are we going to try to grab this stuff in Venezuela?" Lorimer asked.

"What I would like to do is grab that Tupolev Tu-934A in Venezuela," Torine said.

Everyone was quiet for a long moment.

Then Pevsner said: "I'll check, but I think everybody's rooms should be ready by now. Shall we meet here in, say, an hour and have another of Leverette's c.o.c.ktails and then dinner?"

[ONE].

Claudio's Sh.e.l.l Super Service Station State Highways 203 and 304 Centreville, Maryland 0730 7 February 2007

There was nothing unusual about the GMC Yukon XL that turned off State Highway 304 into the gas station. Indeed, there were two near twins-three, if one wished to count a Chevrolet Suburban-already at the pump islands.

The driver of the arriving Yukon pulled up beside one of the pumps, got out, and fed the pump a credit card. Other doors opened and three men-all dressed in plaid woolen jackets-got out and walked quickly toward the men's room, suggesting to a casual witness that it had been a long time between pit stops.

A Chrysler Grand Caravan turned off State Highway 203 and drove right up to the men's room door. The van's sliding door opened and three men-also in plaid woolen jackets and also apparently feeling the urgent call of nature-hurried into the restroom.

A minute or so later, the first of the men came out of the restroom, and got into either the Yukon or the Grand Caravan. In two minutes everybody was out of the men's room. The Caravan backed up and stopped at a pump. The Yukon driver walked quickly to the men's room.

By the time he came out, the driver of the Caravan had topped off his tank and returned to the wheel. By the time the Yukon driver got behind his wheel, the Caravan was out of the station. Ninety seconds later, so was the Yukon.

If anyone had been watching it was unlikely that they would have noticed that one of the men who had gone to the restroom from the Yukon had gotten into the Grand Caravan when he came out and that one of the Caravan pa.s.sengers had gone to the Yukon when he came out of the men's room.

The man in the front pa.s.senger seat of the Grand Caravan turned and offered the man who had just gotten in a silver flask.

"What is it they say about 'beware of Russians pa.s.sing the bottle'?" A. Franklin Lammelle, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, asked. "And it's a little early for vodka, even for me."

"It's not vodka, Frank. It's Remy Martin," Cultural Counselor Sergei Murov of the Washington emba.s.sy of the Russian Federation replied.

"In that case, Sergei, I will have a little taste," Lammelle said, and reached for the flask. He held it up in a toast, and said, "Here's to Winston Churchill, who always began his day with a taste of fine cognac."

Both men were stocky, in their midforties, fair-skinned, and wore small, rimless spectacles. Murov had a little more remaining hair than Lammelle. They could have been cousins.

Murov was the SVR's Washington rezident. rezident. Lammelle knew this, and Murov knew that Lammelle had known that since the Russians had proposed Murov to be their emba.s.sy's cultural counselor. Lammelle knew this, and Murov knew that Lammelle had known that since the Russians had proposed Murov to be their emba.s.sy's cultural counselor.

Ten minutes later, the convoy turned onto Piney Point Farm Lane. A quarter of a mile down the lane, ten-foot-high chainlink fences became visible behind the vegetation on both sides of the road. On the fencing, at fifty-foot intervals, there were signs: PRIVATE PROPERTY! TRESPa.s.sERS WILL BE PROSECUTED!

Finally, the Caravan came to the first of two chainlink fence gates across the road. Outside the outer gate there was a black Ford sedan with MARYLAND STATE POLICE lettered on the body. Two state troopers in two-tone brown uniforms sat in the front seats. When the Caravan came a stop, one got out of the pa.s.senger door and carefully examined the minivan, but made no attempt to do anything else. The three SUV's parked on either side of the lane.

The outer gate swung open, and a man in a police-type private security guard uniform inside the second gate motioned for the Caravan to advance. When the van had done so, the outer gate closed behind it. The security guard came from behind the second gate, walked to the Caravan, and opened the sliding door.

When he was satisfied that there was no one in the vehicle determined to trespa.s.s on what-like the Russian emba.s.sy itself-was legally as much the territory of the Russian Federation as was the Lubyanka Square headquarters of the KGB in downtown Moscow, he signaled for the interior gate to be opened.

Frank Lammelle knew a great deal about what was known as the "Russian dacha on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e." Some of what he knew, he had known for as long as he had been in the CIA. Back in the bad old days when Russia had been the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, young Frank Lammelle of the Clandestine Service had thought it was ironic that the amba.s.sador of the USSR spent his weekends in a house built by John J. Raskob, almost a caricature of a capitalist. Raskob had been simultaneously vice president of General Motors and E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company-which owned forty-three percent of GM-and had ordered the construction of the Empire State Building in New York City with the mandate to the architect that it be taller than the Chrysler Building.

Raskob's three-floor brick mansion had not been quite large enough to house him and his thirteen children, so he had built another one just about as large for them and his guests, who included such people as Walter Chrysler, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison.

The Soviet government had bought both houses from Raskob's heirs in 1972 and later enlarged the estate by swapping land the Americans wanted in Moscow for land adjacent to the Maryland property.

The Russians then further improved the property by importing from Finland fourteen small "rental" houses for the use of emba.s.sy employees.

Some of what Lammelle knew about the Russian dacha on the Eastern Sh.o.r.e he had learned more recently. At five-thirty that morning, he had met with J. Stanley Waters, the CIA's deputy director for operations, and several of his deputies in The Bubble at CIA headquarters in Langley. Only the people in The Bubble-plus of course DCI Jack Powell-knew that Lammelle had accepted Sergei Murov's invitation to go boating in Maryland.

The meeting had been called both to guess the reason Murov wanted to talk to Lammelle-probably it had something to do with Congo-X, but no one was sure-and to prepare Lammelle for it.

To that end, the latest-just taken-satellite photos of the compound were shown. "Photos" was probably a misnomer, as these were satellite motion pictures. The infrared and other sensors showed life in only four of the rental cottages, including the two known to house the Russians' communications center. The a.n.a.lysts agreed there was no significant change from the data taken over the past week.

The NSA at Fort Meade reported they had been unable to pull anything of interest from the ether-that is, any reference to Lammelle, Murov, or a meeting between the two-and that the level of traffic between Moscow, the dacha, the emba.s.sy in Washington, and the Russian Mission to the United Nations in New York City was normal. Nothing had been sent either in a code, or by any technical means the Russians erroneously believed had not been detected or cracked at Fort Meade.

The FBI liaison officer reported that the FBI agents tracking Murov had seen nothing out of the ordinary in his behavior, and that the FBI agents on-site-one of the two state troopers stationed around the clock at the gate was always an FBI special agent-had similarly seen nothing of special interest.

Lammelle had closed the meeting with a reminder that the visit had to be kept a secret. Secrecy was important because Senator Homer Johns (Democrat, New Hampshire), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who loved to be on TV and despised the CIA, would-should he learn of the meeting-love nothing better than to call DCI Powell to ask about the meeting, then quickly leak the secret to CNN and/or C. Harry Whelan, Jr., the syndicated columnist, who didn't like the CIA either.

There were three Mercedes-Benz automobiles lined up in the circular drive before the three-story brick mansion: a CLS 550 sedan-the pilot car-then an elegant twin-turbo V12 CL600-obviously the amba.s.sador's vehicle-and then another CLS 550-the chase car.

The precautions are necessary, Lammelle thought, not to protect the amba.s.sador from the Americans, but from his fellow Russians. not to protect the amba.s.sador from the Americans, but from his fellow Russians.

Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov would be delighted to sacrifice a half-dozen of his a.s.sociates if that was the price for taking out the amba.s.sador.

"It looks as if the boss is about to go to work," Murov said. "Why don't we say h.e.l.lo?"

This is not a coincidence, Lammelle decided. The amba.s.sador probably waited until the gate reported their arrival before he came out of the house. The amba.s.sador probably waited until the gate reported their arrival before he came out of the house.

Obviously, he wants me to know that he knows I'm here, and, as important, to know that he knows Murov invited me.

"What a pleasure to see you, Mr. Lammelle," the amba.s.sador said, offering his hand.

He was a ruddy-faced, somewhat chubby fifty-five-year-old.