The door, it turned out, was unlocked. She pulled it open, stuck her head out, and looked around the door frame into the corridor. Empty. She walked out, still dragging the IV tree behind her. She saw no nurses’ station at either end, but did not find that remarkable. Subject F4 headed to her right, pushing the IV tree ahead of her now, looking for-something, she wasn’t sure what. She managed a frown and tried other doors, but while they opened, they revealed only darkened rooms, most of them smelling of disinfectant until she got to the very end. This door was labeled T9, and behind it she found something different. No beds here, but a desk with a computer whose monitor screen was on, meaning that the computer was powered up. She walked in and leaned over the desk. It was an IBM-compatible, and she knew how to work those. It even had a modem, she saw. Well, then, she could do what?
It took another couple of minutes to decide. She could get a message off to her father, couldn’t she?
Fifty feet and one floor away, Ben Farmer got himself a mug of coffee and sat back down into his swivel chair after a quick trip to the men’s room. He picked up the copy of Bio-Watch he’d been reading. It was three in the morning, and all was quiet on his end of the building.
DADDY, I’M NOT SURE WHERE I AM. THEY SAY I SIGNED A FORM ALLOW THEM TO SIGN ME IN FOR SOME MEDICAL TESTS, SOME NEW DRUG OR SOMETHING BUT I FEEL PRETTY CRUMMY NOW, AND IM NOT SUREW WHY. THEY HAVE BE HOOKEDUP TO A MEDICAION THING THATS PLUGGED INTOMY ARM, FEEL PRETTY CRUMMY AND I-
Farmer finished the article on global warming, and then checked the TV display. The computer flipped through the operating cameras. showing all the sickies in their beds-
-except one. Huh? he thought, waiting for the cameras to flip back, having missed the code number for the one with the empty bed. It took about a minute. Oh, shit, T-4 was missing. That was the girl, wasn’t it? Subject F4, Mary something. Oh, shit, where had she gone to? He activated the direct controls and checked the corridor. Nobody there, either. Nobody had tried to go through the doors into the rest of the complex. They were both locked and alarmed. Where the hell were the docs? The one on duty now was a woman, Lani something, the other staff all disliked her ’cause she was an arrogant, obnoxious bitch. Evidently, Killgore didn’t like her either, ’cause she always had the night duty. Palachek, that was her last name. Farmer wondered vaguely what nationality that was as he lifted the microphone for the PA system.
“Dr. Palacheck, Dr. Palachek, please call security,” he said over the speaker system. It took about three minutes before his phone rang.
“This is Dr. Palachek. What is it?”
“Subject F4 has taken a walk. I can’t spot her on the surveillance cameras.”
“On the way. Call Dr. Killgore.”
“Yes, Doctor.” Farmer called that number from memory.
“Yeah?” came the familiar voice.
“Sir, it’s Ben Farmer. F4 has disappeared from her room. We’re looking for her now.”
“Okay, call me back when you find her.” And the phone went dead. Killgore wasn’t all that excited. You might be able to walk around for a while. but you couldn’t lave the building without someone seeing you.
It was still rush hour in London. Ivan Petrovich Kirilenko had an apartment close to the embassy, which allowed him to walk to work. The sidewalks were crowded with rapidly moving people on their way to their own jobs-the Brits are a polite people, but Londoners tend to race along and he got to the agreed-upon corner at exactly 8:20 A.M. He carried his copy of the Daily Telegraph, a conservative morning newspaper, in his left hand as he stopped at the corner, waiting for the light to change.
The switch was expertly done. No words were exchanged, just a double bump on the elbow to tell him to slacken his grip, to allow one Telegraph to be changed for another. It was done below the waist, hidden from the casual view of those around him, and low enough to be hidden by the crowd from cameras that might be looking down from the rooftops around the busy corner. It was all the rezident could do not to smile. The exercise of fieldcraft was always a pleasure for him. Despite his currently high rank, he enjoyed the day-to-day business of espionage, just to prove to himself that he could still do it as well as the youngsters. working under him. A few seconds later, the light changed, and a man in a tan coat angled away from him, walking briskly forward with his morning paper. It was two more blocks to the embassy. He walked through the iron gate, into the building, past security, and up to his second-floor office. There, his coat hung on the hook on the back of his door, he sat down and opened the paper on his desk.
So, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich had kept his word. There were two sheets of unlined white paper liberally covered with handwritten commentary. CIA Field Officer John Clark was now in Hereford, England, and was now the commander of a new multinational counterterrorist group known as “Rainbow,” composed of ten to twenty men selected from English, American, and perhaps some other nationalities. It was a black operation, known only to a handful of highly placed people. His wife was a nurse working at the local public hospital. His team was well regarded by the local civilians who worked on the SAS base. Rainbow had been on three missions, Bern, Vienna, and Worldpark, where, in every case, it had dealt with the terrorists-Kirilenko noted that Popov had avoided use of the previous term of art, “progressive elements” efficiently, quickly, and under the cover of local police agencies. The Rainbow team had access to American hardware, which had been used in Spain, as was clear from television coverage of the event. which he recommended that the embassy get hold of. Through the Defense Attaché would probably be best, Popov noted.
On the whole a useful, concise, and informative report, the rezident thought, and a fair trade for what he’d exchanged on the street corner.
“Well, see anything this morning?” Cyril Holt asked the head of the surveillance group.
“No,” the other “Five” man replied. “He was carrying the usual paper in the usual hand, but the pavement will crowded. There could have been a switch, but if there was. we didn’t see it. And we are dealing with a professional, sir.” the chief of the surveillance section reminded the Deputy Director of the Security Service.
Popov, his brown wide-brimmed hat in his lap, was sitting in the train on the way back to Hereford, seemingly reading the newspaper, but in fact leafing through the photocopies of the single-spaced pages relayed from Moscow. Kirilenko was as good as his word, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich saw with pleasure. As a good rezident should be. And so. now, here he was, sitting alone in the first-class carriage of the inter-city train out of Paddington Station, learning more about this John Clark chap, and impressed with what he saw. His former agency in Moscow had paid quite a bit of attention to him. There were three photographs. one of them quite good that appeared to have been shot in the office of the RVS chairman himself in Moscow. They’d even taken the time to learn about his family. Two daughters, one still in college in America, and one a physician now married to one Domingo Chavez another CIA field officer! Popov saw, in his middle thirties. Domingo Estebanovich, who’d also met Golovko, and was evidently partnered with the older officer. Both were paramilitary officers . . . might this Chavez be in England, too? A physician, so that was easily checked. Clark and his diminutive partner were officially described as formidable and experienced field-intelligence officers, both spoke Russian in a manner described as literate and cultured – Graduates of the U.S. military’s language school at Monterey, California, no doubt. Chavez, the report went on, had an undergraduate and a master’s degree in International Relations from George Mason University outside of Washington, doubtless paid for by CIA. So, neither he nor Clark was merely a strong back. Both were educated as well. And the younger one was married to a physician.
Their known and confirmed field operations- -nichevo! Popov thought. Two really impressive ones done with Russian assistance, plus the exfiltration of Gerasimov’s wife and daughter ten years before, along with several others suspected but not confirmed.. . “Formidable” was the right word for both of them. Himself a field intelligence officer for over twenty years, he knew what to be impressed with. Clark had to be a star at Langley, and Chavez was evidently his protege, following in the wide, deep footsteps of his . . . father-in-law . . . Wasn’t that interesting?