Diforio read the security director’s message and studied the photofax intently. Her orders were clear: determine whether or not this individual was onboard. If she spotted him, she was not to make any contact or attempt to restrain him. Instead, she was to report back to the cockpit immediately.
“What about a weapon?” Diforio had asked the pilot. “It doesn’t say anything about a gun or a bomb. There’s no bio, either. Who is this guy?”
The pilot shrugged. “All I know is that the British have scrambled the SAS guys. It’s that serious. If he’s onboard and we make it down, they take him out on the ground.” He looked pointedly at her handbag. “Do me a favor: no Annie Oakley stuff back there.”
Making her way through the first-class cabin, Diforio noted the embarrassment of the man with the funny, egg-shaped eyes.
Not this clown.
She was very much aware of the effect she had on men and planned to put it to good use. Seventeen or seventy, they all took notice; some were a little subtler than others. But if she wanted to, she could get them to look at her directly. A hint of a smile, a twinkle in her eyes was all it would take.
The first-class and business cabins were a wash. Not that she had expected to find the target there. Guys like this Beria character liked to hide themselves in a mob. Diforio pulled back the curtain and stepped into the economy section.
The cabin was configured for 3-3-3 sitting, the seats separated by two aisles. While pretending to check the magazine rack, Diforio scanned the first six rows along the left-hand aisle: retirees, kids on a college break, young families traveling on a budget. She began walking to the back of the plane.
A few minutes later, Diforio was at the lavatories at the end of the bulkhead. She’d gotten a good look at all the passengers in the perimeter, plus two who had exited the washrooms. The rest of the seats were filled; none of the occupants resembled the target.
Now the tricky part.
Diforio went back the way she’d come, stepped into the business section, came around the partition, then went back into economy. Arching her back, she made it look like she was trying to work out cramped muscles. Curious male faces turned sympathetic— and appreciative— when her breasts pushed against the shell beneath her jacket. She encouraged the ogling with a slight smile as she moved down the right-hand aisle, her gaze flitting over but never alighting on individual faces. Again, her luck held. All the seats were occupied; the male passengers either asleep, reading, or working on business papers. She was grateful that the movie had ended and most of the window shades were up, allowing the sunlight to pour in.
Once again, Diforio found herself at the back of the plane. She walked past the lavatories, then up the left-hand aisle, double-checking to make sure that she hadn’t overlooked any seats. A moment later, she was in the flight deck.
“Negative on the target,” she reported to the pilot.
“You’re sure?”
“First and business are clean. No one even remotely resembles this guy. You have a full house in economy— two hundred thirty-eight people. One hundred seventeen are women— and believe me, they are women. Twenty-two are children under the age of fifteen; forty-three are kids in their twenties. Out of sixty-three possible males, twenty-eight are over sixty-five and look it. Another sixteen are over fifty. That leaves nineteen possibles— and no match.”
The pilot nodded with his chin at the copilot. “Danny’ll set up a link with Dallas. Tell ’em what you found— or didn’t.” He paused. “Does this mean I can start breathing again?”
__________
The communications gear on the C-22 allowed Smith to eaves drop on the French security operations channel. He listened as agents of the Deuxième Bureau reported on the disembarkation of Air France flight 612. Three-quarters of the passengers were off and still there was no sign of Beria. Smith was turning his attention to the American flight, less than twenty minutes from touchdown, when the satellite phone chirped.
“It’s Klein. Jon, I just got a report from Dallas. The marshal on 1710 reports that there’s no one onboard who resembles Beria.”
“That’s impossible! The French have just about off-loaded. Nothing there. He has to be on American.”
“Not according to the air marshal. She’s almost positive that Beria isn’t there.”
“Almost isn’t good enough.”
“I realize that. I’ve relayed her findings to the Brits. They’re grateful, but they’re not going to ease up. The SAS is in position and will stay there.”
“Sir, I think we have to consider the possibility that Beria took some other flight or that he’s using another way to get into the States.”
Klein’s breath whistled over the line. “Do you think he’d be so brazen as to try that? He must know that we’ve pulled out all the stops to bring him down.”
“Beria started a job, sir. He’s killed in the course of carrying it out. Yes, I think he’s determined enough to try to reach us.” He paused. “Moscow is the main point for flights to the West, but it’s not the only way out.”
“St. Petersburg?”
“It handles a lot of flights to and from Scandinavia and northern Europe. Aeroflot, Scandinavian Airlines, Finnair, Royal Dutch— they all have steady traffic in and out of there.”
“Kirov will have an embolism when I suggest that Beria might have gotten as far as St. Petersburg.”
“He’s gotten awfully far as it is, sir. This guy isn’t running; he’s following a well-thought-out plan. That’s what’s keeping him one step ahead of us.”
Smith heard something on the French channel. He excused himself, listened briefly, then got back to Klein. “Paris confirms that their flight’s clean.”
“What’s your next step, Jon?”
Smith thought for a moment. “London, sir. That’s where I get off.”
___________________
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
___________________
With puffs of blue tire smoke and the stink of superheated brakes, American 1710 touched down at London’s Heathrow Airport. Per instructions from the Special Air Service commander, the pilot informed his passengers that a mechanical problem had developed with the jetway assigned to their gate. The control tower was rerouting them to another part of the field where ramps could be rolled up against the hatches.
The flight attendants passed through the first- and business-class cabins, reassuring passengers that they would make their connecting flights.
“What about the continuation to Dulles?” Treloar asked.
“Our time on the ground will be as brief as possible,” the steward replied.
Treloar prayed that he was right. The nitrogen charges inside the canister were good for another twelve hours. The stop at Heathrow was usually ninety minutes; the flying time to Dulles, six hours fifteen minutes. After customs and immigration, he would have a three-hour window to get the smallpox into a refrigerated facility. There was little room for the unforeseen.
Stepping out onto the ramp, Treloar discovered that the aircraft was parked next to a giant maintenance hangar. As he descended the steps, he saw baggage carts being loaded and two airport buses idling near the hangar doors. At the bottom of the steps, a pleasant young customs officer invited him to step into the hangar, which was set up as a temporary processing and in-transit facility.
As Treloar and his fellow travelers shuffled along, they had no idea that hard eyes tucked against sniperscopes were scrutinizing their every move. They could not have guessed that the young men in customs and immigration uniforms, along with the baggage handlers, bus drivers, and maintenance people, were all heavily armed undercover SAS operatives.
Just before Treloar disappeared through the door leading into the hangar, he heard a high-pitched shriek. Turning, he saw a trim, executive jet land gracefully on the runway two hundred yards away. He imagined that it belonged to an obscenely wealthy entrepreneur, or to some sheik, never suspecting that inside the Ilyushin C-22 a man was, at that moment, receiving a detailed description of him from a sniper who happened to have Treloar’s forehead in his crosshairs.
__________
“The Brits say that 1710 is clean, sir.”
Klein’s voice whistled through the secure link. “I got the same report. You should have heard Kirov when I gave him the news. All hell’s breaking loose in Moscow.”
Sitting in the parked Ilyushin, Smith continued to watch the activity around the American 767. “What about St. Petersburg?”
“Kirov’s compiling a list of all flights that have left up to now. He’s scrambling to get the terminal’s departure tapes, as well as putting men on the ground to start interviewing employees.”
Smith bit his lip. “It’s all taking too long, sir. With every hour, Beria gets farther and farther away.”
“I know. But we can’t hunt until we have a target.” Klein paused. “What’s your next move?”
“There’s nothing I can do in London. I asked American to get me on 1710 and they obliged. It’s scheduled to leave in about seventy-five minutes. That’ll put me in Washington sooner than if I were to wait for military transport.”