“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.
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CHAPTER
THREE
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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 Gaffe 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 Division. 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.
Smith and Danko started to meet outside the conference’s regular hours. By the time the parties were ready to return to their respective countries, the two men had forged a friendship based on mutual respect and trust.
Over the next two years, they met again— in St. Petersburg, Atlanta, Paris, and Hong Kong— each time under the auspices of a formal conference. But on each occasion, Smith noticed that Danko was more and more troubled. Although he eschewed alcohol, he would sometimes ramble on about the duplicity of his military masters. Russia, he hinted, was violating its agreements with the United States and the world. While it was making a good show of reducing its bioweapons programs, advance research had actually accelerated. Worst of all, Russian scientists and technicians were disappearing only to surface in China, India, and Iraq, where there was high demand and unlimited funds for their skills.
Smith was a keen student of human nature. At the end of one of Danko’s tortured confessions, he’d said: “I will work with you on this, Yuri. If that’s what you want.”
Danko’s reaction was akin to that of a penitent who has finally been cleansed of his burden of sin. He agreed to provide Smith with information he thought the United States should have. There were only two caveats: he would deal only with Smith, not with anyone from the U.S. intelligence community; second, he wanted Smith’s word that Smith would look after his family in the event that anything happened to him.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Yuri,” Smith had said at the time. “You’ll die in your own bed, surrounded by your grandchildren.”
Observing the crowds streaming out of the Doge’s Palace, Smith reflected on these words. At the time, he had meant them sincerely. But now, with Danko twenty-four hours late, they tasted like ashes in his mouth.
But you never once mentioned Klein, Smith thought. That you already had a contact in the United States. Why, Yuri? Is Klein your ace in the hole?
New arrivals were coming in by gondola and launch that tied up at the wharves in front of the lions of St. Mark’s. More exited the majestic basilica, glassy-eyed from the landmark’s overwhelming grandeur. Smith watched them all— the young couples holding hands, the fathers and mothers herding their children, the tour groups clustered around guides who shouted above the din in a dozen different languages. He held his newspaper at eye level, but his gaze roamed ceaselessly above the masthead, scanning faces, trying to find that special one.
Where are you? What did you find that was so terrible you had to compromise your secrets and risk your life to bring it out?
The questions gnawed at Smith. Since Danko had severed all contact, there were no answers to be had. According to Klein, the Russian would be coming across war-scarred Yugoslavia, hiding in and moving through the chaos and misery of that region until he reached the coast. There he would find a ship to ferry him across the Adriatic to Venice.
Just get here and you’ll be safe.
The Gulfstream was on standby at Venice’s Marco Polo Airport; a fast launch was moored at the dock next to the Palazzo delle Prigioni on the Rio di Palazzo. Smith could have Danko on the boat within three minutes of spotting him. They would be airborne an hour later.
Where are you?
Smith was reaching for his coffee when something drifted across his peripheral vision: a heavyset man skirting the edge of a tour group. Maybe a part of it, maybe not. He wore a weatherproof nylon jacket and a golfer’s cap; a thick beard and large wraparound sunglasses concealed his face. But there was something about him.