“You have my word. If Beria is out there, if he comes for you, he is ours.”
__________
Ninety minutes later, Smith and Kirov arrived at Smith’s ranchstyle home in Bethesda. As Smith walked him through the house, Kirov noted the paintings, wall hangings, and objets from cultures around the world. The American was indeed a well-traveled man.
While Smith showered and changed, Kirov made himself comfortable in the guest bedroom. They met in the kitchen where, over coffee, they pored over a large-scale map of Washington, focusing on the multiethnic neighborhood around Dupont Circle. Since Kirov was already familiar with the area, a plan came together quickly.
“I know we didn’t talk about this with Klein,” Smith said as they got ready to leave. “But…” He held out a SIG-Sauer pistol.
Kirov looked at it then shook his head. He went into the bedroom and came back with what looked like an ordinary black umbrella. He held it at a forty-five degree angle, moved his thumb along the handle, and suddenly, a one-inch blade popped out of the tip.
“Something I brought along from Moscow,” Kirov said conversationally. “The blade has a fast-acting animal tranquilizer— Acepromazine. It can bring down a hundred-kilo boar in seconds. Besides, if for some reason your police were to stop me, I could explain away an umbrella. A gun would be much harder.”
Smith nodded. He might be the bait, but Kirov would be the one doing the close-in work. He was glad that the Russian wasn’t going to face Beria unarmed.
Smith slipped the SIG-Sauer into his shoulder holster. “All right, then. I’ll give you forty minutes lead time, then follow you in.”
__________
Moving along the streets like a wraith, Kirov studied the human traffic swirling around him. Like other areas close to Washington’s core, Dupont Circle had undergone a revival. But tucked in between trendy cafés and designer boutiques were the Macedonian bakeries, Turkish carpet shops, Serbian emporiums filled with beaten brass and copper planters, Greek restaurants, and Yugoslav coffeehouses. Kirov knew how strong the pull of the familiar would be to a man operating in an unfamiliar environment, even if that man was a vicious killer. This ethnic mix was just the kind of environment that Ivan Beria would gravitate to. There he could find familiar food, listen to music he had grown up with, overhear accents he recognized. Kirov, who could eavesdrop in many Slavic languages, was also perfectly at home there.
Turning into an open-air quadrangle bordered by shops and stalls, Kirov took a seat in the shade of an umbrella-topped table. A Croat woman who spoke only halting English took his order for coffee. The Russian held back a smile as he overheard her running invective at the proprietor.
Sipping the thick, sweet coffee, Kirov surveyed the foot traffic, noting the women’s colorful blouses and skirts and the men’s baggy pants and leather jackets. If Beria came here, he would wear the rough, practical clothing of a Yugoslav working man— maybe a cap, too, to cast a shadow over his features. But Kirov had no doubt that he would recognize him. In his experience, the one aspect of his appearance an assassin could never disguise was the eyes.
Kirov understood there was a good chance that given the opportunity Beria would recognize him as well. But Beria had no reason to think that Kirov was in the United States. His primary concern would be to avoid the police, as sparse as the patrols were in the area. He wouldn’t expect a face from the past, so far from home. By the same token, Kirov did not expect to see Beria strolling up to the nearest pastry shop to buy a snack. He might know where the assassin was likely to venture out, but he had no idea where he was at that moment.
With hooded eyes, Kirov surveyed the changing scene around him. He also scanned the entrances and exits to the quadrangle, where people appeared from and disappeared to. He noted the signs posted in the shop windows indicating the business hours, and made a mental note to check the alleys and the delivery bays.
If Beria had to come out to perform his wet work, this was an area he would feel comfortable in. This might cause him to feel that he had the upper hand, and a confident man could sometimes be a blind one.
__________
Three-quarters of a mile from where Kirov was contemplating the possible takedown zone, Ivan Beria opened the door to his two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a building that specialized in short-term leases to the city’s white-collar transients.
Facing him was the driver of the Lincoln, a big, silent man with a nose that had been broken at least several times and a deformed left ear that resembled a tiny cauliflower. Beria had met such men before. Comfortable with violence and unerringly discreet, they were the perfect messengers for the principals who hired him.
Motioning the driver inside, Beria locked the door and accepted the proffered envelope. He tore it open and quickly read the contents, written in Serb. Stepping away, he smiled to himself. The principals always underestimated the number of people who had to be eliminated. In this case, Beria had already been paid for the Russian guard and the American scientist. Now he was being asked to remove one more.
Turning to the driver, he said, “Picture.”
Silently, the driver took back the letter and handed over a picture of ion Smith, taken by a security camera. The subject was facing the lens, his face free of shadows. The resolution was very good.
Beria smiled thoughtfully. “When?”
The driver held out his hand for the picture. “As soon as possible. You must be ready to go the minute you’re called.”
The driver raised his eyebrows, silently asking if there was anything else. Beria shook his head.
After the driver left, Beria went into the bedroom and removed a digitally encrypted satellite phone from his pack. A moment later, he was speaking to a Herr Weizsel at the Offenbach Bank in Zurich. The account in question had just been fattened by two hundred thousand American dollars.
Beria thanked the banker and hung up. The Americans are in a hurry.
__________
Naked, Dr. Karl Bauer stepped out of the final decontamination room. On the bench of the changing room were underclothes, socks, and a shirt. A freshly pressed suit hung on the door hook.
A few minutes later, Bauer was dressed and on his way to the glass-enclosed mezzanine where his chief of staff, Maus Jaunich, waited.
Jaunich gave a slight bow and held out his hand. “Magnificent work, Herr Direktor. I have never seen anything like it.”
Bauer shook his hand and acknowledged the compliment. “Nor are we likely to witness something like that ever again.”
After resting, Bauer had returned to the laboratory. Even though he had worked through most of the night, he felt elated and full of energy. He knew from experience that this was only the adrenaline flowing through his system and that fatigue would inevitably catch up to him. Nonetheless, Jaunich was right: it had been magnificent work. Using his laserlike concentration, he had applied a lifetime of knowledge and experience into taking the first steps that would transform an already deadly virus into an unstoppable, microscopic firestorm. Now he felt almost cheated because he would be unable to take those last few steps toward completion.
“We knew from the beginning, didn’t we, Klaus,” he said, voicing his thought. “That we would never be able to see this creation through to the end. The physics of this earth deny me my ultimate triumph. To complete it, I must give it away.” He paused. “Now it will be up to Reed to go where we cannot.”
“So much trust in one man,” Jaunich murmured.
“He will do what he’s told,” Bauer replied sharply. “And when he returns, we will have what, until now, we’ve only dreamed of.”
He patted the big man on the shoulder. “It will be all right, Klaus. You’ll see. Now, the transport?”
“The sample is ready for shipment, Herr Direktor. The aircraft is standing by.”
Bauer clapped his hands. “Good! Then you and I must have a celebratory drink before I leave.”
___________________
CHAPTER
TWENTY
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Beneath the blaze of lights, she looked like a sculpture heralding in the new millennium. From her vantage point three miles away, Megan Olson stared in awe at the space shuttle, mated to the giant external tank and the two slightly smaller solid rocket boosters.
It was two o’clock in the morning on a windless, moonlit night at Cape Canaveral. Megan’s nose tingled from the briny air and her nerves trilled with anticipation. Usually, the crew was up and about by three o’clock, but Megan had been unable to sleep much past midnight. The thought that in fewer than eight hours she would be onboard the shuttle, boring into space, left her breathless.