"I never did like playing hide and seek," Lamont said.
"Get our guest up here. We may have to get off fast. I'll see if our ride is here yet, " Nick said. He adjusted his headpiece and turned on the transponder that identified him as friendly. Now that they'd been spotted, there was no need to stay dark.
"Raven One, this is Tango. Do you copy? Over."
His headpiece crackled.
"Tango, this is Raven One. We've got you. Looks like you've got company. What is your status?"
"Raven One, we've got a Chinese patrol on our ass. They've got anti-aircraft guns. Watch yourself."
"Copy, Tango. No problemo. Stay alive for five."
"Copy that."
Lamont went down to the tiny cabin and emerged a moment later with their charge. He was a small man, dressed in a shapeless brown suit. He clutched a briefcase in his hands and looked frightened. Nick couldn't blame him. If the North Koreans managed to get their hands on him, they would feed him alive to a pack of hungry dogs.
They drifted out of the thinning fog. Ahead, the sea was clear and dark. Stars shone overhead. Seconds later the Chinese boat emerged from the fog bank a bare thirty yards away. Their engines throttled up. A searchlight swung across the black water and pinned them in a bright, white glare. Nick watched the guns coming to bear.
"Lamont."
"I'm on it."
Lamont lifted the launcher and fired. The round struck the bridge and detonated in a bright, orange burst of flame. The Chinese craft slewed to port. Nick pushed the throttles ahead and spun the wheel to turn back toward the fog bank. Maneuverability was the only advantage he had. They churned to the right as cannon fire found the spot they'd just been. The patrol boat was burning where the grenade had hit. Lamont loaded another round and fired again, striking forward of the gun crews. Two bodies hurled into the air. The 25mm cannon on the foredeck hammered away at them, sending gouts of water into the air.
The Chinese machine guns opened up. Nick and Lamont hit the deck. Bullets stitched across the boat, smashed the control console and marched across the chest of Kim Jung-Hun. His briefcase slid across the deck as he fell. Nick reached up and spun the wheel. Shells from the 25mm gun struck aft and pieces of the trawler flew into the air. The engine screamed and shook itself apart and died with a final sound of tortured metal. The boat began to settle fast by the stern.
Nick heard the sound of rotors through the heavy explosions of the Chinese guns. An SH-60B Seahawk appeared, coming in low and hot a hundred feet off the water. The Chinese gunners swung around and began to fire, rows of bright tracers streaming toward the chopper. As Nick watched, two hellfire missiles shot from the aircraft.
The missiles lifted the Chinese ship partway out of the water and broke it in two. A thick column of water shot into the night sky. Nick grasped the railing of their sinking vessel as water rained down on him. The wave from the blast washed over the trawler. The patrol boat was gone from sight in less than a minute.
Kim lay dead on deck, his chest shredded and bloody from the bullets. His eyes were open. His face looked as though he'd seen something that had shocked him. Nick picked up the briefcase.
The stern was underwater, the boat listing to the side. Lamont stepped over the edge into the sea and began swimming away. Nick dove in after him. The boat turned bow up and slid under the roiling surface, trying to pull them in after it.
Overhead, the blades of the Seahawk beat patterns in the water. A circle of light found them. A hatch opened and a rescue basket descended.
Nick hoped they hadn't started a war.
CHAPTER 4
The Korean operation had put Major Igor Kaminsky in a good mood. Action always did. Kaminsky was a ranking field officer in Zaslon, a special ops unit so secret and ruthless that the Kremlin refused to admit it existed. He'd missed out on the Ukraine, though it was still possible his elite Spetsnaz unit would be sent there. Or they might send me to one of the Baltic territories, he thought. For Kaminsky and his masters, the Baltic states were only temporarily independent entities. They all had large ethnic Russian populations, with strong internal movements that wanted to be part of Novo Rossiya, the New Russia. His unit would be part of any future operations in the Baltics.
In the meantime, he was enjoying the comfort of a first class railroad car in a special train. Kaminsky was on his way from Moscow to the Sverdlovsk-19 Military Laboratory outside of Yekaterinburg, on the Eastern side of the Urals. Six of his men rode in the car with him. An aluminum case containing the North Korean samples sat on the green plush of the seat next to him.
The attack on the research complex had gone off without any problems. Security had been surprisingly lax. Kaminsky had expected at least twice as many guards but it seemed that the Great Leader thought the hidden facility safe by virtue of its secrecy and difficulty of access. The most complicated part of the operation had been getting himself and his men into the area and on site without being detected. All of the men he'd chosen for the mission had Asian features. Two spoke fluent Korean. Multiple language skills were part of the basic requirements for a Spetsnaz operative.
Even scientists and guards had to eat. Kaminsky had driven right up to the gates in a produce delivery van, riding in back where his Western features could not be seen. Killing the sentries at the guardhouse wasn't hard. Once inside the gates, the rest was easy.
It was too bad about the girl in the lab. She'd been pretty, until he'd cut her throat. There could be no trail back to her boyfriend and his Russian contact. Of course the boyfriend was dead as well. Perhaps they'd found each other in whatever Korean heaven they believed in, if they'd believed in anything except the illusion of the South.
The train was still on the Western side of the Urals. Ahead, the mountains that separated European Russia from the rest of the country rose bleak and cold toward a winter sky filled with fast moving gray and black clouds. Snow lay thick along the railway embankment. A fresh storm was beginning, the wet flakes spattering against Kaminsky's window.
Kaminsky didn't mind the train ride. It made a pleasant change from the helicopters and noisy troop transports he was used to. He was thankful to whatever faceless bureaucrat had decided the train was the best way to send him and his package of bugs to the laboratory. Kaminsky reached over and patted the case next to him.
The train entered a long tunnel. The lights in the car flickered, then went dark. One of his men cursed.
"Lenin strikes again," someone said.
There was brief laughter, then silence in the car except for the rhythmic clacking of the wheels over the rails. In Russia, one accepted things like electrical failures as business as usual.
The train slowed, then stopped. It was pitch black in the tunnel. Major Kaminsky reached over to touch the case. It hadn't moved. Still, the darkness was unnerving.
Kaminsky heard the door at the end of the car open. Good, he thought, now I'll find out what's holding us up. There had better be a good reason.
He had time to see a red dot appear on his chest before a bullet drilled through his tunic and ended his thoughts about the train and everything else.
CHAPTER 5
Snow covered the gardens outside Elizabeth's office windows at Project headquarters. The room had a gas fireplace that radiated pleasant heat from behind a glass front. It looked like the real thing. A large, aging, orange tom cat named Burps lay curled up on the tile hearth in front of the flames. He snored. A damp spot on the tile showed where he drooled in his sleep.