“But no maintenance was scheduled”
“No” Liebowitz glanced back at Asher’s body. “Whatever he was doing, he was on his own. Sabotage”
“If that was the case he was damned sloppy about it” Potok said thoughtfully. “And he got what was coming to him” Liebowitz said — dad harshly. His mother, father, and two sisters had been killed on the West Bank four years ago. “I want you to get back up top and find out about this one. What he was doing here, and why he was allowed to wander around on his own in the middle of the night “But don’t make waves”
Liebowitz said. It was one of Potok’s favorite sayings. “Make waves”
Potok said. They separated and switched on their suit intercoms.
Liebowitz nodded but said nothing. He started back toward the vault door. Potok turned and shined his light on the racks, and again the beam flashed across the louvered air duct. His mouth went suddenly dry, and his heart skipped a beat. “Liebowitz” he shouted, but before the other man could reply, Potok raced between the racks to the wall just below the vent. He shined his flashlight on it. Blood. God in heaven, it was blood. Shining his light down the wall he could see scuff marks where someone had evidently jumped for the opening and levered himself up by the toes of his boots. He could even see where the unknown intruder had laid the louvered panel in the dust against the wall. Liebowitz was behind him. “What is it” This time Potok didn’t bother turning off his suit intercom. There was no time now for fine details. “Asher had help”
“‘“at” Potok shined the light on the scuff marks and on the blood beneath the louvered panel. “Someone has been here. And they’ve gotten out through the incoming air system”
“God …”
“Seal the facility!
Do it now”
“Where the hell have you been” Sergeant Joshua Gurion shouted as Tsarev came out of the darkness around one of the air vents. The alarms had been turned off. The sergeant seemed more irritated than angry or suspicious.
“Checking the air vents, Sergeant” Tsarev said. “The alarm.
“Well, you weren’t supposed to leave your post”
“Yes, sir”
Sergeant Gurion looked beyond Tsarev to the shadows. “See anything”
“No, sir. Everything looks fine” This time the sergeant looked critically at him. “You sure as hell don’t, Rothstein. What’s the matter with you”
“I think I’m a little sick” Tsarev said, and it wasn’t a lie. He felt terrible. He could feel the sweat on his brow and his uniform was stained dark with it.
“There’s nothing to be worried about” Sergeant Gurion said not unkindly. For some reason he had taken a liking to Tsarev from the beginning. “I know what you’re thinking”
“It’s that, but I still don’t feel good, Sergeant” Tsarev said. The man was a fool, but at this moment he was a ticket out of here.
“All right, get yourself over to sick bay. I’ll arrange for your replacement”
“Yes, sir”
Sergeant Gurion patted him on the arm. “You’ll be okay. “What was it, Sergeant? The alarm”
“Nothing” the sergeant said. “And get your hand looked at, you’ve cut it on something” Tsarev looked at his hand and the dried blood. “Yes, sir, he mumbled.
Outside, Tsarev got in his jeep and crossed the huge facility that was bathed in strong lights night and day. Instead of heading over to the barracks area, however, he drove directly to one of the back gates where he turned in his security badge and left the compound.
The night was extremely dark. Tsarev kept looking in his rearview mirror at the receding lights of the plant. His foot on the gas pedal was shaking, at times so uncontrollably that he had difficulty maintaining a constant speed. He was very sick to his stomach, and two miles from the facility he threw up down the front of his fatigue blouse.
He stopped the jeep and got out where he was sick again at the side of the road. When he was finished he looked back toward the facility. It sounded to him as if he was hearing another siren. But then the sound faded. Climbing weakly back behind the wheel he forced himself to drive toward the town of En Gedi eight miles away. When he didn’t show up at sick bay they would come looking for him. “He was behind the air vents” the sergeant would say. Twice more Tsarev was sick, but he did not bother to stop until he passed an Esso gas station a mile outside of the town. The station was closed at this hour of the morning, but there would almost certainly be a telephone inside. He brought the jeep to a stop, made a U-turn on the narrow highway, and drove back to the station. Taking his Uzi submachine gun he stumbled across the driveway past the pumps and without hesitation shot out the lock in the front door with a quick burst. Inside, he dragged himself across the office where he found the telephone. He picked it up, got a dial tone, and called his contact number in Jerusalem. It was answered on the first ring. “It is there. Hundreds of them. It is there” he said. “Have you photographs” a man’s voice asked calmly. “No time”
“A serial number”
“No! Haven’t you heard me” Tsarev cried. “It’s there. Hundreds of them.
More than we ever suspected”
“Yes, and now listen to me An army truck screeched to a halt outside, and immediately a dozen soldiers sprang out of the back. Tsarev crashed down the telephone and rushed to the door. He never felt the shots that killed him.
BOOK ONE
Paris was a magical city. As lieutenant colonel Brad Allworth got out of his taxi in front of the Gare de I’Est and paid his fare, one part of him was sad to be leaving, while another part was looking forward to what was coming. Hefting his B4 bag, he crossed the broad sidewalk and entered the train station’s busy main concourse. He was a tall man, handsome in a rugged out-of-doors way, his stride straight and purposeful. He was a career Air Force officer and at thirty-five he figured he had a shot at full bird colonel within the year, and afterward … War College and his first star by forty. The concierge at his hotel had arranged for his tickets to Kaiserslautern in Germany’s Rheinland-Pfalz, so he went directly down to trackside. It was a few minutes past eleven thirty. His train was due to leave at midnight, getting into the German city by morning. He stopped at the security gate and placed his bag on the moving belt that took it through the scanning device. Something new in the last six months. He placed his wallet and a few francs in loose change on a plastic dish, handed it to one of the gendarmes, and stepped through the arch. “Your tickets, monsieur” the guard asked. Colonel Allwordi handed over his ticket as well as his passport. The gendarme quickly flipped through them, looked from the photograph to his face. Technically he could travel all over Europe using only his military ID. But because of the terrorist attacks in recent years, American officers traveling via civilian transportation were required to travel in civilian clothes and use their passports for identification. It had been dubbed Project Low Profile. Allworth didn’t mind. The gendarme handed back his passport and ticket, waved an arm vaguely in the direction of the gates, and as Allworth was collecting his money and B4 bag, the cop was checking the papers of the next man in line. Allworth crossed to his gate, and a porter directed him to his first-class car. He boarded, found his compartment, switched on the light, tossed his bag on the couch, and closed the window shades on the corridor and outer windows. Joanne had flown out from Omaha with him, while their two children stayed with her sister in Minneapolis. They’d had a lovely thirty days in Paris and the surrounding countryside; canal barge trips, ballooning through the Bordeaux wine country, a weekend on the Riviera, and they had relaxed with each other for the first time in what seemed like years. Too many years. But everything was all right between them now. He had seen her off from Orly this afternoon. She would be closing down their house, collecting the kids, and would join him at Ramstein Air Force Base within the month. It was, he decided, going to be a busy though lonely month. Someone knocked at his compartment door.