“Will I live?” Thomas asked.
The doctor didn’t answer. Suddenly, the bald man started to rise. But instead of getting up, he straddled the American’s legs. He sat on the wound, sending fire up through his patient’s waist. Thomas wanted to scream, but he could not. A moment later, the doctor slipped a hand behind the America’s head, holding it in place, and pushed the knife blade through his throat. The metal entered the skin just behind Thomas’s chin and pinned his mouth shut. The blade continued upward until Thomas could feel the point of the blade under his tongue.
Thomas choked as he coughed blood into his closed mouth. He raised his hands and tried to push the bald man back. But he was too weak. Calmly and quickly, the bald man angled the knife back. Then he drew the knife down until it reached Thomas’s larynx. He cut swiftly to the left and right, following the line of the jaw all the way to the ears. Then he removed the blade, rose, and allowed Thomas to flop to the floor. The doctor pocketed the knife and walked away without a glance back.
The American lay there, his arms weak and his fingers moving aimlessly. He could feel the warm blood flowing from both sides of his throat as the flesh around it grew cold. He tried to call out, but his voice was a burbling whisper. Then he realized that his chest was moving but no air was going to it. There was blood in his throat.
Thomas’s thoughts were confused. His vision swirled black. He thought about flying up to Baku, about meeting with Moore. He wondered how Moore was. And then he thought about his children. For a moment, he was back playing ball with them on the front lawn.
Then they were gone.
TWENTY-TWO
General Sergei Orlov was standing in the snow in the small town of Nar’yan Mar on the Arctic Ocean when a peeping bird caused him to start. He turned to look for it and found himself staring at his alarm clock.
He was back in his one-bedroom apartment in Saint Petersburg.
“Damn you,” Orlov said as the phone rang again. The former cosmonaut did not often dream of the town where he grew up. He hated being taken away from it and from his loving parents.
“Sergei?” his wife Masha said groggily beside him.
“I have it,” Orlov told her. He picked up the receiver of the cordless phone. He held it to his chest to stifle the ringing. “Go back to sleep.”
“All right,” she said.
Orlov listened enviously to the cozy rustle of the sheets as his wife curled up on her side. He got out of bed, pulled a bathrobe from the edge of the door, and pulled it on as he stepped into the living room. Even if this were a wrong number, Orlov would have trouble getting back to sleep.
He finally answered the telephone. “Hello,” Orlov said with a trace of annoyance.
“General Orlov?” said the voice on the other end. It was a man.
“Yes?” Orlov said as he rubbed his eyes vigorously with his free hand. “Who is this?”
“General, it’s Paul Hood,” said the caller.
Orlov was suddenly very much awake. “Paul!” he practically shouted. “Paul Hood, my friend. How are you? I heard that you resigned. And I heard about what happened in New York. Are you all right?”
Orlov walked over to an armchair while the woman translated. The general had a decent command of English, the result of the years he spent as a goodwill ambassador for the Russian space program after his flying days were finished. But he let the woman translate to be sure he didn’t miss anything.
Orlov sat down. Standing just under five-foot-seven, he had the narrow shoulders and compact build that had made him an ideal cosmonaut. Yet he had presence. His striking brown eyes, high cheekbones, and dark complexion were, like his adventurous spirit, a part of his Manchu heritage. He walked with a significant limp due to a left leg and hip badly broken when his parachute failed to deploy in what turned out to be his last space mission.
“I’m fine,” Hood said in reply. “I withdrew my resignation.”
While Turner translated, Orlov turned on the lamp beside the chair and sat down. He picked up a pen and pad he kept on the small end table.
“Good, good!” Orlov said.
“Listen, General,” Hood went on, “I’m very sorry to be calling you so early and at home.”
“It’s no bother, Paul,” Orlov replied. “What can I do for you?”
“The terrorist who calls himself the Harpooner,” Hood said. “You and I once spoke about him.”
“I remember,” said Orlov. “We’ve been looking for him in connection with the terror bombings in Moscow several years ago.”
“General, we believe he is in Azerbaijan.”
Orlov’s full lips tightened. “That would not surprise me,” he said. “We thought we had him located in Moscow two days ago. A guard near Lenin’s Tomb was very confident in his identification. He summoned police assistance, but by the time it had arrived, the suspect had disappeared.”
“Do you mean the police lost him, or the suspect knew he was being watched and managed to get away?” Hood asked.
“The police are generally good at surveillance,” Orlov replied. “The subject went around a corner and was gone. He could have changed clothes somehow — I don’t know. The Kievskaya metro stop is near where he was last seen. It is possible he went down there.”
“It’s more than possible,” Hood said. “That was where one of our embassy people spotted him.”
“Explain, please,” Orlov said.
“We had heard that he was in Moscow,” Hood said. “The embassy person followed the man he thought was the Harpooner onto the metro. They went to a transfer station, and the Harpooner got off. He boarded another train, left it at the Paveletskaya stop, then he literally vanished.”
Orlov was now very interested. “You’re sure it was Paveletskaya?” he asked.
“Yes,” Hood asked. “Is that significant?”
“Perhaps,” Orlov said.
“General Orlov,” Hood said, “however the Harpooner left Moscow, it’s possible that he may be headed back there or toward Saint Petersburg. Do you think you could help us try and find him?”
“I would love to capture that monster,” Orlov replied. “I will contact Moscow and see what they have. In the meantime, please send whatever information you have to my office. I will be there within the hour.”
“Thank you, General,” Hood said. “And again, I’m sorry to have wakened you. I didn’t want to lose any time.”
“You did the right thing,” Orlov assured him. “It was good speaking with you. I will talk to you later in the day.”
Orlov rose and went back to the bedroom. He hung up the phone, kissed his precious, sleeping Masha on the forehead, then quietly went to the closet and removed his uniform. He carried it into the living room. Then he went back for the rest of his clothes. He dressed quickly and quietly, then left his wife a note. After nearly thirty years, Masha was not unaccustomed to his comings and goings in the middle of the night. When he had been a fighter pilot, Orlov was often called for missions at odd hours. During his spacefaring years, it was common for him to suit up while it was still dark. Before his first orbital flight he had left her a note that read, “My dearest — I am leaving the earth for several days. Can you pick me up at the spaceport on Sunday morning? Your loving husband, Sergei. PS: I will try to catch you a shooting star.”
Of course, Masha was there.
Orlov left the apartment and took the stairs to the basement garage. The government had finally given him a car after three years, since the buses were unreliable. And with everything that was going on in and around Russia, from restless republics to rampant gangsterism in major cities, it was often imperative for Orlov to be able to get to his Op-Center’s headquarters.