“Ah, Sharon, that delightful sense of humor I love so well. You haven’t lost it in all our years together.”
“Get off it, Boris,” Greenfield snapped. “I’ve been here too long already. The information you’ve given me is very valuable, but we’ve been monitoring the situation in the Baltics carefully. Your information is nothing but a big ‘so what?’ What I want is the American at Fisikous. Information on him would be extremely valuable, and direct assistance might buy you an entry visa and green card, courtesy of the CIA. You can go on the lecture circuit and make more than the President of the United States Let me get a person close enough to the American, check him out, and help me set up an extraction, and you can name your price.”
“How intriguing,” Dvornikov said, “but the lecture circuit sounds dull. Besides, why would I leave my beautiful Russia? The place is falling apart at the seams, and I may be able to put together enough pieces for myself.”
She turned to the door. “Fine. Just get me the information I want, Boris, and you’ll get whatever you want. You know how to contact me. But make it quick.”
After she’d departed, Boris Dvornikov thought about what she had said. Greenfield was so smug in her assumptions, so confident in her position. Well, he would help her with this matter concerning the American at Fisikous. The only question Boris had was, how much and in what manner would he extract payment from the Americans — and from her. He felt a stirring in his loins. Yes, what price will you be, Sharon Greenfield? He had wanted that bitch for a very long time. He had tried, but each time she had rejected him. Not merely declined, but made him feel worthless and undesirable.
That was okay. Her time would come. Boris massaged his crotch, fantasizing about all the things he would to do her. The pain she would suffer. Yes, that would be quite wonderful … seeing her in pain … and ecstasy.
To no surprise, Boris realized he had grown quite hard just thinking about her.
TWO
Lieutenant General Bradley Elliott, commander of the U.S. Air Force’s top-secret flight-test facility known as HAWC (nicknamed Dreamland because of the highly classified high-tech equipment they developed and tested there), looked at the colonel standing before him, trying to make an assessment. Elliott poured some coffee from a pot, his memory kicking into overdrive.
Paul White, the Air Force colonel in Elliott’s office, was someone Elliott knew, or knew of rather. He was regarded as one of the most intelligent and creative engineers in the Air Force. Elliott himself had once recruited him for an assignment at HAWC, and if memory served him correctly, White had also been involved in training Patrick McLanahan and Dave Luger at Ford Air Force Base. But that was a while ago, and since then some other organization had snapped White up — which organization, Elliott did not know. His staff had tried to find out, but White’s whereabouts were harder to track, which meant classified work, as was Elliott’s. Still, Elliott’s chief of security, Captain Hal Briggs, had tried to pull whatever he could on White — only to run into a brick wall at the White House.
The big blank in White’s current life made Elliott uneasy, especially since the White House was involved, but White was on Elliott’s turf now — in a meeting White had requested.
“Sir,” White said, scanning the room with his eyes, “is there somewhere we can speak in private?”
“This is private, Colonel. If there is something I need to hear, spill it.” White glanced directly at a signed and remarqued Dru Blair lithograph of an F-117A stealth fighter hanging over Elliott’s desk — the only one of eight such framed posters in the office that had a hidden microphone and security camera behind it. It was pure luck that he’d guessed it, but Elliott followed the gaze of his eyes and tried to ignore it.
A lot of people were intimidated by HAWC’s intense security measures. The facility, located in the south-central part of Nevada, a hundred miles north of Las Vegas, was one of the most restricted in the world. Its overflight airspace was off-limits for all aircraft, from the surface to infinity. There were warnings of “Deadly Force Authorized” everywhere, which meant that security guards could shoot first, ask questions later. Armed patrols roamed the streets and hallways. Every building had its own special security setup, customized for the individuals and projects within. A request for a visit to HAWC set off a chain of security scrutiny of the kind Colonel White had been subjected to.
If he hadn’t passed, he sure as hell wouldn’t have been in Elliott’s office, which was all the more aggravating for Elliott.
“Can’t you at least turn off… the recording and video equipment?” White asked.
“I cannot and will not,” snapped Elliott. “Well, Colonel, what is it? I’m extremely busy.”
“Sir, the information I want to pass on to you is not only very unofficial, it’s strictly between you and me. What you do with it is up to you, but I’ve risked my very career coming here, not to mention the possibility of arrest.”
Elliott stared coldly at White. “Colonel, you may be enjoying this, but I’m about to put an end to it right now.”
“Then kick me out. I’ve only come halfway around the world to try and see you. I’ve tried other channels, other ways to find a solution to this.”
Elliott saw something in White’s eyes — desperation, and determination. Whatever had brought him here had been bothering him for some time. He wanted to resolve it and didn’t seem to care about the consequences one way or another. “There’s always a way to get something done without ruining your life to do it. I think I know you, Colonel. We’re a lot alike. You’re an innovator, a dreamer. If things aren’t working right, you fix them. Certainly you can fix—”
“No, General Elliott, I can’t. You can. I went through the channels I was supposed to use. By the book. Nothing’s happened. Believe me, I would’ve known.”
Elliott had been around long enough — including two tours of Vietnam, where he was the youngest squadron commander in the Air Force, several command positions in Strategic Air Command tactical units, commander of the Eighth Air Force, and his current position as director of HAWC— to know a true soldier. An honorable soldier. White had pretty much convinced him he was on the level. He could see it in White’s eyes, his body language. “Known what?” Elliott demanded.
“That something had been done about… David Luger.”
Elliott froze, trying to recover from his surprise and the reaction he’d just given White. He averted his eyes to his desktop, then back to White: “Luger, you say?… David Luger? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Your face says something else, General.”
“You’ve got one more chance to get off this track before the locomotive wipes you out — and I promise you, it will. The subject of Lieutenant Luger is highly classified.”
“I have a clearance …”
“Colonel, I would need clearance to begin any inquiries into David Luger, and I’d probably be denied,” Elliott said. “You don’t know what you’re fooling with here, Colonel. You could have a security clearance to wipe God’s ass for all I care, but you have no need to know—”
“I think I do,” White said. He unzipped his Air Force blue lightweight jacket, then pulled a manila envelope from the inside lining.