"It's hard to believe," Packer muttered. "Sara and I went to the Royal Opera House on our honeymoon. We sat in the fourth balcony, stage left, holding hands. I remember thinking that for an Oklahoma farm boy I had come a helluva long way — watching an opera at the Royal Opera House in London. Her favorite uncle, a fellow who actually lived in Covent Garden, played first violin in the orchestra. Sara was so damn proud of him — she watched him as much as she did the performance."
For the moment, Miller refused to interrupt the reverie. He waited until the longtime chief of the Washington bureau of the Internal Security Agency fell silent.
"Chief," Miller finally said, "Associated Press has released the names of the confirmed dead thus far. The only Americans reported killed were the ones actually with the opera company, There were three of them, all in the chorus."
Packer sighed. Finally he said, "Okay, Bob, I appreciate your sticking by the phones all night. Let me grab a quick shower, then I'll be in"
"One more thing, Pack. An interesting item came over the wire a couple of hours ago from Moscow. Apparently the Russians have lost, I'm using their words now, 'a classified aircraft.' According to the dispatch at 0337, 'The pilots and the plane, believed to be an Su-39, went down somewhere over the Russian-Nei Mengu border sometime Sunday.'"
"Any other details?"
"Naw, just the usual eyewash about the search continues, that sort of thing."
"Su-39," Packer repeated. "Isn't that the one that's supposed to be better than our F-117 Stealth?"
"That's the one."
"And weren't there two of them originally?" Packer probed. He had a good memorybut he didn't trust information like this to memory. As usual, he looked to Miller for confirmation.
"The first one went down in the Urals about four months ago. We offered to help them look for it, but they turned us down. That's the one their air force chief, Isotov, got all upset about."
"If Isotov reported this, I smell trouble," Packer said. Then he added, "Call over to the DOD and the State Department. See who's watching the phones and see if they can flesh out the report on that plane. As I recall, Colonel General Isotov has trouble with the truth. Remember four years ago when we were exchanging weapons counts after the arms treaty? He informed Aprihinen their inventory of airworthy MiG-29 Fulcrums was something under five hundred. Then we discovered he was hiding a couple hundred more in his inventory that he claimed had been shipped to Syria and Iraq."
"Will do," Miller said. "See you in an hour or so."
Sergei Kovnir awoke to the sound of rain. But that was not important. He had a job to do. The widow Sochi needed him. Her regular dish-washer had quit, and if Sergei proved both prompt and reliable, she had hinted that she would give him the jobfor as long as she could depend on him.
He dressed, put on his tattered old coat, and threaded his way down the broken staircase to street level before stepping out into the wet Washington morning.
He paid little attention to three young Chinese men huddled in the doorway across the street.
"That's him," Deng Zhen said. "What did I tell you? To me he looks to be about the right size, and I think he looks old enough."
Zhao Shi wasn't so sure. "How the hell do you know?" he asked. "Shit, all these old winos look the same to me."
Tang Ro Ji continued to watch the man as he shuffled down the street toward the corner. He had studied the photographs of Schubatis carefully and he had read the files, not once, but many times. Deng Zhen was right, there was some resemblance… but there would have to be more than just a passing resemblance in order to pull off the stunt as Mao Quan had planned it. The man they selected had to look a great deal like Schubatis; height and weight were important, and so was the bushy mustache. But there were other things to consider as well.
There was the matter of the actual alteration of facial features and keeping the individual alive until Schubatis arrived. If this was the man, they would have to act now. Tang Ro Ji knew it was far too risky to wait.
He watched as the old man disappeared around the corner. Then he turned to Deng Zhen. "What do you know about him?"
"It all fits. I saw him hanging out in that Lithuanian restaurant down by the railroad tracks. He goes there almost every day. Most of the time he just sits around and talks to people, but the last two times I watched him, he went back in the kitchen and worked."
"Yeah but what do you know about him?"
"His name is Sergei Kovnir. I talked to the old woman who runs the restaurant. She's a talkative old bitch; smells like garlic. Once she started talking, I couldn't get her to shut up. She told me he lives alone, that he doesn't have any family, and that about six days out of seven she gives him a bottle of cheap vodka and tells him to go get drunk and stay out of her hair. That was good enough for me, so I followed him. That's when I found out that a lot of nights he sleeps in the same building where we've been putting our little toys together."
Tang Ro Ji listened carefully. "Think we can get him in the study program at Capital?"
"All we have to do is convince him that the Institute for Human Studies at the university is looking for volunteers for the nutrition program. That should be a piece of cake with this old fart."
Zhao Shi, who actually was a student at Capital, was frowning. "If Colonel Quan's information is correct, Dr. Schubatis will be coming to America for the conference in early October. That gives us less than a month."
"We do not have to fool the Americans for long," Tang reminded them, "just long enough to get Schubatis out of the country."
There was a lull in the rain, and Tang Ro Ji, who much preferred the mild Octobers of his native Hainan Island to the chill, damp days in Washington, buttoned his jacket up close around this throat. Then he smiled. If all went according to plan, he would soon be going home.
United States Naval Captain Tobias Carrington Bogner had not shaved in over a week. He prided himself on the fact. Nor had he worn shoes or anything even slightly resembling a uniform. He spent his mornings walking the lovely seven-mile stretch of Negril beach, his afternoons playing poker with three long-retired navy buddies who had settled on the island paradise, and his nights sipping scotch and water, listening to Cocoa Jones playing the piano in Mary Mary's Tree House. It was a good life, and Toby Bogner felt he had earned it.
He had planned to look up an old acquaintance, Francine Cyre, a dark-haired French girl who ran a small boutique on the strip where the tourists shopped. But as it turned out, Francine was gone, departed, and no one was quite sure where. She had left a forwarding address, but folks indicated that when they had tried to contact her, phone calls were not returned and letters were eventually returned with the letter marked ''Unable to Deliver."
Despite that, the first eight days of leave had proved rewarding, and the remaining two weeks promised to be even more so. First there was Jocelyn, who worked at the Caribbean Bureau, and then there was Margot, who worked for the French sugar-processing company six miles down the Montego Bay highway in Machapo. Each had possibilities, and Jocelyn was planning to meet him this very eveningat Cocoa's, of course.
Bogner was still getting dresseda pair of wash pants, sandals, and a short-sleeved old blue denim shirtwhen Queet Bonea showed up at his room at the Harmony House and knocked on the door. Queet was smiling, and he had a bottle of Cardhu malt scotch under his arm.
"Look what I found, mon," he said. "Are you not the one who told me this was the nectar of the gods?"