Milo Schubatis, DOB 04/06/30, born in Novorossisk, graduated from the Moscow Technical Institute. Wife, Reba. No children. Joined Sukhoi staff in 1960, involved in development of the Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot close-support aircraft. Design head on Sukhoi Su-7 Flanker, an air superiority fighter. Generally considered to be the brains behind the concept and prototype design of the Su-39. Official DOD designation: Covert.
Myers examined the two photographs in the packet. One was nothing more than a straight-on mug shot that Packer had quipped was probably lifted from Schubatis's Party card. The second was slightly more flattering. It had been taken several years earlier at one of the endless round of official Party functions. Schubatis's chest was covered with medals and he was standing next to the present Russian president, Moshe Aprihinen.
Myers handed the packet back to Bogner without comment.
Capelli walked out of the lounge, joined them, and stood studying the rain for several minutes. Then he wondered aloud if anyone had thought to bring umbrellas. No one had, and Breeden went inside to inquire if the VIP officer-in-charge could provide them.
Myers, visibly concerned, glanced at his watch every few minutes. "His plane's twenty minutes late," he said.
Capelli nodded. "Shitty weather; you gotta expect it."
There was a shift in the wind and the rain suddenly invaded the area where the four men had been standing. Bogner moved back under the overhang and wondered if Schubatis had been informed of the explosion on the Saratoga oil rig. Then his thoughts catapulted back to Joy again and he wondered if she was happy. He had to admit that she looked good, sitting there in front of the cameras; cool, collected, togetherthere wasn't any doubt about it, she was in her element. She loved a big story. His mind played with the thought for a few minutes and then he shrugged. If by some miracle they had still been together, he would have been in the waynot only today, but every day. ''You're so damned old-fashioned it's ridiculous," she had once said. He knew thatand he knew that wasn't the reason they weren't still together.
From Joy his thoughts went back to Jamaica, and he chastised himself for living in the past. It served no purpose.
Bogner shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to fight off the damp chill. He hadn't noticed that the young airman working behind the transient arrival desk had opened the door.
"Captain Bogner," the young man said, "that Tupolev Tu-204 you were asking about…"
Bogner nodded.
"It's on final, sir. The ADO says he'll have the pilot bring her right up to the front door of the terminal here. Ground control says it'll take another ten minutes, though, after he puts her down."
Out of habit, Bogner looked around. The parking lot was empty and there were no other nonuniformed personnel in the waiting area. Miracle of miracles, so far the press hadn't discovered that Spitz had changed Schubatis's arrival location from Washington National to Bolling.
He sighed, decided to try one of the vending machines for a cup of coffee, and headed back into the VIP lounge to check the death toll at Tuxpano. Somewhere along the way he had made up his mind not to watch the CBS affiliate. Even then, the thought crossed his mind again, as it frequently did: Joy was a helluva name for an ex-wife.
When Milo Schubatis stepped from the plane, he looked decidedly different from the photographs in the ISA profile packet. He was even shorter than Bogner had anticipatedperhaps five feet, five inches tallhad a crop of long, wiry, gray-brown hair parted on the left, and an improbable white splayed mustache that failed to soften or conceal his uncompromising mouth. He wore round, wire-rimmed glasses and had enormous pouches under his dull-brown eyes.
After watching him deplane, Bogner decided that if he had been listening to Joy describe him to her viewers, she would have used the word "humorless."
Schubatis's wife, Reba, was taller than her husband, and more personable. She shook Bogner's hand; it was an unusual gesture for Russian women. The third member of Schubatis's party was a woman named Itia Akimerov. She served in the dual capacity of Mrs. Schubatis's secretary and Milo Schubatis's interpreter. She was talkative and charming, and Bogner decided he liked her. There was one other man in the party, but Bogner curtailed the introductions to get the entourage into cars and out of the rain.
Everything had been carefully planned. Capelli had been assigned to drive the first car, a black Lincoln. Bogner would ride shotgun with Schubatis and the Akimerov woman in the rear seat. Reba Schubatis, along with the fourth member of the entourage, a young man with the old Russian look of uncertainty about all things Americanand, Bogner figured, probably one of Aprihinen's stoolieswere to ride in the second car. Frank Myers was assigned driving duties, with Breeden, who spoke Russian, attending to the protocol.
The caravan was waved through the Bolling gate, proceeded on to 295, the Anacostia Freeway, and headed north toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
As they pulled into traffic, Bogner made several attempts at casual conversation with the Russian, but by the time it had been filtered through the man's interpreter, all of the spontaneity had gone out of it. The Sukhoi official admitted that, yesit had been a long trip, yeshe was tired, yeshe was looking forward to the symposium, and finally, nono special accommodations were necessary because he and Mrs. Schubatis would be staying at the Russian Embassy. Even then, Bogner was unable to detect whether Milo Schubatis was able to understand English. The responses had been carefully spaced and the words even more carefully weighed. There was no way to be certain.
Finally, the Akimerov woman, freed from the need to translate Schubatis's responses, leaned forward and asked Bogner a question of her own.
"I was wondering, Captain Bogner," she said. Her voice was hopeful. "Will we be meeting any American movie stars?"
Bogner laughed. "Is that what Dr. Schubatis wants, to meet some American movie stars?"
The young woman was embarrassed, and shook her head. "Oh, no," she stammered, "I was asking for myself."
Capelli and Bogner were still chuckling when Capelli turned east on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Frank Myers, at the wheel of the second car, squinted through the rain-streaked windshield and wished he had a cigarette. "What's the weather gonna do?" he grumbled. "With all this rain, I can barely see the blasted road."
"Don't sweat it," Breeden advised him. "It's Sunday. When you've been around here as long as I have, you learn that nothing ever happens on Sunday in Washington."
Deng Zhen had been selected by Tang Ro Ji because of his expertise in electronics. Now he crawled along the cargo-area interior of the 1987 Dodge panel truck, carefully tucking the primer cord into a small gap between the steel sidewall and the corrugated metal flooring. The truck was white with the words Stacy Clean Pro painted in bold, black letters on the side.
Zhen's primer cord was attached to a black box rigged with a tension-release detonator that would explode when they evacuated the target area. It had been rigged in that fashion so that the truck would explode into smaller pieces on impact… and it was done that way because Tang Ro Ji liked to say that a puzzle was more difficult to solve when the pieces were very many and very small.
Tang applauded him when he was finished. "Well done, Comrade. There will be very little left of the van, our comrade Mr. Kovnir, or any of the Schubatis entourage when we are done."
There was a loud peal of thunder, and Tang paused to listen to the rain. The rain would add to the confusion. For Tang that was an unexpected benefit.
At the rear of the van, Zhen rotated the sidebar gun mount into position and began checking the post-mounted Checheno-Ingush 750 RFR with twin .50-caliber, thirty-round clips. Beside him was the box of bangalore torpedoes and the homemade grenades. The torpedoes consisted of nothing more than a stick of dynamite in a thin plastic sleeve, headed with a blasting cap and a six-second standard fuse.