Caution was a habit. He checked for tails as they walked. Nothing stood out but something didn't feel right.
The cyber cafe was on a narrow side street. The decor was European punk. It looked like a second rate nightclub, black and chrome and plastic with neon highlights. The theme seemed to be somewhere between disco and heavy metal. Two dozen monitors and keyboards were lined up in a row on a counter. Chrome stools that might have come from a 50s diner in America were bolted to the floor in front of each monitor. They had swivel seats covered in red vinyl. Most of them were taken. A sign on the wall announced that computer time could be rented for 50 Korunas an hour. Nick did the calculation. About $2.50.
Across from the computer wall, a gleaming four piston espresso machine took up the short end of an L-shaped counter. A coffee bar displayed assorted pastries and sandwiches. A blackboard on the wall listed the specials of the day in colored chalk.
The cafe was crowded. About thirty tables took up the floor space. Someone got up from a table by the window and left. Nick and Selena walked over and sat down. In a minute a waitress came to the table.
She was young and almost pretty. She wore knock-off Levis and a black shirt. Her long black hair was pulled back in a pony tail. She had dark blue eyes. A short white apron was tied round her waist.
She said something in Czech. Selena understood but this wasn't the place to show off her knowledge of the language.
"I'm sorry. Do you speak English?" Selena took out a travel dictionary of English and Czech phrases, thumbed through it, pointed at a line that read "I would like a coffee and pastry, please." It was right below "Please, which way is the toilet?" and "Excuse me, I am a visitor in your country."
No shit, a visitor. Like anyone would think they were locals. Not on this trip.
"You are American?" the waitress said in English. Her accent wasn't bad.
"No, Canadian."
"We're from Vancouver, " Nick said, smiling.
"I have cousin in America, in Seattle. He has been to Vancouver."
"Can I take your picture?" Nick asked. The perfect tourist.
"Sure." The girl struck a pose, hand on hip and smiled. One of her teeth was missing, which somewhat spoiled the effect. Nick pointed the camera. Beyond the waitress, most of the cafe was visible. He took her picture, another, moved the camera slightly, took two more. He showed her the picture.
"Very nice, see?"
The man behind the counter yelled something at her.
"Okay, I bring you coffee." She moved away.
"I got most of the cafe." He raised the camera and took two shots of the computer wall, one of the men behind the counter. Someone scowled at him.
"Sorry." He waved and set the camera down.
"Someone's watching," she said.
The waitress reappeared, set down two small steaming cups of thick, black coffee and two sticky buns and went away.
"You mean the guy in the blue cap?"
"That's him. Second table to your right. Blue cap, mustache." She smiled.
Nick picked up his cup, blew on it. A man sitting in front of the monitors turned away. "I got him on camera. You're getting better. There's one more. By the computers. Suspenders, looks like a working guy. Stocky, black pants."
"'How did they know to follow us?"
"They weren't following us. They were already here."
"Waiting for us to show up."
"Looks like it. Eat some of your pasty. Laugh a little. We're going to have to do something about them." He grinned.
She laughed. A happy tourist. "You're such fun on a trip. What next?"
"We finish our coffee, pay our check and go sightseeing. They'll follow. If there are two, there may be more. They don't know we've made them. We'll let them make the play."
When Nick rose from his chair a jolt of pain took his breath away. He winced.
"You okay?" she asked.
"Fine. Let's sightsee."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Zoran Jovanovich had been a company commander with the Scorpions at Srebrenica during the Bosnian War. The Scorpions were the infamous point of General Ratko Mladic's Serbian spear. Mladic had greatly admired Hitler's Nazi SS. Highly trained, ruthless, disciplined, the Scorpions were a cadre of ethnic fanatics who followed orders without question.
Srebrenica was a name written in blood. At Srebrenica, Mladic's troops had murdered 8,000 Muslim men and male children and buried them in mass graves. Then they'd raped the women. Zoran and his unit had been enthusiastic participants in the events.
Zoran was an assassin, what the West so quaintly called a "hit man". Over time he'd built a solid base of clients. In the criminal underworld he was called "The Scorpion", an acknowledgement of both his expertise and his wartime role.
Prague wasn't the first time he'd worked for his present client. The first time had been in Belgrade, a few years back. The target had been an assistant curator at the Tesla Museum, a man with stolen papers his employer wanted. There had been other assignments since then from the same unknown source.
Zoran watched the two Americans pretend to be tourists. His client had provided pictures and 100,000 American dollars as initial payment, with another 100,000 due upon completion. The operational details were left up to him. Zoran had been told the targets would come here, to the cafe. And there they were. It was good to deal with professionals. Good to have accurate intelligence.
It wasn't any of his business why his employer wanted them killed. The woman was good looking, behind those stupid glasses. Maybe he and his partner would enjoy her before they killed them. He'd make the man watch. It would be like Srebrenica again, only just two instead of thousands.
Zoran missed the old days.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Far to the east of Prague, Irtysh Air Force Base was a crumbling memorial to the passage of the Soviet empire, acres of concrete and decaying buildings that sprawled like a cancerous sore across the Western Siberian plain. Few remembered it or cared. They would have cared, if they had known what was happening there.
A man in a white laboratory coat stood in front of a gigantic hanger and watched a black Kamov helicopter hover like an uncertain bird before settling onto the cracked tarmac. The rotors slowed and stopped. An officer in full uniform climbed out of the helicopter.
General Sergei Kaminsky was one of the most powerful men in the Russian military. The stiff rank boards on his massive shoulders bore four gold stars. He was a bull of a man, with thick black eyebrows that matched the color of his eyes. He had a fleshy face. His mouth was set in a perpetual downward curve, as if he had never learned to smile.
The man in the white coat who came forward to greet him was the pride of Russian physics. Yuri Malenkov was thin and tall. He walked with his head tilted slightly to the side, as if listening to something only he could hear. He had a large, bulging forehead and an IQ topping out somewhere near 200. That made him a genius. It also made it difficult for most people to understand what he was talking about.
The physicist and the general shook hands. Kaminsky looked at the sky and took a deep breath of the clean air.
"A beautiful day. One can breathe here, not like Moscow." He looked closely at the scientist. "Shall we proceed, Yuri?"
"Yes, General. Please come with me."
The doors of the hanger stood open at one end. The Tesla device was mounted on a platform halfway across the hanger floor. Heavy electrical cables ran across the floor from four enormous diesel generators. The cables ended in junctions at the base of four tall rods of copper. A metallic core wrapped in tightly coiled wire protruded like a cannon barrel between them, pointing out through the open hangar doors. The air inside the hanger smelled of diesel and ozone.