DISCLAIMER: If you recognize people or organizations from the television
series, they belong to Shoot the Moon Productions and Warner Brothers.
I've borrowed them with love and deep appreciation for the many years of
enjoyment I've received from them and am making absolutely no money from
this enterprise. If you recognize them from history, no infringement is
intended on them; they merely serve to provide the story with an authentic
setting. If you don't recognize them from either of those two sources,
they're products of my very odd imagination and I claim full responsibility
for their imaginary actions.
Chapter 3 * Somewhere Over Western Russia, USSR * 9:25 p.m. (GMT+3)
"I thought you might like to know, Feodor Petrovich, that our erstwhile guest is once again enjoying our hospitality." Georg Alexeivich Tolstoy had a broad smile as he listened to the telephonic reply from his mentor. "And it appears that she had not yet had a chance to meet the agent my informant told me about, so we should be able to recover the material from her flat without trouble."
"I will not hold my breath for that one, Georg Alexeivich," Kaminsky chided. "You know as well as I do that our Boston agents are, how shall I put this, more egg-headed than level-headed, and I am sure that this child took some elegant, if simple, precautions that might cause angst for our more academically minded Boston set." He sighed, a noise that traveled to his listener as static more than a human sound. "Send her from Boston to Leon Ivanich in Washington. I saw in his file that he was in Moscow the first time our guest stayed with us. Perhaps he will enjoy the chance to renew their acquaintance."
"As you wish. What should we do if this becomes public?"
"Nothing. Why in the world would we be implicated?"
The Rotunda of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Massachusetts * 1:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda and Lee had to tell the story about their "niece's" abduction to three different Boston Police officers before one of them picked up on everything the seasoned agents weren't saying and called the senior force federal liaison agent. When Captain Harrison O'Connor arrived on the scene, he talked to his officers before he approached the couple from Washington, D.C.
"Stetson. You have an uncle in the Air Force?" Captain O'Connor asked by way of introduction.
Lee smiled and extended his hand. "I do. I seem to remember sitting across from you at a desk after an adolescent prank went awry, Captain. I think it was at Wright Patterson when I was about 15."
The policeman nodded and shook Lee's hand. "That's about right. Mrs. Stetson, pleasure to meet you, even if the circumstances are lousy."
"Captain O'Connor, thank you. We appreciate your help." She shook his hand, as well.
"You're welcome. Let's find a place where we can talk, shall we?" He escorted Lee and Amanda to a small office off the rotunda, closing the door firmly behind him as the two visitors sat down.
"Ernie is a smart cop who doesn't call on his superiors unless he's got very good reason. Why does he have reason this time?"
Lee and Amanda each showed him their IFF identification and gave him a telephone number to call. Harrison O'Connor had worked with a number of government agencies in his 17 years on the Boston force, but never with one that required him to verify his identity before its representatives would exchange more than bare bones pleasantries. When he returned to Lee and Amanda five minutes later, he was chastened enough to listen with both ears and his brain in high gear as the agents told him about Sandra's abduction.
"And if you can manage it, I would greatly appreciate it if your officers would return her backpack to us," Lee said with gentle strength at the end of their tale.
O'Connor's green eyes flashed understanding as he called over his radio for Ernie to bring the bag in. He hoped that the agents would open the bag before he left them; clearly, however, that was not to be the case. "I'll see what I can do with the BU police to get some coverage on her apartment," he said, and left Lee and Amanda to themselves.
Amanda unzipped the outer pocket of the green bag; a quick glance told her that Lee didn't need to see its contents, as it obviously supplemented the cosmetic bag Sandra had taken with her. The larger main pocket held a couple of notebooks, three textbooks, and several pamphlets about Israel and Poland.
"This could take a while," Lee said when he spread the booklets and leaflets across the low table before them.
"Decoys. She's got decoys in here," Amanda nodded toward the brochures. "Did Sandra tell you anything about the script or where it might be?"
Lee shook his head, frustrated at the circumstances. "No." He stood up and paced, wanting to be out looking for the girl rather than sitting in a room flipping through the pages of travel brochures. As it was, he left that to Amanda.
"Lee, honey, look at this," his wife commanded after several minutes. When he was where he could see over he shoulder, she showed him the only two booklets that matched. "Why would she have two copies of a book about Auschwitz?"
"Maybe one is for an – wait a minute. Are they actually the same book?" Lee pulled a chair over and sat down beside his wife, taking one of the two from her. He opened the book to page one and motioned for her to do the same. Together, they flipped the pages of the book until Lee noticed that Amanda's page 12 was different from his page 12.
"Can you read any of it besides the English?" Amanda handed her book to her husband.
Lee read in silence for a few moments before he closed the book he had been holding and concentrated on Amanda's. He couldn't read the French, but his Russian and Polish were passable and his German excellent. Even missing the middle paragraph, he saw that the booklet contained everything he needed to know.
"Amanda, I'm calling Billy. He and Francine need to be briefed in to help you find Sandra."
She glared at her husband for several seconds, knowing that he had to do what he thought was right but not liking it at all. "You're going back to Poland, aren't you?"
"I have to. Look, let's go to the FBI office here – they've got all the secure equipment we'll need for communications and the tools to help me find the microdot inside the page." He ran his hand through his hair and looked at his wife with a sad smile. "You've got a bad feeling about this, don't you?"
Amanda nodded; she hadn't liked this from the very beginning.
"You think I'm wasting my time until we have something more concrete?" When Amanda nodded again, Lee gave in. "Okay, I'll stay here until we find Sandra, then I'll go raise the dead."
"'Lazar, eedee bon!'"
Lee looked at Amanda with surprise. "Very good."
She shrugged. "It's Russian, but it fits."
And Operation Lazarus was born.
Lublin, Poland * March 16, 1989 * 2:25 a.m. (GMT+1)
Gregor Borodin stared at the remains of 35 pictures of Josef Cardinal Glemp in disbelief. Jaroslav Milowanowicz had systematically deprived each paper face of eyes, nostrils, and teeth without so much as marring an eyelash, clipping the nose, or kissing a lip with a wasted bullet.
"He is good, comrade," allowed Borodin's contact in the elite accent of a Moscow-born party hack. Borodin knew him only by his code name, Pavel Igorovich Gogol, and would not have been amused at the literary penchant that G.A. Tolstoy had for creating his own covers.
"Deadly," Borodin retorted, eyeing the other man with contempt. "As I have been telling you, once we are back in Warsaw tomorrow, we cannot recall him – there's no way to justify another absence from his duties at the Chancery. Are you absolutely sure that the mission is a go?"
"I will know for certain on Monday. Will that be enough time to put him in position?"
Borodin sighed, wondering if the idiot in front of him had even read the mission brief. "He will be in position whether the mission is a go or not. It is merely a matter of what he takes with him to the service."
"Oh." After a moment, "Gogol"/Tolstoy shrugged. "I will not worry about the details, then."
That would be a first, Borodin thought. He said, "I will expect a call at the Ministry on Monday."
After his visitor left, Gregor Borodin stared at the desecrated portraits of Cardinal Glemp for a long, long time.
The Agency * March 15, 1989 * 9:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Billy, it's confirmed. Our regulars at National saw three unknowns escort a woman matching Sandra Reese's description off a flight arriving from New York about 20 minutes ago." Francine beat her ballpoint pen against the legal tablet in her hand, showing her intense agitation with the situation.
Billy Melrose rubbed his face with a meaty hand and propped his head in his other hand on the desk. "Do we know where they took her?"
Francine shook her head. "We didn't have enough manpower to keep the watch and to follow them. It's spring break for most of the Maryland school districts." Of which she knew Billy was well aware because they had been short-staffed all week, but it didn't hurt to remind him. "And we start from scratch."
"Probably. Any word from Lee about the microdot?"
"The lab techs at the FBI found it about three hours ago; Lee figures he and Amanda will be at the translation all night."
Billy nodded, then continued his interrogatory. "How did Amanda do handling the lid?"
"She must have done an excellent job – there hasn't been word one in the broadcast media and Boston Police reported no calls from print media. I can tell you that she really didn't like telling a blatant lie to Linda, the roommate, or Christine, the best friend."
"Did she say that to you that, or are you guessing?"
"I'm trying to be empathetic, sir."
"You might make a Betazoid yet." The section chief slumped a bit in his chair and blew out thoughtfully between pursed lips. "Okay, next phase. Let's get a headcount of Soviet Embassy personnel. What time is it in Berlin? I don't think I can wait until morning to call General Reese."
Francine turned on her heel and beat a quick exit, not wanting to be in the office for the ear-blistering the kidnapped girl's father was likely to give her section chief.
"And thank you for your support," Melrose muttered as he picked up the phone.
American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 16, 1989 * 3:50 a.m. (GMT+1)
"Reese!" the general barked into the telephone, grabbing it from the table beside his bed before it finished the first ring.
"General Reese, this is William Melrose from – "
"I know where you're from, Mr. Melrose. Mrs. Stetson called me hours ago with the news. Where the hell is my daughter?"
The ominous tone of the man's voice apparently didn't faze William Melrose. "We never located her in Boston, but we did observe her being escorted onto a commercial flight from Boston to New York about three hours ago. We lost them in New York but our regular spotters saw them getting off a shuttle flight at National less than half an hour ago. We have no ID on any of the men with her."
The general merely grunted, waiting for the rest of the news that just couldn't be good. It wasn't. So the general did what any powerful man would do: he made a decision and took action. "I will see you in Washington tomorrow for dinner, Mr. Melrose. By then, you had better have some very specific information about my daughter's whereabouts and who exactly has her in captivity. You can expect a liaison officer from the Joint Intelligence Command on your doorstep before noon." Alexander Reese slammed the receiver down. He would be in his office in three hours; things would move quickly then.
FBI Field Office * Boston, Massachusetts * March 15, 1989 * 11:05 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda King Stetson unfolded herself from the hard molded plastic chair in the small, windowless office with a wince of pain at the complaining muscles in her lower back. "Lee, do we have to stay at this all night, or can we come at it fresh in the morning?"
A lifetime ago, his answer would have been absolute: Stay. Now, however, he knew the advantage of rest and a fresh perspective – and of his partner's advice. Unspoken in her question was her adamant resolve to take him back to the hotel. He sighed and looked up into his wife's beautiful face. "Let's finish this paragraph and call it a night."
"Thank you," she replied, leaning over to kiss his roughly shadowed cheek. "I'll get us some decaf."
Lee reached for her hand without looking up from the pile of paper in front of him. "Thank you, Amanda."
"For what?"
He looked up at her with his best brilliant smile. "For teaching me the value of sleep."
She smiled back at him with a tired twinkle in her deep brown eyes. "Who said anything about sleep, Stetson?"
He was still chuckling when Amanda returned with the coffee.
1 American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 16, 1989 * 7:30 a.m. (GMT+1)
Alexander Reese banged the receiver into place on the black multi-line phone and bellowed for his aide.
Marine Corps First Lieutenant James Johnston appeared before the general had completed his bawl. "Sir?" he said, standing at attention more stiffly than any time in his Annapolis tenure.
"Get Lt. Col. Ian Marlowe at Monterrey – the Language School. He's the jarhead who teaches Mandarin and Cantonese if anybody is dumb enough to ask which Lt. Col. Ian Marlowe you're looking for. Tell him he needs to be on a priority flight to DC within the hour for an assignment of an undetermined duration. His orders will come from the Pentagon before he's off the phone with you." He reached for his telephone and dismissed his aide with a gesture.
"Yes, sir!" Johnston shouted, and turned sharply on his heel to leave. He paused before the door and turned with some trepidation. "Um, General Reese, sir, you do realize that it's 11:30 last night in California, right?"
"Yes, I do – I also happen to know that Colonel Marlowe watches Johnny Carson religiously. Get him on the phone."
"Yes, sir!" Johnston turned toward the door again.
"Oh, and James?"
"Sir?" the lieutenant turned back to his commander from the hallway.
"Thanks for the note about the prayer for Sandra. It means a lot."
James cracked a very small smile. "You're most welcome, sir."
The Flight Line Command Post, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska * 5:10 a.m. CST (GMT-6)
Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe blew on his deeply bronzed hands and shook his arms to try to get some warmth into his extremities after his fifty yard dash across the taxiway from the F-14 in which he had flown halfway across the country thus far. It wasn't snowing, but it was far colder in Nebraska than it had been in California two hours and two time zones ago.
"Colonel, your call," an airman said, handing him a telephone.
"Marlowe."
"Ian, Alexander Reese. You're in Omaha?"
"Yes, sir, General Reese. We're due to take off again in about 10 minutes. What's the crisis?"
Reese outlined the situation in broad strokes for the Joint Intelligence Command's ace troubleshooter.
"I'm sorry about your daughter, General. Without overstepping my bounds, though…"
"You're wondering if I'm making this personal and taking advantage of my rank," the general finished for him. "Let me assure you, colonel, this is a personal matter of National Security in the same vein as your trip to Moscow three years ago."
Ian nodded, unseen by the man in Berlin. The fear in 1986 had been that the Russians would use Sandra's detainment as a means of influence – or worse, outright blackmail – over the general. While no one was certain this time that it even was the Russians who had her, it was far better to assume they did, they knew, and they were prepared to use her as a weapon. "And where exactly am I going?"
"I'm sure it will be a gas…"
"IFF," Ian smiled, his white teeth catching the light in the command center in such a way that the taxiway crew chief mimed being blinded. Ian's report to the command staff about his experience in Israel had led to many such poor jokes, but heroes are entitled to laugh at death after they've cheated it.
"IFF," the general repeated. "You'll be working with William Melrose."
"I know his team quite well, sir. I'll report by phone to you in Berlin tomorrow."
"I'll see you for dinner at the Ft. Belvoir Officers' Mess," General Reese corrected, and the line went dead.
Ian took the receiver away from his ear and stared at it for several seconds. "Yes, sir," he finally said with a shrug. He had a Tomcat waiting for him.
The Agency * 9:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Mrs. Marston's smile warmed the antechamber by several degrees when she recognized the visitor in the Georgetown Lobby. "Lt. Col. Marlowe, how nice to see you! Does Ms. Desmond know you're coming?"
"I don't think so, Mrs. Marston. I doubt my boss would have called to announce me in particular – although Mr. Melrose should be aware that someone from the Joint Intelligence Command is arriving."
The beautiful older woman checked her protocol bulletin and found the memo from Billy saying exactly that. She continued to smile as she made out the guest pass and announced his arrival to the guard downstairs. "This way, Ms. Desmond will still have her surprise," she said to Ian's questioning eyebrow.
"You're a romantic at heart, aren't you?"
Impossible though it seemed, the smile got brighter. "The Stetsons are to blame for that."
Ian entered the coat closet with a quiet laugh and rode down into the bowels of The Agency. Uniformed guards escorted him into the bullpen, where several acquaintances greeted him as openly as Mrs. Marston had. Billy's door was closed and the blinds were drawn; stepping close to the entrance he could hear the voices of Billy, Lee, Amanda, and Francine, but not exactly what they were saying. He knocked.
"Come!" came the sharp growl of Billy Melrose in a state of agitation.
Ian straightened his face and opened the door. He stepped through in proper Marine fashion, closed the door, snapped to attention, and barked out, "Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe reporting at the order of Lieutenant General Alexander Reese, sir!"
The effect was exactly what he had hoped: Billy sagged with relief; Amanda and Lee, absent in physical form but present via the miracles of modern technology, laughed over the speakerphone; and Francine blushed red in every place her skin was exposed.
Amanda recovered first from parts unknown. "Hi, stranger. Welcome back."
"At ease for heaven's sake," Billy chuckled. "It's a good thing Francine was sitting down or you might have had to catch her when she fainted."
Francine, whose color had just begun to fade, colored again and started to stammer a protest.
"Permission to kiss Miss Desmond, sir?" Ian inquired in a teasing tone of Billy.
"Granted, by all means." Pointedly, Billy covered his eyes and the Stetsons stayed silent on the other end of the open connection.
Ian pulled Francine into his arms and, as always when he kissed her, the rest of the world ceased to exist. All too briefly, they parted, the promise of their relationship firmly restated in the moment. "Okay, you can look now," Ian said to Billy, serene as he slid into the last empty chair in the room. "Or listen, as the case may be," he continued with a nod toward the phone.
"Have you been briefed?" Billy asked.
"Not in depth, sir. I know that General Reese's daughter is in trouble again and that it's a matter of National Security, again."
The Agency operatives brought him up to speed on the investigation, including the embarrassing loss of contact with Sandra's captors when they left National Airport the night before. Since that time, they had learned nothing new.
"General Reese isn't going to like that," Ian understated when the update was complete.
"Your uncle isn't very happy about it either." Francine mimed a cigarette holder moving back and forth in the air to indicate Dr. Smyth.
"Uncle Austin is a pussycat compared to General Reese. Where do we start?"
Francine looked at Billy. "There's a reception at the Soviet Embassy tonight. SecState is set to attend and the State Department asked for some extra handlers. Ian and I could go and check on the whereabouts of the usual suspects."
"Aren't you still persona non grata at the Soviet Embassy, Francine? I seem to recall an incident at New Year's Eve a few years ago…" Amanda let the sentence hang with tantalizing deliberateness.
Desmond squirmed. "The Naval Attaché and I finally came to an understanding," she replied in high dander. "And he said he wants to see me again. Ian will be a surprise."
Lee tried unsuccessfully to hide the laughter in his voice. "A rather sour one, I suspect."
Billy shook his head. "Okay, folks, let's get back to the task at hand. Go ahead to the embassy party, Francine. Lee, you and Amanda bring that other project back here as quickly as you can – we need to be able to move on it as soon as possible if there's any connection or anything else happens. We should have something from the FBI counter-intelligence unit by this afternoon."
"And General Reese expects us at the Ft. Belvoir Officer's Mess for dinner." Ian nodded to Billy but included all of the Agency folks by intonation.
Billy thought for a moment. "Amanda, get yourselves down here in time for dinner. Francine, you're excused – I know you'll need the time to make a grand entrance at the Embassy."
Desmond didn't know whether to be relieved or offended at first, but then she realized that Billy had given her an order to make an entrance – and that was the kind of order she would NEVER disobey. "Right. And in the mean time, I'll get Ian up to speed on the surveillance."
"Go." The meeting ended and all involved scattered to their various tasks, hoping for a break quickly.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. area * 3:40 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"I've already told you. I don't work for any American intelligence agency. I'm just a college student who was asked to do a favor by a friend." Sandra Reese glared at her captors with hatred. "Would you like me to say it again in Russian? Ya stoodent v' ooniversitet. Maya droog' srposeel menya – "
"Enough! We know you speak much better Russian than that. We also know that you speak and read Polish, though perhaps not as well. No one in Poland would ask an American to smuggle something out unless it was to an American intelligence organ."
"Pavel Constantinovich, calm yourself. Miss Reese is not someone to be bullied," the other man in the room corrected. "She needs to be soothed and led to see that cooperation is her only rational choice. Isn't that right, my dear?"
Sandra's Wedgwood blue eyes flashed fire toward both men, but she remained silent.
"You are taking up bourgeois habits, Leon Ivanich. Perhaps we should ask the political officer for a ruling." Pavel Constantinovich shook his thick finger at the other Russian, an older, innocuous looking man with better teeth than the average Soviet citizen.
Leon Ivanich just smiled, waving away the accusation. "Leave us. I will get the information."
The other man deflated a bit as he turned on his heel and left the frugally furnished room where the American girl sat tied to a straight metal chair. Leon Ivanich watched him go with a disdainful frown before he resumed his study of the young woman.
"You are a thorn in my side, young lady," he said in flawless, highbrow British English. "First you spend two weeks being thoroughly unhelpful despite less-than-pleasant surroundings at Lefortovo, and now you're here still being thoroughly unhelpful on something that is far more important than a little black market ring in Moscow. I hope you're well compensated by your government."
Sandra just stared through him as she struggled to keep her focus on the here and now. Her occasional nightmares of Lefortovo left her sweat-soaked and shaking in the night; if she had a flashback now, the dapper KGB man in front of her might get what he wanted.
In the three years since their previous meeting, Leon Ivanich had added mind reading to his considerable repertoire of sadistic methods. "I see you are thinking about Lefortovo. I would wager to say that perhaps Room 315 holds particularly unpleasant memories for you, what with the electro- shock therapy, sleep deprivation, and hallucinogens. Are you still having acid trip flashbacks?"
Praying for the strength to stand firm, Sandra gave nothing away, not even with a twitch of her eyebrow.
"They have trained you well since 1986. I would be impressed if you were one of ours." He took a pack of Marlboros out of his suit coat pocket, extracted a cigarette, lit it with great ceremony; he smoked two down to stubs and was well into a third before he spoke again, his words cutting visibly through the hazy air. "You gave yourself away while you were at Auschwitz, you know. Only an America would be brazen enough to point out that certain Polish and Russian signs around the museum have different text than the English, French, and German signs for the same displays. Only an American intelligence agent would have the skills to notice. Q.E.D., you are an American intelligence agent. We just need to figure out which agency sends you a W-2 each January."
Sandra remained silent, focused beyond herself even as she heard the words indicting her in the eyes of the Soviet Union. She wasn't naïve enough to think that American soil would protect her from whatever Leon Ivanich might mete out, but she had to hope that her father and the Stetsons would somehow get her out of this mess. And in that calm core of her mind that held her together, she added that as long as Ian Marlowe was still a bachelor, she wouldn't mind having him be her rescuer again.
The cold voice left icy tendrils across her mind. "There are fates worth than death, you know."
Officers' Mess, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia * 5:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Is General Reese here yet, Sergeant?"
"No sir, Colonel. We have a table reserved for him at 1745 – for two officers and a civilian."
Ian sighed. "That's right, but there will be three civilians, so please adjust the setting accordingly. I'll wait for them in the public lobby."
"As you wish, sir. Shall I tell General Reese when he arrives?"
"Thank you, Sergeant. That's fine."
"Yes, sir."
Ian, dressed now in his standard green dress uniform, sat in the lobby of the officers' mess reading the latest issue of Stars and Stripes while he waited for Billy, Amanda, and Lee. Someone at the State Department was worried about human rights in China, all of a sudden; Ian suppressed a laugh and thought about the many Chinese scientists working at Los Alamos who would now be peasant farmers or exiled prisoners had they not escaped to Taiwan and later America in the 60's and 70's. He owed his command – relative command, he reminded himself – of Cantonese and Mandarin to these men and women. Amazingly enough, there was no mention of Sandra's disappearance, although he was waiting for that shoe to drop any time. Better that it do so in Stars and Stripes than in The Washington Post or The New York Times.
One of his former students entered the lobby and called out to him just as he got to the Op Ed page. They chatted in awkward Cantonese for a moment before Ian saw the three federal agents arrive and bid the woman good-bye. "Good evening, everyone," he said, reaching out to shake hands around. He felt decidedly empty handed as Lee escorted Amanda into the dining room.
Alexander Reese already occupied the head chair at their table, having come into the mess from the Flag BOQs upstairs. He looked distinctly unhappy, as all concerned expected. Despite the obvious gloom, he was cordial enough as introductions were made and drink orders taken. The quintet made small talk until after their server deposited their drinks, then the general launched into Billy.
"How on earth did you let those goons get by your people?"
Billy ran an index finger around the collar of his shirt as he answered the disconcertingly calm father and military leader. "It's school vacation for a lot of our regular agents, and there's no funding for backups. We were short-staffed."
"Short-staffed!" The explosion of sound came out accompanied by a fist on the table that set the plates and silverware rattling. "Damned politicians. What are they thinking?"
"Perestroika?" Amanda offered after a moment of silence.
The general looked up at her and his expression softened. "Probably. Which just goes to show you that there's a sucker born every minute. What do you think our chances are of finding my daughter, Melrose?"
Billy relaxed just a little. "I'm as confident as past experience allows me to be, which is to say that we will need a great deal of luck in addition to skill to get Sandra back. We have discovered that at least one of the men who was seen with her here at Dulles is a Russian national, so that increases the odds that the KGB has her. For all we know, she could be inside the Embassy."
General Reese shook his head. "Highly unlikely. That would tie the Soviets too conclusively to her abduction. No, they've got her somewhere close by, possibly in a safe house of some kind. And you can bet that this is a race for her life, because she's smart enough to know it's the KGB. They cannot afford to let her live."
Amanda and Francine had come to that same conclusion over the phone late the previous night; Billy and Lee had assumed that was the case from the beginning. Ian, who had suffered for 10 days in Lefortovo with Sandra to keep exactly that from happening once before, knew with grim certainty that even if they did manage to rescue Sandra, she would have permanent scars, both physical and mental, from this latest round of incarceration.
"Why did this happen?" the Army officer asked as the mess steward came over to take their orders.
Amanda, last around the table, gave her order for Chicken cordon bleu, then turned to Reese with her characteristic gentle smile. "Well, sir, Sandra apparently got herself noticed by some operatives in an American intelligence network simply by being herself. They needed to get information back to the States and she was their candidate."
"And was this information vital to American interests?"
Billy nodded at Amanda to continue. "We think so."
Lee took over. "We're in the process of evaluating the initial data, but so far it looks as though a highly placed network we had thought was dead is viable and at least minimally active."
"When will you know the true value?"
Lee looked away from his wife as he replied. "As soon as I'm there on the ground – which will hopefully be the beginning of next week."
"What does it depend on?" the general asked.
"On getting Sandra back," Ian declared before Lee could answer. The two men had made a pact: Sandra Reese would be found, alive, or they would die trying.
Chapter 3 * Somewhere Over Western Russia, USSR * 9:25 p.m. (GMT+3)
"I thought you might like to know, Feodor Petrovich, that our erstwhile guest is once again enjoying our hospitality." Georg Alexeivich Tolstoy had a broad smile as he listened to the telephonic reply from his mentor. "And it appears that she had not yet had a chance to meet the agent my informant told me about, so we should be able to recover the material from her flat without trouble."
"I will not hold my breath for that one, Georg Alexeivich," Kaminsky chided. "You know as well as I do that our Boston agents are, how shall I put this, more egg-headed than level-headed, and I am sure that this child took some elegant, if simple, precautions that might cause angst for our more academically minded Boston set." He sighed, a noise that traveled to his listener as static more than a human sound. "Send her from Boston to Leon Ivanich in Washington. I saw in his file that he was in Moscow the first time our guest stayed with us. Perhaps he will enjoy the chance to renew their acquaintance."
"As you wish. What should we do if this becomes public?"
"Nothing. Why in the world would we be implicated?"
The Rotunda of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, Massachusetts * 1:35 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda and Lee had to tell the story about their "niece's" abduction to three different Boston Police officers before one of them picked up on everything the seasoned agents weren't saying and called the senior force federal liaison agent. When Captain Harrison O'Connor arrived on the scene, he talked to his officers before he approached the couple from Washington, D.C.
"Stetson. You have an uncle in the Air Force?" Captain O'Connor asked by way of introduction.
Lee smiled and extended his hand. "I do. I seem to remember sitting across from you at a desk after an adolescent prank went awry, Captain. I think it was at Wright Patterson when I was about 15."
The policeman nodded and shook Lee's hand. "That's about right. Mrs. Stetson, pleasure to meet you, even if the circumstances are lousy."
"Captain O'Connor, thank you. We appreciate your help." She shook his hand, as well.
"You're welcome. Let's find a place where we can talk, shall we?" He escorted Lee and Amanda to a small office off the rotunda, closing the door firmly behind him as the two visitors sat down.
"Ernie is a smart cop who doesn't call on his superiors unless he's got very good reason. Why does he have reason this time?"
Lee and Amanda each showed him their IFF identification and gave him a telephone number to call. Harrison O'Connor had worked with a number of government agencies in his 17 years on the Boston force, but never with one that required him to verify his identity before its representatives would exchange more than bare bones pleasantries. When he returned to Lee and Amanda five minutes later, he was chastened enough to listen with both ears and his brain in high gear as the agents told him about Sandra's abduction.
"And if you can manage it, I would greatly appreciate it if your officers would return her backpack to us," Lee said with gentle strength at the end of their tale.
O'Connor's green eyes flashed understanding as he called over his radio for Ernie to bring the bag in. He hoped that the agents would open the bag before he left them; clearly, however, that was not to be the case. "I'll see what I can do with the BU police to get some coverage on her apartment," he said, and left Lee and Amanda to themselves.
Amanda unzipped the outer pocket of the green bag; a quick glance told her that Lee didn't need to see its contents, as it obviously supplemented the cosmetic bag Sandra had taken with her. The larger main pocket held a couple of notebooks, three textbooks, and several pamphlets about Israel and Poland.
"This could take a while," Lee said when he spread the booklets and leaflets across the low table before them.
"Decoys. She's got decoys in here," Amanda nodded toward the brochures. "Did Sandra tell you anything about the script or where it might be?"
Lee shook his head, frustrated at the circumstances. "No." He stood up and paced, wanting to be out looking for the girl rather than sitting in a room flipping through the pages of travel brochures. As it was, he left that to Amanda.
"Lee, honey, look at this," his wife commanded after several minutes. When he was where he could see over he shoulder, she showed him the only two booklets that matched. "Why would she have two copies of a book about Auschwitz?"
"Maybe one is for an – wait a minute. Are they actually the same book?" Lee pulled a chair over and sat down beside his wife, taking one of the two from her. He opened the book to page one and motioned for her to do the same. Together, they flipped the pages of the book until Lee noticed that Amanda's page 12 was different from his page 12.
"Can you read any of it besides the English?" Amanda handed her book to her husband.
Lee read in silence for a few moments before he closed the book he had been holding and concentrated on Amanda's. He couldn't read the French, but his Russian and Polish were passable and his German excellent. Even missing the middle paragraph, he saw that the booklet contained everything he needed to know.
"Amanda, I'm calling Billy. He and Francine need to be briefed in to help you find Sandra."
She glared at her husband for several seconds, knowing that he had to do what he thought was right but not liking it at all. "You're going back to Poland, aren't you?"
"I have to. Look, let's go to the FBI office here – they've got all the secure equipment we'll need for communications and the tools to help me find the microdot inside the page." He ran his hand through his hair and looked at his wife with a sad smile. "You've got a bad feeling about this, don't you?"
Amanda nodded; she hadn't liked this from the very beginning.
"You think I'm wasting my time until we have something more concrete?" When Amanda nodded again, Lee gave in. "Okay, I'll stay here until we find Sandra, then I'll go raise the dead."
"'Lazar, eedee bon!'"
Lee looked at Amanda with surprise. "Very good."
She shrugged. "It's Russian, but it fits."
And Operation Lazarus was born.
Lublin, Poland * March 16, 1989 * 2:25 a.m. (GMT+1)
Gregor Borodin stared at the remains of 35 pictures of Josef Cardinal Glemp in disbelief. Jaroslav Milowanowicz had systematically deprived each paper face of eyes, nostrils, and teeth without so much as marring an eyelash, clipping the nose, or kissing a lip with a wasted bullet.
"He is good, comrade," allowed Borodin's contact in the elite accent of a Moscow-born party hack. Borodin knew him only by his code name, Pavel Igorovich Gogol, and would not have been amused at the literary penchant that G.A. Tolstoy had for creating his own covers.
"Deadly," Borodin retorted, eyeing the other man with contempt. "As I have been telling you, once we are back in Warsaw tomorrow, we cannot recall him – there's no way to justify another absence from his duties at the Chancery. Are you absolutely sure that the mission is a go?"
"I will know for certain on Monday. Will that be enough time to put him in position?"
Borodin sighed, wondering if the idiot in front of him had even read the mission brief. "He will be in position whether the mission is a go or not. It is merely a matter of what he takes with him to the service."
"Oh." After a moment, "Gogol"/Tolstoy shrugged. "I will not worry about the details, then."
That would be a first, Borodin thought. He said, "I will expect a call at the Ministry on Monday."
After his visitor left, Gregor Borodin stared at the desecrated portraits of Cardinal Glemp for a long, long time.
The Agency * March 15, 1989 * 9:45 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Billy, it's confirmed. Our regulars at National saw three unknowns escort a woman matching Sandra Reese's description off a flight arriving from New York about 20 minutes ago." Francine beat her ballpoint pen against the legal tablet in her hand, showing her intense agitation with the situation.
Billy Melrose rubbed his face with a meaty hand and propped his head in his other hand on the desk. "Do we know where they took her?"
Francine shook her head. "We didn't have enough manpower to keep the watch and to follow them. It's spring break for most of the Maryland school districts." Of which she knew Billy was well aware because they had been short-staffed all week, but it didn't hurt to remind him. "And we start from scratch."
"Probably. Any word from Lee about the microdot?"
"The lab techs at the FBI found it about three hours ago; Lee figures he and Amanda will be at the translation all night."
Billy nodded, then continued his interrogatory. "How did Amanda do handling the lid?"
"She must have done an excellent job – there hasn't been word one in the broadcast media and Boston Police reported no calls from print media. I can tell you that she really didn't like telling a blatant lie to Linda, the roommate, or Christine, the best friend."
"Did she say that to you that, or are you guessing?"
"I'm trying to be empathetic, sir."
"You might make a Betazoid yet." The section chief slumped a bit in his chair and blew out thoughtfully between pursed lips. "Okay, next phase. Let's get a headcount of Soviet Embassy personnel. What time is it in Berlin? I don't think I can wait until morning to call General Reese."
Francine turned on her heel and beat a quick exit, not wanting to be in the office for the ear-blistering the kidnapped girl's father was likely to give her section chief.
"And thank you for your support," Melrose muttered as he picked up the phone.
American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 16, 1989 * 3:50 a.m. (GMT+1)
"Reese!" the general barked into the telephone, grabbing it from the table beside his bed before it finished the first ring.
"General Reese, this is William Melrose from – "
"I know where you're from, Mr. Melrose. Mrs. Stetson called me hours ago with the news. Where the hell is my daughter?"
The ominous tone of the man's voice apparently didn't faze William Melrose. "We never located her in Boston, but we did observe her being escorted onto a commercial flight from Boston to New York about three hours ago. We lost them in New York but our regular spotters saw them getting off a shuttle flight at National less than half an hour ago. We have no ID on any of the men with her."
The general merely grunted, waiting for the rest of the news that just couldn't be good. It wasn't. So the general did what any powerful man would do: he made a decision and took action. "I will see you in Washington tomorrow for dinner, Mr. Melrose. By then, you had better have some very specific information about my daughter's whereabouts and who exactly has her in captivity. You can expect a liaison officer from the Joint Intelligence Command on your doorstep before noon." Alexander Reese slammed the receiver down. He would be in his office in three hours; things would move quickly then.
FBI Field Office * Boston, Massachusetts * March 15, 1989 * 11:05 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
Amanda King Stetson unfolded herself from the hard molded plastic chair in the small, windowless office with a wince of pain at the complaining muscles in her lower back. "Lee, do we have to stay at this all night, or can we come at it fresh in the morning?"
A lifetime ago, his answer would have been absolute: Stay. Now, however, he knew the advantage of rest and a fresh perspective – and of his partner's advice. Unspoken in her question was her adamant resolve to take him back to the hotel. He sighed and looked up into his wife's beautiful face. "Let's finish this paragraph and call it a night."
"Thank you," she replied, leaning over to kiss his roughly shadowed cheek. "I'll get us some decaf."
Lee reached for her hand without looking up from the pile of paper in front of him. "Thank you, Amanda."
"For what?"
He looked up at her with his best brilliant smile. "For teaching me the value of sleep."
She smiled back at him with a tired twinkle in her deep brown eyes. "Who said anything about sleep, Stetson?"
He was still chuckling when Amanda returned with the coffee.
1 American Sector Military Headquarters, Berlin * March 16, 1989 * 7:30 a.m. (GMT+1)
Alexander Reese banged the receiver into place on the black multi-line phone and bellowed for his aide.
Marine Corps First Lieutenant James Johnston appeared before the general had completed his bawl. "Sir?" he said, standing at attention more stiffly than any time in his Annapolis tenure.
"Get Lt. Col. Ian Marlowe at Monterrey – the Language School. He's the jarhead who teaches Mandarin and Cantonese if anybody is dumb enough to ask which Lt. Col. Ian Marlowe you're looking for. Tell him he needs to be on a priority flight to DC within the hour for an assignment of an undetermined duration. His orders will come from the Pentagon before he's off the phone with you." He reached for his telephone and dismissed his aide with a gesture.
"Yes, sir!" Johnston shouted, and turned sharply on his heel to leave. He paused before the door and turned with some trepidation. "Um, General Reese, sir, you do realize that it's 11:30 last night in California, right?"
"Yes, I do – I also happen to know that Colonel Marlowe watches Johnny Carson religiously. Get him on the phone."
"Yes, sir!" Johnston turned toward the door again.
"Oh, and James?"
"Sir?" the lieutenant turned back to his commander from the hallway.
"Thanks for the note about the prayer for Sandra. It means a lot."
James cracked a very small smile. "You're most welcome, sir."
The Flight Line Command Post, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska * 5:10 a.m. CST (GMT-6)
Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe blew on his deeply bronzed hands and shook his arms to try to get some warmth into his extremities after his fifty yard dash across the taxiway from the F-14 in which he had flown halfway across the country thus far. It wasn't snowing, but it was far colder in Nebraska than it had been in California two hours and two time zones ago.
"Colonel, your call," an airman said, handing him a telephone.
"Marlowe."
"Ian, Alexander Reese. You're in Omaha?"
"Yes, sir, General Reese. We're due to take off again in about 10 minutes. What's the crisis?"
Reese outlined the situation in broad strokes for the Joint Intelligence Command's ace troubleshooter.
"I'm sorry about your daughter, General. Without overstepping my bounds, though…"
"You're wondering if I'm making this personal and taking advantage of my rank," the general finished for him. "Let me assure you, colonel, this is a personal matter of National Security in the same vein as your trip to Moscow three years ago."
Ian nodded, unseen by the man in Berlin. The fear in 1986 had been that the Russians would use Sandra's detainment as a means of influence – or worse, outright blackmail – over the general. While no one was certain this time that it even was the Russians who had her, it was far better to assume they did, they knew, and they were prepared to use her as a weapon. "And where exactly am I going?"
"I'm sure it will be a gas…"
"IFF," Ian smiled, his white teeth catching the light in the command center in such a way that the taxiway crew chief mimed being blinded. Ian's report to the command staff about his experience in Israel had led to many such poor jokes, but heroes are entitled to laugh at death after they've cheated it.
"IFF," the general repeated. "You'll be working with William Melrose."
"I know his team quite well, sir. I'll report by phone to you in Berlin tomorrow."
"I'll see you for dinner at the Ft. Belvoir Officers' Mess," General Reese corrected, and the line went dead.
Ian took the receiver away from his ear and stared at it for several seconds. "Yes, sir," he finally said with a shrug. He had a Tomcat waiting for him.
The Agency * 9:45 a.m. EST (GMT-5)
Mrs. Marston's smile warmed the antechamber by several degrees when she recognized the visitor in the Georgetown Lobby. "Lt. Col. Marlowe, how nice to see you! Does Ms. Desmond know you're coming?"
"I don't think so, Mrs. Marston. I doubt my boss would have called to announce me in particular – although Mr. Melrose should be aware that someone from the Joint Intelligence Command is arriving."
The beautiful older woman checked her protocol bulletin and found the memo from Billy saying exactly that. She continued to smile as she made out the guest pass and announced his arrival to the guard downstairs. "This way, Ms. Desmond will still have her surprise," she said to Ian's questioning eyebrow.
"You're a romantic at heart, aren't you?"
Impossible though it seemed, the smile got brighter. "The Stetsons are to blame for that."
Ian entered the coat closet with a quiet laugh and rode down into the bowels of The Agency. Uniformed guards escorted him into the bullpen, where several acquaintances greeted him as openly as Mrs. Marston had. Billy's door was closed and the blinds were drawn; stepping close to the entrance he could hear the voices of Billy, Lee, Amanda, and Francine, but not exactly what they were saying. He knocked.
"Come!" came the sharp growl of Billy Melrose in a state of agitation.
Ian straightened his face and opened the door. He stepped through in proper Marine fashion, closed the door, snapped to attention, and barked out, "Lieutenant Colonel Ian Marlowe reporting at the order of Lieutenant General Alexander Reese, sir!"
The effect was exactly what he had hoped: Billy sagged with relief; Amanda and Lee, absent in physical form but present via the miracles of modern technology, laughed over the speakerphone; and Francine blushed red in every place her skin was exposed.
Amanda recovered first from parts unknown. "Hi, stranger. Welcome back."
"At ease for heaven's sake," Billy chuckled. "It's a good thing Francine was sitting down or you might have had to catch her when she fainted."
Francine, whose color had just begun to fade, colored again and started to stammer a protest.
"Permission to kiss Miss Desmond, sir?" Ian inquired in a teasing tone of Billy.
"Granted, by all means." Pointedly, Billy covered his eyes and the Stetsons stayed silent on the other end of the open connection.
Ian pulled Francine into his arms and, as always when he kissed her, the rest of the world ceased to exist. All too briefly, they parted, the promise of their relationship firmly restated in the moment. "Okay, you can look now," Ian said to Billy, serene as he slid into the last empty chair in the room. "Or listen, as the case may be," he continued with a nod toward the phone.
"Have you been briefed?" Billy asked.
"Not in depth, sir. I know that General Reese's daughter is in trouble again and that it's a matter of National Security, again."
The Agency operatives brought him up to speed on the investigation, including the embarrassing loss of contact with Sandra's captors when they left National Airport the night before. Since that time, they had learned nothing new.
"General Reese isn't going to like that," Ian understated when the update was complete.
"Your uncle isn't very happy about it either." Francine mimed a cigarette holder moving back and forth in the air to indicate Dr. Smyth.
"Uncle Austin is a pussycat compared to General Reese. Where do we start?"
Francine looked at Billy. "There's a reception at the Soviet Embassy tonight. SecState is set to attend and the State Department asked for some extra handlers. Ian and I could go and check on the whereabouts of the usual suspects."
"Aren't you still persona non grata at the Soviet Embassy, Francine? I seem to recall an incident at New Year's Eve a few years ago…" Amanda let the sentence hang with tantalizing deliberateness.
Desmond squirmed. "The Naval Attaché and I finally came to an understanding," she replied in high dander. "And he said he wants to see me again. Ian will be a surprise."
Lee tried unsuccessfully to hide the laughter in his voice. "A rather sour one, I suspect."
Billy shook his head. "Okay, folks, let's get back to the task at hand. Go ahead to the embassy party, Francine. Lee, you and Amanda bring that other project back here as quickly as you can – we need to be able to move on it as soon as possible if there's any connection or anything else happens. We should have something from the FBI counter-intelligence unit by this afternoon."
"And General Reese expects us at the Ft. Belvoir Officer's Mess for dinner." Ian nodded to Billy but included all of the Agency folks by intonation.
Billy thought for a moment. "Amanda, get yourselves down here in time for dinner. Francine, you're excused – I know you'll need the time to make a grand entrance at the Embassy."
Desmond didn't know whether to be relieved or offended at first, but then she realized that Billy had given her an order to make an entrance – and that was the kind of order she would NEVER disobey. "Right. And in the mean time, I'll get Ian up to speed on the surveillance."
"Go." The meeting ended and all involved scattered to their various tasks, hoping for a break quickly.
Somewhere in the Washington, D.C. area * 3:40 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"I've already told you. I don't work for any American intelligence agency. I'm just a college student who was asked to do a favor by a friend." Sandra Reese glared at her captors with hatred. "Would you like me to say it again in Russian? Ya stoodent v' ooniversitet. Maya droog' srposeel menya – "
"Enough! We know you speak much better Russian than that. We also know that you speak and read Polish, though perhaps not as well. No one in Poland would ask an American to smuggle something out unless it was to an American intelligence organ."
"Pavel Constantinovich, calm yourself. Miss Reese is not someone to be bullied," the other man in the room corrected. "She needs to be soothed and led to see that cooperation is her only rational choice. Isn't that right, my dear?"
Sandra's Wedgwood blue eyes flashed fire toward both men, but she remained silent.
"You are taking up bourgeois habits, Leon Ivanich. Perhaps we should ask the political officer for a ruling." Pavel Constantinovich shook his thick finger at the other Russian, an older, innocuous looking man with better teeth than the average Soviet citizen.
Leon Ivanich just smiled, waving away the accusation. "Leave us. I will get the information."
The other man deflated a bit as he turned on his heel and left the frugally furnished room where the American girl sat tied to a straight metal chair. Leon Ivanich watched him go with a disdainful frown before he resumed his study of the young woman.
"You are a thorn in my side, young lady," he said in flawless, highbrow British English. "First you spend two weeks being thoroughly unhelpful despite less-than-pleasant surroundings at Lefortovo, and now you're here still being thoroughly unhelpful on something that is far more important than a little black market ring in Moscow. I hope you're well compensated by your government."
Sandra just stared through him as she struggled to keep her focus on the here and now. Her occasional nightmares of Lefortovo left her sweat-soaked and shaking in the night; if she had a flashback now, the dapper KGB man in front of her might get what he wanted.
In the three years since their previous meeting, Leon Ivanich had added mind reading to his considerable repertoire of sadistic methods. "I see you are thinking about Lefortovo. I would wager to say that perhaps Room 315 holds particularly unpleasant memories for you, what with the electro- shock therapy, sleep deprivation, and hallucinogens. Are you still having acid trip flashbacks?"
Praying for the strength to stand firm, Sandra gave nothing away, not even with a twitch of her eyebrow.
"They have trained you well since 1986. I would be impressed if you were one of ours." He took a pack of Marlboros out of his suit coat pocket, extracted a cigarette, lit it with great ceremony; he smoked two down to stubs and was well into a third before he spoke again, his words cutting visibly through the hazy air. "You gave yourself away while you were at Auschwitz, you know. Only an America would be brazen enough to point out that certain Polish and Russian signs around the museum have different text than the English, French, and German signs for the same displays. Only an American intelligence agent would have the skills to notice. Q.E.D., you are an American intelligence agent. We just need to figure out which agency sends you a W-2 each January."
Sandra remained silent, focused beyond herself even as she heard the words indicting her in the eyes of the Soviet Union. She wasn't naïve enough to think that American soil would protect her from whatever Leon Ivanich might mete out, but she had to hope that her father and the Stetsons would somehow get her out of this mess. And in that calm core of her mind that held her together, she added that as long as Ian Marlowe was still a bachelor, she wouldn't mind having him be her rescuer again.
The cold voice left icy tendrils across her mind. "There are fates worth than death, you know."
Officers' Mess, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia * 5:30 p.m. EST (GMT-5)
"Is General Reese here yet, Sergeant?"
"No sir, Colonel. We have a table reserved for him at 1745 – for two officers and a civilian."
Ian sighed. "That's right, but there will be three civilians, so please adjust the setting accordingly. I'll wait for them in the public lobby."
"As you wish, sir. Shall I tell General Reese when he arrives?"
"Thank you, Sergeant. That's fine."
"Yes, sir."
Ian, dressed now in his standard green dress uniform, sat in the lobby of the officers' mess reading the latest issue of Stars and Stripes while he waited for Billy, Amanda, and Lee. Someone at the State Department was worried about human rights in China, all of a sudden; Ian suppressed a laugh and thought about the many Chinese scientists working at Los Alamos who would now be peasant farmers or exiled prisoners had they not escaped to Taiwan and later America in the 60's and 70's. He owed his command – relative command, he reminded himself – of Cantonese and Mandarin to these men and women. Amazingly enough, there was no mention of Sandra's disappearance, although he was waiting for that shoe to drop any time. Better that it do so in Stars and Stripes than in The Washington Post or The New York Times.
One of his former students entered the lobby and called out to him just as he got to the Op Ed page. They chatted in awkward Cantonese for a moment before Ian saw the three federal agents arrive and bid the woman good-bye. "Good evening, everyone," he said, reaching out to shake hands around. He felt decidedly empty handed as Lee escorted Amanda into the dining room.
Alexander Reese already occupied the head chair at their table, having come into the mess from the Flag BOQs upstairs. He looked distinctly unhappy, as all concerned expected. Despite the obvious gloom, he was cordial enough as introductions were made and drink orders taken. The quintet made small talk until after their server deposited their drinks, then the general launched into Billy.
"How on earth did you let those goons get by your people?"
Billy ran an index finger around the collar of his shirt as he answered the disconcertingly calm father and military leader. "It's school vacation for a lot of our regular agents, and there's no funding for backups. We were short-staffed."
"Short-staffed!" The explosion of sound came out accompanied by a fist on the table that set the plates and silverware rattling. "Damned politicians. What are they thinking?"
"Perestroika?" Amanda offered after a moment of silence.
The general looked up at her and his expression softened. "Probably. Which just goes to show you that there's a sucker born every minute. What do you think our chances are of finding my daughter, Melrose?"
Billy relaxed just a little. "I'm as confident as past experience allows me to be, which is to say that we will need a great deal of luck in addition to skill to get Sandra back. We have discovered that at least one of the men who was seen with her here at Dulles is a Russian national, so that increases the odds that the KGB has her. For all we know, she could be inside the Embassy."
General Reese shook his head. "Highly unlikely. That would tie the Soviets too conclusively to her abduction. No, they've got her somewhere close by, possibly in a safe house of some kind. And you can bet that this is a race for her life, because she's smart enough to know it's the KGB. They cannot afford to let her live."
Amanda and Francine had come to that same conclusion over the phone late the previous night; Billy and Lee had assumed that was the case from the beginning. Ian, who had suffered for 10 days in Lefortovo with Sandra to keep exactly that from happening once before, knew with grim certainty that even if they did manage to rescue Sandra, she would have permanent scars, both physical and mental, from this latest round of incarceration.
"Why did this happen?" the Army officer asked as the mess steward came over to take their orders.
Amanda, last around the table, gave her order for Chicken cordon bleu, then turned to Reese with her characteristic gentle smile. "Well, sir, Sandra apparently got herself noticed by some operatives in an American intelligence network simply by being herself. They needed to get information back to the States and she was their candidate."
"And was this information vital to American interests?"
Billy nodded at Amanda to continue. "We think so."
Lee took over. "We're in the process of evaluating the initial data, but so far it looks as though a highly placed network we had thought was dead is viable and at least minimally active."
"When will you know the true value?"
Lee looked away from his wife as he replied. "As soon as I'm there on the ground – which will hopefully be the beginning of next week."
"What does it depend on?" the general asked.
"On getting Sandra back," Ian declared before Lee could answer. The two men had made a pact: Sandra Reese would be found, alive, or they would die trying.