chapter one
2:41 A.M. PST
Somewhere overhead
Los Angeles, California
T he wind rushed past the tiny cargo plane as it soared through the air about a mile above the ground. A lone pilot controlled the twittering heap of ten-year-old metal while two people dressed in all black burst open the freight door.
"Ready?" the tall, muscular man asked.
"Are you kidding?" the smaller, fit woman replied. "I was born for this!"
The two stood standing in the dark hollow on the side of the aircraft as blocks of endless skyscrapers whooshed past beneath them. The man tightened his safety harness and ambled toward the edge. Looking out a few hundred yards, he could see that they were nearing the coastline. His clothes caught by the wind, he suddenly took a step and disappeared into the night sky. The woman followed suit, hesitating as she glanced down to the earth, aimlessly wondering whether her parachute would open when it was supposed to. Taking the step was the hard part, but as she fell freely toward the beach, an awkward sense of humility came over her.
When she was just able to distinguish the sand from the water in the moonlight, she pulled the ripcord to eject her parachute. She was forced back up through the air, and then she floated calmly to the sand. As she gathered the fabric from the ground, she tossed it to the dunes and searched for her confidant. He was no where in sight.
'We discussed this before,' she thought to herself. 'If we were separated on the ground, we had to make it to the rendevous point.'
This, as she looked back on the briefing, was at the Hole-In-The-Wall Restaurant on Second and Main. She walked in the general direction of the intersection, passing tall buildings and short buildings, and even more buildings. The streets were practically deserted, with the exceptional hobo catching shut-eye on a dark doorstep. She rounded the corner onto Main Street and followed it down two blocks to the small family-owned diner covered in neon advertisements of their "World-Famous Milkshakes."
'Never heard of them,' she thought.
The group of bells on the entrance door jingled as she pushed it open. She looked around for her partner, with no luck. She heard the door open behind her and that low, male voice: "Manatour!" She turned around to see Gizmo and gave him a huge bear hug.
"Ok... what's next?" Agathina asked as they slid into a booth and glanced over the greasy, yellowed menus.
"You remember what Goolsby told us, right? Or were you 'resting your eyes' again at the briefing."
"No... I listened - honestly. We're supposed to contact the Russian messenger to negotiate a price on the Simonovian artifacts, right?"
5:41 A.M. EST
CIA Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
Ariel Goolsby, D.O.D. bigwig and head of the CIA Special Ops division, marched down the long white hallway, briefcase in hand, toward the security sector near the end.
"Good morning, Harold," she addressed the guard who manned the x-ray scanner.
"Morning, ma'am."
She slid her bag onto the conveyor belt and it ran through the machine. Harold ushered her through the metal detector, and she released a huge breath after she got through.
"Good day, Ms. Goolsby."
Goolsby was a pushy, young red-head, around age thirty-five, who knew what she wanted and knew how to get it. She had been promoted to head of the Special Operations Division about three months ago, save a day or two. The Director had observed her progress since she first joined the CIA, and liked what he saw. Ariel passed basic training with flying colors. And besides the fact that she was sexy and persuasive, she could move heaven and hell to get objectives done.
She stopped at the end of the hallway when she came to an elevator lobby. Pressing the "down" button, she waited for the car to come, tapping her fingers on the briefcase. As the elevator approached her floor, Ariel could hear the chiming of the bell at every level. Finally reaching its destination, the elevator doors burst opening with a ding and Ariel Goolsby stepped into the tiny compartment.
4:41 P.M.
Rinanov Air Field
Siberia, Russian Republic
The sun hung low on the horizon as the lone man trudged through the snow to the tiny runway.
A little private plane awaited his arrival; the pilot gunned the engine as the bundle of man stepped onto the pavement. In his gloved hand, the man held a metal briefcase, the size of a small laptop computer, which shone with frigid ice. A chain ran from the locked handle to the handcuff on his right wrist. The pilot jumped out and pulled open the back door, helping him into the copilot's seat.
"You're late, Jentoft!" the pilot growled.
"You said half past the hour... it's only been a couple of minutes. Keep your pants on!"
The pilot slammed and locked the door. As soon as both men were secure and in place, the aircraft lurched forward and slipped down the strip, finally lifting above the trees at the end.
5:52 A.M.
CIA Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
As the doors of the elevator clanged shut, Goolsby moved toward the back of the car. The display buttons on the opposite wall shown with red backlights. Beneath the array of scarlet numbers was a tiny keyhole. Ariel pulled keys out of the front zipper of her briefcase, shuffled through the what-seemed-like-thousands of them, found the correct one, and plunged it into the mechanism. Upon turning the key, the back of the elevator swooshed open, revealing a dark blue room. At either side of the room was a camera, just ahead, was a door. Next to the door stood a small computer on a pedestal. Ariel approached the computer, typed in a few random codewords and passwords, then moved toward the door. As the door hissed open, she peered into a busy workplace lined with cubicles and gadgets, computers and supercomputers and megacomputers. She tiptoed down the hallway toward her office, dodging hurried coworkers and stepping over piles of files and books.