A/N: Chapter Six here! Read and review!

August 6, 2011
1819 Local time

"I could so get discharged for this."

"You're happy to risk it, though," said Rosie. "How much do I owe you?"

"A hundred dollars."

"You run through my money faster than a vampire on an artery."

She slipped a green dollar bill into his hand as he opened the hangar. "Knock yourself out," he said. "Just make it quick."

Even in figurative death, the Mil Mi-35 still held a silent yet majestic beauty as it sat in the middle of the hangar, its curves and lines softly defined by the lights above. When it crashed, the tail boom was separated from the fuselage. The rocket pods had also been removed along with the machine gun, which were lying side by side on one corner. Most of the cockpit's glass windows were gone, shattered by the impact. The seatbelts were torn, showing where the Afghans cut them up to free the helicopter's dead crew.

Rosie spied a workbench full of motherboards, hard drives, and other computer innards she didn't want to know about. "What's all this stuff?" she asked.

"Some of the computer hardware we recovered from the crashed choppers were carted off here for tinkering," replied Ibrahim. Behind the Mi-35, one could see a Mil Mi-8 "Hip" and a UH-60 "Black Hawk."

"What are those two?" asked Rosie, pointing at two chips lying on a corner of the bench.

"We took them from the Mi-35's computer," Ibrahim replied. "Most Afghan Mils carry their threat and seeker programs in chips marked with Cyrillic letters, which identifies which company designed the programs. We ran this through the interface, and we came up with the Zhdanov-Yuriev Design Bureau. I'll admit this is the first time I've heard of that company, or design bureau, whatever the Russians call it over there. But it's a hell of an efficient program, I'll tell you that."

The monotonous hum of the air conditioning units in the hangar was broken by the ringing of a telephone. "You really have to go," Ibrahim told Rosie before running to pick up the call. Rosie took a look at the Afghan, making sure that his back was turned, before she picked up the microchips from the Hind and pocketing them.

"What's this?"

"Microchips from the Hind that chased the General," replied Rosie.

Carter picked up one of the chips and examined the Cyrillic writing. "I'll be damned," she muttered. "Zhdanov and Yuriev strikes again. You know, I've been looking into this company, and what I've uncovered is that these guys have just recently accepted a military contract with Russia's United Aircraft Company, which used to be Antonov, Tupolev, Ilyushin, MiG, and Yakovlev before the government merged all of their shares in those guys."

"Are you saying that whoever was after Khalilullah had access to high-tech weapons?" asked Rosie.

"Yeah, but I've never seen anything like this since Costa Luna. Have you phased out your air force's World-War-Two-era planes?"

"No, we still have our Yak-1s. But to return to our topic, Mi-35s are not something you just sell to people, right?"

"Exactly. But the question is how did they get it? Did they pose like some representative from an air force or something?"

Rosie produced a notebook and handed it to Carter. "You tell me."

She opened the notebook and read the contents. It was some sort of diary, and Rosie had written comments in red ink. Carter saw the word Russian written on many of the entries, all of them encircled in red. "Where did you get this?"

"Remember the notebook where we found the plans for the Stinger bomb? I took it, and what you're holding is the translated version."

"So somebody's giving this Russian intel which he then passes on to the hit men. We have a mole here, probably someone high-ranking."

"Doesn't necessarily have to be," said Rosie. "It could be a secretary, an aide, or even somebody who went into an office and spotted an open file."

"You don't think General Khalilullah had anything to do with this, do you?" asked Carter. "I mean, his being out to meet us?"

"There's no way to tell. Last time I heard, the below him was 'just okay' with his position. He didn't have any plans for climbing the ladder."

"Well, who knows?"

"You know, Carter, this thing is getting freakier by the minute. Afghanistan has just elected its most stable government, and with the crash of Air Afghanistan 200, one-fifth of that government is already with Allah. Minister Muhamedow was a real moderate, and when they didn't get him with the bomb, they kidnapped him. Now, Khalilullah was a moderate too, and only God knows what would happen to the army had he bought the farm earlier. I'm seeing another coup on the horizon."

Rosie's words weren't entirely groundless, because she had experienced it herself. The series of events leading to the coup in her kingdom was still clear in her mind, it could have happened just yesterday.

First, the death of the late moderate King Mauricio III from natural causes, which was never entirely proved by the medical authorities. Second, the steady retirement of the moderates in the Costa Luna parliament, whose positions were quickly claimed by radicals and extremists. And finally, the ascension of General Kane as Marshal of the Royal Armed Forces of Costa Luna. The result was a bloody civil war whose atrocity can be matched only by the Yugoslav Wars. One million people dead, three million injured, and almost everyone in the country displaced by the war.

Queen Rosalinda had seen this happen to her people, and she didn't want another nation to suffer the same fate. Thanks to another identity, she may just be able to do that.

Lavrenty Konstantinovich Timofeyenko was worried. He had not heard from his agent in the Russian embassy in days. Could he have been burned, his identity exposed, and locked up with no way to communicate with the outside world?

Timofeyenko spotted movement on the street below his hotel room window. Someone had left a rock there. Timofeyenko reached for his glasses and tried to find a telltale chalk mark that would tell him that Agent "Bolshoi" was compromised. There wasn't any.

Satisfied, Timofeyenko switched off his desk lamp three times, the signal that he had received the agent's message. He then reached for his cell phone and placed a call. If ever there was anyone tracking this call, they would find the receiving unit in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the city of Sevastopol.

"Yes?" the voice at the other end asked. There was a hint of tiredness in his voice, since Kabul was two hours ahead of the man's residence.

"The General is alive," reported Timofeyenko in a flat tone.

"That's too bad," the man chuckled. "Our friend has been waiting for a promotion for months."

"It looks like that the help that a friend of a friend gave my men either didn't work or were not enough."

"Once again, the opposition has been underestimated."

"Yet you don't seem saddened by this setback, sir," said Timofeyenko.

"Of course I'm a little sad, Lavrenty, but who has cause to grieve when you have the fate of a country in your hands?"

"So these attacks are just the pieces to a bigger puzzle?"

"That I cannot tell you anymore. So long, Mr. Timofeyenko."

Timofeyenko stared at his cell phone as the dial tone began. Contrary to what was said, he knew about his superior's plans. But did he not trust his plan anymore? Timofeyenko couldn't say.