SIXTEEN HOURS BEFORE

Striding down the corridor of the East Wing of the Pentagon, the young man with the green beret fell into his typical routine of spotting landmarks, memorizing the route so he could trace his path back under any circumstances.

Normally he would have noted a broken tree, a rock outcropping, or a gully. It had served him well when he was tromping through the fever-infested swamps of Southeast Asia, or slipping into enemy territory in the mountains of Korea. Now, though, instead of wearing a camouflage outfit or a survival suit bristling with small weapons and resources, the young man sported his full military dress uniform, neatly pressed and smelling of laundry detergent.

Despite the amenities of civilization, he felt less comfortable this way.

The halls of the Pentagon provided as difficult a challenge as any highland wilderness, though, because each corridor in the labyrinthine wilderness was symmetric and unmemorable. The immense building's geometric shape made it easy to become disoriented and lost. One could emerge from a familiar-looking doorway out to a parking lot . . . only to find oneself on the wrong side of the titanic fortress.

Not that the young man found it an insurmountable obstacle. He looked at the succession of office doors, most of them closed, the interior lights shut off. On Sunday the Pentagon offices closed down, the civil servants and military personnel still in the midst of their weekend activities. Normal civilians worked their regular forty-hour weeks, filling out the appropriate forms, passing them from office to office for the appropriate stamps, signatures, where they were filed in triplicate.

But for a career soldier like this particular man, the civilian timeclock meant nothing. He did not punch in or punch out when he went to work. His services were available on demand, all day long, all year long, whenever duty might call. He took his vacation and his relaxation time when circumstances permitted. He would have had it no other way.

The fact he'd been called here on a Sunday for a high-level briefing meant that an important mission must be in the works. Before long, the young man would find himself in some other far-flung corner of the world, performing another series of tasks clearly defined by his superiors. Serving rules he had sworn by, the man unquestioningly took actions his country would almost certainly deny.

He was tall, broad, dark in eye and hair. He was clean-shaven, something else he found rather uncomfortable. His features were angular, almost chiseled.

He followed the office numbers to the end of the corridor and turned left, passing door after door until he reached another darkened room, nondescript, closed-apparently as vacant as the other rooms. He did not hesitate, did not double-check the number. He knew he was right.

He precisely rapped three times on the wire-reinforced glass window. There was no name on the door. In the regular day-to-day activities of the Pentagon, the young man doubted other workers even noticed it.

The door opened from inside, and a man in a dark suit stood back in the shadows. The young man stepped into the dim room. His expression remained stony, emotionless-but his mind spun, sensing details, sensing options, scanning for any threat.

"Identify yourself," the suited man said, his voice disembodied in the shadows.

He did.

"Go to the rear of the office and close the door behind you," the shadowy man said.

The young man didn't thank him, simply followed his instructions, opening the back door to find a conference room. At one end of the wall hung a white projection screen.

There was a man there, standing behind the carousel of a slide projector. A tall, lean man in an immaculate charcoal-colored uniform. He had a steel-gray mustache and a scar running down one side of his face. He knew the man immediately, yet he didn't relax. He should have known Major Zero had something to do with this.

"Welcome, Jack," the major said in his clipped British accent. "Right on time."

"What's this about, sir?" the young man asked.

"Have a seat," Zero said.

The young man took one. Zero fiddled with the projector and clicked it on. "I've got some important news," he said crisply. "Pay attention. All of these details are important."

A glare of yellow-gold light splashed in a square across the screen, unfocused. Curiosity was not something he had learned in the course of his training. It had always been there, but his training had honed that curiosity into an unfailing memory and sharp attention to detail.

"The CIA has given us the go-ahead on the Virtuous Mission," the major said.

The young man arched an eyebrow, unsure if he had heard correctly. "Virtual mission?"

"No, the Virtuous Mission," Zero replied. "The future of our FOX unit depends on it. If it succeeds, we'll be

officially organized into a unit."

"Virtuous Mission, huh?" The young man massaged his chin. "Sounds like some kind of initiation ritual."

"Don't get cocky," the major said crisply. "This isn't a training op."

"Right." He crossed his arms across his chest. "So what exactly is this wonderful mission?"

Major Zero fiddled with the slide projector. "About two years ago," he said, "a certain Soviet scientist requested asylum in the West through one of our moles. This man."

The slide projector focused quickly to show a man's face. He was balding, fortyish, with horn-rimmed spectacles and a pencil-thin mustache. His face was narrow, his eyes mournful.

"His name," Zero said, "is Nikolai Stepanovich Sokolov. He's head of the OKB- seven-five-four Design Bureau, one of the Soviets' top-secret weapon research facilities. He's also the East's foremost expert on weapons development."

The young man tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Sokolov?" he mused. The name sounded familiar, and it took him a second to place it. "Isn't he that famous rocket scientist?"

Zero nodded. "The very same."

The next slide was a grainy black-and-white image of a squat metal object that seemed to hang suspended in front of a large curve. The curve, the young man realized, was the Earth.

"On April 12, 1961, the Soviets achieved the first manned space flight in history." "The Earth was blue," the younger man muttered softly, "but there was no God." Zero nodded. "Well spoken. The rocket that carried Yuri Gagarin into space was

the A1, known as the Vostok rocket. Sokolov is said to be the man most responsible for the multi-engine cluster used in that rocket. After Gagarin's flight, Sokolov left rocket development to become the head of the newly-established Design Bureau."

"From a lowly technician to the head of a Design Bureau?" the young man said. "That's quite a success story. So why did he want to defect?"

Zero paused a moment, not out of hesitation, but rather out of drama. "It seems he'd become afraid of his own creations."

"Afraid?"

"Call it a crisis of conscience."

"And for that, he left his country and his family behind and went over the fence?"

Zero shook his head. "Not exactly. One of his conditions was that his family was also to be taken safely to the West. We used a mole to get the family out first, and succeeded in sneaking Sokolov over the Berlin Wall shortly afterwards. I was the one who conducted the operation."

The young man nodded. Back in the early days of the Cold War, the security on the Eastern side had more holes than a sieve. It was easy to get through the Iron Curtain back then. "Then what?"

"Well, we got Sokolov over in one piece," Zero said, "but the whole ordeal had left

him exhausted, and we checked him into a hospital in West Berlin. It took him two weeks and over six hundred miles to get from the research facility in the Soviet Union to Berlin. He was in no condition to say anything coherent." Then he hung his head slightly. "And it was only a week later that we had something much bigger on our hands."

"The Cuban Missile Crisis."

Zero nodded. The next slide was a newspaper headline: JFK ORDERS CUBAN BLOCKADE, BLAST REDS IF CASTRO ATTACKS.

"October 16, 1962," the major continued. "President Kennedy received word that the Soviets were in the process of deploying intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. The president demanded that the Soviets dismantle and remove the missiles. At the same time, he announced a naval blockade to prevent further missile shipments from reaching Cuba.

"But the Soviets didn't back down, instead placing their armed forces on secondary alert. Soviet transport ships carrying missiles continued on course toward Cuba. U.S. and Soviet forces went on alert for an all-out nuclear war. Frantic negotiations were conducted through the UN's Emergency Security Council and unofficial channels to end the hair-trigger standoff.

"Finally, on October 28, the Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. And so the world avoided a nuclear holocaust. But in order to get the Soviets to pull their missiles out, we had to make a deal."

The young man leaned forward. "You mean the one where the U.S. agreed to remove its IRBMs from Turkey?"

"No." Now the major's voice dropped low. "The Jupiter IRBMs deployed in Turkey were obsolete, and we were going to get rid of them anyway. They had no strategic value whatsoever to either the U.S. or the Russians. The Turkey deal was a ruse-a cover story that was fed to the other intelligence agencies around the world."

"So what did the Russians really want?"

"Sokolov," the major said. "They wanted us to return Sokolov."

The young man perked up. "You mean the Soviets pulled out of Cuba just to get their hands on Sokolov?"

"That's right."

"What the hell was he working on?"

"At the time, we had no idea." Zero's voice was urgent now. "We were running out of time. It was either give up Sokolov or risk full-scale nuclear war. In the end, we had no choice. President Kennedy gave into Khrushchev's demand. The next day, I got Sokolov out of the hospital and handed him over to agents on the Eastern side. Sokolov kept on screaming 'Save me!' until he disappeared from my sight."

The major's face had taken on a color almost as gray as his uniform. The young man understood why. If a Soviet defector was being snatched back over the Wall, chances were high you would never see that man again.

Zero took a deep breath, then went on. "Then, a month ago, we received some new information from one of our moles."

"About Sokolov?"

"Yes. He was taken back to the research facility and forced to continue working on the weapon in question under strict KGB supervision. What's more, it's on the verge of completion."

The young man reached in his front pocket and pulled out a cigar. He clamped it between his teeth and lit it with a silver-plated Zippo. "So, what kind of weapon is it?" he asked. "Something to do with space rockets?"

"Missiles, actually."

"Same technology."

Zero shrugged. "I guess you're right. We don't know the details, but it appears to be some kind of nuclear device. For a year now, the Soviets have been conducting frequent nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk."

"Something to do with the weapon, I assume?"

"We're talking about a secret weapon so big that Khrushchev was ready to pull out of Cuba to get it back."

The young man blew a slow fume of smoke. "Is Sokolov still in the facility?"

The major nodded. "According to our intelligence, he's here."

The slide-projector clicked to the next image-a high-resolution satellite photograph with the lines and contours of a map overlaid upon it. The young man leaned forward, drinking in the image on the screen.

"This is Tselinoyarsk," Zero said. "A place in the mountains about three miles to the west, in an area that's known as the Virgin Cliffs."

"The Virgin Cliffs?" The young man snorted. "Nice name for a Virtuous Mission." "Indeed. They moved him there just recently."

"Why?"

"Apparently they're conducting a field test of the weapon. But it's our best chance to get him back. This mission would never have been possible if he were still in the research facility. This is our last chance. Sokolov must have known that, too, when he contacted us."

The young man squinted to see the site on the map.

"Listen up, Jack," Zero said. "Your mission is to infiltrate Tselinoyarsk in the Soviet mountains, ensure the safety of Sokolov, and bring him back to the West. If we don't get Sokolov back before that weapon is complete, we'll be facing a major crisis. The clock is ticking."

"I understand," the young man said.

"Once we've confirmed the rescue of Sokolov, stand by at the recovery point. A recovery balloon will be dropped at that point. Helium will be pumped into the balloon to inflate it. The process takes about twenty minutes. Once it's complete, the gunship's arm will latch onto the balloon and pull it up."

"The Fulton Surface-to-Air Recovery System." The young man looked anxious for the first time. "I'm familiar with the theory, but . . ."

"Take it easy," Zero said. "It has been combat-proven."

The young man didn't take much comfort in that, but there was no time to dwell on it. "Do you think Sokolov's up to it?"

"The shock will be less than during a parachute jump. And the arm can handle up to five hundred pounds."

The young man's brow furrowed. "So you're planning to go over the border in a single Combat Talon?"

The next slide showed an image of a Lockheed MC-130 plane, the same sort of plane that would be carrying him into enemy airspace. He'd been on a couple in his time, despite the relative novelty of the plane.

Zero pointed at the guns bristling from the plane. "She's equipped with two six- barrel 20-millimeter Vulcan cannons, as well as two 40-millimeter machine-guns."

"Sounds like she could hold her own against a battalion of tanks."

"Yes." Zero turned back to him. "Even with the fuel in the reserve tank, we're facing a four-hour time limit. If all goes well, it shouldn't take more than a few hours."

"Home in time for dinner," the young man said.

"But if anything goes wrong," the major said ominously, "you'll be eating dinner, breakfast, and all the rest of the meals in the jungle."

Zero clicked off the slide projector, plunging the room back into its former dimness.

The young man sat there for a moment, his mind alive with words. Tselinoyarsk. Sokolov. Virtuous Mission . . .