1The problem was environmental tolerance. They knew the baseline organism was as effective as it needed to be. It was just so delicate. Exposed to air, it died far too easily. They weren't sure why, exactly. It might have been temperature or humidity, or too much oxygen—that element so essential to life was a great killer of life at the molecular level—and the uncertainty had been a great annoyance until a member of the team had come up with a solution. They'd used genetic- engineering technology to graft cancer genes into the organism. Specifically, they'd used genetic material from colon cancer, one of the more robust strains, and the results had been striking. The new organism was only a third of a micron larger and far stronger. The proof was on the electron microscope's TV screen. The tiny strands had been exposed to room air and room light for ten hours before being reintroduced into the culture dish, and already, the technician saw, the minute strands were active, using their RNA to multiply after eating, replicating themselves into millions more little strands, which had only one purpose—to eat tissue. In this case it was kidney tissue, though liver was just as vulnerable. The technician—who had a medical degree from Yale—made the proper written notations, and then, because it was her project, she got to name it. She blessed the course in comparative religion she'd taken twenty years before. You couldn't just call it anything, could you?

2Shiva, she thought. Yes, the most complex and interesting of the Hindu gods, by turns the Destroyer and the Restorer, who controlled poison meant to destroy mankind, and one of whose consorts was Kali, the goddess of death herself. Shiva.

3Perfect. The tech made the proper notations, including her recommended name for the organism. There would be one more test, one more technological hurdle to hop before all was ready for execution. Execution, she thought, a proper word for the project. On rather a grand scale.

4For her next task, she took a sample of Shiva, sealed in a stainless-steel container, and walked out of her lab, an eighth of a mile down the corridor, and into another.

5"Hi, Maggie," the head of that lab said in greeting. "Got something for me?"

6"Hey, Steve." She handed the container over. "This is the one."

7"What are we calling it?" Steve took the container and set it on a countertop.

8"Shiva, I think."

9"Sounds ominous," Steve observed with a smile.

10"Oh, it is," Maggie promised him. Steve was another M.D., Ph.D., both of his degrees from Duke University, and the company's best man on vaccines. For this project he'd been pulled off AIDS work that had begun to show some promise.

11"So, the colon cancer genes worked like you predicted?"

12"Ten hours in the open, it shows good UV tolerance. Not too sure about direct sunlight, though."

13"Two hours of that is all we need," Steve reminded her. And really one hour was plenty, as they both knew. "What about the atomization system?"

14"Still have to try it," she admitted, "but it won't be a problem." Both knew that was the truth. The organism should easily tolerate passage through the spray nozzles for the fogging system—which would be checked in one of the big environmental chambers. Doing it outside would be better still, of course, but if Shiva was as robust as Maggie seemed to think, it was a risk better not run.

15"Okay, then. Thanks, Maggie." Steve turned his back, and inserted the container into one of the glove-boxes to open it, in order to begin his work on the vaccine.

16Much of the work was already done. The baseline agent here was well-known, and the government had funded his company's vaccine work after the big scare the year before, and Steve was known far and wide as one of the best around for generating, capturing, and replicating antibodies to excite a person's immune system. He vaguely regretted the termination of his AIDS work. Steve thought that he might have stumbled across a method of generating broad-spectrum antibodies to combat that agile little bastard—maybe a 20 percent change, he judged, plus the added benefit of leading down a new scientific pathway, the sort of thing to make a man famous… maybe even good enough for a flight to Stockholm in ten years or so. But in ten years, it wouldn't matter, would it? Not hardly, the scientist told himself. He turned to look out the triple-windows of his lab. A pretty sunset.

17Soon the night creatures would come out. Bats would chase insects. Owls would hunt mice and voles. Cats would leave their houses to prowl on their own missions of hunger. He had a set of night-vision goggles that he often used to observe the creatures doing work not so very different from his own. But for now he turned back to his worktable, pulled out his computer keyboard, and made some notations for his new project. Many used notebooks for this, but the Project allowed only computers for record-keeping, and all the notes were electronically encrypted. If it was good enough for Bill Gates, then it was good enough for him.

18The simple ways were not always best. That explained why he was here, part of the newly named Shiva Project, didn't it?

19They needed guys with guns, but they were hard to find—at least the right ones, with the right attitudes—and the task was made more difficult by government activities with similar, but divergent aims. It helped them keep away from the more obvious kooks, though.

20"Damn, it's pretty out here," Mark observed.

21His host snorted. "There's a new house right the other side of that ridge line. On a calm day, I can see the smoke from their chimney."

22Mark had to laugh. "There goes the neighborhood. You and Dan'l Boone, eh?"

23Foster adopted a somewhat sheepish look. "Yeah, well, it is a good five miles."

24"But you know, you're right. Imagine what it looked like before the white man came here. No roads 'cept for the riverbanks and deer trails, and the hunting must have been pretty spectacular."

25"Good enough you didn't have to work that hard to eat, I imagine." Foster gestured at the fireplace wall of his log cabin, covered with hunting trophies, not all of them legal, but here in Montana's Bitterroot Mountains, there weren't all that many cops, and Foster kept pretty much to himself.

26"It's our birthright."

27"Supposed to be," Foster agreed. "Something worth fighting for."

28"How hard?" Mark asked, admiring the trophies. The grizzly bear rug was especially impressive—and probably illegal as hell.

29Foster poured some more bourbon for his guest. "I don't know what it's like back East, but out here, if you fight—you fight. All the way, boy. Put one right 'tween the running lights, generally calms your adversary down a mite."

30"But then you have to dispose of the body," Mark said, sipping his drink. The man bought only cheap whiskey. Well, he probably couldn't afford the good stuff.

31A laugh: "Ever hear of a backhoe? How 'bout a nice fire?"

32It was believed by some in this part of the state that Foster had killed a fish- and-game cop. As a result, he was leery of local police—and the highway patrol people didn't like him to go a mile over the limit. But though the car had been found—burned out, forty miles away—the body of the missing officer had not, and that was that. There weren't many people around to be witnesses in this part of the state, even with a new house five miles away. Mark sipped his bourbon and leaned back in the leather chair. "Nice to be part of nature, isn't it?"

33"Yes, sir. It surely is. Sometimes I think I kinda understand the Indians, y'know?"

34"Know any?"

35"Oh, sure. Charlie Grayson, he's a Nez Perce, hunting guide, got my horse off o' him. I do that, too, to make some cash sometimes, mainly take a horse into the high country, really, meet people who get it. And the elk are pretty thick up there."

36"What about bear?"

37"Enough," Foster replied. "Mainly blacks, but some grizz'."

38"What do you use? Bow?"

39A good-natured shake of the head. "No, I admire the Indians, but I ain't one myself. Depends on what I'm hunting, and what country I'm doing it in. Bolt- action .300 Winchester Mag mainly, but in close country, a semiauto slug shotgun. Nothing like drillin' three-quarter-inch holes when you gotta, y'know?"

40"Handload?"

41"Of course. It's a lot more personal that way. Gotta show respect for the game, you know, keep the gods of the mountains happy."

42Foster smiled at the phrase, in just the right sleepy way, Mark saw. In every civilized man was a pagan waiting to come out, who really believed in the gods of the mountains, and in appeasing the spirits of the dead game. And so did he, really, despite his technical education.

43"So, what do you do, Mark?"

44"Molecular biochemistry, Ph.D., in fact."

45"What's that mean?"

46"Oh, figuring out how life happens. Like how does a bear smell so well," he went on, lying. "It can be interesting, but my real life is coming out to places like this, hunting, meeting people who really understand the game better than I do. Guys like you," Mark concluded, with a salute of his glass. "What about you?"

47"Ah, well, retired now. I made some of my own. Would you believe geologist for an oil company?"

48"Where'd you work?"

49"All over the world. I had a good nose for it, and the oil companies paid me a lot for finding the right stuff, y'know? But I had to give it up. Got to the point—well, you fly a lot, right?"

50"I get around," Mark confirmed with a nod.

51"The brown smudge," Foster said next.

52"Huh?"

53"Come on, you see it all over the damned world. Up around thirty thousand feet, that brown smudge. Complex hydrocarbons, mainly from passenger jets. One day I was flying back from Paris—connecting flight from Brunei, I came the wrong way 'round 'cuz I wanted to stop off in Europe and meet a friend. Anyway, there I was, in a fuckin' 747, over the middle of the fucking Atlantic Ocean, like four hours from land, y'know? First-class window seat, sitting there drinking my drink, lookin' out the window, and there it was, the smudge—that goddamned brown shit, and I realized that I was helpin' make it happen, dirtyin' up the whole fuckin' atmosphere.

54"Anyway," Foster went on, "that was the moment of my… conversion, I guess you'd call it. I tendered my resignation the next week, took my stock options, cashed in half a mil worth, and bought this place. So, now, I hunt and fish, do a little guide work in the fall, read a lot, wrote a little book about what oil products do to the environment, and that's about it."

55It was the book that had attracted Mark's attention, of course. The brown- smudge story was in its poorly written preface. Foster was a believer, but not a screwball. His house had electricity and phone service. Mark saw his high-end Gateway computer on the floor next to his desk. Even satellite TV, plus the usual Chevy pickup truck with a gun-rack in the back window… and a diesel-powered backhoe. So, maybe he believed, but he wasn't too crazy about it. That was good, Mark thought. He just had to be crazy enough. Foster was. Killing the fish-and- game cop was proof of that.

56Foster returned the friendly stare. He'd met guys like this during his time in Exxon. A suit, but a clever one, the kind who didn't mind getting his hands dirty.

57Molecular biochemistry. They hadn't had that major at the Colorado School of Mines, but Foster also subscribed to Science News, and knew what it was all about. A meddler with life… but, strangely, one who understood about the deer and elk. Well, the world was a complex place. Just then, his visitor saw the Lucite block on the coffee table. Mark picked it up.

58"What's this?"

59Foster grinned over his drink. "What's it look like?"

60"Well, it's either iron pyrite or it's—" "Ain't iron. I do know my rocks, sir."

61"Gold? Where from?"

62"Found it in my stream, 'bout three hundred yards over yonder." Foster pointed.

63"That's a fair-sized nugget."

64"Five and a half ounces. About two thousand dollars. You know, people—white people—been living right on this ranch on this spot for over a hundred years, but nobody ever saw that in the creek. One day I'll have to back-track up, see if it's a good formation. Ought to be, that's quartz on the bottom of the big one. Quartz- and-gold formations tend to be pretty rich, 'cuz of the way the stuff bubbled up from the earth's core. This area's fairly volcanic, all the hot springs and stuff," he reminded his guest. "We even get the occasional earth tremor."

65"So, you might own your own gold mine?"

66A good laugh. "Yep. Ironic, ain't it? I paid the going rate for grazing land--not even that much 'cuz o' the hills. The last guy to ranch around here bitched that his cattle lost every pound they gained grazin' by climbing up to where the grass was."

67"How rich?"

68A shrug. "No tellin', but if I showed that to some guys I went to school with, well, some folks would invest ten or twenty million finding out. Like I said, it's a quartz formation. People gamble big-time on those. Price of gold is depressed, but if it comes out of the ground pretty pure—well, it's a shitload more valuable than coal, y'know?"

69"So, why don't you?…"

70"'Cuz I don't need it, and it's an ugly process to watch. Worse 'n drilling oil, even. You can pretty much clean that up. But a mine—no way. Never goes away.

71The tailing don't go away. The arsenic gets into the ground water and takes forever to leach out. Anyway, it's a pretty coupla rocks in the plastic, and if I ever need the money, well, I know what to do. "

72"How often you check the creek?"

73"When I fish—brown trout here, see?" He pointed to a big one hanging on the log wall. "Every third or fourth time, I find another one. Actually, I figure the deposit must have been uncovered fairly recently, else folks would have spotted it a long time ago. Hell, maybe I should track it down, see where it starts, but I'd just be tempting myself. Why bother?" Foster concluded. "I might have a weak moment and go against my principles. Anyway, not like it's gonna run away, is it?"

74Mark grunted. "Guess not. Got any more of these?"

75"Sure." Foster rose and pulled open a desk drawer. He tossed a leather pouch over. Mark caught it, surprised by the weight, almost ten pounds. He pulled the drawstring and extracted a nugget. About the size of a half-dollar, half gold, half quartz, all the more beautiful for the imperfection.

76"You married?" Foster asked.

77"Yeah. Wife, two kids."

78"Keep it, then. Make a pendant out of it, give it to her for her birthday or something."

79"I can't do that. This is worth a couple of thousand dollars."

80Foster waved his hand. "Shit, just takin' up space in my desk. Why not make somebody happy with it? 'Sides, you understand, Mark. I think you really do."

81Yep, Mark thought, this was a recruit. "What if I told you there was a way to make that brown smudge go away?…"

82A quizzical look. "You talking about some organism to eat it or something?"

83Mark looked up. "No, not exactly…" How much could he tell him now? He'd have to be very careful. It was only their first meeting.

84"Getting the aircraft is your business. Where to fly it, that we can help with," Popov assured his host.

85"Where?" the host asked.

86"The key is to become lost to air-traffic-control radar and also to travel far enough that fighter aircraft cannot track you, as you know. Then if you can land in a friendly place, and dispose of the flight crew upon reaching your destination, repainting the aircraft is no great task. It can be destroyed later, even dismantled for sale of the important parts, the engines and such. They can easily disappear into the international black market, with the change of a few identity plates," Popov explained. "This has happened more than once, as you know. Western intelligence and police agencies do not advertise the fact, of course."

87"The world is awash with radar systems," the host objected.

88"True," Popov conceded, "but air-traffic radars do not see aircraft. They see the return signals from aircraft radar transponders. Only military radars see the aircraft themselves, and what African country has a proper air-defense network?

89Also, with the addition of a simple jammer to the aircraft's radio systems, you can further reduce the ability of anyone to track you. Your escape is not a problem, if you get as far as an international airport, my friend. That," he reminded them, "is the difficult part. Once you disappear over Africa—well, that is your choice then.

90Your country of destination can be selected for ideological purity or for a monetary exchange. Your choice. I recommend the former, but the latter is possible," Popov concluded. Africa was not yet a hotbed of international law and integrity, but it did have hundreds of airports capable of servicing jetliners.

91"A pity about Ernst," the host said quietly.

92"Ernst was a fool!" his lady friend countered with an angry gesture. "He should have robbed a smaller bank. All the way in the middle of Bern. He was trying to make a statement," Petra Dortmund sneered. Popov had known her only by reputation until today. She might have been pretty, even beautiful, once, but now her once-blond hair was dyed brown, and her thin face was severe, the cheeks sunken and hollow, the eyes rimmed in dark circles. She was almost unrecognizable, which explained why European police hadn't snatched her up yet, along with her longtime lover, Hans Furchtner.

93Furchtner had gone the other way. He was a good thirty kilos overweight, his thick dark hair had either fallen out or been shaved, and the beard was gone. He looked like a banker now, fat and happy, no longer the driven, serious, committed communist he'd been in the '70s and '80s—at least not visibly so. They lived in a decent house in the mountains south of Munich. What neighbors they had thought them to be artists—both of them painted, a hobby unknown to their country's police. They even sold the occasional work in small galleries, which was enough to feed them, though not to maintain their lifestyle.

94They must have missed the safe houses in the old DDR and Czechoslovakia, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich thought. Just get off the aircraft and get taken away by car to comfortable if not quite lavish quarters, leave there to shop in the "special" stores maintained for the local Party elite, get visited frequently by serious, quiet intelligence officers who would feed them information with which to plan their next operation. Furchtner and Dortmund had accomplished several decent operations, the best being the kidnapping and interrogation of an American sergeant who serviced nuclear artillery shells—this mission had been assigned them by the Soviet GRU. Much had been learned from that, most of it still useful, as the sergeant had been an expert on the American PAL—permissible action link—safety systems. His body had later been discovered in the snowy mid-winter mountains of southern Bavaria, apparently the result of a nasty traffic accident. Or so GRU thought, based on the reports of its agents within the NATO high command.

95"So, what is it that you want to learn?" she asked.

96"Electronic access codes to the international trading system."

97"So, you, too, are a common thief now?" Hans asked, before Petra could sneer.

98"A very uncommon thief, my sponsor is. If we are to restore a socialist, progressive alternative to capitalism, we need both funding and to instill a certain lack of confidence in the capitalist nervous system, do we not?" Popov paused for a second. "You know who I am. You know where I worked. Do you think I have forgotten my Motherland? Do you think I have forsaken my beliefs? My father fought at Stalingrad and Kursk. He knew what it was to be pushed back, to suffer defeat—and yet not give up, ever!" Popov said heatedly. "Why do you think I risk my life here? The counterrevolutionaries in Moscow would not look kindly upon my mission… but they are not the only political force in Mother Russia!"

99"Ahhh," Petra Dortmund observed. Her face turned serious. "So, you think all is not lost?"

100"Did you ever think the forward march of humanity would be absent of setbacks? It is true we lost our way. I saw it myself in KGB, the corruption in high places. That is what defeated us—not the West! I saw it myself as a captain, Brezhnev's daughter—looting the Winter Palace for her wedding reception. As though she were the Grand Duchess Anastasia herself! It was my function in KGB to learn from the West, learn their plans and secrets, but our Kameraden learned only their corruption. Well, we have learned that lesson, in more ways than one, my friends. You are a communist or you are not. You believe or you do not. You act in accordance with those beliefs or you do not."

101"You ask us to give up much," Hans Furchtner pointed out.

102"You will be properly provided for. My sponsor—" "Who is that?" Petra asked.

103"This you may not know," Popov replied quietly. "You suppose that you take risks here? What about me? As for my sponsor, no, you may not know his identity.

104Operational security is paramount. You are supposed to know these things," he reminded them. They took the mild rebuke well, as he'd expected. These two fools were true believers, as Ernst Model had been, though they were somewhat brighter and far more vicious, as that luckless American sergeant had learned, probably staring with disbelief into the still-lovely blue eyes of Petra Dortmund as she'd used the hammer on his various body parts.

105"So, Iosef Andreyevich," Hans said—they knew Popov by one of his many cover names, in this case I.A. Serov. "When do you wish us to act?"

106"As quickly as possible. I will call you in a week, to see if you are indeed willing to take this mission and—"

107"We are willing," Petra assured him. "We need to make our plans."

108"Then I shall call you in a week for your schedule. I will need four days to activate my part of the operation. An additional concern, the mission depends on the placement of the American navy carrier in the Mediterranean. You may not execute the mission if it is in the western Mediterranean, because in such a case their aircraft might track your flight. We wish this mission to succeed, my friends."

109Then they negotiated the price. It didn't prove hard. Hans and Petra knew Popov from the old days and actually trusted him personally to make the delivery.

110Ten minutes later, Popov shook hands and took his leave, this time driving a rented BMW south toward the Austrian border. The road was clear and smooth, the scenery beautiful, and Dmitriy Arkadeyevich wondered again about his hosts.

111The one bit of truth he'd given them was that his father was indeed a veteran of the Stalingrad and Kursk campaign, and had told his son much about his life as a tank commander in the Great Patriotic War. There was something odd about the Germans, he'd learned from his professional experience in the Committee for State Security. Give them a man on a horse, and they'd follow him to the death. It seemed that the Germans craved someone or something to follow. How very strange. But it served his purposes, and those of his sponsor, and if these Germans wanted to follow a red horse—a dead red horse, Popov reminded himself with a smile and a grunt—well, that was their misfortune. The only really innocent people involved were the bankers whom they would attempt to kidnap. But at least they wouldn't be subjected to torture, as that black American sergeant had been.

112Popov doubted that Hans and Petra would get that far, though the capabilities of the Austrian police and military were largely unknown to him. He'd find out, he was sure, one way or another.

113It was odd the way it worked. Team-1 was now the Go-Team, ready to depart Hereford at a moment's notice while Chavez's Team-2 stood down, but it was the latter that was running complex exercises while the former did little but morning PT and routine marksmanship training. Technically, they were worried about a training accident that could hurt or even cripple a team member, thus breaking up a field team at a delicate moment.

114Master Chief Machinist's Mate Miguel Chin belonged to Peter Covington's team.

115A former U.S. Navy SEAL, he'd been taken from Norfolk-based SEAL Team Six for Rainbow. The son of a Latino mother and a Chinese father, he, like Chavez, had grown up in East L.A. Ding spotted him smoking a cigar outside the Team-1 building and walked over.

116"Hey, Chief," Chavez said from ten feet away.

117"Master Chief," Chin corrected. "Like being a CSM in the army, sir."

118"Name's Ding, 'mano."

119"Mike." Chin extended a hand. Chin's face could have passed for damned near anything. He was an iron-pumper like Oso Vega, and his rep was of a guy who'd been around the block about a hundred times. Expert with all types of weapons, his handshake announced his further ability to tear a man's head right off his shoulders.

120"Those are bad for you," Chavez noted.

121"So's what we do for a livin', Ding. What part of L.A.?"

122Ding told him.

123"No kiddin'? Hell, I grew up half a mile from there. You were Banditos country."

124"Don't tell me—"

125The master chief nodded. "Piscadores, till I grew out of it. A judge suggested that I might like enlisting better 'n jail, and so I tried for the Marines, but they didn't want me. Pussies," Chin commented, spitting some tobacco off his cigar. "So, went through Great Lakes, they made me a machinist… but then I heard about the SEALs, an', well, ain't a bad life, y'know? You're Agency, I hear."

126"Started off as an Eleven-Bravo. Took a little trip to South America that went totally to shit, but I met our Six on the job and he kinda recruited me. Never looked back."

127"Agency send you to school?"

128"George Mason, just got my master's. International relations," Chavez replied with a nod. "You?"

129"Yeah, shows, I guess. Psychology, just a bachelor's, Old Dominion University.

130The doc on the team, Bellow. Smart son of a bitch. Mind-reader. I got three of his books at my place. "

131"How's Covington to work for?"

132"Good. He's been there before. Listens good. Thoughtful kinda guy. Good team here, but as usual, not a hell of a lot to do. Liked your takedown at the bank, Chavez. Fast and clean." Chin blew smoke into the sky.

133"Well, thank you, Master Chief."

134"Chavez!" Peter Covington came out the door just then. "Trying to steal my number-one?"

135"Just found out we grew up a few blocks apart, Peter."

136"Indeed? That's remarkable," the Team-1 commander said.

137"Harry's aggravated his ankle some this morning. No big deal, he's chewing some aspirin," Chin told his boss. "He banged it up two weeks ago zip-lining down from the helo," he added for Ding's benefit.

138Damn training accidents, the chief didn't have to add. That was the problem with this sort of work, they all knew. The Rainbow members had been selected for many reasons, not the least of which was their brutally competitive nature. Every man deemed himself to be in competition with every other, and each one of them pushed himself to the limit in everything. It made for injuries and training accidents—and the miracle was that they'd yet to place one of the team into the base hospital. It was sure to happen soon. The Rainbow members could no more turn that aspect of their personalities off than they could stop breathing. Olympic team members hardly had a tougher outlook on what they did. Either you were the very best, or you were nothing. And so every man could run a mile within thirty or forty seconds of the world record, wearing boots instead of track shoes. It did make sense in the abstract. Half a second could easily be the difference between life and death in a combat situation--worse, not the death of one of their own, but of an innocent party, a hostage, the person whom they were sworn to protect and rescue. But the really ironic part was that the Go-Team was not allowed heavy training for fear of a training accident, and so their skills degraded slightly over time—in this case, the two weeks of being stood-to. Three more days to go for Covington's Team-1, and then, Chavez knew, it would be his turn.

139"I hear you don't like the SWAT program," Chin said next.

140"Not all that much. It's good for planning movement and stuff, but not so good for the takedowns."

141"We've been using it for years," Covington said. "Much better than it used to be."

142"I'd prefer live targets and MILES gear," Chavez persisted. He referred to the training system the U.S. military often used, in which every soldier had laser- receivers mounted on his body.

143"Not as good at close range as at long," Peter informed his colleague.

144"Oh, never used it that way," Ding had to admit. "But as a practical matter, once we get close, it's decided. Our people don't miss many targets."

145"True," Covington conceded. Just then came the crack of a sniper rifle.

146Rainbow's long-riflemen were practicing over on the thousand-yard range, competing to see who could fire the smallest group. The current leader was Homer Johnston, Ding's Rifle Two-One, an eighth of an inch better than Sam Houston, Covington's leading long-rifleman, at five hundred yards—at which range either could put ten consecutive shots inside a two-inch circle, which was considerably smaller than the human head both men practiced exploding with their hollow- point match rounds. The fact of the matter was that two misses from any of the Rainbow shooters in a given week of drills was remarkable, and usually explained by tripping on something in the shooting house. The riflemen had yet to miss anything, of course. The problem with their mission wasn't shooting. It was getting in close enough—more than that, making a well-timed decision to move and take down the subjects, for which they most often depended on Dr. Paul Bellow. The shooting part, which they practiced daily, was the tensest part, to be sure, but also technically and operationally the easiest. It seemed perverse in that respect, but theirs was a perverse business.

147"Anything on the threat board?" Covington asked.

148"I was just heading over, but I doubt it, Peter." Whatever bad guys were still thinking about making mischief somewhere in Europe had seen TV coverage of the Bern bank, and that would have calmed them down some, both team leaders thought.

149"Very good, Ding. I have some paperwork to do," Covington said, heading back inside his building. On that cue, Chin tossed his cigar into the smokers' bucket and did the same.

150Chavez continued his walk to the headquarters building, returning the salute of the door guard as he went inside. The Brits sure saluted funny, he thought. Once inside, he found Major Bennett at his desk.

151"Hey, Sam,"

152"Good morning, Ding. Coffee?" The Air Force officer gestured to his urn.

153"No, thanks. Anything happening anywhere?"

154A shake of the head. "Quiet day. Not even much in the way of crime."

155Bennett's primary sources for normal criminal activity were the teleprinters for the various European news services. Experience showed that the services notified those who were interested about illegal activity more quickly than the official channels, which generally sent information via secure fax from the American or British embassies across Europe. With that input source quiet, Bennett was working on his computerized list of known terrorists, shifting through the photos and written summaries of what was positively known about these people (generally not much) and what was suspected (not much more).

156"What's this? Who's that?" Ding asked, pointing at the computer.

157"A new toy we're using. Got it from the FBI. It ages the subject photos. This one is Petra Dortmund. We only have two photos of her, both almost fifteen years old.

158So, I'm aging her by fifteen years, playing with hair color, too. Nice thing about women—no beards," Bennett observed with a chuckle. "And they're usually too vain to pork up, like our pal Carlos did. This one, check out the eyes. "

159"Not a girl I'd try to pick up in a bar," Chavez observed.

160"Probably a bad lay anyway, Domingo," Clark said from behind. "That's impressive stuff, Sam."

161"Yes, sir. Just set it up this morning. Noonan got it for me from Headquarters Division Technical Services. They invented it to help ID kidnap victims years after they disappeared. It's been pretty useful for that. Then somebody figured that if it worked on children growing up, why not try it on grown-up hoods. Helped 'em find a top-ten bank robber earlier this year. Anyhow, here's what Fraulein Dortmund probably looks like now."

162"What's the name of her significant other?"

163"Hans Furchtner." Bennett played with his computer mouse to bring up that photo. "Christ, this must be his high-school yearbook pictorial." Then he scanned the words accompanying the photo. "Okay, likes to drink beer… so, let's give him another fifteen pounds." In seconds, the photo changed. "Mustache… beard…" And then there were four photos for this one.

164"These two must get along just great," Chavez noted, remembering his file on the pair. "Assuming they're still together." That started a thought moving, and Chavez walked over to Dr. Bellow's office.

165"Hey, doc."

166Bellow looked up from his computer. "Good morning, Ding. What can I do for you?"

167"We were just looking at photos of two bad guys, Petra von Dortmund and Hans Furchtner. I got a question for you."

168"Shoot," Bellow replied.

169"How likely are people like that to stay together?"

170Bellow blinked a little, then leaned back in his chair. "Not a bad question at all.

171Those two… I did the evaluation for their active files… They're probably still together. Their political ideology is probably a unifying factor, an important part of their commitment to each other. Their belief system is what brought them together in the first place, and in a psychological sense they took their wedding vows when they acted out on it—their terrorist jobs. As I recall, they are suspected to have kidnapped and killed a soldier, among other things, and activity like that creates a strong interpersonal bond. "

172"But most of the people, you say, are sociopaths," Ding objected. "And sociopaths don't—"

173"Been reading my books?" Bellow asked with a smile. "Ever hear the one about how when two people marry they become as one?"

174"Yeah. So?"

175"So in a case like this, it's real. They are sociopaths, but ideology gives their deviance an ethos—and that makes it important. Because of that, sharing the ideology makes them one, and their sociopathic tendencies merge. For those two, I would suspect a fairly stable married relationship. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they were formally married, in fact, but probably not in a church," he added with a smile.

176"Stable marriage… kids?"

177Bellow nodded. "Possible. Abortion is illegal in Germany—the Western part, I think, still. Would they choose to have kids? … That's a good question. I need to think about that."

178"I need to learn more about these people. How they think, how they see the world, that sort of thing."

179Bellow smiled again, rose from his chair, and walked to his bookcase. He took one of his own books and tossed it to Chavez. "Try that for starters. It's a text at the FBI academy, and it got me over here a few years ago to lecture to the SAS. I guess it got me into this business."

180"Thanks, doc." Chavez hefted the book for weight and headed out the door. The Enraged Outlook: Inside the Terrorist Mind was the title. It wouldn't hurt to understand them a little better, though he figured the best thing about the inside of a terrorist's mind was a 185-grain 10-mm hollow-point bullet entering at high speed.

181Popov could not give them a phone number to call. It would have been grossly unprofessional. Even a cellular phone whose ownership had been carefully concealed would give police agencies a paper—even deadlier today, an electronic— trail that they could run down, much to his potential embarrassment. And so he called them every few days at their number. They didn't know how that was handled, though there were ways to step a long-distance call through multiple instruments.

182"I have the money. Are you prepared?"

183"Hans is there now, checking things out," Petra replied. "I expect we can be ready in forty-eight hours. What of your end?"

184"All is in readiness. I will call you in two days," he said, breaking the connection.

185He walked out of the phone booth at Charles De Gaulle International Airport and headed toward the taxi stand, carrying his attache case, which was largely full of hundred D-mark banknotes. He found himself impatient for the currency change in Europe. The equivalent amount of euros would be much easier to obtain than the multiple currencies of Europe.