“Our thoughts exactly, sir,” Ilianov said. “Team Two had to break off his tail because he thought that he had been detected, but the teams were using an electronic tracker on Ratel’s vehicle, so they were ordered to break off the tail and wait for the tracker to stop. It stopped at a small central California airport. The teams found the vehicle abandoned, but they were able to find which building at the airport Ratel and McLanahan were hiding in, a large aircraft hangar. The command team ordered Teams Two and Three to wait for activity at the airport to cease and then attack from different sides, which they did.”
“And failed, obviously,” Gryzlov said. “Let me guess the rest: the members of all three teams are missing, are not in police custody, and McLanahan is nowhere to be found. Whom did the hangar belong to, Colonel?” He held up a hand. “Wait, let me guess again: some ordinary-sounding aviation company with unremarkable officers and few employees that had not been in the area for too long.” Ilianov’s expression told the president that he had guessed correctly. “Perhaps the hangar is this group’s headquarters, or was. They will surely scatter to the four winds. Was your command team able to search the hangar?”
“The command team could not get inside because of the police and then because of a heavily armed private security guard,” Ilianov said. “But the team leader did observe many men and women taking files and equipment out in trucks, and a business jet that had been inside the hangar during the operation taxied away and flew off the night after the operation. The business jet was painted completely black.”
“I thought it is illegal in most countries to paint an aircraft all black—unless it is a government or military aircraft,” Gryzlov said. “Again, very interesting. You may have stumbled onto some kind of mysterious paramilitary organization, Colonel. What else?”
“The command-team leader was able to observe that the front entrance to the aircraft hangar had been blown inward, possibly by a vehicle that had driven right through the front office and crashed all the way into the hangar itself,” Ilianov said. “There was no sign of a damaged vehicle anywhere outside the hangar, however.”
Gryzlov thought for a moment, nodding, then smiled. “So McLanahan’s paramilitary friends effect a rescue by crashing a vehicle through the front door? That does not sound too professional. But they got the job done.” He rose from his desk. “Colonel, ten of the men you sent in have been either killed or captured, supposedly by this countersurveillance or counterintelligence outfit around McLanahan. Whoever you are recruiting inside the United States are all but useless. You will stand down, and we will wait to allow conditions there to go back to routine. Obviously McLanahan has no intention of leaving that school, so it will be easy to pick him up again.”
Gryzlov looked Korchkov’s body up and down. “And when the moment comes, I think it is time to send in Captain Korchkov—alone,” he added. “Your two-man teams are imbeciles or incompetent or both, and now this paramilitary team has been alerted. I am sure the captain can get the job done. She may have to eliminate a few of these ex-military men first before she gets McLanahan.” Korchkov said nothing, but she wore a hint of a smile, as if already relishing the prospect of fresh kills. “But not right away. Let McLanahan and his bodyguards think we have given up the hunt. Spend some time putting the captain in the perfect cover, close to McLanahan and close enough to get a good look at this paramilitary team. Do not use her diplomatic credentials—I am sure all embassy and consulate staff members are going to be under intense scrutiny for a while.”
“Yes, sir,” Ilianov said.
Gryzlov stepped closer to Korchkov and stared into her unblinking eyes. She stared straight back at him with that tiny smile. “They let you in here wearing a knife, Korchkov?”
“Oni ne smeli vzyat’ yego ot menya, ser,” Korchkov said, the first words Gryzlov remembered ever hearing the beauty utter. “They dared not take it away from me. Sir.”
“I see,” Gryzlov said. He looked her body up and down once more, then said, “It would not bother me one bit, Captain, if you chose to torture McLanahan for a while before you executed him. Then you could come back to me and describe it all in great detail.”
“S udovol’stviyem, ser,” Korchkov said, “With pleasure, sir.”
IN EARTH ORBIT
OCTOBER 2016
“Wow, look at all the new bling,” Sondra Eddington said. She and Boomer Noble were aboard an S-19 Midnight spaceplane, making their approach to the docking bay on Armstrong Space Station, which was about a mile away. This was her fourth flight in a spaceplane, her second in the S-19 spaceplane—the others having been in the smaller S-9 Black Stallion—but her first time in orbit and her first docking with Armstrong Space Station. Both she and Boomer were wearing skintight Electronic Elastomeric Activity Suits and helmets for prebreathing oxygen, just in case of an uncontrolled depressurization.