Jet paused at the far fence, breathing heavily from the marathon, and eyed the field beyond the chain-link fence. She could see farmhouses in the distance, easily several long kilometers away, with nothing between them and the airport but brown earth. Her only hope was that she’d be traversing an area where nobody would think to look, the absence of roads in that direction her tenuous advantage.
Resigned to a hard slog, she wrapped her fingers around the wire and pulled herself up, her feet fighting for toeholds as she mounted the fence. This time she successfully avoided the worst of the barbed wire and dropped to the spongy ground on the other side without incident.
Jet was halfway across the field, loping with measured strides, when she heard the heavy thumping of rotor blades from behind her. She dared a look over her shoulder and her heart sank at the sight of a police helicopter closing on her position, the downdraft throwing up a cloud of dust. There was still a good kilometer of distance to cover, and she could see that she’d never make it. When a metallic voice boomed from above her, she already had her hands in the air.
“Freeze or we’ll shoot.”
Jet obeyed and waited as the helicopter landed twenty meters away. The cabin door opened and a man in civilian clothes, followed by two uniformed police officers with their guns drawn, trotted over. When the civilian was only footsteps away from her, he stopped, a small smile on his face, and nodded.
“A fair attempt, but one doomed to failure,” Rudolf said in Russian, and then switched to accented English. “Now that the adult supervision is here, the fun and games are over.”
She gave no indication she’d understood, and the Russian didn’t seem to care. He turned to the officers and barked an order, and they moved toward her, one with cuffs in hand, the other stopping just out of reach, his pistol trained on her head.
Chapter 16
Langley, Virginia
The hallways of the CIA headquarters were quiet before working hours officially began, the night shift preparing to leave as a cleaning crew with the highest security clearance in the country mopped the polished marble floor outside a string of conference rooms. Inside the only lit one, six men sat around an oval table, the smell of rich coffee thick in the air and a box of doughnuts sitting in the center of the table, untouched.
The oldest of the men, clad in an immaculate Brooks Brothers suit, his dark hair still thick but graying at the temples, sat back in his chair, one foot absently swinging a Ferragamo loafer as he addressed the group. He pointed to a map of the Ukraine projected onto a screen on the wall beside him.
“Our cruise-ship gambit failed to stoke the outrage we were hoping for, so that was a failure,” he said, his voice evenly modulated. “While it mustered some international outcry, I think we can agree that it was too little, too late to have any meaningful impact.” He stared hard at a balding man with horn-rimmed glasses to his left. “Jerald? You have an update on our backup plan?”
Jerald, the top of his head shiny from a veneer of sweat, nodded briskly. “Yes, Larry. As you know, the international press has broken the story about U.S. involvement in paying for the mercenaries who were instrumental in overthrowing the Ukrainian government.”
A whippet-thin man across from Jerald frowned and tossed his pen onto the table. “That’s meaningless. We’ve ensured that the story never got picked up here. So the average American never heard about it.”
“It might be unimportant domestically, but it’s been disastrous for us in the international arena. We’ve lost considerable support in Europe due to the sanctions we jammed down their throat – those are killing France and Germany, who are taking the brunt of the fallout. Now, with it looking like we orchestrated a coup to plug in our puppets so we can park nukes on Russia’s border, our requests for cooperation from our allies are increasingly being stonewalled.” He paused. “The phone call between State and the ambassador, discussing who to support in the new Ukrainian administration, didn’t do us any favors. Nor does having half the cabinet represent obviously American interests – I mean, Christ, Biden’s son appointed to the board of one of the largest natural gas companies in the country, no less – it’s hard to argue we weren’t behind it when the new gang has our flag all over it.”
The man waved away the comment. “That wasn’t our call, and you know it. But your point is taken. We’re battling a headwind. That’s our job.”
“The Syria thing isn’t helping. Millions of refugees pouring into Europe, and we’re being blamed.”
Jerald cleared his throat. “No plan goes perfectly. We all know that, and we knew the risks going in. We’re not here to point fingers, we’re here to decide what to do next.” Jerald looked around the room. “And we just got a piece of bad news. The Ukrainian team we’ve been sponsoring went dark almost a week ago.”
“The ones in Russia?”
“Correct. We got word that they’ve been charged with terrorism. Damn fools got caught trying to buy a truck full of missiles.”
Larry shook his head. “So they’re off the board.” He took a long sip of coffee and stared at the doughnut box like it was a coiled snake.