Operation Magpie Waterfront, St. Petersburg 0059 hours

A BRIGHT, SILENT, SMALL FLASH briefly flared in the western sky, somewhere above the fog, but no one on the ground saw it.

The guard was deep into his perusal of Akulinin’s papers. Akulinin had the feeling that these guys weren’t exactly the MVD’s finest. More like armed postal clerks, trying to decide if he needed more stamps.

“You need pay special tax,” the guard said, waving Akulinin’s Russian visa.

As if that were news! “Okay, okay,” Akulinin said. “Skol’ka? How much?”

The two guards exchanged a glance; Akulinin could see the avaricious smiles shielded behind their eyes. “Eight hundred rubles,” the first said.

Akulinin nodded. “I can take care of that.” He reached for his billfold.

“No,” one of the guards said, gesturing with his AKM. “You come with us. Pay at-what is word? At office.”

“Listen, Ivan,” Akulinin said, throwing some swagger into his voice and manner. “Our papers are fine. You’re just trying to shake us down for a little vzyatka, am I right?” He deliberately mispronounced the word, which was Russian for “bribe.”

The guards’ faces hardened. “You come.” There was no mistaking the threat behind the words. “Now!”

The Art Room NSA Headquarters Fort Meade, Maryland 1659 hours EDT

“I’m hit!” Ghost Blue’s voice called. “I’m hit!”

Dean stared at the flashing icon marking a point just north of Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, the coffee in his mug forgotten. He could hear the ragged edge of stress in the pilot’s voice.

The controllers in the Art Room, all of them, remained silent. Dean could almost feel the oppressive sense of helplessness as the drama played itself out on the other side of the world.

“Damn it,” Sarah Cassidy said from a nearby console. “I told them they should use F-47s!”

Dean said nothing. Like every other branch of the American intelligence community, the National Security Agency had for years been working toward what Dean considered to be an impossible goal-the ability to conduct operations with a complete lack of risk for human operators. Spy satellites, remote sensors, unmanned aerial and submarine drones-billions of dollars had been spent over the past few decades to reduce the possibility of human casualties to zero.

The same mentality had haunted the Pentagon for decades now as well. Was it possible to fight a war relying solely on robotic weaponry, smart bombs, and invisible aircraft, to win a war without the images of body bags on the nightly news to remind the people at home that victory always came at a price?

Within the intelligence community, the list of serious intelligence failures over the past few years only emphasized the fact that all the spysats in orbit couldn’t provide the same depth and detail of data as a single well-placed human agent, HUMINT as opposed to SIGINT.

That, in fact, had been a large part of the philosophy behind the creation of Desk Three. The NSA was the principal agency responsible for America’s SIGINT capabilities, but there were times when you needed people on the ground, down and dirty.

Or, in this case, in an F-22 Raptor above the icy waters of the Gulf of Finland.

“Okay… okay, I’ve got it…,” the voice said over the speaker. Dean could hear the whoop and buzz of alarms in the background. “Starboard engine’s out, but I’ve still got control. Heading for Waypoint Tango Bravo.”

“Ghost Blue, Haunted House,” Rockman said, touching a microphone transmit switch. “Be advised that there are two, repeat, two targets closing on you. Probable Foxhounds. Over.”

“Yeah, I got ’em on the gadget. I’ll be over international waters before they catch me.”

“Copy that. Good luck, Ghost Blue.”

The answer was unintelligible.

“Sir!” Cassidy called out. “We’ve lost Magpie’s signal!”

Ghost Blue had been relaying radio communications from the Magpie team but must have now moved out of range.

“That’s okay,” Rubens replied from another console down the line. “We’re getting their signal through Mercutio and the safe house.”

“Who’s Mercutio?” Dean asked, joining Rubens.

Rubens looked up at Dean, then back to the big display. “One of our agents,” Rubens said with cryptic understatement. “He’s in charge of the backup team for Magpie.”

“Where the hell are they, anyway?”

“At a commercial dock in St. Petersburg, Vasiliev Island. They’ve been detained by MVD guards at a customs checkpoint-”

“I thought you said they were safe?”

“Comparatively speaking. Mercutio is moving in now to get them through to the safe house.”

“Safe house?”

“A cruise ship tied up at the dock. Lia and her partner are posing as tourists. They’re close enough to the ship now that we’re getting their personal com transceiver signals boosted through from a satellite dish on the ship.” He shook his head and sighed. “It was a close one tonight, Charlie.”

Tonight. Dean smiled at that. It was, in fact, just past five in the afternoon. Rubens was so attuned to the mission in St. Petersburg right now that he was thinking in terms of it being past one in the morning.

“So why did they decide to use a Raptor?”

“My call,” Rubens told him. “We’ve been having real problems with communications in high latitudes lately. Sunspots. A live pilot gave us better flexibility.”

Dean nodded. It was as he’d suspected. Desk Three often used unmanned drones like the F- 47C to relay radio communications and datanet streams from operations on the ground, but sometimes you needed the human element.

“Do we have an ID on the opposition?”

Rubens gave him a sour look. “Hardly. Lia and her partner weren’t exactly in a position where they could stop and take pictures. Best guess at the moment is that they’re Russian mafia.”

“Oh, joy.”

Dean’s first op with Desk Three had been in Siberia-that had been where he’d first met both Lia and Tommy-so he knew a little about the Russian mob. Any intelligence agent inserting into modern Russia had to know at least a little about the Organization, if only because he was going to find himself working with them, one way or another.

“Tambov group?” he asked. The Tambovs were the largest and arguably the most dangerous of the Russian Mafia groups in St. Petersburg.

“You’re going to tell us.”

“Oh?”

“I’m sending you to St. Petersburg, Charlie. I want to know who set us up… and what they were after.”

“When do I leave?”

“ASAP. Briefing tomorrow morning, oh-nine hundred hours, Green Room. You’ll get your legend then. We’ll have a commercial flight booked for you by tomorrow afternoon.”

“Then I guess I’d better pack.” He looked up at the large display. “Cruise ship, huh? Sounds great. I know Lia could use a vacation.”

“She won’t be there for long.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because the Russian Mafia tried to take her down tonight, Charlie. She managed to get away, but the opposition is tough… tough, capable, and determined.” He turned a cold gaze on Dean. “I want to know exactly what the hell’s going on over there. And I want our people safe and out of there. You hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“Good.”

Dean listened to the concern in Rubens’ voice. The old man didn’t usually show his worry, not this clearly, at any rate.

Dean wondered just what it was he was about to get himself into.

Operation Magpie Waterfront, St. Petersburg 0101 hours

Akulinin considered his options-which weren’t many and weren’t good. Every sector of life in modern Russia was dominated by corruption, from ordinary citizens on the street to the highest ranks of government and industry. These two customs guards, almost certainly, were engaged in a bit of opportunism-shaking down a couple of rich American tourists who happened to be alone on the waterfront in the middle of the night.