He inhaled. "Every ruble was well spent, my dear."

She flashed a flirtatious smile. "I'm told that the kapitan often dines alone." She nodded at Aleksey. Her eyes twinkled. "What a shame."

"Yes, well…"

"My children wish to meet you, Kapitan. You are a busy and important man as a ship's master, but perhaps you could spare a few short moments to come meet them?"

"Well…"

"They have many questions of such a great man of the sea."

"Well, I suppose…"

"And afterwards, Kapitan, not to be intrusive or presumptuous, but I was thinking…"

"Perhaps dinner, Miss Katovich? In my stateroom?"

"I would be honored, Kapitan. And afterwards, I would be equally honored by a personal tour of your ship."

Batsakov felt himself smiling. But why do all this if he was going to kill her? Was he looking for a reason to change his mind? Then again, what was the harm? They were hours from the rendezvous point. His crew could drive the ship. Perhaps this would be a nice respite and a bit of fun. Even condemned prisoners got sumptuous last meals.

"With pleasure, Miss Katovich. My chef will prepare a dinner in the galley fit for a king." He extended his arm. "Lead me to these poor little orphans of yours."

Erebuni Air Base

Outside Yerevan, Republic of Armenia

Captain Alexander Giorsky, Air Force of the Russian Republic, sat at the small desk in the briefing room and gazed out the window, across the runway, and into the distance. The purple, snow-capped mountain just across the border to the south majestically dominated the horizon in a powerful, almost godlike manner.

The mountain was in another nation now, in enemy territory. On it were two radar and monitoring stations for tracking the flight patterns of Russian warplanes, including his own sophisticated and powerful MiG-29.

Even so, ever since his prestigious assignment to the Erebuni Air Base in Armenia six months ago, Alexander had had a difficult time shaking his fascination with Mount Ararat. The world's most storied mountain remained a symbol of Armenian pride, even though it fell into Turkish hands in 1915. According to the Bible, Noah landed his ark there after the great flood of antiquity. Some even claimed to have seen the ark frozen up somewhere in the icecaps. Alexander often found himself squinting up at the icecaps, and had even studied the mountain with binoculars, as if perhaps he might even see the ancient boat himself!

Although the Republic of Armenia was the first nation to officially recognize Christian ity, and although the Russian Orthodox Church had officially replaced atheism as the religion of the motherland after the breakup of the USSR, Alexander knew that the whole story of the great flood and Noah's ark was a myth.

It had to be.

What man could have done such a thing so long ago? To have built an ark and put all those animals on it?

Still, why his obsessive fascination with the story? Was it all this Armenian folklore talk that Noah's great-great-grandson Haik had built the Tower of Babel at the foot of the mountain and became the father of all Armenians?

Alexander brought his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the base of the mountain, as if part of the tower – if there ever were such a tower – would still be there.

Get a grip of yourself, Giorsky! You are a fighter pilot in the Russian Air Force! You fly the most sophisticated fighter plane in the world. You have a job to do!

"Attention!" An Air Force sergeant stepped through the doorway of the briefing room just in front of Colonel Stratsovich, the wing commander, who clicked into the room holding a clipboard and a pointer. A pale-looking man wearing a black suit trailed the colonel and the sergeant.

"At ease, comrades!" the colonel said. "Be seated."

Alexander and the other pilots shuffled into their desks and focused their attention on the front of the room.

"Comrades, as you know, throughout the years, the base here at Erebuni has been a major force in our aerial bombardment of rebel operations in Chechnya. Recently, we have enjoyed a ceasefire from hostilities. But now Moscow calls upon us once again. But this time, the circumstances have changed. The stakes are altered. The danger is higher."

He turned to the pale-looking man. "Comrades, I present to you Special Agent Andrei Federov. Russian FSB."

The pale man, a typical-looking FSB bureaucrat who looked to be in his early thirties, stepped to the podium. His black eyes swept across the pilots. A cold arrogance exuded from his silent expressions – the typical look of aggrandized self-importance worn by many young FSB officers who bought into the agency's garbage about being the most elite intelligence force in the entire world.

"Pilots of the 426th Russian Air Force, I greet you in the name of the president of the Russian Republic, Vitaly Evtimov."

The pompous toad spoke as if he personally knew Evtimov, as if he had just come from a lunch at 4 Staraya Square. His bulging eyes surveyed the room, as if his claim to have come in the name of the president would impress a room full of seasoned MiG-29 pilots.

"After the breakup of the Soviet Union, and ever since the first bloody Chechen war in 1994, the 426th Air Force has heroically ruled the skies over the traitorous rebels in Chechnya. Were it not for your supremacy in the skies, it is possible that this conflict would have been lost already and that a radical Muslim nation would have been set up on the soft underbelly of Mother Russia."

Tell us something we do not know.

"This time, you are being called upon again for your bravery."

What a political suck-up.

"But this time, the stakes are higher." He paused. "This time, Chechen rebels have stolen plutonium, and they have brought it to Chechnya. We believe they are about to build a bomb that could vaporize all of Moscow!"

The FSB bureaucrat had succeeded in riveting the pilots' attention. "I am no pilot, so I cannot tell you how to do your jobs. The colonel here will do that for you." Federov nodded at Colonel Stratsovich, who nodded back. "I can tell you this, however. By order of the president, we will bomb Chechnya into submission, and we shall keep bombing until the rebel leaders return our plutonium!" That brought cheers and whistling from the action-hungry pilots. "They shall return the plutonium or they will all die!"

More cheers and applause. Perhaps this Federov bureaucrat had a political future.

"Our mission is complicated and more dangerous than ever. This time NATO planes – many of them armed – will be flying within a short missile's shot of the battleground."

The pilots looked at one another.

"The president of Georgia has requested that NATO warplanes patrol Georgian skies, to ensure that no Russian planes enter their airspace. And the president of Turkey has requested NATO ground support. The elite American 82nd Airborne Division is at this hour arriving at the NATO Air Base in Incirlik."

"Bring them on!" one of the pilots shouted.

"We are ready!" shouted another.

"Comrades." Federov held his palms down to calm the pilots. "President Evtimov does not want a war with the Americans or NATO. But the president views these actions as provocative by the Americans, whose aim is world domination, and he is most displeased about NATO's flirtation with Georgia, which as you know was a longstanding Socialist Republic of the former Soviet Union."

"Send us through the skies of Georgia, and we shall teach the Americans a lesson!" Alexander shouted.

"Yes, that would be nice, " Special Agent Federov said. "But unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your perspective – those are not the president's orders." He paused. "The President's orders are to fly to Chechnya through Azerbaijan, to avoid Georgia if at all possible, but to defend yourselves if fired on."