“We’re ready for an attack if it comes,” said Blitz.

“You’re still in favor of a preemptive attack, aren’t you?” said the President.

“That’s not what I was in favor of,” said Blitz.

“No?” The President took a shot and missed.

“It would solve certain problems, and create many others,” said Blitz. “Ultimately it doesn’t make sense.”

“But if it did, it would save a lot of lives,” said the President.

Blitz wasn’t about to argue with that.

“Have you found a new head for NADT yet?” asked the President, picking up his golf ball and stowing his putter as he changed the subject.

“I’m still working on Colonel Howe. We’re supposed to have lunch, actually.” Blitz glanced at his watch, more for show than anything else: There was no way now that he’d make the appointment.

“Money not enough?”

“I think the money’s part of the problem,” said Blitz. “I think it may scare him.”

“Tell him he deserves it. More than most of the fat cats running corporations around here who think they’re God’s gift to America.”

“Nonetheless,” said Blitz.

“He can always arrange to take the equivalent of his government salary.”

Blitz frowned, even though he knew D’Amici was only joking. Right or wrong, financial compensation was one way defense contractors and Washington kept score; Howe had to have a salary commensurate with his responsibility or he wouldn’t be taken seriously.

“Who’s your backup?” asked the President.

“ Trieste, I guess,” said Blitz, mentioning a retired two-star Army general whose name had been floated around.

“Not my first choice,” said the President. His tone made it clear Trieste wasn’t even on the list of acceptable candidates.

“What about my former assistant, Howard McIntyre?”

“Way too young for that job,” said the President.

“So is Howe.”

“Howe has considerably more experience, and he’s a hero,” said the President. “And he’s older than Howe-who is a good man; don’t get me wrong.”

“I’ll keep working on Howe,” said Blitz. “I haven’t given up.”

“You think you can control him?” asked the President.

“No,” said Blitz. He didn’t want to control Howe, necessarily, just steer NADT a little more toward the administration’s agenda than in the past.

“Maybe you should take the job yourself,” suggested the President.

That snake pit? Blitz knew he wouldn’t last six months.

“I’m happy where I am,” he said. “We need someone qualified and independent but who won’t come with their own ax to grind-and won’t be in the pocket of people looking to get rich. Howe’s perfect.”

“Be careful, Professor, you may get what you wish for,” said the President.

The fact that he was supposed to be Swedish rather than American didn’t particularly bother Fisher; he’d always had vaguely Nordic ambitions despite his dark hair and lack of a sauna fetish. Nor did he worry that the few phrases of Swedish they’d given him to memorize were unpronounceable tongue twisters; Fisher figured that anyone he was likely to meet in Moscow would understand even less Swedish than he did. Not even the ridiculous nonstop hopscotching across Europe as he made his way to Russia threw him off his game. On the contrary, it gave Fisher a chance to sample terrible coffee in a succession of small airports, confirming his opinion that the java brewed at airport terminals belonged in a class all its own.

No, the real problem with his cover were the European cigarettes he was forced to smoke for authenticity. He’d settled on some British smokes as being the closest thing to real tobacco he could find. But for all their storied contributions to civilization, the English had yet to come up with a smokable cigarette.

Worse, the damn things were filtered.

On the other hand, smoking was permitted and seemingly mandatory throughout much of Russia; he’d even been able to light up on the airplane into Vnukovo Airport outside of Moscow without anyone looking cross-eyed at him. It seemed particularly ironic that the country that had given the world gulags, mass murder, and fermented potato juice had such an enlightened attitude toward cigarettes. Fisher was sure this was a good omen for the country’s future and even thought about the possibility of buying a retirement home here. The fact that he couldn’t speak the language was surely a plus, since it would spare him from knowing what was going on around him-one of the prime benefits of living in a foreign country.

The CIA officer who had assumed control of the operation, Hans Madison, met him in the terminal. Vnukovo was southwest of Moscow and used mostly for regional flights. While it was watched by the FSB, one of the internal security agencies that had succeeded the KGB, the Russians felt that any spy forced to use it must be pretty low on the feeding chain and therefore of less interest than the big shots who flew directly into the main airport, Sheremetyevo-2. This meant that the FSB put its own second- and third-stringers here. Within a few minutes of arriving, Fisher and the CIA officer in charge of the operation-he introduced himself as Hans Madison, a name so goofy Fisher thought it might be real-were free of their shadow and riding in a bus toward the city. The bus was more like a six-wheel minivan with a trailer welded to the body; it was operated by a brand-new company capitalizing on the inefficiencies of the existing public transport system by inventing its own. Capitalizing on government inefficiency was a growth industry in Russia, but then again, the same might be said for just about anywhere in the world.

“Our man arrived last night. He’s staying at a youth hostel,” said Madison as they rode.

“Youth hostel?”

“Cleared it out for the conference. They’re putting up foreign scientists from North Korea and China there. Rest have to stay in real hotels.”

Amanda Kung’s flight was supposed to arrive at Sheremetyevo-2, within a few hours. Kung had agreed to come to Moscow and let the scientist contact her. For some inexplicable reason she’d insisted on having Mathers as her FBI bodyguard. Mathers had been equipped with a cover claiming she worked with Kung as a junior engineer and had come to take notes.

“We’ve already bugged the conference rooms,” said Madison, continuing to lay out the operation. “You’ll be inside with two other agents. A little tricky to wire everybody, so we’ll have to go silent com. We have some small radio units, but they’re very short-range. You’ll have to back up with sat phones. The phones are encrypted, but the Russkies will know you’re using them, so obviously that’s a last resort. What do you know about power companies and electrical generation?”

“They turn off the lights if you don’t pay the bill on time,” said Fisher.

“Guess that will have to do,” said Madison. “We have a portfolio for you as a Swedish electricity minister.”

“Cattle prod come with the job?”

“Not this time around,” said Madison.