"I was talking to my sister." The woman groaned, clutching her face.

"Get out!"

The woman quickly wriggled into a cheap dress, grabbed her purse, and rushed past Hansen, who remained in the doorway, dumbfounded. "Sergei, what the hell are you doing here?"

Hansen's old friend dismissed him with a wave and turned to the desk, where he wrenched open a laptop, took a seat, and began typing furiously. "I've hacked into the hotel's registration system. We'll see if our boy has checked in yet."

"She was a hooker, wasn't she?"

"Whatever. Just shut up."

"Did she see you do this? You left her alone with your computer? She could compromise this entire mission! How the hell do you know her? How long has she been here? Maybe she works for them. Maybe we're being set up."

"Jesus Christ, dude, sit down before you have a heart attack. She's just a whore I picked up."

"You can't do that!"

"I'm here to give you your gear and get you to the location. Where the hell does it say I can't screw a hooker?"

Hansen threw his duffel and garment bags onto the bed and began to activate his OPSAT. "This is ridiculous. Insane. Beyond unprofessional."

"What're you doing now? Calling Mommy to tell on me?"

Two empty bottles of vodka sat on the desk beside Sergei's computer, along with two glasses and several packs of cigarettes. Sergei lifted one of the bottles, sipped the remaining few drops, then shook his head in disgust, while Hansen stood there, deciding what to do.

Hansen took a deep breath. "You're not all right, are you?"

"I'm perfect. And you know why? Because I'm helping you, my old friend. It could be a lot worse, right? Look, I'm sorry about the . . . Just forget about it. She's not working for them." He rapped a knuckle on his computer screen. "And right here . . . this shows our boy just checked in, about fifteen minutes ago."

"What room is he in?"

"Eighty-four. Eighty-three is empty."

"Then let's get to work--if you're still a part of this operation."

"I never left."

Hansen took a deep breath. "Sergei, you've put me in a terrible position. When this is over, I willhave to say something."

"I understand where you're coming from, but you forget that you still owe me."

Hansen's brows knitted. "Owe you what?"

"When they were getting ready to send us over to the 'Stan, who got you through Dari? Or should I say, who helped you cheat your way through Dari? And if they really sent us there, you wouldn't be talking jack to anyone because you couldn't hack the language. But it was okay to cheat then, huh?"

"That wasn't a live operation. And I passed the oral. That was just a multiple-choice exam."

"And you wanted to go so bad that you'd do anything to get there, even cheat, and so you did--and you still didn't get to go. Now here we are."

"So you want to trade a hooker for a multiple-choice test?"

Sergei grabbed a cigarette, stuffed it between his lips. "Now you're talking." He reached below the desk and grabbed a backpack. "You ready?"

6

GAVAN HOTEL VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

HANSENand Sergei had drilled small holes in the wall and set up a pair of flexicams with views of Murdoch's room from the empty one next door, where they sat in darkness. The angles from the flexicams were low, the light dim, but between those snakelike spy cameras and a pair of tiny microphones they had introduced through the electrical outlets, they had established a rudimentary but effective surveillance of the man's room. They had gained access to the other suite via a sophisticated key card with microprocessor, which not only bypassed the electronic encoding system but also remained hidden from the hotel's staff. Pretty standard equipment as Third Echelon toys went.

For most of the day, Murdoch remained there, sleeping off his jet lag. Hansen and Sergei spent long hours just listening to the man snore and taking turns napping themselves. At one point, around two in the afternoon, Sergei began whispering to himself, and Hansen interrupted him. "Who are you talking to?"

"Anna 'the bitch' Grimsdottir."

"Sergei--"

"I'm telling her what I should've told her."

"If you hate it that much--"

"I'll be all right. I just thought it would be easier. But seeing you here, knowing you got it . . . and I . . ."

Hansen reached out and put a consoling hand on the man's shoulder. "I'm your friend."

AROUNDfive, Murdoch rose and took a shower. On the other side of the wall, Hansen and Sergei continued watching their four-inch monitors. Meanwhile, Sergei had been running a program to keep tabs on the hotel's registration system. The program would alert him should the suite they were occupying be booked.

Mr. Michael Murdoch was in good shape for a man who'd spent half a lifetime dining in only the finest restaurants. He obviously made time for the gym, the tennis court, or long weekends of golf, and Hansen immediately hated him, not only for being rich, but for having the abs of a college athlete. Murdoch dressed, picked up his cell phone, and dialed a number. He spoke quickly in Russian: "I'm here. Going to have dinner. I'll be on time this evening. See you then."

Now it was Hansen's turn to verify some data. He'd already pressed his thumb to his OPSAT's touch screen, activated the device, and established an encrypted link with Third Echelon. After a pause, the screen displayed data on Murdoch's outgoing call number and location: KORFOVKA--LATITUDE 43.8833 / LONGITUDE 131.3000 / ALTITUDE (FEET) 728. The phone, however, was registered to Beijing High Mountain Exports. No discernable owner, just the company name, a company Hansen suspected would turn out to be a shell. So Murdoch had just spoken in Russian to a man using a Chinese company's phone.

"Bratus and Zhao are already up there," Hansen told Sergei.

"But we don't know exactly where, because they don't meet in the same place twice. Same town, yes, but different locations every time. That, we've already confirmed," Sergei explained.

"Well, it's not a very big town. What's Murdoch using to get up there?"

"If he hasn't changed his routine, it'll be a rental car with a driver."

"We'll tag it," said Hansen.

"That's your job."

"So we're done here. Why don't you get cleaned up yourself? I'll keep an eye on our buddy from Texas."

"Whatever you say, Boss."

Hansen rose quietly to his feet.

ALLENAmes sat in the Gavan Hotel's main lobby. He had not shaved in a week and was wearing thick nonprescription glasses and a latex stomach apparatus that added fifty pounds to his girth. He had also donned a woolen cap and heavy coat, and to any observer was simply another fat tourist or business traveler engrossed in his smart phone. Were you standing over his shoulder, though, you'd frown at the images displayed on his phone's screen, images from the hotel restaurant, hallways, and main lobby, courtesy of Ames's expertly planted microcameras.

He saw that Murdoch had just entered the restaurant, and then he perked up even more when he spotted Hansen doing likewise. But where was Luchenko? Still upstairs? He thumbed back to the image from the hallway outside Murdoch's room and spotted Luchenko walking forward.