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  “Ben? Are you listening? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “I’m sorry, I was just, uh, thinking about Bratus. Is there information I need to get from him?”

  Grim took a deep breath, then removed her glasses and rubbed the corners of her eyes. “I wish it were that easy.” She called up another photograph. A lean Chinese man with gray hair at his temples was getting out of an economy car. Other than the hair, he was quite nondescript, one Chinese man among 1.4 billion. Typical. Forgettable. And that was exactly how they wanted him.

  “This is Yuan Zhao. We’ve identified him as a field agent with the Guoanbu. Works out of their technology bureau.”

  China’s Ministry of State Security, or Guoanbu, was the government’s largest and most active foreign intelligence agency. Headquartered in Beijing, the agency’s operations encompassed a broad geographical scope and included the stealing of secrets and technology from other nations as well as thwarting operations against the government. It was a well-known fact that Guoanbu agents had penetrated and been living and working in the United States for decades. Hansen had read and studied reports by a few of the agency’s defectors, and those documents were as enlightening as they were disturbing.

  The Guoanbu also engaged in domestic operations, including the monitoring of political dissidents and the repression of internal dissent. These actions caused Chinese citizens to refer to the agency as a secret police. Other internal efforts included acts against nonofficial churches and the censoring of the Internet to prevent China’s population from knowing what was going on outside the country. No surprise there.

  Grim went on: “Now, we’ve picked up some intel that indicates Zhao and Bratus have had several meetings in the past month at a small town about ninety minutes north of Vladivostok, right near the Chinese border.”

  “Maybe Bratus is selling drugs to the Chinese military, and Zhao’s their point man. Wouldn’t be the first time agents turned to drug running, especially those guys. It’s not like they’re making a fortune as spies.”

  “That’s an interesting premise, but this is where it gets even more interesting … and more troubling.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She hesitated, then finally said, “We think Kovac is somehow involved.”

  Hansen blinked. Hard. Then he shook his head, as if to clear the noise. “Can you say that again?”

  “We think the deputy director of the NSA is negotiating something with Zhao and Bratus, but there’s nothing conclusive at this point, and we need to know what’s going on.”

  Nicholas Andrew Kovac was the NSA’s chief operating officer, who guided strategies and policy and served as chief advisor to the director. He had a resume so long and detailed, so perfect, that Hansen assumed the man was a cyborg and did not sleep. Kovac had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, received multiple graduate degrees in computer science and engineering, served as an officer and pilot, and had been a visiting professor at West Point. He had joined the NSA and, through assignments with the Directorate of Operations, had worked his way up the ranks to become the deputy director for analysis and production. After a three-year stint as a special U.S. liaison officer in London, he’d been promoted to deputy director. Reading his resume left you bored or green with envy, perhaps a little of both.

  Hansen would not have known so much about him except that Grim had sometimes implied that Kovac did not exactly trust Third Echelon. Hansen thought something in the man’s character or past experiences might’ve had something to do with that, so he’d done a little research, as was his wont, but had come up empty.

  Still, the obvious fact remained that while Third Echelon and its Splinter Cells had pulled off some remarkable operations, they had also had some monumental failures, including the deaths of not one, but three veteran field operatives in the last two years on an operation that Grim would not disclose, even to Hansen. That tragedy had prompted the organization to more aggressively recruit replacements.

  Then there was, of course, Sam Fisher … and what his actions had done to tarnish Third Echelon’s reputation… .

  Hansen thought for a moment, then said, “How do you know it’s Kovac?”

  “Because we have an agent working closely with him.”

  “You mean Third Echelon is spying on its own bosses?”

  Grim wriggled her brows. “Why not?”

  Hansen snorted. “Well, I’m sure they’re returning the favor.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “Has it occurred to you that I could be a mole, working for them?”

  “No.”

  Hansen furrowed his brows. “Why not?”

  “Because they hate you. Because I had to fight to bring you here. And because you keep staring at my chest.”

  That last part caught him completely off guard. He opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Then … “Uh, I’m sorry. Uh, why didn’t you tell me—”

  “Forget that.” She worked the touch screen. “This is Michael Murdoch.” A well-groomed businessman in his fifties, with closely cropped gray hair, glowed on the screen. In another picture Murdoch was having lunch at an expensive restaurant with a man about the same age. A third pic showed Murdoch playing golf with Kovac himself, and in a small video frame Murdoch was being interviewed on one of the cable business channels. He had a commanding baritone voice and perfect teeth.

  “Murdoch has a half dozen different companies, some importing and exporting out of Vladivostok, but he also has two technology companies in Houston, both with military contracts.”

  “So what’s the deal? You think Kovac is helping Murdoch sell secrets to the Chinese and the Russians?”

  “I’m not sure. He could be using Murdoch to sell them chicken feed. At any rate, Zhao, Bratus, and Murdoch are scheduled to meet soon. I need you there. I need to know what they’re talking about.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “You’ll be on a plane tonight, because we want a very deliberate and slow insertion. No HAHOs from a 130, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Would’ve been fun. Do I get a runner?”

  Grim took a deep breath, as though bracing herself before she spoke. “Sergei Luchenko will meet you in Vladivostok.”

  Hansen winced. “Sergei? Really? I haven’t seen him in a few months. You think he’s gotten over it?”

  “I think he has. He wanted to be in the field. He got his wish. He’s just not a Splinter Cell, and that proves that my intuition isn’t always correct.”

  Luchenko had, for all intents and purposes, flunked Third Echelon’s training program and been forced to either become a runner or wind up behind a desk. Hansen felt badly for the man, since they’d both been recruited out of the CIA and known each other for a few years. Still, it would be nice to see a familiar face in a sea of red-nosed strangers.

  “Ma’am, I won’t let you down.”

  “I know you won’t.” She lifted her chin to a table across the room. “There’s a folder with your credentials and cover.”

  Hansen started for them.

  “And one more thing.”

  He hoisted his brows.

  “When you get your gear, you’ll find a knife. Take good care of it. It was given to me by an old friend, and now I’m passing it on to you. Despite everything, I think it’ll bring you luck.”

  “It was Fisher’s. Wasn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “Kind of an odd gift.”

  “From an odd man. Now, one last thing. Make no mistake. If you’re captured, you will be killed.”

  “Tortured first. But, yes, I understand. Thank you.” Hansen scooped up the folder, headed for the door, but before he left, he turned back to Grim. “Ma’am, I’m sorry about the—” He gestured to his eyes, trying to apologize for ogling her.

  “Just get out of here … kid.”

  Ouch! That hurt.

  Once in the hallway, Hansen dug out his passport, which had been heavily stamped and do
g-eared by one of Third Echelon’s document engineers, a man known only as Perez. He was a Mexican national sent to prison for making fake credentials to help illegal immigrants cross the border. He’d been serving the last few years of his sentence when he’d been offered an early release if he came to work for Third Echelon. Perez was an artist—the best forger the agency had ever employed.

  And, at the moment, Hansen wished Perez had chosen the cover name instead of Grim, because the woman had a cruel sense of humor.

  Hansen was now Vyacheslav Zamolodchikova.

  Say that three times fast.

  Chapter 4.

  FUSHIKI, JAPAN

  HANSEN had flown from Baltimore to Tokyo; then he had traveled by taxi for six hours to the port city of Fushiki, walled in by majestic mountains whose summits were now veiled in fog.

  Dressed like an ordinary businessman in suit and overcoat, and clutching a duffel bag with toiletries and a garment bag with a few changes of clothing, Hansen walked along the dock, where ahead lay the MV Rus, a thirteen-thousand-ton ferry whose dark blue hull glinted in the neon floodlights strung along the walkway. Although it was just 4:00 P.M., the shadows had already grown long as vehicles rumbled up the gangways and into the hold.

  The ferry was primarily an auto transporter, with new and used cars from Japan being exported to Vladivostok by individuals and Russian businessmen. There were 114 cabins to service four hundred passengers and crew, and, surprisingly, the ferry was equipped with phones and air conditioners in every cabin, though at the moment Hansen could use a good blast of heat, as his breath came thick in the frigid February air. He had learned from the taxi driver, who spoke a little Russian (Hansen’s cover language), that the restaurants were good and that he should definitely visit the veranda casino.

  Hansen mounted the aluminum gangway and ascended upward with a throng of other passengers, mostly middle-aged Russian men, with a small number of Japanese and one family with small children that might’ve been from the Netherlands or Belgium, as they scolded their kids in Dutch.

  At the top of the steps Hansen was ushered into a waiting area, where he was asked to produce his passport, and his nearly unpronounceable name, Vyacheslav Zamolodchikova, was checked against a list. He was then permitted into the reception area, where a friendly if not cherubic Russian woman handed him a card with his cabin number and some brief instructions on how to find it. Before he left, he gave a furtive glance around, quickly studying the other passengers, trying to pick out a tail, if he had one, but the others paid him no attention.

  For the next few minutes he ventured through the halls, grinning at the dark veneer paneling and orange carpets, wondering if he’d just been transported to the 1970s. There were yellowing pictures of other ferries on the walls and lots of faded warning signs in Cyrillic.

  Third Echelon had booked him cabin 4456 on the starboard bow—a very nice room, really—and had paid handsomely to ensure that he did not have to share that room with any other passengers, as that was not uncommon.

  He found his cabin, opened the door, and collapsed onto the small bed, finding the blankets cold and slightly damp. He activated the OPSAT on his wrist and sent off a highly encrypted signal to Grim, notifying her that he was on board the ferry. Now all he had to do was sit back and relax for the forty-hour ride to Vladivostok.

  If his father could only see him now, on a ferry, heading toward Russia to eavesdrop on a conversation between Chinese and Russian intelligence agents. That sort of drama rarely occurred back home, where his town’s population barely hit eight thousand and Dad was still a high school science teacher. The only remarkable thing that had ever happened to Harold “Buck” Hansen was back in 1974. During his first year as a teacher, he had witnessed a boomerang-shaped UFO hovering over the school. Hansen had heard the story a thousand times, and his mother had dismissed the tale as many had. Dad had waited more than twenty years before he’d shared the story with “authorities” and expert “UFO hunters,” for fear of being labeled a crackpot and losing his teaching job. Since then Dad had become a UFO nut, and Mom was the sane wife of the UFO nut, who tried to keep him in line while she kept the books for the Comanche Springs Truck Terminal. They were pretty comical and were planning a big trip to Nevada, to the famed Area 51, next year, when Dad finally retired after, as he put it, “more than a hundred years of service with the school district.” Hansen was glad his colleagues would never get a chance to meet his parents. He wasn’t sure they could handle that much weirdness in one sitting.

  Hansen had no siblings, but he did have a cousin who had once stolen a bass boat and served time for it. Other than that, the rest of his family tree was painfully boring, and he was the only apple that had rolled away, as it were. But as far as they all knew, he worked a desk job at the NSA, analyzing pieces of computer code, which was “watching the grass grow,” according to Dad. Hansen drove a Corolla, lived in a two-bedroom condo with a strict homeowner’s association that prevented him from planting flowers other than those found on the approved-colors list, and he rented so many movies from Blockbuster that his late fees had become legendary among the college kids working at his local store.

  These bogus facts, or similar ones, he detailed every year in his Christmas newsletter, which was as painful to read as any of the others that slipped into mailboxes crowded with overpriced holiday cards and junk-mail flyers.

  He wished he could buy a postcard in Vladivostok and mail it to his parents—just to blow their minds—but he knew better. He was doing the business of his country, and nothing would ever compromise that.

  With a sigh, he rose from the bed, worked the little thermostat, and finally got the heat to come on. He heard some talking outside his door, so he opened it. Far down the hallway stood two Japanese coastguardsmen, one holding a German shepherd. Well, no surprise. There were drug dealers on board, probably returning to Russia from a run into Japan. In fact, Hansen watched as a Russian emerged from the room, his hands held high, and one of the coastguardsmen immediately cuffed him. Hansen grinned to himself. If those coastguardsmen really wanted to clean up the ferry, they’d have to arrest more than half of the Russian businessmen, who were undoubtedly connected to the mob. He waited until the group left, then decided to go to the restaurant to complete a more immediate mission: filling his grumbling stomach.

  Chapter 5.

  VLADIVOSTOK, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

  APPROXIMATELY forty hours after leaving Fushiki, Japan, the MV Rus reached Vladivostok, at 8:17 A.M., and Hansen congratulated himself for two small accomplishments: He had not become seasick nor had he contracted food poisoning, even though the ferry had crossed into some rough seas and the sanitary conditions in the kitchen were undoubtedly questionable.

  Given the circumstances, Hansen had kept to himself for the entire voyage, bowing out of conversations at meals and spending the majority of his time in his cabin, brushing up on his Russian. He had checked out the casino and spent some time observing people, ferreting out their histories based on the details of their appearances. As far as he was concerned, he had no one tailing him. Now he stood on the upper deck, waiting as the ferry made final preparations to dock.

  A thick mantle of clouds hung over the craggy hills of Vladivostok, the name meant “Lord of the East” in Russian. The city did, indeed, seem to lord over not only Golden Horn Bay, but most of Russia’s weatherworn hinterlands. All around him, high-rise buildings jutted up from patches of snow-covered forests, and the windows on the closest buildings were fogged and framed by icicles.

  Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the old Soviet Union, had once referred to the city as the “Russian San Francisco,” which was a fairly accurate comparison. Both cities were located on hills that offered spectacular views, and Vladivostok had been home to the Soviet Navy’s Pacific Ocean Fleet. Since being opened up to foreigners in 1992, the place was simultaneously clutched by the cold hand of lawlessness and warmed by the promise of new wealth and commercialism after years of being
a closed region dedicated to the support of the military. In short, Vladivostok was a city seven time zones away from Moscow and truly a world unto its own, heavily influenced by the peoples of China, North Korea, and Japan. Though his visit would be brief, Hansen looked forward to breathing in what he could.

  Within twenty minutes, he was off the ferry and walking along the icy pavement toward the bustling train station, where he would meet Sergei Luchenko. Unsurprisingly, a knot had already formed in his stomach. Part of him wanted to apologize for being selected as a Splinter Cell; the other part wanted to tell Sergei, “Too bad, buddy, but you didn’t cut it, and I did.” Hansen didn’t want to feel sorry for his own success.

  But hell, Hansen did. Sergei’s reflexes and mental agility had been good enough for the CIA, but substandard for Third Echelon. He could’ve returned to his old three-letter agency (or another, like UPS, they liked to joke), but Hansen figured Sergei might be too embarrassed to return. Besides, his fellow operatives would wonder exactly why he hadn’t lasted in his new position with the NSA (which was all they’d been told).

  Hansen reached the train station, a pale yellow and alabaster-white affair with ornate glass-block windows and thick columns and spires suggesting that its architects had once worked for Disney. The word “Vladivostok,” in bright red Cyrillic letters, hung high above the main entrance, and out front lay a bus terminal and a parking lot jammed with private cars and taxis whose drivers stood by and chain-smoked, waiting for their next fares. A pair of footbridges over the tracks gained passengers access to the buses and lots, and Hansen already noted how someone could lie low behind the railings and observe the comings and goings of those passengers. It was there that he spotted Sergei.

  Before Hansen veered off the sidewalk, he chanced a quick glance over his shoulder. Then he hustled forward and slipped down behind the railings, where Sergei came to greet him.

  Hansen was taken aback by the weight his old friend had lost—at least twenty, perhaps thirty pounds, his face thin and unshaven. Sergei took a long drag on his cigarette, dropped it, stamped it out, then proffered his hand. “I see you found me, Ben. I thought I was being more discreet. Guess that’s why they flunked me, huh?” Sergei spoke in perfect Russian, but that was one of the many languages he had learned—or relearned as he liked to say. He’d been born and raised in Sacramento, California, the son of Russian immigrants.