Metrace paused for a brief techno-ritual before passing through the sliding glass doors that led into the kitchenette. The multiple rows of check lights for the museum compound's extensive network of security systems all glowed green on the exterior alarm station.
Snapping on the kitchenette's indirect lighting, she set her briefcase and shoulder bag on the carmine-tiled breakfast bar. It was good to be home, even with complications. With a sigh, she shrugged out of her jacket and slipped the elastic band of the nylon concealed-carry sheath over her left wrist. Drawing the slender black-bladed throwing knife from the sheath, she examined the shimmering blade edges for bone or belt buckle nicks.
She bit her lower lip and considered. She couldn't have just left the superb little weapon in its target; she'd hand-machined and balanced it in her own workshop. Besides, as with all the knives she made, her initials were scripted in silver on the blade. Admittedly a vanity on her part.
She'd wiped it off on her attacker's jacket, but that wouldn't be at all adequate in these days of CSI. An overnight soak in a panful of gasoline would eliminate any DNA trace evidence on the knife, and the sheath could go into the fire, but if her erstwhile rapist didn't do the world a large favor and terminally hemorrhage before the paramedics got to him, he might be able to give the police her description and license number.
She sighed again. There was no getting around it. She was going to have to contact her controller, just in case there was any rap-chilling to be done. Bay Area prosecuting attorneys could be peculiar at times, even in cases of flagrant self-defense. It might be suggested that she should have gone to social counseling with her attacker before implanting four inches of steel in his duodenum.
Mr. Klein wouldn't be at all happy if this incident went public. He much preferred that his mobile ciphers maintain a decidedly low profile in their private lives. And as a professor of history, she was supposed to know only about weapons, not about how to use them.
She set the knife and sheath on the breakfast bar and crossed the hall to her office. She kept her private collection here. A built-in gun cabinet took up one entire end wall, and more razor-edged steel glittered on display against the dark cherrywood paneling, a number of the blades bearing her silver signature. The polished horn of a great sable antelope curved saberlike above the mission-style desk.
The overall air of the room should have been masculine, yet it wasn't. A subtle stylistic femininity had been imprinted upon it-subtle, yet dynamic and profoundly individualistic.
Sinking down behind the desk, the professor found a recorded message light glowing on her answering machine: a call on her unlisted private number. She pushed the caller ID key, and an Anacosta, Maryland, area code flashed up. Her brow cocked. She didn't need to contact Covert One. Her alternate employers were trying to contact her.
Chapter Seven
Russian Long Range Aviation Headquarters,
Vladivostok, the Russian Pacific Maritime Provinces
Major Gregori Smyslov braced a hand against the dashboard as the GAZ command car lurched over the potholed base road. Glancing out of the moisture-streaked side window, he frowned at the passing vista of dilapidated barracks and abandoned operations buildings under a sodden lead-colored sky. Serving here must have really been something...once.
The huge air base complex was a ghost of what it had been. Only a few of the hundreds of hardstands lining its broad runways were still occupied. Where once entire regiments of sleek swept-wing Sukhois and Tupolevs had staged, only a couple of understrength squadrons remained on alert, nervously watching the Chinese border.
The remainder of the vast facility hadn't even been mothballed, just abandoned to the wind and the rot and the foxes.
Smyslov was a New Russian. He could recognize the elemental fallacies at the heart of Communism that had led to the collapse of the USSR, and he still had the hope of seeing the eventual success of a free and democratic Russia in the twenty-first century. But he could understand the bitterness in the hearts of some of the old hands. They could remember the days of power, of respect-days when they weren't a joke in the eyes of the world.
The command car drew up in front of the Pacific Air Forces headquarters building, a massive windowless bastion of rust and water-stained concrete. Dismounting, Smyslov dismissed his driver. Turning up the collar of his greatcoat against the