The Persona Protocol - By Andy McDermott Page 0,101

out at the Vityaz. A small flare of orange light revealed the driver in its cab, smoking a cigarette. The engine was still running; like Bianca, the Russian wanted to stay warm.

‘Adam,’ said Tony urgently. ‘Movement on the ship.’

‘Okay,’ he whispered, looking back towards the waterfront. One of Zykov’s bodyguards had emerged on to the aft deck. His coat was open, a hand inside. He wasn’t impersonating Napoleon. He had a gun at the ready, surveying the shore for signs of danger. Adam retreated into the shadows.

The other bodyguard came through an open hatch, followed by Zykov. The arms dealer was talking over his shoulder to someone.

Another man appeared. Tall, rangy, with a long dark beard spilling over his coat’s collar. Olive-brown skin, a thin, prominent nose.

Muqaddim al-Rais.

The world’s most wanted terrorist. The man behind atrocities that had claimed hundreds, even thousands of lives across the globe, including that of the US Secretary of State.

And he was here, in a tiny town on the frozen fringes of Russia.

For a moment, Browning’s persona vanished from Adam’s mind. His only thought was a sudden urge for vengeance. From this distance, even his pistol would be more than accurate enough to score a killing shot. His vision seemed to tunnel, locking on to the terrorist leader’s head. One bullet would do it . . .

His focus widened as more men followed al-Rais on to the deck. The majority looked to be Pakistani or Afghan. None appeared acclimatised to the cold. The mountains of the Hindu Kush were far from hospitable in winter, but sub-arctic Siberia – Provideniya was only barely south of the Arctic Circle – was something else entirely.

The men kept coming. Five, six, seven in all, each carrying a bag containing something suspiciously similar in length to a Kalashnikov rifle. Two of them also bore suitcases; the seven million dollars? The last man out gave Adam an odd feeling of recognition. It took him a moment to realise why. His name was Qasid, one of al-Rais’s lieutenants; Adam had pulled his face from Syed’s memories during the debriefing on the flight from Pakistan. Holly Jo had also found his picture in the USIC database.

But a brief meeting and a single photograph didn’t seem enough to have produced the feeling of familiarity. Was there something more? He wasn’t sure.

He wasn’t sure why he had felt such a surge of anger towards al-Rais, either. He was an enemy of the United States, yes, but this had been almost personal. Why? He hadn’t encountered al-Rais before.

Or . . . had he?

There was no time to consider that. ‘Tony,’ he whispered. ‘I have eyes on al-Rais. Repeat, Muqaddim al-Rais is here.’

‘We see him,’ came the reply. ‘Stand by.’

The two bodyguards came down the gangplank on to the dock. Adam pulled back deeper into cover. Zykov followed his men, then the terrorists filed on to the shore, al-Rais shielded by their bodies at the centre of the group. They all marched towards the Vityaz. The two bodyguards, al-Rais and one of his men entered the cab; the other six clambered into the back compartment of the DT-10’s front unit. Presumably the trailer would be used to carry the RTG.

Zykov, however, didn’t get in. Instead he reached into his coat and took out a telephone. Its oversized antenna revealed it to be a satellite unit rather than a cellular.

The Russian started to tap in a number. ‘Holly Jo,’ Adam said, ‘Zykov’s making a call on a satphone.’

‘I’ll try to snag it,’ she replied.

Zykov put the phone to his ear. After a few moments he frowned and peered at the unit’s screen, then moved several paces away from the Vityaz and held the phone up to the sky. He turned in place, finally looking satisfied when he was facing south. Satellite phones depended on line-of-sight to their orbiting relays, and were also susceptible to local interference; the Vityaz, a big metal box housing a powerful engine, would not help reception.

He put the phone back to his head, waiting several seconds before getting a connection and starting to talk. Adam – or rather Browning – could make out most of what he heard, his current persona having acquired a fair knowledge of Russian during his years as an international atomic energy inspector. Zykov was talking to Colonel Sevnik: his seller.

A tension – no, an excitement, the thrill of the hunt – rose in Adam as he realised what Zykov was doing. ‘They’re arranging the meet,’ he told the team.