ItOs beautiful, Randi whispered in honest appreciation. And it was. There was a sense of design and proportion to the little knife that made it a work of art beyond the weapon.

  Thank you, Valentina Metrace replied. ThatOs DY-100 steelNhellish stuff to work but incredibly strong, and if you can get an edge on it, it lasts forever.

  Smith glanced back at her. You made these?

  Valentina gave a modestly acknowledging tilt of her head. A hobby.

  Randi smiled indulgently as she buckled the belt of the fanny pack/ holster around her waist. TheyOre pretty, Professor, but if a situation develops you might want something a little more substantial.

  Never underestimate the point and the edge, darling. Valentina accepted the knives from Smith. Blades have killed more people than all of the bombs and bullets ever created, and they continue to do so with undiminished efficiency.

  One of the throwing knives vanished up the historianOs left sweater sleeve, the other into a boot top. My little pets are silent, jamproof, and far easier to conceal than a gun. You never have to worry about running out of ammunition, and they can punch through soft body armor that would stop a conventional pistol round cold.

  Randi gave her gun belt a final settling tug and cranked over the Crown VictoriaOs ignition. IOll stick with a gun, thanks.

  Hopefully we wonOt need either flavor of ordnance on this job, ladies.

  Hopefully, Jon? Randi replied, backing the car out of its slot.

  Well, letOs call it a nice thought.

  The next step was a call to a number heOd committed to memory before leaving Seattle that morning. As they worked their way out of the airport lot Smith keyed his cell phone. A deep voice speaking a mildly accented but excellent English replied, This is Major Smyslov.

  Good afternoon, Major, this is Colonel Smith. We will be picking you up in front of your hotel in about fifteen minutes. A white Ford sedan, Alaska license, Sierra…Tango…Tango…three…four…seven, one man, two women. Civilian clothes.

  Very good, Colonel, I will be waiting.

  Smith flipped the phone shut. This would be his next critical unknown. There had already been a couple of interesting turns in his teamOs makeup. What would this last member add to the already exotic brew?

  Clad in anorak, khaki slacks, and climbing boots, Major Gregori Smyslov stood outside the lobby entrance of the Arctic Inn, his flight bag at his feet and his thoughts paralleling those of Jon Smith.

  He had been briefed to expect an army doctor, a historian, and a civilian helicopter pilot. But who would they truly be? Already Smyslov had the sense they would be something more. The way Smith had set up the contact and pickup, the crisp identifiers he had givenNthey had the flavor of an experienced field operative.

  Impatiently he lit a Camel filter with a disposable butane lighter, not of a mood to enjoy the superior American tobacco. Soon his performance would begin.

  Already Smyslov didnOt like the feel of this job. It had the stink of desperation about it, a stench all too common in Russian governmental circles in these days. Someone somewhere in the Moscow bureaucracy was not thinking, just reacting.

  He took a hard drag on the cigarette. It wasnOt his place to decide such things.

  The white automobile he had been told to expect turned off the street and rolled to a halt under the hotel canopy, its license number and passengers matching the given description. Smyslov flipped the cigarette to the ground, crushing it deliberately with his boot heel. Presently he would know, or at least he would have an idea, where the Americans stood and what they suspected.

  Collecting his bag, Smyslov strode out to the car.

  Within five minutes Smyslov indeed knew, and any hope that the Americans might be naively accepting the Russian line on the Misha 124 crash was irrevocably gone. As he was flying a false flag, so was everyone else.

  The two women might look like American fashion models, but they most certainly were something else. The taciturn, wary blonde driving the car, theoretically the helicopter pilot, was maintaining a spyOs situational awareness, as was the more openly relaxed and vivacious brunette history professor. As she lounged in the backseat beside him, overtly chatting about the Alaskan climate, her vision scanned in a regular pattern, checking the paralleling traffic and skipping from one rearview mirror to the other, watching for potential tails.

  Smyslov judged them as CIA or as members of one of the associate intelligence agencies that made up what the Americans called the Club.

  He wondered if the striking attractiveness of the two female agents was a mere coincidence or if one or both of them might include seductive interrogation as part of their arsenal.

  That could prove disconcerting.

  As for the team leader, he might be an Army surgeon but he was also American Spetsnaz, probably attached to their defense intelligence agency. The feeling of alert, focused confidence radiating from him was unmistakable, as was the bulk of the military-caliber automatic riding under his jacket. The least they could have done was to give the poor fellow a decent cover name. Jon Smith indeed!

  And if he had caught their scent, they most certainly had his. When Smith had reached back over the seat to shake SmyslovOs hand, there had been a glint of humor deep in his penetrating dark blue eyes, a shared, cynical joke of Shhh, weOll play the game for as long as you will.

  Madness!

  Smyslov jerked his attention away from his thoughts. What did you say, Colonel?

  I was just asking if your people had come up with anything new on the circumstances of the crash, Smith said amiably, looking back over the seat once more. Do you have any better idea of what brought her down in our territory?

  Smyslov shook his head, aware of the three pairs of eyes regarding him, two sets directly and one in the rearview mirror. No. We have reexamined our records and we have interviewed certain personnel who were serving in Siberia at the time of the Misha 124 training flight. Communications failed sometime between two routine position reports, and no distress call was heard. There was some evidence of environmental radio interference over the Pole. We believe this is the explanation.

  What was the last solid fix you had on her? The planeOs position, that is?

  So it began. I donOt have the exact latitude and longitude to mind, Colonel; IOll have to check my documentation, but they were somewhere north of Ostrova Anzhu.

  WeOve been wondering what she was doing so far over on our side of the Pole on a training exercise. The woman professor, (Metrace, was it?) smoothly took over the flow of the questioning. From what we know about the B-29-TU-4 family of aircraft, a crash on Wednesday Island would have put your bomber almost beyond her point of no return for your Siberian bases.

  Smyslov gritted his teeth for a moment and parroted the answer he had been programmed to give. The training flight was never intended to come close to the North American coastline at any point. We theorize that the planeOs onboard gyrocompasses tumbled. Given the difficulties of aerial navigation near the Pole, the crew must have accidentally flown a reciprocal course toward Canada instead of back to Siberia.

  ThatOs funny, the woman behind the wheel murmured almost to herself as she deftly maneuvered around a lumbering SUV.

  What is, Randi? Smith said almost casually.

  ItOs still dark over the Pole in March, and the B-29 was a high-altitude aircraft. It should have been flying well above any cloud cover. Even if they did lose their gyros, I wonder why the navigator wasnOt able to shoot a star sight and get his bearings.

  Smyslov felt the sweat start to prickle under his anorak. Now he knew what it felt like to be a mouse under the claws of a pack of exceptionally playful and sadistic cats. I donOt know, Miss Russell. Possibly we will learn more at the crash site.

  IOm sure we will, Major, Smith said with a pleasant smile.

  This…was…madness!

  E

  Merrill Field, Anchorage

  Even into the twenty-first century, Alaska was essentially still a wilderness with a minimal road and rail net. Flight stitched the mammoth state together, and Merrill Field and its sister seaplane facility at Lake Hood were two of the largest civil aviation facilities in the world, central nodes in this culture of the bush pilot.

  Scores of hangars lined the field taxiways, and hundreds of light planes occupied acres of parking apron. The drone of engines was a constant, and the traffic pattern was perpetually filled with incoming and departing aircraft.

  As Smith and his team drew up in front of the office of Pole Star Aero-leasing, they found that a sleek Day-Glo orange helicopter had already been wheeled out of an adjacent hangar. Mounted on a set of pressed-foam arctic pontoons, it stood spotted and ready for takeoff.

  Okay, Randi, Smith said. ThereOs your piece of the action. What do you think?

  ItOll do, she replied, openly pleased. ItOs a Bell Jet Ranger, the stretched 206L Long Ranger variant with twin turbines. ItOs about as stone reliable as a helicopter can get. According to the documentation, it should be fully IFR capable and weatherized for polar operations.

  Then I may assume itOs acceptable in all aspects, Ms. Russell?

  She shot a look at him along with a half-smile. Nominally, Colonel Smith. IOll let you know for certain when IOve finished my walk-around.

  Smyslov stared out of his window at the Ranger with that peculiar pilotOs fixation, and it occurred to Smith that the Russian Air Force officer was indeed a Russian Air Force officer.

  Do you have any helicopter time, Major? he asked.

  Some, he replied, looking around with a grin, in Kamovs and Swidniks, but none in a little beauty like that one.

  Then, Randi, youOve got a copilot. Put him to work.

  Randi gave him the briefest of hesitant glances. Smith replied with a single millimeterOs nod. All of the brothers were valiant, and all of the sisters virtuous…until proven otherwise. Beyond that, the blond-haired Russian would be riding in that helicopter along with the rest of them, and Smyslov didnOt strike Smith as being overtly suicidal.

  Leaving the loading and preflight to Randi, Smith touched base at the leasing office. There was little for him to do; the invisible but potent presence of Fred Klein had passed through here as well.

  The paperworkOs all taken care of, Colonel, the grizzled office manager said. Your birdOs fully fueled and surveyed, and I took the liberty of filing a flight plan through to Kodiak for you. YouOve got CAVU flight conditions all the way, and the weather looks good over CookOs Inlet and the Entrances for the next twelve hours. The air boss aboard the Haley is expecting you, and youOll recover directly onto ship. IOll advise him when youOre in the air.

  Smith knew from his briefing that Pole Star provided aircraft for a number of commercial and government research projects in the Arctic, and possibly for other purposes.

  The office manager was obviously ex-army aviation. A large First Air Cavalry shield had been mounted on the flier-cluttered office wall, and the model of an AH-1 Huey Cobra sat on the desk. An ancient Vietnam-era flight jacket also lay draped over the back of the chair. Smith sensed that the older man might have been a member of the Club himself at one time or had worked on the peripheries.

  Thanks for the service, Smith said, extending his hand to the manager. WeOll try to bring her back in one piece.

  Screw it. ItOs insured, the old aviator grinned back, taking SmithOs hand in a strong, calloused grasp. I donOt know what your tasking orders are, Colonel, but good luck and watch your ass. Men count. Choppers donOt.

  IOll make that my beautiful thought for the day.

  Smith stepped from the office and took a long automatic look around. The sky was blue and almost cloudless, the wind a faint cool brush against his face. In a few minutes theyOd be airborne.

  His team had linked up. Nothing untoward had happened on the flight to Anchorage or at the airport. No one had followed them here. No one was in sight, save for his own people and a couple of flannel-shirted locals tinkering around with a big white Cessna in a hangar across from the leasing agency.

  Why was he thinking something had to be wrong?

  The island and port of Kodiak lay some 270 miles west-southwest of Anchorage, down the length of CookOs Inlet and across Shelikof Strait from the Alaskan mainland, a decent haul for a small helicopter.

  Randi Russell kept the Long Ranger just off the beach, steering along the densely forested shore of the Kenai Peninsula. Urban civilization fell swiftly behind them, replaced by a string of small villages spaced along the Sterling Coastal Highway like the beads on a necklace.

  Randi was grateful for this opportunity to learn her aircraft. Most of her rotor hours had been in the Bell Ranger family, but few had been in the big 206 series. Now she felt her way through the Long RangerOs handling, exploring how the greater size and weight of the aircraft and the drag of the pontoons were countered by the augmented power of the twin engines. Her eyes soon found and fell into the automatic scan pattern of instrument gaugesDhorizonDinstrument gaugesDhorizon of the skilled pilot.

  Beyond the fishing community of Homer and the mouth of Kachemak Bay, even the coastal villages were left behind, and the Long Ranger headed out across the broad, empty straits of the Kennedy and Stevenson Entrances to Kodiak Island. The occasional distant wake of a fishing boat cutting across the chill blue waters served as the last lingering reminder of humanity.

  After the first hour airborne, the steady-state whine of the turbines and the rhythmic thudding of the rotors threatened to become soporific, and Randi found herself having to fight a backlog of transpacific jet lag. Major SmyslovOs occasional interested question from the copilotOs seat about the controls and handling of the Long Ranger provided a welcome stimulus.

  In the amidships passenger seats Professor Metrace had succumbed. Curling up in her mink-collared leather jacket, sheOd gone to sleep. Glancing up at the rearview cockpit mirror, Randi couldnOt help but note the way her head had drifted companionably onto JonOs shoulder.

  So it hadnOt been RandiOs imagination back in Seattle. Valentina Metrace obviously was not averse to combining business with pleasure, and she was also obviously interested in Smith.

  Well, she was more than welcome to the man. But, damn it, did the theoretical historian have to be so flagrant about it? And did she always have to go around looking like a James Bond heroine?

  Randi glanced down at herself and her comfortably worn jeans and denim jacket and suppressed a soft feminine snort.

  As for what Jon felt about it, Randi couldnOt tell. But then, that had always been the problem with the man. Smith was one of the very few people Randi had ever met that she couldnOt read. She could never be quite sure what was really going on behind those handsome, immobile features.

  It had been that way even when he had been saying how sorry he was about her fiancZ or telling her about Sophia.

  One thing she could sense was SmithOs wariness. Even with that pleasantly scented seatmate nestled against him, his head was turning with slow, repetitive deliberation, those intent blue eyes moving constantly in a fighter pilotOs scan.

  Did he know something he hadnOt passed on, or was he sensing something? Damn it, what was going on in there?

  Maybe it was just the time and environment. If someone wanted to make trouble, now, over the open sea with the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak Island mere hazy outlines on the horizons fore and aft, would present an excellent opportunity.

  Suddenly the turning of SmithOs head stopped, and he fixed on something off the port side, like a gun turret locking on target.

  Randi, he said quietly into the lip mike of his headset, we have traffic paralleling us. Eight oOclock high.

  Randi swore at herself for letting her own situational awareness slip. Twisted around in the pilotOs seat, she looked down the bearing. There was something out there. A glint of sunlight heliographing off the windshield of another aircraft. IOve got him.

  Everyone in the Long RangerOs cabin snapped alert, Valentina straightening up, clear-eyed and in a way that made Randi wonder if sheOd been asleep at all. The team looked on as the intruder edged closer, a large, high-winged, single-engined monoplane.

  This is the direct flight path between Anchorage and Kodiak Island, Smyslov commented, playing the devilOs advocate. It is logical there would be other aeroplanes.

  Maybe, Randi replied, but that looks like a Cessna Turbo Centurion. He has a way higher cruising speed than we do. Why would he be station keeping on us like that?

  Randi, Smith said, not taking his eyes off the shadowing aircraft, angle us off the direct bearing to Kodiak.

  Right. Doing it.

  She rocked the cyclic, and the Long Ranger paid off onto a slightly divergent course. Half a minute later Smyslov spoke quietly. He turns with us.

  The Russian tightened his seat belt, a combat aviatorOs instinctive ready alert gesture.

  Again, Randi, SmithOs voice sharpened. Turn away from him!

  She obeyed without question. She snapped the tail of the helicopter toward the Cessna. Veering away to the northwest, she tried to open the range.

  The Cessna fell away astern. For over a full minute the sky around the helicopter remained clear. Then the light plane reappeared, crawling back into view half a mile to their left. Accelerating, it climbed into a dominant position off the Long RangerOs port bow, a dark silhouette against the piercing blue sky. Once more it began to sidle closer.

  He must like our company, Valentina Metrace said, removing a small, flat pair of folding sports binoculars from her inside jacket pocket. Popping them open, she focused on their stalker. The starboard cargo door has been removed, she reported. ThereOs one pilot aboard and what looks like one passenger kneeling in the open doorway. The registration numbers are November…nine…five…three…seven…foxtrot.

  ThatOs it, then. SmithOs voice returned to its usual steady state. ThatOs the same plane that was parked across from the leasing agency when we picked up the helicopter. Randi, put in a call to the Kodiak Coast Guard base. Tell them we may need some help out here.

  Right. Randi reached up to the overhead communications panel, switching her headset from intercom to radio. Coast Guard Kodiak, Coast Guard Kodiak, this is Nan one niner six alpha six squawking emergency, squawking emergency, over.