something to be left lying around on coffee tables. Spot checks of briefcases at the agency’s exits ensured that overzealous employees didn’t attempt to carry out the crown jewels.
She started to read a few press clippings, but found it impossible to focus on the printed words. The feeling was rising in her again—the gut-wrenching anxiety that she tried to block out by concentrating on Lindsay and the daily effort to rebuild some normalcy in their lives. Why did Paul Chaney have to show up today, after all this time? What kind of game was he playing now? Why would he say it wasn’t an accident when she knew for a fact that it was?
She had told Chaney only part of the truth, of course. He had no idea of her CIA connections nor that the Company, and not just the embassy, had gone over David and Lindsay’s accident with a fine-tooth comb to rule out any possibility of foul play. And although Mariah had been too busy running between hospital rooms to take part herself, someone she trusted absolutely had seen to it that no stone was left unturned in the Company’s investigation of the disaster. No, Mariah thought, the bottom line is that Chaney doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
She leaned back and massaged her temples, then glanced at her watch. Propping her feet on the coffee table, she grabbed the television remote and flicked on the ten o’clock news. As the screen began to glow, two figures came into view—the “CBN Nightly News” anchors. They fit the standard TV-news format. The man, Bob Michaels, was in his mid-forties, telegenic, conservatively dressed, sober. Beverly Chin, by comparison, was younger, more brightly dressed and seated on the right side of the screen, where the eye is naturally drawn. She smiled a great deal, although her face became serious when she read from the TelePrompTer. Her Chinese features and the good looks of the African-American weatherman brought a politically correct racial balance to the news team.
The newscast opened with the latest on the aftermath of a terrorist triple-header that had occurred three days earlier. Forty-seven deaths and scores of injuries had resulted when bombs had exploded simultaneously in London’s Trafalgar Square, Paris’s Eiffel Tower and at the Statue of Liberty in New York. The horrifying brilliance of the attacks—their stunning coordination and the pointed symbolism of the three targets, all objects of intense national pride—was such that dozens of groups had jumped in to claim responsibility and threaten further action if their demands were not met. A coordinated intelligence effort had narrowed the field of probable attackers to one fundamentalist religious group and two “liberation fronts.”
Mariah watched the item closely. Now that the Soviet Union was defunct, she had been assigned a new focus of analysis. She was in the middle of drafting a paper on the arms market for interconnected terrorist groups and she thought she might have uncovered a new supplier with possible links to Libya. There was no evidence of a connection to this ghastly terrorist triple play—not yet, anyway—but she was determined to keep at it, knowing that a coordinated assault like this had to have had strong and experienced backing.
The news report, however, told her nothing she didn’t already know. When it ended, the screen shifted back to the grave features of anchorman Bob Michaels.
“The Cold War may be over, but there seems no end to troubles in the former Soviet Union. There was rioting again today in the streets of Moscow, as another cold Russian winter sets in and food shortages loom large. Correspondent Paul Chaney reports that some cash-strapped Russians may become desperate enough to try to sell the country’s nuclear arsenal.”
Mariah’s heart began to pound. She leaned forward in her seat as the tall, lean figure of Paul Chaney appeared on the screen, standing in front of the State Department building. He was wearing a sport coat and tie instead of the habitual bomber jacket—his concession to the camera. It looked as if the report had been videotaped earlier in the day.
“Since the end of the Cold War, the Russian and American governments have agreed to drastic cuts in nuclear arsenals. Thousands of weapons researchers have seen their funding disappear as the former superpowers cut weapons programs to cash in the promised ‘Peace Dividend,’ freeing up military funds for domestic purposes.
“But there are those who would be willing to pay a high price for these cast-off weapons—and for the experts to operate them. In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency—the IAEA—has been fighting for more power to inspect nuclear weapons sites to ensure that these arsenals are destroyed as promised. The IAEA has also proposed a registry of nuclear scientists to make certain that these specialists don’t auction off their skills to the highest bidder.
“I asked an official here at the State Department why our government has not been more supportive of the IAEA’s efforts.”
The scene shifted to an office, where a white-haired man in a pin-striped suit sat, hands folded, behind a desk. A line on the screen identified him as William Hoskmeyer of the State Department’s Nuclear Affairs Division. Mariah knew him well—he was a pompous idiot.
Hoskmeyer: “I think you have to see it as a question of equity. If we insist that the Russians allow snap inspections by outsiders of their nuclear facilities, then they have every right to insist that we do the same. Frankly, we’re not prepared to do that—to give foreigners unrestricted access to American security installations.”
Chaney: “So how do we know that Russian weapons and expertise won’t end up in the pockets of madmen and terrorists in exchange for much-needed dollars?”
Hoskmeyer: “Because Moscow is as committed as we are to nuclear nonproliferation. We’re confident that the agreements on force reduction that we’ve struck with the Russians will be fully respected—both the letter and the spirit. And we’re monitoring closely, of course.”
The scene shifted back to Chaney in front of the State Department building. “Despite Washington’s apparent lack of concern, there is evidence that unstable governments and terrorist groups are scrambling to acquire nuclear weapons—and that whistle-blowers in the IAEA are being silenced. Some of these potential customers can pay top dollar for smuggled nuclear weapons and the specialists to handle them. If they succeed, we may find ourselves looking back fondly on the Cold War—when only Moscow and Washington appeared likely to blow up the planet.
“Paul Chaney—CBN—Washington.”
The news continued, but Mariah wasn’t listening to the television anymore. She snapped off the set, staring numbly at the disappearing glow.
David had been working in Vienna for the International Atomic Energy Agency and had been in the forefront of IAEA officials seeking greater powers to stop the spread of nuclear weapons—and Paul knew it.
But what Chaney couldn’t know was that it was Mariah herself—not David—who had blown the whistle on a suspected nuclear weapons ring. And that if David and Lindsay’s accident in Vienna had been an attempt to silence a whistle-blower, it should have been Mariah—not David—who was the target.
“But it wasn’t,” Mariah whispered. “Dammit, Chaney. I would have been the first to know.”
No one could have guessed that the five men at the corner table were doomed.
They were sitting in the Trinity Bar (“Live Country Music Every Nite!”) just on the outskirts of Taos, New Mexico. Around them, the usual Wednesday-night crowd of ranch hands and laborers, most in jeans and Stetsons, moved through the smoky haze to the rhythm of a steel guitar. At the front of the bar, a singer in a fringed shirt stood under a spotlight, his throaty twang straining to be heard as he begged Ruby not to take her love to town.
Admittedly, the three Russians were a little conspicuous. In the crowd of sweat-soaked Stetsons and dust-lined faces, their crisp Levi’s
