Arctic Gold Read Free Page B

from a pouch on her combat blacks, Lia slipped a plug into her ear and held the device itself out in front of her. Instantly a staccato burst of clicks, harsh as the earlier static, sounded in her ear as numerals appeared on the small LED readout screen.
Machine parts, my ass, she said.
It is radioactive, yes? Alekseev said.
It is radioactive, yes.
It is not harmful, I was told, Alekseev told her. I was told
Not harmful unless there prolonged exposure, Lia corrected him. So let get this the hell over with and get out of here. Give me the pry.
Huh? Oh, yes. He handed her one of the tools he’d been carrying at his belt, a short pry bar. She used it to jimmy up one of the boards on the crate top with a sharp squeak of dry wood and bending staples, giving her a peek inside.
The crate was filled with what looked like thin sheets of metal, dull steel- gray, gleaming in the flash beam. Bingo
.
But just to be sure
Akulinin
Operation Magpie
Waterfront, St. Petersburg
0027 hours
Placing some more sensors, Akulinin emerged from the alley on a broad concrete promenade. The fog clung low and close above the black flow of the Neva. A thousand yards across the water lay a Russian Navy shipyard, but he could see no sign of it, not even a fog- shrouded light. Somewhere in the distance, a buoy- mounted bell clanged fitfully with the chop of the water, followed by the lowing of a foghorn.
Sticking to the shadows next to the line of dilapidated warehouses, he began making his way toward Lia position.
When Ilya Akulinin had left the Army, shortly after his third tour in Afghanistan, he’d been approached by a recruiter with the the National Security Agency. The NSA was America premier eavesdropping agency, and they, too, could use a man with his language skills, experience, and security clearances.
That had been just three years ago. After six months of training in Georgia and at the CIA Farm at Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia, they’d put him at a desk listening to electronic intercepts from Russia for the most part tracking the activities and the shadowy members of Russia far- flung criminal underground.
Crouching beside a rust- clotted cliff of sheet metal, the southwestern wall of an empty warehouse, he paused to check his communications link with the Art Room. Verona, this is Romeo, he called softly but the answer came as a harsh burst of static. The surrounding buildings, concrete and metal, must be blocking the signal. He’d thought that perhaps here, directly next to the water,
he would have a clean line of sight to a satellite, but evidently there were buildings across the Neva high enough to block the signal. He would need to get up high for a clear line of sight and it would be better if he could deploy a small dish antenna and get a good lock on a comsat.
He touched his belt, changing frequencies. Juliet, Juliet, he called. Wherefore art thou, Juliet?
Knock it off, Romeo, was her response. Her voice was scratchy, with a lot of static, but he could hear her well enough. We’re almost done here.
Where do you want me?
Sit tight. Everything cool. Where are you?
On the ground, at the corner of the warehouse southeast of you, about fifty yards from your position.
Stay put. We’ll be done in a second.
Roger that.
He waited. The damp breeze off the water made him shiver.
Akulinin had endured the boredom of a desk job for the next couple of years after his recruitment, until last month when out of the blue they’d asked him to volunteer for a routine but possibly dangerous operation in Russia. After almost two years of listening to recorded voices and filing ream upon electronic ream of reports, of course
he’d volunteered.
He’d volunteered without ever having heard of Desk Three. And that had proven to be quite a revelation in itself.
The National Security Agency was the largest of America intelligence agencies, and the most secretive, the least known. The old joke held that the letters stood for Never Say Anything or, more