Power Play Read Free Page B

you’re not with me.”

FOUR DAYS LATER
    Severnaya Hotel Bar
Petrozavodsk
     
    Rani Ben Adan had been waiting for almost four hours since the appointed time of 1600. It was now almost eight o’clock, and the bar was beginning to thin out as people headed to the dining room. The Mossad agent was worried. Nikolai had never been late. And when people fail to turn up in the espionage trade, it often means something very sinister, like exposure, capture, or death—even all three.
    Rani debated making a break for it, checking out of the hotel, and catching the midnight express back to Moscow. Every time someone entered the room, he half-expected FSB (old KGB) officers direct from the Lubyanka to come striding up to him and demand to see his passport and travel documents.
    He did not look suspicious. Rani knew that. His dark complexion and
trimmed black hair gave him the look of a Georgian or even someone from southern Ukraine. His clothes were purchased in the West, and his English passport was immaculate. He carried business cards and other literature pertaining to the paint industry in a slim black briefcase. The “factory” that “employed” him as head salesman had an excellent website, which included phone numbers. A check call by the Russian police seeking John Carter’s credentials would be routed directly to special operators in the basement of the Israeli Embassy in London.
    While Rani sat sipping coffee, Nikolai Chirkov was on one of those interminable Russian train journeys, almost 450 miles from the station at Archangel, all along the southern coast of the White Sea, and then north for the train change at Belomorsk. That’s only about halfway, and he still had another 200 miles to go.
    The train was late from Belomorsk, and the weather was terrible. When Nikolai finally entered the downstairs bar at the hotel, at almost eight thirty, having run four blocks and a thousand yards through the snow from the Petrozavodsk train station, he was mightily relieved to see Rani still waiting patiently on the far side of the room, his back to the wall.
    They went through their deliberate routines, taking care to show no sign of recognition of one another. A half hour later they were back in apartment number 506, where a traditional Karelian meat casserole with potatoes and cheese was awaiting them. Whoever had prepared it was long gone.
    Rani scooped the meal onto a couple of plates and zapped them both in the microwave. There was some Russian bread in the warming oven and chilled vodka in the refrigerator. As Russian dinners go, it was pretty good, especially for Nikolai, who’d had nothing all day. Rani had never grown accustomed to the tough meat in what he called “this gastronomic wasteland” and thought constantly of his favorite Tel Aviv steak house on Allenby Street and the fabulous fresh fruits grown in Israel’s northern farmlands, especially the pale, sweet peaches of Hebron.
    But right now he had bigger matters on his mind. “Okay, Nikki, what’s new?” he asked.
    “Plenty,” replied the Russian officer. “The navy is planning a hit on the USA. I’m not sure of the exact target, because they have not yet tested the missile. I found out it has a range of twenty-five hundred kilometers, and
they expect it to be perfected within a few months. They called the missile men in from North Korea and Iran because right now they’re having problems with the navigation systems.”
    “God knows why they want advice from the Koreans,” said Rani. “The last four long-range rockets they tested ended up on the beach about a mile and a half from where they were fired. If these ex-Soviets think they can hit any target in the USA without being identified, they’re even more stupid than we think they are. The US nuclear defensive shield is light-years ahead of them.”
    “There’s more. The missile scientists from North Korea and Iran have arrived, and they’re staying right here in Russia. A new laboratory has