Page 107 of The Collector
“What does it say?”
“It says you did exactly the right thing tonight, Ms. Sørensen.”
53
Copenhagen Station
Ordinarily, it took fifteen minutes to traverse the ten kilometers separating PET headquarters and the American Embassy on the Dag Hammarskjölds Allé, but Gabriel’s driver made the trip in less than ten. Paul Webster, the CIA’s Copenhagen station chief, was waiting in the lobby. His leather oxfords squeaked as he led Gabriel down a deserted corridor to the entrance of his secure realm. Inside, he fired up an encrypted video link to Langley. Adrian Carter appeared on the screen a few minutes later, his face taut with tension.
“You were saying?” asked Gabriel.
“Page thirty-six,” repeated Carter. “The part about how these crazy fuckers are planning to erase one of their own villages with a false-flag nuclear attack. It’s a nothing little place about an inch from the Ukrainian border called Maksimov.”
“But the crazy fuckers didn’t saywhenthe attack was going to happen.”
“That’s true. But they were very specific about the staging point.”
“Sokolovka.”
“A real garden spot,” said Carter. “Paul has a satellite image to show you.”
The station chief was sitting in front of a computer just out of camera range. With a few clicks of his mouse, he brought up the photo.
“What am I looking at?” asked Gabriel.
“That little farmhouse in the bottom-left corner of the image.”
“It looks like an ordinary farmhouse.”
“That was how it looked the day the war began. But this is how it looked yesterday.”
Webster brought up another image on his computer. This time there were two giant Kamaz military trucks parked outside the farmhouse in the rutted yard. They were surrounded by a dozen or so heavily armed men.
“It doesn’t look so ordinary now, does it?”
“No,” agreed Gabriel. “And neither do those Russian soldiers.”
“My guys feel the same way. They think they might be Spetsnaz GRU.” The Spetsnaz GRU were the elite special forces of Russia’s military intelligence service. “If you look closely, you can see that they’ve established a perimeter around that corrugated metal outbuilding. There’s another Kamaz truck in there. Interestingly enough, it looks like a commercial truck. That’s the one we’re worried about.”
“If you hit that building—”
“That’s not the plan,” interjected Carter.
“Whatisthe plan?”
“We’re keeping a very close eye on it.”
“How’s the satellite coverage?”
“Suffice it to say we have more assets in the region than we have publicly acknowledged. If that truck leaves the farm, we’re going to be watching. And if it makes a stop in Maksimov, the Ukrainians aregoing to light it up with several HIMARS missiles. With our considerable assistance, of course.”
“Driving time from Sokolovka to Maksimov?”
“Approximately two hours. Which means we’ll have plenty of warning.”
“How long will it take the missiles to reach the target?”
“Ten minutes. We’re confident they can destroy the weapon without triggering a secondary nuclear detonation.”
