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Rossky glared at his superior. "Not if the information is the business of this Center, sir."

Orlov fell silent as he failed to find the log of his own conversation with Dogin. He looked back at 8:11, which is when he remembered making the entry. The space was blank.

"Is something wrong, sir?" Rossky asked.

Orlov did a word-search of the entire file, just to make sure he hadn't mislogged the entry. Outwardly calm, inwardly he was agitated when Gulfstream did not turn up anywhere.

The General regarded Rossky. The Colonel's expression was relaxed now, which in itself told him something: Rossky had removed the order.

"No," Orlov said, "nothing is wrong. I misplaced a log order. I'll reenter it when we're finished." He sat back, saw a satisfied twist tug on the sides of Rossky's mouth. "I've spent enough time on this matter, and I trust my wishes are clear."

"Quite, sir."

"I want you to inform Minister Dogin of my intentions, and to take over the operation personally. My son respects you, and I'm sure you'll work as well together now as you did in the past."

"Yes, sir," Rossky said. "He's a good officer."

The telephone beeped, and Orlov dismissed the Colonel as he picked up the receiver. Rossky shut the door without a backward glance.

"Yes?" Orlov said.

"Sir, it's Zilash. Would you please come to the radio room?"

"What's wrong?"

"The dish is picking up densely coded communications," Zilash said. "We've sent them over to cryptography, but we've started to wonder if something might be happening before we're able to translate the messages."

"I'm on my way," Orlov said.

He left without bothering to relog the Gulfstream entry, certain that it would only be erased again and angry that a meeting designed to put Rossky in his place merely underscored his growing concern that Dogin and the spetsnaz planned to run the Center with him as a figurehead.

Rossky's words echoed in his mind. "Not if the information is the business of this Center, sir." In the space of just a few hours, the death of an enemy agent and information about the Gulfstream had been kept from him. The Center was one of the most powerful reconnaissance bases in the world: Orlov would not permit Rossky and Dogin to turn it into their own private resource, though he would not do anything just yet. He had learned from his days in space that it was most important to keep his head cool when his seat was heating up to five thousand degrees Fahrenheit-- and the pair had not yet come close to raising the temperature that high.

In any case, he still had a facility to run, and neither the Colonel nor a megalomaniac was going to keep him from doing his job.

Orlov sidled into the cramped radio room, which was even thicker with smoke than before. Zilash's narrow face was angled upward, his eyes staring at nothing in particular as he listened on his headset. He removed them after a moment and looked at Orlov.

"Sir," he said around his cigarette, "we've been following two series of coded communications, and we assume they're connected. The first is from Washington to an aircraft over the Atlantic, and the second is to Helsinki." He took two quick puffs, then stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray. "We had the satellite team take a look at the aircraft: it's unmarked, though they make it out to be a C-141B StarLifter."

"Big troop carrier," Orlov said thoughtfully, "a modified version of the C-141A. I know the plane well."

"I thought you might." Zilash smiled, then lit a fresh cigarette. "The StarLifter is on a course toward Helsinki. We listened to communications between the pilot and the tower: he'll be arriving around eleven P.M., local time."

Orlov looked at his watch. "That's less than an hour from now. Any idea who's on board?"

Zilash shook his head. "We tried to listen in on the cockpit with the Svetlana in the North Atlantic, but the captain says there's an electronic field in the plane."

"So it's definitely intelligence," Orlov said, though he wasn't surprised. He thought back to the British operative who had been spying on the Hermitage, and quietly