Peter Kirsanow: Second Strike

Her mobile device vibrated gently in her hand. She pressed the icon, raised the device to her ear, and heard a familiar voice.

“Now that you’re famous, I expected someone else to be answering your phone for you.” It was Laura Casini, Olivia’s former Stanford classmate, now an analyst with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

“With fame comes neither fortune nor privilege.”

“Very Churchillian. But try being a worker bee like me.”

“Not only have I tried it, it stuck,” Olivia replied. “What’s going on?”

“I thought you might be interested in something I happened to notice in the last day or two. Thought maybe you’d like to drop by.”

Olivia’s focus sharpened. The last and only time she had “dropped by” Casini’s office was to view highly classified satellite imagery revealing peculiar production patterns at Russian industrial sites, patterns that only later became alarmingly decipherable.

“I take it you can’t give me a preview over the phone,” Olivia said.

“That Stanford education really didn’t go to waste, did it? When should I expect you?”

“About twenty minutes after I find a cab, which at this rate should be early September.”

“I’ll be here.”

Olivia stood behind Laura Casini as she tapped commands onto a keyboard and a blurred image appeared on the seventy-two-inch screen in front of them. Casini manipulated a mouse, causing the resolution to become sharper.

“That looks familiar,” Olivia said.

“It should. It’s one of the same places you had me call up last time.” Casini pointed to the screen depicting a mammoth industrial facility. “Do you remember which one that is?”

“Arkhangelsk.”

“Right. Notice anything interesting?”

Olivia scrutinized the screen. “Not really. Looks about the same as I remembered it.”

“That in itself should be interesting, don’t you think? Mountains and mountains of electrical equipment lying about? Going nowhere?”

Olivia shook her head. “The EMP never went off; nothing got fried. So there was no market for replacement equipment.”

“Fair enough,” Casini said, producing an even sharper image with a single keystroke.

Olivia was astounded by the clarity of the image. “That’s scary.”

“Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood KeyHole 13 satellite dealer,” Casini said. “We can spot dandruff on top of Yuri Mikhailov’s head with this. Notice anything interesting now?”

“Forklifts. Some of the equipment’s loaded on the forklifts.”

“Got your attention now?”

“When was this shot?” Olivia asked.

“Today, 6:15 A.M. our time.”

“Can you go back a few days?”

Casini hit a few more keys. Another image appeared. “From three days ago.”

“There’s actually more product there. Hard to tell, admittedly. But there seem to be at least five more rows of generators. And hardly any forklifts in sight. What about the other sites we looked at before?”

A few more keystrokes later, another image appeared on the screen. “Murmansk, earlier today,” Casini said.

Olivia scrutinized the screen. “Go back a few days.”

“There you go.”

“Again, more product,” Olivia said. “Just like Arkhangelsk. Now go back a little more.”

Casini did so. Olivia scanned the image slowly. “The difference isn’t as apparent as in Arkhangelsk, but it still looks like there’s less product in the later image. What do you think?” Olivia asked.

“I concur.”

“Can you do a split screen?” Olivia asked. “Arkhangelsk, Murmansk. Shots from today on one side and shots of the same locations from a few days ago on the other side?”

Casini tapped the keyboard, producing the requested grid of images. The two stared at the screen for a long time in silence. Olivia spoke first.

“Each site appears to have less product in the later image. Hard to tell how much less, but product’s definitely being moved. What do you make of it, Laura?”

“You’re the big brain. When you saw something similar a few weeks ago you concluded the Russians were up to something sinister. When the bombing campaign against Iran began, the Russians stopped moving equipment. Now they’ve resumed. So you tell me.”

“Could be nothing.”

“Come on, Olivia. You work for James Brandt. According to him, everything the Russians do is sinister.”

Olivia remained silent, pondering the range of implications from what was on the screen. The one she thought least plausible was also the one that posed the greatest threat. That threat was at a level she could discuss with only a handful of people, and her friend Laura wasn’t one of them.

Without another word Olivia Perry turned from the screen and left the room to hail a cab to take her to the White House.

IRVING, TEXAS,

AUGUST 14, 6:12 P.M. CDT

Garin stepped out of the ice bath Luci had prepared for him, toweled himself off, and examined his face in the mirror. Other than a small welt on his cheek where Olsen had struck him, he was in pretty good shape. The cheek ached a bit, but the ice bath had done wonders for the rest of his body.

He put on a pair of linen trousers and opened the bathroom door. Luci had arrayed tubes and bottles of ointments and analgesics on the nightstands flanking the queen-size bed. She shook her head, pointing accusatorially at his pants.

“That will not do, mister. No. No way. Off with them.”

When Garin hesitated, she continued, “I can’t do much for your legs and glutes with those on. Don’t worry, I’ve seen the male form once or twice before.”

Garin disappeared into the bathroom and dutifully returned seconds later, a towel draped modestly around his waist. Luci rolled her eyes. “I never would’ve pegged you for the shy type.” Not with a body like that, she thought.

She waved him to the bed. “On your stomach first.”

Garin lay diagonally across the bed and Luci straddled his hips, applying lubricant to his shoulders and back, using her fingertips to define the individual muscles, expertly kneading them to drive out the lactic acid. If the man had a single fat cell on him, she couldn’t find it. It felt like she was kneading iron.

Luci felt featherlight astride Garin’s back and was quite adept at what she was doing. He’d eschewed rubdowns as a waste of time in the past, all the way back to his college football days. He submitted now partly to mollify Luci as well as to assuage his guilt for having deceived her. But this felt very good.

She massaged in silence for nearly ten minutes, then: “I saw you at Saint Francis of Assisi a couple of weeks ago,” Luci said, referring to a small church near the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia. “It was during the week, midafternoon. You were by yourself in one of the first pews. No Mass. No priest.”

She paused and continued kneading iron; then, with a genuine curiosity in her voice, she asked, “What were you doing there?”

“What were you doing there?”

“Come on, Tom. You make people pee their pants just by saying ‘hi.’ I mean, you have a look. Seeing you at a human sacrifice? Plausible. Church? Not so much.”

Garin shrugged and said nothing.

Luci slid down to straddle his thighs so she could work on his hips and buttocks. Still iron, molded and contoured.

“The ladies at the rec center have a pool going. Just pennies. They’re betting on what you do for a living. The winner tries to talk to you.”

No reaction.

“Want to help me win?”

“You’re already talking to me, Luci.”