Eagle Station

“Wernicke and Roth, or whoever they really are, did not turn up for their scheduled flight forty-five minutes ago,” Kazyanov admitted reluctantly. “My people have just finished going through all the security camera footage from Yemelyanovo. There’s no sign of them.”

Leonov grunted. “They had a rental car, correct?”

“A black Mercedes sedan,” Kazyanov confirmed, paging through the report. “Hired by the Roth woman in her pose as this fictional Lieutenant Colonel Volkova.” He looked up. “The car has not yet been returned to the agency.”

Leonov nodded heavily. “Of course not.” His fingers drummed briefly on the other man’s desk. “And Koshkin’s komp’yutershchiks? Have they been able to break into Tekhwerk’s computer networks?”

“Not yet,” Kazyanov admitted. “Arkady says his tech geeks are being extremely cautious. Apparently, the security software guarding those networks is effective. Remarkably effective.”

“It would be,” Leonov said dryly. He frowned. “What about your teams surveilling the company’s Moscow office? Are they, too, being careful?”

“Very careful,” Kazyanov assured him hurriedly. His face clouded over. “But it’s an extraordinarily difficult task, Mikhail Ivanovich. The Evolution Tower complex is enormous. Thousands of people work there. And there are multiple exits, including several directly to the Vystavochnaya metro station and the Bagration Bridge.” He shrugged. “If I could deploy my surveillance teams inside the building itself—?”

“They would probably be spotted in minutes,” Leonov pointed out. Gloomily, Kazyanov nodded.

“Not that it matters much,” Leonov said grimly. “All of this clever tiptoeing around… at Krasnoyarsk, on the internet, and here in Moscow… it’s all been a complete waste of time and effort.”

“You think the American agents know their cover is blown?” Kazyanov asked.

Leonov nodded. “Why else would they miss their flight back to Moscow?” He shook his head. “No, Viktor. Somehow, in some way, they’ve been tipped off. Maybe Arkady’s tech geeks tripped some computer alarm. Or maybe they spotted some of your people watching the airport and got cold feet.” He shrugged. “How we fucked up isn’t really important. Not now.”

“But these Scion agents can’t possibly escape,” Kazyanov said, desperately hoping he was right. “Where can they go from Krasnoyarsk?”

Leonov snorted. “Krasnoyarsk isn’t a black hole, Viktor. There are roads and railroads and rivers into and out of the city. So the Americans certainly will escape, if we don’t pull our fingers out of our asses and get to work hunting them down.” He checked his watch. “Assuming the worst, that they learned we were onto them as soon as Koskhin’s people tried probing their computers, they’ve already been on the run for at least three or four hours.”

“Mater’ Bozh’ya,” Kazyanov muttered. “Mother of God.” He pulled up a map of the region on his computer. “They could easily be a couple of hundred kilometers away by now. Or more.”

“Exactly.” Leonov nodded. “Which is why we need to cast our nets as widely as possible.”

Studying the map, Kazyanov whistled softly. “That’s going to take an enormous amount of manpower.”

“No question about that,” Leonov agreed. “We’ll need to mobilize every police officer in the region, units from the National Guard, and more troops from the regular armed forces.” He stood up. “Your FSB teams will coordinate the search inside Krasnoyarsk itself, in case the Americans have gone to ground at a safe house inside the city.”

Kazyanov nodded quickly. “Yes, Marshal.”

“Start distributing the photographs of Wernicke and Roth, in both of their identified personas,” Leonov ordered. “Along with a description of their rental car.” He showed his teeth in a tight, humorless grin. “If, as I suspect, Scion is already reeling in its espionage networks, capturing them alive is probably our best remaining hope of learning how many of our precious secrets the Americans already know.”

Again, Kazyanov nodded obsequiously. “We’ll find them,” he vowed.

Leonov’s answering laugh was harsh. “You shouldn’t give so many hostages to fortune, Viktor,” he said icily. “Whoever these Scion spies really are, they’re the first team. So they aren’t going to be easy to run to ground.”

Just Outside Lesosibirsk, Along the Yenisei River, Russia

An Hour Later

Looking ahead along the beams of his van’s headlights, David Jones saw the pair of white-and-blue police patrol cars parked sideways across each shoulder of the narrow two-lane highway. Two officers in yellow reflective vests stood in the center of this hurriedly improvised checkpoint, waving flashlights as they signaled him to stop.

A thin screen of birch trees lined both sides of the road, their narrow trunks glowing a pale, ghostly white in the light of the slowly rising full moon. Not a bad spot to set up a roadblock, he thought coolly. Short of trying a wild bootlegger’s reverse and peeling back out the way he’d just come, he didn’t have any option but to obey.