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"Ten days!" he gasped.
"Ten days," she repeated. "That is your deadline. Beyond that I will cast you adrift."
A shiver ran up Lugovoy's spine. He didn't need a detailed picture. It was plain that if something went wrong, he and his people would conveniently vanish-probably in the ocean.
A quiet muffled the huge boardroom. Then Madame Bougainville leaned forward in the wheelchair. "Would you like some tea?"
Lugovoy hated tea, but he nodded. "Yes, thank you."
"The finest blend of Chinese herbs. It costs over a hundred dollars a pound on the retail market."
He took the offered cup and made a polite sip before he set it on the table. "You've been informed, I assume, that my work is still in the research stage. My experiments have only been proven successful eleven times out of fifteen. I cannot guarantee perfect results within a set time limit."
"Smarter minds than yours have calculated how long White House advisers can stall the news media."
Lugovoy's eyebrows rose. "My understanding was that my subject was to be a minor American congressman whose temporary disappearance would go unnoticed."
"You were misled," she explained matter-of-factly. "Your General Secretary and President thought it best you should not know your subject's identity until we were ready."
"If I'd been given time to study his personality traits, I could have been better prepared."
"I shouldn't have to lecture on security requirements to a Russian," she said, her eyes burning into him. "Why do you think we've had no contact between us until tonight?"
Unsure of what to answer, Lugovoy took a long swallow of the tea.
To his peasant taste it was like drinking watered-down perfume.
"I must know who my subject is," he said finally, mustering his courage and returning her stare.
Her answer burst like a bomb in the cavernous room, reverberated in Lugovoy's brain and left him stunned. He felt as though he'd been thrown into a bottomless pit with no hope of escape.
AFTER YEARS OF BUFFETING by storms at sea, the drums containing the nerve agent had broken the chains holding them to wooden cradles and now they lay scattered about the deck of the cargo hold. The one-ton standard shipping containers, as approved by the Department of Transportation, measured exactly 81 inches in length by 301/2 inches in diameter. They had concave ends and were silver in color. Neatly stenciled on the sides in green paint were the Army code letters "GS."
"I make the count twenty drums," said Pitt.
"That tallies with the inventory of the missing shipment," Mendoza said, the relief audible in her voice.
They stood in the hold's depths, now brightly lit by floodlights connected to a portable generator from the Catawba. Nearly a foot of water flooded the deck, and the sloshing sounds as they waded between the deadly containers echoed off the rusting sides of the hold.
An EPA chemist made a violent pointing motion with his gloved hand. "Here's the drum responsible for the leak!" he said excitedly.
"The valve is broken off its threads."
"Satisfied, Mendoza?" Pitt asked her.
"YOU bet your sweet ass," she exclaimed happily. Pitt moved toward her until their faceplates were almost touching. "Have you given any thought to my reward?"
"Reward?"
"Our bargain," he said, trying to sound earnest. "I found your nerve agent thirty-six hours ahead of schedule."
"You're not going to hold me to a silly proposition?"
"I'd be foolish not to."
She was glad he couldn't see her face redden under the helmet.
They were on an open radio
