"Finally," Adder said. "I been trying you for hours."
"What do you want?" Chertok checked his watch.
"It started," Adder went on, his voice shaky. "Couple hours ago. They're trying to close the Financial District, but it's too late for that. We're getting reports from all over the East Bay and Peninsula and it already spread to Walnut Creek." He paused to catch his breath. "WESTCOM's history. They're going crazy in there. We had to shoot a couple guards. Barely made it out in time. This stuff is fast, man. It just exploded."
Chertok got a rush of adrenaline.
"Where are you?" He took out his Glock, watching the door to the assembly room. The others were moving the crates onto the dock, cursing and muttering, kicking junk out of their way. The wind had died down outside the warehouse and he could hear a generator running in the distance.
"My car," Adder said. "WESTCOM. East parking lot."
"You're still there? What happened to your pickup?"
"They pushed it back a day." The fat svoloch was crapping his pants. "Changed our orders at the last minute. We're supposed to secure the building and clean out the files before we leave. They want us to pull the drives from the mainframes. It's crazy. We're safe for now if we stay in the vehicles, but I don't think they get how fast it's spreading—"
"That's your problem," Chertok broke in. "What do you want?"
The whining, incompetent weasel didn't say anything for a minute. Chertok could hear him wheezing over the line like a pervert with a head cold.
"You're about to get raided," he said finally. "A strike team left WESTCOM two hours ago. Special Ops group with an observer and two medical advisors. Hahn cut a deal for your location and the chopper left before the shit hit the fan. What the hell are you doing in Roseville?"
"What happened to my brother?"
Adder's voice wavered. "Radek's dead. Hahn jumped him. Caught him off guard. Drake got his gun somehow and shot him. "
Drake. Son of a bitch.
"Drake's the observer," Adder said. "Hahn's their spotter. I don't know what kind of shape they're in, but they're on their way."
"Hold on." Chertok put the phone down, got to his feet and walked into the assembly area, signaling to Dimitri.
"We're going to have company," he told him. "Is the cargo loaded?"
Dimitri blinked at him, nodding. "What happened?
"Gljuk," Chertok said. A glitch. "Everyone leaves now. Tell the others. I'll close up when I'm finished here." He watched Dimitri walk onto the dock, then turned his attention back to the worthless govnjuk at WESTCOM.
"You did this," he said. "Radek's dead because of your incompetence."
"How was I supposed to know they were going to run into each other like that?"
"What about the rest of it?" Chertok demanded.
"We had a joint conference this morning," Adder said. "The Deputy Secretary was there in person. We gave them the fallback scenario, but they're asking a lot of questions. And there's something else."
"What is it?"
"Paxton's got proof you're alive. His dot-head analyst tracked it down somehow. They know the code word."
"Take care of it. Now."
"I already talked to Number One. We got to contain this. Langley was sniffing around, too. The DDO. Emerson. It looks like he was running Hahn from the beginning."
"I knew it," Chertok said.
"He had a car wreck. That leaves Hahn, Drake and Paxton."
"We're moving now."
"Where are you going?"
Chertok disconnected.
Radek had been right. They should have killed Hahn in the desert, but the Deacons had to get fancy. They wanted her found in Conwell's room to tie the Agency into the hijacking, force them to back off their investigation. It was a good idea, but it was too complicated. Adder had bungled his end and the rest was history.
"Tvoyu mat'!" someone yelled. It sounded like Boris.
Boots thudded on the loading dock. Anatoli ran in, followed by Dimitri and Boris. Wild-eyed, they ducked behind the crates next to the door, drawing their weapons.
"The lights!" Dimitri hissed at Chertok. "Somebody's out there."
Chertok was standing next to the main switch and threw it automatically, plunging the assembly area into darkness. "Where?"
"The alley down the block."
A shadow appeared in the door, blocking the light from the telephone pole outside, crouching down behind a stack of pallets. It was Gennadiy.
"Contacts in the alley," he whispered. "Moving in on foot. Stanislav stayed by the gate."
"Who is it?"
"They looked like feds."
"Scumbags." Boris spit on the floor.
Chertok ran across the room to one of the windows facing the tracks. The junk yard next door was still in darkness, but the dawn light was spreading across the city and he couldn't see anyone moving through the piles of scrap metal. The Amtrak passenger train was still parked on its siding a block away, waiting for clearance. He checked the clip in his Glock, slammed it back into place.
Adder. Durak.
Fool. Moron. Idiot.