Arctic Storm Rising

If so, it was clear that this was no longer the case. This photo showed a plane without winglets, one very similar to America’s B-2 Spirit and B-21 Raider stealth aircraft. More important, it showed the bomber prototype in flight, with a twin-tailed fighter close by to provide a sense of scale. The image was clear enough to provide U.S. intelligence analysts with a wealth of new data. Carefully, she refolded the brochure and slipped it into her purse. “Reasonably interesting, indeed.” She turned her apparent attention back to the sculpture of the old woman. “And your price for more?”

He smiled gently. “Not so much, compared to its value. Shall we say, something on the order of what your government routinely spends in just four or five hours in a single day?”

Reynolds arched one of her finely sculpted eyebrows in sheer incredulity. That would put the price tag at well over two billion dollars—20 percent of the CIA’s current operating budget and close to 3 percent of what the U.S. government spent annually on its entire alphabet soup tangle of civilian and military intelligence organizations. She sniffed in disgust. “For images, specifications, and data we might be able to obtain ourselves through other means? Or that could easily be faked? You must be joking.”

Without waiting to hear more, she started to turn away. Whether she’d been lured to Prague by a con artist or a lunatic was relatively unimportant. Her first priority was to cover her tracks fast and get out on the earliest possible flight to the States. If her rivals inside the agency found out she’d been wasting her time playing Jane Bond, amateur field agent, they’d have all the ammunition they needed to pull her down.

“You misunderstand me, Ms. Reynolds,” the young man said soothingly, holding up a hand. “My patron proposes providing you with something far more tangible for your scientists and aviation engineers to examine — perhaps even something on the order of the Hakodate Incident of 1976.”

Hakodate Incident? What the hell was he talking about? Hurriedly, Reynolds ransacked her knowledge of intelligence history. She knew there was something, some sort of massive intelligence coup linked to that phrase, which sounded vaguely Japanese. Something about a plane, she thought. A Russian plane. And then, when she made the connection, her eyes widened involuntarily.

In September 1976, a Soviet pilot, Lieutenant Viktor Belenko, had flown his MiG-25P Foxbat fighter to Hokkaido’s Hakodate Airport and announced his intention to defect. The U.S. and its Japanese allies had eventually returned the MiG-25 to the USSR, but not before they’d stripped the Soviet jet down to its constituent parts — gathering incredibly valuable data about Soviet aircraft design, electronics, and manufacturing techniques in the process.

For a long, uncomfortable moment, she stared back at the tall young man, completely unsure how she should react to this veiled proposition. Was he seriously signaling the possible defection of another Russian flight crew, this time with their country’s most advanced experimental aircraft? If so, this was either the most outrageous scam ever dangled in front of the CIA… or a golden opportunity to pull off one of the most incredible espionage breakthroughs in modern history.

He read her confusion. “Obviously, we don’t expect you to commit your government or its money on the basis of a single photograph,” he assured her. “But if you would like to explore our offer further, I’ll need a highly secure means of contacting you directly — one that avoids the usual delays involved in covert communications.”

“I can arrange that,” Reynolds said slowly, privately relieved that she wasn’t being asked to make a spur-of-the-moment decision. She reached into her purse, selected a business card from among several in her wallet, and gave it to him. It was blank, except for a single email address, a collection of assorted characters using the domain name “spyder.biz.” Messages sent to that address would be funneled to one of several covert servers CIA officials used for “private communications”—emails they wanted to hide from congressional scrutiny, nosy administration snoopers, and Freedom of Information Act requests from journalists and good-government groups. She made a mental note to make sure her tech people cut that particular server out of the loop, as a precaution to protect the rest of the dark network. After all, this might still be some kind of complicated con, or worse, a disinformation ploy run by Russia’s own intelligence outfits.

With a nod of thanks, the young man slid the card into his jacket pocket. “One word of friendly warning, Ms. Reynolds: you understand that this is an extremely valuable property, so I cannot guarantee that our offer will be exclusive to your country. Quite naturally, others may prove equally intrigued.” Then, without waiting for a response, he turned away from her and walked off through the gallery.

Miranda Reynolds stared after him with a frown. Con game or not, she didn’t like the idea of a possible bidding war against Beijing. The People’s Republic of China had its own stealth bomber program. Its agents would leap at the chance to acquire Russia’s advanced prototype. The situation she now faced was complicated enough without turning into a possible high-stakes auction involving another of the world’s great powers.