1

It was Washington, early evening, bad March weather, but General Charles Ferguson, comforted by the luxury of the Hay-Adams Hotel, stood at a window of the bar and enjoyed a scotch and soda. Newly arrived from London, he was curiously exhilarated by the rain pounding against the window and his proximity to the White House.

On the other hand, he also just liked the hotel for its own sake. In its sheer luxury it was everything a hotel should be, and anybody who was anybody stayed there, the great and the good and the power brokers. Whatever else he was, he was certainly that, the man responsible for running a special intelligence unit out of the Ministry of Defence in London, responsible only to the Prime Minister of the day, irrespective of politics.

The man for whom he waited, Blake Johnson, was head of a unit at the White House called the Basement. It had been in existence since the Cold War days, an intelligence unit answerable only to the current President, totally separate from the CIA, FBI and the Secret Service. They had achieved great things together.

Ferguson could see the main entrance of the hotel, where now a limousine drew up and two men got out and hurried up the steps. Blake Johnson was a tall, handsome man in his mid-fifties. The man with him was very big and very black: Clancy Smith, once the youngest sergeant major in the Marine Corps and now the President's favorite Secret Service man. Ferguson greeted them warmly.

"Great to see you both."

"No Dillon this trip?" Johnson asked.

He was referring to Sean Dillon, in the past a feared IRA enforcer, now Ferguson's strong right hand.

"There didn't seem any need and he's concerned about Hannah Bernstein. She's really in a very bad way thanks to that Russian bastard Ashimov."

"President Cazalet will want to hear all about that. Let's go."

They drove along Constitution Avenue toward the White House, where as usual these days and in spite of the weather, there were demonstrators. Their driver tried the East Entrance, where they were greeted warmly by a Secret Service agent on duty, who escorted them to the President's secretary, a pleasant and cheerful lady who admitted them to the Oval Office. There they found Jake Cazalet in shirtsleeves at his desk, as usual, working his way through a pile of documents.

"So you made it. I heard the weather wasn't too good." Cazalet came round the desk and shook Ferguson warmly by the hand. "Good to see you, General, as always. I think whiskey is in order, considering this damn rain. Clancy, if you'd be kind enough to do the honors." He turned to the other two and said to Ferguson, "You took a bullet in the shoulder, I understand?"

"I was lucky, Mr. President. A bad crease, thanks to the IRA mercenaries employed by Belov's people, but that's all."

Josef Belov, the billionaire head of Belov International, had once been a colonel in charge of the KGB's old Department 3. His intentions now were as they had been then—disruption of the Western world as much as possible, encouragement and financial support for terrorism of all kinds. He had very nearly succeeded in assassinating President Cazalet, and, thwarted in that, he had been successful in injuring Ferguson and putting one of his best operatives, Superintendent Hannah Bernstein of Special Branch, in the hospital. Belov had been killed in a shoot-out in Ireland, along with his agents Yuri Ashimov and Major Greta Novikova of the GRU, as well as assorted IRA guns-for-hire. But the pain they had caused lingered on, in both the body and the soul.

"Belov was backed by the Russian government?"

"At the highest level."

Clancy handed out the drinks, and then stood against the wall behind them, arms folded.

"Right, tell me the worst," Cazalet said.

"I'd say that's Hannah Bernstein," Blake told him.

Cazalet was immediately concerned. "Just how bad is she?"

"Very," Ferguson told him. "Ashimov ran her down in the street deliberately. She's undergoing treatment at a specialized neurological unit right now."

"Anything we can do, General, just ask—that goes without saying."

Copyright © 2005 by Harry Patterson.