Checkmate (2006)

AFTERFisher had lifted the second release lever, the coupler had given another metallic clank-clank. Then the caboose and the third car had begun sliding away from Zhao’s car. Fisher had timed it well. Now free of the third car and the caboose, and without a brakeman to control its descent, the locomotive rapidly picked up speed, hurtling down the slope. Spread-eagle on the platform of the second car, with his legs dangling in space and his wrists bound to the railing, Zhao never took his eyes off Fisher, even as Fisher’s car slowed at the top of the slope, paused, then began rolling backward.

Fisher rushed down the length of his car, across the next platform, and into the caboose, where he found the brake controls. He leaned on the lever with his full body weight. The caboose continued rolling down the slope, but slowly the brake started to work, slowing the descent. The caboose filled with smoke and the lever grew hot in Fisher’s hand, but finally, two minutes later, the caboose slowed and came to a rest at the bottom of the slope.

THIRTYminutes later, he heard the chopping of helicopter rotors echoing down the pass. A pair of Black-hawks swooped in and stopped in a hover above the track. Men in standard-issue blue FBI windbreakers jumped down and rushed toward Fisher, guns drawn.

An hour after that, a fourth Blackhawk arrived and disgorged a NEST team, which cordoned off the car and the caboose and took charge of Zhao’s container.

When it was opened two days later at a secure facility, they found 245 pounds of nuclear debris.

A Blackhawk was dispatched down the track to look for Zhao’s locomotive and the first two cars. They had jumped the track at the bottom of the slope and tumbled down the mountainside. Zhao’s arms were found still bound to the platform’s railing. The rest of him lay two hundred feet away, crushed under one of the locomotive’s wheels.

INthe Persian Gulf, the fragile truce between U.S. and Iranian forces continued to hold as the ReaganBattle Group withdrew farther into the Arabian Sea and the Iranian Air Force and Navy continued to stand down units. A week after the Saudis had delivered the President’s message to Tehran, alert levels on sides were back to normal.

As analysts and anchors for round-the-clock news cha

According to Lambert, an argument was raging in the Oval Office about when and how the details of the near war would be revealed to the world. There was no one left alive to blame, which, Fisher knew, would not sit well with the American public. Predictably, the Iranians and Chinese had moved quickly to paint Abelzada and Zhao as rogue criminals, who had acted with neither the support nor the knowledge of their respective governments. Fisher suspected in the end the crisis would be portrayed as a “fine example of a multi-national, cross-culture cooperative effort that defeated a massive terrorist plot.” From there, the media would do the rest, filling in the gaps and assuaging the public’s curiosity with a slew of books, movies, and documentaries.

Fisher couldn’t care less. He’d done his job and come out the other side. The rest was trivia.

FISHERglanced to his left and saw a man enter through an arch and stop beside the dwarfish figure dressed in Eastern Orthodox garb, one hand carrying a giant Bible, the other a bronze censer. Fisher had already read the figure’s biography. He was an “18th Century Saint.”

The man who had just entered stopped before the saint, studied him for a few seconds, then sat down on the bench before it. After a few minutes he got up and walked away, leaving behind his brochure. Fisher walked over and took the bench. The man’s brochure had been folded in half, with the upper left-hand corner turned down twice. If it had been folded any differently, it would have been the “wave off” signal for Fisher. Not safe; leave.

Whether the man was an agent or a CIA case officer Fisher didn’t know, but he’d done his job, which was all that mattered. Their target had been tailed and found clean of surveillance. Fisher unfolded the brochure. Written on the inside cover in block letters were two words: COSSACK ROOM.

FISHERsaw her seated on a bench before what he assumed was a Cossack: knee-high leather boots, handlebar mustache, mouth frozen in mid-scream as he charged toward nothing.

Fisher walked up behind her and stopped. “If you ask me, he looks angry at being fed substandard borshch,” he whispered.

Elena turned in her seat. Her eyes went wide and her mouth worked several times, but nothing came out for a few seconds. “What . . . ? What are you doing here?”

“Taking in the wax figures, what’s it look like?” He sat down next to her.

“I was told to meet my . . . friend here.”

“He couldn’t make it. Asked me to fill in for him.”

Elena’s brow furrowed with worry. “What’s happening? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Fisher pulled an envelope from his pocket on the bench between them. “Open it.”

She did, and stared at the contents for a few moments, then said, “It’s a passport.”

“Not just any passport,” Fisher corrected. “ Yourpassport. You did say you wouldn’t mind coming to the U.S., didn’t you?”

“Of course, but—”

“Our plane leaves in two hours.”

Elena frowned, then sighed. She laid the envelope back on the bench, hesitated for two beats, then snatched it up again. “I can’t just leave.”

“Why not?”

“I just . . . just . . . I don’t know.”

“It’s your choice, Elena. I have a few co

They sat in silence for five minutes, during most of which Elena seemed to be having a whispered argument with herself. Abruptly she turned to him and said, “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded firmly. “Okay.”

Fisher smiled. He extended his hand. “I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Not Fred.”

“No.”

Elena clasped his hand. “Nice to meet you, Sam.”