"Certainly." Popov stood, shook hands, and walked out of the office. A player for most of his adult life in that most interesting and fascinating of games, he realized now that he was in a new game, with new parameters. He'd taken possession of a vast sum of money-but an amount that his employer had regarded as trivial. He was involved in an operation whose import was larger than that of mass murder. That was not entirely new to him, Popov realized on reflection. He'd once served a nation called by its ultimately victorious enemy the Evil Empire, and that cold war had been greater in size than mass murder. But Brightling was not a nation-state, and however huge his resources might be, they were minuscule in comparison with those of any advanced country. The great question remained-what the hell was this man trying to achieve?
And why did he need the services of Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov to achieve it?
Henriksen caught the Qantas flight for Los Angeles. He had the better part of a day ahead of him in his first-class seat, a good deal of time to consider what he knew.
The plan for the Olympics was essentially in the bag. The fogging system was in place, which was just plain perfect for the Project's purposes. He'd have one of his men check out the system, and thereby get himself in place for the delivery part on the last day. It was that simple. He had the consulting contract needed to make it all happen. But now this Rainbow bunch would be down there as well. How intrusive might they be? Damn, there was just no telling -on that one. Worst case, it was possible that something small could toss a wrench into the works. It so often happened that way. He knew that from his time in the FBI. A random police patrol, a man on foot or in a radio-car could wander by and cause a well-planned robbery to stop. Or in the investigation phase, the unexpectedly sharp memory of a random passerby, or a casual remark made by a subject to a friend, could come to the right investigator and blow a case wide open. Boom, that simple-it had happened a million times. And the breaks always went to the other side, didn't they?
And so, from his perspective, he knew he had to eliminate the chance for such random events. He'd been so close to it. The operational concept had been brilliant it had mainly been his from the beginning; John Brightling had merely funded it. Getting the terrorists to operate in Europe had raised the international consciousness about the threat, and that had allowed him and his company to get the contract to oversee the security for the Olympics. But then this damned Rainbow team had appeared, and handled three major incidents-and what asshole had instigated the third one? he demanded of himself-so well that now the Australians had asked them to come down for a look. And if they came down, they'd stay and keep looking, and if that happened, they might be there for the games, and if they wondered about chemical weapons. then they might spot the perfect delivery system for them and-
A lot of ifs, Henriksen told himself. A lot of ifs. A lot of things had to go wrong for the Project to be thwarted. There was comfort in that thought. Maybe he could meet with the Rainbow people and direct them away from the threat. After all, he had a chemical weapons expert on the payroll, and they probably did not, and that gave him the edge, didn't it? With a little cleverness, his man could do his job right in front of them and not even be seen to have done it. That's what planning was for, wasn't it?
Relax, he told himself, as the stewardess came around with drinks, and he had another glass of wine. Relax. But, no, he couldn't do that. He had too much experience as an investigator to accept the mere chance of random interference without consideration of the possible consequences. If his man were stopped, even by accident, then it was also possible that the entire Project could be uncovered. And that would mean more than failure. It would mean lifelong imprisonment at best, which was not something he was prepared to accept. No, he was committed to the Project for more than one reason. It was his task to save the world first of all-and second, he wanted to be around to enjoy what he'd had a hand in saving.
And so, risks of any type and any magnitude were unacceptable. He had to come up with a way to eliminate them. The key to that was the Russian, Popov. He wondered what that spook had discovered on his trip to England. With the right information, he could devise a plan to deal with that Rainbow bunch directly. Wouldn't that be interesting? He settled back into his seat and chose a movie to semi watch, to disguise what he was doing. Yes. he decided ten minutes later, with the right people and the right assets, it could work.
