St. Petersburg is more uniform than Los Angeles, but there is one area of the latter's sprawl — the old downtown — that resembles the Russian city. Both locales share aging buildings with intricate facades — a complexity and character absent from more modern structures.

The old downtown of Los Angeles is beginning to submit to the crumble — abandoned for higher, shinier and newer. In St. Petersburg, however, the old is still very much the center. Baroque grandeur comprises the most impressive buildings — arches, pillars, columns, and the spires for which it is famous.

Beneath the opulence of its architecture, however, St. Petersburg has changed drastically — a city still in the midst of upheaval and transition. Streets and bridges have seen their titles shift from Soviet labels to older names. The city, itself, back to St. Petersburg after decades as Leningrad. Shifting, dynamic, and somehow still grand.

Vaughn sees none of this when he arrives at Pulkovo II, only a mass of people and the fewest frills of any airport thus far. He is stiff and tired, coming off 20 hours of planes and blue vinyl airport seats — security checks he can't credential his way out of, because he is not traveling as Michael Vaughn today. David Wilson, instead, and a new passport and visa that became less new-looking after he dumped half a cup of coffee on them 26 hours ago.

His itinerary from here is specific, and a bit nerve-wracking, based on a series of instructions and phrases drilled into him by Watkins. If any of them go wrong — or God forbid you forget them — he will have to break cover and go tourist. You could always fall back on your extensive knowledge of Russian swear words, courtesy Chris. Those should get you real far.

Crammed onto a mini-bus first, struggling to maintain control of his small carry-on. A long half-hour into the city, an elderly woman and an almost-sympathetic businessman elbowing him alternately through the turns. Summer here has translated into a gray sky, almost chilly, but he is thankful for this — does not want to think about traveling in these conditions in the heat of L.A. His stop, then, a metro station — Moskovskaya — and apparently the stop of most of the rest of the bus. They jostle out, more elbows and a few feet on his own, all toward the entrance.

Vaughn stays with the crowd — the whole point of this exercise — through the entrance, then leaves long enough to buy a few tokens. Merges again with them to descend the lengthy escalator, furtively checking his surroundings, standing to the right because this is what everyone seems to be doing. Realizing why when two young women sprint down the left side.

The end of the escalator brings a well-lit curve sided with faux marble-tiled walls. It bustles around him, and he is hyperaware — watching, feeling, listening — as he walks toward the train. Her approach is still a surprise — appearance nondescript, clothing tweaked slightly to blend, even her gait set to match the crowd.

Her shoulder brushes against his arm, the only announcement of her arrival, and they step together onto the next train. Sit separately, but close enough not to lose each other. She stands first at their stop, and he follows, lets the crowd swarm around them as they step away from the train. Then back together, appearance that of a couple now, although he is still following her lead. Dependent on her, he thinks, and he does not want to be, but it would be even harder to be here alone.

The city is every bit as beautiful as she promised, but Vaughn is careful to keep his observation surreptitious. Barely sweeping the buildings, the people, with his eyes — and focused mostly on not losing her among them. No telltale tourist gawking here.

The CIA's safehouse in this part of the city is not a house at all, he learns, but rather a small apartment two blocks away from their metro stop. She does not speak English until he closes the door behind them, and even then her accent is thick Russian.

"It looks like shit, but there's active countersurveillance, so we can speak." She motions for him to set his bag next to an ancient brown couch, one of the few pieces of furniture in the place. A cursory glance reveals peeling green paint on the walls, a kitchen full of decades-old appliances, and a series of locked cabinets along the far wall. The cabinets, he knows, are the apartment's true purpose.

He sits on the near end of the couch — finds it feels as uncomfortable as it looks — as she walks into the kitchen. "I bought food this morning, if you're hungry."

"No thanks. Maybe later," because his stomach is churning too much.

The faucet rattles, spurts and finally whooshes, as she pours a glass of water. She returns, sipping it, and claims the opposite end of the couch. "How was your flight?"

He hates the accent, he realizes. It bothers him. It makes him want to grab her. Shake her shoulders. Ask her what side she's really on. Because he has had 20 hours of planes and airports to let the details of her file torment him.

"Too long," he replies. "I don't know how you handle it."

"Sydney's the frequent flier, not me," she says. "I've only done it twice before. Going and coming, and I don't remember much of the flight back. They had me pretty well drugged up." She grins, takes a sip of water.

"At least you spoke the language when you got here."

"This is true. Did you have any trouble with my directions?"

"No, but it was a little nerve-wracking," he admits.

"I can imagine. But you're here now." Yes, Chris. I'm here now, in a safehouse halfway around the world, in a country where I can't speak the fucking language, about to go on a blind mission. All with a woman I can't be sure isn't the enemy.

Vaughn wants to begin to broach this, to see if he can quiz her, come up with enough correct answers to trust her. But she speaks first. "I want you to answer your own question, Michael. Why did you join? Why are you here?"

The abruptness startles him, and he considers asking her where the questions came from. Why she feels the need to ask them here, now. Then realizes he knows — that he is not the only one who sat and stared out a plane window. Thinking, scrutinizing, coming up with new questions.

His answer to the first one comes quickly, because it is obvious. It's always been obvious. "You know why I joined. And I'm here because this mission is important."

"That's not what I meant, Michael. Why did you go to Taipei? I used to think it was Bristow. I thought maybe you were in love with her, but I'm not so sure, now."

"I got tired of blindly following protocol, Chris. I got tired of putting the job first."

"Are you insane? You went rogue and almost got killed trying to save a civilian."

And there is his opening. "You went rogue, too, Chris."

She stares at him with this, eyes glowering. Yes, Chris, I read that, and I wish I hadn't. But I did. "That was different. That was looking at the big picture."

"How was Taipei not looking at the big picture?"

"That was putting the people before the picture, Michael. You can tell the job to fuck off, but you can't ever abandon the big picture." She frowns. "You told me you came in to be some big patriot, fight the good fight, like your father. But you haven't been there — not in a long time. Maybe not ever."

She continues. "I know you have doubts about me. I have a lot of doubts about that operation myself. But you have to know that I'm here for the right reasons." Her eyes bore into his — sincere, he thinks — for a moment. "They ask you, after you complete field training. They call you in and ask you. How far you're willing to go for your country — although that's not quite how they word it."

He's heard rumors about this, and always dismissed them because they had never asked him. So maybe they only asked the field agents, not the desk jockeys. "What did you say?"

"I told them I'd do anything, but there had to be a point. That I didn't want to die because some bureaucrat got a bright idea. They cleared me for field duty, so I guess that was a good enough answer. I didn't figure it out, didn't realize until after my last op that it was wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"You rarely know, in the middle of it, just how important something is. This Rambaldi stuff — nobody knows whether it's bullshit. You just do the job and hope our side stays ahead."

"How do you do it, though, Chris? How do you stay dedicated to the job?"

"You don't stay dedicated to the job. You stay dedicated to — "

" — the big picture?"

She smiles. "Exactly." And it is here, he realizes, on this lumpy brown couch in a place where they have no history, that she reminds him most of old Chris. Idealistic somewhere beneath all the experience, still full of cool competence.

But this does not calm him, nor do her comments, and now he begins to examine his own motivations. Her smile fades as vague worry takes over, and he wonders if she is plagued with doubts as well — doubts about him. "We should get some sleep. We've got a long hike later."

She sets her half-empty water glass on the floor and stretches herself across the couch. His cue to join her, and he does, shifting into the scant space between her and the back of the couch. He slips his hand over her side, places it by habit higher than he would have in the old days. Closes his eyes, although he does not think sleep will come.

If she is the enemy, he thinks, she still knows him better than any of his friends.

———

He snaps out of a fitful sleep a few hours later, her hand shaking his shoulder, whispering. "It's time to get moving."

The cabinet doors are open, he sees as he stands — grogginess quickly replaced by a rolling boil in his stomach — and there are two backpacks on the floor beside them. New and more obviously American models than they need to be, because now — finally — they will go tourist. A national park near their objective, Watkins explains, and best to play lost Americans if anyone asks. A ploy he knows has worked for Sydney, farther east, outside Arkhangel'sk. Sydney and Noah. That reminder restarts the scrutiny in his mind.

Watkins returns to packing her backpack. He will carry the explosives, her a notebook computer and several black boxes designed for data transfer. Tranquilizer guns and deadlier alternatives for both, although he would prefer to stick to the former.

"No silencers, and no vests," she says, calmly slamming a clip into her Glock.

"I thought these places were supposed to be stocked with everything."

"The operative words there being 'supposed to,' Michael," she says. "We're pretty well fucked if we hit a situation where we need them anyway."

She walks into the kitchen, returns with half a loaf of black bread in a plain plastic bag. "Take it. We've got a half-hour drive. You can eat then."

He checks the contents of his backpack one more time, and follows her out the door. Down a narrow wooden staircase and out the front of the apartment building. He nearly loses her as she ducks down an alley, toward the small parking lot behind the place.

They leave the spires in the old blue Mercedes parked there, her profile strong against the twilight in the car window. She has closed him off now, stone-faced and focused, eyes on the road. She could be completely calm, or she could be petrified, he thinks, and he would not know the difference.

———

The rendezvous point is a tiny clearing amidst the thick forest, and they reach it first. Almost two hours early, and the correct clearing, according to the GPS device in Vaughn's hand.

Watkins wastes no time in sitting, back against a tree trunk. She shows no pain, but he knows it must be there — has to be there, because she is not so far from the cane that it can be absent after that hike. Even Vaughn feels it, too many recent hours crammed into tiny airplane seats, and he sits beside her. Rests his head against the bumps of the bark and waits.

He should ask her how she feels, he thinks. He selects another question, instead, the one that claimed his mind during the hike here. One of the few he thinks he should have left.

She yanks at the zipper of her backpack, pulls out a bottle of water. He waits through two long draws on it before speaking.

"Chris, I need to know. How much of your last operation do you really remember?"

It is almost completely dark, half-moon barely reaching them through the trees, and she is facing away from him, staring across the clearing, but he can sense the glare on her face. "You had to do this now. You couldn't have waited, or done it when you damn well should have." But then she takes another sip from the bottle and answers. "Everything I know is in my report, Michael. I never lied about that."

"I've never seen you not be able to remember something, Chris." Mind like a sponge. Sleep with people, soak up the intel in their briefcases. Rambaldi manuscripts. Missile plans. Software code. Never forget.

Her eyes must be cool little blue slits now, he thinks. "You've never seen me short a couple pints of blood."

"Don't you wonder? Doesn't it bother you, not knowing?"

"You think it doesn't? I try — all the time, I try — to bring it back. Thought about it until it hurt, went to Barnett. It isn't there, Michael." She pauses. "You should know — I gave Robertson the wrong start time, for today. I told him one a.m."

"So you don't trust him?"

"I don't know whether I should trust him. I'd rather overcompensate."

He realizes now that no amount of questioning will ever fully ease the doubt. That there is no magic response that can make him trust her fully.

And then his thoughts are interrupted with rustling leaves and snapping branches, ending the brief silence. Presumably more of the team, but they both stand, guns drawn, prepared for other possibilities.

It is only Weiss and McClure, looking marginally fresher, he thinks, than himself and Watkins. Nothing much to say here — "good evening" seems dreadfully out of place for the middle of a forest in Russia, and what they intend to do in just over an hour.

"Hey. Any trouble getting here?" he says quietly, which doesn't seem much less out of place. But he can feel a new tension here, with their arrival, and wonders if Weiss is having second thoughts.

"Piece of cake." McClure answers instead. "You two all set?"

"Yeah." Vaughn nods and sets to searching his backpack. It takes him a few minutes in the dim light, but eventually he finds his earpiece and microphone, amazingly tiny things, he thinks, setting them into place. He taps his ear and speaks when the static clears. "Vaughn here."

"Hello, Vaughn." Kretchmer. A bit of a surprise this early; usually one of the nameless techies checks the comm links. "You're a little ahead of schedule."

"So are you. We're still waiting on Bristow and Dixon. I'll make contact again when they get here."

"Copy that," he says, and they lapse into silence.

The arrival of Sydney and Dixon is much stealthier, announced five minutes later when Watkins stands and levels her gun between two thick tree trunks, backing it off when they emerge. She must have been focused on all the nuances of the quiet forest, he thinks, because he did not hear them until after she stood.

"Hello," Watkins says, low-volume and blunt.

"Hi." Short and equally quiet from Sydney. Watkins's back is to him and Sydney is too far away for him to get a clear look at her expression, but he is certain both are glaring. Watkins takes a step backward and reclaims her seat against the tree, next to him.

Vaughn turns his earpiece back on. "We're all here now."

"I guess everybody wants to get this over with," Kretchmer says. "You're clear on sats if you want to go early."

He looks up, gauging the rest of them. "Kretchmer says we're clear overhead if we want to go early."

They snap to attention with this, and he wonders how many of them feel the same twitching nervousness that exists deep within him. Maybe not Sydney and Dixon, even Watkins — too many missions, too much experience, he thinks. Even so, this is not the way it should be done. Not the people who should be doing it.

"If it's clear now, we should go while we have the chance," Watkins says, and he recalls her earlier words. I gave Robertson the wrong start time. Wonders just how much she fears that this operation will go the way of her last.

An eager "let's do it" from McClure. Silent, grudging nods from Sydney, Dixon and Weiss. More hands ripping at the zippers of bright new backpacks. Vaughn gives everyone one last chance to disagree, but the group remains silent. He takes a deep breath and speaks again.

"We want to go now."

———

She moves well beside him, flowing through the forest, even up the steep hill that immediately prefaces their target. They crouch against it, hands ready on the tranq guns.

"North team?"

"Copy." Sydney sounds particularly blunt, he thinks.

"Perimeter?"

"Copy. Everything looks clear." Weiss is equally blunt, but at least he is speaking. And they're not exactly your best pals right about now.

"Then let's move." He looks to Watkins, who counts with her fingers, but he is drawn to her eyes. A slight glint off the blue from the exterior lights of the building, focus unbelievably sharp. One. Two. Three.

Go.

She swings up over the hill first, a quick, silent check of the area before they move the small distance to a door they have never actually seen — only calculated, estimated, assumed. But it is there, tan metal like the rest of the building, large and looming. Quick, quiet, and smooth in their movements, and he recalls that they have done this before. Many years ago, and only the preliminary training course at Langley, but they were good together then.

And now. Too uneventful, he thinks — there should be guards, tree roots to trip over. Something. But when they reach the door, there is still nothing. She glances at the small plastic box and the electronic keycard slot that tops it, then fumbles through the pockets of her pants. Pulls out an appropriate card, swipes and red lights turn green. Vaughn reaches for the doorknob, turns it, and —

Finally something: three shocked guards. No video surveillance outside, then. She is fast — another thing he knows from their training days — and hits two guards to his one. Damn good, Chris.

"East team is in. North team, status?" A long pause, and he uses it to examine the hallway they have entered. It appears to extend the length of the building, which they have assumed is large enough to hold their objective and not much else. Three doors, likely more guards behind them. And hopefully what we came here for.

"We're in," Sydney says, a little more breathless than him.

"We're in a large hallway. Do you think you're anywhere near that?"

"No. Just a set of stairs, heading down now." Underground is a possibility they have considered, but had no way to confirm. Perhaps it is down there.

"Copy that. We've got three doors up here. Checking those now."

Watkins is already moving to the first door, although she waits for him before opening it. Perfect technique together, as they sweep in, scan, and discover it is small and empty. The second is similarly small, but populated. A young man types at a computer terminal until Watkins hits him with a dart; he slumps over, forehead narrowly missing the keyboard.

"We should try to get back here," she says, pointing to the machine. "Search that."

"Where are we at, people?" Kretchmer, calm but a little impatient.

"East team has nothing so far." They back out of the room, sprinting down the hallway to the room that should hold the model. Something, he thinks, needs to account for the size of the building, and the first two rooms have not even been close.

"Nothing from north team, either."

Vaughn finds his stomach jumps as he wraps his hand around the final doorknob. This is it. This must be it. This all has to be for something. Then he turns it, swings it open rapidly, and finds —

It is empty. Large enough, to be sure, but completely empty.

"Well, shit." This from Watkins, who takes the place in — a bit bewildered, as is he. Clean white walls, smooth concrete floor, and it looks as if it has been empty for quite awhile. Perhaps always. A big empty, echoing cavern of failure, he thinks, following Watkins back to the second room.

"North team, no model. We're going to search a computer here, but that's all we've got. How copy?"

"Last room, Vaughn, but this is the only one that's been protected." Another keycard box, he assumes, or something similar. "We're working on getting in."

He helps Watkins pull the unconscious man from the chair in front of the computer, then has nothing to do but watch. That, he decides, is not productive, so he moves to the doorway, checks the hallway again. There should be more guards. There should be some kind of backup. Unless Syd and Dixon hit most of their manpower.

"Perimeter, are we still clear?"

"Crystal." McClure this time, voice holding a bit of disappointment.

"You're clear on sats," Kretchmer says. "But it's starting to cloud up. I may lose you soon."

Watkins's fingers fly at the keyboard — Cyrillic again — and she is right, they did need her, he thinks. "I'm in," she says, after a few minutes, reaching into her backpack to pull out one of the black devices. It goes onto the top of the unit, and she turns to him.

"It's a list of places. Coordinates, for cities, I'm assuming. I'll pull as many the files as we've got time for."

"Okay." He glances out into the hallway again. Still clear. "Syd, how's it going?"

"We're in." Breathless again, so perhaps they are taking the brunt of this. "There's a crate in the middle of the room, Vaughn. About three feet by four feet. Nothing else." No model here, then. So we were wrong. Sydney is quiet now, he thinks, so they must have disabled all of their obstacles. He can hear her step around the room.

"There's writing on the side, Vaughn. Russian." A pause now, and he knows it will take her a moment to decipher the writing — her skill with the language mainly spoken, enough to talk her way through missions, but not much else. "Krasnyj Ballon."

Watkins turns to him, and the focus in her eyes has fled. Replaced with shock, maybe even fear. She translates, but it is unnecessary, the words simple enough even for his limited command of the language.

"Red Balloon."

———

Kretchmer speaks first, when they finally return to speaking. "Bristow, I want you to get that crate open and give me a confirmation on what's inside. I'm going to get backup on the way now."

"What if it arms?" Sydney asks. Vaughn finds he is thinking the same thing, remembering the same event — Sydney, sitting on a ticking nuke in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania.

"I'll have someone here in about 30 seconds to help you with that," Kretchmer says. "Just get the damned thing open."

Then silence again, save for Sydney and Dixon grunting, the faint creaking of wood. And finally, a louder clanking, which Vaughn assumes must be the sides of the crate hitting the floor.

"What the — " Not the words any of them wanted to hear from Sydney, nor the agonizing pause before she speaks again. "It's not a bomb, Vaughn. It's a smaller Circumference model, like the one I took in Taipei, the first time." He refrains from snapping back to her second trip to Taipei. "But Vaughn, the ball in the center — it's not the polymer. It's not red."

"Then what the hell is it?"

She does not say at first. Leaves them with another painful pause. Fucking spit it out, Sydney.

"I think it's plutonium."