Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Epigraph

      ALPHA the beginning

      1

      2

      3

      4

      5

      6

      7

      8

      9

      10

      11

      12

      OMEGA the ending

       Keep Reading

      About the Author

       Also by the Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

      ALPHA

      The beginning. The first letter of the Greek alphabet.

      Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Special Forces unit of the KGB.

      OMEGA

      The ending. The last letter of the Greek alphabet.

      An investigation/security firm comprising mainly ex-Alpha members in the new Moscow.

      ALPHA/OMEGA

      The first and the last.

      The basic reason for being, the most important part.

       ALPHA the beginning

      The weather that morning was hot, which was one of the things those questioned later would remember. In addition to the personal things, and the fact that Hurricane Bob was beating a circle off Florida and threatening to wreak havoc up the East Coast. Items of no consequence to the Dark Suits. And even then the woman with the child and the salesman and the Mormon preacher would never know the real reason for the visit. There were others, of course, a total of 184 passengers on the two flights, plus air crew and staff at the relevant airports, but the woman and the salesman and the preacher were those in whom the investigators had a special interest, because they had not only caught flight 2171 but had made phone calls at the same places and the same times as the man called Joshua.

      The airport, four miles west of town, was modern but small. Rolling Idaho wheatfields around it, the occasional poplar tree, and two low hangars. The terminal itself was single-storey and glass-fronted, one room serving both arrivals and departures. The check-in desk was to the left, the baggage X-ray machine was in the centre, opposite the entrance, and the coffee and candy machines, the pay phones and the mail box, were against the wall to the right. Flights in and out every hour, but only to a handful of destinations; the parking lot never full and the drop-offs and pick-ups quick and easy.

      The Shermans arrived fifty minutes before departure, the three of them crammed into the front seat of the Chevy pick-up. Annie Sherman was thirty-two years old, her face and hands tanned with the seasons, though the first tell-tale crow’s-feet of worry were wrinkled at the sides of her eyes. Her husband Ted was two years older, tall, with cornflower-blue eyes. The suit he wore uncomfortably that morning was dark navy, and the neck of the shirt was slightly too tight. Ted and Annie Sherman had been married eight years and struggled against the odds, plus the occasional flood and the interest on a bank loan, to run 300 acres east of town, on the road to Genesee. Their daughter Mary was six, the Chevy was second-hand, and a year from today the bank would foreclose and the three would stand silent as their home and their worldly goods, for which they had fought and sweated and bled, were auctioned in front of them. Today, however, the mood was lighter: Annie taking Mary to visit the girl’s grandmother on the occasion of her seventieth birthday.

      As they arrived a Toyota Landcruiser pulled away.

      Ted hauled their bags from the back, waited as they stood in the queue and glanced at his watch. The meeting with the bank was at nine thirty.

      ‘You go,’ Annie told him. ‘We’re okay.’

      ‘Better call Mom.’ The concern furrowed his brow. ‘Let her know that the flight’s on time.’

      … What did she do then? the Dark Suits would ask. FBI, the Dark Suits had said. Investigating someone running a scam and the person might have been on the flight.

      Ted left, she would tell them; she and Mary checked in, then they went for a coffee. From the machines by the far wall, she would explain, even though they hadn’t asked, because that was the way they were, expecting the detail and wanting you to give them more than you thought you knew.

      Anything she’d missed, they would come back at Annie; how about any phone calls? Because she was on the airport security video as making one, though they wouldn’t tell her. Called Mom, she would remember, told her that she and Mary would be arriving on time and confirming the pick-up. Who else was around? they would ask; anyone else making a call at that time, anything she remembered about the other people making calls?

      A salesman – she would screw up her eyes in concentration. And a bible-puncher, short hair and beaming faith. No one else. And they would wait, because they knew she was wrong. One other person, she would suddenly remember. Somewhere in his late forties or early fifties, well-cut suit, good-looking but without being obvious. Couldn’t get through to the number he was calling, because he hung up without speaking then tried again.

      Anything else about the man in the suit? they would ask. Because you can’t really see much on the security video. Even though, as far as we can tell, there’s nobody else we know at the airport at that time. But if there had been, Joshua wouldn’t have made the call …

      Good-looking woman, Joshua thought; nice-looking girl; life taking its toll on the woman even though she was fighting to mask it. The woman and the girl left the phones and carried their bags to the X-ray machine. He dialled again. Not the same number, because the first he had tried had been unavailable rather than busy. The tone he heard was high-pitched and whining. Both direct lines closed down, he understood; one might be unfortunate, two wouldn’t be a coincidence. Therefore it was already under way, the man to whom he wished to speak cut off and isolated, even though he probably still thought he was surrounded by his friends. Even though he was one of the two most important men in the world.

      It was still thirty minutes to the flight. Joshua crossed to the seats and wrote the letter. No name because that would be a security risk … When you receive this, he began, it will be over. If I have been able to achieve what I am about to do, then I will tell you; if not, then others might not