A bearded man in jeans and a windbreaker brushed past her on his way out of the museum. “You’re clear,” he muttered softly, carefully not looking in her direction.

Without acknowledging the report, Reynolds strolled nonchalantly toward one of the sculptures near the far end of the hall. It portrayed an elderly woman with upraised hands and an eerie, expressionless gaze. A tall, well-dressed younger man was there ahead of her. He had been moving slowly around the carved figure, apparently intent on examining it from every angle.

Politely, he stepped back to make room. They stood together in silence for several moments, each looking at the sculpture. Then he shot a sidelong glance in her direction. “I understand the experts claim this is one of Zoubek’s finest works,” he said with a slight smile. “Having seen it now up close, I think I agree.”

Reynolds shrugged. “Personally, my tastes run more to Calder.”

His smile widened a little at the agreed-upon recognition phrase. He lowered his voice. “I assume your coming here means that my patron’s proposal intrigues your agency, Ms. Reynolds.”

“Perhaps,” she said with a terse nod. In ordinary circumstances, no high-ranking CIA official would ever agree to a clandestine rendezvous like this on foreign soil. The risks were simply far too high. Intelligence agency executives at her exalted level were accustomed to dispatching worker bees—case officers and their agents—to do the hard and dangerous work, while they stayed safely sheltered at headquarters. But the tidbits of secrets about Russian stealth aircraft and weapons passed along to her through a chain of cutouts were so tantalizing that she had decided this meeting was worth the gamble.

That was especially true now, when the CIA was viewed so unfavorably by the president and his closest advisers. The huge media and congressional black eye Langley had sustained over that mess in the Libyan desert a couple of months ago hadn’t helped matters any, Reynolds thought gloomily. Boiled down to its essentials, the agency needed to score a massive success if it were to regain its influence over national intelligence policy anytime soon. That went double for Miranda Reynolds. Like sharks, the rivals who coveted her position in charge of the CIA’s covert operations unit scented blood in the water. They were already circling, waiting for the right moment to strike.

She was no stranger to the ritual. Years before, she’d maneuvered her own predecessor out of office and into retirement in the wake of a blown operation in Afghanistan. With that in mind, however, she had no plans to yield so tamely to the same kind of internecine Agency coup. If anybody wanted her chair, they’d better be ready for a fight—and if arming herself for that inevitable confrontation required coming all the way to Prague for this mysterious rendezvous, so be it.

“Well, I think you’ll find what I can offer you reasonably interesting,” the elegantly dressed young man said. “Perhaps even worth your long trip from Washington.” Graciously, he offered her a folded art brochure.