He was grateful that Larimer went silent. Moran was climbing from his semi-conscious state and mumbling incoherently. The headlights reflected off a green sign with white letters: AIRPORT NEXT RIGHT. He took the off ramp and came to the gate of the Charleston Municipal Airport. Across the main landing strip the brightening sky revealed a row of jet fighters belonging to the Air National Guard.

Following the directions given over the phone, he skirted the airport searching for a narrow cutoff. He found it and drove over a dirt road until he came to a pole holding a wind sock that hung limp in the dank atmosphere.

He stopped and got out, checked his watch and waited. Less than two minutes later the steady beat of a helicopter's rotor could be heard approaching from behind a row of trees. The blinking navigation lights popped into view and a teardrop blue-and-white shape hovered for a few moments and then sat down beside the limousine.

The door behind the pilot's seat swung outward and a man in white coveralls stepped to the ground and walked up to the limousine.

"You Suvorov?" he asked.

"I'm Paul Suvorov."

"Okay, let's get the baggage inside before we attract unwanted attention."

Together they led Larimer and Moran into the passenger compartment of the copter and belted them in. Suvorov noted that the letters on the side of the fuselage read: SUMTER AIRBORNE AMBULANCE.

"This thing going to the capital?" asked Larimer with a spark of his old haughtiness.

"Sir, it'll take you anyplace you want," said the pilot agreeably.

Suvorov eased into the empty co-pilot's seat and buckled the harness. "I wasn't told our destination," he said.

"Russia, eventually," the pilot said with a smile that was anything but humorous. "First thing is to find where you came from."

"Came from?"

"My orders are to fly you around the back country until you identify the facility in which you and those two windbags in the back have spent the last eight days. When we accomplish that mission, I'm to fly you to another departure area."

"All right," said Suvorov. "I'll do my best."

The pilot didn't offer his name and Suvorov knew better than to ask. The man was undoubtedly one of the estimated five thousand Soviet-paid "charges" stationed around the United States, experts in specialized occupations, all waiting for a call instructing them to surface, a call that might never come.

The helicopter rose fifty feet in the air and then banked off toward Charleston Bay. "Okay, which way?" asked the pilot.

"I can't be sure. It was dark and I was lost."

"Can you give me a landmark?"

"About five miles from Charleston; I crossed a river."

"From what direction?"

"West, yes, the dawn was breaking ahead of me."

"Must be Stono River."

"Stono, that's it."

"Then you were traveling on State Highway 700."