Rodgers turned to Environmental Officer Phil Katzen, who had his laptop open and ready. "Phil, I need a workup on the Gulf of Finland into the Neva, and the Neva where it passes the Hermitage. Temperature, speed, wind factor--"

The computer to Hood's right beeped. He hit F6 to answer, then pushed Control to hold the call.

Rodgers continued, "And I want whatever you've got on the composition of the soil under the museum. I want to know how deep the Russians may have dug there."

Katzen nodded as he finished typing.

Hood hit Control again. The face of his Executive Assistant, Stephen "Bugs" Benet, appeared on the screen.

"Sir," said Bugs, "there's an urgent call from Commander Hubbard at DI6. It pertains to this matter, so I thought--"

"Thanks," said Hood. "Put it through."

Hood snapped on the phone's speaker button, then waited. The bloodhound face appeared on the monitor a moment later.

"Good morning, Commander," Hood said. "I'm with the rest of my team, so I took the liberty of putting you on the speakerphone."

"Fine," Hubbard said, his thickly accented voice deep and raspy, "I'll do the same. Mr. Hood, let me get straight to the matter. We have an operative here who would like to be part of the team you've sent to Helsinki."

Rodgers's expression soured. He shook his head.

Hood said, "Commander, ours is a carefully balanced unit--"

"I understand," Hubbard said, "but hear me out. I've lost two agents and a third is hiding. My staff wants me to send our own Bengal unit in, but it wouldn't do to have our two groups stumbling one over the other."

"Could your Bengal unit put me on the phone with the head of this new operation in St. Petersburg?"

"Pardon me?" said Hubbard.

"What I'm saying," said Hood, "is that you're not offering me anything I can't get myself. We'll share what we find out, as always."

"Of course," said Hubbard. "But I disagree. We can offer you one thing. Miss Peggy James."

Hood quickly input Control/F5 on his keyboard to access agent files. He hit DI6, typed James, and her dossier appeared.

Rodgers got up and stood behind Hood as he scanned the file, which was filled with data from DI6 as well as independent information collected by Op-Center, the CIA, and other U.S. agencies.

"She has quite a record," Hood said. "The granddaughter of a lord, three years in the field in South Africa, two in Syria, seven at headquarters. Special forces training, speaks six languages, holds four commendations. Rebuilds and races vintage motorcycles."

He stopped when Mike Rodgers pointed to a crossreference to another file.

"Commander Hubbard, this is Mike Rodgers," he said. "I see that Ms. James also recruited Mr. Fields-Hutton."

"Yes, General," Hubbard admitted. "They were very close."

"Watch out for grudge matches," Liz muttered, shaking her head.

"Did you hear, Commander?" Hood asked. "That was our staff psychologist."