Another three hours of trudging across scrub and rock had brought her to this bluff, tantalisingly close to the Finnish border. It was late. She had no idea of the exact time, but the aching in her legs and pain in her stomach were finally starting to press against the fog of her shock and tell her she’d gone too long without food or a rest. She had two choices. Find somewhere to bed down, or keep walking.

This close to midsummer in Karelia the sun would briefly skim the horizon in a few hours’ time, but it wouldn’t get truly dark for another two months. Valera wouldn’t have the protective cover of night if she kept going, but she would be putting more distance between her and anyone who might be following behind her.

She stepped down from the bluff, checked her bearings against the low sun, and forced her body to keep going.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

In an office deep in the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, Patrick Dixon was on the phone.

‘Is he happy with the latest set of images?’ he asked, the slightest shadow of his Boston accent softening the middle t of latest.

‘When is he ever happy?’ the voice at the other end of the line replied. The voice belonged to Phinneus Murphy, Dixon’s CIA liaison. And the he they were both referring to was the new president, John F. Kennedy.

Dixon was the chief scientist on the Corona programme, and knew better than anyone how much pressure the project was under from the White House.

Corona was the newest frontier in the global espionage war—a joint project between the CIA and NASA to create a network of satellites carrying ultra-high resolution cameras that could be positioned above any location on the planet at a moment’s notice. It was supposed to hand the US an eye on the whole world—and unassailable intelligence supremacy—but it was behind schedule.

‘He’s impatient,’ Murphy said. ‘He wants us on the moon already.’

‘Who the hell signed off that speech?’ Dixon asked rhetorically as he rubbed his free hand over the top of his stubbled buzz-cut head. ‘I can’t even get a decent radio signal into orbit, let alone two hundred and forty thousand miles into space.’

‘It’s three months since Freedom 7 went up. He doesn’t understand why we’re still playing around with parachutes.’

Dixon sighed. ‘Neither do I,’ he said. He leaned onto his elbow, massaging his temple between his thumb and middle finger.

‘You shouldn’t be telling me things like that.’

‘I know better than to try and keep secrets from the CIA. And I need all the help I can get.’