Deep Black by Stephen Coonts; Jim Defelice Page A

though
     it fell short. “You’re just a baby-sitter. So don’t get in the way and we’ll be fine.”
    Before Dean could say anything, Lia jammed on the brakes and spun the car into a one-eighty. Then she started accelerating
     back in the opposite direction.
    “Now what?” asked Dean.
    “Now we board another flight,” she said.
    “Another flight?”
    “They did tell you we were going to Siberia, didn’t they?” she said. “They didn’t tell you that?”
    “They told me Surgut.”
    She made a face. “Not exactly. In any event, we need to take a plane. We’ve already lost a lot of time.”
    “What was all the business at the airport?”
    “What business?”
    “In the bathroom.”
    “You happened into a Russian agent.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yes.”
    “Was he tracking me?”
    “We don’t think so.” Lia touched her ear. “No, we don’t think so. So what if he knows? That’s bullshit.”
    “Who are you talking to?”
    “God, Charlie. God.”
    “Look—”
    “I have a radio hookup,” she said. “I talk to the Art Room. Fuck yourself.”
    “You talking to me or them?”
    “Anyone who thinks it’s appropriate,” Lia told him. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Charlie. But at least you’ll learn it from
     the best.”
    It was lucky for her, he thought, that he’d put his knife away.

7
    Rubens stepped back as the sparks continued to arc above the bamboo of his cousin’s swimming pool. He saw immediately what
     had happened and realized the grisly consequences—the guitarist had jumped into the water still connected to his amp, freakishly
     electrocuting himself and the congressman in what would undoubtedly become the lead item on the evening’s news broadcasts.
     Rubens saw headlines and news magazines, articles and pictures, video interviews, innuendo, rumors, Nightline specials, and debates on Crossfire.
    It was time to leave.
    As discreetly as possible, he walked through the house to the front door, down the long driveway to his car at the curb, got
     in, and started away. As he turned onto the main road, he thought he heard a siren in the distance. He punched the CD selector,
     calling up a collection of piano sonatas from Mozart.
    Hours later, resting at home in his den, he put on the television. CNN greeted him with a special graphic and musical interlude,
     just coming back from commercial break during a half hour devoted to what it called Congressman Greene’s Unique Life. Rubens
     flicked the remote to MSNBC, where a pair of talking heads argued about whether guitars should be banned from poolsides. FoxNews
     used the occasion to roll out clips from other bizarre deaths, including one where a man had been gored by a rhino and carried
     for a mile, impaled on his horn.
    The local television station showed a shot of police interrogating witnesses. His cousin Greta was being comforted by her
     husband in the background. Rubens felt a slight pang of sympathy—it was unfortunate that anyone had to be connected with such
     a bizarre media parade. As for Greene—well, he hadn’t been the agency’s most reliable supporter; hopefully his successor would
     prove more pliant.
    Rubens pushed the remote again. A&E was just beginning a broadcast of Carmen, the opera based on Prosper Me´rime ´e’s classic story of love and betrayal. He settled back to watch.

8
    The word Siberia had an almost magical ability to conjure a thousand images, none of them particularly pleasant. Yet the reality was infinitely
     more complex, as Dean realized scanning the vast plains below from the copilot’s seat of the Antonov An-2 that had brought
     them from Rzeszow across the Urals, with two brief stops to refuel in between. A seemingly infinite pattern of green and black
     stretched forward over the horizon, blotches of land that, from the distance, seemed oblivious to human intrusion, let alone
     any predictable pattern of development characteristic of modern Homo sapiens . As they descended, the blurs and