Free The Fallen: A Derek Stillwater Thriller by Mark Terry Page B

VH-3D helicopters painted green and white. She counted ten. These were Marine Helicopter Squadron-1, the personal helicopter transport for the White House, which were being used to fly the summit leaders from Peterson Air Force Base to the resort.
    Ivan brushed back his thinning gray hair with a large hand and said, “It feels a bit like a show of power.”
    “Fairly standard transportation at these summits. And easier to control than limousines.”
    “Da. I suppose.” Ivan was in his late fifties, a grizzled old veteran of the FSB, and before that the KGB, and unlike many in the bureau, Irina trusted him.
    Irina checked her watch, noting that everything was proceeding right on schedule. That was good. It made everybody’s life in the security detail easier. Still, she felt uneasy. She thought about Derek Stillwater, undercover. She had spent much of the last eight months studying what her government knew about the DHS troubleshooter.
    If Stillwater was to be trusted, and she suspected he was, he had good reasons to want Richard Coffee either dead or behind bars. Not nearly as good as her own reasons. Her lover, Lt. Col. Sergei Dobrovnik, had been assassinated in Chechnya by Coffee, who had then been known as Surkho Andarbek.
    It had been her job to root out the Chechen assassin, but it had become personal. And when it was discovered that Andarbek was actually a CIA agent— a rogue CIA agent, it was believed— the matter had become ever so much more complicated. She had spent years trying totrack the mysterious Andarbek, who had moved in and out of Russia, Chechnya, and Georgia with ease. She had become an expert— as big an expert as anybody on the planet, she supposed— on The Fallen Angels, the name of Andarbek’s group of operators. They headquartered in the Georgian mountains, bought or stole weapons, sold them to whoever needed or wanted them.
    Over time they evolved into something else, a weird cultlike group of apocalyptic terrorists.
    The first of the helicopters— Marine One— that carried the president of the United States and his staff, settled onto the expanse of lawn in front of the Cheyennne Center. A marine honor guard stood at attention, and a small military band played “Hail to the Chief” as President Langston deplaned, waving to a small contingent of the press.
    Irina glanced upward at the roofs of the buildings, mentally checking off the Secret Service sharpshooters she saw at different points of the compass. She shifted her gaze to the Secret Service guards who walked alongside the president in their dark suits, eyes covered with sunglasses, bodies stiff with the focus of their attention.
    President Langston stood listening to “Hail to the Chief,” and when it was finally finished, he saluted and led the U.S. contingent through the entrance of the Cheyenne Center.
    Another helicopter landed, then another, and another.
    Inside the Cheyenne Center, she knew, the president would be preparing for a short speech in the main banquet hall. There would be a few other speeches, then the leaders, their translators, and Sherpas would move to the International Center’s private room for a smaller, intimate series of meetings.
    If she were The Fallen Angel, that is where she would make her move. She didn’t think a man with the tactical experience— even brilliance— of Richard Coffee would try something at the main gathering of the leaders, with seven hundred people in a banquet hall and dozens of security experts. It was too large and unwieldy a group to try and control, unless Coffee had something else in mind, like a bombing.
    Ivan turned and said, “Here is our leader,” and stiffened his posture.
    The fifth helicopter landed and Russian President Pieter Vakhach descended the stairs, waving at the press. Vakhach was a blade-thin hawkof a man, balding, and elegant. The U.S. military band broke into a version of the Hymn of the Russian Federation. It was a slow, but rousing march and Vakhach