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    Boyd had had some additional training. During his two weeks at Langley Air Force Base, he had actually been at Camp Peary, learning the tradecraft of the spy. He’d skipped over the physical fitness part and the handling of firearms; he was already at the head of that class. He’d been through the Secret Service school on his first adventure, so some of this was a review. He studied dead drops and live drops and how to spot a tail and lose it, and how to be captured and not lose his head, and how to endure interrogation and what to do if confronted with imminent execution. He’d sat in on some classes with CIA trainees, other classes had been individual. Toward the end, he was given a day off to rest. During breakfast, someone walked by his table and slipped him a note. He thought it was an exercise from his class on tradecraft. The note told him to go to a certain room in the back of the administrative section.
    “Hello, Boyd,” Maj. Gen. Bob Ferguson said as Boyd entered the small office.
    “Sir,” Boyd said, not entirely surprised. He shook the general’s hand.
    “You look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”
    “That was a tough time.”
    “I know, and I’m sorry it turned out the way it has for you. If there had been any way we could have gotten you back into fighters, we’d have done it. I hope you know that.”
    “I do. I’m kind of getting into the handsome high performance Lockheed C-130 Hercules,” Boyd chuckled. He really was pretty much over the loss of being a shit hot fighter jock.
    “The Herc offers us some important capabilities.”
    “Yes,” Boyd said as he looked down at the desk Ferguson had been sitting behind. There was a manila envelope on it.
    “Which brings us to your next assignment,” Ferguson said, picking up the envelope but not opening it. “It’s a very different kind of task than the last one. You’re not in charge of the team this time. There is no team. Just you.”
    “What about the other guys, the embassy run and all that?”
    “They’re all part of the routine embassy run rotation. It’s a standard six-month rotation, and Little Rock was up. No surprises there. Those guys will do their job, and you will do yours. They must never know what you’re up to.”
    “OK,” Boyd said doubtfully.
    “I’m still director of the Counter Proliferation Task Force, and we’re still working out of the command center at Fort Belvoir just south of Washington,” Ferguson said. “The same Strategic Command group you worked with last time. Last time, we were chasing a biological threat. This time, it’s nuclear. You’ll take orders directly from me, and my orders on this mission come from the National Security Council and the president. You can’t tell anyone that, so use your head and keep your cover. You can get me on the scrambled secure line from the command post at Incirlik, or you can use this satellite phone.”
    Ferguson handed Boyd a satellite telephone.
    “We’re not trusting the State Department secure line from the embassy at this point,” he said. “Your only local contact is the flight engineer on your aircraft. He knows you’re on a secret mission and that you may have to remain overnight somewhere unscheduled. Just tactfully let him know, and he’ll find a way to disable your aircraft wherever and for however long you need. Be careful, and don’t overuse that. We don’t know how long this will need to go on. It might just be a couple of weeks – or a whole lot longer. My office will work with Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base to adjust the schedule so you’ll be spending more nights in Tbilisi than the other stops on the run.”
    “So, what’s my job?”
    “The CIA Station Chief at Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia blew her cover the first week she was in town, and she nearly blew the cover of our most important contact in Central Asia,” Ferguson said. “Someone inside Iran has been sneaking out technical