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and adjust her brainwaves accordingly. Maybe she could use Polaris to bring Peacock onboard by appealing to logic—oh, and by being nice. Kolb knew herself too well.
    Nice isn’t the best word to describe me.
    #
    Serge Latovsky perched in front of a large screen in a briefing room inside the Kremlin, while his Minist er of Defense, General Pavel Sakharov, interpreted the field information.
    “The enemy’s forces are in full retreat,” Sakharov said. “We’ve taken Azkaban and Sedar. The enemy ran when we drove west of the mountains toward the Caspian Sea. In another day that force will be on Iranian soil as well. The Iranians are determined, but they’re confused and ill equipped.”
    Latovsky smiled. “Cross through Azerbaijan and move on Tabriz. Tehran won’t know where to turn.”
    Sakharov’s aide handed him a paper.
    “President Latovsky,” Sakharov continued as the aide left. “I’ve received a report of a massive earthquake inside Iran near Gorban. We would have been there by this time tomorrow. The quake measured a 7.4. The good news is we haven’t advanced that far yet. The bad news is that moving men and equipment west along the Caspian Sea will be far more difficult.”
    Latovsky drummed his fingers on his armchair. First, the Iranians enter the battle too soon—now an earthquake. Of course, the region was prone to quakes and aftershocks. The roads weren’t the best under normal conditions. Regardless, a plan is a plan. “Make our plan work, Pavel. The earthquake is a minor inconvenience.”
    “I doubt we’ll run into much military opposition, but there will be nomads and refugees.”
    “Push against Tabriz. Azerbaijan will fall as quickly as Turkmenistan.”
    “I should think Granda yatollah al-Sistani would be ready to sue for peace,” Sakharov said.
    “And I wondered why we haven’t encountered Iranian short-range missiles.”
    “Maybe the last Israeli attack on Tehran’s missile defenses crippled them.”
    “Within three days, we will be crippling the Israelis.” Latovsky held in a sneer. These hornets, the Iranians and Israelis, needed their nests sprayed. An attack on them was too long coming in his opinion. Political and religious problems abounded in the Middle East due to Dark Age thinking.  He was about to vault them into the Twenty-First Century.

C hapter 6
     
    Peacock stepped forward to shake Sir Jarvis Franks’ hand, as the interrogation of the prisoner in Monroe’s assassination attempt got underway. A funny fellow, Franks, Pendleton had mentioned him as being a powerful man—good in a pinch. Wait. Pendleton had mentioned? She sucked in a breath of air. A series of visuals rolled like a movie through her mind as Franks shook her hand.
    “Good to see you again, Laverna,” Franks whispered.
    “Yes, good to see you,” she answered, trying to recall any past conversation they might have had.
    She took her place at a table in the interrogation room inside MI6. Across from her sat the assassin she’d subdued during the attempt on Monroe’s life. However, a past memory played in her mind of watching the presidential election in a mansion in Bethesda. Arthur was describing Franks and giggling as he did. She couldn’t recapture her emotions, but she knew she was having fun back then.
    Somewhere inside I love Arthur Pendleton. Kolb will not win.
    After an hour of interrogation that went nowhere , Peacock remembered another incident from her past and asked, “Did you know a man named Thomas Reed?”
    The suspect winced, but said nothing.
    “That ’s an interesting question, Ms. Smythe,” Franks said, and cocked his head toward her.
    “ Thomas Reed is a rogue agent,” she continued. “I went on an operation once where the same bomb configuration was used. Reed had a part in that.”
    “Answer her question,” Franks said.
    Loomis, who stood in back by the door observing, put his cell to his ear. Strange, Peacock thought.
    “I don’t know anyone named Thomas