Deep Black

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 blotches of color gave way, first to brown and blue, then to complicated dots and swirls. As Dean focused his bleary eyes, the dots and swirls revealed themselves as roads and towns and clusters of factories and oil fields. The vast whiteness that Dean had imagined Siberia to be was nowhere in sight; this did not mean that it did not exist, only that it lay beyond the horizon of his imagination.

Dean put his hand against the dash as the An-2 began banking sharply. If the Ilyushin he’d taken earlier was old, this aircraft seemed to date from the very first days of flight. It was a single-engined biplane, with portions of its exterior covered by fabric rather than metal. Its large — and loud—1,000-horsepower Shveston Ash-621R engine grumbled below Dean’s feet, the swirl of its propeller at the nose of the plane a haze before his eyes. But the An-2 was in fact a steady, extremely dependable aircraft, and while its wings harked back to an ancient era they gave the craft amazing stability and maneuverability, factors not to be taken lightly when hunkering through mountain passes such as those they had taken through the Urals. These wings also allowed the plane to land on makeshift fields, which it did now, touching down on a dirt strip that seemed too short and narrow for a game of football. Dust and grit flew in a small tornado as they turned and taxied back; as the prop feathered, the pilot, who hadn’t spoken a word on the flight, looked expectantly at Dean. Dean took this as a signal that he should get out; he undid his seat belt and squeezed back into the rear cabin.

Lia was already outside. As Dean landed, the engine whipped back up and the plane shot forward, almost instantly lifting into the sky.

“So?” he asked Lia as it circled away.

She didn’t answer.

“This is Surgut?” he asked.

“No, we’re a little north of Surgut.”

“How far?”

“Two hundred miles.”

“That’s a little?”

“It is out here.” She stopped, spun around slowly for a moment as if checking her bearings, then took what looked like a small cell phone from her pants pocket. Unlike most women, she didn’t have a handbag.

“What about the radio in your head?” Dean asked.

He meant the question sarcastically, but she took it seriously. “Doesn’t work everywhere or all the time. Here, we’re out of range.” She punched some buttons, waiting for a connection. “It’s a satellite phone, Charlie,” she said sarcastically, as if he had asked. “Yes, it’s very small. Yes, it’s secure.”

Lia shook her head, as if he had said something stupid.

“Hey,” she said into the phone. Whoever was on the other end must have told her something, because she answered by saying, “Well, kick ass then,” and hung up. She slipped the phone back into her pocket

“All right, come on,” Lia told Dean.

She began walking along a path crusted with thick tire tracks, the sort a tractor would make in mud. The field lay at the edge of a swamp and, in fact, had drainage ditches nearby; it had obviously been part of the swamp at one time. Lia’s shoes were low-slung affairs, the sort that might be called sensible on a city street but here were barely up to negotiating the clumpy dried mud and ruts on the scratch road. Still, she labored on. Dean grabbed her once as she lost her balance; she pulled away without thanking him, and the next time she slipped he let her fall.

The road curved out from the field through a set of green rushes, past a scummy pond to a larger road. This road wasn’t paved, but it was wide and flat, or at least flatter than the one they had taken from the field. As they walked along it, a swarm of bugs flew up so thick that they seemed like rain. Dean swatted and batted them away, but the swarm was thick and persistent; bugs flew into his eyes and nose and against his mouth. Finally he broke into a trot, running ahead, then twisting and turning like a kid playing keep-away on the school ground. The swarm was not easily dodged, however; finally he got away from the thickest part of it by running full blast for about twenty yards and dropping to his knees.

“They’re a bitch, aren’t they?” said Lia when she caught up.

“You have bug spray?” he asked.

“No.” She kept walking. It might have been his imagination, but the swarm didn’t seem to be bothering her.

“You get used to them?” he asked.

“Are you crazy?” She stopped. The land around them had gradually become drier; on their right a long, narrow field stretched to the horizon. Dust rose in the distance, a cyclone bent on its axis.

“You’re the only woman I ever met who doesn’t carry a pocketbook,” said Dean.

“You don’t get around much, do you?”

A small van materialized in front of the approaching cyclone. Except for its oversize double tires and a raised suspension, the truck looked like a standard GM panel van, the type a small florist in the States might use for deliveries. Its radiator grille had a symbol made of Cyrillic characters; otherwise it had no markings.

“Took you long enough,” said Lia, who had to reach up to pull open the door when it arrived.

“Hello to you, too, Princess,” said the driver.

“You’re in the back,” said Lia when Dean tried to follow.

“Don’t worry. She’s always on the rag,” said the driver, a large blond man of about twenty-three wearing a Yankees cap. Dean walked to the back of the truck, half-expecting that it would take off and leave him stranded. He opened it and got in; cabbage leaves were strewn across the floor and there was an old wooden vegetable crate, but otherwise the rear was bare. Dean shut the door behind him and made his way toward the front, which was open except for a wide double bar with hooks for securing cargo.

“Name’s Magnor-Karr,” said the driver, twisting around from the back. He stuck a thick hand out to Dean. “First name’s Kjartan, except nobody calls me that.”

“What do they call you?”

“Asshole,” said Lia.

“Tommy,” said the driver. “Or Karr.” His hand was callused, as if he did heavy work. His accent sounded as if he were from Hoboken. He reminded Dean of a kid who’d worked the counter for him at one of his gas stations before his overextended business went south.

“Charlie Dean.”

“You’re our baby-sitter, huh?”

“Not really,” said Dean.

“Can we please get moving?” said Lia.

Karr rolled his eyes for Dean, then turned and put the truck into reverse. He didn’t seem to use the mirrors and wasn’t going particularly slow.

“If we go off into the swamp, I’m not pushing,” said Lia.

“Not a problem,” answered Karr. “We’ll sink so fast you won’t have a chance to escape.”

“Hmmmph,” said Lia, crossing her arms.

“You up to speed?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said.

“I meant you, Charlie Dean,” said Karr. “You like ‘Charlie,’ right?”

“If you’re a friend,” said Lia, in the sarcastic tone of a fifteen-year-old girl dissing friends at the mall.

Karr laughed. He turned around — not to look where he was going but to talk to Dean. “You follow baseball?”

“Sometimes.”

“Man, I wish the Yankees would bring that kid Rosen up, don’t you think? Kid throws ninety-seven miles an hour, and he’s a friggin’ lefty. I mean, what are they waiting for?”

“If you’re going to talk about baseball, I’ll just barf now,” said Lia.

“Don’t do it on your clothes,” said Karr. “We don’t need to see you naked.”

“You’d give your right nut to see me without clothes.”

“Trashy mouth, too. All the ugly ones are like that. Some sort of compensation thing going on there,” said Karr. He turned and whipped the wheel of the van so hard Dean flew against the side. As he struggled to regain his balance, Dean realized they hadn’t tumbled off the path but merely come to a paved road. The van’s tires squealed as they accelerated down it.

“You’re some driver,” said Dean.

“Thanks. I can cook, too.”

“A real man’s man,” sneered Lia.

As if in answer, Karr veered sharply to the right, following the road. Dean once more lost his balance, this time slamming against the back of the seats.

“God, kid,” he said. “Give me some warning. Jeez. You drive like that for your boss?”

Tommy laughed.

“Is that where we’re going?” added Dean, sitting back up.

“How’s that?” asked Tommy.

“Are we going to see your boss? The person running the mission,” said Dean.

Karr laughed again. “I’m the boss, Charlie. I know you’ve been in the dark the whole way out,” he added. “Don’t take it personally. It’s kind of a culture thing, you know?”

“Not really,” said Dean.

Lia turned around. “You wouldn’t think they’d put a jerk like this in charge of sensitive operations, would you? He looks barely competent to handle a candy store.”

“I’d love a few hours in a good candy store,” said Karr.

“He’s the head of operations in Russia, Charlie Dean,” said Lia. She had a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Looks like you put your foot in it, huh?”

“Ah, give the guy a break,” Karr told her. “He’s probably jet-lagged all to hell. You slept on the Antonov.”

“How do you know?”

“You always sleep on it.”

Dean felt as if he’d hitched a ride with a couple of college kids heading back to the dorms. He told himself he probably wasn’t quite old enough to be their father. He also told himself he’d made a mistake agreeing to help Hadash.

“This isn’t like the desert thing you were involved in,” Karr told him over his shoulder. “This is just a quick look at some metal.”

“What do you know about the desert?” Dean asked.

“Charlie, I know everything about you. I can tell you how much money you owed when the banks foreclosed on your gas stations. I can even tell you which companies were working together to put you out of business.” Karr looked back and smiled. He seemed to believe that looking where he was driving was optional; he looked at Dean as he continued to speak, though the van must have been doing at least fifty miles an hour. “You helped nail a bunch of scumbag terrorists in the Middle East. Which proves you’re resourceful.”

It also proved that he was a sucker — Dean had signed on to the job because he’d bought a sob story from a woman who claimed her parents had been killed by the terrorists and she was looking for revenge. In fact, the hit had been set up by French and American intelligence services — probably, he now realized, including the NSA.

“It also proves he’s a mercenary,” said Lia.

“Nah. The gas stations were in hock and he needed the money,” said Karr. “Right, Charlie?”

Dean shrugged. It had been more than that.

“See, the thing you don’t know about Charlie Dean,” Karr told Lia, “is that he’s an honorable guy. When one of his part-timers needed an operation, he put him on the full-time payroll and paid his health insurance. Of course, the guy never really came to work at all, because he was too sick by then.”

“What a sport,” said Lia.

“And then the case blew the crap out of his insurance rating, so he ended up having to pay even more. That’s one of the reasons he went under. Right, Charlie?”

“No.”

Truthfully, it hadn’t added much to the general downward spiral of his business, which had in fact managed to eat through most of the two million he’d gotten for the Middle East assignment. The stock market took care of the rest.

“I’m just not a very good businessman, I guess,” Dean said.

“What are you good at?” Lia asked.

“Come on, Princess, stop riding the guy,” said Karr. “She’s just busting your chops because she has a crush on you.”

“Fuck off.”

“See if I’m lying,” laughed Karr.

Part of him liked Karr. He was a big, garrulous kid, the kind Dean would have hung out with as a young man. But he was a kid, and his offhand manner implied to Dean that he was more than a bit full of himself. Dean had seen firsthand what happened to such types — and, all too often, the people who were following them on a mission.

And frankly, it rankled a bit that someone so young would be in charge of anything important. Dean wasn’t sure he would have let Tommy run one of his gas stations.

Well, maybe.

“I sold my business,” Dean said. “It wasn’t foreclosed.”

“Not a problem,” said Karr.

“So you know who I am — who are you?”

“I wouldn’t tell him jack,” said Lia.

“Why not?” said Karr.

Lia didn’t answer.

“Relax, Princess. Dean’s straight up or he wouldn’t be here. Right, Charlie?”

“Yeah.”

“I came to Desk Three from the men in black, security team. Actually, I have an engineering degree, but I haven’t used it in, I don’t know, a million years.”

“He designed toilet seats,” snickered Lia.

Karr ignored her. “They told me they wanted me for the degree, but I think it was because I’m bigger than the average bear.”

Karr laughed.

“You’re pretty young to have an engineering degree,” said Dean. “Isn’t that a master’s?”

“Very good, Charlie. I got into RPI when I was fifteen. What sucked, though, was that I missed the high school baseball team. I’d screwed up my knee anyway.”

“So what are you, twenty-five?”

“Charlie’s writing a fucking book,” said Lia.

“Twenty-three. How ’bout yourself?”

“Twice that,” answered Lia. “Just about.”

Dean, suddenly feeling defensive about his age, let the error stand. “So what are we doing?” he asked.

“I’m kinda getting to that,” said Karr. He took off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his thick hair. Not only did he consider looking where he was going optional, but he wasn’t doctrinaire about having his hands on the wheel, either. “Basically, we have this problem. We lost an airplane the other day, and we’re not entirely sure why.”

“Maybe it broke,” said Dean.

“It wouldn’t have just broken,” said Lia.

“Maybe it broke,” said Karr, putting his cap back on and returning his hands to the wheel. “Anyway, what we have to do, number one, is make sure it was fried to a crisp on the way down. That’s mission one — look for one major crispy critter in the tundra. Mission number two — maybe — is see if there’s any clue about who or what shot it down.”

“Why maybe?” asked Dean.

“Well, because if the plane really was burned to a crisp, there shouldn’t be any clues left, you follow?”

“Your fancy gizmos can’t figure it all out for you?” said Dean.

“Meow,” said Lia.

“You a Luddite, Charlie?” asked Karr.

“I’m not a Luddite.”

“Technology,” said Lia in a sententious voice, “is a force multiplier, not a replacement for human intervention.”

She began to laugh uncontrollably.

“She’s making fun of the boss,” explained Karr.

“Who do you really work for?” asked Charlie. “The CIA?”

Lia’s laugh deepened.

“I figure you’re the Special Collection Service, CIA working for the NSA,” said Dean.

“Wow, he knows his history,” Karr told Lia.

“I know Division D,” said Dean. Division D was the CIA group charged with assassinations. He had worked with two members of it back in Vietnam and immediately afterward, though only as a “trainer” in sniping techniques. If the truth be told, the men he worked with knew at least as much as he did. Dean was a bit hazy on the connection between the Special Collection Service and Division D, but he believed that the Special Collection Service was an arm of Division D. Or vice versa.

“Well, listen, Charlie, if it makes you feel more comfortable, think of us as Special Collection on steroids,” said Karr.

He turned around and stuck out his hand. “Welcome to the club.”

Not sure if the kid was kidding or not — he seemed to be — Dean took Karr’s hand and shook it quickly, hoping he’d turn back around and pay attention to where they were going.

“We’re one big happy family,” said Karr.

“Pull-ease,” said Lia.

“Except for the Princess. She’s a loaner from Delta Force.”

“I didn’t know they let women in,” said Dean.

“They don’t. She’s a transvestite.”

“Hardy-har-har,” said Lia. “A lot’s changed since you were in the service, Charlie Dean. Who was your commanding officer, George Washington?”

“I think it was U. S. Grant.”

They had come to an intersection, the first Dean had noticed. Karr stopped the truck. “Okay, Princess, you need freshening up or what?”

“No.”

“Charlie, you got to take a leak?”

“No.”

“Good. Then we’ll go straight to Numto.”

Karr threw the truck back into gear and kicked onto the road, spitting mud and gravel as he did. Dean had learned by now to hang on, and managed to keep his balance as Karr steadily and quickly brought the van to cruising speed. Dean couldn’t see the speedometer from where he was, but he figured they must be going eighty at least.

And that was miles per hour, not kilometers.

“What’s in Numto?” Dean asked.

“We think a piece of our plane. Actually, it’s about ten miles beyond Numto,” added Karr. His voice had become subtly more serious. “We’ll stop in an hour or so and get some food. It will taste like shit, but you’re going to want to eat it. After that, you want to try and catch some sleep back there. We work mostly at night, except when we work during the day, so your body clock is going to be fried, if it isn’t already. Makes some people grumpy. Unless they were born that way. Oh, one more thing. I have a request.”

“What’s that?”

Karr turned around and grinned. “Don’t get bumped off, okay? I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“I’ll do my best,” Dean told him.

“Good man.”