Under Fire

46

They followed the canyon’s narrow road to a rural neighborhood, then turned west and started picking their way into Makhachkala proper. Soon they caught the stench of burning rubber. Tires, Jack guessed. He wondered if Seth’s protesters had gone from peaceful to violent.

The fringe neighborhoods appeared normal, if a little quiet, with no protesters in sight, but the closer to the city center they got, the more crowds they saw, first in small clusters, then in the dozens on street corners, and then in the hundreds in intersections. Gone was the chanting and singing from the day before, replaced with something Jack couldn’t put his finger on. Discouragement? Worry? Faces tracked them as they passed. He felt eyes on his back.

“Jack,” Dom whispered. “Our guns.”

They tucked their ARXs beneath their ponchos and kept walking.

Finally, they reached Amet Road, a major north-south thoroughfare. The traffic was heavy, with almost bumper-to-bumper traffic, but eerily, Jack heard little honking. He saw the black smoke now, hovering over the northern end of the city.

“All the cars are headed south,” Dom said.

Jack wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or a bad sign. Seth’s plan called for the bulk of the protests to take place in the northern third of Makhachkala, where most of the government institutions were located. This southbound exodus suggested that’s exactly what was happening; it also suggested these citizens wanted to be far from the action.

“They know the border garrisons are coming,” said Dom.

“Probably so.”

People liked the idea of freedom, but not the prospect of being clubbed or shot.

Jack got out his phone and tried Ysabel and the others again, and again got no answer. The MOI switchboard was still busy.

“Where do you want to go?” asked Dom.

Jack assumed — hoped — his lack of contact with the others was simply a communications glitch and that they were still safe within Medzhid’s war room.

“The docks,” he said. “Maybe Matt was able to get there.”

“Maybe he’s already sunk the Igarka,” Dom replied.

Jack glanced sideways at him.

“What, Jack? A man can dream.”

They kept walking until they hit Gamidova, where they were able to hail a taxi. The driver agreed to take them to the docks, but at triple the going rate. They agreed.

Unsurprisingly, the docks were also strangely quiet. Roughly two-thirds of the vessels that had been tied up the last time Jack was here were gone.

They made their way to the harbormaster’s shack.

Matt Spellman was sitting down, his back against the wall, eyes closed. As they approached he cracked an eyelid and said, “Hi, guys. Whatchya been up to?”

Jack and Dom laughed.

“A little of this, a little of that,” Dom said. “We only got two of the Krasukhas.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Spellman got to his feet and they shook hands.

“You look like shit, Matt,” Dom said, nodding at Spellman’s face.

The CIA man’s left eye was almost swollen shut and his bottom lip was split.

“I got ambushed on the way here. My phone got smashed.”

“I’ve been trying to reach the Ministry,” Jack said.

“Yeah, when I left, Medzhid was sending everyone into the basement. It was a bit crazy.”

Jack felt his heart lurch. “Why the move?”

“Ysabel’s okay, Jack, don’t worry. Rebaz is just playing it safe. Last night we started getting reports of gangs roaming the government district, bashing heads, looting stores, and setting cars on fire.”

“And videotaping it all, no doubt,” Jack said.

Volodin and Nabiyev’s opening moves had been to shut down the Internet and the power grid; flooding the streets with provocateurs was Wellesley’s.

Until Seth’s hub system was up and running, the only images the outside world would see wouldn’t be ones of a peaceful, grassroots uprising, but rather ones of violence and chaos. Why rally behind a country whose citizens had no qualms about turning on one another?

The world would watch, of course, and news outlets would play the images over and over until something nastier and juicier came along, and then Dagestan would be forgotten.

“Medzhid’s sending in his politsiya to find them, but he’s got to play it right,” said Spellman. “Videos of club-wielding cops in riot masks will only give Wellesley exactly what he wants.”

Jack said, “Seth should have used the hubs. Now he’s playing catch-up.”

“You didn’t hear? No, I guess you wouldn’t have,” replied Spellman. “After you talked to Seth, Medzhid convinced him to change his mind. He said if the world wasn’t seeing the truth of what they were trying to do here, Volodin was going to roll right over them.

“So Seth sent out the first e-mail blast and fired up the hubs. Five minutes after they came online, the Krasukhas started frying them. We lost half of them before we figured out what was happening. No way in hell did we think the Krasukhas would be that fast.

“Medzhid ordered Seth to pull the plug. Jack, there were five thousand people with five thousand cell phones standing outside the Parliament Building with no way to get the videos and pictures out to the world. It’s falling apart even before it got started.”

“We’ve got half the hubs left,” Jack replied. “Is the Igarka still at anchor?”

“Yep. When most of the other boats were running for the breakwater, she stayed put. She did circle on her anchor chain, though. Her stern is pointed inland now — against the tide.”

So the Kvant has a clear view of the city, Jack knew.

“Show us,” Dom said.

They followed Spellman down to the pier. The fog thickened around them until Jack felt as though he were suspended in midair. They reached the end of the planking. Spellman handed him a pair of binoculars.

“She’s moved a bit closer since you last saw her. Look at about two o’clock. If the fog parts, you should be able to just make out her masthead light.”

“I see it,” Jack said. “How long until the border garrisons get here?”

“Last I heard, five.”

Unless they had the Internet hubs online by then, Volodin could crush Makhachkala and there wouldn’t be a single live recording to contradict his version of events.

Jack said, “We need to find a boat we can borrow.”

Surprisingly, they had little trouble finding a boat perfect for their needs, a blunt-prowed twenty-eight-foot crew boat with navigation radar and an enclosed forecastle cabin that not only was unlocked but also had keys jutting from the ignition.

While Jack started up the engines, Dom and Spellman cast off the lines then hopped onto the afterdeck and joined him in the cabin.

Jack said, “Just so you know, I haven’t got much of a plan, so let me know if you’ve got something.”

“Let’s hear yours,” Spellman said.

“Pull alongside the Igarka, board her, shoot anyone who points a gun at us, then drive the Kvant over the side.”

“Works for me.”

“Me, too,” said Dom.

“Fire up that radar, will you?”

Having taken a rough bearing on where they’d last seen the Igarka’s masthead light, Jack pulled away from the dock and pointed the bow into the harbor. Immediately the fog enveloped the cabin until the bowsprit was just a hazy vertical line floating ahead of them.

“She should be just up ahead,” Spellman said.

Leaning over the tiny radar scope set into the helm console, Dom replied, “I’ve got something, but it’s moving away from us. Two hundred yards off the starboard bow and picking up speed.”

“Is there anything else around?”

“Astern of us in the harbor, but out here it’s just us and this one.”

“Why would she be moving?” Spellman asked.

Then it hit Jack: “Wellesley. The Krasukha crews would have called in the ambush. It’s not a big leap for him to guess it was us — and what we’re up to.”

Jack pushed the throttle to its stops and the boat surged ahead, but slowly and steadily the Igarka began pulling away from them until finally, after ten minutes, she disappeared from Dom’s scope.

“Last bearing I had on it was about one-three-zero degrees, heading south along the coast.”

Jack eased the wheel over until the binnacle compass read 130.

“She has to stop sometime,” Spellman said. “Any farther south and the Kvant won’t be able to triangulate for the Krasukhas.”

“Unless they already put the thing ashore and we missed it.”

“Not on my watch,” Spellman said. “She never left her anchorage.”

They kept going.

“I got a blip,” Dom called out a few minutes later. “Dead on our nose, about half a mile.”

“Still moving?”

“Yeah, but it’s… Jack, she’s turning to starboard, heading toward shore. She’s slowing down.”

Spellman began rifling through the cabinets above their heads, then the drawers beneath the console. “Come on, where are you?” He pulled out a chart. “Dom, where is she?”

Dom tapped the scope face. Spellman held the chart next to the screen, rotating it until he found a landmark on shore he recognized.

“She’s heading for the Akgel Inlet,” he said.

“Which leads where?” asked Jack.

“A reservoir about a hundred yards inland. It’s a recreational boat area.”

“Docks? Road access?”

“Uh… lemme think. Yeah. Nasrudinova Street, it heads north toward downtown.”

“Dom, I can’t see a thing. You’re going to have to steer me.”

“You got it.” Dom leaned closer to the scope face. “Keep going… Okay, start easing to starboard. Keep coming around until you hit two-two-three degrees, then straight ahead.”

Jack did so, his eyes darting between the rotating compass and the windscreen. The fog was thinning. Off the bow he could make out fuzzy geometric shapes; slowly they began to resolve into buildings.

When the compass hit 223, Jack let the wheel spin back to center.

“I see lights ahead,” he said. “Off the port and starboard bow.”

“Those’ll be the inlet markers,” replied Spellman.

Jack eased back on the throttle until they were moving at eight knots.

“Keep it steady, Jack. This thing looks real narrow.”

“Forty feet, I’d guess,” Spellman added. “Tight fit for the Igarka.”

Dom said, “She’s dead ahead, maybe a hundred yards and still slowing.”

Out both windows Jack saw gray shadows gliding down the hull as they entered the inlet.

“Almost through,” Dom muttered. “Igarka’s still slowing…”

Spellman said, “Don’t crowd her, Jack.”

He eased back on the throttle again. Six knots.

“We’re through,” Dom said. “Igarka’s fifty yards off.”

Jack throttled the engines back to idle and let momentum carry them forward. Through the haze a pair of headlights flashed twice, then twice more. Still invisible in the fog, the Igarka’s diesels revved up.

“Moving again,” Dom said.

The Igarka’s engines faded and they heard the scraping of steel on sand.

Jack said to Dom, “Get Matt one of the ARXs. Same thing as before, guys: If somebody’s holding a gun, they’re a target. No gun, they better be on their bellies. Sound good?”

Both Dom and Spellman nodded.

“I’m going to get us alongside as quick as possible, so hold on to something. Once we’re stopped, get aboard and start clearing the decks. Dom, you’re up high, Matt and I are heading forward along the deck.”

Jack shoved the throttle forward and the boat plowed ahead.

“Come to starboard a bit,” Dom called. “A little more. Good. Fifty feet… forty feet. Now to port… a little less. We should see her any—”

A black shape loomed before the windscreen. Jack thought, Davit, then shouted, “Get down!”

Spellman and Dom dropped to their bellies, Jack only a split second behind them. The Igarka’s boat davit clotheslined the cabin, shattering the windscreen and peeling the roof back like the top of a tin can.

Dom pushed open the cabin door and crawled out with Spellman and Jack on his heels. Jack stood up, looked right. The side of the Igarka was there, a few feet above them. Jack placed his foot on the gunwale, hopped up and snagged the Igarka’s gunwale, then boosted himself up. He brought the ARX to his shoulder and aimed it down the deck. Nothing moved.

Dom and Spellman climbed up and crouched next to him.

“Dom, go.”

Dom jogged to a ladder affixed to the aft superstructure and started climbing. The fog enveloped him.

“Ready?” Jack said.

“Yep.”

He and Spellman headed toward the bow, Jack taking the starboard side, Spellman the port.

As Jack passed the first hatch, it swung open, shoving him sideways into the railing. Jack spun, his ARX coming up. A man was standing in the hatchway. He was unarmed.

“Back inside!” Jack shouted. He kicked the hatch shut and kept going.

From somewhere above came the dull pop, pop, of Dom’s ARX, then, “You two, down! Get down! Jack, you’re clear to the bow!”

Jack sprinted past the front edge of the superstructure and onto the forecastle until he reached the bow railing. Below he saw the broad outline of a flatbed truck cab.

He shouted over his shoulder, “Dom, you and Matt clear belowdecks.”

“Got it!”

Jack lifted his legs over the railing, let himself hang free, then dropped to the sand below. ARX raised, he sprinted toward the truck, which began backing away, its tires spewing sand. On the other side of the windshield, a lone figure was behind the wheel.

Jack pointed the ARX at him. “Shut off the engine!”

The driver ignored him and kept backing up, until the truck’s cab disappeared into the fog. Jack sprinted forward until the cab reappeared; then he fired a round into the passenger-side windshield. The truck braked to a stop.

“Engine off, hands out the window!”

The man complied.

Jack ordered him down from the cab, then onto his belly.

Dom ran up.

“Clear it for me,” Jack said.

Dom was back in ten seconds. “Nobody else.”

They found Spellman standing on the sand before the Igarka’s bow. “Three crew in total,” he reported. “All scared shitless, but unhurt. I’ve got them locked in the chart room. I don’t think they know anything about the Kvant.”

Jack prodded the driver of the truck forward. “Add him to the collection. We’ll send some of Medzhid’s ERF for them.”

As Spellman took the man away, Dom asked, “Now what?”

Jack scratched his head. “Do you know how to sink a ship?”