Conviction

36

With its hundreds of river outlets, Lake Baikal’s surface generally stays ice free until mid January and clears by the end of May, but this year was an exception, Fisher found as they reached the middle of the lake and the first pancake ice chunks began scraping down the hull. In both boats the team members looked around warily. From his seat in the bow Fisher spread his hands in the baseball “safe” signal. The ice was too brittle and thin to damage the hulls of their johnboats. So shallow were their drafts that in the worst case the flat bottom rectangular craft could skim over the ice with little trouble.

As it was still early in the season, the tiny Severobaikalsk marina had offered them few choices of transportation: sailboats, fishing trawlers with diesel engines, or skiff-sized craft like their johnboats. The electric trolling motors were virtually silent, if not particularly powerful: After two hours of travel they were only halfway to Ayaya Bay.

Fisher donned his night-vision headset again and did a 360-degree scan. He saw neither lights nor shapes. They had the lake to themselves. A hundred yards off the bow he could see a low fog clinging to the water’s surface. He looked left, caught Hansen’s attention, and gestured for him to steer closer. When their gunwales were within a few feet of each other, Fisher whispered to Gillespie in the seat behind him, and she threw across the painter, which Noboru secured to the cleat.

The fog enveloped them.

With no points of reference except for occasional glimpses of the neighboring boat in the swirling fog, time seemed to slow. In Fisher’s boat Gillespie had moved to the stern to help Valentina navigate; Hansen and Noboru had teamed up in the other. The steady hum of the electric motors had a lulling effect on Fisher. The days and weeks of being on the run, of infrequent and insufficient sleep, were catching up to him. He leaned over the side, scooped up a handful of icy water, and splashed his face.

He checked his OPSAT. Five miles to go.

At two miles Fisher signaled to Valentina to cut the engine; Hansen heard this and did the same. They drifted ahead until the boats came to a halt and began gently rocking. For ten minutes they sat still, listening. They heard nothing but the lapping of water against the hulls. Fisher scanned with the night vision and saw nothing

At two-minute increments over the next half hour they repeated the process — engines off, glide to a stop, listen, scan — until Fisher’s OPSAT told him they were at the mouth of Ayaya Bay. He ordered the motors lifted and the oars broken out.

They began paddling.

Concentrating on even, silent strokes rather than speed, the last two miles to the beach took another hour. With an extra pair of hands, Fisher’s boat pulled slightly ahead, and when his OPSAT’s distance reading scrolled down to a hundred yards, he stopped paddling and untied the painter connecting the boats. On the slim chance there were guards posted, he didn’t want to risk the johnboats bumping into each other. The gong of aluminum would travel clearly over the water.

He started sounding for the bottom with his oar. Sixty feet from shore, the tip plunged into mud. Fisher handed his oar back to Gillespie, then slipped over the side into the water. Hansen followed a moment later, and they began towing the boats until the water was only waist high. Noboru, Gillespie, and Valentina climbed out and helped drag the boats onto the sand.

Quickly and quietly, they unloaded their gear, ran a final weapons and equipment check, and donned their packs. Fisher checked his OPSAT. As they had been since early afternoon, the Ajax bots showed as a tight cluster two miles inland, sitting between them and Lake Frolikha. Again, Fisher found himself wondering where in the middle of thick, almost impassible Siberian forest did someone find a suitable spot for the auction. They would soon know.

He looked at each of the team members and got nods and thumbs-up signs in return.

In a staggered single file, they set off into the darkness.

What none of them knew, and none of their maps showed, was that the area between Lake Frolikha and Ayaya Bay was part of the Great Baikal Trail. According to the sign they found higher up the beach, the non-profit, volunteer-driven project hoped to create a series on interconnected trails that circumnavigated the entire lake. Six years into the task, the trail was halfway done.

This again raised the issue of why this area had been chosen for the auction site. Admittedly the area was remote and the hiking season had not yet fully begun, but to go as far as holding the auction in Siberia only to place it astride the Great Baikal Trail… Something didn’t add up. Even so, Fisher knew better than to overanalyze the gift. The trail would not only save them hours but also the effort of blazing their own path.

Taking fifteen-minute turns walking point, they made quick progress, covering a half mile in twenty minutes despite frequent stops to look and listen for signs of guards. By 3:00 A.M. they had closed to within a quarter mile of the Ajax signal. Fisher resumed point and led them forward until the trees began to thin and they found themselves at the edge of an oval-shaped meadow. In the moonlight stalks of brown grass and weeds jutted through the foot-thick blanket of snow. On the north side of the meadow sat a square, cinder-block hut with a rusted sheet-metal roof.

Fisher called Hansen up and whispered, “Take Gillespie and circle around to the east side of the meadow. Check for signs of foot traffic, sensors — anything out of place.”

“Got it.” Hansen collected Gillespie and they disappeared back down the trail. Noboru and Valentina moved up beside Fisher. He gestured to them to scan, and all three started panning their binoculars across the meadow. Twenty minutes passed, and then Hansen’s voice came over Fisher’s headset: “In position. No off-trail foot traffic, no sensors, no guards. There’s something interesting at your eleven o’clock, though, in the center of the meadow.”

“What is it?”

“I know what it looks like to me, but you better check for yourself.”

Fisher adjusted his binoculars to the appropriate area and zoomed in. “Got it,” he confirmed. He’d missed it the first time, but now the parallel ruts in the snow were unmistakable. Helicopter landing skids. “Our missing Sikorsky,” he said.

“My thought as well. We’re right on top of the touchdown coordinates.”

The Ajax hadn’t left the meadow. There was only one place they could be.

“Move back to the hut,” Fisher told Hansen.

When both teams were in position, Fisher took a final look through the night-vision goggles, then whispered, “Move in.”

In unison Hansen and Gillespie and Fisher and his two cohorts stepped from the trees and started toward the hut, their Grozas held low at the ready. As arranged, Hansen circled behind the hut, Fisher in front, where they joined up. A faded metal sign with red Cyrillic letters read METEOROLOGICAL STATION 29. The hut had only one entrance, a heavy steel door set into the cinder block; like the roof, it was pitted with rust. Fisher crept up to the door, then turned, signaled Hansen forward, and pointed at the door’s padlock.

It was brand-new.