Deep Black

51

By the time they reached their destination on the bank of the Ob River, the sun had started to rise. Dean sat curled over the back of the Hind’s seat the whole time, sunk deep into sore fatigue. He’d loosened his bullet-proof vest to take some of the pressure off his bruised ribs, but didn’t bother looking at his hip; it hurt enough already.

Too old, too slow: Dean thought about what had happened in the compound. His body had done all right — his reactions had been slower certainly than when he was young, and he hurt a hell of a lot more, but overall he’d done all right.

What hadn’t done well was his head. For one thing, he hadn’t properly checked the roof coming out. Worse, his head had scrambled in the middle of the fight.

That was a fatal problem. He’d seen it happen to a very good captain in Vietnam, early in his tour there. The man led them into an L-shaped ambush, tried to flank the enemy through the thick jungle, lost a quarter of the force in a crossfire.

Time to quit.

Karr and Stephen Martin stood against the side of the helicopter, peering through the smallish windows. Karr had just finished grilling Martin about what had happened, how he had escaped the plane, how he had been captured, what he had said.

Dean hadn’t heard it all, but he could piece together the highlights. Martin had crawled through a small access hatch with a parachute he wasn’t supposed to have and left the plane after pressing the destruct sequence. He assumed the others had gone out as well. He hit his head when he landed but apparently managed to walk some distance before two men with guns appeared in the darkness not far from a road. He’d spent some time in a police station or military office — he believed it was the former — before being blindfolded and taken to the base where he had been rescued. He’d been questioned every day since but hadn’t told them anything.

Even Dean knew that must be a lie. Martin’s fingers shook and he kept blinking; the Russians had obviously broken him.

“OK,” said Karr, turning back from the door. “We’re landing.”

The Hind dropped precipitously a few seconds later; Dean thought his head would hit the ceiling. Karr slammed the door open, then prodded Martin out. Dean, legs shaky, felt like he was falling to the doorway. He jumped lightly onto the ground; the shock reverberated up his side, jostling his ribs so badly he winced.

“Go,” Karr ordered, pointing toward the riverbank a good distance away. Then he jumped back into the helicopter, leaving Martin and Dean alone.

“They leaving us?” asked Martin.

Dean shook his head, though in truth he wasn’t sure. He started walking through the high grass. Martin eventually followed.

Just as they reached the shore the Hind’s engine roared. Dean turned and saw the helicopter jerk upward into the air — and then burst into fireball. It skittered about fifty feet ahead, then, still burning, keeled over and went into the ground.

“Jesus,” said Martin. He took a step toward the black smoke of the wreckage, then stopped. “What the hell?”

Dean stared at the fuselage, feeling as if he’d been hit in the back of the head. He checked his gun, took the safety off — whoever had shot the Hind down was nearby.

Three figures came out of the smoke, running toward them. Dean started to level his gun.

“Is it them?” said Martin.

The question probably saved their lives. Belatedly Dean realized that the NSA ops had blown up the helicopter, rigging it hastily to look like it had crashed. The wreckage probably wouldn’t fool an expert, but the odds were that no one would care enough to send an expert to investigate.

Why didn’t he realize that’s what they were doing?

“Get the lead out,” said Karr, trotting up like a maniacal JV football coach on the first day of practice. “We got to get moving.”

Martin fell into a jog, but Dean, his hip burning and his ribs aching, simply walked. A small boat was hidden about fifty yards farther up the riverbank. It was very small and settled near the gunwales as the first four members of the group boarded. Dean looked at it doubtfully.

“Come on, baby-sitter, there’s room,” said Karr. “Sit next to Lia in the stern.”

Dean’s boots sank into the mud as he reached for the boat.

“Push us off first or we’ll be stuck.” Lia was holding the engine up out of the muck at the shore.

Dean splashed clumsily into the water as he leaned against the side of the Vessel. He managed to get in without swamping it, falling to the bottom with his pants sodden, while Lia slapped down the engine. She cursed and pulled the rope starter, getting a few coughs but no ignition.

“Choke it,” said Karr.

“Yeah.”

“Come on, like you’d do to your boyfriends.”

“Fuck off,” said Lia, wrapping the starter string around her wrist and pulling harder. The motor ripped to life, then died. It took three more pulls before she got it going.

“What happened to your leg?” she asked Dean as they began slowly moving against the current.

“Bullet got my hip.”

She put her hand down on it. Dean winced, trying not to cry out with the pain.

“Bullet’s in there?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you look?”

Dean shook his head. “I don’t think it went in. It didn’t feel that bad.”

“You’ve been shot before?”

“Not really.”

He was lying, actually; he’d been hit twice in Vietnam but for some reason now didn’t care to admit it. Old news — or an admission of being old, washed-up.

“Let me see it,” said Lia.

“It’s OK.”

“How do you know?”

“I do.”

“If you haven’t looked, and you’ve never been shot—”

“I suppose you have,” said Dean.

“Three times,” she said.

“She has that effect on men,” said Karr.

“Screw yourself, Karr,” snapped Lia.

Karr threw up his hands as if he’d touched a hot plate, then went back to scouting the riverbank. “Don’t beach us, Princess.”

“Screw yourself.” She looked down at Dean. “I’ll look at it in the van.”

“Is that where we’re going?” asked Dean.

“We have a van — or should have a van — about two miles up the river.”

“It’ll be there,” said Fashona behind him.

“We requisition vehicles in case we need them,” said Lia.

“What do we do if it’s gone?”

“It’ll be there,” said Fashona.

“Karr will carry us,” said Lia.

The van was waiting, as Fashona had promised, and unlike the outboard engine, it started on the first try. They drove it about five miles to the outskirts of a village, where a Mercedes truck sat near the road.

Dean, sitting on the floor next to the rear door, heard Karr tell Fashona to keep going.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lia, leaning over the space between the driver and passenger seat.

“Tire marks in the dirt,” said Karr.

“We can scan it,” suggested Lia. “Probably it was just someone looking to steal it.”

“Not worth the risk,” said Karr. “We’ll just drive this to Surgut.”

“Fuel tank is just a regular tank,” said Fashona.

“So we stop,” said Karr.

“A long haul,” Lia said.

“Well, you can click your ruby slippers anytime you want,” he told her.

Lia slid around and plopped down on the floor. “How’s your hip?” she asked Dean.

“It’s all right.”

She frowned at him, then pushed along the metal floor to look at it.

“Pull down your pants,” she ordered.

“Yeah, right.”

“Oh, don’t be a sissy,” she said, reaching for his waist.

Dean let her undo the button at his waist and leaned over to make it easier for her to slide the top of his pants down. Her hands felt warm.

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, really,” he said.

“You’re burned and cut up a bit,” she said. “You’ll live.”

“Gee, thanks, nurse.”

She let go of his leg abruptly. Now that he had it exposed, Dean figured he might as well clean it and asked if they had anything to do so. She seemed almost reluctant to get the first-aid kit, which was under the passenger seat. Dean took it from her, using the hydrogen peroxide to clean the wound. It burned and frothed immediately, which he took as a sign that the stuff was doing something. Then he daubed Mercurochrome on the wound.

“That shit doesn’t do anything, you know,” said Lia.

“It’s an antiseptic,” said Dean.

She waved at his hand. “You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks for the sympathy.”

“I didn’t know you wanted sympathy.” She seemed genuinely puzzled. “You don’t seem like the type.”

“You guys might as well try and get some sleep,” said Karr from the front. “As soon as we get to Surgut, we’re taking a plane to Moscow.”

“Then home,” said Dean. He lay back on the truck floor, feeling very old and very tired, glad the mission was over.