Deep Black

6

The first flight on the board at Gate Two proved to be a flight to Rzeszow, a city in southeastern Poland. Dean dutifully bought his ticket, though he had begun to have his doubts about both the woman from the rest room and the mission itself. Hadash had said it would be easy; Dean had doubted that, but he had at least thought it would be straightforward. So far it had been anything but.

Looking at the plane did nothing to assure him. The aircraft could be charitably described as a torpedo-shaped screen door with propellers attached. In fairness, the Ilyushin IL-14 had been a serviceable transport in its day; unfortunately, its day had come and gone fifty years before.

As Dean strapped himself into the thinly padded seat, two Polish nuns took the row in front of him. Undoubtedly their presence was beneficial, because the plane made it to Rze-szow in one piece.

Dean followed the others out the cabin door, down the stairway to the tarmac, lit in the darkness by a pair of distant lights. The passengers had to retrieve their own bags; Dean hesitated for a moment before grabbing the blue-and-brown suitcase he had been given back in the States. He snapped out the handle and began pulling the suitcase behind him toward the nearby terminal building. He had taken only a few steps when a Polish customs agent materialized from the shadows, demanding in good but brusque English that he follow him back to his office. Dean’s muscles tensed and his eyes narrowed into wary slits as he studied the shadows for the most likely ambush spots. But rather than shanghaiing him in the customs office, the Polish officer led Dean through a narrow corridor at the side of the terminal to an outside door. He grinned and held it open.

A wave of paranoia flushed through Dean, but there was nothing to do but go through the door. For a moment he feared that the man’s coffee-stained teeth would be his last memory of the world.

They weren’t. A car waited a short distance away. In the driver’s seat was the woman he had seen in Heathrow.

“In,” she said.

“You want to pop the trunk so I can put my suitcase in?”

“Leave it,” she said. “It’s junk. Same with the carry-on. Clothes probably don’t fit anyway.”

Dean hauled the suitcase around to the other side of the car anyway. He might have thrown the bags in the back, except that the woman pressed the accelerator as he opened the door. He barely got inside in one piece.

“Did I do something to you, or have you been a bitch all your life?” asked Dean.

“Listen, Chuck, there’s one thing we have to get straight,” she started.

She didn’t finish, because Dean had his hands around her throat.

“Enough is enough,” he told her, nudging his right hand against her neck. His fingers held a small, very sharp blade made of a carbon-resin fiber he’d smuggled aboard the plane in the back of his belt. The material was only 90 percent as strong as the steel used in the best class of assault knives, but 90 percent was more than enough to slit a throat, even a pretty one.

“Your call,” said the woman, whose foot remained on the gas.

“Pull off the road gradually,” said Dean.

“I don’t think so. We’re being followed.”

Dean pushed the knife blade ever so gently against her neck, tickling her common carotid artery. It wasn’t the best placement, but it was adequate.

“Have it your way, Chucky boy.”

“Hit the brakes and you’ll bleed to death in thirty seconds,” he warned.

“Don’t be so dramatic.” She eased off her speed and pulled to the right, driving past a row of trucks. “It would take two minutes for me to die, if not three or four.”

A blue light began flashing behind them.

“See what I was saying?” said the woman.

Dean nudged her throat one last time as a warning, then slid his hand down to the back of the seat rest as she stopped the car. A pair of policemen approached with flashlights. Dean noticed that she not only kept the car running but also had her foot hovering over the gas pedal.

He also noticed that she had changed her miniskirt for a pair of multipocketed cargo pants, which seemed a bit of a shame.

The woman waited until the policeman was at the side of the car before rolling down the window. When she did, the policeman said something in Polish; the woman answered with a laugh and the policeman laughed, too. Then the man became very serious, apparently asking for her papers. She dug into her jacket for them. It occurred to Dean that the policeman’s angle gave him a pretty fair peek at her breasts, a view that she did nothing to discourage. Finally she handed over a thickly folded set of papers. The policeman frowned some more, took something from the middle, then gave them back. He and his comrade retreated to their car. When they were inside, she started forward slowly.

“What did you say?” Dean asked.

“That we’re American spies and would kick his butt if he interfered with us.”

“Seriously.”

“I am serious.”

“What did you really say?”

“He is nosy, isn’t he?”

“Who are you talking to?” said Dean.

“Voices. I hear voices. I’m Joan of Arc. Didn’t they tell you that, Chuck?”

Dean grabbed her neck again. “Never, ever call me Chuck, Chucky, or Chuck-bob.”

“Chuck-bob?” She started laughing uncontrollably, and didn’t even stop when he pressed the knife harder against her flesh. “Chuck-bob?”

“Explain what’s going on.”

“Hang on. I have another bribe to pay.” She pulled over to the side of the road, which had narrowed somewhat since they left the warehouse area of the airport. It looked deserted, but it wasn’t — a pair of headlights appeared on the opposite shoulder. They belonged to a Toyota pickup, which revved across the pavement. The driver pulled close enough to their car that Dean could smell his breath when he rolled down the window. Joan of Arc handed him an envelope and the truck flew away. She put the car in gear immediately, continuing down the long, dark expanse. After about a minute and a half, she took a turn onto what seemed to be a dirt road; fifty yards of potholes later they whipped onto a highway, just in front of a panel truck.

“One damn truck on the road for miles and it nearly flattens us,” she said after accelerating from the squealing tires and piercing horn. “You’re bad luck, Charles Dean.”

“My friends call me Charlie,” he told her.

“I’m not your friend.”

Dean slid the knife blade back up his sleeve and brought his arm back to his lap. “What’s your name?”

“I told you. Joan of Arc.”

“You’re not much of a comedienne.”

“True. I like the meaty tragic roles.” She shifted a bit in the seat. “Lia DeFrancesca.”

“Funny, you don’t look Italian.”

“My parents are second-generation Italian-Americans. I’m adopted. No bullshit, Charlie.” She glanced at him. “Look, we have certain ways of doing things, okay?”

“Like barging into men’s rest rooms?”

“Got your attention. And I knew it was secure.”

He couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or not.

“Look, your only job here is to watch what we do,” she said. She sounded as if she was making an effort to be nice, though it fell short. “You’re just a baby-sitter. So don’t get in the way and we’ll be fine.”

Before Dean could say anything, Lia jammed on the brakes and spun the car into a one-eighty. Then she started accelerating back in the opposite direction.

“Now what?” asked Dean.

“Now we board another flight,” she said.

“Another flight?”

“They did tell you we were going to Siberia, didn’t they?” she said. “They didn’t tell you that?”

“They told me Surgut.”

She made a face. “Not exactly. In any event, we need to take a plane. We’ve already lost a lot of time.”

“What was all the business at the airport?”

“What business?”

“In the bathroom.”

“You happened into a Russian agent.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Was he tracking me?”

“We don’t think so.” Lia touched her ear. “No, we don’t think so. So what if he knows? That’s bullshit.”

“Who are you talking to?”

“God, Charlie. God.”

“Look—”

“I have a radio hookup,” she said. “I talk to the Art Room. Fuck yourself.”

“You talking to me or them?”

“Anyone who thinks it’s appropriate,” Lia told him. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Charlie. But at least you’ll learn it from the best.”

It was lucky for her, he thought, that he’d put his knife away.