Final Target

CHAPTER 71

T he sun broke through the previous day’s cloudy remnants as Ninchenko drove them just after dawn through the southwestern outskirts of Dnepropetrovsk on their way to Taromskoe, where Alla had been delivered. The green and gold cupolas of the Byzantine Holy Trinity Cathedral struggled against the remaining haze as the industrial stacks, newly liberated from the low clouds, thrust their smoke toward the blue sky. The sun revealed that the buildings and factories that merely appeared a dismal gray on the preceding day, were, in fact, a dismal gray, brooding and unrepentant.

Gage could see on Ninchenko’s face that his night had been as restless as Gage’s, even with the reassurance from their surveillance people that Alla had arrived safely at Gravilov’s dacha.

Within minutes of leaving the city limits, Gage found himself looking out over vast expanses of collective farms. Ninchenko was soon winding through miles of unfenced land and rolling hills. Gage lowered the passenger window of the four-door white Lada. He smelled the acrid odor of industrial-sized cattle breeding operations mixed into the diesel exhaust exploding from ancient commercial trucks lumbering along on the ill-maintained two-lane highway.

“Is that winter wheat?” Gage asked, pointing out toward thousands of acres of green shafts just emerged from the soil.

“So they hope. Last year the February freeze killed ninety percent of the crop.”

“Tough way to make a living.”

“That’s all they know.”

Ninchenko tuned to the excited chatter of the Kiev Vedomosti news station as they rode west. They listened for a moment to the announcer’s excited voice.

“What are they saying?” Gage asked.

“The Supreme Court ordered a new election for next week, but without their own army they can’t force the president to let it happen.”

They drove without speaking until Ninchenko cocked his head at the radio, then burst into bitter laughter. “The Foreign Ministry has admitted that it issued three hundred diplomatic passports in the last week, all to members of the presidential administration. They’re probably getting ready to escape to Switzerland to join their stolen money.”

Thirty minutes after leaving the city, Ninchenko turned north, back toward the Dnepr River, and passed through two villages that served as the urban centers of a thirty-square-mile collective farm. Just before they crested a hill, he pulled over and parked next to a thick stand of fir trees.

“His dacha is down the other side, along the river.”

Gage climbed out of the car, then followed Ninchenko thirty yards through the evergreens, stopping in the shadows on the far side.

Ninchenko handed binoculars to Gage, then pointed toward a museumlike dacha formed by three-story, white stucco wings extending at forty-degree angles from a domed atrium. The driveway encircled a Romanesque fountain populated with Cossacks at play. No other dachas were in sight.

“What’s in there?” Gage asked, pointing at a dozen thirty-foot-square cages nestled at the bottom of a hill to the west of the house.

“That’s his menagerie. Wolves, bears, even a Bengal tiger. Most were smuggled in. Many are ones that evolution planned for climates other than Ukraine’s. But there are a few locals, too.”

“Does he take care of them?”

Ninchenko tilted his jaw toward trails of smoke rising in the distance. “They live better than any of the villagers we passed on the way.”

Gage surveyed the countryside, looking for observation points. “Where are your people?”

Ninchenko reached for his cell phone.

“ Dobre utra…Dobre…Kak dyela? ”

Ninchenko glanced at Gage. “Apparently it was a little chilly last night.” Then spoke into his phone again, “ Donde esta? ”

Gage’s head snapped toward Ninchenko. “That ain’t Russian, Pancho.”

“ Eso es correcto, mi amigo,” Ninchenko said, grinning. “My helper was stationed in Spain during the late 1980s. He taught me a few words.” He listened again, then told Gage, “They’re on the hill above the menagerie. They can see Alla’s room. It’s on the top floor at the end of the wing closest to where they are. She turned on the lights and opened the curtains last night hoping someone would spot her. It looks like she believed you when you said you’d station people close by…and Gravilov’s car is still in the garage, so he hasn’t left yet.”

After bidding his man adios, Ninchenko walked back to the van to retrieve a thermos of coffee while Gage sat down, leaning back against a tree with a clear view toward the dacha and the Dnepr River just beyond. Through the binoculars, he watched a rusting six-hundred-ton cargo ship pass by, guided downstream by a small tugboat. Crewmen stood on the deck in surplus Russian Navy overcoats and gray lambskin ushanka s with flaps pulled hard against their ears. The horn sounded as it approached a bend in the river, the moan seeming less to fade than simply be absorbed by the heavy brush along the shore, the forest beyond, and the low clouds that hovered above the valley.

His cell phone rang as Ninchenko walked up from behind and handed him a cup of coffee.

“This is my second kidnapping this week,” Alla said.

Gage smiled at Ninchenko and gestured with his cup at the dacha.

“Technically speaking, you ran into me, so you sort of kidnapped yourself the first time.”

“Have I called you a fucking American yet?”

“At least once.”

“I hope you’re damn close by.”

“Did you look out of your window this morning?”

“Yes.”

“You see the cages?”

“Yes.”

“What’s inside?”

“All I can see are wild pigs, antelopes, bears, and disgusting-looking hyenas.”

“When a bear growls or a pig snorts or a hyena does whatever a hyena does, we’ll both hear it.”

“I’m glad you gave me that little phone. They snatched mine.”

“Where’d you hide it?”

“Guess. Stuart always tried to get me to wear a thong. It’s a good thing I refused.”

“What happened last night?”

“Stuart pretended he didn’t know what Gravilov was going to do, but he can’t act. They cooked it up together. My guess is that they’ll keep me here until Stuart brings the other software from the States, except…”

“Except what?”

“I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Doesn’t make a difference.”

“It makes a hell of a lot of difference to me. I didn’t come back to Ukraine for Gravilov to turn me into hyena food.”

“We’ll come get you as soon as Matson arrives in the U.S.”

“Unless they ground the planes. I’m not sure he’ll even make it as far as London.”

“The planes will fly. A lot of newly appointed diplomats are looking to get out.”

“What if…I mean…” The nervous edge was back in her voice. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“There’ll be two men on the hill above the menagerie all the time you’re here-and if Gravilov moves you they’ll be on your tail. Ninchenko will give you their cell number in a minute. But first, what’s security like?”

“I don’t know. They covered my eyes when they brought me in, but I don’t think there’s much. I didn’t hear many people talking. A woman brings me food. She looks like one of those unisex Bulgarian weightlifters. I can’t tell whether she wants to break me in two or have sex with me-or both.”

“Is there a way down from your room on the outside?”

“I’d need wings. They took the sheets off the bed so I couldn’t make them into a rope.”

“We’ll get you out in a way that doesn’t require flight.”

“You better. You got me into this.”

“No, you got yourself into it. I just gave you a rather complicated way out.”

An hour later Ninchenko and Gage were following a quarter mile behind Gravilov’s Mercedes as he and Hammer rode toward Dnepropetrovsk.

“It makes me a little nervous that he left Razor behind,” Gage said. “Guys like him derive sexual pleasure from their work. He may do something preemptive.” He glanced at Ninchenko. “What do you know about him?”

“Hammer recruited him for Gravilov in Chechnya at the end of the first war in ’96. He worked for warlords and maffiya. The rumor was that if he didn’t need to eat, he would’ve worked for free.”

“Why would he give it up?”

“Too many enemies at home and age, probably. He’s in his early forties now. But don’t underestimate him. Gravilov keeps him close because he believes Razor is still at the top of his game. And Gravilov’s life depends on him.”

“He sure looks the part, with his face twisted like that, his nose angling off to the side. When I saw him in London I felt like reaching out and straightening it.”

“Not a good idea. It would be the last thing you ever did with that hand.”

Gravilov’s Mercedes was already parked by the time Ninchenko and Gage arrived at a spot on the street with a view of the Grand Domus Hotel.

“I wish we had the van,” Ninchenko said. “We’re kind of exposed sitting here.”

Gage glanced over. “If anybody pays attention to us, feel free to kiss me. I won’t tell your wife.”

“I’m not married.”

“Good. I think Alla is looking for a new boyfriend.”

“It won’t be me. She’s already complained that she keeps picking the same type over and over, first her ex-husband and now Matson, and I don’t think I match the profile.” Ninchenko nodded toward the hotel entrance. “It looks like the wire transfer went through.”

Gravilov and Matson were walking down the hotel steps, preceded by the driver and followed by Hammer, carrying Matson’s luggage.

“We just need to babysit Matson until he gets on the plane,” Gage said, “then put our plan into effect to rescue Alla.”

“Which plan was that?”

Gage looked over. “I was afraid you’d ask that.”