The Kill Switch

12

“And how confident are you of Dimitry and Fedor?” Ruth Harper asked.

Tucker stood at a pay phone next to an open-air fish market. The pungent smell of sturgeon, perch, and smelt hung heavily in the cold air. He had spent the previous ten minutes bringing Harper up to speed. He was surprised how happy he was to hear that southern lilt to her voice.

If not Tennessee, then maybe—

“Do you trust those Russians?” she pressed.

“I wouldn’t be making this call if either of them had ratted me out. Plus, I’ve been strolling the snowy streets of Novosibirsk for the past two hours. I’m clean. And it’s still another twelve hundred miles to Perm. If I pick up a tail, I’ll have plenty of time to shake it loose.”

“Still, you’re cutting the rendezvous close.”

“Bukolov will keep. If they—whoever they are—had any idea where he was, they wouldn’t be after me. Which reminds me, any further word about the source of that leak?”

“No luck, yet. But from the story you just told me—one involving GRU and Spetsnaz—we know the enemy has powerful connections in either the Russian government or military. I’m looking hard at the Ministry of Defense, or maybe someone at a cabinet level of the government.”

“Maybe you’d better be looking at both.”

“A scary proposition. Do you want help out there?”

Tucker considered it for a long moment. “For now, no. We’ve got enough players in the field. Makes it confusing enough.”

Plus he liked working alone—well, not quite alone.

He gave Kane, seated at his knee, a reassuring pat.

“If I change my mind, Harper, I’ll let you know.”

“Do that. As it happens, I’ve got nobody to give you right now.”

“Busy on the home front?”

“Always. World’s a dangerous place. At least Sigma can offer you some logistical support. Do you have a wish list for me?”

Tucker did. After reciting the provisions he needed, he signed off. He would find all he asked for once he reached the city of Perm, secured and cached in a safe house.

But first he had to get there.

Harper had arranged clean papers and seemed confident that Russian immigration and customs did not have him on any watch list, making it safe for him to fly. Furthermore, Sigma’s intelligence team had arranged another level of countermeasures, booking false tickets, hotel rooms, and car rentals. He was everywhere and nowhere.

Still, whether it was his inherent wariness of all things governmental or simply a tactical change of mind, Tucker called a local car rental agency after hanging up with Harper and booked an SUV for a one-way trip to Omskaya, some four hundred miles to the west. He had no reason to distrust Sigma, but there was no mistaking the reality of his current situation. He and Kane were out here alone, without any hope of reinforcements.

Harper had tasked him with getting Abram Bukolov safely out of Russia and to the United States. How exactly he accomplished that was his decision.

And he preferred it that way.

With Kane on a leash, he walked the mile to the rental car office and picked up the vehicle, a Range Rover of questionable age, but the engine purred and the heater worked.

Tucker took it and left Novosibirsk at midday, heading west down the highway to Omskaya. Three hours later, he pulled off the highway and drove six miles north to his true destination, Kuybyshev.

It never hurt to employ his own countermeasures.

Following the pictograph signs, he pulled into the local airport. Using a map and a smattering of Russian, he booked a flight to Perm.

Sixteen hours after he left Novosibirsk, his flight touched down at Perm’s Bolshoye Savino Airport. He waited in cargo claim for Kane to emerge from the belly of the plane, then another hour for immigration to clear them both.

Minutes later, he and Kane were in another rental vehicle—this one a Volvo—and headed into the city proper.

From the car, he called Sigma for an update.

“Still no blips on immigration or customs,” Harper informed him. “If they’re still actively hunting you, they’re not doing it that way.”

Or they’re giving me enough time to get to Bukolov before snapping shut the trap.

“Is this safe house I’m heading to manned?” he asked, intending to collect the provisions he had requested without delay.

“It won’t be. It’s an apartment. Call the number I gave you, let it ring three times, then again twice, then wait ten minutes. The door will be unlocked. Five minutes inside, no more.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Simplicity works, Tucker, and this is a lot simpler than meeting someone on a park bench with a flower in your lapel and your shoelace untied.”

Tucker realized this made sense. In fact, one of the acronyms soldiers lived by was KISS — Keep It Simple, Stupid.

“Fair enough,” Tucker said, but he gave voice to another troubling matter. “It’s South Carolina, isn’t it?”

“Pardon?”

“Your accent.”

She sighed heavily, giving him his answer.

Wrong.

“Tucker, the details for your meeting tonight will also be in the safe house.”

“And my contact?”

“His name and description are included in the dossier you’ll find there. He’s hard to miss.”

“I’ll call you after it’s done.”

“Keep out of trouble,” she said.

“Are you talking about both of us, or just Kane?”

“Kane would be much harder to replace.”

Tucker glanced to his partner. “Can’t argue with that,” he said and signed off.

Now came the hard part—grabbing Abram Bukolov without getting caught.

13

His visit to the safe house was thankfully anticlimactic. He left with four new passports—two for him and two for Bukolov—along with a roll of cash, a pair of credit cards, a second satellite phone, and the location of his meeting with Sigma’s contact, the one who was supposed to lead Tucker to Bukolov.

This mysterious contact was also high on his list of suspects as the source of the intelligence leak that almost got him killed. The man’s dossier rested on the seat next to him. He planned on studying it in great detail.

Next, Tucker took advantage of a list of local suppliers left at the safe house. He traveled to a bakery whose basement doubled as an armory. The baker asked no questions but simply waited for Tucker to make his weapon selections from a floor-to-ceiling pegboard. He then wrote down the price on a piece of paper, which he handed to Tucker with a gravelly, “No negotiate.”

The next supplier, the owner of a car lot, was equally taciturn and effective. Through Harper, Tucker had preordered a black Marussia F2 SUV. Of Russian manufacture, it had a front end that only a mother could love, but it was a brute of a vehicle, often modified for use by first responders or as a mobile command center.

After paying, Tucker told the owner where to leave the vehicle—and when.

With six hours still to spare before he was supposed to meet with his contact, Tucker proceeded to the neighborhood in question: the Leninsky District on the northern side of the Kama River. Once there, he parked the Volvo and began walking. In between scouting locations and routes, he was able to relax and take in the sights.

Straddling the banks of the Kama and within the shadow of the snow-topped Ural Mountains, Perm was home to a million people. While the city had its share of Soviet-gray architecture, the older Leninsky District continued to maintain its original European charm. It was a cozy neighborhood of tree-lined streets and secluded garden courtyards, spattered with small cafés, butchers, and bakeries. To top it off, the sun shone in a cloudless blue sky, a rare sight of late.

As he strolled, no one seemed to pay much attention to him: just a man walking his dog. He wasn’t alone in that regard. Much of Perm was taking advantage of the handsome day. Kane took particular interest in a pair of leashed dachshunds that passed by on the sidewalk, all three dogs doing the customary greeting of sniffing and tail wagging. Tucker didn’t mind, as attached to the other end of the leash was a buxom, young beauty in a tight sweater.

The day certainly had brightened.

Eventually, as they crossed the half-mile-long bridge spanning the Kama, he abruptly found himself in a different world. On this side of the river, it was distinctly seedier and less populated. The area was mostly forest, with roads that were either dirt or deeply potholed. The few inhabitants he encountered stared at the pair as though they were alien invaders.

Luckily, where he was supposed to meet his mysterious contact was only a quarter mile from the river. He studied it from a distance, getting the lay of the land. It was a bus stop shelter across from a sullen cluster of businesses: a grocery store, a strip club, and a body shop.

Tucker finished his reconnoiter, then gladly crossed back over the bridge.

He and Kane returned to the Volvo, found a nondescript hotel in the area, checked in, and took a fast nap. Tucker knew that once he had Bukolov in hand, he might not get a chance to sleep again until he delivered the man across the border.

That is, if he ever reached the border.

In the end, he didn’t sleep well at all.

By nightfall, Tucker found himself parked in an elementary-school lot on the wrong side of the tracks—or in this case, the wrong side of the river. The school had boarded-up windows with a playground full of rusty, broken equipment that looked perfect for spreading tetanus.

He had picked this spot because it lay within a hundred yards of the bus stop where he was supposed to meet his contact. He shut off the engine and doused the lights and sat in the darkness for five minutes. He saw no other cars, and no one moving about. Again no one seemed to be following him. This made him feel more uneasy, not less.

It was what you couldn’t see that usually got you killed.

He turned to Kane, motioning with a flat palm. “STAY.”

He had debated the wisdom of leaving Kane behind, but if the meeting went awry, he wanted to make sure he had an escape vehicle. And considering the neighborhood, Kane’s presence in the Volvo was better than any car alarm.

He often wrestled with this exact quandary. With the memory of Abel’s death never far, he had to fight the temptation to keep Kane out of harm’s way. But the shepherd loved Tucker, loved to work, and he hated to be separated for long.

They were a pack of two.

Even now, Kane displayed his displeasure at Tucker’s order, cocking his head quizzically and furrowing his brow.

“I know,” he replied. “Just mind the fort.”

He took a moment to check his equipment: a Smith & Wesson .44-caliber snubnose in his belt, a hammerless Magnum revolver in his coat pocket, and a similar .38-caliber model in a calf holster. Additionally, he kept a pair of quick-loaders for each in his pockets.

This was as close to armed to the teeth as he could manage.

Satisfied, he got out, locked the car, and started walking.

He hopped a chest-high fence and crossed the school’s playground to the north side. He followed a line of thick Russian larch trees, bare and skeletal, around a vacant lot that was dominated by mounds of garbage.

On the other side, fifty yards away, stood the bus stop. The curbside shelter was little more than a lean-to over a graffiti-scarred bench.

Across the street, under the strip club’s neon sign—a silhouette of a naked lady—four thugs lounged, laughing, smoking, and chugging bottles of beer. Their heads were shaved, and they all wore jeans tucked into black, steel-toed boots.

Staying out of their sight line, Tucker checked his watch. He still had twenty minutes.

Now came the waiting.

Back at the hotel, he had read the dossier on his contact, a man named Stanimir Utkin. He was Bukolov’s former student and now chief lab assistant. Tucker had memorized his face, not that it took much effort. The man stood six and a half feet tall but weighed only one hundred fifty pounds. Topped by a shock of fiery-red hair, such a scarecrow would be hard to miss in a crowd.

Right on time, a cab pulled to a stop before the bus shelter.

The door opened and out climbed Stanimir Utkin.

“Come on,” Tucker mumbled. “Don’t do this to me.”

Not only had Utkin arrived by cab to the exact spot of their meeting—displaying a reckless lack of caution—he had come wearing what appeared to be an expensive business suit. His red hair glowed in the pool cast by the streetlamp like a beacon.

The cab pulled away and sped off.

The driver was no fool.

Like sharks smelling chum, the four thugs across the street took immediate notice of Utkin. They pointed fingers and laughed, but Tucker knew this phase wouldn’t last long. Utkin was too tempting of a target, either for a mugging or a beating—or more likely, both.

Tucker jammed his hands into his pockets and tightened one fist around the Magnum. Taking a deep breath, he started walking fast across the open lot, keeping out of sight as he headed toward the back of the bench. He covered the distance to the bus shelter in thirty seconds, by which time Utkin had begun glancing left and right like a rat who had spotted a snake.

One of the thugs threw a bottle across the street. It shattered on the curb near Utkin’s toes.

The skinny man stumbled backward, falling to his seat on the bus bench.

Oh, dear God…

Ten feet behind the shelter, Tucker stopped in the shadows and called out, keeping his voice low enough so only Utkin could hear him. According to the dossier, the man spoke fluent English.

“Utkin, don’t turn around. I’m here to meet you.”

Another beer bottle sailed across the street and shattered in the street. Harsh laughter followed.

“My name is Tucker. Listen carefully. Don’t think, just turn around and walk toward me, then keep going. Do it now.”

Utkin stood, stepped out from under the shelter, and headed into the abandoned lot.

One of the thugs called out, and the group started across the street, likely drawn as much out of boredom as larceny.

Utkin drew even with Tucker, who hid behind a stack of tires and trash.

He waved him on. “Keep going. I’ll catch up.”

Utkin obeyed, glancing frequently over his shoulder.

By now, the thugs had reached the bus stop and entered the lot.

Tucker stood up, drawing out his Magnum. He took three paces into the light, showing himself. He raised the pistol and drew a bead on the lead thug’s chest.

The group came to a fast stop.

Tucker summoned one of the Russian phrases he’d been practicing. “Go away, or I will kill you.”

He raised the Magnum, a mean-looking weapon. His Russian language skills might be lacking, but some communication was universal.

Still, the leader looked ready to test him, until they locked gazes. Whatever he saw in Tucker’s eyes made him change his mind.

The leader waved the others off, and they wisely retreated.

Tucker turned and hurried after Utkin, who had stopped at the fence that bordered the schoolyard. He was bent double, his hands on his knees, hyperventilating.

Tucker didn’t slow. He couldn’t trust the thugs wouldn’t rally up more guys, additional firepower, and come after them. He grabbed Utkin’s arm, pulled him upright, and shoved him toward a neighboring gate.

“Walk.”

Coaxed and guided by Tucker, they reached the car quickly. He opened the front passenger door and herded Utkin inside. The man balked when he spotted Kane in the back. The shepherd leaned over the seat to sniff at the stranger.

Tucker placed a palm atop Utkin’s head and pushed him inside. Still panicked, the man balled up in the passenger seat, twisted to the side, his eyes never leaving Kane.

Not the most auspicious introduction, but the man had left him little choice.

Tucker started the engine and drove off.

Only once back over the bridge and in more genial surroundings did Tucker relax. He found a well-lit parking lot beside a skating rink and pulled in.

“The dog won’t hurt you,” Tucker told Utkin.

“Does he know that?”

Tucker sighed and turned to face Utkin fully. “What were you thinking?”

“What?”

“The taxi, the business suit, the bad part of town…”

“What should I have done differently?”

“All of it,” Tucker replied.

In truth, Tucker was partly to blame. From the dossier, he had known Utkin was a lab geek. He knew the meeting site was dicey. He should have changed it.

Utkin struggled to compose himself and did a surprisingly admirable job, considering the circumstances. “I believe I owe you my life. Thank you. I was very frightened.”

Tucker shrugged. “Nothing wrong with being frightened. That just means you’re smart, not stupid. So before we get into any more trouble, let’s go get Bukolov. Where is your boss?”

Utkin checked his watch. “He should still be at the opera.”

“The opera?”

Utkin glanced up, seemingly not bothered that someone seeking to escape the country, someone being hunted by Russian elite forces, should choose such a public outing.

Tucker shook his head. “You remember when I said don’t be stupid…”

Over the next few minutes, he got the story out of Utkin. It seemed—faced with the possibility of never seeing the Motherland again—Abram Bukolov had decided to indulge his greatest passion: opera.

“They were doing one of Abram’s favorites,” Utkin explained. “Faust. It’s quite—”

“I’m sure it is. Does he have a cell phone?”

“Yes, but he will have it turned off.”

Tucker sighed. “Where is the opera house and when does it end?”

“In about an hour. It’s being held at the Tchaikovsky’s House. It’s less than a mile from here.”

Great… just great…

He put the Volvo in gear. “Show me.”

Ten minutes before the opera ended, Tucker found a parking spot a few blocks from the Tchaikovsky’s House. As angry as he was at Bukolov for choosing to preface his defection by dressing up in a tuxedo and attending a public extravaganza, the deed was done. Still, this stunt told him something: Bukolov was either unstable, stupid, or arrogant—any of which did not bode well for the remainder of their journey.

Tucker left Kane in the car and accompanied Utkin down the street. He stopped across from the opera’s brightly lit main entrance and pointed toward its massive white stone façade.

“I’ll wait here,” he said. “You go fetch the good doctor and walk to the car. Don’t hurry and don’t look at me. I’ll meet you at the Volvo. Got it?”

“I understand.”

“Go.”

Utkin crossed the street and headed toward the main entrance.

As he waited, Tucker studied the crimson banner draped down the front of the theater. The fiery sign depicted a demonic figure in flames, appropriate for Faust, an opera about a scholar who makes a pact with the devil.

I hope that’s not the case here.

A few minutes later, Utkin emerged with Abram Bukolov in tow. The billionaire leader of Russia’s burgeoning pharmaceutical industry stood a foot shorter and forty pounds heavier than his lab assistant. He was bald, except for a monk’s fringe of salt-and-pepper hair.

Following Tucker’s instructions, Utkin escorted the man back to the car. Tucker gave them a slight lead, then followed. Once he was sure no one was tailing them, he joined them at the car.

“Hello!” Bukolov called, offering his hand.

Irritated, Tucker skipped the formal introductions. Instead, he used the remote to unlock the doors. “Utkin in front, Bukolov in—”

“Doctor Bukolov,” the man corrected him.

“Whatever. Doctor, you’re in the back.”

Tucker opened the driver’s door and started to climb in.

Behind him, Bukolov stopped and stared inside. “There’s a dog back here.”

“Really?” Tucker said, his voice steeped in sarcasm. “How did he get back there?”

“I’m not sitting next to—”

“Get in, or he’ll drag you inside by your tuxedo lapels, Doctor.”

Bukolov clamped his mouth shut, his face going red. It was doubtful many people had ever spoken to him like that. Still, he got in.

Two blocks later, the pharmaceutical magnate found his voice. “The opera was tremendous, Stanimir—though I doubt you would have appreciated the subtleties. Say, you, driver, what’s your name? Is this your dog? He keeps staring at me.”

Tucker gave Utkin a narrow-eyed glance, who got the message.

“Doctor Bukolov, why don’t we talk about the opera later? We can—”

The man cut him off by tapping on Tucker’s shoulder. “Driver, how long until we reach Kazan?”

Resisting the urge to break his fingers, Tucker pulled to the nearest curb and put the Volvo in park. He turned in his seat and faced Bukolov. “Kazan? What are you talking about?”

“Kazan. It’s in the oblast of—”

“I know where it is, Doctor.” The city of Kazan lay about four hundred miles to the west. “Why do you think we’re going there?”

“Good God, man, didn’t anyone tell you? This is unacceptable! I am not leaving the country without Anya. We must go to Kazan and collect her.”

Of course we do.

“Who’s Anya?” he asked.

“My daughter. I will not leave Russia without her.”

Sticking to his original plan, Tucker headed out of town, stopping only long enough to trade the Volvo for the new Marussia F2 SUV. They found the brute of a vehicle parked where he had instructed it to be left on the south end of town. It was fully gassed and carried a false license plate.

Reaching the P242, he continued west for an hour, doing his best to tune out Bukolov’s rambling monologue, which ranged from the mysterious Anya, to the industrial history of the region, to Kane’s disturbingly intelligent mien.

On the outskirts of the small town of Kungur, Tucker pulled into the hotel parking lot and decided he’d put enough distance from Perm to regroup.

He got out and called Harper and brought her up to speed.

“This is the first I’ve heard of this Anya,” Harper said.

“You described the doctor as eccentric. You were being generous.”

“He may be a bit”—she paused to consider her words—“out of touch, but there’s no mistaking his brilliance. Or his desire to leave Russia. And to answer your unspoken question, we’re convinced he’s on the up-and-up.”

“If you say so.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the backseat of my SUV, having a staring contest with Kane. I had to get some air. Listen, Harper, if Anya is the brideprice to get Bukolov out of the country, that’s fine, but let’s make sure she’s real before I head to Kazan. That’s a good seven-hour drive from here.”

“Agreed. Give me her full name.”

“Hang on.” Tucker opened his door. “Doctor, what is Anya’s last name?”

“Bukolov, of course! She’s my daughter. What kind of question—?”

Tucker straightened and spoke to Harper. “You heard?”

“I did.”

The professor added, “She works at the Kazan Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics. She’s quite brilliant, you know—”

Tucker slammed the door, muffling Bukolov’s ramblings.

On the phone, Harper said, “I’m on it.”

Bukolov rolled down the window a few inches. “Apologies. How forgetful of me. Anya took her mother’s surname — Malinov. Anya Malinov.”

Harper heard that, too. “Got it. Name’s Malinov. What’s your plan, Tucker?”

“In the short term, to check into a motel. It’s almost midnight here.”

Tucker waited until Bukolov had rerolled up his window. He took a few additional steps away before broaching a touchier matter.

“Harper, what about Utkin?”

The lab tech continued to remain on the short list of potential leaks—but were such breaches accidental or done on purpose? Tucker trusted his gut, along with his ability to read people. He found nothing that struck a wrong nerve with the young man, beyond simple naïveté.

It seemed Harper had come to the same conclusion. “Our intelligence can find nothing untoward about Utkin. He seems as honest as they come.”

“Then maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Something said to the wrong person. By Utkin… or maybe even by Bukolov. That guy seems a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”

“I’ll keep looking into it. In the meantime, I’ll dig into this Anya business overnight and get back to you by morning.”

With the call done, he led everyone to the hotel for the night, booking a single room with two beds. Tucker parked Kane at the door, knowing the shepherd would keep guard for the night.

He half dozed in a chair, while Bukolov puttered around the room, muttering and complaining before eventually unwinding. Around one in the morning, he sat down on the edge of the bed. Utkin was already asleep in the other.

“I’m sorry,” Bukolov said. “I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Tucker.” He nodded to his partner. “That’s Kane.”

“I must say your dog seems well mannered enough. Thank you for coming to get me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Did they tell you about my discovery?” Before he could answer, Bukolov shook his head dismissively. “No, of course not. Even I didn’t tell them, so how could they know?”

“Tell me about it.”

Bukolov wagged a finger. “In good time. But I will say this. It is monumental. It will change the world of medicine—among other things. That’s why they’re after me.”

“The Arzamas generals.”

“Yes.”

“Who are they?”

“Specifically? I don’t know. They’re too crafty for that.”

Tucker stared across, sizing the other up. Was this guy suffering from a paranoid delusion? A persecution complex? Tucker fingered the healing bullet graze in his neck. That certainly was real enough.

“Then tell me about Anya,” he said.

“Ah…” Bukolov’s face softened, holding back a ghost of a smile. “She’s wonderful. She’s means everything to me. We’ve been working in tandem, the two of us—at a distance of course, and in secret.”

“I thought Stanimir was your chief assistant.”

“Him? Hah! He’s adequate, I suppose, but he doesn’t have the mind for it. Not for what I’m doing. Few people do really. That’s why I must do this myself.”

With that, Bukolov kicked off his shoes, sprawled back on the bed, and closed his eyes.

Tucker shook his head and settled into the chair for the night.

Bukolov whispered, his eyes still shut. “I’m not crazy, you know.”

“If you say so.”

“Just so you know.”

Tucker crossed his arms, beginning to realize how little he actually knew about any of this.

Despite the discomfort of the chair, Tucker slept for a solid five hours. He woke to find both of his charges still sleeping.

Taking advantage of the quiet moment, he took Kane out for a walk, let the dog stretch his legs and relieve himself. While they were still outside, Harper called.

“Anya’s real,” she said as introduction.

“I don’t know if that’s good news or bad.”

If Anya were a figment of the good doctor’s imagination, they could get out of Dodge immediately.

Harper continued. “We were able to confirm there’s an Anya Malinov working at the Kazan Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, but not much else. A good portion of her file is redacted. Kazan’s not as bad as the old Soviet-era naukograds, their closed science cities, but large swaths of the place do fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense.”

“So not only do we need to go to Kazan, but I have to extract this woman out from under the military’s nose.”

“Is that a problem?”

“I’ll have to make it work. Not like I have a whole lot of choice. You asked me to get him out of Russia, and that’s what I intend to do—him and now his daughter apparently. Which presents a problem. I’ve only got new passports for Bukolov. Not for Anya. And what about Utkin, for that matter? He wouldn’t survive a day after we’re gone. I won’t leave him behind.”

He flashed to Abel, panting, tongue lolling, tail wagging.

He wasn’t about to abandon another teammate behind enemy lines.

Harper was silent for a few seconds. Even from halfway around the world, Tucker imagined he could hear the gears in the woman’s head turning, recalibrating to accommodate the change in the situation.

“Okay. Like you, I’ll make it happen. When do you plan to go for Anya?”

“Within twenty-four hours. More than that and we’re pushing our luck.”

“That won’t work. I can’t get new passports for Anya and Utkin over to you that fast. But if you gave me your route from there—”

“I don’t know it yet. Considering all that’s happened, it’s hard to plan more than a step in advance. All I know for sure is the next step: free Anya.”

“Then hold on for a minute.” The line went silent, then she was back. “After you fetch Anya, can you get to Volgograd? As the crow flies, it’s six hundred miles south of Kazan.”

Tucker pulled a laminated map from his back pocket and studied it for a few seconds. “The distance is manageable.”

“Good. If you can get to Volgograd, I can get you all out. No problem.”

Out sounded good. So did no problem.

But after all that had happened, he had no faith about the outcome of either proposition.

14

By that midafternoon, Tucker stood on a sidewalk in central Kazan, staring up at a bronze monolith topped by the bust of a dour-faced man. Predictably, the plaque was written in Cyrillic.

But at least I came with my own tour guide.

“Behold the birthplace of modern organic chemistry,” Abram Bukolov announced, his arms spread. “Kazan is home to the greats. Butlerov, Markovnikov, Arbuzov. The list is endless. And this fine gentleman depicted here, you surely know who he is, yes?”

“Why don’t you remind us, Doctor,” said Tucker.

“He is Nikolai Lobachevsky. The Russian pioneer in hyperbolic geometry. Ring any bells?”

Maybe warning bells.

Tucker was beginning to suspect Bukolov suffered from bipolar disorder. Since leaving the hotel at dawn Bukolov had cycled from barely contained excitement to sullenness. But upon reaching Kazan’s outskirts a short time ago, the doctor had perked up enough to demand that they go on a walking tour of the Kazan Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

Tucker had agreed for several reasons.

One: To shut Bukolov up.

Two: To scout the campus.

Three: To see if he could detect a general alert for any of them. If they were being pursued, their hunters had chosen a more discreet approach.

But most of all, he needed to find out where on this research campus Anya Malinov resided or worked. He hoped to sneak her out under the cover of night.

Utkin followed behind with Kane. He had a phone at his ear, trying to reach Anya. He spoke in low tones. Matters would have been easier if her father, Bukolov, knew where she lived or where her office was located.

I’ve never been here was his answer, almost tearful, clearly fraught with worry for his daughter.

Not trusting Bukolov to be civil, Tucker had thought it best for Utkin to make an inquiry with the institution.

Utkin finally lowered the phone and drew them all together. “We have a problem.”

Of course we do.

Bukolov clutched Utkin’s sleeve. “Has something happened to Anya?”

“No, she’s fine, but she’s not here.”

“What do you mean?” Tucker asked. “Where is she?”

“She’s at the Kremlin.”

Tucker took a calming breath before speaking. “She’s in Moscow?”

Utkin waved his hands. “No, no. Kazan has a Kremlin also. It lies a kilometer from here, overlooking the Volga.”

He pointed in the general direction of the river that bordered Kazan.

“Why is she there?” Tucker asked, sighing out his relief.

Bukolov stirred. “Of course, because of the archives!”

His voice was sharp, loud enough to draw the eye of a passing campus guard. Not wanting any undue attention, Tucker drew the group along, getting them moving back toward their hotel in town.

Bukolov continued. “She mentioned finding something.” He shook his head as if trying to knock a loose gear back into place. “I forgot about it until now. Something she was going to retrieve for me. Something very important.”

“What?” Tucker asked.

The doctor looked up with a twinkle in his eye. “The journal of the late, great Paulos de Klerk.”

“Who is that?”

“All in good time. But De Klerk may have the last piece of the puzzle I need.”

Tucker decided not to press the issue and returned his attention to Utkin. “How long until she returns to the institute?”

“Three or four days.”

“We can’t wait that long!” Bukolov demanded.

For once, Tucker agreed.

Utkin also nodded. “According to what I learned, security is actually tighter here on the campus than at the local Kremlin. Over where Anya lives and works at the institute, there are guards at every entrance, magnetic key card access, and closed-circuit television cameras.”

Tucker blew out a discouraged breath.

Then it looks like we’re breaking Anya out of the Kremlin.

An hour later, Tucker followed a tour group onto the grounds of the Kazan Kremlin. He and a handful of others had been separated out and handed over to an English-speaking guide, a five-foot-tall blond woman who smiled a lot but tended to bark.

“Now stay close!” she called, waving them all forward. “We are passing through the south entrance of the Kremlin. As you can guess from the massive wall we are crossing under, the structure was designed to be a fortress. Some of these structures you’ll see are over six hundred years old.”

Tucker searched around him. He had already done an intensive study of the Kazan Kremlin: scouring various websites, cross-referencing with Google Earth, and scanning travel blogs. A plan had begun to take shape, but he wanted to see the place firsthand.

“Here we are on Sheynkman Street,” the guide expounded, “the Kremlin’s main thoroughfare. Above you stands the Spasskaya Tower, known as the Savior’s Tower. It is one of thirteen towers. Going clockwise, their names are…”

This was the third-to-last tour of the day. Tucker had Utkin working on a project back at the hotel, assisted by Bukolov. He left Kane to watch over them both.

As the group continued across the grounds, he tuned out the guide’s ongoing monologue, concentrating instead on fixing a mental picture of the grounds in his head. He’d seen the Moscow Kremlin twice, and while that had been impressive, the Kazan version seemed somehow more majestic.

Enclosed by tall snow-white walls and turrets, the interior of the Kazan Kremlin was a mix of architectural and period styles: from the brute practicality of medieval barracks to the showy majesty of an Eastern Orthodox cathedral. Even more impressive was a massive blue-domed mosque with sky-scraping tiled towers.

Gawking all around, Tucker followed their guide for the next forty-five minutes, discovering a maze of tidy cobblestone streets, hidden courtyards, and tree-lined boulevards. He did his best to appreciate the ancient beauty, while also viewing it with the eye of a soldier. He noted guard locations, blind spots, and escape routes.

As the tour wrapped up, the group was allowed to roam relatively free in the public areas, even to take pictures for the next half hour. He sat in various places, counting the number of times he was passed by guards and visitors.

It might just work, he thought.

His phone finally rang. It was Utkin. His message was terse.

“We’re ready here.”

He stood and headed back to the hotel, hoping everything was in order. They had to move swiftly. One mistake and it could all come crashing down.

Tucker studied Kane approvingly.

The shepherd stood atop the hotel bed, wearing his K9 Storm jacket, but over it, covering it completely and snugly, was a new canvas vest, midnight blue, bearing Cyrillic lettering. It spelled out KAZAN KREMLIN K9.

“Good job, Utkin,” Tucker said. “You could have a new career as a seamstress.”

“Actually I bought the vest at a local pet store and the letters are ironed on.”

Looking closer, Tucker spotted one of the Cyrillic letters peeling off.

“I will fix that,” Utkin said, stripping off the false vest.

It wasn’t a great disguise, but considering Utkin had been working with Internet photos of the security personnel at the Kazan Kremlin, he had done a pretty damned good job. Besides, the disguise would only have to pass muster for a short time—and then mostly in the dark.

As Utkin finished his final touch-ups—both on the vest and on the winter parka Tucker had stripped off the dead Spetsnaz soldier—Tucker turned to Bukolov.

“Were you able to reach Anya?” he asked.

“Finally. But yes, and she will be ready as you directed.”

“Good.”

He noted how pale Bukolov looked and the glassy glaze to his eyes. He was plainly fearful for his daughter. It seemed hearing her voice had only stoked his anxiety.

Tucker sat down next to him on the bed, figuring the doctor could use a distraction. “Tell me more about those papers Anya was searching for. Did she find them?”

He brightened, ever the proud father. “She did!”

“And this De Klerk person, why are his journals so important?”

“If you’re trying to wheedle something out of me—”

“Not at all. Just curious.”

This seemed to satisfy him. “What do you know about the Boer Wars?”

“In South Africa?” Tucker frowned, taken aback by the turn of the conversation. “Just the basics.”

“Then here’s a primer so you’ll understand the context. Essentially the British Empire wanted to keep its thumb on South Africa, and the Boer farmers disagreed, so they went to war. It was bloody and ugly and replete with atrocities on both sides, including mass executions and concentration camps. But Paulos de Klerk was not only a soldier, but a doctor as well. Quite a complex man. But that’s not why I found him so fascinating—and certainly not why his diary is so critical to my work.”

Bukolov paused and glanced around as though looking for eavesdroppers. He leaned forward and gestured for Tucker to come closer.

“Paulos de Klerk was also a botanist.” Bukolov winked. “Do you see?”

Tucker didn’t reply.

“In his spare time, in between plying his dual trades, he studied South Africa’s flora. He took copious notes and made hundreds of detailed drawings. You can find his work in research libraries, universities, and even natural history museums around the world.”

“And here, too, in the archives at the Kremlin?” Tucker said.

“Yes, even before the institute in Kazan was founded, this region was considered a place of great learning. Russian czars, going back to Ivan the Terrible, who built the Kremlin here, gathered volumes of knowledge and stored them in its vaults. Vast libraries and archives, much of it poorly cataloged. It took many years to track down the various references to De Klerk, bits and pieces scattered across Russia and Europe. And the most valuable clue was found here, right under our enemies’ noses. So you understand now why it’s so important?”

“No, not entirely.”

More like not at all, but he kept silent.

Bukolov leaned back, snorted, and waved him off.

That was all he would get out of the man for now.

Utkin called over to him, fitting the vest back onto Kane. “That should do it.”

Tucker checked his watch.

Just enough time to catch the last tour of the day.

He quickly donned the military winter suit and tugged on a pair of black boots and a midnight-blue brigade cap. The latter items had been purchased by Utkin at a local army surplus store. He had Utkin compare the look to the photos he had taken of the guards at the Kremlin.

“It should pass,” the lab tech confirmed, but he didn’t sound entirely convinced.

No matter. They were out of time.

Tucker turned to his partner, who wagged his tail. “Looks like it’s showtime, Comrade Kane.”

15

“And this concludes the day’s tour,” the guide told the group clustered in the cold. “Feel free to wander the grounds on your own for another fifteen minutes, then the gates will be closing promptly at six P.M.”

Tucker stood with the others in a red baseball cap and knockoff Ray-Ban sunglasses, just another tourist. The disguise was in place in case he had the same blond tour guide as before. In the end, it turned out to be a man, so maybe such a level of caution was unnecessary.

At his side, Kane had initially attracted some curious glances, but as he had hoped, the service animal documents passed muster at the ticket office. It also helped that Kane could be a charmer when allowed, wriggling happily and wagging his tail. He also wore a doggie backpack with I LOVE KAZAN printed in Cyrillic on it. The bored teenagers at the gate only gave Kane’s pack a cursory exam, as they did with his own small bag.

Now free to roam, Tucker wasted little time. As casually as possible, he strode with Kane down Sheynkman Street until he reached the green-roofed barracks of the old Cadets’ Quarters. He walked under its archway and into a courtyard. He ambled around and took a few pictures of a fountain and a nineteenth-century cannon display. Once done, he sat down on a nearby stone bench to wait. Beyond the arch, tourists headed back down Sheynkman toward the main exit.

No one glanced his way. No guards came into view.

Taking advantage of the moment, he led Kane across the courtyard and through a door in the southwest corner. The corridor beyond was dimly lit, lined by barrack doors. He crossed along it, noting the polished walnut floors and the boot heel impressions in the wood outside each barrack. According to the guidebook, cadets of yore stood at attention for four hours each day as their barracks underwent inspection. Tucker had thought the claim a yarn, but apparently it was true.

He came to a flight of stairs at the end of the hall and stepped over a “no access” rope. He quickly climbed to the second floor, found it empty, and searched until he located a good hiding place: an unused and derelict storage room off one of the cadets’ classrooms.

He stepped inside with Kane and shut the door behind him.

Standing there, he took a breath and let it out.

Phase One… done.

In the darkness, he settled with Kane against one wall.

“Nap time, if you feel like it, buddy,” he whispered.

Kane dropped down and rested his head on Tucker’s lap.

He used the next two hours to review his plan backward, forward, and sideways. The biggest unknown was Anya. He knew little about the woman or how she would behave in a pressure situation. Nor did he know much about the escorts who guarded her here on the Kremlin premises, except for what Bukolov had learned from her.

According to him, two men—both plainclothes GRU operatives—guarded her day and night. He had a plan to deal with them, but there remained some sketchy parts to it, especially in regard to the Kremlin’s K9 patrol detachment.

Over the course of the day’s two tours, Tucker had counted eight dog-and-handler pairs, mostly consisting of German shepherds—which Kane could pass for. But he’d also spotted a few Russian Ovcharkas, a type of mop-coated sheepdog used by Russian military and police units.

He feared confronting any of them. He didn’t kill animals, and he desperately wanted to keep it that way. Dogs did what they did out of instinct or training. Never malice. Tucker’s reluctance to harm was a chink in his armor, and he knew it. Ultimately, he truly didn’t know what he would do if his back were against such a wall.

In the darkness, his watch vibrated on his wrist, letting him know it was time for Phase Two.

Tucker and Kane changed into their uniforms, a process complicated by the enclosed space and the need for quiet. Tucker already wore the police boots, their height hidden under the legs of his jeans. The rest of the clothing was split up between their two packs. He slipped into his winter military suit and tugged on the brigade cap and stuffed his old clothes into the backpack, which he stashed in the closet’s rafters.

With care, he emerged back into the classroom and strode over to the windows overlooking the darkened boulevard below. At this late hour, with the temperature dropping, a light icy mist had begun to fill the streets, glistening the cobblestones under the gas lamps.

Tucker stood still for another fifteen minutes, partially because he wanted to observe the routes of the night guards—but also because his arrangement with Anya required precise timing.

At nine o’ clock, she would be escorted from the private research archives to the Governor’s House, one of the nonpublic buildings under intense Kremlin security. Once she crossed inside there, Tucker would have no chance of reaching her.

As the time neared, Tucker attached Kane’s leash and left the classroom. He went downstairs and out onto the misty boulevard. With Kane tightly heeled beside him, Tucker put a little march into his step.

At an intersection, he spotted a guard and his dog coming in his direction. Tucker called out an order in Russian to Kane, one taught to him by Utkin, though he had to practice the local accent. Kane didn’t speak Russian, so Tucker reinforced the order with a hidden hand signal.

Sit.

Kane dropped to his haunches.

As the guard approached the intersection, Tucker’s heart pounded.

Keep walking.

Unlike Kane, the guard refused to obey. Both man and dog suddenly stopped, staring suspiciously at the pair.

Taking a risk, Tucker raised his hand and gave the man a curt wave. The man didn’t respond. Press it, he thought. He took two strides forward and called out brusquely in one of the phrases Utkin had taught him, which translated roughly as, “Is everything okay?”

“Da, da,” the guard replied and finally returned the wave. “A u vas?”

And you?

Tucker shrugged. “Da.”

The pair continued walking again, passing by Tucker and Kane.

The two quickly headed in the opposite direction, south toward the Spasskaya Tower. He had to concentrate on his steps until the acute tension worked out of his legs.

After a hundred meters, he drew even with his destination. It was called the Riding House, once a former stable, now one of the Kremlin’s exhibition halls.

Thirty meters away, the guard at the Spasskaya Tower gate waved to him. He was barely discernible through the thickening mist.

Tucker lifted his arm high, acknowledging the other.

Sticking to his disguise, Tucker put on a show, shining his flashlight into the Riding House’s windows and over its walls. He spotted another K9 unit crossing the square surrounding the neighboring mosque.

Tucker waved and got one in return.

“One big happy family,” he muttered and kept walking.

As Anya had promised, he found the pedestrian door at the northeast corner of the building unlocked. He swung it open and scooted inside, closing the door behind him.

The interior was what he’d imagined a riding house would be: horse stalls lined both sides of a central hall. Only now the spaces were dominated by glass cases displaying artifacts of the cadet corps’s past: saddles, riding crops, lances, cavalry swords. The room’s main halogens were off for the night, but emergency lighting allowed him to see well enough.

Anya was working in the archives located in the building’s cellar, the genesis of what was soon to become the Kremlin’s Museum of Ancient Books and Manuscripts. How the diary of a Boer botanist had come to rest here Tucker didn’t know. It was a long way from South Africa to Kazan.

He leaned down and unclasped Kane’s leash.

Time to get to work.

He pointed ahead. “SCOUT AND RETURN.”

He didn’t want any surprises.

On quiet paws, Kane trotted off and disappeared around one of the display cases. It took him ninety seconds to clear all the former stalls. He returned, sat beside Tucker’s legs, and looked up at him.

Good boy.

Together, they crossed the central room to the south wall. A door there opened to a staircase leading down. At the bottom, milky light glowed, accompanied by the distinctive hum of fluorescent lighting.

He and Kane started down.

A couple yards from the last step, an order barked out in Russian. “Who’s there?”

Tucker had been expecting this and whispered to Kane, “PLAY FRIENDS.”

The shepherd loved this command. He perked up his ears, sprung his tail jauntily, and trotted down the remaining steps into the corridor beyond.

Tucker followed. Ten feet down the corridor, a thick-necked man in an ill-fitting business suit frowned at the wriggling dog.

It was one of Anya’s escorts.

“Dobriy večer,” Tucker greeted him, wishing him a good evening.

Taking advantage of the guard’s divided attention, Tucker kept walking forward.

The man held up a stiff arm and rumbled something in Russian, but Tucker made out only one word — identify — and the tone was demanding.

Tucker gestured at Kane, playing the chagrined guard and a misbehaving dog. “Sasha… Sasha…”

When Tucker was two strides away, the man had had enough and reached into his jacket.

Tucker dropped the act and called to Kane. “PANTS.”

Kane clamped his jaws on the man’s pant leg and jerked backward, using every ounce of his muscled frame. The guard tipped backward, one arm windmilling, the other still reaching for his gun.

Tucker was already moving. He closed the gap and grabbed the hand going for the concealed weapon. He lashed out with his opposite fist, punching the man squarely in the center of the throat.

The guard croaked as he fell to his back, still conscious, his eyes bulging, his mouth opening and closing spasmodically as he tried to draw breath.

Tucker slipped the man’s gun out of its shoulder holster—a GSh-18 pistol—and cracked its steel butt across his temple.

His eyes finally fluttered shut.

Tucker dropped to one knee and aimed the pistol down the corridor. Although the takedown had gone relatively quietly, there was no way of knowing the second escort’s proximity.

When no one immediately came running, Tucker pointed ahead. “SCOUT CORNER.”

Kane trotted down the corridor and stopped at the next intersection. He peeked left, then right, then glanced back with the steady stare that meant all clear.

Tucker joined him and searched ahead.

Unlike the floor above, the storage cellar had undergone little renovation. The walls consisted of crumbling brick, and the floor was rough-chiseled granite. The only illumination came from fluorescent shop lights bolted to the exposed ceiling joists.

On the left, stacks of boxes blocked the corridor. To the right, it was open. At the far end, a rectangle of light was cast on the opposite wall.

A door.

Tucker led the way down the hall. He flattened himself against the wall and peeked around the corner of the door.

Inside was a massive storeroom with an arched roof. It occupied the length and breadth of the main floor above. Bookcases covered all the walls. In the center, row upon row of trestle tables lined the hall, stacked with books, manuscripts, and sheaves of paper.

A raven-haired beauty in a red blouse stood at the nearest table, partially turned from the door. With her arms braced on the table, she studied an open manuscript. To her left, the second guard sat at another table, smoking and playing solitaire.

Tucker drew back, motioned for Kane to stay. Keeping to the hallway, he stepped past the open door to the opposite side. He shoved the stolen pistol into his side pocket. He signaled Kane — distract and return — then pointed through the open door.

Kane trotted a few yards into the massive storeroom and began barking.

A gruff voice shouted in Russian, accompanied by the sound of a chair scraping on the stone floor.

Kane trotted back through the door, and Tucker waved for him to continue down the corridor, back the way they’d come.

A moment later the guard emerged, hurrying to catch up. Tucker let him get two steps ahead, then rushed forward and swung a roundhouse punch into his kidney. Gasping, the man dropped to his knees. Tucker wrapped his right arm around the guard’s throat and used his left palm to press the man’s head forward. Five seconds of pressure, squeezing the carotid artery, was all it took. The man went limp in his arms. To be sure, Tucker held on for another thirty seconds before lowering him to the floor.

Kane returned to his side, wagging his tail.

Tucker patted the shepherd’s side, then turned and stepped into the storeroom.

The woman was facing him now, a worried hand at her throat. Her striking blue eyes stared at him, glassy with fear, making her look even younger than her midtwenties. She took a couple of wary steps away from him, plainly skittish. But he couldn’t blame her, considering the circumstances.

“You… you are Tucker, yes?” she asked in lightly accented English.

He held both palms toward her, trying to calm her. “I am. And you’re Anya.”

She nodded, sagging with relief, while also quickly composing herself. “You were almost late.”

“Almost doesn’t count… I hope.”

Kane trotted forward, his tail high.

She stared down with a small, shy smile. “I must say he startled me with that sudden barking. But, my, he is a lovely animal.”

“His name is Kane.”

She glanced up at Tucker with those bright eyes. “As in Cain and Abel?”

His voice caught. “Just Kane now.” He turned back to the door. “We should get moving.”

He quickly led her back upstairs, pausing to frisk both men on the way out, taking their identification cards.

Anya followed, clutching to her chest a leather shoulder bag studded with rhinestones. It was large enough that she could’ve carried Kane in it. Not exactly inconspicuous. She caught him staring as they climbed up from the cellar.

“A Prada knockoff. I’m leaving my entire life behind, my career. Is one bag too much to ask?” As they stepped back into the main hall of the Riding House, she turned to him. “So what’s your plan, great rescuer?”

He heard the forced humor in her voice, masking nervousness, but perhaps deeper down even a glint of steel. Now rallying, she seemed tougher than she first appeared.

“We’re walking out the front gate,” replied Tucker.

“Just like that?”

“As long as you can act worth a damn.”

Tucker spent a few minutes rehearsing with Anya in the main hall of the Riding House, running through what was to come. Once ready—or ready enough—he led her toward the exit door.

Before stepping back into the misty night, he reattached Kane’s leash, straightened his military coat and brigade cap, then took her by the arm.

“All set?” he asked.

“This would be easier if I was really drunk.” But she smiled and waved him on. “Let’s do this.”

Together, they slipped out of the Riding House and onto the boulevard. He headed immediately for the Spasskaya Tower and the main gate. He held Kane’s leash in one hand, and with his other arm, he attempted to balance a struggling and stumbling Anya.

When he was thirty feet from the gated exit, the guard stepped out of his shack and called something that probably meant, “What’s going on?”

“She was sleeping in the cadet quarters!” Tucker called out in Russian, repeating a preset phrase taught to him by Utkin for this very situation.

Anya began her performance, jabbering in Russian and generally making a fuss. Though Tucker understood none of it, he hoped the gist of her obscenity-laced tirade was what he had instructed her to say: this guard was a thug… his dog stunk… there were no laws against sleeping in the Kremlin, let alone drinking… the visiting hours were much too short… and that her father was the vengeful editor of the Kazan Herald.

Tucker manhandled her roughly toward the gates and yelled to the guard in another of his memorized stock phrases. “Hurry up! The police are on their way! Let’s be rid of her!”

Behind them, farther down the boulevard, a voice called out to them. A glance over his shoulder revealed another K9 unit hurrying toward the commotion.

Biting back his own litany of curses, he turned and gave the approaching guard a quick wave that was meant to convey, I’ve got it under control.

Under his breath, he whispered to Kane, “NOISE.”

The shepherd began barking loudly, adding to the frantic confusion.

All the while, Anya never slowed her tirade.

Still, the other K9 unit closed toward them.

Improvising, Anya went red-faced and bent over double, hanging on to Tucker’s arm and covering her mouth with her other hand. Her body clenched in the universal posture of someone about to toss their cookies all over the ancient cobblestones.

“Hurry up!” Tucker yelled, repeating the little Russian he knew.

Finally, turning away from the young woman about to vomit, the guard fumbled with the keys on his belt and crossed to the gate. He unlocked it and swung it open—then he waved his arm, swearing brusquely, and yelled for him to get her out of there.

Tucker hurried to obey, dragging Anya behind him.

The gate clanged closed behind them. The Kremlin K9 unit reached the exit and joined the other guard, staring after them.

Tucker waved back to the pair in a dismissive and sarcastic manner, as if to say Thanks for leaving me to clean this mess up.

From the ribald laughter and what sounded like Russian catcalls, his message must have translated okay.

Twenty feet from the gate, Anya started to cease her performance.

Tucker whispered to her, “Keep it up until we’re out of sight.”

She nodded and began shouting and tried to pull free of Tucker’s grasp. He recognized the words nyet and politsiya.

No and police.

More laughter erupted behind him at her weak attempt at resisting arrest.

“Good job,” he mumbled under his breath.

He dragged her along, angling right, until they were out of the guards’ view.

Once clear, Anya stood straight and smoothed her clothes. “Should we run?”

“No. Keep walking. We don’t want to draw any attention.”

Still, they moved in tandem briskly and reached the forested lawn on the north side of the Church of Ascension. He pointed to the black Marussia SUV parked under a nearby tree.

They piled into the front, with Kane in the back.

Tucker started the engine, did a U-turn, and headed south. He dialed Utkin’s cell phone.

“We’re out. Be ready in five.”

As planned, Utkin and Bukolov were waiting in the alley behind their hotel. Tucker pulled up to them, they jumped into the back with Kane, and he immediately took off.

Bukolov leaned forward to hug Anya, to kiss her cheek, tears in his eyes.

Tucker let them have their brief family reunion—then ordered everyone to keep low, out of sight. Without a glance back, he fled Kazan and headed south.

Now to get the hell out of Russia.

16

“I can’t believe you did it,” Bukolov said thirty minutes later. “You really did it.”

Tucker concentrated on the dark, icy road, steering the SUV south on the P240 with the heater on full blast.

“Do you think we’re safe now?” Utkin asked, leaning up from the backseat, looking shell-shocked. “Everything happened so fast.”

“Fast is good,” said Tucker. “Smooth is better.”

Truth be told, he was surprised his scheme had gone largely to plan. Still, he resisted the urge to let down his guard and relax.

The sign for a rest area flashed past his high beams.

That will do.

Two miles south of here, they would reach a major highway junction. Before that, he wanted to do a little housekeeping. He took the ramp to the rest area, which consisted of a small bathroom and a couple of snow-mounded park benches nestled among ice-encrusted birches.

“Stretch your legs,” Tucker said as he swung into a parking spot. He turned to face the others. “But first I need your cell phones, laptops, anything electronic that you’re carrying.”

“Why?” asked Bukolov.

Anya told him. “He thinks one of us will call someone.”

“Who?” Bukolov demanded. “Who would we call?”

“It’s not just that,” Tucker explained. “Electronics can be tracked, even if they’re not active. Hand them over.”

Slowly they all complied, passing over their cell phones.

“What if one of us needs to make a call?” Anya asked.

“Then I’ll arrange it,” Tucker replied.

Once we’re safely out of the country, and I’ve handed you over to Sigma.

Tucker took Kane out for a stroll and a bathroom break and let the others work some blood into their limbs after the rushed flight out of Kazan. While no one was looking, he threw all the electronic gear, including the laptops, into a creek that abutted the rest area. He kept only his own satellite phone buried in his pocket.

Ten minutes later, they were back on the road.

“What happens now?” Anya asked. “Where do we go? Are we looking for some airport?”

“We’ll see,” he replied cryptically, refusing to show his hand.

Tucker drove south for six hours, using the P240’s relatively good condition, and put as much distance between them and Kazan as possible. Throughout the night, he headed deeper into rural farmlands, eventually crossing from one Russian oblast to another. At least the borders between the Russian provinces didn’t have checkpoints. It would have made things much harder.

A couple of hours before dawn, Tucker reached the small town of Dimitrovgrad, a place that had never strayed far from its Soviet-era roots. He circled the major thoroughfares, looking for a hotel with the right mix of anonymity and accommodations. Discovering a suitable location, he booked adjoining rooms on the second floor, one for Anya and her father, the second for Utkin and himself. He posted Kane at the pass — door between the two rooms.

Tucker didn’t want to stay in one place too long. So four hours later, he was already up and about again. He allowed the others a little more sleep and took a short stroll. He also wanted to be alone. As he drove into town last night, he had spotted an Internet café and headed over there. The place smelled of sausages and hot plastic, but at least it was empty at this hour. Five card tables bore nineties-era IBM computers, so old that the modems consisted of rubber cradles into which telephone handsets had been stuffed.

Thankfully, the proprietor, an older man who looked welded to his stool, wasn’t the talkative type. Tucker deciphered the rates from a handwritten sheet on the counter and handed the fellow a hundred rubles. The man waved his arm as if to say take your pick.

The connection was predictably slow. He surfed several Russian newspaper websites. Using the translate feature, he found what he had been looking for—or, more accurately, what he had hoped not to find.

He returned to the hotel to discover both Anya and Utkin had left. Kane was sitting on the bed, watching him expectantly. A moment of frustration fired through him, but it passed quickly. He should have given Kane instructions to keep everyone in their rooms.

He shook Bukolov awake. “Where’s Anya? And Utkin?”

“What?” Bukolov bolted upright in bed. “They’re gone? Have they come for me?”

“Relax.”

Tucker had begun to turn toward the door when it opened. Utkin and Anya stepped through. They were both carrying a cardboard tray filled with steaming Styrofoam cups.

“Where’d you go?” he snapped at them.

“To get tea,” Anya replied, lifting the tray. “For everyone.”

He pushed down his irritation. “Don’t do it again, not without telling me.”

Utkin mumbled an apology.

Anya looked embarrassed and set her tray down.

Bukolov defended his daughter, putting a protective arm around her. “Now see here, Tucker, I won’t have you—”

He pointed a finger at the doctor’s nose and swung it to include the others. “Once you’re out of the country, you can all do as you please. Until then, you’ll do as I say. Innocent blood has already been shed to get you this far, Doctor Bukolov. I won’t have it wasted by stupidity. Not on anyone’s part.”

He stormed into the next room to cool off. Kane followed, tail low, sensing his anger.

Tucker ruffled the shepherd’s fur. “It’s not you. You’re a good boy.”

Utkin joined him, closing the door between the rooms. “I’m sorry, Tucker. I wasn’t thinking.”

He accepted the young man’s apology, but he had another nagging question. “Were you two together the whole time?”

“Anya and I? No, not the entire time. I was up earlier than her. Went for a walk around the block. Sorry, I just needed to get out. All of this is… it’s nerve-racking. I couldn’t just sit in this quiet room while the others were sleeping.”

“When did you and Anya meet up?”

He scrunched his nose in thought. “I met her in the parking lot. She had just come from the coffeehouse down the block, carrying the two trays of tea.”

“Which direction was that?”

He pointed. “West.”

“Did you see anyone with her? Talking to her?”

“No. You seem upset. Has something happened—something other than this, I mean?”

He sized the young man up, trying to decide if he was fabricating his side of the story or not. A liar always gave away tells, if you knew where to look. In the end, he decided his opinion of Utkin hadn’t changed. He couldn’t read a shred of artifice in the man’s character.

Tucker explained, “I checked the Kazan news. They’re reporting that Anya Malinov was kidnapped.”

“Well, she was in a way.”

“The reports state that she was taken from an alley outside a nightclub, by a man who killed her male companion.”

Utkin sank to the bed. “Why the cover-up?”

“So they can shape events. But what strikes me as odd is that the fabricated story hit the newswires less than two hours after we left Kazan.”

“That seems very fast. But does it mean something?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Do the reports have your description?”

“No, but by now someone is surely connecting the dots: Anya and her father and me.”

“What about me?”

“They’ll connect that dot, too, eventually.”

Utkin paled. “That means they’ll come after me once you’re all gone.”

“No, they won’t.”

“Why?”

He put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Because you’re coming with us.”

“What? Really?” The relief on his face gave him a puppy-dog look.

Was I ever that simple and innocent?

Tucker knew the guy needed to toughen up. “But I’m going to need you to pull your weight. Have you ever fired a gun?”

“Of course not.”

“Then it’s time to learn.”

Tucker stood out on the balcony of their second-story room to get some air. He heard the pad of feet behind him and glanced over to find Anya leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“May I speak with you?”

He shrugged.

“I’m sorry for what I did, for what my father said before… he was just being defensive. Protective.”

“Your father is…” He did his best to sound diplomatic. “He’s not an easy man to get along with.”

“Try being his daughter.”

Tucker matched her smile.

“He might not show it, but my father likes you. That’s rare.”

“How can you tell?”

“He doesn’t ignore you. Earlier, I was just feeling boxed in. I had to get out for a while. Claustrophobic, is that the word?”

“Maybe stir-crazy?” Tucker offered.

She smiled. “This is certainly crazy. But let me ask you, why are you helping us?”

“I was asked to.”

“By whom?” She immediately waved her hands. “Never mind. I should not have asked. Can you at least tell me where we are going?”

“South. With any luck, we’ll make Syzran by morning. My people will meet us there.”

Anya looked reassured.

“I’ll drop you off at a rendezvous point in town—the Chayka Hotel. Have you thought about what you’ll do once you’re in the States?”

“I don’t know really. I suppose that depends on what happens with my father. I have not had time to think much about it. Wherever he goes, I will go. He needs my help with his work. Where do you live?”

The question caught Tucker off guard. He had a P.O. box in Charlotte, North Carolina, but he hadn’t had a permanent place to lay his head for a long time. His way of life was tough to describe to most people. He’d tried it a few times but gave up. What could he say? I don’t much like people. I travel alone with my dog and do the occasional odd job. And I like it that way.

To shorthand the conversation now, Tucker simply lied. “Portland, Maine.”

“Is it nice there? Would I like it?”

“Do you like the ocean?”

“Yes, very much.”

“Then you’d like it.”

She stared wistfully across the parking lot. “I’m sure I would.”

Then you can send me a postcard and tell me about it.

He’d certainly never been there himself.

They chatted for a few more minutes, then Anya walked back inside.

Taking advantage of the privacy, Tucker dialed Harper. When the line clicked open, he spoke quickly.

“Tomorrow morning. Chayka Hotel in Syzran.”

With the sun fully down, the group set out again, driving south in the darkness. Tucker took a highway that skirted alongside the Volga River, the longest river in Europe. Navigating from memory, he headed for Volgograd, a city named after the river. As a precaution, he followed a mixture of main and secondary roads.

At four in the morning, he pulled into a truck stop at the edge of the city of Balakovo. “Need a caffeine fix,” he said drowsily, rubbing his eyes. “Anyone else?”

The others were half asleep. He got dismissive tired waves and irritated grunts. He headed out and returned to the SUV with a boiling cup of black coffee.

As he climbed back inside, he noted his satellite phone remained in the cup holder, where he’d left it on purpose. It appeared untouched.

Satisfied, he kept driving, covering the last hundred miles in two hours. By the time he crossed into the town of Saratov, the sun was fully up.

From the backseat, Anya roused, stretched, and looked around. “This isn’t Syzran.”

“No.”

“I thought you said we were going to Syzran? The Chayka Hotel.”

“A last-minute change of plans,” he replied.

He pulled off the highway and headed to a hotel near the off-ramp.

“Won’t your friends be worried?” she asked.

“Not a problem. I called them.”

He turned into the parking lot and shut off the engine. Utkin stirred. Anya had to shake Bukolov awake.

Tucker climbed out. “I’ll be right back with our room keys.”

On his way to the lobby, his satellite phone chirped. He pulled it from his pocket and checked the screen:

Satisfied, Tucker crossed through the lobby and headed toward the restroom. He relieved himself, washed his hands, finger-combed his hair, and took a breath mint from a jar near the sink. Only after five minutes did he exit the hotel and cross back to the SUV.

“No vacancies, I’m afraid,” he said. “Might as well push on to Volgograd.”

Utkin yawned and motioned to the new day. “I thought you told us it wasn’t safe to drive during the day.”

“No matter. We’re pushing through.”

Utkin was right. It was a risk, but with only a couple of hundred miles to go before Volgograd, it was a worthwhile gamble. And from his little test, it seemed none of his fellow travelers had taken his Chayka Hotel bait. Nor had they tried to use his phone.

So far, so good.

It seemed a safe bet to move on.

Besides, if the enemy had managed to track them, why hadn’t they closed the net?

Sensing the light at the end of the tunnel, he headed out, trying to enjoy the passing scenery of this sunny morning. They were almost home free and his suspicions about Anya and the others had proven unwarranted.

Out the driver’s-side window, the morning sun reflected brilliantly off the Volga River. On the other side spread rolling hills and farm tracts lying fallow under pristine blankets of snow. He rolled down the window to smell the river and fresh snow.

Everyone seemed in better spirits, talking among themselves, laughing.

“Time for a Russian history quiz,” Bukolov declared merrily. “Is everyone game?”

Tucker smiled. “It’s not my best subject.”

“Duly noted,” replied Utkin.

Anya chimed in. “Tucker, we could give you a point lead. To make it fair.”

Tucker opened his mouth to reply, but the words never came out. Crossing through an intersection, he caught a glimpse of chrome, a flash of sun off a windshield, accompanied by the roar of an engine—followed by the sickening crunch of metal on metal.

Then the world rolled.

17

With his head ringing, Tucker forced open his eyelids and searched around. It took him several seconds to register that he was hanging upside down, suspended by his seat belt, a deflated airbag waving in front of his face.

The SUV had rolled and settled onto its roof. Water poured through the vents. Improbably, the wipers were sliding across the windshield.

Groaning, he looked right and found Utkin balled up below him on the overturned ceiling, not moving. He lay face-up in about six inches of rising water.

Tucker’s next worry.

Kane.

He was about to call out, to check on the others, then stopped, remembering the collision.

Someone had hit them—purposefully.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think.

They’d ended up in the roadside ditch. He remembered seeing the wide drainage canal paralleling the road. The cut had looked deep—thirty feet or so—and steep sided. Though at this time of year, the bottom flowed with only a shallow creek of icy water.

He fought through gauzy thoughts to focus on two things.

First: Whoever hit them was coming.

Second: Survive.

He patted his jacket pocket. The Magnum was still there.

A splashing sounded behind him. He craned his neck and spotted a pair of furry front legs shifting through the water. He also saw Bukolov and Anya tangled and unconscious on the overturned roof. One of the woman’s legs was still caught in the seat belt above.

“Kane,” Tucker whispered. “Come here.”

The shepherd climbed over the inert forms of Bukolov and Anya.

Fumbling, Tucker released the latch on his belt and fell as quietly as possible into the cold water. Kane joined him, bumping his nose against Tucker’s cheek, giving a worried small lick.

That’s my boy.

Thankfully, except for an inch-long gash above his eye, Kane seemed uninjured.

“OUT,” he ordered and shoved Kane toward the open driver’s window. “HIDE AND COVER.”

Kane squeezed through and disappeared into the high grass covering the shadowy bank of the ditch. Tucker dove out after him. Staying low and using his elbows to propel him, Tucker dragged himself through the mud and weeds. He followed Kane’s trail for ten feet up the embankment before running into the shepherd’s backside.

Kane had stopped, crouched on his belly. He must have a good reason to stop. Taking a cue from the dog, he went still and listened.

Russian voices.

Two or three, farther down the canal to his left.

“STAY,” Tucker whispered breathlessly to Kane.

He rolled to the right—once, twice, then a third time. He then sidled backward to the canal, putting the SUV between him and the voices. Once behind the bumper, he crouched and peeked along the vehicle’s side.

Beyond the SUV, farther down the ditch, a trio of men in civilian clothes descended a shallow section of the embankment, aiming for the overturned vehicle. Each one carried a compact submachine gun—a PP-19 Bizon.

He hid away again, thinking quickly.

Something didn’t make sense, jangling him with warning.

Three men, he thought. They would be operating in pairs, which meant there had to be…

Tucker risked another glance—back up toward the road.

A fourth man suddenly stepped to the highway’s edge, training his Bizon down at the vehicle below.

Tucker slid back into hiding before being spotted. If the man had come a few seconds earlier, he would have caught the two exiting the SUV.

Damned lucky—but he couldn’t count on such good fortune to last.

It would take skill.

He lowered to the waterline at the corner of the SUV and stuck his hands back into view, hoping the shadows there hid his signal to Kane. He placed a palm over a fist, then stuck out one finger and swung it to the right.

Stay hidden… move right.

He hoped Kane was watching, knowing the shepherd’s sharp eyes would have no trouble discerning the movement in the darkness. It was the best he could do to communicate, especially since his partner wasn’t wearing the tactical vest.

Done, Tucker shifted to the opposite corner of the bumper, farthest from the man on the road. He lowered flat to the canal, sinking to the bottom. The depth was only a foot and a half. He did his best to drape himself fully underwater. His fingers clung to weeds to help hold his belly flat. He set off with the meager current away from the SUV, heading downstream. With the morning sun still low in the sky, the steep-sided ditch lay in deep shadows, hopefully hiding his efforts. He prayed the shooter kept his focus on the SUV. Still, Tucker expected to feel rounds slam into his back at any moment.

When nothing came, he angled across the canal, to the same side as Kane and the gunman. He glided up to the bank and rolled to his back in the water. He lifted his head and blinked away the muddy residue.

Due to a slight bend in the waterway and the precipitous slope of the canal’s side, the shooter on the road was out of direct view now. Closer at hand, he spotted a shifting through the grasses, coming his way, easy to miss unless looking for it.

His trick hadn’t fooled Kane.

Keeping to the tallest weeds and shadows, his partner had tracked and followed him.

Like a beaching seal, Tucker slid out of the water and into the icy mud and weeds. Kane joined him. Together, they worked straight up the side of the ditch, moving as silently as possible, sticking to the thickest grasses. He heard the other three gunmen reach the SUV and start talking loudly.

He was running out of time.

He finally reached the top, peered down the road, and spotted the shooter to the left, his attention still focused on the SUV.

Tucker sank back and whispered in Kane’s ear. “WAYPOINT, COVER, QUIET CLOSE, TAKE ALPHA.”

He repeated the complex chain of commands.

While Kane’s vocabulary was impressive, he also had an amazing ability to string together actions. In this case, Kane would need to cross the road, find cover, close the distance between himself and their target—then attack.

“Got it, buddy?” Tucker asked.

Kane bumped his nose against Tucker’s. His dark eyes twinkled with his answer: Of course I do, you stupid ass.

“Off you go then.”

Kane sweeps on silent paws across the cold pavement. On the far side, he squeezes into the deep brush, frosted brittle by the winter. He is cautious not to rattle the grasses and branches of scrub bushes. He finds the ground is a mix of ice and mud and keeps moving, slowly at first, testing the placement of each paw.

Growing confident, he moves faster.

A wind blows across the road, carrying to him the scent of his partner — as familiar as his own. It is warmth and heart and satisfaction.

He also catches a whiff of his prey ahead: the sour ripeness of unwashed flesh, the tang of gunmetal and oil, the rot of bad teeth. He fixes every slight movement with minute movements of his ears: the scuff of boot on pavement, the creak of a strap of leather, the wheeze of breath.

He moves along the edge of the road, staying hidden, weaving the darkest path.

At last, he draws even with his target. He drops low and shimmies to the road’s edge, watching. The other’s back is to him, but he turns every few fetid breaths to look around, even back toward where Kane hides.

Dangerous.

But the command burns behind his eyes.

He must attack.

He shifts his back legs to best advantage, firing his muscles for the charge to come. Waiting for his moment—

—then movement to the left.

His partner steps out of hiding, onto the road’s shoulder. He moves wrong, tilting, stumbling. Kane knows this is false, a feigned flailing. He picks out the glint of steel held at his partner’s hip, out of sight of the other.

Across the road, his target turns toward his partner and focuses fully upon him. Kane feels a surge of bone-deep approval and affection. The two are a pack, one tied to the other, working together.

With his target distracted, Kane bursts out of hiding.

Tucker stared down the barrel of the submachine gun, trying his best not to flick his gaze toward Kane, as his partner charged across the pavement.

This had been the dicey part. Much of it depended on the enemy not killing Tucker on sight. Once Kane had reached his vantage point across the road, Tucker had limped out of hiding, stumbling forward, weaving and dazed, looking like a disoriented crash victim. He held his Magnum against his thigh and kept that side turned away from the shooter.

As expected, the man had spun toward him, swinging his Bizon up.

Time slowed at that moment.

Tucker lunged forward, leading now with his Magnum.

He had to put his full faith in Kane. The pair had worked for so long together, the shepherd could read Tucker’s tone and body language to infer much more than could be communicated by word or hand signal. Additionally, Kane also took in environmental cues to make astute judgments on how best to execute any orders.

All that training came to a perfect fusion now.

Kane never slowed and closed the last ten feet with a leap. Seventy pounds of war dog slammed into the man’s side, and together they crashed into the dirt. Even as they landed, Kane’s jaws had found their mark, closing down on his target’s exposed throat with hundreds of pounds of force.

Still on the run, Tucker knee-skidded to a stop beside the man, pivoted, and fired an insurance round into the shooter’s hip.

He switched the Magnum to his left hand, snatched up the Bizon with his right, and leaped over Kane. He landed on his butt in the grass and began sliding down the ditch’s steep embankment.

He took in the situation below with a glance, fixing the position of the three remaining enemy combatants.

One to the left, twenty feet away…

One kneeling at the SUV window…

One standing at the bumper…

The grass whipped Tucker’s face, and rocks slammed into his buttocks and thighs. As he plummeted, he aimed the Magnum at the man beside the bumper and opened fire, squeezing the trigger over and over again. His first shot went wide, the second caught the man in the leg, and the third in the sternum.

One down.

Tucker turned his attention next to the kneeling man, who lay directly below him. He tried to bring the Bizon to bear, but he was sliding too quickly and hit the bottom of the embankment first.

At the last moment, he kicked out with his legs and flew, body-slamming the second man against the side of the SUV. Pain burst behind his eyes—but he had the other pinned, now underwater. A blind hand rose and slapped at him, fingers clawing. Then a mud-covered face pushed out, gasping, coughing. As the man tried to gulp air, Tucker shouldered his face back underwater.

He held him down, while he swung his Bizon and pointed it toward the far side of the SUV. The third enemy appeared, still about ten feet beyond the SUV, out in the open. Tucker fired a burst of rounds. His aim was wild, but it forced the other back out of sight.

By now, the man under him had stopped struggling, drowned.

Tucker crouched up, certain the last man would come charging at him.

Nothing came for a full five count.

He heard rustling in the grass and looked up to see Kane picking his way down the embankment.

With his partner coming, Tucker sidled along the edge of the SUV and took a fast look past its bumper.

The last man was stumbling away, his back to Tucker. The Bizon hung loosely from his right hand. His feet splashed heavily in the water. Out in the open, he knew he was defeated.

“Damn it,” Tucker muttered.

He couldn’t let the man go, but he refused to shoot a victim in the back.

“Stoj!” he hollered and fired a burst into the air. Stop!

The man obeyed, but he didn’t turn around. Instead, he dropped to his knees and threw his weapon to the side. He placed his hands on top of his head.

Kane reached him, but Tucker held him back.

“Stay, pal.”

Tucker walked down the ditch to where the man was kneeling. He realized the man was a boy of about nineteen or twenty.

“Turn around,” he ordered.

“I will tell no one,” the boy begged in heavily accented English.

Yes, you will. Even if you don’t want to, they’ll make you.

Tucker was suddenly tired, spent to his core. “Turn around.”

“Nyet.”

“Turn around.”

“NYET!”

Tucker swallowed hard and raised the Bizon. “I’m sorry.”

18

As ugly as the Marussia SUV had been, Tucker had no complaints about the vehicle. In the end, it had saved their lives.

That, and the soft mud at the bottom of the ditch.

Tucker turned his back on the overturned vehicle. The others wobbled along the shoulder of the road. After extracting them from the SUV and doing a quick triage, he managed to rouse Utkin, who helped him with Anya and Bukolov.

In all, the group had sustained bruises and a smattering of cuts and abrasions. Bukolov suffered the worst, with a dislocated shoulder and a slight concussion. Tucker had managed to pop the old man’s shoulder back into place while the doctor was still asleep. The concussion would take time and rest.

But now was not the time to stop moving.

Tucker led them to their new car, their attackers’ dark blue Peugeot 408. Aside from a dent in the front bumper, the sedan remained unscathed. Whoever had rammed them off the road knew what they were doing. Tucker searched the car for transmitters or GPS units but found none.

As Anya helped Bukolov into the car, Utkin pulled him aside.

“What is it?” Tucker asked, wanting to get moving.

Utkin acted rather furtive. “You’d better see this.”

He slipped a cell phone into Tucker’s hand. It was the only phone they had found amid the attackers’ possessions.

“Look at the photo I found in the digital memory.”

Tucker squinted at a grainy image of himself on the screen. He was seated at a computer workstation, his hands frozen in midair over the keyboard. With a sinking feeling in his gut, he recognized the location. It was that dingy Internet café in Dimitrovgrad.

Someone had taken a picture of me.

Not knowing what to make of it, Tucker e-mailed the photo to his own phone, then deleted the original. He scrolled to the phone’s address book and found it empty; same with the recent calls. It had been sanitized. Frustrated, Tucker removed the phone’s battery case and SIM card and crushed them both with his heel. He crossed the road and threw the remains down into the ditch.

He took a moment to consider the meaning of the photo. Clearly someone had been covertly following them. But how? And who? He glanced to the overturned SUV. Could there have been a hidden tracer planted on the Marussia?

He didn’t know… couldn’t know.

In fact, there were far too many unknowns.

He faced Utkin. “Have you shown the others this photo?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s keep this between us for now.”

A few minutes later, they were again racing south along the Volga River.

Aside from a desire to get off the main road and put some distance between themselves and the ambush site, Tucker had no immediate plan. After ten miles, he turned off the highway and onto a dirt road that led to a park overlooking the Volga. He pulled in and everyone climbed out.

Utkin and Anya helped Bukolov to a nearby picnic table.

Tucker walked to the rocky bluff above the thick-flowing river. He sat down, needing to think, to regroup. He let his legs dangle over the edge and listened to the wind whistle through the skeletal trees. Kane trotted over and plopped down beside him. Tucker rested his hand on the shepherd’s side.

“How’re you feeling, buddy?”

Kane thumped his tail.

“Yeah, I’m okay, too.”

Mostly.

He had cleaned the gash on Kane’s head, but he wondered about any psychic damage. There was no way of knowing how the shepherd felt about killing that man on the road. His partner had killed in combat before, and it seemed to have no lasting impact on him. While for Tucker, that particular onion was more layered. After Abel’s death, after leaving the service, Tucker had come to appreciate certain parts of the Buddhist philosophy, but he knew he’d never match Kane’s Zen mind-set, which, if put into words, would probably be something like Whatever has happened, has happened.

As he sat, he was torn between the instinct to run hard for Volgograd, and his desire to take it slow and cautious. Still, many things troubled him. It was why he had stopped here.

Four men, he thought. Why only four?

Back at the ambush site, he had checked them for identification and found nothing but driver’s licenses and credit cards. But the tattoos they bore confirmed them as Spetsnaz. So why hadn’t the enemy landed on them with overwhelming force? Where were the platoon of men and helicopters like back at Nerchinsk?

Somehow this current action reeked of rogue ops. Perhaps someone in the Russian Ministry of Defense was trying to snatch Bukolov without the knowledge of their bosses. But for now, that wasn’t the most pressing question concerning Tucker.

He knew the ambush couldn’t have been a chance accident.

So how did the enemy know where to find them?

He pictured the photo found on the phone.

What did that mean?

Utkin joined him, taking a seat at the bluff’s edge. “Good view, yes?”

“I’d prefer to be staring at the Statue of Liberty.”

That got a chuckle out of Utkin. “I would like to see that, too. I’ve never been to America.”

“Let’s hope I can get you there.”

“So have you figured out a plan? Where to go from here?”

“I know we have to reach Volgograd.”

“But you’re worried about another ambush.”

It didn’t require an answer.

Changing the subject, Utkin waved an arm to encompass the river and region. “Did you know I grew up around here?”

Actually Tucker did. He’d read it from the man’s dossier, but he remained silent, sensing Utkin wanted to talk, reminisce.

“It was a tiny village, along the river, about fifty miles south. My grandfather and I used to fish the Volga when I was a boy.”

“It sounds like a nice childhood.”

“It was, thank you. But I meant to make a point. You wish to reach Volgograd, yes?”

Tucker glanced over to him, crinkling his forehead.

“And you wish to stay off the highway,” Utkin said.

“That would be good.”

“Well, there is another way.” Utkin pointed his arm toward the river below. “It worked for thousands of years. It can work for us now.”

Tucker had one last piece of business to address before moving on. He asked Anya to stay with Bukolov at the park. He instructed Kane to guard them. For this last chore, he needed Utkin’s help.

Climbing back into the Peugeot, Tucker headed out into the tangle of the remote river roads. He followed Utkin’s directions. It took less than an hour to find the abandoned farmhouse tucked away in a forest.

“This was once part of an old collective,” Utkin explained. “It’s at least a hundred and fifty years.”

Tucker used the remote to pop the trunk.

They both stared down at the bound figure inside, his mouth secured with duct tape. He was the last of those who had ambushed them, the boy of nineteen or twenty.

“Why did you let him live?” Utkin whispered.

Tucker wasn’t exactly sure. He simply couldn’t execute someone in cold blood. Instead, he had clubbed the kid with the butt of his gun, bound him up, and tossed him in the trunk.

The boy stared at Tucker and Utkin with wide eyes. They pulled him out and marched him toward the farmhouse. Utkin opened the front door, which shrieked on its hinges.

The interior was what Tucker had imagined: knotty plank walls and floors, boarded-up windows, low ceilings, and layers of dust on every surface.

Tucker pushed the boy inside and sat him down on the floor. He peeled the tape from the boy’s mouth.

“Can you translate?” he asked Utkin.

“Are you going to interrogate him?”

Tucker nodded.

Utkin backed up a step. “I don’t want to be a part of any—”

“Not that kind of interrogation. Ask him his name.”

Utkin cooperated and got an answer.

“It’s Istvan.”

Tucker took the boy through a series of benign personal questions designed to massage his defenses. After five minutes, the kid’s posture relaxed, his rat-in-a-cage expression fading.

Tucker waved to Utkin. “Tell him I have no plans to kill him. If he cooperates, I’ll call the local police and tell them where to find him.”

“He’s relieved, but he says you must beat him. For effect. Otherwise, his superiors will—”

“I understand. Ask him his unit.”

“It’s Spetsnaz, like you thought. But he and his team had been assigned to the Russian military intelligence.”

“The GRU?”

“That’s right.”

The same as the Spetsnaz at Nerchinsk.

“Who did his unit report to at the GRU?”

“A general named Kharzin. Artur Kharzin.”

“And what was their job?”

“To track down Bukolov. His group was told to intercept our car here.”

“By Kharzin.”

“Yes, the order came from Kharzin.”

This guy must be one of Bukolov’s mysterious Arzamas generals.

“And once they got hold of the doctor?” Tucker asked. “What were they to do?”

“Return him to Moscow.”

“Why does General Kharzin want him?”

“He doesn’t know.”

Tucker pulled out his cell phone and showed the grainy image from the Internet café to their captive. “How and when did you get this?”

“By e-mail,” Utkin translated. “Yesterday afternoon.”

“How did they know where to intercept us?”

Utkin shook his head. “He was just given the order.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Let’s find out.”

Abruptly, Tucker pulled the Magnum from his jacket pocket and pressed it against the boy’s right kneecap. “Tell him I don’t believe him. He needs to tell me why Kharzin wants Bukolov.”

Utkin translated Tucker’s demand.

Istvan started jabbering, white-faced and trembling.

“He says he doesn’t know,” Utkin blurted, almost as scared as the kid. “Something about a plant or flower. A discovery of some kind. A weapon. He swears on the life of his son.”

Tucker kept the Magnum pressed against the guy’s kneecap.

Utkin whispered, “Tucker, he has a son.”

Tucker did his best to keep his face stony. “A lot of people have sons. He’s going to have to give me a better reason than that. Tell him to think hard. Has he forgotten anything?”

“Like what!”

“Is there anyone else after us? Anyone besides the GRU?”

Utkin questioned the boy, pressing him hard. Finally, he turned and stammered, “He says there’s a woman. She is helping Kharzin.”

“A woman?”

“Someone with blond hair. He only saw her once. He doesn’t know her name, but he believes that she was hired by Kharzin as some sort of mercenary or assassin.”

Tucker pictured Felice Nilsson. She was old news. “Go on. Tell him I already know about—”

“He says after they pulled her from the river, she was taken to a hospital.”

Tucker felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach.

“Has he seen her since?”

“No.”

Could she truly have survived?

He remembered the strong current, the icy water. He pictured Felice swimming or being pulled along by the flow, maybe finding a break in the ice, maybe radioing for rescue. If the Spetsnaz had found Felice quickly enough, there was a slight chance she could have made it.

Tucker took the Magnum away from Istvan’s knee and shoved it into his jacket pocket. The boy leaned back, gasping with relief.

Tucker was done here. As he turned away, he imagined that cunning huntress coming after him again, but he felt no fear, only certainty.

I killed you once, Felice. If I have to, I’ll do it again.

19

Back in the Peugeot, Tucker continued working his way south, staying off the main road. Utkin’s knowledge of the area came in very handy as he pointed to rutted tracks and cow paths that weren’t on any map.

Anya broke the exhausted silence and expressed a fear she had clearly been harboring. “What did you do with the young man from the trunk?”

“Are you asking me if I killed him?” Tucker said.

“I suppose I am.”

“He’ll be fine.”

Conditionally, he added silently. They had left Istvan duct-taped to a post at the old farmhouse. His parting words to the kid had been clear: This is your one free pass. Appear on the field of battle again and I’ll kill you.

“Please tell me you didn’t hurt him.”

“I didn’t hurt him.”

Tucker glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her blue eyes stared back at him in the reflection.

She finally turned away. “I believe you.”

Following Utkin’s directions, Tucker drove south for another thirty miles, reaching a farming community near the Volga’s banks.

“The village of Shcherbatovka,” Utkin announced.

If you say so…

Half the buildings were either boarded up or looked abandoned. At the far end, a narrow dirt road led in a series of sharp switchbacks from the top of a bluff to a dock that hugged the river.

They all unloaded at the foot of the pier, a ramshackle structure of oil-soaked pylons and gap-toothed wooden planks.

Utkin waved to a man seated in a lawn chair at the end. Floating listlessly beside him was what looked to be a rust-streaked houseboat. Or maybe tent boat was the better description. A blue tarpaulin stretched over the flat main deck.

Utkin talked with the man for a few minutes then returned to the car.

“He can take us to Volgograd. It will cost five thousand rubles, not including the fuel.”

The price wasn’t Tucker’s concern. “Can we trust him?”

“My friend, these people do not have telephones, televisions, or radios. Unless our pursuers plan to visit every fisherman personally between Saratov and Volgograd, I think we are safe. Besides, the people here do not like the government. Any government.”

“Fair enough.”

“In addition, I know this man well. He is a friend of my uncle. His name is Vadim. If you are in agreement, he says we can leave at nightfall.”

Tucker nodded. “Let’s do it.”

After storing their gear in the storage shed of Vadim’s boat, Tucker drove the Peugeot back toward Shcherbatovka. A mile past the village, following Utkin’s crude map, he reached a deep tributary to the Volga. He drove to the edge, put the car in neutral before turning it off, and climbed out.

Kane followed him, stretching, while searching the woods to either side.

Tucker quickly tossed the keys into the creek, got behind the car, and shouldered it into the water. He waited until the Peugeot sank sullenly out of view.

He then turned to Kane.

“Feel like a walk?”

Captain Vadim stood on the dock, a glowing stub of a cigar clenched between his back molars. The stocky, hard man, with a week of beard scruff and hardly more stubble across his scalp, stood a head shorter than any of them. Though it was already growing colder following sunset, he wore only a shirt and a pair of stained jeans.

He waved Tucker and the others toward a plank that led from the pier to his boat. He grumbled something that Tucker took as Welcome aboard.

Anya helped Bukolov tiptoe warily across the gangplank. Kane trotted across next, followed by Tucker and Utkin.

Vadim yanked the mooring lines, hopped aboard, and pulled the gangplank back to the boat’s deck. He pointed to an outhouse — like structure that led below to the cabins and spoke rapidly.

Utkin grinned. “He says the first-class accommodations are below. Vadim has a sense of humor.”

If you could call it that, Tucker thought.

“I should take my father to his cabin,” Anya said. “He still needs some rest.”

Bukolov did look exhausted, still compromised by his concussion. He slapped at Anya’s hands as she tried to help him.

“Father, behave.”

“Quit calling me that! Makes me sound like an invalid. I can manage.”

Despite his grousing, he allowed himself to be helped below.

Tucker turned to find Kane standing at the blunted bowsprit, his nose high, taking in the scents.

That’s a happy dog.

To the west, the sun had set behind the bluffs. The afternoon’s brisk wind had died to a whisper, leaving the surface of the Volga calm. Still, underneath the surface, sluggish brown water swirled and eddied.

The Volga’s currents were notoriously dangerous.

Utkin noted his attention. “Don’t fall in. Vadim has no life rings. Also Vadim does not swim.”

“Good to know.”

With everyone aboard, Vadim hopped onto the afterdeck and took his place behind the wheel. With a rumble, the diesel engine started. Black smoke gushed from the exhaust manifolds. The captain steered the bow into the current, and they were off.

“How long to Volgograd?” Tucker asked.

Utkin glanced back to Vadim. “He says the current is faster than normal, so about ten hours or so.”

Tucker joined Kane, and after twenty minutes, Anya returned topside.

She stepped over to him. Chilled, she tugged her wool jacket tighter around her body, unconsciously accentuating her curves.

“How’s your father doing?” he asked.

“Finally sleeping.”

Together, they stared at the dark shoreline slipping past. Stars glinted crisply in the clear skies. Something brushed Tucker’s hand. He looked down to find Anya’s index finger resting atop his hand.

She noticed it and pulled her hand away, curling it in her lap. “Sorry, I did not mean to—”

“No problem,” he replied.

Tucker heard footsteps on the deck behind them. He turned as Utkin joined them at the rail.

“That’s where I grew up,” the man said, pointing downstream toward a set of lights along the west bank. “The village of Kolyshkino.”

Anya turned to him, surprised. “Your family were farmers? Truly?”

“Fishermen actually.”

“Hmm,” she said noncommittally.

Still, Tucker heard—and he was sure Utkin did, too—the slight note of disdain in her question and response. It was an echo of Bukolov’s similar blind condescension of the rich for the poor. Such sentiment had clearly come to bias Bukolov’s view of Utkin as a fellow colleague. Whether Anya truly felt this way, Tucker didn’t know, but parents often passed on their prejudices to their children.

Tucker considered his own upbringing. While his folks had died too young, some of his antisocial tendencies likely came from his grandfather, a man who lived alone on a ranch and was as stoic and cold as a North Dakota winter. Still, his grandfather treated his cattle with a surprisingly warm touch, managing the animals with an unusual compassion. It was a lesson that struck Tucker deeply and led to many stern conversations with his grandfather about animal husbandry and responsibility.

In the end, perhaps it was only natural to walk the path trod by those who came before us. Still…

After a time, Anya drifted away and headed below to join her father.

“I’m sorry about that,” Tucker mumbled.

“It is not your fault,” Utkin said softly.

“I’m still sorry.”

Belowdecks, Tucker lounged in what passed for the mess hall of the boat. It was simple and clean, with lacquered pine paneling, several green leatherette couches, and a small kitchenette, all brightly lit by bulkhead sconces.

Except for the captain, everyone had eventually wandered here, seeking the comfort of community. Even Bukolov joined them, looking brighter after his nap, more his old irascible self.

Tucker passed out snacks and drinks, including some jerky he’d found for Kane. The shepherd sat near the ladder, happily gnawing on a chunk.

Eventually, Tucker sat across from Bukolov and placed his palms on the dining table. “Doctor, it’s high time we had another chat.”

“About what? You’re not going to threaten us again, are you? I won’t stand for that.”

“What do you know about Artur Kharzin, a general tied to Russian military intelligence?”

“I don’t know anything about him. Should I?”

“He’s the one hunting us. Kharzin seems to think your work involves biological weapons. So convinced, in fact, he’s ordered all of us killed—except you, of course.” He turned to Anya. “What do you make of all of this?”

“You’ll have to ask my father.” She crossed her arms. “This is his discovery.”

“Then let’s start with a simpler question. Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

“I know who you claim to be, but I also know you’ve been pumping me for information since we met. You’re very good at it, actually, but not good enough.”

Actually he wasn’t as confident on this last point as he pretended to be. While Anya had asked a lot of questions, such inquiries could just as easily be born of innocent curiosity and concern for her father.

“Why are you doing this?” Anya shot back. “I thought such suspicions were settled back in Dimitrovgrad.”

“And then we were ambushed. So tell me what I want to know—or I can take this discussion with your father in private. He won’t like that.”

She stared with raw-eyed concern and love toward Bukolov. Then with a shake of her head, she touched her father’s forearm, moving her hand down to his hand. She gripped it tightly, possessively.

Bukolov finally placed his hand over hers. “It’s okay. Tell him.”

Anya looked up at him, her eyes glassy with tears. “I’m not his daughter.”

Tucker had to force the shock not to show on his face. That wasn’t the answer he had been expecting.

“My name is Anya Malinov, but I’m not Doctor Bukolov’s daughter.”

“But why lie about it?” Tucker asked.

Anya glanced away, looking ashamed. “I suggested this ruse to Abram. I thought, if he told you that I was his daughter, you would be more inclined to take me with you.”

“You must understand,” Bukolov stressed. “Anya is critical to my work. I could not risk your refusing to bring her along.”

No wonder this part of the plan was kept from Harper.

“But I meant what I said before,” Bukolov pressed. “Anya is critical to my work.”

“And what is that work? I’m done with these lies. I want answers.”

Bukolov finally caved. “I suppose you have earned an explanation. But this is very complicated. You may not understand.”

“Try me.”

“Very well. What do you know about earth’s primordial history? Specifically about plant life that would have existed, say, seven hundred million years ago?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“Understandable. For many decades, a hypothesis has been circulating in scientific communities about something called LUCA—Last Universal Common Ancestor. Essentially we’re talking about the earth’s first multicellular plant. In other words, the seed or genesis for each and every plant that has ever existed on the earth. If LUCA is real—and I believe it is—it is the progenitor of every plant form on this planet, from tomatoes and orchids, to dandelions and Venus flytraps.”

“You used the word hypothesis, not theory,” said Tucker. “No one has ever encountered LUCA before?”

“Yes and no. I’ll get to that shortly. But first consider stem cells. They are cells that hold the potential to become any other cell in the human body if coaxed just right. A blank genetic slate, so to speak. By manipulating stem cells, scientists have been able to grow an ear on a mouse’s back. They’ve grown an entire liver in a laboratory, as if from thin air. I think you can appreciate the significance of such a line of research. Stem cell research is already a multibillion-dollar industry. And will only escalate. It is the future of medicine.”

“Go on.”

“To simplify it to the basics, I believe LUCA is to plant life what stem cells are to animal life. But why is that important? I’ll give you an example. Say someone discovers a new form of flower in Brazil that treats prostate cancer. But the rain forests are almost gone. Or the flower is almost extinct. Or maybe the drug is prohibitively expensive to synthesize. With LUCA, those problems vanish. With LUCA, you simply carbon-copy the plant in question.”

Bukolov grew more animated and grandiose. “Or, better yet, you use LUCA to replenish the rain forest itself. Or use LUCA in combination with, say, soybeans, to turn barren wastelands into arable land. Do you see the potential now?”

Tucker leaned back. “Let me make sure I understand. If you’re right, LUCA can replicate any plant life because in the beginning, it was all plant life. It’s as much of a genetic blank slate as stem cells.”

“Yes, yes. I also believe it can accelerate growth. LUCA is not just a replicator species, but a booster as well.”

Anya nodded, chiming in. “We can make flora hardier. Imagine potatoes or rice that could thrive where only cacti could before.”

“All this sounds great, but didn’t you say this was all an unproven hypothesis?”

“It is,” Bukolov said, his eyes glinting. “But not for much longer. I’m about to change the world.”

20

Tucker turned the conversation from world-changing scientific discoveries to more practical questions. Like why someone was trying to kill them?

“Back to this General Kharzin,” Tucker said.

“Since we are done with the lies,” Bukolov said, “I do know him. Not personally, just by reputation. I’m sorry. I do not trust people easily. It took me many months before I even told Anya about LUCA.”

“What do you know about him? What’s his reputation?”

“In a word. He’s a monster. Back in the eighties, Kharzin was in charge of Arzamas-16, outside of Kazan. After that military weapons research facility was shut down, its archives were transferred to the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics in Kazan.”

“And then, years later they were moved into storage vaults at the Kazan Kremlin,” Anya added.

“All along, Kharzin was a true believer in LUCA—though his scientists called it something different back then. But he only saw its destructive potential.”

“Which is?”

“What you must understand, the primordial world was once a much harsher place. In its original habitat, such a life-form would have been highly aggressive. It would have to be to survive. If let loose today, with no defenses against it, I believe—as did Kharzin—that it would be unstoppable.”

Tucker was beginning to see the danger.

Bukolov continued. “LUCA’s primary purpose is to hijack nearby plant cells and modify them to match its own, so it can reproduce—rapidly, much like a virus. It has the potential to be the world’s most deadly and relentless invasive species.”

Tucker understood how this could easily become a weapon. If released upon an enemy, it could wipe out the country’s entire agricultural industry, devastating the land without a single shot being fired.

“So how far along are you with this research?” he asked. “You and Kharzin?”

“In the past, we’ve been running parallel lines of research, trying to reverse-engineer plant life to create LUCA or a LUCA-like organism in the lab. My goal was to better the world. His was to turn LUCA into a weapon. But we both ran into two problems.”

“Which were what?”

“First, neither of us could create a viable specimen that was stable. Second, neither of us could figure out how to control such a life-form if we succeeded.”

Tucker nodded. “For Kharzin, his biological bomb needed an off switch.”

“Without it, he wouldn’t be able to control it. He couldn’t safely use it as a weapon. If it is released without safeguards in place, LUCA runs the risk of spreading globally, wiping out ecosystem after ecosystem. In the end, it could pose as much risk to Russia as Kharzin’s enemies.”

“So what suddenly changed?” Tucker asked. “What set this manhunt in motion? Why do you need to leave Russia so suddenly?”

Clearly the old impasse between the two of them had broken.

“Because I believe I know where to find a sample of LUCA… or at least its closest descendant.”

Tucker nodded. “And Kharzin learned of your discovery. He came after you.”

“I could not let him get to it first. You understand that, yes?”

He did. “But where is this sample? How did you learn about it?”

“From Paulos de Klerk. The answer has been under our noses for over a century.”

Tucker remembered Bukolov’s story about the Boer botanist, about his journals being prized throughout the academic world.

“You see, over the years, I’ve managed to collect portions of his diaries and journals. Most of it in secret. Not an easy process as the man created great volumes of papers and accounts, much of it scattered and lost or buried in unprocessed archives. But slowly I was able to start collating the most pertinent sections. Like those last papers Anya smuggled out of the Kremlin.”

Tucker pictured the giant Prada bag clutched to her chest.

“He kept a diary for decades, from the time he was a teenager until he died. Most of it is filled with the mundane details of life, but there was one journal—during the Second Boer War—that described a most fascinating and frightening observation. From the few drawings I could find, from his detailed research notes, I was sure he had discovered either a cluster of living LUCA or something that acted just like the hypothetical life-form.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It wasn’t just me. In one page I found at a museum in Amsterdam, he described his discovery as die oorsprong van die lewe. In Afrikaans, that means the origin of life.”

“So what became of this sample? Where did he find it?”

“Some cave in the Transvaal. Someplace he and his Boer unit retreated to. They were pinned down there by British forces. It was during this siege that De Klerk found the cluster of LUCA. As a botanist and medical doctor, he was understandably intrigued. I don’t have the complete story about what happened in that cave. It’s like reading a novel with half the pages missing. But he hints at some great misery that befell their forces.”

“What happened to him?”

“Sadly, he would die in that cave, killed as the siege broke. The British troops eventually returned his belongings, including his journals and diary, to his widow. But past that we know nothing. I’m still studying the documents Anya found. Perhaps some of the blanks will be filled in.”

“Is there any indication that De Klerk understood what he found?”

“No, not fully,” Anya replied. “But in the papers I was collecting when you came for me in the Kremlin, he finally named his discovery: Die Apokalips Saad.”

“The Apocalypse Seed,” Bukolov translated. “Whatever he found scared him, but he was also intrigued. Which explains his map.”

“What map?”

“To the location of the cave. It’s encrypted in his diary. I suspect De Klerk hoped he’d survive the siege and have a chance to return later to continue his research. Sadly that wasn’t to be.”

“And you have this map?”

“I do.”

“Where?”

Bukolov tapped his skull. “In here. I burned the original.”

Tucker gaped at the doctor.

No wonder everyone is after you.

After the discussion, Tucker needed some fresh air to clear his head.

He and Kane stepped up on deck and waved to Vadim, who continued to man the boat’s wheel. In return, he got a salute with the glowing tip of his cigar.

Settled into the bow, Tucker listened to the waves slap the hull and stared longingly at the pinpricks of lights marking homes and farmsteads, life continuing simply. He considered calling Ruth Harper. But after all that had happened, he was wary. His satellite phone was supposed to be secure, but was any communication truly safe? He decided to err on the side of caution until he got to Volgograd.

Footsteps sounded behind him. Kane stirred, then settled again.

“May I join you?” Anya asked.

Tucker gestured to the deck beside him. She sat down, then scooted away a few inches. “I’m sorry we lied to you,” she said.

“Water under the boat.”

“Don’t you mean under the bridge?”

“Context,” Tucker said, getting a nervous laugh out of the woman. “It’s nice to see that.”

“Me laughing? I’ll have you know, I laugh all the time. You just haven’t seen me at my best as of late.” She hesitated. “And I’m afraid I’m about to make that worse.”

He glanced over to her. “What is it?”

“Do you promise not to shoot me or throw me off the boat?”

“I can’t promise that. But out with it, Anya. I’ve had enough surprises for one day.”

“I’m SVR,” she said.

Tucker blew his breath out slowly, trying to wrap his head around this.

“It stands for—”

“I know what it stands for.”

Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki. It was Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, their equivalent of the CIA.

“Agent or officer?” he asked.

“Agent. For the last six years. But I do have a degree in biochemistry. That’s real enough. It’s why they sent me.”

“Sent you to get close to Bukolov.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re pretty,” Tucker added. “Perfect bait for the older, widowed professor.”

“It was never like that,” Anya snapped. “They told me to seduce him if necessary, but I… I couldn’t do it. Besides, it proved unnecessary. The doctor is consumed with his work. My interest and aid was enough to gain his trust.”

Tucker decided he believed her. “What was the SVR after? LUCA?”

“No, not exactly. We knew Abram was working on something important. That he was close to a breakthrough. And given who he is, they wanted to know more about what he was working on.”

“And now they do,” Tucker replied. “When are they coming? Where’s the ambush point?”

“That’s just it. They’re not coming. I’ve strung them along. Believe this or not, but I believe in what he is doing. When I found out what he was trying to accomplish, I changed my mind. I’m still a scientist at heart. He genuinely wants to use LUCA for good. Months ago, I decided I wasn’t about to hand over something that important. Since then I’ve been feeding my superiors false information.”

“Does Bukolov know?”

“No. It is a distraction he does not need. Completing his work must come first.”

“What do you know about Kharzin?”

“This is the first I’ve heard of his involvement here, but I do know his reputation. He’s ruthless, very old school, surrounds himself with like-minded ideologues. All Soviet hard-liners.”

“What about your superiors? Have you been in contact with them since I got you out of the Kremlin?”

“No. You took our phones.”

“What about in Dimitrovgrad… when you disappeared?”

“Tea,” Anya replied. “I really was just getting tea. I didn’t break communication silence, I swear.”

“Why should I believe you? About any of this?”

“I can’t offer any concrete proof. But ask yourself this: If I were still in contact with the SVR and my loyalties had not changed, why aren’t they here?”

Tucker conceded her argument was solid.

“My real name is Anya Averin. You can have your superiors confirm what I’m saying. When we reach Volgograd, turn me over to your people. Let them debrief me. I’ve told you the truth!” Anya’s voice took on a pleading but determined tone. “Only Abram knows where De Klerk’s cave is. He never told me. Ask him. Once you get Abram out of the country and under U.S. protection, LUCA is safe from everyone—the SVR, General Kharzin—all of them.”

Tucker stared across the waters at the small slumbering homesteads along the banks, free of such skullduggery. How did spies live in this world and keep their sanity?

“What are you going to do?” Anya asked.

“I’ll keep your secret from Bukolov for now, but only until we reach the border.”

She gave him a nod of thanks. For a second, he considered throwing her overboard anyway, but quashed the impulse.

After she left, Tucker grabbed a sleeping bag and a blanket and found a nook on the boat’s forecastle. Kane curled up on the blanket and closed his eyes. Tucker tried to do the same but failed.

He stared at the passing view, watched the moonrise above the banks. Kane had a dream, making soft noises and twitching his back legs.

Tucker tried to picture their destination.

Volgograd.

He knew the city’s infamous history, when it used to be called Stalingrad. During World War II, a major battle occurred there between the German Wehrmacht and the Soviet Red Army. It lasted five months, leaving Stalingrad in rubble and two million dead or wounded.

And that’s where I hope to find salvation.

No wonder he couldn’t sleep.

21

With sunrise still two hours away, the river remained dark, mottled with patches of fog, but a distant glow rising ahead, at the horizon line, marked their approach toward Volgograd. As they motored along the current, the lights of the city slowly appeared, spreading across the banks of the river to either side, then spilling out into the surrounding steppes.

Tucker checked his watch, then retrieved his satellite phone and dialed Sigma. Once Harper was on the line, Tucker brought her up to speed about everything, including Anya’s confession from last night.

“I’ll look into her,” Harper promised.

“We should be in the city proper in another hour or so. What do you have waiting for us?”

Harper hesitated a moment. “Try to keep an open mind about this.”

“Whenever a sentence starts that way, I get nervous.”

“What do you know about ecotourism?”

“Next to nothing.”

“Well, that area of Russia has become something of a mecca for it—especially the Volga. Apparently the huge river is home to plant and animal life that’s found in few other places. Consequently, a cottage business has sprung up in Volgograd—submarine ecotours.”

“You’re kidding. The Russians don’t strike me as the ecofriendly type.”

“Still, at last count, there are eleven companies that offer such tours. They make up a fleet of about forty electric minisubs. Each holds six passengers and one pilot. With a depth rating of thirty feet. Aside from conducting monthly safety checks, the government is hands-off. The subs come and go as they please.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Tucker could guess the rest. Sigma must have found a tour company that was strapped for cash and was willing to take a private party on an extended tour of the Volga.

After she passed on the details, Tucker hung up and went aft to speak with Vadim.

“Do you speak English?” Tucker asked.

“Yes. Some. If speak slow.”

Tucker explained as best he could, much of it involving pantomiming. He should have woken Utkin to help with the translation.

But finally Vadim grinned and nodded. “Ah! The Volga-Don canal. Yes, I know it. I find the boat you meet. Three hours, da?”

“Da.”

“We make it. No worry. You and dog go now.”

It seemed Tucker had been dismissed. He went below to find everyone awake and eating a simple breakfast of tea, black bread, and hard cheese.

Bukolov asked, “So, Tucker, what is your plan? How are you going to get me out of the country?”

“It’s all been arranged.” He held off mentioning the unusual means of transportation—not because of fear that the information might leak to the wrong ears, but simply to avoid a mutiny. Instead, he bucked up as much confidence as he could muster and said, “We’re almost home free.”

Ninety minutes later, Vadim called down the ladder, “We are here.”

Tucker led the group topside, where they found the world had been whitewashed away, swallowed by a thick, dense fog. To the east the sun was a dull disk in the overcast sky. All around, out of the mists, buoys clanged and horns blew. Flowing dark shadows marked passing boats, gliding up and down the Volga.

Vadim had them anchored near the shore, the engine in neutral.

“It is eerie, all this fog,” Anya said.

“But good for us, yes?” Bukolov asked.

Tucker nodded.

Vadim resumed his post at the wheel and said something to Utkin.

“He says your friends are late.”

Tucker checked his watch. “Not by much. They’ll be here.”

They stood in the fog, not talking, waiting.

Then an engine with an angry pitch grew louder, coming toward them. A moment later, the sharp nose of a speedboat glided out of the fog off the port bow. The speedboat drew abeam and a gaff hook appeared and latched on to their gunwale.

With a hand on his pocketed Magnum, Tucker crossed to the port side and cautiously peeked over the rail.

A bald, round-faced man with two gold front teeth smiled and handed a slip of paper up to Tucker. Nine alphanumeric characters had been scrawled on it. Tucker checked them carefully, then handed across his own slip of paper with a similar string of symbols, which the stranger studied before nodding.

It was a coded means of verifying each other, arranged by Harper.

“You are Tucker?” the man asked.

“I am. That must mean you are Misha?”

He got another gold-tinged smile, and Misha stepped back and waved his hand to the speedboat. “Thank you for choosing Wild Volga Tours.”

Tucker collected the others, paid Vadim, then herded everyone onto the other boat.

Misha eyed Kane skeptically as Tucker hauled him down.

“Is he wolf?”

“He thinks so sometimes. But he’s well trained.”

And all the more dangerous for it, Tucker added silently.

His reassurance seemed to satisfy the boatman. “Come. Follow me.”

They set off into the fog, seeming to go much faster than was wise considering the visibility. They wove in and around the river traffic. Even Tucker found himself clinging tightly to one of the boat’s handgrips.

Finally, the engine changed pitch, and the boat slowed. Misha angled toward shore, and a dock appeared out of the mist. He eased them alongside the tire bumpers. Men appeared out of the fog and secured the mooring lines.

“We go now,” Misha said and hopped to the pier.

Tucker led the others and followed their guide through the fog down a wide boardwalk that spanned a swampy area. At the end rose a Quonset hut with pale yellow walls and a riveted roof streaked with so much rust it looked like an abstract painting.

The group stepped inside. To their left, a pair of red-and-blue miniature submarines sat atop maintenance scaffolding. The subs were thirty feet long and seven wide with portholes lining the hull, including along the bottom. Amidships, a waist-high conning tower rose, topped by a hand-wheel-operated entry hatch. Below this, jutting from the subs’ sides, were a pair of adjustable control-planes. At the bow was a clear, bulbous cone, which Tucker assumed was the pilot’s seat.

Tucker turned to the others, who were staring openmouthed at the subs, and said, “Your chariots.”

No one spoke.

“Impressive, da?” Misha said cheerily.

“You’re joking, right?” Utkin asked. “Is this how we’re leaving Volgograd?”

And this, from the most pliable of the group.

Bukolov and Anya remained speechless.

“They’re so very small,” Utkin continued.

“But comfortable, and well stocked,” Misha countered. “And reliable. It may take a while to reach your destination, but we will get you there. To date, we have had only three accidents.”

Anya finally found her voice. “Accidents? What kind of accidents?”

“No injuries or fatalities. Power outages.” Misha shrugged. “We got craned out of the river before the Volga mud swallowed us.”

Anya turned a pleading look toward Tucker. “This is your plan? I am not—”

Surprisingly, Bukolov became the voice of reason, stepping to Anya and curling an arm around her shoulders. “Anya, I am sure it is perfectly safe.”

She did not look convinced.

Leaving the others in the maintenance bay to ogle the submarines, Misha led Tucker into a side office. There, Misha’s friendly grin disappeared. “What your people have asked is very difficult. Do you know how far away the Caspian Sea is?”

“Two hundred eighty-two miles,” Tucker replied. “Taking into account the cruising speed of your submarines, the average recharge time for the sub’s batteries, and the seasonal current of the Volga, we should reach the Caspian in eighteen to twenty-four hours.”

“I see,” he grumbled. “You are well informed.”

“And you’re being well paid.”

Before Misha could reply, Tucker added, “I understand the risk you’re taking, and I’m grateful. So, I’m prepared to offer you a bonus: ten thousand rubles if you get us there safely. On one condition.”

“I am listening.”

“You’re our pilot. You personally. Take it or leave it.”

He wanted more than a financial gamble by the owner of Wild Volga Tours. He wanted his skin involved in the game, too.

Misha stared hard at Tucker, then stuck out his hand. “Done. We leave in one hour.”

22

Misha led the group back the way they’d come, through the swamp to the speedboat. Once aboard, the crew shoved off and headed downriver toward the tour company’s embarkation point. The fog remained thick as the weak morning sun had yet to burn it away.

“What’s that stink?” Utkin asked after a few minutes.

Tucker smelled it, too, a heavy sulfurous stench to the air.

“Lukoil refinery over there,” Misha replied and pointed to starboard. “Much oil businesses along the river.”

“This close to the Volga?” Bukolov said. “Seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”

Misha shrugged. “Many jobs. No one complains.”

The speedboat slowly angled back toward shore, weaving through a maze of sandbars into the mouth of an estuary. Its bow nosed into a narrow, tree-lined inlet and pushed up to a wooden pier, where the boat was tied off. At the other end of the dock, one of Misha’s minisubs bobbed with the waves from their wake, rubbing against the tire bumpers.

“The Olga,” Misha announced. “Named after my grandmother. Lovely woman, but very fat. She too bobbed in the water. But never sank.”

Misha led them to the end of the dock to the Olga. An employee in blue coveralls climbed out of the conning tower hatch and descended the side ladder. He shook Misha’s hand and exchanged a few words.

After clapping the employee on the shoulder, Misha turned to the group. “Checked, stocked, and prepared for takeoff. Who goes first?”

“Me.” Anya set her jaw and stepped forward.

Tucker felt a wave of sympathy and respect for her. Frightened though she was, she’d decided to face it head-on.

Without a word, she scaled the ladder. At the top, she dropped one leg into the hatch, then the other, and disappeared into the conning tower. Utkin went next, followed by Bukolov, who muttered under his breath, “Fascinating… what fun.”

When it came to Kane’s turn, Tucker double tapped the ladder’s rung. Awkwardly but quickly, the shepherd scaled the ladder, then shimmied through the hatch.

“Impressive,” Misha said. “He does tricks!”

You have no idea.

Tucker followed, then Misha, who pulled the hatch closed, tugged it tight over the rubber seals, then spun the wheel until an LED beside the coaming glowed green. With the sub secure, Misha dropped down and shimmied to the cockpit.

The sub’s interior was not as cramped as Tucker had expected. The bulkheads, deck, and overhead were painted a soothing cream, as were the cables and tubes that snaked along the interior. A spacious bench padded in light blue Naugahyde ran down the center of the space, long enough for each of them to lie down, if necessary.

Tucker leaned and stared out one of the portholes, noting that the sun was beginning to peek through, showing shreds of blue sky. Occasionally green water sloshed across the view as the sub rolled and bobbed. He straightened and took a deep breath, tasting the slight metallic scent to the air.

“If anyone’s hungry,” Misha called out from the cockpit, “there’s food and drink at the back.”

Tucker turned and saw that the aft bulkhead held a double-door storage cabinet.

“You’ll also find aspirin, seasickness pills, and such. We’ll stop every four hours for bathroom breaks. Are there any questions?”

“How deep will we be diving?” Bukolov pressed his face to one of the portholes, looking like a young boy about to go on an adventure.

“On average, eighteen feet. The Volga’s main channel is at least twice that. Plenty of room for us to maneuver as needed. Plus I have a hydrophone in the cockpit. I’ll hear any ships coming our way. If you’ll take your seats, we will be under way.”

Tucker sat on the forwardmost section of bench, and Kane settled in beneath it. The others spread out along its length, staring out portholes. With a soft whirring, the electric engines engaged, and the sub slid sideways away from the dock, wallowed a few times, then settled lower. The waters of the Volga rose to cover the portholes and flooded the sub’s interior in soft green light.

As Misha deftly worked the controls, the Olga glided out of the estuary and into the main river channel. They were still only half submerged.

“All hands prepare to dive.” Misha chuckled. “Or just sit back and enjoy.”

With a muffled whoosh of bubbles, the sub slid beneath the surface. The light streaming through the portholes slowly dimmed from a mint green to a darker emerald. Soft halogen lights set into the underside of the benches glowed to life, casting dramatic shadows up the curved bulkheads.

After a few moments, Misha announced in his best tour-guide voice, “At cruising depth. We are under way. Prepare for a smooth ride.”

Tucker found his description to be apt. They glided effortlessly, with very little sense of movement. He spotted schools of fish darting past their portholes.

Over the next hour, having slept fitfully over the past days, exhaustion settled over everyone. The others drifted away one by one, draped across the bench, each with a wool blanket and inflatable pillow.

Tucker held off the longest, but after a quiet conversation with Misha who assured him all was well, he curled up and went to sleep, too. He hung one arm over the side of the bench, resting his palm on Kane’s side. The shepherd softly panted, maintaining his post beside the floor’s porthole, studying every bubble and particle that swept past the glass.

Tucker startled awake as Misha’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Apologies for the intrusion, but we are about to make our first stop.”

The others groaned and stirred.

Tucker sat up to find Kane curled on the bench with him. The shepherd stood, arched his back in a stretch, then hopped down, and trotted to the entrance of the cockpit.

“Tell your friend he cannot drive,” Misha called good-naturedly.

“He just likes the view,” Tucker replied.

Bukolov waddled forward and sat down beside Tucker. “I must say, you impress me.”

“How so?”

“I had my doubts that you could truly help me—us—escape Russia. I see now that I was wrong to doubt you.”

“We’re not out yet.”

“I have faith,” Bukolov said with a smile. He gave Tucker’s arm a grandfatherly pat, then returned to his section of bench.

Miracles never cease.

He felt his ears pop as the Olga angled toward the surface. The portholes reversed their earlier transformation, going from a dark green to a blinding glare as the sub broached the surface. Sunlight streamed through the glass. A moment later, forward progress slowed with a slight grinding complaint as the hull slid to a stop on sand.

Misha crawled out of the cockpit, climbed the ladder, and opened the hatch. “All ashore!”

They all abandoned ship.

Misha’s expert piloting had brought the Olga to rest beside an old wooden dock. Their tiny cove was surrounded by tall marsh grass. Farther out, up a short slope, Tucker could see treetops.

“Where are we?” Utkin asked, blinking against the sun and looking around.

“A few miles north of Akhtubinsk. We’re actually ahead of schedule. Feel free to walk around. You have thirty minutes. I’m going to partially recharge the batteries with my solar umbrella.”

Tucker crossed with Kane to the shore and surveyed the immediate area around the dock. He had Kane do a fast scout to make sure they were alone. Once satisfied, he waved the others off the dock so they could stretch their legs.

“Stay close,” he ordered. “If you see anyone, even in the distance, get back here.”

Once they agreed, Tucker headed back to the sub. Misha had the solar umbrella already propped over the sub, recharging the batteries.

As Misha worked, he asked, “Tell me, my friend, are you all criminals? I do not judge. You pay, I don’t care.”

“No,” replied Tucker.

“Then people are following you? Looking for you?”

“Not anymore.”

I hope.

Misha nodded, then broke into a smile; his gold teeth flashed in the sun. “Very well. You are in safe hands.”

Tucker actually believed him.

Anya returned early by herself and prepared to return below.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“I… I did what I had to do,” she said, blushing a bit. “I left the boys so they could have some privacy to do the same.”

Tucker glanced down to Kane. It wasn’t a bad idea. It would be another four hours before they stopped again. “How about it, Kane? Wanna go see a man about a horse?”

As the Olga continued to glide down the Volga, the group dozed, stared out the portholes, or read. Occasionally Misha would quietly announce landmarks no one could see: a good spot for sturgeon fishing, or a mecca for crawfish hunting, or a village that had played a major or minor part in Russian history.

Utkin and Anya traded scientific journals and pored over them. Bukolov studied his notes, occasionally stopping to scribble some new thought or idea.

With nothing else to do himself, Tucker drifted in a half drowse—until Bukolov abruptly slid next to him and nudged him alert.

“What do you make of this?” the doctor said.

“Pardon?”

Bukolov pushed a thin journal into his hand. It was clearly old, with a scarred leather cover and sewn — in yellowed, brittle pages. “This is one of De Klerk’s later journals.”

“Okay, so?”

Bukolov took it back, scowled at him, and flipped the pages back and forth. He then bent the book open, spread it wide, and pointed to the inner seam. “There are pages missing from this last diary of De Klerk’s. See here… note the cut marks near the spine.”

“You’re just noticing this now?” Tucker asked.

“Because the entries seemed to follow along smoothly. No missed dates, and the narrative is contiguous. Here, just before the first missing pages, he talks about one of the men in his unit complaining of mysterious stomach pains. After the missing pages, he begins talking about his Apocalypse Seed—where he found it, its properties, and so on.”

Not able to read or speak Afrikaans, Tucker had to take the doctor’s word for it, but the man was right. The cut marks were there.

“Why would he do this?” Tucker asked.

“I can only think of one reason,” Bukolov replied. “Paulos de Klerk was trying to hide something. But what and from whom?”

Misha announced another pit stop and guided the Olga toward shore. It was the third landfall of the day, near sunset. He wanted one more chance to stock up his solar batteries for the night. He pulled them up to another abandoned fishing dock. Clearly he had planned their route carefully, choosing backwater locations for their ports of call.

As the hatch was unsealed, Tucker was immediately struck by the cloying rotten-egg stench of the place, undercut by a heady mix of petroleum and burned oil.

“Ugh,” Anya said, pinching her nose. “I’m staying inside. I don’t have to use the bathroom that badly.”

Tucker did, as did Kane. So they headed out with Utkin and Bukolov.

The cove here was surrounded by swamp, choked with densely packed grasses and reeds, interspersed with dead dwarf pines. A maze of wooden boardwalks zigzagged through the marshy area, paralleling aboveground pipes. At several intersections, car-sized steel cones protruded out of the oil-tinged water.

“Apologies for the ugly scenery,” Misha called. “This is a Lukoil station—propane, I believe. Those metal funnels are burp valves. Sad. Before Lukoil bought the land, there was a fishing village here named Saray. Known for very good sturgeon. No more.”

The group wandered around the dock area, which forked in several directions, all of which seemed to head inland toward the ghost town of Saray.

“Tucker, come look at this!” Utkin called somewhere to his right.

With Kane at his heels, Tucker followed the boardwalk to where the other two men were standing beside a section of submerged gas pipe. He noted the water roiling there. He plunged his hand into the marsh and slid his palm over the pipe’s slimy surface until he found what he was looking for—an open control valve. He continued probing until his fingers touched a short length of chain. Dangling at the end was a padlock. Its hasp had been cut in half.

Sabotage.

“Go!” he yelled to the others. “Back to the sub!”

“What is it?” Utkin asked. “What—?”

He stiff-armed Utkin away. “Get Bukolov to the sub!”

Still kneeling, Tucker hollered to the sub, “Misha!”

“What is it?”

“A gas leak! Get under way!”

Tucker fought back the questions filling his head — like who, how, and when —and drew his gun. He searched the water and spotted a thumb-thick section of a pine branch floating nearby. He snatched it with his free hand and crammed it into the mouth of the leaking valve, like a cork in a bottle. The bubbling gas slowed to a sputter.

An ominous thumping echoed over the swamp, seeming to come from every direction at once.

Helicopter rotors.

Tucker burst to his feet and ran. Kane kept to his side.

Backlit by the setting sun, Misha was slipping through the sub’s conning tower hatch. The others had already made it aboard. Misha paused when he spotted Tucker’s flight.

Tucker waved his arm. “Go, go!”

Misha hollered back. “A cannery! Four miles downstream! I will wait!”

He vanished below, yanking the hatch.

Behind the Olga, a helicopter appeared across the river, streaking over the surface. It swooped over the sub, banked hard, then slowed to a hover above the marsh. It was a civilian chopper, not a Havoc assault bird. It seemed General Kharzin’s influence and reach had limits this far from his home territory.

The helo’s side door opened, and a slim figure appeared, carrying a fiery red stick in one hand. Leaning out, a long tail of blond hair whipped in the rotor wash.

Tucker’s heart clenched into a tight fist.

Felice Nilsson.

Back from the dead.

From fifty yards away, he raised his pistol and fired. The bullet struck the fuselage beside Felice’s head. She jerked back out of sight, but it was too late. As if moving in slow motion, the flaming flare dropped from her hand and spun downward.

Tucker swung away and took off at a sprint, Kane at his heels.

Somewhere behind he heard a whoosh, followed a split second later by a muffled explosion. Without looking, Tucker knew what was happening. The closely packed marsh grass had trapped the heavier-than-air propane as it leaked from the sabotaged pipe, creating a ground-hugging blanket of gas.

The flare had ignited it.

Orange-blue flames swirled through the swamp grass, chasing him. Heat seared his back. They reached an intersection and dodged left toward the river where the sub should have been. But it was already gone, sunk away.

The flames caught up with him, outpacing them, surging beneath the boardwalk. Fire spurted between the planks.

The end of the dock loomed ahead.

Tucker put his head down, covered the last few steps to the end of the boardwalk, then jumped. Kane brushed against him as they sailed through the air together—then a wall of fire erupted in front of them.

23

At the last moment, Tucker reached out and curled his arm around Kane’s neck. Together, they plunged through the fire and into the river. While Kane had trained for sudden immersion, his core instinct would be to surface immediately. Cruel though it sounded, Tucker needed to prevent this.

As their plunging momentum slowed, Tucker stuck out his arm, his fingers grasping until he found a clump of roots. He clenched tight and pulled them both toward the mud. Under his other arm, Kane’s body was rock hard with tension, but he did not struggle.

Tucker craned his neck backward and watched the worst of the fire blow out on the surface. The blanket of propane had quickly exhausted itself, but the swamp grass continued to burn. In his blurred vision, the flaming stalks along the marsh edges appeared like so many orange torches against the darkening sky.

One problem down, one big one to go.

Felice and the helicopter were still out there. He knew the Swede was too stubborn to assume the flames had done her work.

Tucker worked his way deeper into the swamplands bordering the river, pulling himself from one clump of roots to another. When his lungs could take no more, he let go and bobbed to the surface.

He immediately heard the thump of rotors back at the dock.

Felice continued to hunt for them, a hawk in the sky.

As he and Kane gulped air, the swamp grass crackled and smoked. Cinders hissed on the water’s surface. Tucker looked at Kane. The shepherd’s eyes were huge, darting left and right. Kane’s animal instincts were screaming Fire! Get away! But his trust in Tucker and his training were holding him in place.

Tucker hugged his partner and whispered in his ear, “We’re okay, we’re okay… easy… hold on…”

The words themselves didn’t matter. It was Tucker’s tone and closeness that made the difference. They were together. The tension eased slightly from the shepherd’s body.

Around them, the fire began dwindling as it devoured the dry tops of the marsh grass, filling the cove with smoke.

Tucker released Kane, and they half paddled, half crawled through the water, heading still deeper into the swamp, aiming for shore. Though it burned his lungs and stung his eyes, he did his best to hide their passage under the thick pall of smoke.

As they drifted into the shallows, the water was only a foot or so deep. The grasses here were greener, still smoldering. Warning bells went off in his head. Though the smoking grass provided cover, it could also serve as a beacon. Their passage risked nudging aside stalks, causing the smoky columns to shift.

From the hovering helicopter, Felice would certainly spot the irregularity.

Slowly, Tucker lowered himself to his belly and wriggled deeper into the mud. He kept Kane close.

Now, wait.

It didn’t take long. With the sun setting, the helicopter crisscrossed the marshes, stirring up the smoke. It finally settled into a gliding hover over the marshy cove. He spotted the shape of the chopper through the pall.

If he could see the helicopter…

Not a twitch, Tucker told himself. You’re part of the swamp… you’re mud.

After what felt like hours, the chopper finally moved on as dusk settled. Slowly, the thump of the rotors faded away. Still Tucker didn’t move. With the sun down, the temperature dropped rapidly. The cold of the water seeped into his bones. He set his jaw against it.

Wait…

As he’d expected, the helicopter returned a few minutes later. Ever the hunter, Felice had hoped her quarry would have taken the invitation to bolt, but Tucker knew better.

There came a sharp crack of a rifle shot. Tucker flinched. His first fear was that Felice had spotted them, but he knew immediately this wasn’t the case.

Felice wouldn’t have missed.

She was trying to flush them out.

Crack!

Another shot, this one closer and somewhere to their left.

Tucker eased his hand over a few inches and laid his palm on Kane’s paw. The shepherd tensed, then relaxed. If Tucker remained calm, so would Kane.

Crack! Crack!

The shots were even closer still. The feeling of utter helplessness was maddening. The shots were coming at irregular intervals now, moving ever closer to their position. Tucker closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. His survival was now down to dumb luck: the random squeeze of a trigger, a pilot’s hand on the chopper’s cyclic control, the vagaries of the wind.

Crack!

This shot was to the right.

Felice had finally passed them.

Afraid to jinx their luck, Tucker held his breath until the next shot came—again to their right, even farther out.

After another agonizing five minutes, the helicopter banked away, and the thump of its rotors slowly faded.

Fearing another return, Tucker remained in the cold water for ten more minutes. By now his limbs were trembling from the cold, his teeth chattering. Night had fully fallen. Above, the sky was clear and sprinkled with stars.

Tucker sat up and rolled onto his hands and knees. He patted Kane on the rump and together they began crawling toward shore.

Once on dry land, they set off south, hugging the shoreline where there were trees for cover and veering inland when there were none, ever wary of the helicopter’s return.

As he hiked, Tucker considered the implications of the ambush. How had Felice found them? The most likely suspect was Misha. He had had time to sell them out during their brief stay at the headquarters of Wild Volga Tours, as well as during the sub’s voyage via radio. But for that matter, any of the others—Utkin, Anya, even Bukolov—had access during one or another of their recharging stops. Any of them could have used the sub’s radio. He hated to believe it, but he also couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that one of his companions was a traitor.

Once again he was letting himself slip into a wilderness of mirrors, where everyone and no one was suspect. But he did have one last ace up his sleeve. Only he and Ruth Harper knew the endgame of their evacuation scheme. All anyone else knew was that the sub’s destination was the Caspian Sea.

If Felice wanted to ambush them again, she’d have to work hard for it.

From the edge of a copse of trees across a broad starlit meadow, Tucker spied a plank-sided building the size of an aircraft hangar along the bank of the Volga. He recalled Misha’s last words.

A cannery! Four miles downstream! I will wait!

“What do you think?” Tucker whispered to Kane. “Look like a cannery to you?”

His partner simply stared up at him.

Tucker nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

They took a cautious approach, circling west through the trees to bring them within a few hundred yards. He discovered a narrow canal that cut from the river toward the structure. There was little water this time of the year, and its concrete sides were crumbling. Tucker dropped down into it and used the chunks of fallen rock and other debris as stepping — stones as he followed the canal and closed the remaining distance to the cannery building.

As he drew abreast of the exterior wall, he noted a lone, rusted crane looming over the canal, its hooked cable drooping like the line from a giant’s fishing pole. The air smelled faintly of rotting fish.

He found stone steps leading out of the canal and took them. Crouched near the top, he scanned the area. Aside from the croaking of frogs and the buzz of cicadas, all was quiet. From Kane’s relaxed posture, the shepherd’s keen senses weren’t discerning anything more.

He grabbed a few pebbles off the top step and tossed one against the cannery’s wall. It plinked against the wood. Still, nothing moved.

Had Misha and the others made it here? Or had they come and gone?

Tucker tossed another pebble, then a third.

From somewhere inside the building came a scuffing sound—a footstep on concrete. Kane heard it, too, his body instantly going alert. Tucker prepared to send the shepherd scouting in the dark—but then a door creaked open and a lone figure leaned out.

“Tucker?” came Misha’s voice.

Tucker didn’t respond.

“Tucker, is that you?” Misha repeated.

Taking a chance, he stood up and walked over. Kane followed, stalking stiffly, sensing Tucker’s anxiety.

Misha sagged with relief. “Good to see you, my friend.”

Despite the cordiality of the greeting, Tucker could hear the tightness in the other’s voice. It was not surprising, considering the man had narrowly escaped being roasted alive in his own sub. Still, Tucker kept a wary stance, not sure how much he could trust Misha.

“You made it,” the man said, eyeing him up and down.

“A little crisp along the edges but I’m okay.” Tucker glanced inside and saw that the dark cannery appeared empty. “Are the others waiting at the sub?”

“Da.”

“How’s the Olga?”

“All is good. We dove before the explosion.”

“They didn’t shoot at you?”

“No.”

“Your radio is operational?”

“Of course. Wait.” He shook a finger at Tucker. “I see what you are really asking, my friend. You wonder how did they find us, da? You think I might have betrayed you.”

Tucker shrugged. “Would you be any less suspicious?”

“Probably not.” Misha’s eyes stared hard into Tucker’s own. “But I did not do such a thing. If I had known someone was going to firebomb my sub, I would have declined your generous offer to pilot the Olga. I have many other employees I don’t particularly like, such as my lazy brother-in-law. But I took your money and came. And I take contracts seriously. We shook hands.”

Tucker believed him. Mostly. But only time would tell.

“How can I prove this to you?” Misha asked.

“By proving how good of an actor you can be.”

24

Misha had docked the Olga at the still-flooded mouth of the canal. Only the conning tower jutted above the surface, camouflaged in a nest of branches he’d cut from neighboring trees.

With Kane at his side, Tucker followed Misha into the shallows and up into the sub.

“You’re alive!” Anya cried as he climbed down.

Utkin and Bukolov shook his hand vigorously, pumping his arm up and down, both smiling with an enthusiasm that seemed genuine.

“If everyone’s done celebrating,” Misha growled, “it’s time we talk.”

Tucker turned to him. “About what?”

“You lied to me. You told me there would be no danger—that no one was chasing you. I’ve had enough! I am turning around. I will return you safely to Volgograd and tell no one about this, but this voyage is over!”

Tucker took a step forward. “We had a deal.”

“Not anymore.”

He pulled the Magnum from his pocket and leveled it at Misha’s chest.

Anya cried, “Tucker, don’t.”

“You’re taking us the rest of the way.”

“Shoot me,” Misha said with a shrug. “And you’ll be stranded here. Middle of nowhere. You think you can drive the Olga? Think you know the Volga? You will die in her mud!”

The two combatants glared at each other for a long ten seconds before Tucker lowered his gun and pocketed it. “The bastard is right.”

Anya cried, “We cannot go back to Volgograd. Tucker, tell him!”

Bukolov chimed in. “This is lunacy.”

“It’s a setback,” Tucker said, keeping his voice strained. “I’ll call and arrange another means out of Volgograd.” His next words were for Misha, full of menace. “If anyone is waiting for us in Volgograd, I’ll put the first bullet in your head. Do we understand each other?”

“We do,” replied Misha and headed for his cockpit. “Now everyone sit down so I can get under way.”

As Misha eased the sub back toward the main channel, Tucker gathered the others at the rear. He kept his voice low. “Like I said, this is a setback, nothing more.”

Bukolov groaned. “I will never leave this country alive. My discovery will die with me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll contact my friends at our next stop. Everyone try to get some sleep.” He glanced back toward Misha. “I’m going to keep working on him, try to get him to change his mind.”

Once the others settled to the bench, despondent and defeated, Tucker stoop-walked forward and ducked tightly next to Misha. The cockpit was cast in darkness, save the orange glow of Misha’s instrument panels. Beyond the windscreen, the dark waters of the Volga swept and churned.

Tucker posted Kane two yards behind him, blocking anyone from coming forward.

“How did I do?” Misha whispered.

“An award-winning performance,” replied Tucker. “Are you sure they won’t notice that we’re not heading north toward Volgograd?”

Misha pointed at the sub’s windscreen, beyond which the Volga churned darkly. “How could they tell?”

True. Even Tucker was lost.

Tucker leaned forward, peering out. “How do you navigate through this sludge, especially at night?”

Misha reached above his head, pulled a sheaf of laminated paper from a cubbyhole, and handed it to Tucker. “Nautical chart of the Volga. You see the red squares along the shore? Those have been our stops so far. But usually I navigate by dead reckoning. Most of the Volga is in here.” He tapped his skull. “Like a woman’s body in the dark, I know her every curve and imperfection. Still, when I am a mile or so from a stop, I always broach the surface just enough for the sub’s antenna to get a GPS fix.”

“And how long do you think it will take us to reach Astrakhan?” Their destination lay within the Volga delta, where the river emptied into the Caspian Sea.

“We should reach the city by tomorrow afternoon, but I suspect you’d like me to stay submerged until nightfall.”

“I would.”

“Then that’s your answer.”

“And let’s limit any more pit stops along the way to no longer than five minutes.”

“I agree. But sometime in the morning, I’ll need to dock for one more thirty-minute solar charge of the batteries in order to reach Astrakhan.”

“Understood.”

Tucker remained quiet for a moment, then said, “I hate to ask this, but, Misha, I need one more favor from you. Until we reach Astrakhan, no more radio communication.”

Misha shrugged, clearly understanding the necessity. He reached up, unscrewed the head of the gooseneck microphone, and handed it to Tucker with a smile.

“I will now be free of my wife’s nagging for a peaceful twenty-four hours.”

The next morning, it was showtime again.

They had sailed southward for seven hours, for as long as they could manage before needing a pit stop. Misha found another quiet dark cove and put in.

Tucker ordered everyone to disembark, including Misha, who put on another display of feigned outrage.

“You disabled the radio. What do you expect me to do here by myself?”

“You could leave us. So get moving.”

“Fine, fine…”

Everyone climbed out. While there was no dock, Misha had partially grounded the sub on a shallow sandbar. Having to wade through several inches of water in the predawn chill drew grumbled complaints as the group sought private spots amid the shrubs lining the bank.

Misha hung back with Tucker as he kept watch and whispered. “Are any of them good at astronomy?” He jerked a thumb toward the star-studded sky.

Tucker hadn’t considered this. He didn’t know if any of the group was adept at celestial navigation, but it probably didn’t matter.

“Keep an eye on things,” Tucker said to Misha and led Kane off to their own private spot. Once done, he stayed crouched in hiding and dialed Sigma’s headquarters.

When Harper answered, Tucker passed on a fast request, risking only a few words. “I need a discreet airstrip near Astrakhan. I’ll call back.”

He hung up and stood. He made a dramatic pantomime of searching for a signal with his phone. He emphasized it by swearing softly under his breath.

Suddenly, Kane let out a low growl.

Tucker turned to find Utkin standing in the bushes ten feet away.

“Phone problem?” the man asked, zipping up his pants.

“Satellite interference.”

Utkin stepped out of the shadows and walked closer. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

“Kane. Old habit. How’re you holding up?”

“Tired. Very tired. I don’t think I’m suited for adventure.” Utkin offered a smile, but it came out jaded. It was an expression Tucker had yet to see on the lab assistant’s face.

Utkin shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and took another step toward Tucker.

Kane stood up, shifting between them.

Tucker found his fingers tightening on the butt of the Magnum.

Utkin noted the tension. “After the attack, you suspect all of us, don’t you?”

“Part of the job description.”

“Hmm…”

“If you were me, who would you suspect?”

“Any one of us,” Utkin confirmed.

“Including you?”

“Including me.”

“What about Bukolov and Anya? They’re your friends, aren’t they?”

Utkin looked at the ground and kicked a rock. “Maybe I thought so at one time. Not anymore. I was naive or maybe just wishful. How could I expect them to consider a poor fisherman’s son their equal?”

Utkin turned and walked off.

Tucker stared after him.

What the hell just happened?

The midmorning sun blazed down upon a secluded estuary where the sub had parked in the shallows, perfect for recharging the batteries.

While the solar umbrella was spread wide to catch every photon of energy, Tucker stood on the shore with his fellow passengers. “We have thirty minutes,” he said. “Make the best use of it. We’ll be in Volgograd soon and should be ready for anything.”

The others set off amid the stands of bare willows, crowded with crows, who loudly complained at their trespass.

Tucker knelt down beside Kane and whispered, “SCOUT, HERD, ALERT.”

For as long as this break lasted, the shepherd would discreetly circle the area, making sure that none of his sheep wandered off or drifted too close. Kane would bark a warning if there was a problem.

Satisfied, and out of direct sight, he climbed back aboard the Olga and started a thorough search of the group’s belongings. Before reaching Astrakhan, he had to be sure that someone in the group wasn’t leaking their position.

He dug through bags, shook out clothes, flipped through notebooks, everything. With experienced fingers, he probed the seams of pants, shirts, even the soles of shoes. He went so far as to pick through personal items, like thumbing through a bodice-ripper paperback of Anya’s or the boxes of Utkin’s playing cards—one empty, the other full of well-worn cards. He even dug through Bukolov’s pouch of tobacco. As he did so, he felt a twinge of guilt, as if trespassing through the others’ secret vices.

Still, for all his trespassing, he found nothing.

Next, he squeezed into the cockpit and scrutinized the instrument panel. He ran his palms over the console. Nothing anomalous jumped out at him.

He was stumped.

Only one possibility remained. Someone had to have used the sub’s radio to transmit their position and set up that last ambush. How else could word have gotten out? He was glad he had asked Misha to disable the radio before they set off for Astrakhan. With the radio out of commission, their path from here should be unknown to their pursuers.

Tucker checked his watch, knowing he was running out of time. Ending his search, he climbed out of the conning tower and returned to the shore. Tucker whistled, raising more complaints from the nesting crows. He waved everyone back. They climbed aboard as Misha began breaking down and storing the solar array.

Tucker got Kane inside, then dropped back down next to Misha.

“Give me a minute,” he said and walked a couple meters away from the sub.

Pulling out his phone, he dialed Sigma.

Harper came on the line immediately. “That was one hell of a cryptic message you left me,” she said. “Had me worried.”

“I’m in the wilderness, if you get my drift.”

“Been there myself. I take it you don’t want to go straight to the rendezvous as planned?”

Tucker recounted the helicopter attack. “I can’t swear to this, but I suspect Felice let the sub go. Her attack was focused solely on me and Kane.”

“With you gone, the rest would be easy pickings. Plus Bukolov is the prize. They don’t dare risk killing him.”

“Since I took out the sub’s radio, it’s been quiet, but I don’t want to take any more chances. Better to disembark as soon as we’re within sight of Astrakhan.”

“Agreed. I’ve found an aircraft that suits our needs.” She passed on the coordinates. “They’re part of a charter fishing company. They fly clients south into the Volga delta on a regular basis. With a little incentive, the pilot will take you to the new rendezvous.”

“Which is where?”

“An island. Just outside Russian territorial waters—or what passes for marine borders in the Caspian Sea.”

“Who’s meeting us?”

“They’re trustworthy. I’ve worked with them personally in the field. You reach them, and your worries are over.”

“So says the woman who described this mission as a simple escort job.”

25

As promised, Misha reached the outskirts of Astrakhan by the afternoon. With the sub still submerged, he announced this quietly to Tucker, who squeezed into the cockpit. They studied the nautical chart together.

Checking coordinates, Tucker tapped a spot where the Volga’s main channel branched into Astrakhan.

“Stop there?” Misha asked.

“Turn there,” Tucker corrected. “Follow it for three miles, then call me again.”

It took forty minutes to reach the branch.

Tucker returned to the cockpit and pointed to another spot a mile farther west.

“You are being very cagey,” Misha said. “I see a small cove. Is that our destination?”

“No. Call me when you reach the next waypoint.”

After another twenty minutes, Misha summoned him again.

With a smile, Tucker placed his finger on the small cove that Misha had mentioned before. “That’s our destination.”

“But you said—oh, I see. You are very untrusting.”

“It’s a recent development. Don’t take it personally. How long until nightfall?”

“To be safe, two hours. I will pull us into the undergrowth along this bank. It should shield us further as we wait.”

It turned out to be the longest two hours of his life. The others attempted to question him about what he was doing, but he only gave cryptic reassurances, allowing them still to believe the sub was parked underwater at some destination near Volgograd.

Finally, he ordered everyone to collect their belongings and disembark. With Tucker directing, they gathered in a clump of bushes on the shore of the cove.

Overhead, the dark sky hung with low clouds, turning the waning moon into a pale disk. Aside from the trilling of insects and the occasional croak of a frog, all was quiet.

Across the cove, a few hundred yards off, a trio of squat cabins hugged the water. A lone light burned beside the door of one. Moored to its dock floated a pair of small seaplanes.

That was their ticket out of here.

“This is not Volgograd,” Utkin whispered, scrunching his face. “The air smells too clean.”

Tucker ignored him and joined Misha alongside the sub. The two shook hands.

“This is where we say good-bye,” Misha said. He let go of Tucker’s hand but continued to hold out his open palm.

With a smile, Tucker understood. He pulled a wad of rubles from his pocket and counted out what he owed the sub’s pilot—then he added an extra ten thousand on top of that. “Hazardous duty pay.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason, my friend.”

“You’ll be able to get back to Volgograd safely?”

“Yes, I think so. And I hope you do the same—wherever you are going.”

“I hope so, too.”

“Because of the extra pay, I will wait here until you take off. Just in case you need me again.”

“Thank you, Misha. If I don’t see you again, safe sailing.”

With Tucker in the lead and Kane bringing up the rear, the group headed around the curve of the cove, sticking to the trees and taller bushes.

Once near the cluster of cabins, he called a halt, knelt by Kane, and pointed forward. “SCOUT AND RETURN.”

Kane skulked off and disappeared into the darkness.

Several minutes passed, then from back the way they’d come, a whispered call reached him.

“Tucker!”

It was Misha.

His heart thudding with worry, Tucker told the others to stay out of sight. He made his way back down the trail to where Misha was crouching.

“What is it?”

“This.”

He passed over a black plastic object roughly the size and shape of a narrow bar of soap. A pair of insulated wires dangled from either side, ending in alligator clips.

Misha explained, “I was cleaning up after you all left, straightening and doing a systems check while I waited as promised. I found this tucked beneath my seat in the cockpit. Those clips had been spliced into the sub’s antenna feed.”

“It’s a signal generator,” Tucker muttered, his belly turning to ice. “It sends out frequency-specific pulses at regular intervals.”

“Like a homing beacon.”

“Yes.” Tucker felt icy fingers of despair close around his heart. “That’s how the enemy was tracking us.”

He remembered Misha describing how he would surface the sub at regular intervals to get a GPS fix on their location, especially as they neared one of their ports of call. Each time he did it, the generator gave away their location, allowing the enemy ample time to set up an ambush once they figured out Misha’s routine.

“Who put it there?” Misha asked.

Tucker glanced toward the trio hidden by the cabins.

Who indeed?

He ran everything he knew through his head—then his whole body clenched with a realization.

It couldn’t be…

Misha read his reaction. “You know who the traitor is?”

“I think so.” Tucker stuffed the signal generator into his pocket. “I suggest you shove off right now and put as much distance between you and us as possible.”

“Understood. Good luck, my friend.”

Tucker returned to where the group sat crouched in the darkness. By now, Kane was waiting for him. The shepherd’s posture, the tilt of his ears, and the softness of his eyes told Tucker all was clear.

Like hell it was.

He crouched and draped an arm around Kane’s neck, struggling to keep his composure.

Now what?

How much information had already been funneled to General Kharzin?

Since surfacing here, he had to assume the enemy knew where they had stopped. Surely Felice was on her way.

He didn’t have the time to properly interrogate and break the traitor. That would come later. For now, by hiding his knowledge, he still had a slight upper hand.

He stared toward the seaplanes. The enemy didn’t want to kill Bukolov, and with their agent sitting next to him on the plane, they’d be even less likely to try to shoot the craft down once it was airborne. In that way, both men could serve as unwitting human shields, increasing the group’s chances of reaching the rendezvous point safely. But first he had to get them all into the air.

He also intended to keep a close eye on the traitor, an eye sharper than his own. He shifted next to Kane. Shielding his hand signals, he pointed and touched the corner of his own eye.

Keep a watch on the target.

Until Tucker lifted the order, the shepherd would be on close guard—watching his target for any aggressive movements or hostile actions, judging the tone of voice, listening for the cock of a hammer or the slip of a blade from a sheath. It was a broad tool, but Tucker trusted the shepherd’s instinct. If his target made the wrong move, Kane would immediately attack.

“What was that all about with Misha?” Anya whispered, drawing back his attention.

“He wanted more money. To stay silent.”

“And you paid him?” Bukolov asked, aghast.

“It was easier than killing him. And besides, we’re leaving now anyway.”

Tucker stood up and gestured for the others to remain hidden. He crossed to the lighted cabin and knocked on the door.

It opened a few moments later. Yellow light spilled forth, framing a young woman in denim overalls. She was barely five feet tall, with black hair trimmed in a pixie haircut.

Tucker tightened his grip on the Magnum concealed in his pocket, bracing himself for any attack.

“You are Bartok?” she asked in a surprisingly bold voice for such a small body.

Bartok?

He was momentarily confused until he remembered Harper’s mention of a code name.

“Yes, I’m Bartok.”

“I am Elena. How many come with you on plane? Costs three thousand rubles per passenger.”

She certainly didn’t waste any time getting down to business.

“Four and a dog.”

“Dog cost more.”

“Why?”

“He crap… I must clean up, no?”

Tucker wasn’t about to argue—not with this little firebrand. She sort of scared him. “Fine.”

“Get others,” she ordered him. “The plane is prepared. We are ready to leave.”

With that, she stalked toward the dock area.

Tucker waved the others out of hiding and hurried to keep up with Elena. She had stopped beside one of the planes. With one leg leaning on a float, she unlatched the side door and lowered it like a ramp onto the dock’s walkway.

The twin-engine seaplane, painted azure, stretched about seventy feet long, with gull wings and oval stabilizers at the tail. The fuselage was deep chested, with a bulbous cockpit.

“I don’t recognize this model,” he said as he joined her.

She explained proudly, her hands on her hips. “This is a Beriev Be-6. Your NATO called it Madge. Built the same year Stalin died.”

“That’s sixty years ago,” Anya noted, worried.

“Fifty-nine,” Elena shot back, offended. “She is old, but a very tough bird. Well maintained. Board now.”

No one dared disobey.

Once everyone was aboard, Elena unhooked the lines from their cleats, hopped inside, and pulled the door closed behind her with a resounding slam. She hurried forward to the cockpit.

“Sit down!” she yelled back. “Seat belts!”

And that was the extent of their preflight safety briefing.

Bukolov and Anya were buckled into the bench along the right side of the fuselage, Utkin and Tucker on the left. Kane curled up between Tucker’s feet, never letting his guard down.

The plane began drifting sideways from the dock.

Bukolov called over, “Tucker, you seem to have a proclivity for unorthodox methods of travel.”

“One of my many idiosyncrasies.”

“Then I assume we will be traveling to the United States aboard a zeppelin.”

“Let’s leave it as a surprise,” he replied.

From the cockpit came a series of beeps and buzzes, accompanied by a short curse from Elena—then the sound of a fist striking something solid. Suddenly, the engines roared to life, rumbling the fuselage.

“Here we go!” Elena called.

The plane accelerated out of the cove and into the inlet. Moments later they were airborne.

“Bartok!” Elena yelled once they’d reached cruising altitude. “You come up here!”

Tucker unbuckled his seat belt, scooted around Kane, and ducked into the cockpit. He knelt beside her seat. The copilot seat was empty. Through the windscreen, he saw only blackness.

“Now tell me the destination. The person on phone said southeast. Said you would have the destination once in air.”

Tucker gave her the coordinates, which she jotted on her kneeboard.

After a few fast calculations, she said, “Fifty minutes. You know what we are looking for? A signal of some kind, da? The Caspian is big, especially at night.”

“Once we are there, I’ll let you know.”

Tucker returned to the cabin. The roar of the engines had faded to a low drone. Aside from the occasional lurch as Elena hit a pocket of turbulence, the ride was smooth.

Now is as good a time as any.

Tucker stood between the two benches. “It is time we have a family meeting.”

“A what?” Bukolov asked.

Tucker dove in. “Every step of the way, General Kharzin has been waiting for us. Until now I had no idea how he was doing it.”

Tucker paused to look at each of them in turn.

Anya shifted under his scrutiny. “And? What are you saying, Tucker?”

He drew the signal generator from his pocket and held it up for everyone to see.

“What is that?” Bukolov asked, motioning for a closer look.

Tucker turned to Utkin. “Would you like to explain?”

The young man shrugged, shook his head.

“It’s a signal generator—a homing beacon. It was attached to the Olga’s antenna feed. Since we left Volgograd it’s been regularly sending out a signal until I disarmed it a few minutes ago. A signal that Kharzin has been listening for.”

“You think one of us put it there?” Utkin asked.

“Yes.”

“It could have been Misha,” Anya offered. “He would know how to attach the device. It was his submarine.”

“No, Misha brought this to me.”

Anya’s eyes grew rounder. “Tucker, you’re scaring me. What do you know?”

Tucker turned to Utkin. “Is that your bag under your seat?”

“Yes.”

“Pull it out.”

“Okay… why?”

“Pull it out.”

Utkin did so.

“Show me your playing cards.”

“My what? I don’t see why—”

“Show me.”

Having noted the hardness of Tucker’s tone, Kane stood up and fixed his gaze on Utkin.

“Tucker, my friend, what is going on? I do not understand, but fine, I will show you.”

He unzipped his duffel and began rummaging around. After a few seconds, he froze, glanced up at Tucker, and pulled out his two boxes of playing cards. One empty, one full. Utkin held up the empty one.

Tucker read the understanding in the young man’s eyes.

“But it… it is not mine,” Utkin stammered.

Tucker grabbed the box, slid the signal generator into it, and resealed the flap. It was a perfect fit. Earlier this morning, during his search of the group’s belongings, he’d found the empty box of playing cards in the young man’s duffel.

Utkin continued shaking his head. “No, no, that is not mine.”

Anya covered her mouth.

“Is it true?” asked Bukolov. “Tucker, is this true?”

“Ask him.”

Bukolov had paled with shock. “Utkin—after all our time together, you would do this? Why? Is this tied to that past gambling problem of yours? I thought you had stopped.”

Shame blushed Utkin’s face to a dark crimson. “No! This is all a mistake!” He turned to Tucker, his eyes hopeless with despair. “What will you do to me?”

Before he could respond, Anya blurted out, “Tucker, do not kill him, please. He made a mistake. Perhaps someone forced him to do it. Remember, I know these people. Perhaps they blackmailed him. Isn’t that right, Utkin? You had no choice. Tucker, he had no choice.”

Tucker looked to Bukolov. “Doctor, how do you vote?”

Bukolov shook his head. Without looking at his lab assistant, he waved a dismissive hand. “I do not care. He is dead to me either way.”

At this, Utkin broke down. He curled himself into a ball, his head touching his knees, and started sobbing.

Tucker felt sorry for Utkin, but he kept his face impassive. The lab assistant had almost cost them their lives—and he might still. Felice could already be on her way here.

That fear drew him back to the cockpit, leaving Utkin guarded by Kane.

“Can we circle?” he asked Elena. “To check our tail?”

She frowned at him. “You think we are being followed.”

“Can you do it?”

Elena sighed. “Two hundred rubles extra for fuel.”

“Deal.”

“Okay, okay. Hold on.”

She turned the wheel and the Beriev eased into a gentle bank.

After a lazy ten-minute circle above the Volga delta, Elena said, “I see no one. Easy to spot in the dark. But I will keep watching.”

“Me, too.” Tucker took the empty copilot’s seat.

In the green glow of the instruments, he glimpsed a dark shape against the lower console between the seats. It was a machine gun, attached to the console with Velcro straps. It had a wooden stock and a stubby barrel. Just ahead of the trigger guard was a large, cylindrical magazine.

“Is that an old tommy gun?” he asked.

Elena corrected him. “That is a Shpagin machine gun. From Great Patriotic War. It was my father’s. American gangsters stole the design.”

“You’re an interesting woman, Elena.”

“Da, I know,” she replied with a confident smile. “But don’t get any ideas. I have a boyfriend. Okay, three boyfriends. But they don’t know about each other, so it’s okay.”

As they neared their destination coordinates, everything still remained dark and quiet in the skies around them.

“What now, Bartok?” Elena asked.

“An island lies dead ahead at the coordinates I gave you. We’re supposed to rendezvous on the eastern side, where there is a narrow beach. Once you land on the water, taxi in as close as you can, and we’ll wade ashore. After that, you’re done.”

“Whatever you say. Best to strap in now. Touchdown in two minutes.”

Tucker relayed the message to the others, then buckled in next to Elena.

“Beginning descent,” she said.

The nose of the plane dipped, aiming for the dark waters below.

As they plummeted, Elena prepared for landing: flipping switches, adjusting elevator controls, tweaking the throttle. Finally, the plane straightened, racing over the water, until the pontoons kissed the surface. The Beriev shook slightly, bounced once, then settled. The seaplane’s speed rapidly bled off, and the ride smoothed out.

Tucker checked his watch. They had made good time and were twenty minutes early.

“Very shallow here,” Elena announced as she swung the plane’s nose and headed toward the island’s shore.

“Again, just get as close as you can.” Tucker unbuckled and stood up. “Thanks for the ride. I—”

Over Elena’s shoulder, out the side window, a dark shape appeared out of nowhere. Disoriented, Tucker’s first thought was rock. They were passing some storm-beaten shoal sticking out of the water.

Then a strobe of navigation lights bloomed, hovering there, revealing its true nature.

Helicopter.

Tucker shouted, “Elena… get down!”

“What—?”

As she turned toward him, her forehead disappeared in a cloud of red mist.

26

Tucker dropped to his knees, then his belly. He felt wet warmth dripping down his face and swiped his hand across it.

Blood.

He turned his head and yelled through the cockpit door. “Everyone flat on the deck!”

Kane came slinking toward him, but Tucker held up his hand, and the shepherd stopped.

“What’s happening?” Anya called out, sounding terrified.

“The pilot’s dead. We’ve got company.”

He rolled and rose to his knees behind the pilot’s seat. He craned his neck over Elena’s slumped body and peeked out the side window.

The helicopter was gone.

Smart, Felice… kill the pilot and the plane’s grounded.

Now she and her team could take their sweet time at capturing or killing them.

Tucker peered through the windscreen. A hundred yards ahead, the black silhouette of the island blotted out the stars. At its base, a gentle crescent of white sand beckoned.

Only then did he note that the Beriev was still moving toward their goal. He scanned the control panel, looking for—there. The pictogram of a spinning propeller glowed, bracketed by a plus and minus sign.

Easy enough to interpret.

Reaching around the seat, he shoved the twin throttles forward. The engines roared, and the nose lifted slightly, then settled as the Beriev’s speed climbed. The plane raced for the island, skimming the water, rapidly closing the distance. He knew they would never be able to escape the more agile chopper by air.

That wasn’t his plan.

He goosed the wheel, keeping them angled toward the beach.

“Brace for impact!” he shouted. “KANE, COME!”

The shepherd sprinted forward. Tucker curled his left arm around Kane’s chest and turned them both so they were tucked against the bulkhead. He propped his legs against the pilot’s chair and squeezed his eyes shut.

Beneath his rear end, the Beriev’s fuselage shuddered as it passed the shallows. Next came a shriek, followed by a grinding of metal on sand.

The plane violently lurched left, catching a pontoon on something—a rock, a sandbar—then flipped up on its nose and cartwheeled across the beach.

Glass shattered.

From the cabin, screams and shouts.

The copilot’s seat tore free and seemed to float in midair before crashing into the side window above Tucker’s head.

Then the plane hit the trees, shearing off one wing. They slammed to a teetering stop, the plane stuck up on its side, the remaining wing pointed to the sky.

Tucker looked around. A pair of emergency lights in the overhead bathed the cockpit in a dull glow. Tree branches jutted through the side window. Above him, over his left shoulder, he saw a sliver of dark sky through the windscreen.

He took personal inventory of his condition and ran his hands over Kane’s flanks and limbs, getting a reassuring lick in return.

Think, he commanded himself.

Felice was still out there, but her helicopter lacked pontoons, so it could not land in the water. He pictured the tree-lined beach. He didn’t believe it was wide enough to accommodate the chopper’s rotor span.

We have time — but not much.

They just had to survive until the plane Harper sent got here.

He called, “Everyone okay back there?”

Silence.

“Answer me!”

Bukolov called weakly, “I am… we are hanging in the air. Anya and myself. She hurt her hand.”

“Utkin!”

“I am here, pinned under my seat.”

“No one move. Let me come to you.”

Tucker ordered Kane to stay put and pulled himself to the cockpit door. He swung his legs until he was sitting on the door coaming. With the plane on its side, the left bulkhead was now the floor. He found an emergency flashlight strapped to the wall. He snagged it free, turned it on, and took a moment to orient himself.

Utkin was still buckled into his seat, but it had broken loose and rolled atop him. Above him, Bukolov and Anya were strapped in place and suspended in midair.

No one seemed to be direly injured, except Anya clutched her hand to her chest, her eyes raw with pain. For now, there was nothing he could do to help her.

“Utkin, unbuckle yourself and crawl to me.”

As he did so, Tucker hopped down next to him and stoop-walked aft until he was beneath Bukolov and Anya. He shined his flashlight up.

“Anya, you first. Press the buckle release with your good hand, and I’ll catch you. It’s not as high as it seems.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she hit the release and fell. Tucker caught her and lowered her to her feet.

He repeated the procedure with Bukolov.

Once down, the doctor leveled a finger at Utkin’s face. “You! You almost got us killed. Again.”

“Abram, I did not—”

“Quiet!” Tucker barked. “We have only a few minutes before Felice finds a way to reach us. We need to get out of here without being seen.”

“How?” Anya asked, wincing. It appeared she had either sprained or broken her wrist.

“A window in the cockpit is smashed. That’s our way out.”

He turned and clambered back through the door that led to the cockpit. He swung his legs until he was straddling the coaming.

“Grab our packs!” he ordered. “Then Anya up first.”

Moving quickly, Tucker shuttled everyone out of the cabin, past the cockpit, and through the broken window. It was a tight squeeze amid the broken branches, but it allowed them to exit directly into dense forest, keeping off the open beach.

Utkin was the last of the three to leave. He looked at Tucker. “You’re wrong about me. I wish you would believe that.”

“I wish I could.”

As the man shimmied out, Tucker turned to Kane. “Ready to go, pal?”

Kane wagged his tail and belly-crawled after the others.

Tucker followed, but not before grabbing Elena’s Shpagin machine gun. He slung it across his back, while staring down at the young woman’s lifeless body.

“I’m sorry…”

The words sounded idiotic to him.

I’m sorry you’re dead. I’m sorry I dragged you into this.

Anger stabbed into him, fiery and fierce. He used it to steady the edge of panic, to clear his head to a crystal focus.

Felice, you’re dead.

He made a silent oath to make that happen.

For Elena.

Turning away, he crawled out and joined the others huddled together in the darkness of the forest. The neighboring beach looked like polished silver under the moonlight that pierced the clouds.

“What now?” Bukolov asked. “I don’t see the helicopter. Perhaps they think we are dead.”

“It’s possible, but you’re their prize, Doctor. They won’t leave without knowing your true fate.”

“What about your people?” Anya asked.

He checked his watch. It was still a few minutes until they were supposed to arrive.

Tucker dug through his duffel until his fingers touched the satellite phone. Even without looking, he knew the phone was shattered. The casing had split open, and the innards lay in pieces at the bottom of his pack.

“Stay here,” he ordered and crawled to the edge of the sand. He scanned the sky, while straining to listen. He thought he heard the distant thump of rotors, but when he turned his head, the sound faded.

Options, Tucker thought. What do we do?

Felice had them pinned down.

Again, Tucker heard thumping.

The helicopter was definitely out there, moving with no lights, like before, lying in wait.

And not just for us, he suddenly realized.

No wonder she didn’t immediately come after them.

He pushed back to the others. “Kharzin knows this is the rendezvous point, that others must be coming. Felice is out there waiting for them, intending to take them out, to catch them off guard like she did us, leaving her free to deal with us after that.”

“What are we going to do?” Anya said.

“I don’t know—”

Utkin suddenly bolted past Tucker, his heels kicking up sand as he broke from cover and stumbled out onto the open beach.

Tucker’s first instinct was to raise the Shpagin, but he stopped himself. He still couldn’t shoot an unarmed man in the back.

“Stop!” he called out to Utkin. “There’s nowhere to run!”

A strobe of navigation lights burst above the treetops at the northern tip of the island. A floodlight bloomed, stabbing down to the beach. The helicopter’s nose followed the beam down, picking up speed.

Utkin got caught in the light, sliding to a stop. He lifted his arm against its blinding glare and waved his other arm.

“What is that idiot doing?” Bukolov said. “Does he think they’ll pick him up?”

“He’ll get away,” Anya cried.

Skimming the trees, the chopper reached the beach in seconds and banked over the crashed Beriev. All the while, the floodlight kept Utkin pinned down.

Suddenly fire winked from the chopper’s open cabin door.

Bursts of sand kicked up, and a bullet struck Utkin’s leg. He toppled forward, lay for a stunned moment, then started crawling in agony toward the trees, pushing with his good leg.

The gun flashed again from the helicopter’s doorway.

A second bullet struck Utkin’s other leg. He pitched flat to the sand. His arms paddled as he tried to push himself back up.

From the precision of the shooting, it had to be Felice.

He knew what she was doing, torturing Utkin to draw him out. She didn’t know that the traitor had been exposed—or maybe she didn’t care.

A part of Tucker knew Utkin had brought this upon himself.

But another part railed against such brutality.

He felt his ears pop, a rush of hot air, the screams of his fellow rangers filled his head. He saw a mirage of a limping dog, bloodied and in pain—

No, not again… never again…

He broke from cover, sprinted past the wreckage of the Beriev, and across the sands. He charged forward, eating up the distance until he was twenty yards away. He dropped to one knee, jerked the Shpagin to his shoulder, and took aim.

He fired a short three-round burst. The Shpagin bucked in his grip. The bullets went wide. He tucked the weapon tighter to his shoulder and fired again, squeezing and holding fast. Bullets shredded into the chopper’s tail.

Smoke gushed.

The helicopter pivoted, exposing its open doorway. A lone figure stood there. Though her lower face was hidden behind a scarf, he knew it was Felice.

He opened fire again, stitching the fuselage from tail to nose.

She stumbled out of view.

Abruptly the chopper banked hard left and dove for the ocean’s surface and picked up speed, heading away, trailing oily smoke.

Furious, blind with rage, he kept firing after it until it had vanished into the darkness. Critically damaged, the helicopter wouldn’t be returning any time soon.

He swung over to Utkin, dropping to his knees beside him.

During the firefight, the young man had managed to roll onto his back. His left thigh was black with blood. His right poured a crimson stain into the sand, spurting from his leg, with a brightness that could only be arterial.

Tucker pressed his palm against the wound and leaned on it.

Utkin groaned heavily. One hand rose to touch the hot barrel of the machine gun. “Knew you could do it…”

“Quiet. Lay still.”

“Someone… someone had to flush out that evil suka before she ambushed your friends…”

Hot blood welled through his fingers.

A sob rose in Tucker’s chest, escaping in shaking gasps. “Hold on… just hold on…”

Utkin’s eyes found his face. “Tucker… I’m sorry… my friend…”

Then he was gone.

Tucker sat on the sand, hugging his knees. Kane lay tight against his side, sensing his grief. A small fire burned on the beach, created by igniting driftwood with some of the leaking fuel from the wreckage, a signal to those who were coming.

It seemed to have worked.

The drone of an engine echoed over the water. A moment later, a seaplane swept above the beach. Anya waved with her good arm. From the plane’s side window, a flashlight blinked back at her, signaling the identity of their rescuers.

As the plane circled for a water landing, Bukolov wandered over to him. “I still don’t understand why he did that.”

Off to the side, Utkin’s body was covered by a tarp.

“Redemption,” Tucker said. “I think he purposefully drew the chopper out of hiding, so I’d have a chance to take it out before the others arrived.”

“But why? Did he do it out of guilt?”

Tucker remembered his last words.

… my friend…

Tucker laid a hand on Kane’s side. “He did it out of friendship.”