The Solomon Effect

27

“How did he find us here?” whispered October.

Jax threw her a warning frown and shook his head. “Just let me do the talking, okay?”

“I don’t know what it is you’re always so afraid I’m going to say,” she hissed as they walked down the stairs to where Andrei stood leaning against the grimy concrete wall, the dead man at his feet.

At their approach, Andrei reached inside his jacket and came up with a half-empty pack of cigarettes. “Must you always leave a trail of bodies wherever you go, Jax?”

“Body. One body.”

“What about the two motorcyclists the militia found on the road from Rybachy?”

“Motorcyclists?”

“The ones who shot up your Lada.”

“Ah. Those guys.” Jax hunkered down to study the dead man’s ruddy-cheeked face. Wide and sightless blue eyes stared up from beneath straight, sandy-colored brows. It was the motorcyclist from the cathedral.

Andrei stuck a cigarette between his lips. “Ever see him before?”

“No,” lied Jax, pushing to his feet. “Any idea who he is?”

“You tell me. He’s not carrying ID, but I checked the labels on his clothes. They’re American. If this is one of your terrorists, Jax, I’d say Washington needs to rethink some of their suppositions about what’s going to happen come Halloween.”

Jax stared beyond Andrei, to where the blue-and-white militia van waited, its Tatar driver beside it, beefy arms crossed at his chest. “I must be losing my touch. I’d swear I wasn’t being followed. Either by you or”-he jerked his head toward the dead motorcyclist sprawled at their feet-“by him.”

Faintly smiling, Andrei pushed away from the wall to saunter outside. He reached beneath the Lada’s right front fender to come up with a small black box with an antenna.

“Shit,” said Jax. “How did that get there?”

“After I dropped you at the cathedral, I had every car rental agency in the area notified that you might be coming. They were told to give you the ‘special.’”

“It’s nice to be predictable.”

Andrei struck his lighter, his eyes narrowing against the cigarette’s harsh blue smoke. “Did you find anything?”

“Not really.”

Andrei nodded to his driver. “You won’t mind if we verify that?”

The Tatar patted down Jax’s pockets and drew out the fax from Turkey. “Well, there was that,” said Jax.

His jaw silently bunching and flexing, the Tatar grasped October’s bag and upended its contents across the hood of the Lada.

While Attila pawed through her iPod, passport wallet, lip balm, and sunglasses case, October said, “The tracking device explains how you found us.” She jerked her head toward the dead man in the stairwell. “But what about him?”

“Perhaps he was here waiting for you.” Andrei took one last drag, then dropped his half-smoked cigarette to grind it beneath the sole of his boot. “Come. You have a plane to catch.”

“Are you done with my bag?” said October. When Andrei nodded, she scooped up her things and shoved them back inside.

No one had even glanced at Jasha Baklanov’s business card.

Jax stared out the wide plate-glass window at the darkened runway below. The window was filthy, streaked with water marks on the outside and smeared by children’s sticky fingers on the inside. Andrei had personally escorted them to the departure section of Kaliningrad’s decrepit airport, and he didn’t seem to be going anytime soon. Jax had been reduced to calling Matt from the men’s room to ask him to look up a guy named Kemal Erkan in Turkey, and to pull Baklanov’s cell phone records.

Standing now beside Jax, the Russian lit another cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke, his gaze on October. “So tell me about the woman,” he said quietly.

Jax cast a glance at where she sat on one of the departure lounge’s hard chairs, her head bent over a Chinese textbook. “What about her?”

“She’s pretty, but she doesn’t seem like your type.”

“What’s my type?”

“Tall, long-legged. Very high maintenance.”

Jax gave a short laugh. “We’re just working together.”

“I thought you liked to work alone?”

“I do.”

Andrei’s eyes narrowed with amusement as he drew on his cigarette. “We might get further if we cooperated on this, you know.”

“I am cooperating.”

“You just forgot about the fax in your pocket, did you?”

Jax kept his gaze on the runway, where a plane was slowly taxiing in, its landing lights winking out of the darkness. “According to Anna Baklanov, the captain’s sixteen-year-old nephew was supposed to be on the Yalena. But I don’t remember seeing a boy in the militia photos of the dead crew.”

Andrei frowned. “You think the boy was cooperating with the terrorists?”

“I suppose it’s possible, but I doubt it. According to his widow, the captain was like a father to the boy.”

“The killers could have thrown his body overboard.”

“True. But, why him?”

“Maybe he went over the rail when he was shot.” Andrei ground out his cigarette. “Why are you so interested in this boy?”

“If he’s alive…”

“He’s not alive.”

There was a stirring amongst the assembled passengers as a uniformed woman appeared at the gate. “You’re in luck,” said Andrei. “Only an hour late.”

He stood for a moment watching Jax shoulder his carry-on bag. Then he said, “You’re going too easily, Jax. I think you found something else-something you’re not telling me. What happened to détente? Glasnost? International cooperation and the New World Order?”

“I don’t know anything you don’t know.”

Andrei glanced at October. “Are you kidding? I still don’t know why she’s here. Her Russian is better than yours, yes. But yours isn’t as bad as you like to pretend. So why is she with you?”

October shoved her textbook in her bag and stood up. “His Russian is terrible.”

“See?” Jax nudged her toward the gate. “Go.”

“I will find out, you know,” Andrei shouted as they started down the ramp. “This is what’s wrong with the world today. You Americans, you all think you’re still cowboys.”

Later that night, Rodriguez stood in the backyard of the old German house in the exclusive enclave in Mendeleevo, his legs splayed wide, his thumbs hooked in his hip pockets, his head tipped back as he watched a wind-whipped stream of clouds scuttle across the cold face of the full moon.

In the last twenty-four hours, he’d lost four men-three dead, one missing. He didn’t care about the Russians; they were expendable. Cannon fodder. But Dixon was a good kid. An American. He had a wife back home in Arkansas and a baby girl just two months old. That was tough.

He heard the back door of the house open and footsteps cross the terrace. He was aware of Salinger coming to stand beside him, but he didn’t turn. “Any word yet from Borz on the little shit?”

“Not yet,” said Salinger. He hesitated. “We just got a confirmation from our contact in Turkey. They have someone to make the hit on Kemal Erkan.”

“Good.” They had no way of knowing how much Baklanov might have told the Turk, but Rodriguez wasn’t taking any chances. He glanced at the man beside him. “We need that guy shut up, and we need him shut up fast. How much do they want?”

“The usual.”

“Tell them to move. I want Erkan dead by this time tomorrow.”

The night had turned so cold they could see the exhalation of their breath hanging like a white fog in the darkness. Salinger still hesitated. Rodriguez said, “What is it?”

“According to our contact at Aeroflot, Alexander and the Guinness woman were on the last flight to Berlin. The General’s not going to be happy we missed them.”

Rodriguez pressed his lips into a thin line and said nothing.

Salinger said, “You think they found anything?”

“Nothing that’s going to do them any good.”

Salinger nodded. “When do we leave here?”

“When we get the kid,” said Rodriguez, and headed for the back steps.