First Team (46 page)

“I’m thinking one of us stays here, while the other scouts around that ridge there,” said Ferguson. “If there’s going to be a lookout post, it’ll be up over there. You going to fall asleep?”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Conners told him.

“Don’t sing too loud,” Ferg told him, setting out.

~ * ~

t took Ferguson more than three hours to climb up the mountain far enough to cut across to what looked like a lookout post on the 3-D map Corrigan had created and posted on their secure Web site for him. To cross the last hundred yards he had to climb up a crevice and get up and across an overhang. Tired and cold, he sent several loose stones tumbling below. The first time he froze; he was too precariously placed to swing his gun up for defense. When nothing happened after a few minutes, he began climbing again. When more rocks spilled a few seconds later, he barely paused. Either the people in the lookout were sleeping—or the post wasn’t manned.

A half hour later, standing behind the ridge, he discovered that the latter was correct—the ridge dropped off sharply, and it wasn’t as a good a spot in real life as it appeared on Corrigan’s simulation.

But there was a better spot off the side of the road and down about three hundred yards. In the darkness he couldn’t tell if there were rocks there or people. Nor was the question academic—the ridge gave him some cover to pass, but anything beyond it would be easily visible, certainly once the sun came up. The only thing to do was to track back down about a quarter mile, where he could pick up a narrow ledge that angled in the opposite direction, skirting around the mountain before rejoining the trail near a V-shaped rift about three miles below.

In the daylight, the climb would have been merely difficult. The combination of nighttime and growing fatigue, not to mention the proximity of the guerrilla guards, lifted it into the interesting category.

There was enough of a moon that Ferguson picked out the start of the ledge easily; he found as he went that he could see the wall fairly well, probably nearly as well as if he’d been wearing his night glasses on a pitch-black night. But after he’d gone about a half mile the ledge began to slope sharply toward the mountain, making it harder to walk on. Clouds had been moving in, making it more and more difficult to see. Still, Ferg was only about fifty feet from the rift when he lost his balance. As his right foot slipped on a loose rock, his left hand reached for a hold that proved to be a shadow. In the next second, he felt himself momentarily defying gravity.

“Oh, shit,” he said to himself.

Then he started to fall.

~ * ~

10

AKTAU, RUSSIA

The airport was large by Russian standards, and with decent security. To pass to the main area where her charter to Turkey was supposed to be waiting, Corrine had to show ID and pass through an X-ray gate. The woman guard checking her purse and bags was more interested in her aspirin than the satellite phone; as she held up the bottle to examine it Corrine started to explain that it was for headaches.

“I know what it’s for,” said the guard frostily in English, tossing it back in the bag and dismissing her.

The terminal had all the charm of a 1970s American bus station, with two rows of plastic-backed seats dividing a scuffed linoleum floor. The seats were empty; the few passengers waiting for planes at that hour milled near the gates at the opposite end of the hall. Corrigan had told Corrine to go to a window with a long name in Cyrillic letters; the word was “special” and when pronounced in Russian sounded almost like it did in English, but with the dots and backward symbols it looked more like a magic spell than a sign. She found the words on a door, not a window, though in roughly the place he’d said; she walked back and forth twice before deciding it had to be the place. But no one answered when she knocked.

She checked her watch; the flight north had taken less time than Corrigan had predicted, and she realized she was probably just a little early. Still, she wanted to call him and see, so she ducked into a restroom nearby. But it was a private facility, with an attendant hovering near the sink. She tipped the woman and went back out without using the facilities or the proffered toilet paper.

Before she could get her bearings in the large room, a man in a long leather jacket stepped in front of her. Corrine took a step around him but he put his hand out to stop her.

“Off,” she said sharply in English, brushing his hand away.

“Ms. Alston, I’m your pilot,” said the man.

Corrine could tell there was a problem and didn’t even bother using the authentication sequence Corrigan had supplied. She started to spin away. But as she did, a short, balding man in a brown polyester coat blocked her way.

“Excuse me, Ms. Alston,” he told her in English. “My name is Dolov. I am with the Federal Security Bureau. You will come with me, please.”

“Excuse me, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” said Corrine, though the man’s English had been excellent.

“You will come with me,” he said calmly.

“Are you putting me under arrest?”

“That depends on what comes from our conversation,” said Dolov, in a way that suggested jail might be the most desirable of the possible outcomes.

~ * ~

11

SOUTHERN CHECHNYA

Conners jumped to his feet when he heard what sounded like the faint echo of gunfire.

“Up, up,” he told the Chechen. He kicked his shoes when he didn’t move.

Daruyev groaned, then turned over and got up slowly.

“Let’s go,” said Conners. Cursing, he told Daruyev to walk ahead of him. They had to take the trail; there was just no way he could cover his prisoner on the slope, even if Daruyev had been able to climb.

Conners debated whether it would just be easier to kill the Chechen and be done with it.

It took twenty minutes to get to the stop below the ridge where they’d thought the lookout was; by the time they got there the sun was starting to rise. As they came close to the lookout spot Conners grabbed the Chechen by the back, using him as a shield.

“Call them out,” Conners said.

“Call who?” said Daruyev.

“Your bastard friends.”

“These are not my comrades.”

“Call them.” Conners nudged his rifle against Daruyev’s neck.

The Chechen whistled. There was no answer.

“Again,” said Conners. “Use words.”

“They wouldn’t.”

“Call them.”

Daruyev called in a calm voice that he had escaped from the Russians and needed help. But there was no response.

The mountain fell off too sharply on the left to give an ambusher a place to hide, and the ridge on the right angled away, but Conner still felt exposed. He pushed his prisoner forward; after twenty yards or so he saw another spot up a hundred yards farther where an outlook post could be hidden. They backtracked; Conners peered over the side and decided they could skirt the position by climbing down to a rift that skirted the rocks northward.

“We go down here,” Conners told his prisoner.

“That’s going to be hard.”

“Tough.”

“Take the gun from my back.”

“No,” Conners told him, pushing him to start. As he started to follow, there was a noise behind him; he whirled, gun ready.

“Relax, Dad, it’s only me,” said Ferguson, appearing on the slope.

“Ferg, where the fuck have you been?” said Conners.

“Waking sleeping dogs,” said Ferguson. “Quiet. There’s a pair of guards up the trail that way about a half mile. I fell before, and they started shooting up the place.”

“I heard them.”

“They didn’t bother looking for me,” said Ferguson. He’d banged his shins and scratched the side of his face in the fall, but otherwise was in decent shape. “I thought half the mountain was going to come down on top of me.”

“Did it?” asked Conners.

Ferguson laughed. “I’m still here, ain’t I?” He pointed a finger at Daruyev. “You were going to make him climb down the other side there?”

“I didn’t know where the hell you were.”

“So you were going down to the bottom?”

“I figured that cutback ahead could be covered. I could get around it down there.”

“Sure, if you have a week.”

“Don’t bust my chops, Ferg. I thought you were dead.”

Ferguson smiled at him, then pointed to the way he had come. “There’s a ledge here. It’s narrow, but if you don’t slip, it’ll take you across the road. Then we can get up and across and check out the base.”

“If it’s there,” said Conners.

“Don’t be such a pessimist.” Ferguson checked the grenade launcher on Daruyev’s back. He angled it slightly, so the weight would help anchor him to the mountain. “Lean in,” he told him. “You walk just behind me. If you get scared, say so.”

“I’m not scared.”

“No shit?” said Ferguson, starting out. “Come on. If we hurry, we can wave for the satellite when it comes overhead.”

~ * ~