Jet (22 page)

Yulia dialed a long-distance number and listened as it rang. A guarded male voice answered on the fifth ring, sounding groggy and annoyed.

“Yes?”

“Your man never showed up last night.”

The male voice paused. “Where are you?”

“Somewhere between Kursk and Verkhnee Turovo.”

Another pause. “The middle of nowhere.”

“We’re lucky we made it this far without any help from you. What happened?”

“Stupid. Flat tire. He was a half hour late.”

“Didn’t seem prudent to wait around.”

“I understand.”

“We lost two men. I need help. Now. We’re dead in the water.” Yulia gave a clipped summary of their situation with the police and the van.

Another pause stretched uncomfortably. “Bad news. We don’t have anyone nearby. If you can make it across the border, we have a cell there that will assist.”

“Did you not understand that we’re on foot, with the police scouring the area? I have my own people once we’re across the border. But we’re in trouble right now, and we need help.”

“I got that. But I don’t have any resources that can make it to you in less than…six hours.”

“Six hours? From Moscow?”

“Correct.”

Jet looked at her watch and shook her head. It would be light in three or so more hours, and with dawn would come workers – and cops.

“That’s of no use.”

“I’m sorry. Do the best you can and call when you’re clear.”

Yulia slammed the handset down in frustration. Mikhail appeared in the doorway with a half-full bottle of vodka, the look on his face saying he’d heard enough to piece together the gist of the discussion.

“So we’re screwed?” he asked, and took a long pull on the bottle.

“We need to get to the border,” Yulia said.

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Evgeny asked from behind Mikhail.

Yulia glanced at the vodka with disapproval and held out her hand. “Not drunk. Give me the bottle.”

Mikhail shook his head. “Don’t sweat it. There isn’t much in it.” Yulia moved toward him and he backed up. “Maybe instead of ordering us around, you should figure out how we’re going to make it to the border,” he said belligerently. Jet watched the confrontation and wondered how much of the bottle he’d already downed. “So far this has been a disaster at every turn.”

“You’re out of prison, walking around a free man, so not that bad,” Yulia said, an edge to her voice. “Mikhail, we need to cooperate, not fight. Please don’t waste our energy on this crap.”

He took another deep draught of the vodka and handed it to Evgeny. “Finders keepers. Let me know when you’ve come up with a plan. I’m going to rest for a bit while the female big brains strategize.” Mikhail sneered at Jet and turned unsteadily on his heel.

Jet watched him go and eyed Yulia. “Charming. Now we have a drunk on our hands.”

“He’ll be okay. He’s just a hothead sometimes,” she said.

Jet moved to the phone. “I have to make a call.”

“Who to?”

“To let my people know I’m okay.”

Yulia digested the ambiguous answer and sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m going to stay while you speak to them.”

Jet shrugged. “Do whatever you want.”

“Don’t give them any specifics.”

“Because…why, exactly? After taking on half the Russian police force, I’m somehow going to sell you out? To whom?”

Yulia scowled. “Humor me.”

“Don’t worry. They can’t do any more to reach us than your miracle worker. We’re on our own. I just want to let them know I’m alive.”

Yulia sat on the moldy bed in silence as Jet dialed a number in Romania and waited as the line trilled. After a full minute the innkeeper answered, obviously disgruntled and half asleep.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she snapped.

“Sorry. I need to speak with room four.”

“Everyone’s asleep, and there’s no phone in the room.”

“There was the last time I stayed there.”

“We’re remodeling. Lost the upstairs lines in a storm.”

“Knock on the door,” Jet said.

“I’m not going to wake one of our guests. You can leave a message and I’ll give it to them in the morning.”

Jet debated whether to push it with the grumpy woman and elected to be diplomatic. “Tell them Mama’s fine and will contact them as soon as possible.”

“That’s it?”

No, you stupid crone, I could fill a book with all the things I want to say. But that’s enough for Matt to understand that I’m okay and to stay put.

Jet kept her voice flat. “One more thing. Research Leo Filipov – my attorney’s brother.” Matt was aware of the elder Filipov’s untimely demise and would know why she was mentioning it.

“Spell it.”

Jet did and the woman grumbled the message back to her before hanging up. Jet replaced the handle in the cradle. Yulia looked at her quizzically. “Mama?”

“Code.”

“Ah.” Yulia hesitated. “What do you think we should do now?”

“Worst case, we walk.”

“We’ll be spotted in no time.”

“We’re sitting ducks here once it’s light out.” Jet sat on the bed beside Yulia and exhaled with fatigue. “I don’t have all the answers. But we can’t just give up. Failure isn’t an option.”

They discussed possible tactics, and after a long debate that resolved nothing, Jet checked the time on her filched watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours or so before daybreak.” She rolled her stiff shoulders back a few times and stood. “Let’s see if there’s anything in the barn that can help us. Did you grab the submachine gun? I left it in the living room with the bag from the market and the raincoat.”

“No.”

Jet cocked her head. “Awfully quiet downstairs, isn’t it?”

“They’re probably sleeping. Drunk.”

Jet’s brow furrowed and she nodded. “Let’s go wake them up.”

Evgeny and Mikhail ran back toward the road, their breath steaming in the cold, the submachine gun slung around Mikhail’s neck.

Evgeny called out to Mikhail, holding the side of his rib cage. “Slow down. I can’t keep up.”

Mikhail glared back at him over his shoulder, disgust curling his lip. “We’re almost there. You can make it.”

“No. Really…”

“I should have just left you back with the women,” Mikhail spat.

Evgeny’s voice softened. “I still don’t like leaving them.”

“They’ll get us killed, idiot. They’re flailing. Better they get caught than all of us. We should have split up back in Moscow.”

They’d discussed sneaking away after they had finished the bottle of cheap vodka, Mikhail’s dislike of being ordered around by Jet coloring his mood as he’d built a case for abandoning Yulia with her. The contact who’d promised them safe passage to the Ukraine had turned out to be all empty promises, leaving them no choice, in Mikhail’s view. Trying to make it on foot was foolishness of the lowest order, and he wanted no part of it.

“You really think this will work?” Evgeny asked, struggling to match Mikhail’s pace.

“It has to.”

The idea was to make it to the road, wait until laborers began their predawn journey to the fields, and carjack a vehicle. It had seemed preferable to waiting in the farmhouse for certain disaster, but now that they were out in the open, Evgeny was having second thoughts – and as his blood alcohol level diminished, Mikhail’s bold plan was beginning to seem like ill-advised impulsiveness that could get them both killed.

Sirens had gone by in the distance twice since they’d been on the dirt track, and Mikhail’s certainty that the road would be full of early-morning farmworkers with serviceable transportation now appeared questionable to Evgeny.

“What if they bring the workers in using buses?” he asked, his breathing heavy.

“Then we’ll steal a bus. Force the driver to take us to the border. We’ve got the gun, remember? We’re in charge.”

“Maybe we should have left it for them…”

“Why? This is about survival of the fittest. We need it more than they do.” Mikhail spit to the side as he ran, narrowly missing Evgeny. “You’ll see. This was the right move.”

“What do we do when we get to the border?”

“We’ll worry about that when we get there. In this area, there isn’t a barrier once you’re off the road. We can just walk across.”

“There are patrols. And minefields.”

“Jesus,” Mikhail exploded. “You worry more than my grandmother. Give it a rest, would you? I should just shoot you myself and get it over with,” he muttered.

Evgeny pretended not to hear the last bit, but his misgivings flared from a tiny ember to a brushfire in his gut. Mikhail must have been drunker than he’d seemed at the farmhouse, and now they were fully exposed in a Russian field with nothing more than high hopes and desperation.

The flash of emergency lights faded as they neared the road, the last of the police convoy racing to the scene of the shooting, leaving the surroundings silent. Mikhail looked toward Kursk, the city’s glow faint on the near horizon, and grunted. “There’ll be something as we get closer. We just have to stay out of sight. We’ll hear anything coming our way, so that shouldn’t be too hard.”

Evgeny was too fatigued and befuddled from the alcohol to argue, and trudged behind Mikhail on the shoulder, the only living beings on the road. After what seemed like an eternity they neared a two-story building built from rough-hewn local timber, its restaurant sign illuminated, two beat cars in its gravel parking lot. Mikhail grinned in triumph. “See? What did I tell you? We’re home free.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on.”

Mikhail strode to the entrance and kicked the door open with a crash. A teenage waitress and two cooks looked up from the TV they were watching with shocked expressions. Both cooks raised their hands at the sight of gun-wielding intruders, and the nearest one sized Mikhail up. “We don’t have any money. No customers – we aren’t even open yet.”

Mikhail covered the distance between them in four steps and slammed the man in the jaw with the butt of the submachine gun. The weapon fired, Mikhail so impaired he’d neglected to remove his finger from the trigger when he struck the cook, and rounds pounded harmlessly into the wooden walls, the explosions deafening in the room. The girl screamed and held her hands over her ears as the wounded cook slumped to the floor, his hand on his ravaged face.

“The cars. Where are the keys?” Mikhail screamed.

The other cook pointed to the cash register. “There. Take it. It’s the red Honda.”

Mikhail moved to the register and scooped up the keys. Evgeny could see that he was debating shooting everyone and called to him, breaking the murderous spell.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Mikhail nodded slowly, as if coming awake, and then they were outside and running for the car. Mikhail stopped where the power and phone lines connected to the building and ripped them from the wall. After surveying the damage with satisfaction, Mikhail slid behind the wheel of the Honda, twisted the key, and started the engine. He backed out of the lot in a spray of gravel and tore off, laughing as he fishtailed before bringing the steering under control.

“Whooh! You see that? What did I say? Easy, right?” he screamed, a manic gleam in his eyes.

“Yeah. But slow down. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

Mikhail continued speeding as though he hadn’t heard Evgeny. “I should have shot them.”

“No reason to. And the girl was just a kid.”

“Collateral damage. I should have killed them.”

They rode in silence, the road empty until a pair of fast-moving headlights approached from the opposite direction. Mikhail slowed slightly from the breakneck pace just in time to see a pickup truck with state police markings pass them. Evgeny twisted his head and watched as the truck stood on its brakes and executed a clumsy U-turn.

“Oh, shit…” he said.

Mikhail floorboarded the gas as the truck’s roof lights lit up.

The Honda’s four-cylinder engine was no match for the larger vehicle’s turbo diesel, and the truck quickly gained on them even as Mikhail redlined the tachometer. Dark forest blurred by on either side as he fought to keep the sedan on the road in the turns, but on the straightaways the truck pulled within a few car lengths of the back bumper.

“The cooks or waitress must have had a cell phone,” Evgeny cried, his words lost in the motor’s howl.

“Hang on,” Mikhail warned through gritted teeth, and at the next curve downshifted and floored the throttle for traction, hoping to bait the truck into taking the bend too fast. The ruse didn’t work, but the sudden demands were too much for the Honda’s bald tires, and the rear passenger side shredded and sailed into the air.

Evgeny screamed as Mikhail lost control and the Honda slammed into the trees at better than 150 kilometers per hour, the steering wheel breaking Mikhail’s neck instantly as Evgeny flew through the windshield from sudden deceleration, his last vision the gnarled bark of a pine tree before his upper body liquefied on impact.

The police truck skidded to a stop nearby and the cops jumped from the cab, guns drawn. The driver pointed at the twisted remains of the car, the chassis almost unrecognizable, and switched on the spotlight mounted by the side mirror. The men surveyed the damage and the driver snorted humorlessly.

“Nobody walked away from that.”

The other cop nodded. “Saves the state the expense of a trial.”

The driver took another glance at the wrecked car and reached for the radio mic. “Good riddance.”

Moscow, Russia

Rudolf was at his desk before dawn, as was his custom, finishing up last-minute details of his private security work for clients like Leo before starting with his official duties. Nobody dared to question the hours he kept, the assumption being that their own time would appear slothful in comparison, and Rudolf was of sufficient rank within the intelligence apparatus that his superiors left him to his own devices.

Leo’s plane had been delayed, and he’d been stuck in Africa longer than he’d hoped due to a mechanical problem. He’d lost a day as a critical but minor part had been flown from Paris along with a mechanic whose hourly rate was on par with many high-end escorts. The entire process had clearly annoyed him no end, and his last conversation with Rudolf had been terse.