The Kremlin Phoenix (36 page)

General Sorokin’s eyes narrowed. “I
think that would be possible. Now?”

Craig nodded.

“Good luck,” General Sorokin
said, then strode past the seated pilots to where Dale Tagitt was speaking to
the other civilians holding the secrecy agreements. “I demand to be released
immediately! I am a General in the Russian Air Force! I refuse to be treated
like this! Your President will hear of this from my government.”

All eyes turned towards General
Sorokin while Craig, Valentina and his father slipped quietly towards the
nearest army truck. Craig climbed in to find the keys in the ignition. He
started the engine as Valentina and his father climbed in beside him, then put
the truck into reverse and stamped on the gas. The heavy truck shot backwards,
silencing the argument between Sorokin and Tagitt and crashing through the
wooden doors. Outside, startled police and military scattered as the truck
broke through their ranks. Craig slammed on the brakes, shifted into first gear
and sent the truck rumbling forward.

“Where to?” Craig asked, as he
switched on the lights.

“There are choppers over the
plane,” his father said, pointing to news helicopters circling the wrecked
airbus.

Craig swerved toward the runway
where the downed A320 lay, narrowly missing an unusually tall JTSB officer.

Nogorev rolled sideways, as the
truck sped past, then he saw a Japanese police officer running to his squad car.
He jumped to his feet and sprinted to the car, catching the policeman as the engine
came to life. Nogorev pulled the officer from the car, clubbed him in the head
with his gun, and pushed his unconscious body aside. Before any of the other
police realized what was happening, Nogorev had the squad car racing after the
fleeing lorry. Behind him, three more police cars started after the truck,
their sirens and lights drawing the attention of the circling helicopters who
began transmitting the chase live to the world.

The truck had a head start, but
was slow compared to Nogorev’s police car. He closed the distance quickly, drawing
his machine pistol and firing at the truck’s rear wheel. The first few bullets
struck the wheel hub and the side of the chassis, narrowly missing the tires.

Inside the truck’s cab, they
heard the ricochets. Craig saw the police car through his rear vision mirror,
and a dark form firing at them.

“The police are shooting at us!”
he said, surprised.

Valentina leaned forward, caught
a glimpse of the car and the form with the dark cap, then yelled, “It’s not the
police!”

She drew her gun and fired out of
the passenger window as Craig swerved away from the police car. Nogorev
accelerated after them, closing the distance and fired from point blank range
at the tire. The truck shuddered as the tire blew, but didn’t slow, then one of
Valentina’s bullets punched through the windscreen, passing above Nogorev’s
shoulder.

The Spetsnaz assassin flinched,
slammed his foot down hard on the accelerator and fired a carefully aimed shot
at Valentina. She groaned, dropping her gun outside the truck and fell back into
the cab. Colonel Balard caught her and pressed his hands against her shoulder,
stemming the blood as Craig swerved sharply towards Nogorev, trying to ram him.
The police car slammed into the side of the truck, driving it onto its side.
The car careened off the trucks heavy suspension, flipped tail up and somersaulted
over the truck, landing on its roof.

When the truck skidded to a halt
on its side, Craig blinked blood from his eyes, dazed from striking his head.
He kicked the shattered windscreen away and crawled out, dragging his father
and Valentina with him. When they were all clear, he turned toward the wrecked police
car. It lay on its roof, facing the overturned truck. A fire was burning at the
rear where the gas tank had ruptured, silhouetting Nogorev’s dark form as he
struggled to free himself.

He’s still alive!
Craig realized as he staggered toward the police car. He drew his
gun as Nogorev’s head and shoulders appeared through the driver’s window,
desperately trying to crawl free of the car before the flames consumed it. Blood
and glass fragments covered the left side of his face, and his left arm hung
limply by his side.

“My leg is pinned!” Nogorev wheezed
desperately.

“Show me your hands!” Craig
yelled, wiping blood from his eyes, trying to see clearly.

Nogorev winced. “My arm is
broken!”

“Both of them!” Craig yelled,
remembering Valentina’s warning never to give them a chance.

“I can’t move it! Help me!
Please!”

“Let me see your other arm!”

“I can’t move . . . “ Nogorev said,
shaking his head weakly, on the brink of unconsciousness, yet pushing weakly
with his unseen right hand to escape the burning wreck.

 “Show me your other hand, and I’ll
help you!” Craig stumbled closer to the police car.

“I’m trapped,” Nogorev groaned,
making a show of trying to free his right hand.

The sound of helicopters filled
the air. Through bleary eyes, Craig glanced up, seeing five news helicopters
circling above, transmitting the scene live around the world. He watched them puzzled,
wondering why they were filming him, then he remembered Mariena’s warning, that
he would suffer
a very public death, seen by the entire world!

He glanced at his watch: it was
9.27 PM

“Twenty two minutes!” he
whispered to himself.

Craig raised his gun unsteadily and
fired, again and again, robotically squeezing off bullet after bullet. Nogorev
shuddered as poorly aimed bullets struck his chest and shoulders. He spasmed
and dropped the Skorpion machine pistol from his right hand.

When Craig stopped firing,
Nogorev’s head turned toward him. “Who . . . are . . . you?”

“Huh?” Craig said, not
understanding.

“CIA? . . . NSA? . . . You
screwed up . . . everything. . . . Who are you?”

Craig lowered the gun, surprised.
“I’m nobody. I do mergers and acquisitions,” he said, dropping the gun on the
ground.

Nogorev’s face filled with
confusion and anger. “Liar,” he wheezed, coughing blood, then his head rolled
sideways as he died.

The car’s fuel tank exploded,
spewing flames through the upturned car, and knocking Craig to the ground. He
lay dazed as three police cars pulled up with lights flashing. Police jumped
out and ran towards him, yelling in Japanese.

Overhead, a swarm of news
helicopters circled while other news crews were running towards them from the
terminal building. A few meters away, a spotlight from one of the news
helicopters focused on Colonel Balard, kneeling on the ground, still holding
Valentina’s shoulder with one hand as she lapsed into unconsciousness. He
raised his other hand towards the helicopters, holding it steady for the
cameras to zoom in on.

Craig squinted as he tried to see
what was in his father’s hand.

Colonel Balard held the dog tags
Craig had given him when they’d first met, and the timeline reset for the last
time.

* * * *

Prime Minister Gundarovsky neared the
end of his speech, the first he’d given since the collapse of the coup and the
arrest of the Emergency Committee members. His office was crowded with TV
cameras, lights and news crews. Unlike those who had led Russia in previous
centuries, he was comfortable with cameras and photographed well. In his
Russia, the media had a new found power that would be hard to destroy.

It was the money that made it
possible. Bribes to key army officers had lifted martial law. Other payments to
internal security leaders had caused the lifting of controls on the media.
Before the Emergency Committee could react, he paid the armed forces and the
police all the back pay they were due, assuring their loyalty. Once in control,
he guaranteed the bureaucracy their jobs were safe and presented proof he’d
repaid many of the foreign loans crippling Russia’s economy, and promised the
populace that the coup leaders would be punished. Only Defense Minister
Tarkovskoi would escape trial, because he shot himself to avoid the humiliation
of arrest.

Standing well behind the cameras
at the far end of the office, Bill Corman watched the Prime Minister’s speech
with mixed feelings. President Tokarev had been released, but had not yet
returned to the Kremlin; the Zamok Branka survivors were now making global
headlines, proof that the old Russia was gone and a new, free Russia had been
born; and America had backed the winner, which meant closer relations in the
future. It had all inspired a strange optimism, but he knew Russia was still a
basket case and the threat of a hard line revolution would haunt the country
for years to come.

Alexander Karmanov whispered, “What
will you do now?”

“I’m heading back to the States. There’ll
be congressional inquiries, senate hearings and a god awful media circus, but
it’ll blow over.”

“What will happen to the Zamok
Branka men?”

“They’ll go home, wherever that
is. They won’t recognize it, a lot has changed. And there’ll be bridges to
mend.”

“People will go on,” Karmanov said.
“They’ll forget, and perhaps, there’ll be no more secrets.”

Corman gave him a dubious look. “There’ll
always be secrets.”

“What will happen to Craig Balard?
We owe him everything, yet he is wanted for murder in your country.”

“He’ll be exonerated, and who
knows, maybe the media will make a hero out of him – once the full story gets
out.”

Karmanov smiled. “He’s an
unlikely hero, but he’s given us a chance for peace.”

“Peace in our time,” Corman agreed.
It was what he’d wanted all along.

* * * *

“I’m not a pretty sight,” Nikki said a
little sadly over the phone. “But give me a few months, and I’ll be as good as
new.”

“I won’t need a few months,” Craig
assured her. “I can’t wait to see you again, no matter how you look!”

“You sweet talking shyster.”

“And I have a surprise for you.”

“What kind of surprise?” Nikki
asked, intrigued.

“Actually, two surprises.” He
hadn’t bought a ring yet, but his mind was made up. The other surprise he wasn’t
sure about it. He’d checked his Swiss account that morning, to discover the
interest payment for holding over a trillion dollars for even a few days had
made him a wealthy man. He figured they’d both earned it, one way or another,
but he’d let Nikki decide if they should keep it to pay for a new house,
perhaps in the Hamptons.

“Two surprises?” she said. “Any
hints?”

“They both relate to the future,
but I’ll keep you in suspense until I see you in person. Got to go. Bye,” he
said, and hung up.

He walked over to where his
father sat with General Sorokin and Valentina in the departure lounge of Tokyo’s
Narita international airport. Valentina had her arm in a sling, and was still
weak, but she’d insisted on checking herself out of hospital to see Craig and
his father off.

They didn’t hurry to join the
line of passengers passing through immigration control for the flight to Los
Angeles. Most of the Zamok Branka men had already flown out on earlier flights.
Only a few remained for medical reasons in Japan. Within a couple of days, all
would be home, adjusting to changes wrought by decades of absence. Any thought
of secret cover stories was forgotten in the blaze of publicity now surrounding
them. Most were being bombarded by lawyers seeking to represent them in class
actions against the government or with offers of film and book deals. It seemed
a bizarre contrast to the ultimatum they’d received only a few days before.

“I hope you’ll come back some
day,” Valentina said, giving Craig a departing kiss on the cheek. “Come to
Russia when things have settled down. There is a whole side of the country you
haven’t seen yet.”

“I might just do that,” Craig said.
“I’ll bring Nikki. You’ll like her, she’s very . . . single-minded.”

General Sorokin shook hands with Colonel
Balard. “When you tell your story, don’t be too hard on us. Things were
different back then.”

Colonel Balard nodded. “I know.”

Craig and his father were the
last to board the aircraft, settling in for the long flight across the Pacific.
After the 747 was airborne, Craig noticed his father lying back in his seat
staring vacantly ahead.

“What is it?”

His father was slow to answer. “I
haven’t seen your mother in a long time. We’ll be strangers.”

“She never remarried, even though
she thought you were dead.”

“In that case, I guess I better
buy some flowers on the way home,” he said with a grin. After a while, his
father said, “You haven’t seen that woman again, have you?”

Craig had told his father all about
Mariena, her pleas for help and her warning about the future world. “No. I’ve
sent several messages, but I don’t think she’s listening anymore.”