The Spy Who Came for Christmas (6 page)

^{He thought of the restaurant owner whose front teeth he'd pulled out with pliers, when the Pakhan had wanted the man punished for failing to make a loan payment. Somehow, the man's screams hadn't prevented Kagan from hearing the clatter of the teeth when he'd dropped them to the floor.}

^{He thought of the legs he'd broken and the homes he'd burned, the cars whose brakes he'd caused to fail and the water faucets he'd opened in the middle of the night, flooding businesses whose owners had refused to pay protection money. Again and again, he'd been compelled to prove himself to the Pakhan, to be increasingly brutal in order to gain admission to the inner circle and search for connections between Middle Eastern terrorists and the Russian mob.}

^{He recalled how adamantly his mission controllers had refused to pull him out. There was always something bigger, something more dangerous that they needed him to pursue. They seemed determined to involve him in the mission forever, no matter how deeply he descended into hell.}

^{Not any longer,
Kagan mentally told the baby.
It's finished. I ended it because of you. Did I blow my cover because I wanted out or because you're worth the price?}

^{His weariness was such that, when the baby twisted against him, he almost believed it was assuring him that he'd done the right thing.}

^{Lord help me, I hope so,
he thought.}

^{In the blue haze of the snowfall, he peered down and noticed that there was only one set of footprints ahead of him now.}

^{Worse, they came in his direction.}

^{And they were half full.}

^{My tracks'll be obvious,
he thought, feeling a deeper chill.}

^{Suddenly, his dizziness from blood loss threw him off balance. Feeling the baby kick under his parka, he held it firmly with his good arm and jerked out his injured one to balance himself. He groaned from the pain but managed not to fall.}

^{Rapid clouds of frosted breath came from his mouth. The cold mountain air made his tongue dry. He moved forward again, parallel to the footprints, hoping to make it appear that someone had left home to look at the decorations on Canyon}

^{Road and had recently come back, that the two sets of prints belonged to the same person, leaving and returning.}

^{Still dizzy, he reached a gate on his left. Beyond it, the faint footprints came from the side of a one-story adobe house. Its support beams projected from the flat roof in the manner of Native America pueblos. A covered porch stretched from one side of the house to the other.
But they don't call it a porch here,
a hotel clerk had told him.
It's called a--}

^{Stop losing focus!
Kagan thought in dismay His sense of being trapped in a snow globe had become so strong that it seemed as if the rest of the neighborhood no longer existed, that this house was the only place in the world. As he stared, it began to resemble a holiday postcard. A pine-bough wreath was on the front door. A row of colored lights hung above it. To the right, a window revealed a dark living room illuminated by a fire in a hearth and lights on a Christmas tree. He smelled the peppery fragrance of pinon smoke coming from the chimney.}

^{The only house in the world? Don't I wish,
he thought.}

^{The baby moved under his parka, and Kagan wondered if it sensed how exhausted he was, that he would soon collapse, that this house was their only chance. He stepped closer to the upright cedar limbs of a coyote fence, straining to see if there was any movement in the shadows beyond the main window.}

^{To the left, a light glowed behind another window, this one small. Kagan saw a suggestion of cupboards and concluded that the light was in the kitchen, but he still didn't notice any activity. The place seemed deserted.}

^{Maybe the tracks belong to someone who lives here alone,
Kagan thought.
Maybe he or she went for a walk and turned the kitchen light on to make it appear that the house is occupied.}

^{But misgivings made Kagan frown. Would someone have gone out and left a fire in the hearth?
It's not something
I'd
do,
he decided.
No, I can't assume the house is deserted.}

^{He directed his weary gaze farther to the left, where he saw a snow-obscured shed and a garage.
I can try to hide there,
he thought.
Maybe it'll appear as if the tracks belong to someone who returned to the side door of the house.
He glanced behind him, worried that his hunters would suddenly appear, phantoms racing through the snowfall, guns raised, overwhelming him.}

^{Continuing to use his good arm to secure the baby under his parka, he reached his wounded one toward the gate's metal bolt. He bit his lip in a useless effort to distract himself from the pain. Then he tugged the bolt to the side and pushed the gate open.}

^{* * *}

^{"PAUL, YOU'LL SPEND
a month in a Russian prison in Omsk. That's in Siberia. The official records will indicate that you were a prisoner there for thirteen years. Russian prisons are notoriously overcrowded. The inmates seldom get a chance to mingle. It won't}

^{be suspicious if inquiries are made and none of the prisoners remembers how long you were really there.}

^{"We'll put Russian prison tattoos on your chest. Barbed wire with thirteen prongs indicates the number of years you supposedly were in prison. A cat and a spider within a web indicate that you're a thief. A candlestick indicates that you're dangerous, that you're not afraid to put out someone's light. We'll give you a blood thinner before you're tattooed. The increased bleeding will make the tattoos look old and faded.}

^{"We have a source who'll teach you details of Omsk at the time you supposedly were taken off the streets. Your story is that you're an orphan born there, a street kid who moved around a lot, running from the authorities until they put you in prison. Hard to disprove. A month in that prison ought to be enough for you to be able to answer questions about details only someone who served time there could know.}

^{"After that, we've arranged for you to escape and take a black market route out of Russia. You'll make the traditional criminal pilgrimage to Brighton Beach, where you'll go through the inevitable rites of passage to be accepted.}

^{"Paul, you've worked undercover before. The drill remains the same. The big difference is that this time you'll be doing it longer."}

^{"And that the people I'm trying to fool are more dangerous. Exactly how much longer is the assignment?"}

^{"We don't know. The rumors we're picking up indicate that something big is set to happen between the Russian mob and Al- Qaeda in the next twelve months. Maybe it's a suitcase bomb the mob took from one of those nuclear bases that were left unguarded when the Soviet Union collapsed. There's a strong chance you'll prevent an attack much worse than what happened on 9/11."}

^{* * *}

^{ANDREI'S RIGHT HAND
felt cold. Its thin leather glove didn't provide enough insulation against the grip of his pistol. He pulled his left hand from his ski-jacket pocket, switched the Glock over to it, and shoved his right hand into the jacket, flexing his fingers, warming them.}

^{In the dim illumination from snow-hazed lights, he and his companions followed prints in the snow. They came to a wall.}

^{Andrei aimed to the right, toward a fence and the window- less side of a house. There wasn't any indication that someone had gone in that direction. He swung to the left toward a walkway between two rows of small buildings. A half-dozen sets of footprints led toward entrances. He hurried along, seeing the prints become fewer and fewer until only one set continued past the buildings.}

^{I've almost got you,
Andrei thought.}

^{Abruptly, he came to another wall.}

^{Inexplicably, the footprints didn't turn around. They just ended. Andrei stared at them, mystified. He stepped closer to the wall. It was made of upright boards that looked to be about ten feet high.}

^{Pyotyr, you couldn't have climbed them,, not with one arm wounded, not holding the baby under your coat. So where the hell did you go?}

^{Baffled, Andrei stepped even closer and touched the surface. He exhaled quickly when a board fell away, revealing a low gap that was wide enough for a man to crawl through.}

^{Clever. Are you waiting on the other side, ready to shoot us as we squirm into sight?}

^{The Pakhan's voice blurted from the earbud under Andrei's cap.
"Have you found the package?
Our clients will be here any moment! Even if I give back the money, they'll demand someone be punished for failing to deliver what they need. It won't be me! They'll hunt you! I'll help them!"}

^{Crouching, studying the gap in the wall, Andrei murmured to the microphone on his ski jacket. "We're close," he lied.}

^{"You see Pyotyr?"}

^{"It's too risky to talk. He'll hear me."}

^{"You
govnosos,
get the package!"}

^{Andrei felt the insult as he would a slap.}

^{"Don't call me that."}

^{"I'll do whatever I want, you incompetent
kachok."}

^{Andrei struggled to keep his fury from distracting him. Chest heaving, he stared toward the gap in the wall. He shifted to the right and left, using various angles to assess the area beyond. The footprints seemed to go straight ahead. But that didn't prove anything, Andrei knew. Pyotyr might have veered to the side and doubled back to ambush them as they crawled through.}

^{We're wasting time. My friend, I won't let you make this even worse for me!}