Fedor pointed to a ladder on one side. “Up! Through hatch on top.”
Having already cast his dice, Tucker stepped to the ladder and crouched down. He turned to Kane and tapped his shoulder. “UP.”
Backing a step, then leaping, Kane mounted Tucker’s shoulder in a half-fireman carry. Together, they scaled the ladder and crawled across the bowser’s roof to the hatch.
Fedor headed toward the hangar door, leaving behind a warning. “Quiet. I come back.”
Hurrying, Tucker spun the hatch, tugged it open, and poked his head inside. The interior seemed dry.
At least, I won’t be standing hip-deep in gasoline.
He pointed down and Kane dove through the hatch, landing quietly. Tucker followed, not as deftly, having to struggle to pull the hatch closed, too. His boots hit the bottom of the empty tank with a clang. He cringed, going still, but the rumbling arrival of the military vehicle covered the noise.
In complete darkness, Tucker drew his gun, his nose and eyes already stinging from fuel residue. But he also smelled bananas, which made no sense. He shifted to a better vantage, but his foot hit something that sounded wooden.
What the hell . . . ?
He freed his tiny penlight and flicked it on. Panning the narrow beam, he discovered the back half of the bowser’s tank was stacked with crates and boxes, some marked in Cyrillic, others in various languages. He spotted one box bearing a large red cross. Medical supplies. On top of it rested a thick bunch of bananas.
Here was more of Dimitry and Fedor’s smuggling operation.
It seemed he was now part of the cargo.
From outside, he heard muffled Russian voices moving around the hangar—then they approached closer. He clicked off his penlight and gripped the pistol with both hands. It sounded like an argument was under way. He recognized Fedor’s tone, which sounded heated, as if in the thick of a furious negotiation. Then the conversation moved away again and became indiscernible.
After another ten minutes, an engine started, rumbling loudly, wheels squelched on wet tarmac, and the sounds quickly receded. Seconds later, feet clomped up the ladder, and the hatch opened.
Tucker pointed his pistol up.
Fedor scolded, “No shoot, please. Safe now.”
Tucker called out, “Dimitry?”
“They are all gone, my friend!”
Fedor groaned. “Da, da. As I say, safe.”
Tucker climbed up, poked his head out, and looked around. Once confident the hangar was clear, he dropped back down, collected Kane, and climbed out.
“Price higher now,” Fedor announced.
Dimitry explained, “They were looking for you, but mostly they learned about our operations here. Not unusual. Every village in Siberia has such a black-market system. So people talk. The soldiers came mostly to collect what could be most kindly described as a tax.”
He understood. The roving soldiers weren’t above a little extortion.
“Cost me best case of vodka,” Fedor said, placing a fist over his heart, deeply wounded.
“We told them that we were about to leave on a postal run,” Dimitry explained. “After collecting the tax, there should be no problem getting through. Even soldiers know the mail must flow. Or their vodka here might dry up.”
Tucker understood. “ ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor dark of night . . .’ ”
Fedor looked quizzically at him. “Is that poem? You write it?”
“Never mind. How much more do I owe you?”
Fedor gave it much thought. “Two thousand rubles. You pay, da?”
“I’ll pay.”
Fedor clapped his hands together. “Happy! Time to go. Put dog in plane. Then you push plane out, I steer. Hurry, hurry!”
Tucker rushed to comply.
Not exactly first-class service, but he wasn’t complaining.
12
March 11, 11:15 A.M.
Novosibirsk, Siberia
“And how confident are you of Dimitry and Fedor?” Ruth Harper asked.
Tucker stood at a pay phone next to an open-air fish market. The pungent smell of sturgeon, perch, and smelt hung heavily in the cold air. He had spent the previous ten minutes bringing Harper up to speed. He was surprised how happy he was to hear that southern lilt to her voice.
If not Tennessee, then maybe—
“Do you trust those Russians?” she pressed.
“I wouldn’t be making this call if either of them had ratted me out. Plus, I’ve been strolling the snowy streets of Novosibirsk for the past two hours. I’m clean. And it’s still another twelve hundred miles to Perm. If I pick up a tail, I’ll have plenty of time to shake it loose.”
“Still, you’re cutting the rendezvous close.”
“Bukolov will keep. If they—whoever they are—had any idea where he was, they wouldn’t be after me. Which reminds me, any further word about the source of that leak?”
“No luck, yet. But from the story you just told me—one involving GRU and Spetsnaz—we know the enemy has powerful connections in either the Russian government or military. I’m looking hard at the Ministry of Defense, or maybe someone at a cabinet level of the government.”
“Maybe you’d better be looking at both.”
“A scary proposition. Do you want help out there?”
Tucker considered it for a long moment. “For now, no. We’ve got enough players in the field. Makes it confusing enough.”
Plus he liked working alone—well, not quite alone.
He gave Kane, seated at his knee, a reassuring pat.
“If I change my mind, Harper, I’ll let you know.”
“Do that. As it happens, I’ve got nobody to give you right now.”
“Busy on the home front?”
“Always. World’s a dangerous place. At least Sigma can offer you some logistical support. Do you have a wish list for me?”
Tucker did. After reciting the provisions he needed, he signed off. He would find all he asked for once he reached the city of Perm, secured and cached in a safe house.
But first he had to get there.
Harper had arranged clean papers and seemed confident that Russian immigration and customs did not have him on any watch list, making it safe for him to fly. Furthermore, Sigma’s intelligence team had arranged another level of countermeasures, booking false tickets, hotel rooms, and car rentals. He was everywhere and nowhere.
Still, whether it was his inherent wariness of all things governmental or simply a tactical change of mind, Tucker called a local car rental agency after hanging up with Harper and booked an SUV for a one-way trip to Omskaya, some four hundred miles to the west. He had no reason to distrust Sigma, but there was no mistaking the reality of his current situation. He and Kane were out here alone, without any hope of reinforcements.