“We’ll see,” he replied cryptically, refusing to show his hand.
Tucker drove south for six hours, using the P240’s relatively good condition, and put as much distance between them and Kazan as possible. Throughout the night, he headed deeper into rural farmlands, eventually crossing from one Russian oblast to another. At least the borders between the Russian provinces didn’t have checkpoints. It would have made things much harder.
A couple of hours before dawn, Tucker reached the small town of Dimitrovgrad, a place that had never strayed far from its Soviet-era roots. He circled the major thoroughfares, looking for a hotel with the right mix of anonymity and accommodations. Discovering a suitable location, he booked adjoining rooms on the second floor, one for Anya and her father, the second for Utkin and himself. He posted Kane at the pass-door between the two rooms.
Tucker didn’t want to stay in one place too long. So four hours later, he was already up and about again. He allowed the others a little more sleep and took a short stroll. He also wanted to be alone. As he drove into town last night, he had spotted an Internet café and headed over there. The place smelled of sausages and hot plastic, but at least it was empty at this hour. Five card tables bore nineties-era IBM computers, so old that the modems consisted of rubber cradles into which telephone handsets had been stuffed.
Thankfully, the proprietor, an older man who looked welded to his stool, wasn’t the talkative type. Tucker deciphered the rates from a handwritten sheet on the counter and handed the fellow a hundred rubles. The man waved his arm as if to say take your pick.
The connection was predictably slow. He surfed several Russian newspaper websites. Using the translate feature, he found what he had been looking for—or, more accurately, what he had hoped not to find.
He returned to the hotel to discover both Anya and Utkin had left. Kane was sitting on the bed, watching him expectantly. A moment of frustration fired through him, but it passed quickly. He should have given Kane instructions to keep everyone in their rooms.
He shook Bukolov awake. “Where’s Anya? And Utkin?”
“What?” Bukolov bolted upright in bed. “They’re gone? Have they come for me?”
“Relax.”
Tucker had begun to turn toward the door when it opened. Utkin and Anya stepped through. They were both carrying a cardboard tray filled with steaming Styrofoam cups.
“Where’d you go?” he snapped at them.
“To get tea,” Anya replied, lifting the tray. “For everyone.”
He pushed down his irritation. “Don’t do it again, not without telling me.”
Utkin mumbled an apology.
Anya looked embarrassed and set her tray down.
Bukolov defended his daughter, putting a protective arm around her. “Now see here, Tucker, I won’t have you—”
He pointed a finger at the doctor’s nose and swung it to include the others. “Once you’re out of the country, you can all do as you please. Until then, you’ll do as I say. Innocent blood has already been shed to get you this far, Doctor Bukolov. I won’t have it wasted by stupidity. Not on anyone’s part.”
He stormed into the next room to cool off. Kane followed, tail low, sensing his anger.
Tucker ruffled the shepherd’s fur. “It’s not you. You’re a good boy.”
Utkin joined him, closing the door between the rooms. “I’m sorry, Tucker. I wasn’t thinking.”
He accepted the young man’s apology, but he had another nagging question. “Were you two together the whole time?”
“Anya and I? No, not the entire time. I was up earlier than her. Went for a walk around the block. Sorry, I just needed to get out. All of this is . . . it’s nerve-racking. I couldn’t just sit in this quiet room while the others were sleeping.”
“When did you and Anya meet up?”
He scrunched his nose in thought. “I met her in the parking lot. She had just come from the coffeehouse down the block, carrying the two trays of tea.”
“Which direction was that?”
He pointed. “West.”
“Did you see anyone with her? Talking to her?”
“No. You seem upset. Has something happened—something other than this, I mean?”
He sized the young man up, trying to decide if he was fabricating his side of the story or not. A liar always gave away tells, if you knew where to look. In the end, he decided his opinion of Utkin hadn’t changed. He couldn’t read a shred of artifice in the man’s character.
Tucker explained, “I checked the Kazan news. They’re reporting that Anya Malinov was kidnapped.”
“Well, she was in a way.”
“The reports state that she was taken from an alley outside a nightclub, by a man who killed her male companion.”
Utkin sank to the bed. “Why the cover-up?”
“So they can shape events. But what strikes me as odd is that the fabricated story hit the newswires less than two hours after we left Kazan.”
“That seems very fast. But does it mean something?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Do the reports have your description?”
“No, but by now someone is surely connecting the dots: Anya and her father and me.”
“What about me?”
“They’ll connect that dot, too, eventually.”
Utkin paled. “That means they’ll come after me once you’re all gone.”
“No, they won’t.”
“Why?”
He put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Because you’re coming with us.”
“What? Really?” The relief on his face gave him a puppy-dog look.
Was I ever that simple and innocent?
Tucker knew the guy needed to toughen up. “But I’m going to need you to pull your weight. Have you ever fired a gun?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s time to learn.”
March 14, 9:12 A.M.
Tucker stood out on the balcony of their second-story room to get some air. He heard the pad of feet behind him and glanced over to find Anya leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
“May I speak with you?”
He shrugged.
“I’m sorry for what I did, for what my father said before . . . he was just being defensive. Protective.”
“Your father is . . .” He did his best to sound diplomatic. “He’s not an easy man to get along with.”
“Try being his daughter.”