“But good for us, yes?” Bukolov asked.
Tucker nodded.
Vadim resumed his post at the wheel and said something to Utkin.
“He says your friends are late.”
Tucker checked his watch. “Not by much. They’ll be here.”
They stood in the fog, not talking, waiting.
Then an engine with an angry pitch grew louder, coming toward them. A moment later, the sharp nose of a speedboat glided out of the fog off the port bow. The speedboat drew abeam and a gaff hook appeared and latched on to their gunwale.
With a hand on his pocketed Magnum, Tucker crossed to the port side and cautiously peeked over the rail.
A bald, round-faced man with two gold front teeth smiled and handed a slip of paper up to Tucker. Nine alphanumeric characters had been scrawled on it. Tucker checked them carefully, then handed across his own slip of paper with a similar string of symbols, which the stranger studied before nodding.
It was a coded means of verifying each other, arranged by Harper.
“You are Tucker?” the man asked.
“I am. That must mean you are Misha?”
He got another gold-tinged smile, and Misha stepped back and waved his hand to the speedboat. “Thank you for choosing Wild Volga Tours.”
Tucker collected the others, paid Vadim, then herded everyone onto the other boat.
Misha eyed Kane skeptically as Tucker hauled him down.
“Is he wolf?”
“He thinks so sometimes. But he’s well trained.”
And all the more dangerous for it, Tucker added silently.
His reassurance seemed to satisfy the boatman. “Come. Follow me.”
They set off into the fog, seeming to go much faster than was wise considering the visibility. They wove in and around the river traffic. Even Tucker found himself clinging tightly to one of the boat’s handgrips.
Finally, the engine changed pitch, and the boat slowed. Misha angled toward shore, and a dock appeared out of the mist. He eased them alongside the tire bumpers. Men appeared out of the fog and secured the mooring lines.
“We go now,” Misha said and hopped to the pier.
Tucker led the others and followed their guide through the fog down a wide boardwalk that spanned a swampy area. At the end rose a Quonset hut with pale yellow walls and a riveted roof streaked with so much rust it looked like an abstract painting.
The group stepped inside. To their left, a pair of red-and-blue miniature submarines sat atop maintenance scaffolding. The subs were thirty feet long and seven wide with portholes lining the hull, including along the bottom. Amidships, a waist-high conning tower rose, topped by a hand-wheel-operated entry hatch. Below this, jutting from the subs’ sides, were a pair of adjustable control-planes. At the bow was a clear, bulbous cone, which Tucker assumed was the pilot’s seat.
Tucker turned to the others, who were staring openmouthed at the subs, and said, “Your chariots.”
No one spoke.
“Impressive, da?” Misha said cheerily.
“You’re joking, right?” Utkin asked. “Is this how we’re leaving Volgograd?”
And this, from the most pliable of the group.
Bukolov and Anya remained speechless.
“They’re so very small,” Utkin continued.
“But comfortable, and well stocked,” Misha countered. “And reliable. It may take a while to reach your destination, but we will get you there. To date, we have had only three accidents.”
Anya finally found her voice. “Accidents? What kind of accidents?”
“No injuries or fatalities. Power outages.” Misha shrugged. “We got craned out of the river before the Volga mud swallowed us.”
Anya turned a pleading look toward Tucker. “This is your plan? I am not—”
Surprisingly, Bukolov became the voice of reason, stepping to Anya and curling an arm around her shoulders. “Anya, I am sure it is perfectly safe.”
She did not look convinced.
Leaving the others in the maintenance bay to ogle the submarines, Misha led Tucker into a side office. There, Misha’s friendly grin disappeared. “What your people have asked is very difficult. Do you know how far away the Caspian Sea is?”
“Two hundred eighty-two miles,” Tucker replied. “Taking into account the cruising speed of your submarines, the average recharge time for the sub’s batteries, and the seasonal current of the Volga, we should reach the Caspian in eighteen to twenty-four hours.”
“I see,” he grumbled. “You are well informed.”
“And you’re being well paid.”
Before Misha could reply, Tucker added, “I understand the risk you’re taking, and I’m grateful. So, I’m prepared to offer you a bonus: ten thousand rubles if you get us there safely. On one condition.”
“I am listening.”
“You’re our pilot. You personally. Take it or leave it.”
He wanted more than a financial gamble by the owner of Wild Volga Tours. He wanted his skin involved in the game, too.
Misha stared hard at Tucker, then stuck out his hand. “Done. We leave in one hour.”
22
March 16, 9:34 A.M.
The Volga River, Russia
Misha led the group back the way they’d come, through the swamp to the speedboat. Once aboard, the crew shoved off and headed downriver toward the tour company’s embarkation point. The fog remained thick as the weak morning sun had yet to burn it away.
“What’s that stink?” Utkin asked after a few minutes.
Tucker smelled it, too, a heavy sulfurous stench to the air.
“Lukoil refinery over there,” Misha replied and pointed to starboard. “Much oil businesses along the river.”
“This close to the Volga?” Bukolov said. “Seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”
Misha shrugged. “Many jobs. No one complains.”
The speedboat slowly angled back toward shore, weaving through a maze of sandbars into the mouth of an estuary. Its bow nosed into a narrow, tree-lined inlet and pushed up to a wooden pier, where the boat was tied off. At the other end of the dock, one of Misha’s minisubs bobbed with the waves from their wake, rubbing against the tire bumpers.
“The Olga,” Misha announced. “Named after my grandmother. Lovely woman, but very fat. She too bobbed in the water. But never sank.”
Misha led them to the end of the dock to the Olga. An employee in blue coveralls climbed out of the conning tower hatch and descended the side ladder. He shook Misha’s hand and exchanged a few words.
After clapping the employee on the shoulder, Misha turned to the group. “Checked, stocked, and prepared for takeoff. Who goes first?”