Tucker actually believed him.
Anya returned early by herself and prepared to return below.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
“I . . . I did what I had to do,” she said, blushing a bit. “I left the boys so they could have some privacy to do the same.”
Tucker glanced down to Kane. It wasn’t a bad idea. It would be another four hours before they stopped again. “How about it, Kane? Wanna go see a man about a horse?”
2:38 P.M.
As the Olga continued to glide down the Volga, the group dozed, stared out the portholes, or read. Occasionally Misha would quietly announce landmarks no one could see: a good spot for sturgeon fishing, or a mecca for crawfish hunting, or a village that had played a major or minor part in Russian history.
Utkin and Anya traded scientific journals and pored over them. Bukolov studied his notes, occasionally stopping to scribble some new thought or idea.
With nothing else to do himself, Tucker drifted in a half drowse—until Bukolov abruptly slid next to him and nudged him alert.
“What do you make of this?” the doctor said.
“Pardon?”
Bukolov pushed a thin journal into his hand. It was clearly old, with a scarred leather cover and sewn-in yellowed, brittle pages. “This is one of De Klerk’s later journals.”
“Okay, so?”
Bukolov took it back, scowled at him, and flipped the pages back and forth. He then bent the book open, spread it wide, and pointed to the inner seam. “There are pages missing from this last diary of De Klerk’s. See here . . . note the cut marks near the spine.”
“You’re just noticing this now?” Tucker asked.
“Because the entries seemed to follow along smoothly. No missed dates, and the narrative is contiguous. Here, just before the first missing pages, he talks about one of the men in his unit complaining of mysterious stomach pains. After the missing pages, he begins talking about his Apocalypse Seed—where he found it, its properties, and so on.”
Not able to read or speak Afrikaans, Tucker had to take the doctor’s word for it, but the man was right. The cut marks were there.
“Why would he do this?” Tucker asked.
“I can only think of one reason,” Bukolov replied. “Paulos de Klerk was trying to hide something. But what and from whom?”
7:55 P.M.
Misha announced another pit stop and guided the Olga toward shore. It was the third landfall of the day, near sunset. He wanted one more chance to stock up his solar batteries for the night. He pulled them up to another abandoned fishing dock. Clearly he had planned their route carefully, choosing backwater locations for their ports of call.
As the hatch was unsealed, Tucker was immediately struck by the cloying rotten-egg stench of the place, undercut by a heady mix of petroleum and burned oil.
“Ugh,” Anya said, pinching her nose. “I’m staying inside. I don’t have to use the bathroom that badly.”
Tucker did, as did Kane. So they headed out with Utkin and Bukolov.
The cove here was surrounded by swamp, choked with densely packed grasses and reeds, interspersed with dead dwarf pines. A maze of wooden boardwalks zigzagged through the marshy area, paralleling aboveground pipes. At several intersections, car-sized steel cones protruded out of the oil-tinged water.
“Apologies for the ugly scenery,” Misha called. “This is a Lukoil station—propane, I believe. Those metal funnels are burp valves. Sad. Before Lukoil bought the land, there was a fishing village here named Saray. Known for very good sturgeon. No more.”
The group wandered around the dock area, which forked in several directions, all of which seemed to head inland toward the ghost town of Saray.
“Tucker, come look at this!” Utkin called somewhere to his right.
With Kane at his heels, Tucker followed the boardwalk to where the other two men were standing beside a section of submerged gas pipe. He noted the water roiling there. He plunged his hand into the marsh and slid his palm over the pipe’s slimy surface until he found what he was looking for—an open control valve. He continued probing until his fingers touched a short length of chain. Dangling at the end was a padlock. Its hasp had been cut in half.
Sabotage.
“Go!” he yelled to the others. “Back to the sub!”
“What is it?” Utkin asked. “What—?”
He stiff-armed Utkin away. “Get Bukolov to the sub!”
Still kneeling, Tucker hollered to the sub, “Misha!”
“What is it?”
“A gas leak! Get under way!”
Tucker fought back the questions filling his head—like who, how, and when—and drew his gun. He searched the water and spotted a thumb-thick section of a pine branch floating nearby. He snatched it with his free hand and crammed it into the mouth of the leaking valve, like a cork in a bottle. The bubbling gas slowed to a sputter.
An ominous thumping echoed over the swamp, seeming to come from every direction at once.
Helicopter rotors.
Tucker burst to his feet and ran. Kane kept to his side.
Backlit by the setting sun, Misha was slipping through the sub’s conning tower hatch. The others had already made it aboard. Misha paused when he spotted Tucker’s flight.
Tucker waved his arm. “Go, go!”
Misha hollered back. “A cannery! Four miles downstream! I will wait!”
He vanished below, yanking the hatch.
Behind the Olga, a helicopter appeared across the river, streaking over the surface. It swooped over the sub, banked hard, then slowed to a hover above the marsh. It was a civilian chopper, not a Havoc assault bird. It seemed General Kharzin’s influence and reach had limits this far from his home territory.
The helo’s side door opened, and a slim figure appeared, carrying a fiery red stick in one hand. Leaning out, a long tail of blond hair whipped in the rotor wash.
Tucker’s heart clenched into a tight fist.
Felice Nilsson.
Back from the dead.
From fifty yards away, he raised his pistol and fired. The bullet struck the fuselage beside Felice’s head. She jerked back out of sight, but it was too late. As if moving in slow motion, the flaming flare dropped from her hand and spun downward.
Tucker swung away and took off at a sprint, Kane at his heels.
Somewhere behind he heard a whoosh, followed a split second later by a muffled explosion. Without looking, Tucker knew what was happening. The closely packed marsh grass had trapped the heavier-than-air propane as it leaked from the sabotaged pipe, creating a ground-hugging blanket of gas.