The flare had ignited it.
Orange-blue flames swirled through the swamp grass, chasing him. Heat seared his back. They reached an intersection and dodged left toward the river where the sub should have been. But it was already gone, sunk away.
The flames caught up with him, outpacing them, surging beneath the boardwalk. Fire spurted between the planks.
The end of the dock loomed ahead.
Tucker put his head down, covered the last few steps to the end of the boardwalk, then jumped. Kane brushed against him as they sailed through the air together—then a wall of fire erupted in front of them.
23
March 16, 8:18 P.M.
The Volga River, Russia
At the last moment, Tucker reached out and curled his arm around Kane’s neck. Together, they plunged through the fire and into the river. While Kane had trained for sudden immersion, his core instinct would be to surface immediately. Cruel though it sounded, Tucker needed to prevent this.
As their plunging momentum slowed, Tucker stuck out his arm, his fingers grasping until he found a clump of roots. He clenched tight and pulled them both toward the mud. Under his other arm, Kane’s body was rock hard with tension, but he did not struggle.
Tucker craned his neck backward and watched the worst of the fire blow out on the surface. The blanket of propane had quickly exhausted itself, but the swamp grass continued to burn. In his blurred vision, the flaming stalks along the marsh edges appeared like so many orange torches against the darkening sky.
One problem down, one big one to go.
Felice and the helicopter were still out there. He knew the Swede was too stubborn to assume the flames had done her work.
Tucker worked his way deeper into the swamplands bordering the river, pulling himself from one clump of roots to another. When his lungs could take no more, he let go and bobbed to the surface.
He immediately heard the thump of rotors back at the dock.
Felice continued to hunt for them, a hawk in the sky.
As he and Kane gulped air, the swamp grass crackled and smoked. Cinders hissed on the water’s surface. Tucker looked at Kane. The shepherd’s eyes were huge, darting left and right. Kane’s animal instincts were screaming Fire! Get away! But his trust in Tucker and his training were holding him in place.
Tucker hugged his partner and whispered in his ear, “We’re okay, we’re okay . . . easy . . . hold on . . .”
The words themselves didn’t matter. It was Tucker’s tone and closeness that made the difference. They were together. The tension eased slightly from the shepherd’s body.
Around them, the fire began dwindling as it devoured the dry tops of the marsh grass, filling the cove with smoke.
Tucker released Kane, and they half paddled, half crawled through the water, heading still deeper into the swamp, aiming for shore. Though it burned his lungs and stung his eyes, he did his best to hide their passage under the thick pall of smoke.
As they drifted into the shallows, the water was only a foot or so deep. The grasses here were greener, still smoldering. Warning bells went off in his head. Though the smoking grass provided cover, it could also serve as a beacon. Their passage risked nudging aside stalks, causing the smoky columns to shift.
From the hovering helicopter, Felice would certainly spot the irregularity.
Slowly, Tucker lowered himself to his belly and wriggled deeper into the mud. He kept Kane close.
Now, wait.
It didn’t take long. With the sun setting, the helicopter crisscrossed the marshes, stirring up the smoke. It finally settled into a gliding hover over the marshy cove. He spotted the shape of the chopper through the pall.
If he could see the helicopter . . .
Not a twitch, Tucker told himself. You’re part of the swamp . . . you’re mud.
After what felt like hours, the chopper finally moved on as dusk settled. Slowly, the thump of the rotors faded away. Still Tucker didn’t move. With the sun down, the temperature dropped rapidly. The cold of the water seeped into his bones. He set his jaw against it.
Wait . . .
As he’d expected, the helicopter returned a few minutes later. Ever the hunter, Felice had hoped her quarry would have taken the invitation to bolt, but Tucker knew better.
There came a sharp crack of a rifle shot. Tucker flinched. His first fear was that Felice had spotted them, but he knew immediately this wasn’t the case.
Felice wouldn’t have missed.
She was trying to flush them out.
Crack!
Another shot, this one closer and somewhere to their left.
Tucker eased his hand over a few inches and laid his palm on Kane’s paw. The shepherd tensed, then relaxed. If Tucker remained calm, so would Kane.
Crack! Crack!
The shots were even closer still. The feeling of utter helplessness was maddening. The shots were coming at irregular intervals now, moving ever closer to their position. Tucker closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. His survival was now down to dumb luck: the random squeeze of a trigger, a pilot’s hand on the chopper’s cyclic control, the vagaries of the wind.
Crack!
This shot was to the right.
Felice had finally passed them.
Afraid to jinx their luck, Tucker held his breath until the next shot came—again to their right, even farther out.
After another agonizing five minutes, the helicopter banked away, and the thump of its rotors slowly faded.
Fearing another return, Tucker remained in the cold water for ten more minutes. By now his limbs were trembling from the cold, his teeth chattering. Night had fully fallen. Above, the sky was clear and sprinkled with stars.
Tucker sat up and rolled onto his hands and knees. He patted Kane on the rump and together they began crawling toward shore.
Once on dry land, they set off south, hugging the shoreline where there were trees for cover and veering inland when there were none, ever wary of the helicopter’s return.
As he hiked, Tucker considered the implications of the ambush. How had Felice found them? The most likely suspect was Misha. He had had time to sell them out during their brief stay at the headquarters of Wild Volga Tours, as well as during the sub’s voyage via radio. But for that matter, any of the others—Utkin, Anya, even Bukolov—had access during one or another of their recharging stops. Any of them could have used the sub’s radio. He hated to believe it, but he also couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that one of his companions was a traitor.
Once again he was letting himself slip into a wilderness of mirrors, where everyone and no one was suspect. But he did have one last ace up his sleeve. Only he and Ruth Harper knew the endgame of their evacuation scheme. All anyone else knew was that the sub’s destination was the Caspian Sea.