Anya was too skilled not to get worried. “Tucker, what’s wrong?”
He lifted the rifle and pointed it at her. “Raise your arms above your head. If you so much as twitch a finger, I’ll shoot you.”
“What are you doing?” she replied, feigning confusion, but he noted the microexpression of fury that momentarily flashed.
“Five seconds, Anya.”
“Tucker, you’re scaring me.”
The shock that had initially struck Christopher and Bukolov wore off. They began to voice a similar chorus of confused complaints. He ignored them.
“Three seconds.”
He raised the AR to his shoulder.
Anya pushed her arms high. She looked to Bukolov and Christopher for support, fixing an expression of suffering innocence. “Tell me what is happening.”
“My people deconstructed the photo of the Internet café in Dimitrovgrad. It was you, Anya, from the very beginning. You were the traitor. Not Utkin. He was a just a boy, and you set him up to take the fall.”
The complaints from Christopher and Bukolov died away.
“Tucker, please, I don’t know what—”
“Deny it one more time, Anya. One more time and I’ll put a round in your foot.”
She stared up and must have read his seriousness. She kept her gaze fixed on him, showing no shame, but also no satisfaction. “It was not personal. I took no joy in the bloodshed. I liked Utkin. I truly did, but it was necessary. I was given a duty, and I performed it to the best of my abilities.”
Her words lacked any coldness or disdain, only a calm self-assurance.
“How long until your people get here?” he asked.
“I will not tell you.”
“How are they tracking you?”
She just stared.
“Drop to your knees, then to your belly, hands flat on the rock.”
She complied, moving with surprising grace.
“GUARD,” he ordered Kane.
As the shepherd stalked to her side, Tucker passed his weapon to Christopher. “Keep her covered.”
With her under tight watch, Tucker quickly bound her hands and ankles. He frisked her, removing anything he found, including taking her boots and socks. He examined each item, but he found no electronics or trackers.
He was fairly certain she didn’t have a phone, which meant Kharzin’s people had to have been tracking her. But how? He would have to search through her entire pack, strip the Rover down, too.
Tucker noted Bukolov had wandered a few paces away, his back to them.
Concerned, Tucker crossed to him. He didn’t need the guy falling apart. Bukolov wasn’t the most stable of personalities even on his good days.
“Doc?”
Bukolov glanced to him and away, but not before Tucker noted the tears. “He died thinking I hated him.”
Utkin.
“I was such a fool,” Bukolov said. “How can I forgive myself?”
“Because Utkin would want you to.” He placed a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. “He knew our distrust of him was based on deceit. He saved us because he wouldn’t let that lie define him. We have to honor that.”
Bukolov nodded, wiping his eyes. “I will try to do that.”
“Forget Anya. Forget all of it. I’m going to get you inside that cave, and you’re going to find that sample of LUCA. That’s all that matters now.”
“What about Kharzin’s team?”
“Let me worry about them. Concentrate on what you came here to do. The sooner you find LUCA, the sooner we can leave—with any luck, before the enemy arrives. Are you with me, Doc?”
Bukolov straightened, took a deep breath, and nodded firmly. “I am with you.”
Tucker glanced back to Anya, still on her belly, her arms tied behind her back, guarded over by Christopher and Kane.
It was time to turn her betrayal to his advantage.
37
March 21, 6:12 P.M.
Groot Karas Mountains, Namibia
Standing at the edge of the pond, Tucker passed a gun to Bukolov. It was a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver. Though it only held five rounds, it was a personal favorite: for its size, accuracy, and reliability. All too often, surviving a firefight relied more on the quality of the gun than the quantity of the rounds. He’d rather have five good shots than ten poor ones any day.
“Do you know how to use a gun?” Tucker asked.
Bukolov turned the revolver over in his hands. “Finger squeezes here. Bullets come out there. I think I can manage.” He glanced down to Anya, still on her belly and bound up. “Can I shoot her?”
“Not unless she gets free and charges you. Otherwise, we’re leaving you here to guard her until we get back.”
Christopher stood off to the side. The pair of them were going to return to the Range Rover, where Anya’s pack was still stored. He intended to search both it and the SUV thoroughly. They needed to find her tracking device, and the hunt would go faster with two people.
He stared toward the sky.
They had less than an hour of daylight left.
He crossed and checked Anya’s bindings and knots one final time before leaving.
“You cannot win, Captain Wayne,” Anya said matter-of-factly, as if discussing the weather, in this case a coming storm. “General Kharzin will have many men with him. Elite Spetsnaz.”
“I believe you.”
“You may hold them off for a time, but eventually you will lose. If you surrender, it will go better for you.”
“Somehow I don’t see that ending with anything less than a bullet in my skull.” He gave the ropes around her ankle a snug pull. “Just answer one question.”
Arching her back, she glanced over her shoulder toward him.
“Knowing what you do about LUCA, why would you want Kharzin to have it?”
“It is not my place to question. I know my duty, and I serve.”
Tucker stared at her preternatural calmness, at her steady and simple gaze. It was beginning to unnerve him a little. Here was the true Anya.
“How does Kharzin plan to use it?” he asked.
“I do not know.”
Oddly enough, this he believed.
6:33 P.M.
“Look here,” Christopher said as he knelt on the ground next to Anya’s open pack. He had already dumped the contents out and had been slowly going over them, item by item.
Tucker was performing a similar search upon the Rover, knowing a wireless transmitter could have been planted in a thousand places. As he worked, he felt the growing press of time as the sun sank toward the horizon.