“My father’s name. Can you tell me what happened?”
Artem’s body bucks under a spasm of hacking that bubbles blood from his mouth. The medic quiets him, wiping sweat off his forehead with what looks like a dishrag. She nods to Mashkov.
“Artem?”
The boy wrestles with his breathing for some while. “Man in blue. He shoots everyone. Runs away. He takes the icon. And money.”
“All the money?”
“One suitcase.”
That son of a whore. “What happened to the other suitcase?”
“The lady took it.”
“What lady?”
More coughing. Mashkov feels the pain that twists the boy’s face. What have I done? He shouldn’t be here. He should be in school. He should be with his mother. But the veterans—the men who joined the brigade in 2014—are either dead or retired to their farms or fled to the West. There aren’t enough men to replace them.
So he recruits boys. And the boys die.
“Son?”
“She had…the money. Came with…with the man in blue.”
A woman with Stepaniak? “Did she shoot people?”
“No. He…shot her.”
But clearly didn’t kill her. This makes no sense to Mashkov. “Who helped you?”
“The…the lady.” Artem’s voice is slowly fading.
Dunya takes the boy’s pulse, then faces Mashkov. “Sir, you have to stop. He’s very weak.”
“Can’t you help him?”
“No, sir. I have no supplies, no drugs. He needs to go to a hospital.” Her face crinkles. “I’m sorry.”
Not that the hospitals are much better off. The boy may have important information, but Mashkov won’t risk killing him with questions. He gently kisses Artem’s forehead and strokes what little hair he has. “Rest, son. We’ll take care of you. You’ve done well.” He squeezes Dunya’s shoulder. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”
He has to leave quickly before he loses control.
Mashkov stops once he’s outside again. He stares at nothing as a familiar anger slops up from his gut.
“What do you want to do, sir?” Vasilenko’s next to him.
Mashkov pivots and grabs the sergeant’s arm. “I want that bandit Stepaniak hanging from an electric pole. I mean that literally. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. The GLONASS bug on his Range Rover is still working. We’ll find him.”
“See that you do. Take whatever resources you need. We need that money, Lenya. That’s fuel for the brigade and the troops’ back pay, yours and mine included. Keep me posted.”
Vasilenko gives Mashkov his usual saw-toothed smile. “Yes, sir. The woman?”
The woman. On the one hand, she took half the money, so she may be in with Stepaniak; on the other hand, the bandit shot her, so perhaps not. And she helped the boy. “Find her. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Bring her to me if you can. I want to hear her story.”
“If she resists?”
Mashkov marches toward his Hunter. “Do what you need to. That suka doesn’t get to escape.”
Chapter 4
Carson watches the Hunter drive off to the north.
The man who’d climbed into it was clearly some kind of senior officer. He walked like he was in charge, straight and confident, and the troops he passed snapped to attention.
Carson’s in the northeast corner of a ruined hundred-meter-long chicken coop surrounded by trees and bushes. The briefcase with the money and the portfolio lean against the wall next to her. About seventy-five meters northeast is the road that runs to the maintenance building. She’s safe-ish for the moment.
She stares at the portfolio. The painting inside caused this whole mess. The backgrounder said that one night in 2009, a burglar broke a window next to a fire exit at the Kunsthistoriches Museum Bonn, or KMB, and walked away with the two closest artworks. They vanished until last fall, when the KMB director got a photo in the mail showing them next to a TV playing a current program. Lawyers and the insurance company took the next six months to work out the ransom. That’s why she’s here.
Carson massages the throbbing in the lower left part of her ribcage. Nothing seems to be moving in there—maybe her rib isn’t busted—but the only way to tell for sure is to take off her shirt and vest and poke around. The last thing she wants to do when she might have to run or fight now.
She pulls a strap—€20,000—from the briefcase and riffles the notes. It may be only paper, but a hundred sheets of A4 just doesn’t feel like this. She stashes the bills in her jeans pockets, her bra, and in a Velcro pocket she’d had sewn on the belly band of her U.S. Armor ballistic vest. It’s not the most cash she’s ever had on her, but it’s the most that she doesn’t have to answer for. Whatever she doesn’t spend will be her tip for putting up with this shit.
Time to find out where she is. Carson turns on location services and brings up Google Maps. Two flaky bars of reception make for a long map download.
She’s about a klick southwest of Amvrosiivka. Nineteen klicks from the Russian border. A hundred three klicks from Volnovakha by foot on main roads.
Shit.
She could walk it in Alberta or Ontario. It would suck, but she could. Here? It doesn’t take a tactical genius to figure out the nearest highway—the T0509 according to the map—is the quickest supply route from Russia to Donetsk. Tons of Russian trucks and troops. The gamble is, would she be raped and killed before she makes the next town, or only raped?
Carson’s not scared yet. She probably should be, but right now she’s mad. Scared will come when she can think again.
She came away from the massacre convinced she needed to track down that asshole Stepaniak and take him apart. But he knows the area and he has wheels. He can move farther and faster than she can. How will she find him? Maybe Olivia can track his agency phone…if he still has it, if it’s on, if, if, if.
You got a picture.
Yeah.
You got half the money.
Yeah. So?
Call it good. Get the fuck outta here. Let somebody else kill Stepaniak.
Heitmann died why?
Not your problem. Half the swag and you alive beats the shit outta no swag and you dead.
Carson has these debates with herself now and then. The voice sometimes sounds like her, sometimes like her dad. Not that he made the best choices; she wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for his shitty decision-making.
This time the voice sounds more like her, so she listens more (not the best decision-making on her part). She may have a local name and speak the languages, but this place is more like Mars than anything her parents talked about. Moving will get hard once the militia starts looking for the people who popped half a platoon of troops. Vadim and that kid soldier will talk about the broad who ran off with half the money.
Even though it’ll slow the phone’s map download, Carson punches in the only agency number she knows by heart—the only one she needs to.
A posh English voice answers. “Good afternoon.”
“One-Two-six.” Carson’s employee number.
Olivia makes a hmm noise. “You’re not using your mobile. What number is this?”
The DeWitt Agency’s named for Allyson DeWitt, the owner, but Carson talks to Olivia most. She takes care of the associates in the field, makes sure they’re paid, and straightens them out when they need it. Olivia’s helped Carson more times than she can count and straightened her out more than once.
“One-Thirteen’s gone rogue.”
Silence on the other end of the line, then a keyboard clicks. “Oh, dear. Go on.”
“Fucker shot me, took half—”
“Do you need medical attention?”
“Had a vest. He took half the money and one of the pictures.” Deep breath. “He and his playmates shot fifteen people, including me. And the client’s rep.”
Olivia’s hard sigh tells Carson she’s pissed. Her end of t
he line goes dead for a couple seconds, then returns. “I’ll notify the client. Are you mobile?”
“Mostly.”
“Do you know where One-One-Three might be?”
“No. He’s got his phone and mine. Can you track him?”
“I’ll see to it. What do you need?”
“Extraction.”
The keyboard clicks in bursts for the better part of a minute. “Sadly, this is spring, our busy time. Our clients allow their problems to fester over the winter, then demand we sort them once the snow melts.” More clicking. “I have a Russian associate coming available on Friday, but he’s in Kazakhstan just now. It may take a spell for him to reach you.”
“Nobody in Ukraine?”
“We have three other associates there, but One-One-Three recommended them all. In light of recent events, I’d rather not rely on them for this. Can you hire a car?”
“Out here in East Podunk? Think of the most rural part of England, then empty it out more. Avis ain’t here.” Carson’s getting pissed again. One of the unwritten contracts the agency makes with associates is that it’ll never strand them downrange. The agency fills clients’ needs, but apparently not hers. “How many Russians are on the payroll?”
“Several. I believe I mentioned this is our busy time. Our closest idle associate is in the south of France. However, he doesn’t speak Russian or any other Slavic language.”
Carson’s neck and cheeks heat up. She snaps, “I’m a hundred klicks from the front. Alone. No car. Hauling a million euros in a suitcase. Maybe Step—One-Thirteen’s looking for me. Maybe the militia too. What…the fuck…do I do?”
Dead silence. Then, “One-Two-Six.” Olivia’s voice is as hard as Carson’s ever heard it. “I share your frustration. If I could do anything at all to help, I would do. I can’t simply conjure resources from the air. I suggest you make your way toward the frontier in the safest manner possible and keep me informed of your progress. The very moment I can provide assistance, I shall. Do you understand me?”
Carson mentally slaps herself around. She’d gone off on Olivia, one of the worst ideas ever—Olivia could send her to Siberia, then cancel the return ticket. She tries to shove her anger down her own throat before she says anything else.
As she waits for her steam to vent, two camouflaged trucks with olive-drab canvas cargo covers grind to a stop next to the two big chicken coops. Troops spill out the back. Oh shit oh shit…
“Olivia...? Sorry.” Her voice has melted. “My ribs hurt like hell. Can’t describe it.”
“More or less than childbirth?”
“Can’t say. Never had kids. Look, this has been a bad day. I know you’ll help when you can. Militia’s coming after me. More troops just got here. I gotta go.” She swallows. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” Olivia’s voice has turned back into a warm blanket, something she does really well. “Please be careful. I wish I could do more. And…you’re not alone. I’m here. If you need to talk, please ring.”
“Sure.” Carson hangs up before she can say anything else stupid. After letting her mind clear, she checks the GPS. She’s in for a long, long walk.
Chapter 5
Rogozhkin stares across the old gray-steel desk at Mashkov, the commander of this sorry excuse for a fighting force. “How in hell do you lose a dozen men when you’re not even fighting?”
Mashkov stares back. Bad move: Rogozhkin’s locked eyes with Abkhazian rebels, Chechen warlords, Kosovar guerillas, Moldovan mafiya, and Night Wolves biker thugs. A Ukrainian factory manager in a uniform isn’t even a challenge.
At least Mashkov looks the part: tall (at least, taller than Rogozhkin, no great feat), square shoulders, a strong face, regulation hair. He wears the uniform well. So many of these militia types look like gangsters playing dress-up. Then again, many of them are.
After a few moments, Mashkov folds his arms and breaks off to look toward but not exactly at the shabby office’s only window. The blinds are down; he’s not admiring the view. “They were ambushed.”
“Ambushed?” Rogozhkin barely keeps a laugh stuffed in his gut. “By who? Partisans? The fascists are eighty kilometers from here.”
Mashkov examines the desk blotter, half a meter square with a yellowed calendar page from September 2014. “Bandits.”
“Bandits?” This time, he laughs. Mashkov’s face tells him the man doesn’t even believe his own lie. “Bandits killed a dozen armed soldiers and didn’t lose anyone? Good God, we need a brigade of your bandits instead of…” He doesn’t finish the thought. He doesn’t need to. “What were your people doing out there, anyway?”
“Training exercise.” Mashkov covers another obvious lie by turning to pour hot water from his cherished electric kettle—a gift from his wife, he never tires of mentioning—into a glass holding a thumb’s-width slick of zavarka. Rogozhkin hopes Mashkov won’t offer him any; the man’s tea tastes like paint solvent.
Rogozhkin shifts stiffly while he waits for the Ukrainian to stop fiddling with his teapot. A demon from Hell—an unwanted souvenir from the Balkans—stabs his left leg. “What aren’t you telling me, Dima? I can’t advise you if you hide things from me.”
Mashkov worries at his tumbler of tea. He shrugs. “You usually just advise me not to fight.”
Rogozhkin barely avoids rolling his eyes. Not this again. “Look what happens when you do. You’ll get your chance, don’t worry. What concerns me now is that you launched an operation without telling me and ended up with half a platoon in body bags—in a pacified area. Was it a training problem? A recon or intel failure? We need to know so we can fix it. What happened?”
Mashkov snorts. “‘Pacified.’ What an interesting word.” He turns to glare at Rogozhkin. “We’re not invaders.” He points to himself. “We’re not invaders. We live here. It’s ‘friendly.’”
The man’s been like this lately. Subtle and not-so-subtle digs about who belongs in this dump and who’s a “guest.” In a way, Rogozhkin can’t blame him; Mashkov was born here and was in this so-called “revolution” from the beginning. Still, if Rogozhkin and the other “guests” hadn’t stepped in two years ago, the Donbass would be just a failed part of Ukraine and Mashkov’s bones would be swinging from a streetlight. “Not friendly enough, apparently.”
“Well, maybe if you came up with the supplies you promised us—”
“You know that’s not as easy as it sounds. The OSCE observers—”
“Don’t slow down your resupply any, just what you give us. We’re living off the land. You know what that makes us? Locusts. No wonder there’s grumbling—”
“Dima—”
Mashkov slashes the air with his free hand. “Or maybe we can just go fight and get out of these poor people’s way. Join that operation next Monday by Dokuchajevsk, for instance. Be heroes of the Donbass again instead of…nasekomyye.” The Russian word for insects.
I wanted this job. I volunteered to advise this brigade. These are the good ones. God help us. “I’ve told you—we can’t simply drive a convoy of lorries through your front gate and dump supplies here. We can’t be seen as the only reason you’re still in the field, even if we are. If your people provided for—”
“How? Where do they get modern weapons? Where do they get armor? The economy’s flat on its back. They can’t provide for themselves. Moscovia promised us so much—”
“Stop.” Rogozhkin swallowed the first two things he wanted to say. Moscovia, indeed. He’d heard the men here grouse about the Kacápskyi—something like the English word Russkies, but used like the Russian svolotsch, for asshole or scumbag—and felt their eyes carve him up while he passed. “Other militias would be happy to get what we give you. Look, we’ve gotten away from the real issue. I need to know what happened today. You know I have to report it to Command.” Not that General Tulantyev cares about what happens to these people, so long as he gets another star on his shoulder boards.
Mashkov shake
s his head, gulps down the rest of his tea, then thrusts a manila folder at Rogozhkin. “Here.”
Rogozhkin scans the operations report. Then he laughs. “Seriously. You want me to tell them this?”
Mashkov plops into his desk chair and leans back with a squeak. “I don’t give a damn what you tell them. Your ‘people’ aren’t useful to this brigade. When they start keeping their promises, maybe I’ll be grateful.” He waves toward the old wood-and-glass door. “You’re dismissed.”
Dismissed? Rogozhkin should let it go, but this jumped-up clerk needs his attitude adjusted or there’ll be more disasters like today’s at Amvrosiivka. He shoves the folder under his right arm—there won’t be any saluting here—and gives the man another dose of his warlord stare. “Dima Artemovich. We’ve discussed this. I know the tab on your blouse says you’re a colonel, and the one on mine says I’m a lieutenant colonel. But…what did I tell you about rank in a militia?”
“Something about whores.” Mashkov’s face is turning a delicate shade of purple.
“Close enough. You people have an old saying. ‘A crow will never be a falcon.’ Sometimes the babushki are wise.” He turns a crisp about-face and marches to the door.
“My babka had another saying,” Mashkov growls. “‘The devil always takes back his gifts.’”
Rogozhkin stalks away from the squat concrete-block building into the heart of the abandoned grain mill on the edge of Kuteinykove. Gravel, cement, and tin roofs as far as he can see, with the derelict grain silo thrusting up like a huge monolith in the center. He makes as quick a circuit as his leg allows and finds Yartsev, his starshina or senior sergeant, drilling a gaggle of junior militia sergeants in clearing a building. This may be a miserable base, but it makes a fine urban-warfare training ground.
He stands off to the side, watching, until one of Yartsev’s pupils notices him and calls the squad to attention. Yartsev spins and snaps a salute. Rogozhkin returns it, then pulls the sergeant out of the troops’ earshot. “Any hope?”
Yartsev’s lean and wiry, with a pinched face and a perpetual squint. He’s stripped off his utility blouse to expose his telmyashka, the blue-and-white striped undershirt that, along with his sky-blue beret, marks him as a spetsnazovets—a member of Russia’s elite fighting force, like Rogozhkin. The locals still fear Moscow’s trained killers more than the regular ground troops. As well they should.
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