Finally, something that makes sense about this whole circus. Rogozhkin waits for Monya to give details, but none arrive. “Why did they do that?”
The captain glances at Syrov to his left, then up at the man on his right—the trooper is a good ten or twelve centimeters taller than Monya—then back to Rogozhkin. “Sir…that’s the part that’s secret. Could we…?”
“Of course. Lieutenant, fall back.”
“Sir.” Syrov catches the other soldier’s eye, then jerks his head toward the BMP.
When both are a few meters away, Rogozhkin says, “We’re alone now, Captain. Why did the bandits kill your men?”
“Colonel Mashkov didn’t tell you?”
“He gave me an incomplete report. I believe the investigation is still underway.”
“Yes, sir.” Monya doesn’t seem quite as terrified now that the other two spetsnazovtsi are gone. Perhaps he doesn’t fear an old man? He should. “The bandits stole our money, sir. The money for our pay.”
Money? That’s what this is about? Rogozhkin works hard to mask his sudden flash of anger. What in hell are they selling to bandits? Weapons? Drugs? “Go on.”
“Ehm…Colonel Mashkov must have told you about the paintings. Yes?”
“Of course.” Paintings? What the…?
“One of the bandits—Stepaniak, Abram Stepaniak—he was supposed to arrange the swap. The paintings for, I guess, ransom. A lot of money.” Monya leans in a bit and lowers his voice. “Two million euros. The colonel was going…”
Two. Million. Euros. Half of Rogozhkin’s brain listens to the captain rattle on while the other half turns this figure over and over. The man’s right—it’s a lot of money to be in the hands of bandits with no accountability.
A lot of money.
“Wait. Did you say ‘a woman’?”
Monya stops hard. “Ehm…yes, sir. We don’t know if she was part of Stepaniak’s plan. She came to the meeting with him, but he shot her first. She shot one of his men, the one we captured? Colonel Mashkov wants to talk to her.”
“But she has half the money?”
“Yes, sir. Stepaniak has the other half.”
Now this story doesn’t make sense again. This woman was shot, but managed to take down a bandit and get away with the money? Unless… Was she wearing a ballistic vest? A million euros could be worth getting kicked in the ribs by a mule. Was shooting Stepaniak’s man self-defense or eliminating someone she’d have to share the money with?
He’s learned a lot from spending so much time in mafiya states like Chechnya and Moldova. Double-crosses, gangster politics, ruses, confidence games. A warped and evil world, but a perfectly understandable one. A world that pulls the puppet strings in Moscow now.
“Sir?”
Rogozhkin kicks himself out of his own head. There’ll soon be time to consider this. “How do you know where this Stepaniak is?”
“Colonel Mashkov had our comms section put a GLONASS bug in the headliner of his Range Rover. You know what that is, right? Like the American GPS—”
“Yes, I know.” A Range Rover. How subtle. No one would ever notice that in a place free-falling into the nineteenth century. “You have a tracker, of course.”
“Yes, sir. On my mobile. It’s hard to keep up with him—he can travel so much faster.”
“And this woman’s with him?”
“We don’t know yet, sir. She may be.”
“I understand.” He does, mostly. That much money can cause no end of extreme behavior in an impoverished backwater such as this. It already has. “How many people know about this?”
Monya frowns. “Ehm…I do. Now you.” He holds out a hand toward his stalled convoy. “They don’t. They think this is for revenge. The money’s a rumor back at the base. Why do you ask, sir?”
Rogozhkin’s instantly ashamed of how automatically a plan had come to him: kill the captain, send the rest back to base, then take the money himself. He swats it down. I’m not a gangster yet. “The more people who know the secret, the more who’ll be out looking for the bandits. You don’t need more competition.”
“No, sir.”
What should he do now? The first priority is to stave off more squabbling between militias; they do enough of that without any good reason. “You need to return to your unit’s operations area. You can’t be found this far into another militia’s zone. You surely can’t explain to them why you’re here. Do you understand?”
The captain looks dubious. “I don’t know, sir. I have to talk to Colonel Mash—”
“Of course you do, but not from here. Go back to your own neighborhood, then ring him.” Another idea disrupts Rogozhkin’s train of thought. It’s less toxic than the last one, even somewhat constructive. “I’ll need that tracker. My men and I can travel with no restrictions. We’ll find your bandits for you.”
And the money. We’ll definitely find the money.
Chapter 20
Mashkov desperately wants to kick a chair across the crowded Operations Center. It would be so satisfying. But it would also be the talk of the brigade for the next week.
He un-mutes his telephone headset. “Monya. Repeat that. Slowly.”
“Yes, sir. The colonel’s men disabled our radios. That’s why I’m using my mobilka.” Monya sounds shaken, his voice wavering. Completely reasonable after having been captured by ten Russian spetsnaz assassins.
It’s good that only he and Vasilenko can hear what Monya’s saying. Mashkov might have a rebellion on his hands if the other men in the Ops Center knew what had happened. “Understand. Where are you now?”
“We’re on the southern edge of Novokaterynivka, beyond their visual range, I think. What should we do, sir?”
Bloody Rogozhkin. Where does he get the idea he can do this to my men? I don’t care if the bastard’s our overseer from Moscovia. This is my country, my brigade.
But he holds the purse strings.
No, this is too much. Here, he can interfere all he wants. But in the field…
The other men are watching him. Vasilenko’s throttling the other phone receiver. He’s heard both sides of the conversation; his face is red and his lips are white. The senior sergeant gets to be openly emotional that way. Mashkov has to channel his rage into orders.
He scans the map of Monya’s area on the plotting table in front of him. “Do you still have the target’s location?”
“Yes, sir. He’s been stationary in central Starobesheve for over eight hours.”
“Right.” Mashkov traces the local roads with his forefinger. “Continue to the target. Go south on the highway to Petrivske, then west to the T0508 highway, then north to Starobesheve. If the hostile unit interferes with you again, engage. You outnumber them three-to-one. Understand?”
Monya’s gulp is clear even on the patchy phone connection. “Yes, sir.”
Mashkov disconnects and keeps concentrating on the map so he doesn’t accidentally fry the other men with a glance. There’s a better-than-even chance that Rogozhkin’s thugs can wipe out Monya’s troops despite their numbers. If they do, Mashkov will have a clear case for getting Rogozhkin kicked out of the DNR. A costly gambit, but worth it in the end.
“Sir? What do you want to do?” Lieutenant Colonel Shatilov, Mashkov’s chief of staff, braces his palms on the table. A good man, and the only Ukrainian left in his senior staff.
Mashkov draws a deep breath. “Send the rest of Monya’s company to support him.”
“Second Battalion’s still preparing for Monday’s operation.”
“I understand. Get that company ready and on the road. Who’s in Starobesheve now?”
“Lev Brigade, sir.”
Those lunatics. “Get their commander on the phone for me. Not the radio. It’s time we had a talk. The last thing Monya needs is to tangle with our own people.”
And they may be as tired of the “guests” as Mashkov is.
Rogozhkin watches through
his binoculars as a steady stream of locals come and go through the double glass doors of the blank-faced clinic building a block away.
For all he knows, the bandit’s one of them.
They’d found the black Range Rover within a few meters of where the tracker said it would be. The blood on the passenger’s seat, the hole in the windscreen, and the ragged rear window confirm it’s the right one, not that they had any doubts—fancy Western vehicles aren’t exactly common here. Unfortunately, the ute’s in such a public place that Syrov’s men can’t disable it safely. A flat tire will have to do for now.
Two spetsnazovtsi in civilian clothes circle outside the clinic, looking for signs of a patient with a gunshot wound. The militia captain’s description—black hair and beard, hip-length blue leather coat, and a tall, very thin accomplice—isn’t especially helpful.
Rogozhkin’s Hunter is parked across the street from some kind of shopping plaza in the heart of Starobesheve, a busy place in late morning. Too busy. He doesn’t like being this exposed, having people walk by eyeing the Hunter’s Russian military registration plates and wondering why it’s here. His kind are used to operating in the dark.
I’ll be in the light permanently soon enough.
Rogozhkin sets the binoculars on the dashboard and slumps into the Hunter’s front passenger’s seat.
He’ll be fifty-two in five months. That’s like four hundred years old for a spetsnazovets. Some days the wear-and-tear makes him feel it. Bullet wounds, knife wounds, that goddamned Serb mine. God knows how many hundreds of jumps out of aircraft. (He remembers a joke an American Ranger told him during an exchange visit: What three things fall out of the sky? Water, bird shit, and idiots. So true.) The fights, the falls, the broken bones. Humping full packs up the sides of mountains. Those ungodly winters in Chechnya, miserable even for someone like him who grew up in Siberia. Fighting the endless ranks of Moscow’s enemies.
The younger men look at him like he’s a dinosaur and wonder why a crippled old man gets to keep wearing the blue beret. Sometimes one will get out of line and Rogozhkin has to show him why it’s not yet time for the wolf pack to turn on that crippled old man.
Every time he sees the general, the man says to him, “Edik! I’ve got a young major, he needs a good command position. Have you thought about retiring yet?”
Yes, he thinks about it. It scares him in a way combat never did.
Now, watching the clinic, another thought runs a circle in his head: that money.
A lieutenant colonel’s pension isn’t what it was after twenty years of budget cuts. Hardly enough to go “home” to Minusinsk, as if he’d ever wanted to see that place again. Nothing close to what he’d need to live in a big city. Certainly not enough to attract a wife. He’d end up alone in a farm town like this with nothing to do except drink himself to death, like so many other old, washed-up soldiers.
That money.
Rogozhkin’s mobile vibrates in his chest pocket. It’s Yartsev. “Yes?”
“Sir, the situation’s getting worse. Mashkov’s sending the rest of Anna Company to support the patrol.”
He sighs. “We’ll watch for them. They’ll be hard to miss.”
“That’s not all. He told Monya to push into Starobesheve. He’s doing an end run—he’ll be coming up T0508. And…he told them to engage if you stop him again.”
“He what?” Rogozhkin takes a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. “He’s gone too far. Get the Russian staff together. It’s time for Mashkov to go. Have Proskurin prepare to take over as brigade commander and get Rostov to send another ‘volunteer’ to run First Battalion. This insanity has to stop. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. Will you return soon?”
He should. Mashkov’s removal would be easier to direct from there. But… “Not yet. We need to stop that patrol before it links up with the rest of its company. And we still have that bandit to dispose of. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Just get everything lined up, then hold in place, understand?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll have Colonel Proskurin ring you this evening.”
“You do that. Keep me posted.”
Rogozhkin considers the Range Rover through his binoculars. They should wait for the bandit to appear, take him down, and recover the money. But they need to deal with the patrol, and that will take preparation if it’s not to turn into a bloodbath.
The tracker still works.
He takes one more look at the clinic.
That money.
Chapter 21
Carson’s phone is somewhere inside a two-hundred-meter-radius circle west of Petrivske. According to Olivia, Stepaniak turned it on right before he dumped it. The one building inside the circle—a ramshackle metal warehouse—holds only moldy hay and dead rats.
They stand on the road shoulder near the warehouse, thinking. The two eastbound trucks that pass by don’t seem to notice a pair of women hanging out with their weapons.
Carson does a slow 360 scan. Fields to the south and north. A line of trees follows the road’s north edge to the western horizon.
Think. Westbound. He’s wounded, not driving. Won’t leave the SUV. Can’t throw far.
She says, “It’s under the trees. See the hydro pole down there?” She points to a wooden utility pole about a hundred meters west.
Galina’s cradling her shotgun like a baby. “Yes.”
“We start there. Walk along the north side of the road in different directions. I’ll call my phone. One of us should hear it.”
Galina walks west; Carson goes east. She calls her phone every minute or so. There’s hardly any traffic; it’s just her and the crows and the leftover ringing in her ears from last night.
A fucking grenade? Why do that? Wait six hours and she would’ve handed over the money (well, most of it) in a hot minute.
Unless Stepaniak needs the paintings, too. Maybe the price for the club went up. Maybe he needs to buy a better class of hookers. Whatever. If he’s the one she shot, she hopes he’s bleeding out somewhere and that it hurts like hell.
A sound makes her stop. Electric guitars, a long way away. Then Bowie singing “Strangers When We Meet.”
Her ringtone for an unknown caller.
She charges through the trees toward the sound until it rolls to voicemail. She calls again. It’s coming from a broad swath of weeds a hundred meters wide and stretching over two hundred meters north. It’s close to the road, though. She might be able to see it.
When the ringtone dies again, Carson calls Galina. “Found it. North of the warehouse.”
“Okay.”
Carson stalks back and forth along a ten-meter stretch of weeds, trying to locate where the sound is the strongest. Finally she finds it: a flash of blue at the edge of a rough clearing six or seven meters from where she’s standing. She’s about to plunge into the weeds when Galina’s voice shrieks, “Stop! Stop!”
“What?”
Galina pounds toward her like she’s being chased, waving her arms. “It’s a minefield!” She grabs Carson’s shirt and drags her onto the dirt surrounding the trees.
Carson shrugs her off. “How do you know?”
“There wouldn’t be weeds if it wasn’t mined. And this.” She grabs a wood post sticking out of the weeds, revealing a faded triangular red sign on one end. White letters above a white skull and crossbones:
СТОП MIHИ!
DANGER MINES!
Galina pushes the signpost into the damp dirt, then faces Carson with a fist on her hip. “Forget your mobile. We should go.”
“Most of my life is on that thing. I want it back.”
Galina sighs. “Where is it? Show me.” Carson aims her in the right direction and points. “The blue? I see it. Do you see the silver thing next to it?”
It looks like a dull-silver beer can with black lettering. Three black fins on the bottom grab Carson’s attention. “What is it?”
“It comes from a Uragan
rocket. They put many of these on the rocket, then shoot it over here and drop them everywhere. When they explode, they send out metal…” She makes a bomb burst with her hands and fingers. “Russia, Ukraine, both have Uragans.”
Carson had her fill of fragmentation grenades last night. But her phone’s right there… “So I won’t touch it.”
“That’s the one you see. They never are alone.”
Wonderful. “How do I get from here to there and back?”
Galina wanders off, muttering. She returns with a tree branch that’s nearly two meters long, stripping the leaves and twigs. “Use this. Watch.” Galina steps to the edge of the meter-tall weeds, grabs the pole’s end with both hands, then brushes it through the tops of the plants to bend them out of the way. She points. “See?”
Another silver beer can, wedged nose-down into the ground. “Yeah.”
Galina tosses the pole to Carson. “I will be behind the trees.”
Do I really need that phone? She wasn’t kidding when she told Galina that most of her life is on it. Other than Rodievsky, who calls her on a burner he changes out randomly, everybody she knows calls her agency cell. Hundreds of contacts, more hundreds of photos, her four different payment apps, her banking data, airline tickets, boarding passes, apps for most everything she does. Plus the agency extras: Olivia can find it anywhere, and her call and browsing history gets wiped automatically. Yes, she has a semi-recent backup on her work laptop in Volnovakha (might as well be in Australia), but anyone who picks up the phone will own her. No way is she leaving it here for some random asshole to hack.
She gently pushes the weeds back and forth, then steps carefully into the clear areas she finds. The first bomblet she uncovers—right in front of her, half a meter away—makes her jump like she saw a rattlesnake. She edges around it. The morning’s still cool, but she’s sweating a waterfall. She has to stop every other step to wipe her hands on her jeans.
It takes her almost ten minutes to reach the little clearing. It seems like a year and a half. She stops, catches her breath, then uses the pole to push her phone away from the bomblet it shares air with. One more step. She slowly squats, braces a hand against the ground, then with the other hand scoops up her phone.
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