Zrada

by Lance Charnes

  Stas’s head and shoulders take up the bottom half of the open passenger-side rear window. His pistol points at Galina’s forehead. He laughs at Carson’s move. “Not so fast, bitch. Hands where I can see them.”

  You piece of shit. She can’t draw fast enough to keep him from shooting Galina. Carson holds her hands at hip height, palms down. “Where’s Stepaniak?”

  “He couldn’t come. You fucked him up. Disappointed?”

  “Disappointed I didn’t fuck you up.” She could handle Stepaniak; she has no idea what to do with this freak. Her neck and face grow hot. She desperately wants to put a round between this asshole’s eyes, but she can’t risk a move as long as he’s got a no-miss shot at Galina’s brain. “Who’s your friend?”

  “The driver? Some pizda. Came with the car.” Stas shifts to get a better angle on Galina, who’s frozen. “Shut up and listen. The boot’s gonna open. Put the money and the icon in there. Try anything, your girlfriend’s brains are on the ground.”

  That’s gonna happen anyway. He’ll kill us when he gets the swag.

  The trunk thunks open.

  Carson swaps stares with Stas for a few seconds, then turns on her heel and forces herself to stroll to the dead Slavuta. She needs time to plan how to take out Stas without getting Galina killed.

  The briefcase and the icon are buried under all the crap packed in the back. Digging them out will take a while, by design—they want any casual searchers to get tired and give up before they find the valuable stuff. She wants to slow-roll this, not only so she has time to think but also so Stas will get impatient and maybe make a mistake that doesn’t involve shooting Galina.

  She rummages through the Slavuta’s cargo area. “You okay, Galina?”

  “Yes.” Her voice is almost an octave higher than normal.

  “Hang in there. Shit-for-brains there knows if he shoots you, he’s dead too.”

  Stas snarls, “Shut the fuck up. Do what I told you.”

  “Fuck you, dickless.” Carson hopes goading the asshole will make him go after her instead of Galina. She just hopes Galina can move fast. “The grenade was whose idea?”

  “Mine. Like it?”

  Just what she figured. “I like that it didn’t work. Typical.”

  She shovels the sleeping bags and Galina’s duffel into the back seat. The camping gear is next. She hates that Galina’s so vulnerable; this is exactly why Carson didn’t want her to come along. Keep him talking. Probably can’t talk and think at the same time. “Hey Stas. You going in on Abram’s nightclub deal? Or is he gonna grease your palm and kick you out the door?”

  Stas barks a laugh. “When I get this shit you got? The deal’s gonna change. I already told him.”

  That’s what you think. Carson finally uncovers the briefcase and the icon. Once she puts them in the sedan’s trunk, she loses any leverage she has. She slips a strap of cash—another €20,000—from the Halliburton into the spare tire well, then locks and hauls the briefcase out into the open. “Here’s Abram’s money.”

  Stas’s eyes zoom in on the case. “My money, bitch. That’s—”

  The driver kicks open his door and throws himself outside.

  Stas yells something not-Russian. He swivels and shoots the driver three times in the back.

  Galina bolts for the sedan’s nose, then dives to the ground.

  At least Galina’s safe. Carson drops the Halliburton, draws, fires into the back door where Stas’s ass should be, then works her way up as she edges toward the sedan from its right rear.

  He screams in anger and pain. Shoots wildly out the window.

  Carson ducks. He might get lucky. A car door opens on the other side with more cursing from Stas. Then bangclank. Gasoline fumes scour her nose. A peek past the trunk lid reveals a stream of gas pouring from the far pump a dozen meters away.

  Oh, shit.

  The second shot comes as she drops on her face next to the sedan.

  Rogozhkin’s standing in the courtyard, listening to the gunfire, when the explosion rattles the ground under him. He dashes to the driveway as fast as his leg allows. A fireball stabs thirty meters into the sky.

  Syrov’s crouched in the open, watching a piece of metal clang onto the road a few meters away. He then turns his binoculars toward a man running—no, more like staggering—from behind a silver sedan toward the petrol station’s shop. Someone—a woman, maybe—is curled up in front of the car, covering her head with her arms. A body lies a few meters off its driver’s side.

  Rogozhkin drops to one knee next to Syrov. “What happened?”

  “Someone inside the car shot the driver. The big woman started shooting at whoever did that, probably the guy who just ran. Then the pump cooked off.”

  The big woman appears on the sedan’s passenger side and chases the man in the camo trousers and black tee. A long, powerful stride, like a bull. She can run. Rogozhkin lowers his binoculars. “Secure the area. Take charge of anyone who’s still alive. We need to own this place before the locals get here.”

  Carson clambers over a wrecked, rusty pickup behind the station’s minimart and crashes into the waist-high weeds covering the field behind it. Stas is about thirty meters off, hop-running toward the truck yard over a hundred meters away. She finds blood on the ground along the path he’s bulldozed through the weeds.

  She gains on him quickly. She has only two rounds left in this magazine; the rest of her ammo’s in the Slavuta. When she fires, she needs to make sure it counts.

  The explosion still roars in her ears, shutting out all other sounds. It’s almost as bad as after the grenade last night. If she goes deaf in a few years, she’ll know what caused it.

  Stas twists and shoots twice in her general direction. She drops on her face. When she does, she comes eyeball-to-eyeball with what looks like an olive-drab hubcap.

  Galina, this morning: There wouldn’t be weeds if it wasn’t mined.

  Oh, shit.

  Her heart needs a few moments to restart. She carefully edges away from the mine, stands, then picks her way to the beaten-down weeds where Stas has been. He hasn’t blown up yet. Safe enough.

  Stas gained a few meters, but he’s slowing and his stride is getting choppier. He fires one more time at Carson. His pistol’s slide locks back: out of ammo. He’ll have more in the patch pockets on his trousers. She needs to end this before he reloads.

  She closes to within fifteen meters. Stops. Aims. Puts one round between his shoulder blades, dead center. He’s wearing a vest, but that’s gonna Hurt. Like. Hell. He flops forward into the weeds. It takes only a few seconds to catch up with him.

  Stas is trying to turn over: knees braced, one hand on the ground, his gun hand swinging toward her. His face and hands look like he has world’s worst sunburn, probably from the gas pump explosion. Carson kicks the Grach like a rugby up-and-under, sending it arcing into the distance. Stas crashes onto his back with a yelp. A green hubcap nestles against Stas’s side.

  Carson says, “You were on a mine.”

  His grimace becomes a smirk. “Antitank mine.” The pain mangles his voice. “Not heavy enough…to set it off.”

  Good to know. She lets Stas waste energy trying to sit up, then plants a foot on his sternum and shoves him down. “Where’s Stepaniak?”

  “Fuck you.”

  She squares her pistol’s sights on the center of his forehead. “Those your last words?”

  He chokes out a “heh,” then spends some time failing to catch his breath. “Why do you care?” His Russian’s disintegrating; she can barely dig the words out from under his accent.

  “He’s got something of mine. Also, the bastard tried to kill me. Where is he?”

  “Gone.”

  “Fucking where?”

  Stas stares at her through a scrim of pain. “Why should I tell you?”

  “Because I’m taking him off the board. What you were gonna do. What he’s gonna do to you when you brin
g him the swag. Want him to win? Keep jerking me around.”

  They glare at each other for a few moments. He pants, “You gonna…let me go?”

  “Sure. As long as you go back wherever the fuck you came from.” She can’t tell if he believes her and doesn’t really care. It’s not like he has any options.

  More glaring. “Stole a car for him…UAZ Patriot, green…He’s going to Donetsk. Get lost in the city…then cross over.”

  “Where in Donetsk?”

  “Didn’t say. Friend of his.”

  “When’d he leave?”

  “Hour ago.”

  If this is true, Stepaniak’s got a head-start on her that’ll be hard to make up even if she had a car. She’ll never find him once he hits the city.

  Stas grunts. “Get off me. You shot me…in the ass.”

  Carson removes her foot from his chest. “Could be worse. Could’ve shot you in the balls.” She watches him fail to get comfortable. “After the grenade, why didn’t you finish me off?”

  He manages to laugh. “Thought the…the grenade got you. We had…better things…to do.”

  Not mercy. She’d been debating what to do with him. His answer helps her decide. “Remember when I said I’d let you go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I lied.”

  Chapter 25

  Carson searches Stas’s body for anything useful. She tries to avoid looking at his head. On her two wet jobs for Rodievsky, she’d used a suppressed .22: a small pop, a neat round hole, no exit wound, little mess. This time was…different.

  Pulling the trigger felt powerful. He’d tried to kill her; he got what was coming. That feeling lasted about five seconds. Now her stomach’s tying itself into elaborate knots and a sour taste coats her mouth.

  She finds two extra magazines for Stas’s Grach, now lost in the weeds. She loads the cartridges from one into her pistol’s empty magazine and slips the other in her hip pocket. Then there’s the nearly five hundred euros Stas doesn’t need anymore, and the brand-new iPhone. A telltale big, juicy thumbprint on the screen makes her try pressing his thumbs in the same place until the left one opens the phone. She quickly resets the password and TouchID, then rummages.

  An open app shows an OpenStreetMap view of the gas station and highway behind her. A red dot pulses over the gas station. That clinches it: the bug is in the icon. She’ll dig it out as soon as she gets back to the petrol station.

  When she zooms out, she finds another red dot on a highway leading to Donetsk.

  She plots her next moves as she follows the trail of crushed weeds to the station, keeping her eyes glued on the ground to spot mines. When the weeds thin out and she can walk with some confidence, she looks ahead.

  Two men in Russian camo stand at the asphalt’s edge, watching her from about ten meters away. She stops a few meters from them. The one on the right is nobody—a standard-issue spetsnaz grunt with a helmet, tactical vest, and a suppressed carbine aiming her way.

  The one on the left is shorter, older, quieter. Swarthy, Asian eyes, bristly black hair graying fast. No field gear. His pistol’s holstered and his thumbs are hooked on either side of his belt buckle. Rolled-up sleeves show ropy forearms. His shoulder loops say he’s a lieutenant colonel, but even without that clue, she’d have bet he’s the one in charge.

  They stand staring at each other for some moments. She finally says, “Shto?” Russian for what?

  The colonel’s eyes finish one more up-and-down scan of her. “Do you know an Abram Stepaniak?” His voice has as much mileage as the rest of him.

  She could lie. But if they have Galina, she may have already told them: not a good way to start. Whose side are they on? They’re obviously not backing the militia. But who knows what that means? Anything she says could get her killed.

  Carson settles on, “Unfortunately.” Which one will shoot me?

  The colonel nods. “We should talk.”

  “You’re…who exactly?”

  “This is a conversation best done sitting.” No heat on it, just a fact.

  The grunt searches her roughly, takes her pistol and the knife strapped to her calf—she knows better than to fight him for them—then zip-ties her wrists behind her. The moment the plastic tightens, a familiar bolt of panic streaks out of Carson’s gut into her ape brain. She hates—hates—not being in control, not being able to act, not being able to fight back.

  The grunt pushes her along behind the colonel to a pumped-up brick of a vehicle wearing mustard-olive-and-black camouflage parked next to the silver sedan. A GAZ Tigr, the Russian Army’s answer to the Humvee. At least half a dozen spetsnaz troops hold down the gas station’s perimeter, ready for action. The pump fire’s out, but a billow of smoke still blows across the highway. The stench of burned plastic makes her stomach even angrier with her than it was.

  She checks the minimart. Galina sits on the curb next to two guys Carson had seen inside, their hands tied behind their backs. A Russian covers all three with his AS Val. Galina and Carson exchange a glance, then Galina looks away.

  The colonel opens the Tigr’s left-hand rear door. The grunt essentially throws Carson into the cargo compartment. She struggles onto her knees, fighting hard to control her breathing and to avoid grinding her teeth into dust. Then she levers herself into the middle of three tan jump seats lining the Tigr’s side behind the driver’s seat. The colonel takes the middle one on the facing side. The grunt slams the door shut.

  “I am Rogozhkin.” He leans forward, folding his hands between his knees. “What do I call you?”

  Names are hard. If she uses her cover—Lisa Carson—she sets herself up to be accused of being a foreign spy. She can’t pass for a local. If she uses her real name, she’ll have a hard time playing the talk-to-my-embassy game if she needs to later. Also, a local name might tag her as a fascist spy from Kyiv and get her buried. Nothing has a clear upside.

  She covers her hesitation by trying to find a not-painful way to sit. With her hands and arms behind her, she has to perch bolt upright on the seat’s front edge. That’s their whole point—keep her awkward and off-balance. She still doesn’t know whose team this guy’s playing for.

  Finally, she picks the least bad answer. “Tarasenko.”

  “Who did you kill in that field?” Rogozhkin says it like, Why did you wear that shirt today? His Russian carries a provincial accent that Carson can’t place.

  What Yurik taught her about spetsnaz interrogation techniques makes her decide to be cooperative without considering whether she has any other options. Having made that decision, she’s not as scared as she probably ought to be. “One of Stepaniak’s goons. Stas.”

  “Why?”

  “He tried to kill me last night.”

  He nods. “Why?”

  “I had something he wanted.”

  “I see.” It’s busy behind his eyes. “How do you know this Stepaniak?”

  “We work for the same company.”

  Rogozhkin’s eyebrows shoot up. She must’ve surprised him. “Company?”

  Carson explains the money-for-art deal with as little detail as she can get away with.

  The Russian grinds this over for a moment. “This Stepaniak killed everyone except you.”

  “He shot me, but I’m wearing a vest. Ever take a round while you’re wearing ballistic armor?”

  “Yes. It’s very painful.”

  “Got that right. I took down Vadim to find out about Stepaniak’s plan. Left him for the militia. I took the other picture and the rest of the money.”

  “Why did you take the money? It belongs to the Makiivka Brigade.”

  “Thought I might need it to buy the picture from Stepaniak. I don’t care who gets the cash”—not entirely true; she’s still trying to work out a way to keep it—“but I need to get the pictures back to the museum. It’s why they’re paying my company.”

  The colonel leans back into his seat and crosses his arms. He pee
rs at her, pursing his lips. Maybe trying to figure out if she’s telling the truth. Then he opens the rear door, murmurs to the grunt standing guard outside, and watches the man jog toward the Hunter blocking the south driveway.

  In a movie, Carson would saw through the zip tie with a car key, whack Rogozhkin over the head, take his sidearm, rescue Galina, and fight her way out. In real life, she’d never make it out of the Tigr. She sits and watches the grunt haul the silver Halliburton from the Hunter and bring it to the colonel.

  Rogozhkin sets it on his lap. “Is this the money?”

  “If that’s the same briefcase I’ve been hauling around, yeah.”

  He tries to flip the latches, but can’t. “The combination?”

  She’d locked it before she pulled it out of the Slavuta, just to pull Stas’s chain. How much does Rogozhkin know about what happened at the chicken farm? Some things she’d told him surprised him. Maybe the kid she’d patched up died. Maybe the Russian hasn’t talked to the kid, or to Vadim if he’s still alive.

  Holding out is a risk. But she has no leverage if he opens that case now. “Sorry. The German from the museum? He had the combo. I just carried the things. Security.”

  Rogozhkin frowns. He sets the case on the floor between them. “I don’t believe you. How would you pay Stepaniak if you can’t open it?”

  “Don’t know. Crack it with a pry bar or something. Then carrying it is his problem.”

  More peering. She can picture him with readers when he’s alone. Then he rocks out of his seat and quietly sits next to her.

  His nearness startles Carson. He’s been civilized up to now, but how long will that last? Her hands are tied, Rogozhkin’s armed, and the grunt’s right outside; she’s way closer to defenseless than her ape brain can tolerate.

  Suddenly his elbow’s on the back of her neck. He shoves her face between her knees, grabs her wrists, and pushes her arms almost straight up behind her. He growls, “Make me believe you.”

  Fuck! She stifles the half-scream fighting to get past her throat. The pain in her shoulders shoots straight into her brain. She’d expected a pistol muzzle in her ear, not this, even though Yurik had taught her this very move.