CHAPTER FOUR
Maxim Kreesat’s ice blue eyes were like those of a veteran surgeon, appraising each man, first, by the texture of his skin, then his estimated density of bone, and finally his ability to survive the scalpel.
Kreesat relaxed on a red brocade couch inside one of the First Class suites that lined the forward cars of the Trans-Siberian railroad. He held a black Balkan Sobranie cigarette in his karate-calloused fingers, and regarded the old man across from him through spirals of pungent smoke. Dmitry Kozlov, looking small and rumpled in a matching armchair, gazed out the compartment’s window at the blur of scenery rushing by, his age-mottled right hand absently turning the shaft of his walking cane.
“It is time to discuss our arrangement, Doctor,” Kreesat said in Russian. The Ghost and his Serbian Shadows team had been trained by Russian Spetsnaz officers, so his language skills were sufficient, if a bit crude. Under the Russian commandos’ tutelage, he had learned to operate as a cross-continental chameleon; he also spoke English, French, and German quite well.
“As we agreed, Mr. Kreesat,” Kozlov murmured without turning his head. “You shall ensure my escape to the West, and, whatever the American reward might be, you will receive half of that.” The old scientist’s white curls trembled a bit with the rhythmic clacks of the train wheels.
“I am afraid that will not be enough,” Kreesat said. “The Americans are not very generous with defectors.”
Kozlov turned from the window, his aging green eyes glistening. He’d been thinking of his precious daughter, Svetlana, seeing her as a child once more. The painful reminiscence had filled his eyes. “I am a scientist, Mr. Kreesat, not a man of means. I have nothing more to offer you.”
Kreesat smiled, an expression that touched only the curl of his thick lips. His top front teeth were implants, having lost the originals to a Croatian rifle butt. “Ah, but you do, Doctor.” He dipped his eyes at the breast pocket of Kozlov’s threadbare tweed jacket.
Kozlov’s trembling left hand rose to touch that same spot. “Without these disks, I am nothing,” he said.
“I only wish to borrow them, and with your expert help, use them for a certain effect. Then you may have them back.”
Kreesat glanced through the open doorway that led to the berth’s sleeping compartment, where the only female member of his team, Amina, sat on a bed, dressed in neon-blue bobsledder’s tights and a matching turtleneck. She had the body of a wrestler, the elliptical eyes and flat nose of a white leopard, and she was preening a Gerber tactical knife on a whetstone, a vision that stirred something in Kreesat’s loins. The other five members of his team, all men, were ensconced in an adjoining suite.
“Borrow them?” Kozlov reached for the cup of black tea on the table between them, but it had gone ice cold, and he withdrew his hand. His ancient heart thumped against the small case inside his jacket, where a pair of mini-disks contained all the encrypted operational codes to the nuclear satellite, Laika II.
“Yes, we’ll call it a life-saving loan.” Kreesat leaned forward and dropped his burning Sobranie into the tea, where it hissed like a cobra. “You understand, Doctor, that defection is a long, arduous process. The Americans will take months analyzing your disks, whereupon they will most likely claim they are useless, in order to deprive you of a just reward. However, my plan is to offer them a small demonstration, after which the value of your disks will increase a thousand fold.”
“What sort of demonstration?” Kozlov reached up and fingered the saggy folds beneath his chin.
“We will remove the satellite from its current orbit and re-task it. First, it will cruise above Washington D.C., and then, Moscow.”
Kozlov shook his white-maned head. “That is impossible without certain equipment. I do not have the means to do this.”
“Ah, but I do,” Kreesat said. “Right here, aboard this train.”
Kozlov, whose wizened body had begun to squirm, now froze in his chair and stared at the Serbian mercenary. “You have multi-band microwave equipment here?” He twisted his head around as if he’d missed such an obvious thing, then looked at the Ghost again. “What are your intentions, Mr. Kreesat?”
“To demand compensation, up front.”
“From whom? The Americans?”
“Yes, and perhaps from the Kremlin as well.”
“But they will refuse!”
“In that case, you will arm one of the nuclear warheads aboard Laika II, and make its trajectory known.”
“No, no.” Kozlov raised both small hands and started waving them in front of his face, as if warding off a demon. “I only wish to reward the Americans with what I know, and thereby punish Moscow.”
Kreesat cocked his granite head. “For the loss of your daughter.”
“Yes, for Svetlana.” Kozlov’s eyes began to fill up again.
“You valued her above all else.”
“She was my greatest blessing… a golden child.”
“And Moscow must pay for their crimes.”
“Yes, but not like this. I will not…”
Kreesat reached into his leather jacket, removed a smart phone and laid it face up on the table between them. Then he folded his calloused fingers and regarded Kozlov as if he were jungle prey.
“Are you healthy, Doctor?”
“What?” Kozlov had opened the top button of his flannel shirt.
“Your heart. Have you had any previous medical difficulties?”
“No.” The old man was completely confused now, his bushy eyebrows cleft into furrows.
“Good. Then look at me, carefully, and calm yourself. I am going to relay some news that may be a shock.”
Kozlov slumped in his chair. He placed his mottled hands on his knees and waited.
“Your daughter, Svetlana,” Kreesat said. “She is not dead.”
Kozlov’s sagging cheeks flushed, and his breathing quickened. “What do you mean?”
Kreesat smiled. “She was not murdered by Putin’s FSB thugs. She disappeared. Evidence was found of a struggle, including her blood, and an assumption was made by all the media, as well as yourself. Correct?”
Kozlov, speechless, only nodded.
“She was abducted, Doctor. She is being held in captivity so that you will comply with certain demands. And for the time being, she is perfectly healthy.”
Kozlov looked like he was going to pass out. His mind filled with the precious images of his beloved daughter, and the horrific emotions of loss and revenge that had turned his respected life and career into a living hell. His eyes overflowed, and his small hands balled into fists.
“But who would do such a thing?” His voice rose to a trembling pitch. “Svetlana was abducted by whom?”
Kreesat tapped the screen of his smart phone, then tipped it up from the table, displaying a full screen photo to Kozlov. It was an image of Svetlana, sitting in a chair, her fingers gripping a copy of Pravda. The newspaper’s date was only three days old.
“By me, Doctor,” Kreesat said.
Kozlov bent over and vomited up his cold tea.
* * * *
Alex dropped to one knee and adjusted her shoelace.
She was in the train corridor outside Kreesat’s suite, and her posture was merely cover for something she had to do quickly. An hour before, while still back in her Second Class berth, she’d switched her boots for running shoes, slipped her knife inside her jeans at the small of her back, picked up her digital SLR camera and gone on the hunt.
The footwear switch was another technique she’d learned from her dad. An errant lace always served as a good excuse to pause on the move, check your surroundings, upset the flow of a tracking team or, as in this case, plant a bug.
For awhile she’d cruised the length of the train, occasionally stopping to click her shutter at something from a window, or capture an interesting curve
of locomotive architecture. But foremost in her mind was the information that had just been relayed from Lincoln Shepard. The man she’d dined with before his cyanide demise had indeed been a Russian intelligence agent. The old Einstein guy was a bereaved Russian aerospace scientist with a bone to pick, and defection on his mind.
And the big blond muscle dude was no Guy Friday to Dmitry Kozlov—he was Maxim Kreesat, a Serbian killer-for-hire and an old nemesis of her dad. And he probably wasn’t alone.
All of that was mildly interesting, though unrelated to her hit on Colonel Hyo, and it hadn’t fazed her until her father decided to play the “white knight” to her “damsel in distress,” which she sure as hell wasn’t. But whenever he got his panties in a wad about her safety, there was no stopping him, and now he was jetting her way with Peter at the Lear controls and Linc probably gripping the arms of an aircraft seat and praying. It was all so annoying. The only way she’d ever be allowed to come into her own was if her dad was retired or dead—perish the thought.
But after hearing what she’d heard from Linc, she wasn’t going to do as ordered and just sit in her berth and wait for the cavalry. It was still a long, long way to Irkutsk. And since she’d been hired by Zeta as an intelligence operative, that’s what she intended to do: operate.
Up front in one of the First Class cars, while she was clicking away at some Russian cows, Kozlov and Kreesat had finally strolled past her and entered one of the suites, along with a girl who reminded her of a throwback Soviet version of Spartan. Then, five more deadly-looking males, including one frigging giant, had appeared and gone into the adjoining suite. This Kreesat guy had a crew.
That’s when she’d first used Daddy’s shoelace technique—strolling casually down the corridor, taking a knee at the wall of Kreesat’s suite, and quickly taping her ear comm to the bottom wall with a Band-Aid. Then she’d risen, walked another ten feet down the corridor, squeezed one of the car windows down into the sill and started photographing more cows again. But in fact, she hadn’t seen anything through her viewfinder.
The SLR was embedded with a short range receiver and audio recorder, linked to her ear comm, which could be used as a listening device. So, for half an hour, she’d seen nothing more than a spectrum of audio waves dancing in her viewfinder on a small LED screen, which assured her the comm was picking up gold. At that point, her operative instincts had told her to gather her toys and withdraw.
Now she was down on one knee again, ripping the Band-Aid and comm off the bulkhead wall, stuffing both in her jeans pocket and strolling away for good. Behind her, she heard Kreesat’s door slide open, and the hairs on her nape started prickling. But she just kept on walking, feeling cold eyes on her spine.
Four cars down, she reached her own berth, popped inside, locked the door and leaned back on it, releasing a long slow breath of relief. She glanced at the bottle of mineral water on her table.
I should have bought vodka in the bar, she thought. This kinda stuff could make a girl age fast.
She sat down on her bunk, pulled her ear comm out of her jeans pocket, stripped it off the Band-Aid, wiped it on her jeans and stuck it deep in her ear.
“You copy me, Linc?”
“Five by five,” his tinny voice answered, with a rush of jet engine wash in the background.
“Where you at?” she asked.
“Who knows? I’m just a dog in the passenger seat, but I figure we’re closing fast.”
“Okay, whatever,” she said. “I’m going to shoot you up something from my Canon.”
“That sounds vaguely dirty,” Linc snickered.
“Just open your receiver and hold, wise guy.”
Alex picked up her camera and turned the top function knob to a modified “burst” icon, then pressed the shutter button and held it. The SLR started transmitting her audio file in an uplink to Linc via her ear comm, which squealed in her ear and made her wince. But it was a burst transmission, and the entire half hour of audio surveillance uploaded in less than twenty seconds. Then a completion signal beeped.
“You got that, sport?” Alex said.
“Got it,” Linc said. “It’s in Russian I think.”
“Really? And here I thought they’d be speaking Sanskrit. Well, use Google Translate, genius.”
Linc laughed. “I think we can do a bit better than that.”
Alex waited for a while as she rummaged through the Russian snacks on her table and wished she’d packed some Snickers. Then Linc came back on the line.
“Okay,” he said. “This is a digital voice translation, so you’ll only hear one type of voice for both players.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Alex said.
“Running,” Linc said.
Alex listened. For the first minutes there wasn’t much to speak of—mostly rustling, some small talk, and what sounded like cups on saucers and a cigarette lighter flaring up. Then a full conversation came on, and her eyes widened as the drama progressed, until it finally ended with the sound of someone retching and a small commotion inside the suite.
“Holy moly,” she said to Linc. “Did you hear all that?”
“Yes, and not only me. Your DNA donor and his partner heard it too.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “What’s my venerable ancestor saying?” she asked, meaning her dad.
“He didn’t say anything to me, only to Conley. ‘Fly faster.’”
“Does he understand the stakes here, Linc?” Alex prodded. “This isn’t about getting his baby home to Mama. We’re talking satellites, nuclear warheads, extortion, blackmail and a hostage.”
“I believe he does,” Linc said drily, “and he just passed me a note to prove it.” Alex heard paper rustling, and then Linc went on. “It says, ‘tell Alex to just stay in her berth and hunker down.’”
“Right,” she scoffed. “Just like he would.”
“He’s serious, Alex …” Linc started to say.
But Alex pulled out her ear comm, switched it off, kicked off her sneakers, re-donned her boots and tucked her knife firmly in place. She chewed down half a Russian fruit bar, washed it down with mineral water, then didn’t stay in her berth and certainly didn’t hunker down.
CHAPTER FIVE
Alexander “Sasha” Dubkin was nearing the glorious day of his retirement. Thirty years aboard rattling old trains was enough, and he was looking forward to that tiny cottage beside a St. Petersburg lake, lazy days fishing from his battered old skiff, and playing with his grandchildren. His legs were like those of a veteran boatswain—they would last for years, until even his progeny were too old to play.
Now he stood on those sinewy legs, encased in a full-body set of button-up long underwear, inside the tiny berth that had served as his cabin for too many years. A pot of fresh tea boiled on a rusty electrical hot plate and he held a long pencil in his stubby fingers, “conducting” a passage from Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring as it crackled from an old plug-in radio.
More and more these days, he craved the nights when he was off duty, and the trains fell silent to no more than snores. Someday soon, he would no longer have to pose the request that he’d uttered a million times: “Ticket, please.”
A soft knock on his cabin door stopped his pencil baton in mid-motion. He wondered if it was the radio’s aberration, but then it came again. He rolled his eyes, raised his bushy eyebrows, switched off the radio, turned the key and slid the door open a crack, fully prepared to read whoever was disturbing him the riot act.
The large brown eyes of that pretty, pixie-faced American girl blinked at him. “Sasha, may I speak with you a moment?” she asked.
He frowned. “It is very late, Miss Alex.”
“Just for a minute. It truly is important. Please?”
Sasha lowered his head and remembered that he had decided some hours ago that he liked the girl. She seemed kind and her youthful ene
rgy was infectious. Besides, he wasn’t retired yet, and a train conductor’s job was not done until all passengers were safely off at their destination. He closed the door, muttered some complaint noises even he didn’t understand, threw on a woolen robe, and pulled the door open again.
Alex smiled sympathetically as well as thankfully, slipped inside, and slid it closed behind her. She looked around his dreary berth.
“This looks … comfy,” she said.
“False flattery is an American trait,” Sasha scoffed. “You should try being more Russian. Say what you mean.”
“Okay,” Alex said as she looked around more carefully. “I could live here for maybe a week and then I’d go crazy.”
“Much better.” Sasha gestured at a gnarled old chair with a worn lime seat. “Tea, Miss Alex?”
“Yes, thank you.” Alex sat. She hated tea.
Sasha poured two cups from his steaming pot, handed one to Alex, and sat down facing her on the edge of his too-slim bed. “And so, how can I help you? Is your cabin not comfortable?”
Alex held her teacup, but she didn’t sip. “Sasha, I have to confess something. Abroad, I am a photographer, as I told you. But at home, I am sort of a detective.”
Sasha smirked and cocked his thick-haired head. “You are far too young to be a detective.”
“Are you sure?” Alex posed. “Were the Russian female snipers who fought at Stalingrad too young?”
Sasha frowned and waved his stubby finger at her. “As I have said before, you are also far too smart, Miss Alex. So, if what you say is true …”
Alex took out her iPhone and showed Sasha the picture of Dmitry Kozlov. “Do you know this man, Sasha?”
He looked at the photo. “No, but he is aboard this train, and he looks very much like …” Sasha paused, unable to remember the name.
“Yes, he does,” Alex responded, coming to his rescue. “He is Dmitry Kozlov, the aerospace scientist.”
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