Man on Edge

by Humphrey Hawksley

  Rake pushed away floating ice debris. Water streamed through the truck’s windows. Yumatov lashed out, striking Rake in the face. Rake smashed his glove onto the side of his head, knocking him out completely. The sinking truck was pulling them both down. Rake secured his grip on Yumatov by hooking his arms under his shoulders like a lifesaver. He grasped onto the anchor rope to counter the weight of the body and the pull of the truck. Downward drag tore against his muscles. He clawed at the rope, but against the strain of the two-ton truck and the sucking vortex of water, the anchor’s hold broke, propelling Rake under water, the cold against his skin paralyzing all sensation in his face. He saw Yumatov’s shape and how he could be freed. With a knife, he cut through clothing snagged by metal on the door. Yumatov shifted, and Rake pushed him up. They surfaced, struggling against the drawing down of the truck, keeping up momentum to get him to the edge of the ice plate. Stefan was there. They hauled the Russian up and laid him on the ground. A rush of white water erupted as the truck vanished from sight.

  Far away, flames streaked up from a rumbling thud as the first mortar shell landed. Then, another. Even a novice would have a better aim, thought Rake, until he realized that the tactic was to cut their route back to Norway. A third shell crashed down in the same area. Rake heard gunfire. He couldn’t see him. Visibility was down and getting worse.

  Rake knelt by Yumatov, mouth over his, pumping his breath into his lungs, then hand on his chest pounding to get his heart moving, to choke out whatever was in his lungs. Yumatov coughed and vomited.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Rake retrieved the pistol he had flung onto the ice and pulled a waterproof flashlight from his pocket. A mortar shell exploded from a trajectory much closer to them in a burst of flame, vibrations from the blast trembling the ice. The mortar crews were homing in for the kill. Wind cut through Rake’s wet clothing, chilling him with a ferocity he had never experienced before. They needed to keep moving or they would die from the cold or shrapnel flying invisibly through the dark, storm-lashed air. The dogs, on their feet, strained at the remaining snow anchor holding them in place. They lifted Yumatov into Rake’s sled. Stefan went ahead. Rake loosened the anchor. The dogs leapt forward, straining on their harnesses, shifting the sled, first with a jerk, then gaining traction and speed.

  They drove through a blizzard of biting hailstones and frozen mist. Rake sensed the sway of sled, counter-balancing, braking when he felt the harnesses slacken because the dogs had slowed. The wind was straight behind him. His voice carried to the dogs. He spoke to them as Nilla would have done by name, soothing, coaxing, urging. Inside the sled, Yumatov was stationary, in soaking wet clothes in sub-zero temperatures. Rake, too, was standing still, barely moving. Unless they got dry and warm, hypothermia would set in, muddling his thinking, weakening his movements, and both he and Yumatov would die.

  A weapon fired nearby, barely a hundred feet away, close enough to see the flash and hear the cracks of multiple gunfire. Rake pushed his foot on the hard brake and the dogs halted. Stefan came into sight. He signaled, his finger under his throat, his right hand chopping through the air three times, that he had hit three of the attackers. He gave Rake’s dogs a wide arc and pointed toward the border. He would lead. If they could keep up the pace, they would be there in less than five minutes. Stefan was able to go faster because of less weight. He set off, looking back, adjusting to Rake’s slower pace.

  Rake heard the whine of a mortar overhead. The one you can’t hear is the most lethal. It exploded in front of them, throwing up a geyser of water, meaning it had broken ice. Stefan braked, leaning forward, taking his lead from the dogs. Rake spoke to his dogs softly, Jake this, Ranta and Skye that. It would be up to the dogs to get them out.

  The border lay a few hundred yards ahead. They had no communications with Harry Lucas. Rake’s earpiece was ruined by water. The phone signals were jammed. They would have no idea when they had crossed. Gales pushed away clouds for seconds of low-light clarity when Rake could see across to trees and land well into Norway. Then, the wind brought new clouds, putting them back into a roaring darkness. It carried the scent of pollution from the factories of Nikel.

  Rake kept the sled a good distance behind Stefan. The dogs pulled hard, sensing home, the point dogs toward the back leaping in the air against the harness. Stefan’s huskies turned sharply to the left to avoid another low ice wall that would have destroyed a snowmobile. They swung back to clear broken ice where a mortar had exploded, then smoothly curved into what they saw as their trail. With each burst of wind, cold tore through Rake. He had to stay rigid and still to control the sled. If he missed an unseen drift or the tilt of a turn, they would be finished.

  The whine of snowmobiles carried through a lull in the wind. For a few minutes, they had gone quiet, but not anymore. Gunfire ripped into ground between the sleds. The dogs yelped. Ranta lay down and, for a second, was carried along by the others under Skye’s lead. Stefan turned to check. Rake signaled for him to keep going. Then came a glaring flash and a crack of a mortar blast to their right. The ice shifted, startling the dogs. A second mortar exploded close by. Skye led her dogs hard to the right and swerved back again as water splashed up from the ice breach caused by the mortars. Stefan was now on the other side. They were separated by torn ice and angry water. Rake regained their pace, looping away from the broken ice. Stefan kept vigil from the other side of the water. A fourth mortar landed with an earsplitting blistering crash, this time to their left, and the dogs kept going, terrified, determined, as Rake drove through the smoke cloud, breathing the smell of burning metal.

  Yumatov slumped, blood draining from his arm. A spotlight from new vehicles to the north snapped on. Momentarily, the dogs lost formation, yelping and barking, as the beam glared into their eyes. Light swept straight across Rake. A hundred yards away, he saw two snowmobiles. The air stream of a rocket-propelled grenade jetted over them and slammed into one enemy snowmobile with a fireball that lit the landscape. Seconds later, the other snowmobile was destroyed.

  The beam from another light fell on Rake and a snowmobile drew up next to him. Mikki was perched on the back, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher hanging from his wrist. He flipped the flashlight back. Carrie drove. Excitement, gratitude, urgency, rushed through him. ‘You OK?’ shouted Mikki.

  ‘We’re OK,’ replied Rake. ‘Yumatov’s hit.’

  Carrie unhooked a medical bag and went to Yumatov, who was inert.

  ‘Ruslan, it’s Carrie,’ she said. ‘You’re safe. Can you hear me?’ As Carrie spoke, she traced the source of the blood, reached into the medical bag, and brought out a tourniquet, which she wrapped around the upper arm and tightened. She checked Yumatov’s eyes and pulse. ‘He’s alive. We need to get him back.’

  Carrie mounted the snowmobile. Mikki held up his forefinger and thumb in a circle as if to say everything was good. Carrie set off cautiously, careful not to alarm the dogs, giving them time to form up and follow. Stefan was waiting up ahead. After Rake passed, he fell in behind. There was faraway gunfire and fire burning in the mop-up operations. It must have been the Norwegians. Rake wasn’t used to being rescued. If the shivering cold wasn’t so brutal, he could even enjoy it.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Carrie stopped the snowmobile under a blaze of lights. Police, military, and fire vehicles were everywhere. The white communications truck dominated with its aerials and satellite dishes on the roof. None was any good when the mortars were exploding, which is why she and Mikki had raided weapons from their vehicle, stolen a snowmobile, and gone across themselves. Mikki had used a ski pole as a crutch and assured her that his aim was as good sitting down with a bad leg as it was standing up with a good one.

  Rake’s sled stopped behind her. Harry Lucas stood outside the communication truck waiting for him. Paramedics ran across with blankets. Lucas fetched Rake a blanket and took him inside his vehicle. Carrie checked her patient. Yumatov had survived; unconscious, but his pulse was strong.

&
nbsp; ‘We need an ambulance to Kirkenes,’ she instructed the paramedics.

  ‘Well done, my favorite girl.’ Mikki hobbled toward her. He opened his free arm to give her a hug.

  Carrie looked at his leg. ‘You need a new dressing.’

  ‘You do it, Carrie,’ he said, his voice laced with a plea. ‘Hospitals and me, no good together.’

  ‘Once I’m done here.’ Carrie crouched, patting the dogs, stroking under their chins, feeling the ice melting on their fur, enjoying respite in them excitedly jumping at her, tired but happy, a run well done. She realized a quiet and slowness, urgency evaporated, danger gone, hum of a generator, storm silent, the sound of scraping dogs’ paws on snow. She wanted to know what happened, why things unfolded as they had, what Yumatov was doing here. She was doctor, not a detective or a spy. Like the huskies, her job was done and more than anything she wanted to be in bed with Rake, with his warmth, his roughness, his reliability. Whatever unfolded, however strong the urge, she must not let that happen, not now, not when she was tired and vulnerable and wanted him so much.

  Rake stripped off in the communications van, dried himself down, put on fresh cold-weather clothes. ‘Any idea what the fuck is going on?’ he asked, accepting a black coffee from Harry Lucas, who thanked him again for saving his President’s life and filled him in about the Poseidon drone and the cloaking-busting software that Carrie had delivered on Semenov’s drive.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Lucas. ‘At least not to the level you and I need to know.’

  ‘The Russians don’t know we have Yumatov,’ said Rake. ‘His truck sank in the ice. We’ll tell them he died in it.’

  Stefan came in with Mikki. ‘Carrie’s checking him,’ Mikki said, looking at Rake. ‘Then give the lady some time.’

  ‘If she gives me some,’ muttered Rake.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harry said to Stefan. ‘America owes you, but I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry about Nilla.’

  ‘She was my sister.’ Stefan shrugged. ‘I loved her. She was crazy. She got fixated. Men and sex, probably on account of our dad being a drunk.’

  Alone, Harry turned on a screen. Rake watched a compilation of surveillance images, networked through facial recognition. Each image was captioned with identity and location, Oslo, Berlin, Singapore, Stockholm. They centered on Marine General Jim Whyte, showing him with Ruslan Yumatov three times and twice with Nilla Carsten.

  Harry said, ‘In the past eighteen months, Whyte visited the Norwegian military acoustic range in Heggernes and the Acoustic Measurement Facility at Ketchikan. The marine signatures held there ended up on Semenov’s drive.’

  ‘I checked security at Ketchikan,’ said Rake.

  ‘I know. After Whyte’s visit, they knew there had been a breach. They didn’t know what.’ Harry snapped off the screen. ‘I need you to talk to Yumatov and find out what he knows about Whyte.’

  Two armed police and a paramedic watched over Yumatov as Carrie treated him. She first thought shrapnel had severed his axillary artery under his right armpit. But the cold had slowed the blood flow and after taking off his shirt and vest, she was pretty sure the wound was only to the cephalic vein. There was no sign of the shrapnel. An X-ray would find it. Or it had gone through. She used plenty of bandage tight around the shoulder. It was basic first aid that could have been done by the paramedics. ‘You’ll be fine,’ she said, sealing the dressing.

  ‘Why are you helping me?’ Yumatov lay on his back, eyes fixed on Carrie while she worked.

  ‘Because I’m a doctor.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Carrie laid the back of her hand on his forehead. She tipped two Tylenol into her hand and reached for a glass of water. ‘You’ve a slight fever. Take these.’

  Yumatov pushed himself up to swallow the tablets. ‘How’s Nilla?’

  Carrie was about to answer when Rake half opened the door.

  ‘Carrie, a moment.’ His tone was formal and hesitant, like he didn’t know how to be with her. Carrie felt the same, didn’t like it. Why did people have to be so complicated, including her? She stepped out into a dry cold, even with a moon which reflected across the trees and rooftops of the farm building. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Light flesh wound.’

  ‘OK to talk?’

  ‘Yes. He asked about Nilla.’

  ‘Did you tell him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  Carrie marveled at Rake. After all that went down in their day, they were still doing their jobs, talking fast, professional, like overtime on a shift. Therefore, she pondered, why not for old times’ sake, to find sanctuary, to relieve tension. Just one night. They had both earned it. Stop, Carrie. Don’t even think about it.

  Rake dismissed the police and paramedic and stood over Yumatov, who sat sideways on an ambulance jump seat, wearing a blue medical smock, arms folded, staring at the shelves of medical equipment in front of him. He had a white bandage down his right cheek with specks of blood seeping through. ‘You are a fighter, Ozenna,’ he said with genuine respect. ‘I wish you had been on my team.’

  ‘Except, I wasn’t.’

  ‘How is Nilla?’

  ‘She didn’t make it.’

  ‘You said she was fine.’

  ‘She wasn’t.’

  Yumatov grimaced and touched the dressing on his shoulder.

  ‘What did you give her?’ asked Rake.

  ‘Money. Hope. Love. Why else do people do things?’

  Rake perched on a gurney. ‘Who are those people who want you dead?’

  ‘Russia has men with guns everywhere.’ Yumatov’s expression was haggard, his voice weak.

  ‘Who?’ pressed Rake.

  ‘I am an aide to Foreign Minister Grizlov.’

  ‘Not a good time to fuck with me,’ said Rake quietly. ‘If your plan had worked Grizlov would have died on that yacht.’

  ‘Then ask President Lagutov. He assigned me to Sergey Grizlov.’

  Rake scrolled through his phone and worked the keyboard. He read nothing of note and sent no messages. It was to hold a silence between them. Then, he said: ‘So, this is how it will work. Tell me now who these people are, what’s going on, everything you know, and I’ll see what slack we can cut you. We’ll get in touch with Anna and the kids in London and work something out.’

  Yumatov’s face turned ashen. ‘You’ve spoken to Anna?’

  ‘We have and we know where she is. For a few hours, I’ve got some influence. After that, I’ll be gone, and you’ll end up in a rendition site, Thailand or Egypt probably. Once they’ve got what they need from you, they’ll kill you. Officially, Colonel Ruslan Yumatov is dead because you went down with the truck. We’ll deport Anna, Max, and Natasha to Russia. Anna will lose her job. The kids will grow up without money or a good education.’

  ‘Then I present you a gift.’ Yumatov pulled a piece of damp fabric from the pocket of his tunic and handed it to Rake. The cloth was smeared and filthy. Rake recognized the symbol he had seen carved into the severed ear.

  ‘The sign of the Kolovrat of the Slavs of Europe,’ said Yumatov. ‘Our culture dates back twelve thousand years and symbolizes infinity in the fight between good and evil. It pays tribute to the sun that grants us the warmth of life. Over the centuries, the sign of the Kolovrat has been found across Europe and Asia—’

  ‘Give me names,’ interrupted Rake.

  Yumatov ignored him, his gaze fired with determination. ‘The sovereign state is dead. Power lies in knowing who we are, not who is our government. You know that, Rake Ozenna. You are no more American than I am Russian. You are an Eskimo. Carrie and I are Slavs. We have no borders. We have our people.’

  Rake glanced down at the Kolovrat wheel that was imprinted from a photograph of a brown-gray stone carving. Two of the wheel spokes were broken.

  ‘If I tell you who those men are, I die,’ said Yumatov.

  ‘If you don’t, you die.’ Rake folded the material and kept it in his hand. ‘So, stay
in charge and die doing something good for wife and children.’

  Yumatov lowered his head into his hands, drawing his fingers down his cut-up face. ‘Don’t follow the money. Follow the Kolovrat.’

  ‘Is that your answer?’

  ‘It’s the right one.’

  Yumatov’s eyes bore into him with an energy that belied his injury and exhaustion. Rake judged it was enough. The first move. He rapped on the door for the police to let him out.

  ‘Tell Carrie, will you?’ said Yumatov. ‘Tell her to remember who she is.’

  FIFTY-SIX

  Brandywine Street, Washington, DC

  Mikki stayed in the car in the affluent night-time suburban street in northern Washington, DC. Rake followed Harry Lucas along a short graveled path to a detached house where the porch light had just snapped on. Their visit had been announced barely a minute earlier by agents watching the house. Frank Ciszewski had reluctantly agreed. The rotund CIA Director opened the door wearing a black overcoat over what looked like dark-blue pajamas.

  ‘Thanks, for seeing us, Frank,’ said Harry.

  ‘It had better be good and quick.’ Ciszewski didn’t ask them in. He closed the door and stepped onto the porch. ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’re looking for the head of the snake,’ said Rake.

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ Ciszewski said to Harry. ‘And what are you doing bringing Ozenna to my property?’

  ‘Jim Whyte is in custody,’ said Harry. ‘He’ll cut a deal.’

  ‘Fuck Jim Whyte. Who doesn’t have bad apples? I’ve heard the transcripts. You bypassed your own government to destroy an unarmed Russian underwater drone. Now, we’re having to clean up the mess. You’ve screwed yourself, Harry, at least in this town for all millennia. I suggest you go back to screwing interns and America will be a safer place.’

  ‘We’ve got Yumatov,’ said Harry.

  Ciszewski rested his hand on the wall. His voice faltered. ‘Yumatov is dead.’