Chasing the Storm

by Martin Molsted

  “Stand away,” Marin said. Rygg went back to the corridor he’d come down. A second later, there was a tremendous splattering of sound, and flashes of light on the dank walls. Marin kicked at the door. There was another burst of gunfire, and then a clanking, and Marin and Lena were beside him. At the same moment, there were shouts behind them.

  “They’re coming!” he cried.

  They took off running, past the open door and down the corridor, then through a vestibule and out into the twilight.

  “Quick, quick!” Marin urged them. “Into the trees.” So they kept running, Lena in front, her pale ankles flashing under her dark skirt, then Marin, with Rygg bringing up the rear. Everything seemed to be happening very slowly. Rygg could see the twigs of the lower branches coming at him, and had time to duck each one. A gun chattered behind him, its owner closing the gap between them.

  “Keep low,” Rygg shouted. “Keep running.” He dropped to the ground behind a bush, planted the magazine of the gun into the loam, and aimed back through the trees. Two men were sprinting toward him. Moving the muzzle in a shallow arc, left to right and back again, he fired. The men stopped, and one of them dropped. He heard a moan, which rose to screaming, and he gathered up the gun and plowed forward, into denser trees, banging into trunks and branches now, buffeted this way and that, uncaring. After a minute, the gunfire behind him started up again, sometimes sporadic bursts, sometimes single shots. Finally, just as he thought he’d have to quit and take a breather, hands gripped him. He looked up into Lena’s face.

  “We are at fence,” she said.

  “Where’s Marko?”

  “We became separate. We wait for him. Now, where are you hurt?”

  He held up his finger. “Oh my God, Torgrim,” she said. “Oh my God. I am sorry.” She took off the elastic band that held her hair and wound it around the stump of his finger. “And your face?”

  “It’s okay. It’s just a lot of blood.”

  She put her thin arms around him and they stood there, panting, looking back into the thicket. It was too dark to see anything. In the distance, they could hear the groans of the man he’d shot. He hoped to God it was Sokolov. Over the metal stench of blood and the reek of their own fear sweat, they could smell the rich forest odors of rotting wood and wet earth. A half moon had come out overhead.

  After a minute, Marin emerged from the trees, a little to their left. Lena called softly to him, and he hurried over. He patted the chain-link fence and reached down to its base. It was secured in the earth. “Come,” he said, and led them along the fence to the left. They walked for a while, until he put out an arm and crouched.

  About fifty yards ahead, Rygg could see the concrete pillars of the gate, and the figure of a guard leaning against the near one. The moonlight drew a jagged silver line on the steel of his weapon. There was a jumble of shouting from the resort and the guard took a couple steps away from the pillar, his gun at the ready.

  Marin motioned Rygg and Lena to get down. Then he rummaged about on his knees for a minute. Finally he returned to them and knelt by Rygg. “Can you throw?” he asked, in a whisper so soft that it was barely audible.

  “Throw what?”

  “Shh. A stone. Can you throw a stone into the trees beyond the guard?”

  “I used to play handball in school.”

  “Excellent. Here.” Marin pressed a round stone into his palm. It was about the size of an apple. “When I am halfway between the trees and the guard, you will throw. As hard as you can. Past the guard, to the far side of the gate. You understand?”

  “I got you.”

  “I will be moving. When I stop, you throw. Now stay down.”

  Marin entered the trees. Rygg lay with his face in the wet grass, peering at the guard. He could hear nothing at all. The shouting had ceased. After a minute, Lena prodded his side and pointed. He followed her finger. One of the shadows of the trees was changing shape: it was Marin, sliding along the ground like a prowling cat. There was no sound, but the shadow just kept oozing forward, toward the gate. It took three full minutes for Marin to cover twenty yards. Then he stopped. Rygg had to look out of the corner of his eye, checking to make sure he was actually still. By increments, Rygg rose to a kneeling position and drew back his arm. He hurled the stone as hard as he could and instantly dropped. A moment later he heard the thok as the stone fell into the grass on the far side of the gate.

  Now things happened very quickly. As soon as the guard turned towards the sound, Marin started out of the grass, covering the remaining twenty yards in a second or two. The guard was already turning back towards him, but by the time he’d swiveled his gun around, Marin’s fist had met his solar plexus.

  “Come,” Lena said. She grabbed his arm and they ran to the gate.

  Marin was fumbling at the guard’s trousers when they got to him. He drew forth a key on a long chain. Ripping it free, he unlocked the gate and urged them through. Then he locked the gate once more and hurled the key into the darkness. “Run!” he said.

  Chapter 15

  Escape

  Afterwards, Rygg couldn’t remember much of the rest of that night. As soon as they were through the gate, his finger stump and forearm and forehead began to throb. The adrenaline had worn off and the pain became intense. He was terribly thirsty. They ran along the road for a few minutes and then Marin pushed them to the side, among the trees, and they made their way into the woods, blundering through the branches. After a while, Marin told them to stop and get down. Looking back along the way they’d come, they could see splinters of light moving: the beams of powerful flashlights. For half an hour or so they lay motionless while the lights grew closer, then passed to their right. Finally, when they were in complete darkness once more, Marin prodded them up. The short respite had stiffened Rygg’s muscles and he didn’t know if he could make it. “We must hurry, Torgrim,” Marin said. “As fast as you can.”

  They stumbled through the trees, hour after hour, until dawn broke. Eventually, they came to a road. It was just a little track. In grainy light, they saw a field beyond it, and at the edge of the horizon, a farmhouse. Half asleep, dazed by pain and shock, Rygg followed Marin and Lena across the ruts of the field to the farmhouse. A dog ran out at them, and Marin knelt with his hand out. The dog backed, snarling, but Marin spoke to it, and it slunk forward, then allowed itself to be patted. His hand on the scruff of the dog’s neck, Marin looked up at the house. The windows were still dark. He looked back at them, muttering something to Lena. She glanced at Rygg and giggled. She was wan and her cheeks were scratched by branches.

  “Come, Torgrim,” she said. She led him around the back of a rickety barn to a trough that held a few inches of water. She splashed this on his face, scraping with her fingernails at the blood. Then she bathed his forearm. It started bleeding again. Taking off her shirt, she gnawed through the hem at the bottom and ripped away a narrow strip of cloth. This she bound around his arm. She put the shirt back on and tucked it into her dress.

  Marin poked his head around the corner of the barn. He motioned them to join him. Inside the barn was an ancient flat-bed pickup truck. The bumper was held onto the frame with wire, and the hinges on the driver’s door had been replaced by twine.

  “Will it start?” Rygg asked.

  Marin shrugged. “We’ll see,” he said. “Get in.”

  The key was in the lock. Marin turned it, and the motor wheezed a few times, then roared into life with a tremendous racket that set the dog barking. They jolted out of the barn. Almost immediately, the door of the farmhouse swung open and a skinny man in overalls came out shouting. For a minute it looked as though he might actually catch them – the pickup just tottered along the road, going about as fast as the donkey on Paros, but finally the farmer gave up the chase and stopped with his hands on his knees in a roil of dust.

  “Good thing he didn’t have a bicycle,” Rygg said, and Lena started laughing. “Man,” Rygg said as they puffed along the road in a barrage of ba
ckfires, “I could sure use some coffee.” Ten minutes later, despite the noise of the engine and the jostling ride, he was asleep.

  Rygg woke once on the journey, and once again as he was being carried up some steps, but each time sank inexorably back into dreams that seemed to move much faster than normal.

  When he woke a third time, lifting his eyelids with an effort like raising boulders, he looked up into a decaying concrete ceiling, the paint peeling away in strips, and thought he was back at the resort. With some difficulty, he raised his head and looked around the tiny room. There was a window covered with taped black plastic, and a poster of some saint hung at an angle on the wall to his right. The only other furniture was a chair by his bed.

  Lifting his arms to eye level, he stared at them. The little finger of his left hand was bound in an immense oval package like a white lollipop, and a bandage with a stripe of blackened blood down its center was taped onto his forearm. Touching his forehead, he fingered another fat bandage. He lay back and closed his eyes. His tongue felt like a piece of pumice, and his lips were cracked. He tried to call, but no words emerged. Finally, he just got up and hobbled to the door and opened it.

  Marin was sitting in an armchair, reading and smoking. He looked no different – the same pouches under the eyes, the same quiet, world-weary expression. He glanced up as the door opened, then stood. “Torgrim,” he said. “Did you have a pleasant sleep?”

  Rygg tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak.

  Marin nodded. “Sorry,” he said. “You are thirsty. Take a seat. I will bring you some water.”

  Rygg collapsed into a chair. Only then did he notice that there was a third person in the room: to his right, a tiny old woman was knitting a scarf. She had a face like a mummified apple, her eyes and lips tucked away into the skull. The hands holding the needles were knotted with huge veins. Marin came back with a glass of water and handed it to him. He gestured to the woman. “This,” he said, “is my grandmother. Ikaterina Ivanovich Ilyanovsky. She is more than one hundred years old. She is blind, but she remembers me.”

  Rygg drank. When his throat and tongue were moistened, he asked: “Is this her house?”

  “It is. And mine. In this apartment I grew up. She was like my mother, because my father and mother were killed. But how are you feeling, Torgrim?”

  “How am I feeling? I’ll tell you exactly how I feel, Marko: I feel like I was put through a meat grinder and then taped back together again.”

  “I understand.”

  “Who bandaged me all up?”

  “I did that, I’m afraid. And please, you should try to keep your finger elevated.”

  “Do you have medical training, then?”

  “At one point, some basic medical training was required for members of the FSB. As it was for the FSK, I believe. I was, perhaps, more interested in it than some of the other members.”

  “Well, thanks a lot, I guess.”

  “Torgrim, I find that we are in your debt. You have far overstepped the bounds even of friendship.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Marko. Though I will grant that you owe me one: I’m missing half my little finger, damn it! Where’s Lena?”

  “She is still asleep.”

  “Did you sleep?”

  “Actually, I did. For six hours, in fact. More than normal.”

  “So … what happened back there? Looks like your little cabal was infiltrated.”

  “Yes. It is very disturbing. Valentina seduced Oleg. I had met her, of course, and I had Sasha investigate her background. She seemed valid, and she had known Oleg at university. But Sokolov is a very intelligent man. He must have known where I would look and inserted documents to suggest that she was of a rebellious nature. He was ahead of me. And, as you perhaps found out, he was able to uncover much of our agenda. He knew that we were in Hamburg, he knew about our location in Croatia, and about the Paros expedition. He knew, from Valentina, about the Petrovich encounter. And now, of course, he has the spectacles, so he knows what we were after.” Shrugging, he bent to light another cigarette.

  “How did he get the glasses?”

  Marin looked up at him. “I assumed they were on your person.”

  Rygg shook his head. Briefly, he told Marin the story of the dash into the hallway in the Odessa Korona. Marin just stared at Rygg, his mouth slightly open, the cigarette and lighter poised motionless in either hand. “You mean,” he said. Then he shook his head, disbelieving. “You mean the case is perhaps still on top of the painting frame?”

  “I would guess so. Unless one of the cleaning people found it.”

  Marin tossed the cigarette and lighter aside, threw himself at Rygg, and kissed his cheeks, expressing his excitement in Russian. His wizened grandmother chuckled and muttered something, her needles still going clickety-clack.

  “Easy on my wounds there,” Rygg said, pulling back, but he was grinning.

  “You are a miracle, Torgrim!” Marin shouted.

  A door opened and Lena peered out sleepily. Her hair was scattered about her face, and one cheek was creased. “What is happening?” she asked.

  Marin ran over and kissed her, then picked her up by the waist and twirled her around the room. “Torgrim has performed a magic!” he shouted. He let her fall into a chair.

  “What magic?” she asked.

  “The spectacles! He hid the spectacles!”

  “Oh my God! Torgrim, you have saved us!”

  “All right, all right,” Rygg said, thinking about how he’d lost a finger to save the glasses. “But there are a couple issues here. First, you don’t know if they’re still there. Second, how are you going to get them? Isn’t the Odessa Korona dangerous for us? Surely they’re watching it.”

  Marin sobered slightly. “You are right – they might have been discovered by now. Sokolov’s people were almost certainly all over the hotel. But I will call someone.” He went over to a gigantic Bakelite rotary phone beside his grandmother’s chair and dialed a number. After a while, he murmured something in Russian, listened, murmured again, and hung up.

  “Another thing,” Rygg said, when Marin turned back into the room.

  “Yes?”

  “What now? We’re stuck in Moscow. I can guarantee you that Sokolov has put out warnings at all the airports and train stations. We’re fucked. Even if we get the glasses, we’re fucked.”

  Lena looked at Marin, who nodded. “Well, you are right, of course. But it is not quite as bad as you think. In one hour and a half, we will be in the air.”

  “But I just told you—” Rygg started, but Marin wafted a hand at him.

  “Do not worry. It is a special airport.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Do we have tickets?”

  Marin shrugged. “Not necessary,” he said.

  The driver arrived an hour later, during which time Rygg drank two cups of horrible coffee and ate a slice or two of black bread slathered with a substance that tasted like sour cream cheese. The driver was a middle-aged woman wearing a boiler suit and smoking. As soon as they got into her nameless van, she turned around and handed the glasses case to Marin, who kissed it reverently, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. Beaming, he spoke to the driver in Russian. She shrugged and replied briefly. Marin laughed. “She didn’t even go into the hotel,” he said. “She just told the porter where she’d left the glasses and he fetched them for her.” They took off at a blistering pace through the traffic.

  “Look,” Rygg said, as they drove. The coffee was beginning to work. “What’s the next step here?”

  “We have to develop the film.”

  “But after that. I mean, assuming they give you what you need, are you finished?”

  Marin looked out at the traffic. “No,” he said. “Not quite, I think. We would have evidence of Moscow’s involvement, but we need to know the other end. We need to know where the ship is heading, what preparations have been made on t
hat side.”

  “And you’re still guessing that the missiles are destined for the Middle East?”

  “Almost certainly.”

  “Look, this is going to sound crazy, but why not fly into Cairo? I have a contact there that might be able to help us. I know my way around. And there’s no better place for disappearing.”

  “Cairo …”

  “It’s a crazy city. My contact could help us land in the desert.”

  “We need Sasha.”

  “Bring him over.”

  “Well, well. It is an interesting idea. I will talk with the pilot about this.”

  On the outskirts of the city, at the edge of a district of derelict factories, there was a long airfield, strewn with plastic bags and rusted tin cans. At one end was a huge, half-cylinder hangar. A tattered windsock waggled in the dirty breeze. They drove straight in at the gate, which an elderly man closed after them, and the van passed into the open mouth of the hangar. Within it, already running, so they emerged from the van into cacophony, was an antique four-prop plane, tilted roof-ward at a forty-five degree angle. Marin urged them out with windmill gestures. Rygg followed Lena up a rickety flight of stairs and into the fuselage. It smelled strongly of oil. Marin kicked the stairs away, closed the door, and ran up the aisle to bang the pilot on the shoulder and shout something at him. While he was still in the aisle, the plane started out of the hangar.

  Marin didn’t even bother to sit during takeoff. He leaned against the seat across from Rygg and lit a cigarette. He handed Rygg a cell phone. “This is the pilot’s,” he shouted. “Call your contact in Cairo, and tell him we’ll be there in six hours.”

  So Rygg made the call. The plane shuddered over the potholed strip, spewing plastic bags to either side, then clattered into the air. The phone rang twelve times, and he wasn’t sure what he’d do if no one picked up, but finally, a sleepy voice said, “Aiwa?”

  “Marwan! This is Torgrim Rygg. How are you? How is your family? Very sorry to call during your nap time. Listen Marwan, I need a favor.”