by Chris Goff
Chapter 6
Kozachenko listened as a chopper skimmed close to the tree canopy, whipping the overhead branches into a frenzy. Leaning against the hood of the GAZ Tigr, he held the phone to his chest and waited until the noise from the rustling leaves abated and then tried again. “Listen to me, Anatoliy. We’ve escaped detection, but we have a problem.”
“Is everyone all right?”
Kozachenko stared through the windshield at the man slumped against the passenger door. “Yolkin’s been shot. He was hit in the shoulder, and we can’t stop the bleeding.”
Dudyk and Vitaly were keeping pressure on the wound, but Yolkin was still losing blood. He also showed symptoms of shock. Kozachenko doubted he would make it. “We must find a doctor.”
“You must come back here, Vasyl.” The urgency in Barkov’s voice puzzled Kozachenko.
“Nyet. Yolkin needs immediate medical care.”
“Vasyl, you know better than anyone that one man is not worth risking the mission.”
“Yolkin is crucial. We need him alive.” Kozachenko felt his blood pressure spike and gripped the phone more tightly. Of all of them, Yolkin was the most knowledgeable about the workings of the gun. It’s why he was chosen for this mission. Retrieving the envelope should have been easy. Having the Ukrainian and DSS agent go all Rambo on them was the last thing Kozachenko’d suspected would happen.
“How badly is he hurt?” Barkov asked.
Yolkin’s color was fading, and his breathing grew thready. “Badly,” Kozachenko said. “We need to do something soon. He doesn’t have much time.”
“What’s your location?”
Checking the GPS, Kozachenko rattled off their coordinates. They’d been forced onto the Oblast Road that ran north to Lyman Druhyi by police units heading toward them on the M03. The police response had been faster than expected. Just one more in a string of events that had gone wrong. Fortunately, the night and the cloud cover were still knocking out any hope of satellite surveillance.
Barkov snorted in disgust. “You picked a dead-end road, Vasyl.”
“What?” Kozachenko reached inside the Tigr for the road map and flattened it against the hood. “What are you talking about?”
“There is no way out from where you are but to go back to the M03.”
“Derr’mo!” Shit! Kozachenko cursed the turn of luck. “What fucking choice did we have? Just tell me where there is medical help in the area.”
“There’s a doctor at the end of the road, but if you go that way, you’ll be trapped like a dog in a net.”
Kozachenko studied Yolkin through the windshield. His skin had developed a sheen, and his lips were turning blue. “If I don’t, Yolkin will be dead.”
* * *
The doctor’s office was located in Brateshky, a tiny village whose only reason for existence was a small train station that serviced the farmers in the area. The clinic sat directly across the street, set back from the road behind an ornate gate. Dark and empty, a sign on the door indicated the doctor lived next door.
It was one in the morning, and the town was asleep when Kozachenko pounded on the doctor’s front door. A dog barked in the backyard, then a man dressed in flannel pajama bottoms and a T-shirt appeared in the hallway. He flipped on a light and pushed open the door.
“What is it?” he said, rubbing his eyes at the sight of the men. “Is something wrong?”
“Dr. Gura?”
“Yes.”
Kozachenko grabbed his arm and pulled him down the front steps. “Our friend has been shot. We need you to fix him up.”
The dog’s barking grew more insistent, and the neighbor’s dog joined in. A woman poked her head into the hall. “Gelb, is everything all right?”
“Tell your wife to shut the dog up and go back to bed,” Dudyk ordered. He could feel the doctor start to shake.
“Everything’s fine,” the doctor called out. “There’s been an accident. Nothing big, but I’m going to go to the clinic. Close the front door and tell Vadim to be quiet.”
The light behind her silhouetted a shapely figure draped in a man’s shirt. She reached for the door. “Do you need help?”
“No!” the husband answered. “Go back to sleep, kohannja.”
She hesitated, spinning and revealing a pair of long, slender legs. One of the men blew out a sharp breath.
“Don’t!” the doctor said. “Leave my wife alone and I will help you.”
Kozachenko ordered Vitaly and Dudyk to guard positions near the front gate, then spurred the doctor toward the passenger side of the GAZ. Once the doctor had taken a look at Yolkin, Kozachenko leaned in. “Well?”
“This man needs to be in a hospital.”
“We are here. What can you do?”
“The bullet has gone through, but it appears to have nicked the axillary artery. This man needs surgery.”
“Then get started.” Kozachenko signaled to his men. “We need to move Yolkin into the clinic.”
Gura protested. “I cannot perform that type of surgical procedure. I don’t have an operating room or the experience.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine, Dr. Gura.” Through his tone, Kozachenko conveyed that the doctor didn’t have a choice.
Gura glanced between the men. “I’m guessing this wasn’t a training accident.”
Kozachenko offered a cold smile. “You’re very astute.”
Five minutes later, they had Yolkin laid out on a table in the clinic. Kozachenko posted Dudyk to watch the front door and ordered Vitaly to help with the procedure. The doctor gathered supplies. He was shaking his head, and sweat beaded on his forehead.
“We need to put him to sleep,” Gura said. “But in his condition, too much anesthetic could kill him.”
“He must not die,” Kozachenko said. The consequences were implied.
Gura mopped his brow with his sleeve and signaled to Vitaly. “I’ll need you to stand by his head. Make sure he keeps breathing. You.” He pointed to Kozachenko. “While your man monitors the patient, I’ll need you to assist me with the surgery. Once I cut open his arm, we won’t have much time.”
Yolkin moaned as Gura inserted an IV and thrashed about as the doctor cleaned the area where he planned to make the incision.
“You need to keep him still,” Gura ordered, draping the shoulder with a sterile cloth. He picked up a syringe, drew some medicine, and reached for the buffalo cap on the IV line. “Are you ready?”
“Whenever you are,” Kozachenko said.
Gura administered a small dose of medicine, waited for a short count, and then picked up a scalpel. Yolkin bucked as the knife sliced into his shoulder. Kozachenko felt his stomach flip as blood saturated the blue drape, and Yolkin let out a yowl.
“Keep him still.”
Jumping partway onto the table, Kozachenko pinned Yolkin down. “Give him more anesthetic.”
Gura tapped the IV line, and within seconds, Yolkin went limp.
Kozachenko slid off the table. Yolkin’s face had gone slack, and his eyelids were half open. “Is he breathing?”
Vitaly put a finger under his nose. “Barely.”
Gura signaled Kozachenko over. “We need to work quickly. I have no way of knowing how long he’ll be out.”
It didn’t take long for the doctor to slice the shoulder and find the bleeder. Kozachenko assisted, while Dudyk and Vitaly did their best to avoid watching.
“Hand me that clamp.”
Kozachenko passed over the instrument. The artery spurted blood like a whale’s spout. Gura clamped it off below the bleed.
“Now hand me the needle and thread.” He seemed to take pleasure in the men’s discomfort. “For being such tough guys, you’re all a bit squeamish.”
Kozachenko’s smile only went as far as his lips. “Shut up and sew.”
Chapter 7
They placed McClasky’s and Zhen’s charred remains into new bags, which were tagged and transported to the police morgue in Reshetylivka along with the bu
rned bodies of the ambulance driver and his fellow soldier. Jordan and Captain Melnyk accompanied the remains.
The police station was new, with shiny tile floors, rows of metal chairs, and an information desk restricting access to the elevators. Except for the investigators assigned to take their statements about the ambush, it was virtually deserted.
Having given their stories about what happened, they’d both been released. Now standing in the empty lobby, the captain handed Jordan her car keys.
“Hycha finally made it. Your car’s outside in the car park.”
“Thanks.” Jordan could see the rental, parked in plain view under a streetlamp in the virtually empty parking lot. “Any news about the attackers?”
“Do you mean, have we found them?” Melnyk shook his head. “No. There’s no trace.”
“In other words, they’ve escaped, and we have no idea where they’ve gone or what they plan to do next.”
“The theory is they headed east, back toward the Russian encampments. Once they travel outside of the Poltava Oblast, we have less coverage on the roads. The farther east they go, the more protection they have from Russian insurgents. Our chances of catching them now are slim.”
“What about hospitals and medical centers?”
Melnyk bobbed his head. “We’ve checked with all of them. There have been no gunshot wounds.” He grinned. “Perhaps your shot was superficial.”
“Or maybe he died.” Jordan was confident in her marksmanship abilities, proud to shoot like a girl. “They could have found help somewhere else. We know there’s an insider feeding them information. What about a smaller clinic or a local doctor, even a veterinarian?”
The captain looked skeptical. “Rural doctors in Ukraine treat multiple villages. None of them is equipped to deal with a gunshot wound.”
“That doesn’t mean our guys wouldn’t pay them a visit.” Heading for the unmanned information desk, she came up with a phone book and thumbed through the pages. “Limiting our search to the Poltava Oblast should narrow it down some.”
Melnyk reached over and took the book out of her hands. “The Poltava has a population of just over 1.5 million,” he said, flipping quickly to the listing of physicians. “There are at least one hundred health care providers listed.” His finger skimmed down one side of the book, then the other.
“Take out the dentists, the hospitals, and the big clinics.”
“That leaves approximately twenty-five names.”
Jordan handed him a pen. “Which ones are outside of the bigger cities?”
Melnyk ticked down the list, circling a name here and there. “These are worth trying, but not the others. Some are in areas too far north, or the cities are too large.”
“That’s good,” Jordan said, trying to sound encouraging. “Go through the others.”
Eventually he whittled the list down to five, and Jordan picked up the desk phone. “I’ll dial, you talk.”
The first three calls turned up nothing. One phone rolled over to an answering machine. They didn’t leave a message. The other two woke up the doctors. Neither had been disturbed until the phone rang.
Melnyk banged down the handset. “This is a waste of time.”
Jordan picked it up and dialed the next number. “Humor me. There are only two more names on the list.”
This time a woman answered with the name of the clinic. Jordan held out the phone.
“Vitayu? Chy mozhu ya dopomohty?” the woman said when no one spoke. Jordan guessed she wanted to know who was there.
“Please?” Jordan said.
“Vitayu?” Hello. The woman sounded nervous.
Melnyk grabbed the phone out of Jordan’s hand and launched into his script. Halfway through his spiel, his expression changed. Holding his hand over the mouthpiece, he said, “This is the wife of the doctor at the Brateshky Clinic, about twenty-three minutes from here. She says her husband was called out for an accident about an hour ago. She has offered to get dressed and walk over to the clinic.”
“No!” Jordan violently shook her head. “That would be dangerous, for both her and her husband. Tell her to stay where she is until we get there. Give her my cell number.” Jordan jotted it down in the margin of the yellow pages and shoved the book toward him. “Tell her to call back if the doctor returns, but by no means should she try to contact him.” Jordan heard the faint bark of a dog in the background. It sent a shiver of fear along her spine. “Tell her to lock the doors.”
It had taken Jordan and Melnyk thirty minutes to get to Brateshky. They’d arrived before the police. Stopping near the clinic gate, Jordan noticed there weren’t any vehicles parked out front, but the lights were on, and the front door stood slightly ajar. Next door, a dog in the backyard had taken up the steady, rhythmic barking of an animal in distress.
“This doesn’t look good,” Jordan said, drawing her weapon as she climbed out of the UAZ. The captain, she noticed, also had a gun in his hand. The gate squeaked as she pushed it open.
Crossing the front yard together, protecting each other’s backs, Jordan paid special attention to the shadows around the buildings. At the front door, she waited for Melnyk to position himself before going in. They cleared the reception and two exam rooms before they found them. The doctor and his wife seated on the floor of the back room near a metal procedural table littered with bloody surgical sponges. Both had been shot in the head, execution style.
“Clear,” she said.
Melnyk squatted down and checked both victims for a pulse. “Both are dead. It’s hard to tell how long.”
“Long enough that we missed their killers.” Jordan’s gaze took in the scene, the bloodstained drapes with the blood still drying, the bloody surgical instruments in the sink. The door of the medicine cabinet on the far wall had been jimmied open. There was no way to know what shape the man she had shot was in. However, one thing was clear. The Russians were in the wind.
Chapter 8
The U.S. embassy was situated in the Podilskyi District of Kyiv, housed in a sprawling complex anchored by two modern four-story buildings. Lory’s office was at the back of the property on the second floor with a view through the fence of Nyvky Park. Per orders, Jordan had come directly from Reshetylivka that morning without stopping at the Intercontinental Hotel. She was hot, filthy, and thirsty—not to mention tired. She’d stopped in the ladies’ room only long enough to use the facilities and pull her hair back into a ponytail.
“Glad you’re back.” David Lory gestured for her to drop her go-bag near the door and waved her to a chair across the desk from him. He stood about her height—above average for a woman, short for a man. Small-boned and wiry, he wore a dark-blue suit and tie that made him look more like a diplomat than an agent. He also looked like he’d gotten a good night’s sleep.
“Do you want something?” he asked. “Coffee? A Coke?”
Jordan perked up. “Diet?”
He hit the intercom button. “Mary, do you mind getting us a couple of Diet Cokes with ice?”
“Right away.”
By the tone of her voice, Jordan imagined Mary minded, but would bring them anyway.
“So what happened out there?” Lory asked. “It’s not even ten thirty AM and the media’s having a shit storm. Mary’s been fielding calls all morning from reporters. They all want to know whether we had someone on board that flight carrying top secret information worth killing for. I’d like to get my hands on the person who started that rumor. Thank God no one can prove it.”
Jordan wasn’t sure who’d leaked the information. Melnyk? Hycha? Frankly, any number of people could have seen her with the envelope.
Shrugging out of her jacket, she leaned back in her chair. “I’m sorry to say, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“You think there may be some truth to it?”
“I do.” She spent the next few minutes filling him in on the last twenty-four hours. As she was wrapping up, Mary arrived with the two glasses full of ice
and two sodas. Lory barely acknowledged the woman, while Jordan thanked her profusely.
“Not a problem. It was my pleasure.”
Jordan doubted it was.
“Thanks, Mary,” Lory said, indicating she should shut the door. “Now where were we?”
“There isn’t much more I can add,” Jordan said. “Any chance you know what was in the envelope?”
Lory broke off eye contact. Not a good sign.
“The State Department is not aware that McClasky was in possession of any classified documents.”
That was a different story than the one he’d given her yesterday morning.
“I saw the envelope, sir. And I distinctly remember you telling me McClasky had stumbled upon some intel he wouldn’t share while still in country.”
Lory looked back. “Whatever he had on him didn’t go through official channels, so officially he was not carrying any top secret information for the U.S. The buzz is that he knew something he refused to talk about until he was out of China.”
“Who’s the source?”
“The political officer at the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou. He claims McClasky called and requested assistance in getting Zhen from the Ynagjiang Bureau of Public Security office to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. The PO complied, but McClasky wouldn’t tell him anything.” Lory tented and flexed his fingers. “Look, Jordan, for all I know, McClasky was carrying around his letter of resignation. The PO claimed something had spooked him. Maybe he just wanted out.”
It surprised and ticked Jordan off that a man who had served the State Department well for forty years could be painted as some sort of loose cannon. “He wouldn’t mark his resignation letter as top secret. If McClasky broke service protocol, he must have had good reason.”
“I’m not so sure about that. From all reports, his handling of Zhen’s extraction was a tad unorthodox.”
“How so?”
Lory seemed to turn inward, and Jordan wondered if she’d pushed him too far. She took a sip of her Diet Coke and waited while he wrestled with how much to tell her. With luck, patience would tip the scale in her favor.
