Rift Zone

by Raelynn Hillhouse

  He struck the match against a brick, held the cigarette in his mouth and lit it, inhaling deeply. “I’ve gotta smoke this down a bit. We don’t have enough time to wait for the whole thing to burn on its own time.”

  “Can’t you just pinch off some of it?”

  “Believe me, I need a smoke.”

  “Summer, do you smell that? It’s not the cigarette. Look!” Faith pointed at smoke seeping through cracks in the door. “This place may be on fire.”

  “Dandy. Let’s speed it up and get the desk into position.”

  Faith struggled to lift the heavy metal desk with her hurt shoulder and cracked ribs, but Summer picked up his end with only one arm. They flipped it on its side, the top facing the explosives.

  “Get behind it. It’s showtime.” He dashed behind the desk. “It could take a minute or two. Don’t think about looking up until after it’s gone off. It’s gonna be loud and messy, but fast. You might want your fingers in your ears. Just as soon as the sound stops, go out the hole. Go straight through it—don’t look around and don’t worry about the glass. Let’s hope there’s a hole there, because if something shifts, the wave might not go in the right direction. If it doesn’t, see if the bricks are loose enough to smash ’em outward. If you can get out, just go. I’ll catch up with you. If we can’t get out that way, say a quick prayer and we’re going out the way we came in. Stay right behind me.”

  Summer picked up the glass shard Faith had used to cut him free. He wound duct tape around the narrow part, creating a crude handle. Then he took the knife and split the time fuse a half-inch down the middle, exposing the burning compound inside. He stuck the head of a match into the slit. He wedged the burning cigarette on top of it, careful not to press too hard and extinguish it. Working as quickly as he dared, he taped the two halves of the fuse together with duct tape, securing the match and cigarette in place.

  Faith held her breath as she watched Summer blow on the cigarette to make it burn faster. He dashed over to her, pushed her flatter against the floor and wrapped his body over hers. Her side hurt from the pressure, but the comfort of his body compensated for it. Summer clutched the makeshift knife tightly.

  “What’s that glass knife for?” Faith said.

  “A contingency you’re not gonna like. Anytime now, any—”

  The doorknob turned. Summer sprang up, gripping the knife. He glided to the door and plastered himself against the wall. Smoke poured into the room. Adrenaline flooded Faith’s body when she saw the guard step inside, his pistol drawn.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  LYSENKO RESEARCH FACILITY, MOSCOW

  A FEW MINUTES EARLIER

  Bogdanov left the temporary holding cell, the lingering formaldehyde smell sickening her. The second guard stood across the hall beside a glass display case crammed with a dusty assortment of books, scientific journals and plasticized human body parts. She already missed the German obsession with precision and order. She glanced at her watch. It was time.

  “They require food and water. Go find something,” Bogdanov said to the guard who had accompanied her with the prisoners.

  “Colonel, there are no facilities here that have prison rations.”

  “Then get them something better. Go to the canteen and pick something up.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Davai!” the colonel shouted, then turned to the other jailer. “I have some things to take care of at headquarters. Make sure they don’t escape while I’m away.”

  She walked through the musty corridor and down the main stairs. In the lobby she doubled back to a remote stairway and hurried into her temporary office.

  She sat on the hard wooden desk chair, staring out the window. Every thirty seconds she glanced at her watch. She was pleased she had been able to arrange to take over a section of the second floor of the KGB’s biological research facility for temporary detention. Lubyanka would’ve afforded her far too little privacy. Her reputation as a key player in the operation had given her enough clout to make such a bad choice in holding facilities and guard complements without anyone second-guessing her. Stukoi had actually believed it was a good idea to keep them at such an obscure location to prevent knowledge of their imprisonment from becoming widely known. After three minutes had passed, she rose from her seat and stuck a handful of old copies of Pravda under her arm. Anyone who saw her would assume she was on her way to the water closet with her own supply of makeshift toilet paper. No one would suspect what she was about to do.

  Just as she was about to walk out the door, Kosyk pushed his way into her office with two KGB guards.

  “What are you doing here?” Bogdanov said. “They’re not supposed to be transferred for another ten minutes.”

  “I’m here now.”

  “This is a KGB operation. Why is the MfS involved?”

  “To make sure it’s done correctly. I want my prisoners now.”

  Bogdanov walked back over to her desk and scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Then you won’t mind signing for them. Let’s see. You received them at fourteen hundred twenty-six hours.” She shoved the receipt across the desk to him, certain that the Prussian respect for bureaucratic procedure was on her side.

  Kosyk removed a fountain pen from his jacket and signed.

  “Wait here. I’ll get the keys.”

  She hurried down the corridor and stopped in front of a door. She looked around to make certain no one was watching her. Using a piece of cloth to prevent fingerprints, she opened the door and slipped into the janitor’s closet. She reached into a bag for a cigarette butt she’d lifted from Stukoi’s ashtray that morning. She struck the match, lit the cigarette and held its glowing tip against the newspaper. She hoped Faith understood her message and would make swift use of the distraction. The newspaper smoldered. She puffed on it. Burn, damn it. Burn.

  It had to look like a closet smoker had set the fire; initial suspicions of arson could expose her. When the newspaper burst into flames, she dropped it and the cigarette into a wastepaper basket and shoved it under a shelf of flammable cleaning fluids. She crept from the closet and shut the door. Black smoke poured through the cracks. Maybe she’d overdone it.

  She returned to her office and handed Kosyk the keys to the makeshift holding cell. “Prisoners are all yours. Try not to lose them.” Bogdanov then left the building, hoping Faith and the commander escaped before Kosyk got to them.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-THREE

  LYSENKO RESEARCH FACILITY, MOSCOW

  2:33 P.M.

  “Shto sluchil . . . ?” The guard’s words trailed off as Summer shoved the shard into his throat and twisted. Blood squirted onto Summer’s arm as he pulled the glass through the tough tissue. The guard crumpled to the floor. Summer grabbed his gun, lunged behind the desk and wrapped his body over Faith.

  Faith could feel Summer’s heart pound. For a moment the smell of the guard’s fresh blood overpowered the smoke of the smoldering fuse. Then the C-4 exploded. The deafening blast shook the room. A gust of air slapped her. Abruptly there was an eerie silence.

  “Go, go, go, go, go.” Summer leaped up, pulling Faith with him through the cloud of smoke and dust.

  Pools of formaldehyde mingled with broken glass, chunks of human brains and other debris, forming a macabre swamp. The guard’s blood swirled into the brew. Faith skidded, falling toward the floor. She held out her hand to catch herself and it smashed into a sliver of glass. Summer reached around her waist and caught her before the rest of her hit the ground.

  A good portion of the wall was missing. She was grateful for the low-quality Soviet mortar and the high level of Summer’s expertise. She stepped over the rubble and lowered herself to the sidewalk. Sirens wailed in the distance as people poured from the building. A shriveled babushka leaned on her broom of lashed twigs and watched.

  “This is your town. You lead the way,” Summer said.

  “Hell, I don’t know where we are.” />
  “Then we’re going this way.” Summer broke into a sprint.

  They reached the end of the tree-lined block. The drone of sirens was coming closer. They took a left and dashed onward. She looked around to get her orientation, but the four-story buildings could have been anywhere in downtown Moscow. They raced past a Gastronom grocery store with cans stacked in pyramids; it could have been any one of hundreds of such establishments in the city. The sirens screeched from directly ahead, but they were in the middle of a block, with nowhere to run.

  Faith’s heart pounded so hard she thought her body was shaking with its beat. She gasped for air and held her aching side. “You go on. I can’t go much further. Let them get me. Save yourself.”

  “I don’t leave team members behind—especially you. I’ll carry you if I have to. Come on.”

  The sirens were almost upon them. She forced herself to continue, slowing with each step. A hundred meters ahead a driver closed the back door of a blue delivery truck.

  “Punch it, Faith. Here’s our ride.”

  She mustered every last bit of energy. About thirty feet away from the truck, she heard the engine start. Summer rolled up the cargo door and hopped in the back. Summer held out his hand for her and the truck started to move.

  Just a little farther. Faster. Faster.

  She grabbed at his hand and leaped just as a fire engine roared by. He grasped her by the wrist and yanked. Pain shot through her injured shoulder. Summer pulled her into the truck with the ease of a dog tossing a stuffed toy. The metal door protested with a loud squeak as he pulled it down, shutting out all light.

  “Whew, this is one stinky country. You all right?” Summer said.

  “I’m alive.”

  The truck hit a pothole and something slimy raked against the side of her face, knocking her off balance. Summer caught her, his fingers pressing into her sore ribs.

  She scraped at the thick substance as she stifled a gag. She pulled a disintegrating Kleenex from her pocket and wiped away what she could. “This is vile.”

  Summer opened the door a crack for light. Decapitated pig carcasses swung like greasy pendulums from hooks on the roof.

  “Oh, man. Couldn’t you have picked a bakery truck?” Faith said.

  The truck fell into another pothole and a carcass swung toward her, but Summer pushed her down against the floor. The draft from the movement blew over her neck.

  “We’ve got to make our way through these piggies to hide from the driver before the next stop,” Summer said.

  Faith breathed through her blouse. “You’re kidding. It’s all I can do not to barf right now.”

  “Buck up, Faith.”

  “No, I’m drawing a line in the lard right here and now. When the truck stops, we jump out. We’ve gone far enough. If we get coated in lard, we’re sure not going to blend in with the locals very easily, and every mutt in this city is going to be after us.”

  “We’ve got to get to the embassy. You know where it is?”

  “That’s the last place we want to go. Soviet militia and the KGB patrols it to keep everyone from running in and asking for asylum. You can bet they’ll have our descriptions before we get there. Even if we could get in, I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of help.”

  “I’m active-duty military. I was kidnapped by the KGB and brought here as part of some plot to kill Gorbachev and blame it on the US. Believe me, I’ll get their attention.”

  “Even if we get in, there’s not much they can do for us. You think the KGB would let them drive us out to Finland in an embassy car? I can guarantee it’d have a bad accident before it could get past the Moscow ring road. The Americans would probably put us up in the basement with those Russian Baptists who’ve camped there for years. You think you’re frustrated now that you haven’t made full commander? Imagine what a few years in an embassy basement with friends of Jesus will do for your career.”

  “I’m open to suggestions.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FOUR

  DZERZHINSKAIA METRO STATION, MOSCOW

  3:15 P.M.

  Bogdanov shoved through the crowds of Muscovites sneaking home early from work and wished deodorant supplies were a higher priority for the Party. Her nose was used to Germany. She slid a key into a door ostensibly restricted to metro personnel and entered an antechamber with a plainclothes KGB guard sitting at a metal desk that filled half the room. A colorful diagram of the metro was posted to his right and a painting of the metro station’s namesake and the founder of the Soviet secret police to his left. Felix Dzerzhinsky’s eyes always seemed a bit too glassy; she suspected miniature surveillance cameras were hidden inside as a fitting tribute to the brutal spymaster. Bogdanov flashed her KGB identification and stepped into the high-speed elevator to Lubyanka. Her stomach stayed on the ground floor while the West German–built elevator transported her nearly thirty stories to the surface.

  She crept into her recently assigned office undetected and retrieved volumes three and four of the Faith Whitney file she had signed out from the central repository earlier in the day. Weeks before, as soon as she learned of Kosyk’s interest in Whitney, she had familiarized herself with the contents. From this analysis, she believed she could predict where Faith would turn for help.

  Bogdanov flipped open the file to a report of Faith meeting with the well-connected antique collector Dr. Svetlana Nikolaevna Gorkovo. The files were stitched together at the top. She took a razor blade from her desk and excised the report, careful not to leave any marks on the page beneath it. She removed everything mentioning the doctor. When she finished, she folded the sheets and stuck them inside her inner jacket pocket. She didn’t want any shredded documents in her office.

  A phone rang. Stukoi demanded her immediate presence in his office. She returned the edited files to the documents repository and braced herself for his fury. The general screamed at her before she could close his office door. She stood at attention in front of his desk and waited for the tirade to extinguish itself.

  “I’m sorry, sir; what caught on fire?” Bogdanov said.

  “The fucking facility where you were keeping the Americans, you idiot.”

  “Did FedEx and Otter survive?”

  “Not confirmed. Most of the guards abandoned their posts and ran out of the building. One guard stayed behind to get them out, but he hasn’t been accounted for. The fire department is on the scene.” Stukoi smashed his cigar into an ashtray. “How could you let this happen? They were in your charge, you fuckup.”

  “They weren’t in my custody. Kosyk had already relieved me.” Bogdanov held out a paper to Stukoi. “I even had him be a good German and sign for them. He might really be a Slav, but you can always count on him to act Deutsch.”

  “So the great Kosyk fucked up. That makes my day.”

  “Any known loss of lives?” Bogdanov said.

  “Does it matter?”

  Bogdanov tapped on a pack of Aeroflot cigarettes until one came out. “Even if the Americans died, we can put on a show of searching for them. We have enough surveillance photos to put together anything we want. A nationwide manhunt might work better for us than catching them immediately. We can always corner them in some building they set on fire with their remaining explosives. We produce their charred remains as evidence. Trotting them in front of a camera would’ve been nice, but they wouldn’t have given us what we wanted, anyway.”

  “You cover your ass well, Bogdanov. Going by the time on that receipt, you had just handed them over to Kosyk right around the time of the fire.”

  “They were in his custody.”

  “How could he be so stupid as to sign a receipt for prisoners we don’t want a paper trail on?”

  Bogdanov nodded to Stukoi, indicating she wanted to use his lighter. He tossed it to her. “It’s standard MfS procedure. He even stood there like he was waiting for me to pull out a stamp to make it official.”

  “What I don’t understand is why the hell you would do it if yo
u didn’t already know they’d escaped.”

  “Maybe I wanted to make him feel at home. He’s lost her before. I wanted to cover my ass, just in case.”

  “You fucked him and the prick deserves it. Good work. Always did say you have balls. I still don’t like the fact that we lost them, but, hell, I like a good hunt as well as the next guy. We do have enough to pin it on them when we find them. And we will find them.”

  Bogdanov lit the cigarette. “They started the fire?”

  “We don’t know yet. There’s a hole in the wall of the room where they were held. Something exploded there. It’s a mess, but we found one body.”

  “There were chemicals inside. I don’t know how volatile.”

  “We have one report from a babushka who was sweeping the street. She claims a man and a woman climbed out of the hole after an explosion and ran. We can’t get a good description—bad eyesight.”

  “Any chance Gorbachev’s people got word of the event, started the fire and helped them escape?” Bogdanov said.

  “If his people knew, we wouldn’t be here right now. Because of the old lady, I want to work on the assumption they’re alive and on the run. We’ll have to find them.”

  “As I see it, our hands are tied until tomorrow morning. We can’t start a full search for them until after the deed. If we look for them now, it’ll put Gorbachev’s bodyguards on a higher state of alert, and we’ll seem incompetent if police all over the union know we had foreknowledge but couldn’t stop two American assassins,” Bogdanov said.

  “Agreed, but I’m going to have Popov’s investigative unit see if they can quietly pick up their trail from the building. They can search known associates.”