He took a wide arc toward the ridge, knowing that all he needed was a clean line toward it, to be able to pick them out at a distance. He didn’t need to be close. Five hundred feet would be close enough.
They continued to fire, as he had known they would, and on each occasion he watched for the flash that came from their muzzles. When he found a place from which he could see the ridge, a boulder strewn with snow and dried brown pine needles, he lay down on his chest, his legs outstretched and wide. It didn’t offer a great deal of concealment, but he didn’t have time to find much better.
He brought the telescopic sight on top of the Dragunov to his eye, resting his cheek on the worn leather pad on the stock, then activated the soft glow of the lamp within. The reticle illuminated, and he worked to find his range. The wind gusted heavily, so he adjusted along the stadia marks.
Another flash came, followed by a short crack. He placed the reticule’s center in the heart of where the flash had come from, where he thought in the low light he could discern a shape that might have been a man.
He settled himself. Let out a long, slow breath, and pulled the trigger at its end.
Whatever it was, man or woman or even child, it jumped and a puff of dark mist issued above it. There might have been a cry above the wind, an instinctual scream of pain, but Zasekin couldn’t be sure. What he could be certain of was that he had found his mark.
Another crack. More difficult this time to catch the flash that accompanied it, for Zasekin was so focused on the reticule, his other eye barely opening at that moment to take in the rest of the ridge.
Nearby, a whistle preceded the sound of a bullet striking a tree. It tore away a heavy branch, which then fell to the ground and tumbled down the hillside.
He swept the reticule across the ridge, alighting on another shape, roughly similar to the first, and where he hoped the second flash had come from. He didn’t wait this time, but instead fired again.
He didn’t see if he had anything. He made himself still again, breathing slowly and waiting. His heart beat hard and he found himself wanting to move, knowing that if he had missed, the next shot in return might well be closer than the trees above him. He had offered them a flash of his own for them to target.
No more gunfire came from the Czilim; his squad would not fire for fear of hitting one of their own.
Zasekin waited, tense, knowing that if he moved that might give the remaining gunman, if he was still alive, a target to shoot at.
He studied the ridge, slowing sweeping it with the telescopic sight, resting on each undulation to discern whether it might be a target. Eventually, he knew what he had to do. Had he been blessed with more time, he would have waited, but God had not been kind. Vasily Fyodorovich might not have much longer.
He rolled off the boulder and began to run, dodging between the trees, striking branches and brushing needles and sending clouds of snow and ash into the air. He kept low; no sense in offering too much of a target. That was not his aim.
He kept his eyes on the ridge, bumping into trees because he couldn’t look where he was going. Twice his face was lashed by branches and the bite of new blood stung him.
The shot he had been waiting for came. It missed him, but not by much. He stopped instantly, not taking time to look for cover. He knew the gunman might move. He wondered for a half-second, a single thought amidst the darkness of his otherwise clean focus, whether these were hunters or simple opportunists. If that thought had taken only a half-second, it took little more than a full second for the rifle to come to his shoulder, for his cheek to find the old leather pad on the stock and his eye, through the illuminated reticule, to find its target. Another half-second and his finger squeezed the trigger, neither too tightly, nor too easily. Just enough to keep the rifle steady and allow the round to do it work.
The bullet left the muzzle and Zasekin knew instantly it would find its mark, but he didn’t move. He waited, breathing slowly, the tension still rigid in his body. He made his way to the ridge only when he considered it was safe enough to do so.
There he found two bodies: Mongolian men dressed in thick hide coats lined with fur, and wide hats with flaps pulled down over their ears, but no weapons. Their rifles were gone. There were no horses either, no equipment of any kind. Whoever was with them had taken everything of value and fled.
They knew Russian soldiers with a hovercraft were using the Chuluut to travel south. This thought plagued him as he made his way back down the hillside to the Czilim.
“We cannot change things now,” Timur said when Zasekin told him, when they were under way and Vasily was laid out gently on the floor. Fortunately, the wound was minor, a deep but otherwise superficial cut to his side and perhaps a broken rib.
“But we should be careful when we approach Terelj,” Zasekin said.
The look on Timur’s face told him he understood that well enough.
Chapter 5
Somewhere over Southern Sudan
“Always the lies, the deceptions,” Jess screamed. “You always seem to know when bad things are going to happen, and you just manage to be out of the way. Like magic. Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious?”
There had been no choice but to get back in the Otter and take off.
With an unknown number of potential hostiles coming toward them, with barely any supplies, and with half their party threatening to leave without them—Jess had no choice. Or rather, the other choice of demanding that they leave her—with a dying young man who she’d sworn to protect—wasn’t a workable plan. Jess could have taken the airplane and left Ufuk, perhaps, but without a destination, without a plan, and with Raffa in need of urgent medical care—it was a death sentence. She had no choice but to get back in the plane with its toxic cargo.
But it didn’t mean she couldn’t scream at Ufuk. “When I was arrested and there was a bombing in Sanctuary, where were you? Already outside? You brought Massarra there. And who else?”
“Nobody else,” Ufuk replied quietly.
He sat in the cockpit next to Peter. The jobs were still the same—Peter flying, with Ufuk managing the navigation—but with the added responsibility of needing to absorb Jess’s anger. Peter kept his eyes straight ahead, not wanting to get involved, as if pretending it wasn’t happening. Ufuk body’s was hunched inward, his head down, like a husband caught in a lie but submitting passively to his punishment, knowing there was no escape.
Jess let him have access to the tablet for navigation, but had Giovanni strip him of any of his other gadgets or tablets, despite his protestations that he needed to talk with Tanzania before they arrived. She punched Ufuk in the shoulder, as hard as she could. “Why won’t you tell us what the goddamn box thing is?” She pointed behind her.
Massarra sat all the way at the back of the plane, sitting protectively over the sleek gray metal box. She’d refused to budge, had firmly but politely resisted Jess’s attempts to tear it away from her to throw out of the Otter’s door. She said she had no idea what it was either, but that she trusted Ufuk, that her life was his. It only added to Jess’s ranting frustration.
Giovanni sat between them in the middle seats of the aircraft, trying to broker a peace, doing his best to keep Raffa comfortable, and keeping his arm around Hector to shield him from Jess’s fury. He’d taken away Jess’s M4 and pistol, kept them next to him. Just in case. Ain Salah sat behind him, his eyes on Jess, but just as silent.
“This is insane!” Jess screamed. She slammed the ceiling. “What do you want with me? Why did you come and rescue me?”
“You are living proof of the root of Müller’s deceptions,” Ufuk said quietly. “And I felt…a certain moral obligation, as did Massarra—”
“Moral obligation?” Jess pressed her face into her hand. “Are you kidding me? Tell me what’s moral lying to an entire planet full of people?”
“I didn’t lie, I just—”
“Omitted the truth? To your own people, even? I bet you didn’t even tell you prec
ious Levantine Council.” Jess glanced behind her to look at Massarra, whose face remained blank. “I knew it. He lied to you too. And you trust him? Give him your life?”
She turned back to Ufuk. “Did you destroy Sanctuary? Tell me now. How else could you be outside already? And Massarra helped you? I just want to know what is going on.”
“I did not,” Ufuk said, the tenth time he’d denied the accusation.
“And we’re taking this…thing…to your launch facility? Is it a bomb? Are you going to launch a nuclear bomb in some rocket to destroy Sanctuary China? Is this what you’re doing? You and Müller, locked in a battle to the bottom for control of the Earth…”
Jess had to pause to get oxygen into her lungs. Her forehead creased together as her thoughts crashed together, trying to fit a jigsaw of facts into a picture that made sense.
“Did you…did you attack Al-Jawf?” she blurted out. “To force us to come to Tanzania? This is way too convenient: a fully fueled Otter with just enough gas to get us there, waiting for us on the tarmac. This is some sick game to you, isn’t it? A megalomaniac gone wild. Wait, was it you that bombed the Vatican?” A horrible realization swept through Jess’s body. She felt like she was going to vomit. “You set this all up—”
“Jessica, you must stop. Müller admitted to bombing the Vatican, right to your face at Vivas,” Ufuk said, his voice gaining volume for the first time since they’d taken off. “You are going to make yourself ill. You must rest. You didn’t sleep at all last night. You must trust me. We are together.”
“He’s right,” Giovanni said quietly. “Stop arguing. Raffa needs to rest, and you do too. When we get to Tanzania, we can decide what we do. That will be in only a few hours.”
Jess closed her eyes tight and exhaled to let out as much of her frustration as she could. “Trust you?” she said to Ufuk, but her voice quiet now. “And we are not together. I don’t know what sick reason you have for dragging me along with you, but when we land and get Raffa some medical attention, we are going our own way.”
She turned, but then swiveled to jab Ufuk’s shoulder. “And he better not die, or I’ll kill you myself. I don’t care who you are.”
With that quiet threat, Jess retreated to check on Raffa, and then pulled a soiled sleeping bag over her head and curled up onto a bench. The Otter’s engines hummed as they skimmed below a flat brown ceiling of clouds, a dim light suffusing over rolling gray hills not more than two thousand feet below.
Massarra crept up between the seats. Ufuk had come back to join her once Jess’s anger had burned out. He’d tried to whisper to Massarra, to explain himself, but she’d just told him to be quiet, that she didn’t need him to explain. She told him to rest. He’d curled over up his precious gray metal container, cradling it like a lover. Ten minutes later his body twitched, his breathing becoming regular and deep.
He hadn’t told her what was in the futuristic-looking box, but she had her guesses. She’d inspected it, and it wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before, but she was smart. So was Ufuk. She wasn’t upset that he wouldn’t tell her what it was. In her business, compartmentalizing information was something she understood.
The weather was smooth, the Otter’s droning engines soothing.
Massarra eased herself past Jess, who snored in a deep, reassuring rhythm, and then past Giovanni, who cradled Hector in his arms. Ain Salah’s head was back, mouth open, eyes closed. Everyone else was asleep.
Everyone except Peter.
Peter just had to follow the red dot on the tablet strapped to the console in front of him, Ufuk had told him, and if anything happened, he could just yell. But Peter wanted everyone to rest as well, and kept as quiet as a mouse up front. Massarra didn’t need to know exactly what was in Ufuk’s precious metal box, but it was time to have an informational session of a different kind.
She slipped into the pilot seat beside Peter. For a few seconds, she just took in the low flat cloud they skimmed beneath, watched the landscape appear in the hazy distance and roll past beneath their feet. Visibility was at least a few miles. Peter glanced at her and smiled a tight half-grin. He wiped his eyes and face and returned to staring forward.
“I know what you are,” Massarra whispered.
“Pardon me?”
“Keep your voice down.” She said this in a low, forced tone. “And I said, I know what you are. I don’t know who you are, but I understand what you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peter whispered back.
“Do you think I would let you so near to her? Get so close to Jessica?” Massarra whispered even lower. “That little trick in the market with the ball? Your friend Hamza? Those men?”
The engines droned in a silence that stretched into seconds. Peter kept his eyes straight ahead. To his credit, the man didn’t flinch. His eyes didn’t even blink. That was good, thought Massarra. This man was well trained.
“Jessica likes you,” Massarra continued. “She has good instincts, even if she doesn’t know why. Me? I don’t like you, but I trust we have a common interest.”
“I can help,” Peter whispered urgently, turning to look at her. “America isn’t dead, I’m sure I can—”
Behind them, Raffa groaned.
Massarra held up one hand. “Keep your voice down. I don’t need you to explain. And I absolutely do not want you to share our secret with Mr. Erdogmus. He might not understand…the way I understand.” She smiled, and she very rarely smiled. “He has his secrets, and I have mine. This is the key to any successful long-term relationship, no?”
“What do you want, then?”
“Just for us to have an understanding. A mutual professional respect. As I said, we have a common interest, and that is enough for now. You scratch me, I scratch you”—she pointed back at Jess—“and we both protect her. Understood?”
Peter stared forward, chewed on his lip, and after a second he nodded slowly.
“Good.” Massarra patted his shoulder, and got up to return to the back of the plane.
The complex lay a hundred miles west of the Pangani River, known locally as Jipe Ruvu. A day’s drive from a small, nameless Maasai community that had grown around the confluence of two wide, dirt roads that lead through the Southern Maasai Steppe and eventually to trunk routes at Korogwe and then on to the coastal city of Tanga.
It was a remote community, Ufuk told them, that knew him as a man who had generously provided them with clean water facilities, solar cell generators, and farming equipment; who had arranged lessons in English and offered books and computers, while funding local guiding initiatives. In return, the small Maasai administration had provided labor and security for the complex—local guides and a community willing to offer their combined experience of the Handeni District and the Tanga region. People willing to protect and watch over the installation and those who worked there.
The Pangani River cut a winding, serpentine course through a scrubland over five hundred kilometers long. A muscular, dark artery through the vast, arid savanna of northeast Tanzania. Further to the east lay the brooding Usambara Mountains, laden with a slate-gray shroud that once washed the jungled rock with a thick, wet heat.
Jess wedged herself back between the two pilot chairs for the final approach, despite Peter’s objections for her to strap into a bench. She watched the river snake below them, as Peter brought the aircraft in low to take a look at the Maasai town. The huts looked deserted. The forests remained, but everything was covered in a layer of black-and-gray ash. Dim light seeped through the ever-present layers of cloud.
At least it wasn’t Libya, and that was an improvement.
Her mood had improved as well, but from highly explosive merely down to simmering rage. She made sure that she and Giovanni had their weapons—Massarra refused politely to give up hers—but they took away Ufuk’s pistol.
Jess was in charge now.
Ufuk explained the facility as they approached—clean beds, showers, food and an auto
mated medical facility. A tiniest bit of optimism creeped into Jess’s chest as she caught sight of a knot of low buildings and a narrow dirt track leading away into the savanna—but with Raffa feverish and shivering, worry sat heavy in her gut.
“The climate here is usually very hot,” Ufuk said, craning his neck to get a better look down. “Usually a lot of rain in the winter here, but who knows now.”
Jess didn’t reply. She just hoped not to feel bitter cold against her exposed skin.
“Usually there’s wildebeest, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, all grazing in the tall grass. Even elephants. But I don’t see anything.” He leaned back.
Peter shifted the control column forward and the Otter descended. The plains below were as gray as the skies. Nothing moved. Coming in to the landing strip, Jess saw the focal point of the complex around which everything else was organized. A single, tall red pylon tower rising above the rest. Beside it, a collection of mushroom-cap satellite dishes—one of them huge—all angled toward the sky. Everything covered in gray ash. It formed a smooth coating over the open ground she could see: no footprints, no tire tracks. That was good. The Otter descended and skimmed over the high-fenced perimeter. Three sets of thirty-foot reinforced and electrified fences, Ufuk told them. It would take an army to breach, he’d boasted.
“Where’s our Predator friend?” Jess asked, glancing at the tablet. She hated talking to Ufuk, but her practical side overpowered her emotional. Now wasn’t the time.
“It landed ten minutes ahead of us. No heat signatures anywhere. No transmissions.”
Jess blinked and rubbed her eyes. Tiny black dots danced in her vision. She worried she was about to pass out before they grew in size. Tiny drones swarmed into the air from the base of the complex’s tower.
“Our greeting party,” Ufuk said. “I just activated the installation’s networks.”
Resistance (Nomad Book 3) Page 26
