by Peter Telep
“Briggs, put some fire along the wall to your right, just above the car.”
“Gotcha.”
As the bricks came alive, the sparks flickering and dancing, Travkin couldn’t help but turn back to engage Briggs, as did the Snow Maiden, still out of sight on the other side of the SUV.
Holding his breath, Fisher made his move, vaulting toward the Skoda and reaching the man just as he swung around. Fisher drove himself into the rear door, knocking Travkin onto his back and then, before the agent could sit up, Fisher dragged him by the ankles beneath the door, stopping halfway before coming around behind him.
Reflexively, Travkin tried to sit up but found the door inches from his neck. At the same time, Fisher was already ripping the pistol from the agent’s grip and turning it on him.
The decision to kill never came lightly but when it did, there was never any hesitation. A single headshot point-blank finished Travkin as the police sirens wailed in the distance.
Fisher ducked down to see if he could shoot the Snow Maiden right through the SUV’s cabin—but she was gone.
Two more rounds chewed into the wall.
“Briggs, hold fire,” Fisher stage-whispered. He quietly ejected the agent’s magazine, which felt painfully light. He checked it. Empty. He searched the man for another magazine. Nothing. Damn, he’d killed Travkin with his final round. Fisher dumped the gun and drew his SIG once more, racking the slide and clearing the jammed round.
“Sam, she’s tucked in tight near the front of the car, where the radiator’s hissing,” said Briggs. “I saw her toss away two magazines, and she didn’t reload. She might be out of ammo. Wait, she’s moving now. Lost her. I think she’s heading your way.”
For the span of exactly three heartbeats the road fell eerily quiet, save for that hissing radiator and the drumming of Fisher’s pulse.
Even those klaxons from the police cars seemed muted, and the traffic in the distance began moving more slowly, as though his instincts had automatically switched off all interference so he could focus on the slightest crunch of pebble, the barest whisper of breath escaping from the Snow Maiden’s lips.
Then, abruptly, it all hit him again—the sirens growing louder, the stench of leaking gasoline, the wind beginning to turn icy as he circled around the truck.
His right ankle came out from under him before he realized that the Snow Maiden was beneath the SUV. He hit the ground, tried to roll to get the pistol aimed at her, but she was on him so fast that he thought for a second he was being attacked by a mountain lion or a jaguar.
She struck a roundhouse to his jaw while reaching up to clutch his wrist, nails digging in to trap his pistol over his head. With a groan, he sat up, trying to force the pistol forward toward her head.
And then, in a move that was as acrobatic as it was confusing, she locked both hands around the pistol and used it like a gymnast’s horse, launching herself away, both legs high in the air, her boots arcing in a black leather rainbow as she drew on her full body weight and momentum to free the pistol from his sweaty grasp. He spun back, now unarmed.
She hit the ground, rolled, and came up with the business end of the SIG. Her idea of doing business was, of course, to point the gun at his forehead. “Who are you?” she demanded in Russian.
“Briggs?” Fisher muttered. “Now would be a good time to shoot her.”
“I don’t have a bead. I’m moving up for a better shot,” Briggs answered. “The sights are off on this piece of crap rental pistol.”
“Sam, the police will be there any minute,” said Grim. “I need to move in now!”
“I said, who are you?” the Snow Maiden screamed.
19
FISHER’S gaze averted from the Snow Maiden’s fiery eyes to her trigger finger. The gun was slightly too large for her, and the pad of her index finger barely reached over the trigger, meaning if she fired, her shots would tend to go left. Too small of a gun and too much pad over the trigger would send them to the right. This was all academic, of course, because she had Fisher point-blank in her sights. It was just a matter of whether she’d hit him perfectly center mass or a few inches in either direction.
“You’re looking for Kasperov,” Fisher began, trying to distract her. “We know where he is.”
The Snow Maiden opened her mouth, but something on the periphery caught her attention, Briggs perhaps. As she flicked her gaze to the left, Fisher started toward her—
She backed away and pulled the trigger.
The shot rang out with an ear-piercing explosion that sent Fisher stumbling back and falling onto his rump.
But the only pain was in his ears, and when he glanced up, he spotted the Snow Maiden staring down in shock at the smoking pistol in her hands, the slide blown clean off.
One of those cheap rounds had prematurely exploded inside the weapon, possibly firing out of battery.
Fisher bolted to his feet, crying, “Briggs, get Nadia! Grim, get over here!”
The Snow Maiden threw down the pistol and lifted her arms in a defensive block as Fisher lunged at her.
While he outweighed the woman by at least sixty, maybe even eighty pounds, he once more marveled at her agility. Even as he tried to seize her wrists and straddle her, she was already writhing out of his grip and sliding between his legs, only to roll back and hook her ankles around his neck, forcing him back into a blood choke conducted with her legs.
Whether she’d learned these unconventional techniques with the Russian circus or had invented them herself was beside the point; she was the most asymmetric combatant he’d ever faced, twisting and turning like an oily snake.
She even growled now through her exertion, as though every sinew in her body had a voice. With each pound of pressure she applied to his neck, it seemed as though she cast out another demon. He’d just met her, but she fought like it was personal.
A chill of panic struck as he realized he couldn’t pry free her legs. The world darkened along the edges, like ink bleeding into his field of view.
A gunshot boomed.
And suddenly the pressure was gone. He could breathe. He wrenched himself up. Turned. She was gone.
Briggs was hauling him to his feet.
“I think I hit her, but she took off over the wall. Want me to go?”
Grim came to a squealing halt in her rental. “Come on!”
Fisher blinked hard as the blood rushed back into his head. He looked at Briggs, at Grim, then finally said, “Help me get Nadia into the car.”
Still dizzy, Fisher turned back to the SUV, where Nadia was lying, her lips taped shut, her eyes wide. They’d fastened her wrists and ankles with zipper cuffs that they ignored for now, lifting the girl and rushing back to Grim’s car.
After getting Nadia into the backseat, Briggs crossed to the passenger’s seat while Fisher remained in back. As they took off for the next intersection, Fisher gently removed the tape on Nadia’s lips. She took a few tentative breaths. Fisher saw now that her eye was red and bruised and had probably been much more swollen. She looked at him for a few seconds, her brain seemingly unable to function until she finally asked in Russian, “Who are you? Did my father send you?”
Fisher glanced at Grim, who pursed her lips then said, “No use lying to her.”
Fisher softened his tone. “We’re Americans.”
“So I’m being kidnapped again?”
“No, we’re trying to help your father. We know he’s on the run. We’re offering him—and you—asylum. Do you know where he is?”
She shook her head. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy.”
“She killed my friend.”
“Who? The Snow Maiden?”
“Is that what they call her? She’s . . . she’s . . .” Nadia began to break down.
Fisher placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right. We’re taking you to our air force base in Turkey. She can’t touch you anymore.”
“Sam, it’s Charlie again. Police on th
e scene now. They’ve recovered a few of the weapons. I tracked the Snow Maiden on security cams for a few blocks, but then I lost her. She was favoring one of her arms, so Briggs might’ve shot her. Interesting that she doesn’t want any contact with the local authorities.”
“She’s not supposed to blow her cover.”
“Well, she lost Nadia.”
“No, she didn’t,” Fisher corrected. “Not yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll get to that later.”
Charlie sighed. “All right, but I bet she’s on the shit list in Moscow . . .”
“I doubt that scares her.”
“Right. Anyway, glad you’re still with the living.”
“Me, too.”
Fisher glanced once more at Nadia, so frail and pathetic, looking as though she had nothing.
Instead of everything.
20
THEIR exfiltration route had involved chartering a boat out into the Black Sea and rendezvousing with a Black Hawk chopper whose crew would haul each of them up and into the hovering bird. However, Kobin had arranged for a much more pleasant yet equally clandestine exit. The crew of a private yacht owned by one of his gunrunning associates met them in Bichvinta, a city about thirty miles south of the hotel. They boarded the yacht and were ferried across the Black Sea and back to Trabzon. There, they met the crew of a CIA charter jet and were whisked back to Incirlik, some 360 miles southwest of Trabzon.
In order to maintain operational security, Nadia would stay aboard Paladin, where she would be examined by a doctor before being transferred to another jet for a flight back to the States. The 39th Medical Group’s commander sent them a general practitioner named Evren from the Deployed Flightline Clinic. The doctor was blindfolded and taken aboard the aircraft, where he was guided by Briggs to the infirmary.
“Sorry about all the secrecy,” Fisher said, removing the man’s blindfold.
Evren’s gaze panned across the room and toward the hatch beyond. “C-17?” he asked.
“Something like that. Gets us from point A to point B.” Fisher glanced over at the cot near the far wall, where Nadia was resting, covered by a blanket and with an arm draped over her forehead. “The doctor’s here to examine you,” Fisher said in Russian.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“I insist.”
Fisher muttered in the doctor’s ear, “I want you to check her from head to toe. I want you to look for recent incisions, small ones. We think she might have a tracking chip, and we need to get it out.”
“All right. And of course, I was never here, never saw you, her, or this plane.”
“My diagnosis for you is sudden, acute amnesia.”
Evren snickered. “Why don’t you leave the diagnoses to me. If we could have a moment of privacy?”
Fisher grinned and gestured to Briggs. They left the infirmary and returned to the control center, where Charlie spun around in his chair and said, “She talk yet?”
Fisher shook his head. “We need to take this slowly.”
“She knows where her father is,” said Charlie.
“Maybe not,” said Briggs. “He’s figured out now that they’ve got her, or at least had her, so he’s trying to anticipate what she might say.”
Fisher sighed. “And right now she’s not saying much, trying to protect him.”
“She said they killed her friend in front of her. What makes you think we’ll get her to talk?” asked Briggs.
Fisher considered that. “We need to earn her trust.”
Grim, who’d been conferring with Ollie, came back over to Fisher. She was holding Nadia’s diary. “There’s nothing in here to suggest a location—just a lot of rantings about teachers, school, books, and how ugly the boys are in her classes. Actually, pretty depressing stuff for a little rich girl.”
“Hey, Sam, you get a chance to try the khachapuri?”
Fisher glanced at Kobin, then returned his gaze to Grim. “Does he need to be here?”
“Hey, spy boy, who got you home from Sochi? And by the way, Bab is pissed about her guns.”
Fisher snorted. “We’ll pay her back with peanut butter.”
“Yeah, the old hag would love that.”
“And tell her the ammo sucked!” cried Briggs. “She’s probably had her grandsons reloading it.”
Fisher wasn’t complaining. The ammo sucked, all right, but it had also saved his life.
“So you got the girl,” said Kobin. “Now you call Daddy and wave the bait in his face.”
“And you think it’s that easy?” asked Grim.
“It is—if you know the right players.”
“And you do?”
“Look, if you want, I’ll put the word out to my contacts that we have her,” said Kobin. “See if any of them can pass it on. Maybe it’ll reach Kasperov. He’s got personal security, and a lot of those guys, well, let’s just say they’ve worked the black markets. You never know. If he realizes the Americans have his daughter, maybe he’ll come running to you.”
“No way. We’re not advertising that we have her,” said Fisher. “If that gets back to the Kremlin it’ll really stir the pot. We’ll take it from here.”
“And where are you taking it?” asked Kobin.
Fisher glared at Kobin, who threw up his hands.
“Look, I just want to help,” Kobin said.
Charlie turned back from one of his monitors. “Sam, the doctor’s calling for you.”
Fisher returned to the infirmary, where Evren frowned and kept his voice low. “There is a small incision near her lower back. I felt a capsule-shaped mass embedded beneath the skin.”
“That’s it. I need you to take it out right now.”
“What about her consent?”
“I’m telling you to take it out. That’s an order!”
“You have that authority?”
“Trust me, doc. I do.”
“I’ll need at least a local anesthetic and something to keep her calm.”
“We’ve got everything you need.”
“What would you like me to say to her?”
Fisher considered that. “You prep. I’ll get her ready.” He crossed back to Nadia’s cot and leaned over, softening his expression. “I know you’ve been through a lot. Do you remember if they sedated you? Maybe stuck a needle in your back?”
“They told me I fell and passed out and hurt my back. They told me I cut it and needed stitches.”
“They put a tracking device in your back. We’re going to remove it now. You won’t feel anything.”
Nadia bolted up and reached around to feel the wound. “You’re right. I can feel it in there.”
“Let us get it out.”
“Okay, yes, get it out of me.”
“First, did your father say anything to you about why he needed to run?”
“Not exactly. But he was always talking about all the pressure the government put on him. This is about them. I know it is.”
“Do you know if they were asking him to do anything for them? Maybe something he didn’t want to do?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t like to talk about work. He said it made him feel guilty. He always talked about vacations. Where are we going now?”
“There’s another plane on its way that’ll take you back to the United States.”
“I want to see my father.”
“Then help us find him. You sure you don’t know anything?”
She closed her eyes. “I keep telling everyone, I have no idea where he is.”
“You understand that if he broke the law or failed to obey them in some way, you’ll never see him again.”
“I know that!”
“Was there any secret way you spoke to your father, maybe through a third party or what we call a ‘cutout’?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“When I went away to school, he set up some kind of e-mail thing for family members, some kind of security thing, but
I never used it and I don’t even know the address or the passwords or anything.”
“Do you know what this is?” Grim asked, standing behind them now.
Nadia frowned at the necklace and pendant dangling from Grim’s hand. “You were in my apartment? You stole my things?”
“No,” said Fisher. “Everything we borrowed will be returned to you.”
“So how did you get this?” asked Grim.
Nadia rolled her eyes. “It’s just an ugly piece of jewelry my father gave me.”
“Where’d he get it?”
“On one of his trips somewhere. He’s always bringing me back stuff I don’t even want.”
Grim turned to Fisher and said, “Ollie finished his analysis. There’s clay with traces of gold ore and mercury inside the pendant. The sample is Andean in origin.”
“The Andes. South America,” said Fisher.
“Correct. And there’s only one gold mining operation in the world where rampant mercury refining is still practiced by local miners. The place is called La Rinconada, and it’s in Peru. It’s known as the highest city in the world.”
Nadia’s eyes widened in recognition. “That’s right. My father’s been there several times. He was setting up a headquarters in Lima. And he was talking about the charity work he wants to do up there at the mining town. He was saying there’s terrible pollution and awful schools. He wanted to help the kids and clean up the environment.”
“Why there? The world is full of slums and misery,” Fisher said.
“I don’t know, but some of our ancestors were Donbass miners in Russia. Some went to Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines. My father liked to tell stories about them.”
“He’s a philanthropist. He’s got an attachment to miners. What else do you need?” asked Charlie, who was eavesdropping on the conversation from the hallway.
Fisher glanced back to the doctor. “Take out her chip. Please don’t damage it. Call us when you’re finished.”
Evren nodded.
Fisher gestured that they all return to the control center, where he said, “I think Kasperov’s up there in La Rinconada.”
Grim squinted in thought. “Why would one of the richest men in the world go there?”
