by Marc Cameron
There was only one bike, and since Quinn was the better rider, it was understood he’d go. Aleksandra refused to be left behind, stressing the fact that she was the only one who knew what to do with the bomb once they found it.
Quinn threw a leg over the little blue bike and braced himself for Aleksandra to climb on behind him. An ATGATT man when he was on a motorcycle—all the gear, all the time—he felt naked in the flimsy raincoat and 5.11 khaki slacks. Looking ahead at what he could see of the snaking road and steep drop-offs, he consoled himself with the fact that a leather jacket and helmet weren’t likely to save him anyway.
Leggy as it was, the Yamaha wasn’t made for two riders. Quinn found himself thankful that Aleksandra was built like a forest sprite. Snugging down the pack on her shoulders, she wrapped her arms around his waist and scrunched up tight against his back, her thighs running parallel with his.
Quinn could see the headlines. UNITED STATES AIR FORCE OSI AGENT PLUNGES TO DEATH IN THE ARMS OF BEAUTIFUL RUSSIAN OPERATIVE….
Jacques stood by with a big hand planted flat on top of his head, looking like he might throw up. Rain dripped down Bo’s face, curling his shaggy head of blond hair. His lips pursed in a jealous line.
“You be careful with her, Jericho,” he muttered.
“Are you kidding me?” Quinn glanced over his shoulder at Aleksandra, then back at his brother, before shaking his head. “That old witch was right about you two.”
Aleksandra gave him a rough squeeze around the ribs, planting her doubled fists in his midsection. Her voice was flint hard next to his ear. “Let’s go,” she said. “Monagas is getting away.”
“You mean Zamora,” he said.
“Of course,” she said over the blatting engine. “That is what I mean.”
Quinn toed the bike into first and released the brake, beginning their seventy-kilometer downhill roll. With the angry Russian woman breathing revenge in his ear, the Road of Death was about to grow more deadly.
CHAPTER 52
A thirty-meter chunk of mountain lay in a lumpy tangled heap of roots, tree branches, and ferns across the narrow road. Bits of gravel still tumbled over an abrupt edge that disappeared into a low bank of soupy clouds that filled the valley below.
Crews of men wearing plastic raincoats and wielding shovels had cleared a flattened trail along the edge so they could walk back and forth. A chubby man with a cigarette dangling from his lips maneuvered an orange Kubota backhoe around the slide on metal tracks. It wasn’t much larger than a garden tractor and seemed even smaller alongside the gigantic heap of earth.
Rolling past the waiting trucks, buses, and the odd car, Quinn picked his line, aiming for the packed trail just feet from the edge. Quinn felt Aleksandra tense as they neared the mudslide. He assumed she was worried about going over the steep edge, but he was more concerned with one of the workers hitting him with a shovel as they rode past.
Focused on riding, he was vaguely aware of a car door slamming. Aleksandra half turned to look behind them.
“Go, go, go!” she shouted in his ear.
Road workers dove for cover as automatic gunfire cracked in the thin air, splattering the mud. Quinn leaned forward, downshifting and rolling on the throttle. The bike shimmied in the sloppy mud and he dragged the rear brake a hair to help stand it up.
The shooters were close, and judging from the way Aleksandra squeezed him with her thighs, she’d recognized them an instant before they’d opened fire. At this range, Quinn found himself grateful that they used submachine guns and not rifles or even pistols, which they would have been tempted to actually aim.
Quinn could hear the shouts of angry voices behind them. A car door slammed. A car engine revved and the sound of spinning tires on gravel preceded the grind of metal gears as bumpers and fenders crashed together.
Quinn squirted over the mudslide and picked his way through the loose debris on the other side before opening up the throttle again. Another volley of shots cracked past, echoing off the deep canyon walls and splatting into the mud. Aleksandra squirmed behind him.
“They are trying to follow,” she said, settling in low against his back.
“You recognize them?” Quinn yelled over the wind and hard patter of rain against his plastic jacket.
“Chechens,” she yelled back, tucked in so his body broke the chill of the oncoming wind. He could feel her shivering. “The driver is Salambek. Rustam Daudov’s man. A killer.”
“He doesn’t seem to like you very much,” Quinn yelled into the wind.
Only a handful of trucks waited downhill from the mudslide. Beyond them, Quinn and Aleksandra had the Road of Death all to themselves. Waterfalls careened through the dense foliage and down the high mountainside above them, rushing in newly formed ditches across the road to disappear into the cloudy abyss on the other side.
Quinn planted a foot in the soupy gravel to pivot the bike around a sharp turn and still keep it on two wheels.
“His sister, Dagmani, was a leader of the Black Widows,” Aleksandra shouted once the Yamaha was stabilized.
Quinn had heard of the female suicide squads in Chechnya, though thankfully he’d never faced one.
“I killed her,” Aleksandra said simply, confirming his suspicions.
The snaking road seemed to magically disappear off and on, playing now you see me, now you don’t, as banks of fog and cloud drifted down the mountains with the rain.
“Did they make it around?” The little Yamaha had the tendency to dart in whatever direction he looked so he depended on Aleksandra to be his eyes to the rear.
The back wheel shimmied as she turned, but to her credit, she caught herself with her thighs, careful not to upset his balance in the treacherous mud.
“I can’t tell,” she said, turning just a little farther to get a better look. Her legs tensed again. Her arms squeezed a little tighter.
“I hear them,” she said at length, her voice ripped away by the wind.
Quinn rolled on more throttle, counter steering around a series of deep ruts, then bouncing through a foaming waterfall that sprayed across the entire roadway like a huge bathroom shower. His face stung from the chilly, liquefied air. He’d ridden enough in cold wind to know it would be completely numb in a matter of minutes.
Somewhere ahead was a man they had to catch or risk losing track of a nuclear bomb. Behind was a car full of Chechen terrorists. They were likely after the same bomb, but at this moment were bent on killing Aleksandra — and in a car with the stability of four wheels versus his two, Quinn stood zero chance of outrunning them.
“How many are in the car?” he yelled.
“Three.”
Quinn took a series of slow, rhythmic breaths, slowing his heart rate. His eyes scanned the road ahead, noting the angle of drop, the thick tangle of trees and bushes that grew on the cliff side. Rain and the fine spray of dense fog whipped at his unprotected face, popping against his thin plastic raincoat like firecrackers. A cold chill ran down both legs. He fought to keep from shivering so badly he’d upset the bike. In CRO training, he’d endured long soaks with his classmates in ice-filled water in order to induce hypothermia. A lifelong Alaskan, used to the cold more than most, his teeth had chattered so badly he’d thought they might shatter. Though it had been horrific at the time, he’d gone through it, and the training had taught him what to expect — to recognize the promptings of his body before he reached a point of no return. Wind and wet would sap his body of critical warmth and leave him unable to ride, let alone fight.
A hundred meters ahead the narrow road made a sharp bend to the right, putting them out of sight for a period of a few seconds even if the fog happened to thin.
Popping his neck from side to side, he worked to relax his shoulders, drawing on the warmth of Aleksandra’s body where she pressed against him. His hands clutched the grips like frozen claws. He made rhythmic fists, trying to work the blood back into them.
“We have to stop around that corner,” he y
elled over his shoulder.
“Are you crazy?” Her breath buzzed directly into his ear. “They will be on top of us almost at once.”
He rolled his palm to give the little Yamaha as much gas as he dared, causing it to give a throaty moan as it dug into the muddy slop.
“We’d better hurry then,” he said through chattering teeth, as much to himself as Kanatova.
CHAPTER 53
Yesenia had scored him a more serviceable netting and Pollard lay on his cot and watched the mosquitos try to reach him. Outside the protective barrier, sitting cross-legged on the plywood floor of the metal hooch, the Indian girl looked at him with the adoration of a student with a teacher crush. She’d taken to wearing a green parrot feather in her hair and washing her face before she came to see him. During their conversations he’d let it slip that he held two doctoral degrees and from that moment on, she’d referred to him as Dr. Matt. She said little except when he spoke to her, but spent most days just sitting and watching him like some sort of rifle-wielding disciple.
At first he’d ignored her; then, instead of talking to himself as he worked, he began to bounce his ideas off her. But Zamora would arrive at any time and she did work for him, so he kept his present problem to himself.
What in the world had Marie been talking about? They didn’t have a cat. In fact, she knew he didn’t care for house pets at all. Still, their time on the video link was always limited, and Marie was smart enough not to waste it on mindless chatter. She had a reason for what she’d said. Miss Kitty was some sort of clue. He just had to get inside that brain of hers and figure out what it meant.
He replayed Marie’s exact words over and over in his head. “I left her in the kitchen,” she’d said. “And we don’t have anyone to check on her… ”
Yesenia shook him out of his daydream.
“Dr. Matt,” she said, toying with the iridescent green feather over her ear. The beauty of it stood out in stark contrast to the rifle across her lap. “Do you think it possible I could ever attend university?”
He rolled up on his side. The world was somehow softer and less intense when viewed through the mosquito netting. It was easy to imagine he was having a discussion with one of his students.
“Of course,” he said. “But you’d have to set new priorities. Leave all this behind.”
She hung her head, staring at the floor. “When my debt is paid,” she said.
“What debt?” Pollard sat up, parting the net, and moved to the edge of his cot.
Yesenia sighed deeply. “A man came to our village and offered my sister and me work in Cochabamba. Even though my family is very poor and my father wanted me to go, I saw this man for what he was and said no. My sister said yes. He took us both anyway. When we got to the city I saw they were going to take us to Brazil and I… how do you say it?”
“Killed him?” Pollard offered.
Yesenia gave a little chuckle and shook her head. “Oh, no, señor. I wish I had, but a man like that is not so easy to kill. I became more trouble than I was worth, stealing things from shops as we walked by, starting fights with tourists… you know, to annoy him. The one who runs Señor Zamora’s businesses in Bolivia paid my debt, but now I am indebted to him.”
“Wait,” Pollard said. “I don’t understand. What debt?”
“You know, my bus ticket, food and lodging each night. I got an infection the first month so I have the debt for medicine as well. It piles up, you know.”
Pollard threw up his hands. “Yesenia, you were kidnapped. There is no debt.”
“Someone paid for my food and medicine,” she said. “My sister wrote me a letter a few months ago. She says the worst thing about being a prostitute is that you are always sick and your debt grows every week.”
Pollard tried to calm his breathing, knowing full well his desire to beat these men to death showed clearly on his face. “May I ask how old your sister is?”
“She is eleven years,” Yesenia said, her small hands across the rifle in her lap. “I think that is much too young for such things, don’t you, Dr. Matt?”
Pollard shuddered. “Any age is too young for that, Yesenia.”
“It makes me feel guilty, but I am saved from… that — for the most part.” She gave a resigned shrug. “I can shoot and my English is good, so I have other uses — like guarding you. But still, I owe this man for the money he spent to buy my freedom.”
“That isn’t freedom,” Pollard said. Anger churned in his gut like an illness. “Being bought and sold.”
“I know,” she said. “But it is reality, and sometimes knowing what is real is the closest thing we have to being free, no?”
“I wish you were one of my students,” Pollard said.
“Maybe someday,” Yesenia said. “I often dream of paying my little sister’s debt so we can go to school together.” She wiped a tear from her eye with the heel of her hand. Her thumb was bound in grimy white tape to protect some jungle injury. “She is much prettier than me,” she sniffed. “Which I suppose is what saved me and got her where she is. I can still see her wearing stupid red lipstick with that stupid Hello Kitty purse, pretending to be a grown woman… ”
Pollard’s mind was already spinning. He’d figure out a way to help Yesenia and her poor sister in good time. But for now, she’d helped him.
He stood from his cot and strode quickly back and forth in front of the bomb. Yesenia didn’t protest when he stopped and kissed her on the top of her head.
CHAPTER 54
A troop of howler monkeys munched in the wet canopy, soft eyes staring down at the spinning back wheel of the blue Yamaha as it teetered over a football-size stone along the abrupt edge. A hummingbird whirred in the shadows, zipping from plant to plant like a bullet, iridescent green against shades of gray.
A steady rain pattered against dense foliage and hanging moss along the winding, mud-choked Road of Death. Brown streams gurgled through delicate orchids and broom-like ferns. Greenery rose up through thick fog on either side, ghosting through the cloud forest on the mountains above and the sheer drops below.
The Chechens’ muddy white Jeep Cherokee sloshed to a stop in the center of the road. There was no shoulder, and even the middle provided little clearance for those getting out on the driver’s side of the vehicle.
Three feet below the edge, Quinn pressed his chest against the slick shrubs, feeling them soak through his shirt. Being out of the wind had returned a semblance of warmth to his body. His feet braced against one of the saplings that grew in a small stand along the edge. He clutched another the size of his wrist, bent like a spring under his right arm.
Above him, out of sight, a car door eased shut. Whispered voices barked in guttural Chechen. Footsteps sloshed along the road sending a slurry of mud and gravel skittering over the edge, pelting Quinn’s head. His face against the mountain, he waited for the man above to peer over before releasing the sapling he’d pulled with him when he slipped over the edge.
Under tremendous pressure, the arched tree snapped upright, swatting the startled Chechen directly in the face. He staggered backward away from the edge, shouting vehement curses.
Quinn clawed his way through the tangle of slick brush and back onto the road as gunshots cracked to his right.
The man he’d surprised had fallen backwards, landing on the seat of his pants in the mud. Blood poured from his forehead and a nasty gash across the bridge of his beakish nose. A broken branch the size of Quinn’s thumb stuck from a wound in his shoulder and a pistol hung loosely in his left hand.
Quinn kicked the weapon from the dazed man’s hand, scanning the road for the two others, trusting that Aleksandra was doing the same. A crunch of gravel behind him sent him sprinting again for the mountain edge as the bearded Jeep driver floored the gas and bore down directly on him. The Chechen on the ground screamed as the driver ran over his legs, aimed in on Quinn.
The flat report of two pistol shots cracked the air as Quinn slid over the side, flail
ing for a handful of branches to keep from tumbling another thousand feet.
Glass shattered and the Jeep’s engine revved, gaining speed. Metal groaned as it veered sharply right, glancing off the mountain face to swerve left again. The driver slumped over the wheel, dead from the two well-placed shots to his neck from Aleksandra long before he crashed and rolled through the rocks and trees below.
“Salambek is dead.” Aleksandra nodded toward the canyon as she walked toward the injured Chechen who’d been pressed into a muddy rut by his friend’s driving. She held the H&K P7 at her side. “Lucky the driver had the window down,” she said, “or these little bullets might not have penetrated the door.” She spun quickly to shoot the wounded Chechen in the knee. “They do, however go through swine quite easily.”
The man howled in pain, forgetting the bleeding gash on his forehead to clutch at his demolished leg. He was pushing fifty, tall and heavily muscled. His face pulled back in a tight grimace showing a mouthful of gold teeth.
Aleksandra smacked him in the back of the head with her open hand. It was odd to Quinn to see such a small woman exercising such control over such an imposing man.
She spoke in clipped Russian that communicated her disdain for the man. Quinn could tell the Chechen would be difficult to break. He’d likely been on the dispensing end of such questioning before. Aleksandra squatted down beside him, just out of reach, her pistol behind her back.
Quinn understood neither Russian nor Chechen, but he had a pretty good idea what the two were saying. They had no time for a lengthy interrogation. Even as they spoke, Valentine Zamora was getting away. Aleksandra was professional enough to know the man would either talk or he wouldn’t. In the end, he spit in her face.
Aleksandra stood and wiped her cheek with her forearm. Despite her small stature, she grabbed the wounded man by the collar of his jacket and dragged him to the edge of the road. He was weak from loss of blood, and though he was defiant to the end, it was little problem for the compact woman to shove him over the edge.
