by Tim Tigner
He used a freshly-melted jar of water to wash his wound and then rebound it with a fresh towel. His external repairs complete, Alex threw a few tea bags in the remaining jar and sat down to eat some dried venison while the tea steeped by the fire. He studied the map as he ate, knowing full well that it would probably be his last meal but trying to remain optimistic.
Despite the gravity of the situation and his resolve to complete his quest, Alex found his head bobbing on his chest. He desperately needed to sleep, and he could not fight it anymore. Maybe just a few minutes . . .
Alex pulled the bearskin rug before the fire and collapsed onto it. No sooner had he closed his eyes than they sprang open again in shock from a mighty crack. It was just the fire. Sap in a log. His eyelids had begun dropping again, along with his adrenaline and life expectancy, when his eyes came to rest on Andrey’s hand. First it shocked him one way, then another.
The strength and dedication of his fallen comrade seemed to flow into Alex, and he heard Andrey’s final words once again: “Don’t you fail me, Alex! Don’t you let my children down!”
Alex found the means to force the Reaper’s sleep to wait. He propped himself up and drained the jar of strong, tepid tea. Then he stood up and re-dressed, choosing the best of the clothes from his and Yarik’s wardrobes. With that accomplished there was just one thing left to do.
Alex threw more logs on the fire, arranging a couple of them on the top like a platform. Then he took Andrey’s hand and consigned it to the flames with a prayer of thanks and a blessing for his friend’s soul. Andrey had given his life to the mission; Alex could do no less.
Fully aware that this was either the bravest or most foolhardy thing he would ever do, Alex bid farewell to the warmth of the fire, screwed determination firmly to his heart, and strode back out into the stormy Siberian night.
Chapter 41
NOVOSIBIRSK, SIBERIA
“Sir, I’ve just received word that General Igor Stepashin was killed in the line of duty.”
Karpov felt his aide’s words like a blow to the stomach but resisted the urge to double over. “What happened?”
“The chief justice caught him just after the Peitho implant. Apparently the anesthetic didn’t work properly. He woke up and saw an unfamiliar male silhouette by his bed. In light of the recent threats, and being the paranoid bastard that he is, he shot Stepashin without a word.”
“Fatally?”
“Yes, sir. Stepashin died instantly.”
Karpov’s next question came out as a whisper. “Was anything discovered at the scene?”
“No, sir. Major Luchenko saw to that.” Maximov placed an empty Peitho syringe on Karpov’s desk.
Stepashin had accomplished his mission, but it had cost him his life. Looking up at his aide while a torrent of emotions whipped him to and fro, Karpov did something he hadn’t done since childhood: he surrendered to his need for release. “I sent Stepashin.”
“I assumed as much.”
“We need the chief justice on our side. He’s a hard target. Stepashin was the only one who could get close enough.”
Maximov nodded, but remained silent.
Karpov didn’t dismiss him. Maximov was a Knyaz confidant and borderline friend. Karpov was weighing the risks and benefits of bringing him closer into the fold. For two full minutes he left the major standing there, still and silent like a guard at Lenin’s tomb. Then he spoke. “His job wasn’t done. Gaining control of the chief justice was just a precaution. A means of ensuring our desired ends.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know what that ultimate end was, but have you guessed how we plan to achieve it?”
Maximov, true to his style, didn’t mince his words. “I assume that if you want Gorbachev’s job, you first have to eliminate Gorbachev.”
Karpov nodded and gestured for Maximov to take a seat. “You make assassinating a head of state sound like a simple math problem. I like your sense of clarity. It was to have been Stepashin’s crowning achievement. He was going to be the triggerman. Of course he wouldn’t have made the history books, that honor will go to the fall guy, but he would have known.
“Stepashin was perfect for the job. Highly skilled. Completely dedicated. And virtually invisible. His job gave him the ability to hide in plain sight without question. Nobody questions the presence of the head of the Guards’ Directorate in places where there are security concerns. The very fact that Gorbachev was killed would justify Stepashin’s having been there.”
“Sir, it would be my honor. Just say the word.”
Karpov met his aide’s eye and shook his head. “Thank you, major, but I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Really, sir. I could do it.”
“I’m sure you could. But putting a bullet in the president’s brain is only half the battle. The real trick is getting the Americans blamed for it.”
Maximov’s disappointment showed. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir, why is that important?”
Karpov didn’t mind. He welcomed the distraction. “Three reasons. First, by focusing the investigation outside our borders, which of course is what every Russian will want to do, nobody will be looking inside. That will ensure our safety. Make sense?”
“Perfect.”
“Second, this extreme act of foreign aggression will bring Russian patriotism to the highest levels we’ve seen since the Great Patriotic War. That will prime the country to rally behind the man of the hour.”
“General Vasily Karpov and his economic miracle,” Maximov said with pride. “First you stir up emotion, and then you focus it. Politics as usual.”
“Correct. And third, with the world believing that the Americans have just assassinated the Russian head of state, they can hardly choose to quibble over intellectual property rights. Russian corporations will be immunized against charges of American patent violation.”
“Brilliant.” Maximov spoke with admiration in his eyes. Clearly he understood why Karpov was the general. Then a question crossed his countenance. “Why will everyone think it was the Americans?”
“Because the killer will be caught in the act. Too late to save Gorbachev of course, but right there on the scene with the rifle in his hands. That American is on his way here now, a trained Special Forces soldier and CIA agent who snuck into the country on a false passport.”
“The man Yarik is bringing in? Ferris?”
“One and the same.”
“Brilliant!” Maximov was no longer attempting to mask his excitement or admiration. “How are you going to get Ferris to go along? Peitho?”
“I don’t think even Peitho has that power. No, we’ll just have Ferris in the right place at the right time. First drugged and then dead.”
“So who will have the honor of actually pulling the trigger, then?”
The answer came to Karpov then and there. “I’ve got just the boy for the job.”
Chapter 42
SIBERIAN OUTBACK, RUSSIA
Alex felt a sudden rush of cold. Oh, and he had been so warm, so blissfully warm. Then something began pulling at his face. There were voices, too, but they were far in the background.
His memory was returning slowly, as though his brain were thawing. He had walked and stumbled through snow and over ice and then . . . and then there was this beautiful angel and her helper. She had given him tea—yes, he remembered the tea. He had never been so grateful for anything in his life. Then the grand revelation struck: He was alive. He had survived the storm and found the road.
A contentious chord penetrated the fog, disrupting his thoughts. A noise . . . what was it? Was it . . . screaming? The next time he heard it, his conscious senses jolted back to life like power returning after a blackout. Alex opened his eyes and saw the low ceiling. He looked left and right and remembered that he was in an ambulance. He tried to sit up but found that he could not move.
He began to panic. He took a deep breath and then looked down at his bonds. He was strapped to a stretcher. The restraints were tight, but nothing compared to Yarik’s knots.
The screams came again, frantic and piercing. A woman’s screams. His angel’s screams. Alex tried to look out the windows. They were fogged. Relax and focus, Alex. Medical restraints are designed for precaution, not confinement. Work it; don’t fight it. He sucked in his gut and pulled one forearm up across his body to freedom. The rest was easy. A moment later he was on his feet.
Ignoring the head rush, he looked around for anything that he could use as a weapon—a scalpel, a trocar . . . Nothing. He could probably fill some syringes with tranquilizers, but there was no time for that. The doctor who had pulled him from the snow was in grave distress so he was counting milliseconds. Half-loaded or not, he would have to be the weapon.
Alex burst out the back of the ambulance like a bull from its pen. The only living person who had been kind to him in this country was now suffering, probably on his account. He was determined to make it stop.
The scene was simple enough to comprehend, even in his distressed state. They were at a makeshift KGB checkpoint on a desolate stretch of highway. Two bored soldiers had found themselves in possession of a beautiful woman, and decided that, given the circumstances, they didn’t need to resist nature’s calling. Now the big male nurse was spread-eagle in the snow with blood was streaming from his nose, and the good doctor was receiving their full attention.
From where he was behind the jeep, Alex could see her kicking, clawing, and screaming at two men in KGB uniforms. One soldier was standing in the left doorway pulling her into the backseat of their jeep by the arms, while the other one worked in the right doorway to pull down her pants. The good news was that neither held a weapon. The bad news was that he couldn’t attack them simultaneously. He’d have to take the first out with a single blow to avoid attack from both sides.
Alex ran and jumped at the soldier on the left, delivering a double-kick to the side of his head and cracking it hard against the doorframe as he let out a mighty, “Hoooaahhhh!” for shock value. The soldier dropped like a bagged duck.
The instant the fallen soldier released his hold on the woman, she rolled over and began pulling herself out through the jeep’s doorway, pummeling the startled soldier behind her with kicks as she went. Alex used the distraction to climb over the roof and drop in from above. He planted his feet firmly on the doorsill, grabbed the soldier from beneath the arms, and blasted upward, crushing the back of the soldier’s head into the frame with the force of a launching rocket. The soldier lost consciousness to the sickening sound of metal on bone and then collapsed back onto the woman.
Alex ran back around the jeep while the woman wriggled out her side and then into her pants. She kicked the back of the first fallen soldier a few times and then stopped, sobbing and shaking.
“You better have a look at your friend,” Alex said, gesturing toward the man lying spread-eagle in the snow.
“Vova,” she screamed, snapping out of her own hysteria and running over to him.
Alex checked the soldiers to be sure they were out cold. They were. Both would be sporting nasty bruises and nursing concussions, but neither was bleeding.
He picked an AK-74 off the front seat and shot out a tire before piling both agents into the back of their jeep so they wouldn’t freeze. He considered shooting a second tire, but even one would take quite a while to change in this weather. He didn’t want to overdo it. There was no sense in provoking a vendetta.
He emptied both rifle magazines into the drifting snow. The rapists were now unconscious, immobile, and unarmed. He needed to add incommunicado to the list. With a grin that was painful but satisfying, Alex yanked the microphone off the radio and then hurled it into the woods.
Confident that they were safe for the moment, Alex turned and walked toward his two new friends. He found himself staggering like a drunk and then felt hot blood trickling down his face. The adrenaline was wearing off quickly, and his head was throbbing like a jackhammer.
The woman was using smelling salts to wake her friend. “Vova! Vova, wake up!”
Vova shook his head and opened his eyes with a nasal grimace.
“Thank you, darling.”
With the woman safe, the soldiers dispatched, and Vova recovering, Alex felt the energy draining from his body like water from a flushing toilet. First he felt dizzy. Then he felt nothing.
Chapter 43
GRAND CAYMAN
Victor could hardly believe where he was, or what he was doing. It was such a radical shift in course, such an unexpected turn of events. His was a long list of sins, but heretofore defiance was not among them.
Karpov’s words still rang in his head. “With Stepashin gone I’m counting on you to step up. I’m counting on you to put everything into motion, to make all our work pay off. Victor, I need you to be the triggerman.”
And so began the roller coaster that ended in the tropics. After the initial shock had run its course, the valley of fear had yielded to a mountain of pride. This was the culmination of decades of work, its single boldest stroke, and father was entrusting it to him. To him!
Gorbachev was scheduled to spend a couple days with the governor of Novosibirsk, shoring up his support. They’d be staying at the governor’s home, a large country estate Karpov knew well. Gorbachev would spend the early mornings plowing through the leading newspapers, devouring them with cups of strong coffee before the dawn’s quiet yielded to the controlled chaos that ruled his days. That habit would put him before a known window at a known time. Everything a competent shooter with the right access and equipment would need. Father had even arranged for Victor’s personal nemesis to take the fall. Yes, Victor thought, that last point alone almost made it worthwhile, but—
“Mr. Rembrandt? Mr. Rembrandt, are you all right?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Victor said, shaking his head.
“Well then, I believe we’re all set.”
Victor looked across at the banker, and smiled. “We are, indeed,” he said, rising from the burgundy armchair. “I think we’re going to work well together, Mr. Mulberry.”
“’Twill be my pleasure.”
“Until next time, then,” he said, and sauntered out into the buttery glow of the Cayman sun.
Victor had kept his contingency funds at Cayman First National for three years now. They were registered under the favorite of his false identities. Pierre Rembrandt’s signature-access safety deposit box contained a million dollars cash, four different passports, a silenced Desert Eagle .50AE, and a supply of Medusa. Everything a man on the run might need.
Victor’s line of work required a man to maintain the kind of insurance even Lloyds of London couldn’t offer—although to be honest, he never thought he would need to use it. He didn’t need to use it now; he was choosing to leave.
Once the initial thrill of his father’s “offer” wore off, Victor found himself questioning some of the assumptions that grounded his life. He was going through what philosophers would call a paradigm shift. Looking down the long, wide beach, Victor realized that a mile of white sand was all the philosophy he would ever need.
He slipped off his loafers, rolled up his Dockers, and began walking his cares away. As the hot sand burned the bottoms of his feet, Victor remembered a similar situation in a similar location, many years ago. He had been sixteen at the time. The Crimean beach was similar, although the sand was not as fine. His mother watched from afar with tears in her eyes. Beside him walked a man with a vaguely familiar face and a startling revelation. Victor had experienced a delayed reaction to Karpov’s words then, too, but eventually he had ripped his gaze from the waves to look up at his father for the first time. “So, why wait until now to tell me?”
“You have to understand, son, I got accepted to the KGB Academy the same week
your mother learned she was pregnant. I was very lucky to get in, and would have lost my slot if word got out. Fortunately, your mother and I were able to come to an agreement. As a result, everything else has been possible. I’ve so much to tell you . . .”
Victor had never really questioned Karpov’s choice. At the time he had just been thrilled to learn that he had a father. Then Karpov had told him about operation Immaculate Conception and the potential to serve Russia in the United States. In one afternoon, Victor had been given both a father and a purpose. Thank goodness he had learned about both when he did. Those moorings kept him afloat a few months later when his mother died.
Victor’s plan had always been to leverage his secret status to his favor. Once his father assumed Russia’s helm, he would ask Karpov to appoint him Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Russian equivalent of the US Secretary of State, and the good life would be his.
He had spent many a stakeout daydreaming about being MFA, flying around the world on his government jet, being wined and dined and sexed like a VIP everywhere he went. The rulers of foreign, exotic lands would kiss up to him as the emissary of the world’s most powerful nation—and their ladies would take it from there. They would lay their best before him, and then ask if they could do anything more. He would have a prestigious, powerful position, and an excuse to spend the winter months abroad.
For a long time that dream had seemed perfect. But now, Victor was starting to see the cloud that lay within the silver lining, the tarnish on the crown. He began to question his desire to ever return to Russia. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was a member of the president’s cabinet. Victor’s life would once again amount to a struggle for his father’s approval. Thanks, but no thanks.
With Karpov’s latest assignment came the realization that switching to the high-profile life of foreign minister would also be very dangerous. He had never really worried about getting caught before, not until the Ferris brothers revealed his mortality. Now he was questioning everything. He even found himself suspecting Elaine Evans of working in cahoots with Alex. Did he need to eliminate her as well? Would her name soon appear on his ethereal tab? Victor already carried around a wad of secrets that could choke a hippopotamus. Of course the peril they evoked paled in comparison to what Karpov was now asking of him. If he were to add the assassination of President Gorbachev to that list, he would forever live his life on the edge.
