by Cap Daniels
“Well, since your soft little hands can’t stand the cold, you’d better do the driving. I’ll do the screwing…or unscrewing.”
I wasn’t going to argue. We found a nicely stocked toolbox in the pilothouse, and while Clark worked on the plates, I checked the GPS. Heading west would take us away from the congestion of the city, but it would also take us away from our target. Forward progress is always preferred, so I eased the transmissions into gear and slowly added throttle. I didn’t want to jostle Clark around in the back, and I didn’t want to do anything to draw attention to the solitary workboat making its way down the Moscow River.
“Good news!” Clark yelled from the stern. “The starboard tank is full, and the sending unit for the gauge is rotten.”
“How big are the tanks?”
He glanced down. “Maybe six by three by three.”
I gave the okay signal as if we were underwater, and Clark’s head disappeared beneath the deck as he went back to work.
I ran the rough calculations. Six by three by three is fifty-four cubic feet, and there are seven and a half gallons per cubic foot. That meant there would be about four hundred gallons in each tank if they were full. Even if the engines burned a hundred gallons per hour, we’d have twenty hours of running time. I liked those numbers.
Clark came through the pilothouse door, shivering.
“How do the other tanks look?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet. I stripped the head of one of the screws in the center tank. I came in to warm up. It’s frigid out there.”
“Come on, Green Beret,” I said. “It’s time to embrace the suck.”
“You embrace the suck, wussy-hands. It’s nice and warm in here.”
“Fine. Just keep us heading that way, and I’ll pick up your slack, slacker.”
He put up no argument and took the wheel.
I found dirty but warm gloves in a locker and headed for the stern where I went to work on the remaining screws in the plate. Except for the one Clark had stripped, I was able to get all of them out. With the blade of the screwdriver beside the plate, I tapped until the metal disc rotated far enough so I could see the fuel level while the stripped screw remained in place. I was relieved to find, that just like the first tank, this one was also full. Knowing it was unlikely the owner of the boat would’ve filled only two of the three tanks, I tapped at the aluminum chamber with the handle of my screwdriver and compared the sound of the third tank to the first two. Satisfied with my results, I secured the plate back in place and headed for the helm.
“It looks like we’ve got more diesel than we’ll ever use,” I said.
He glared at me. “How’d you get the plates off so fast?”
I grinned. “Those are the things they teach us college boys in school. You should’ve gone.”
“Ha! Let’s see how that college learning feels when bullets start flying.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m thankful I’ve got you when bullets start flying.”
It was just past 2:00 p.m. We wouldn’t have much light left, so finding Norikov’s house was of utmost importance. I pulled the GPS from the console and scrolled until I saw a map presentation showing our position relative to Norikov’s address. We were less than ten miles as the crow flies, but the winding river would more than double that distance. I spent the next several minutes thinking of everything that could go wrong in the next two hours on the water.
Clark snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You’re doing that thing where you worry about stuff that’ll probably never happen. Stop doing that, and start thinking about your speech for dear old Gregor tonight.”
“How do you do that?”
“It’s just one of those things they teach us Green Berets in Special Forces College.”
I couldn’t have asked for a better partner, but his mind-reading skills always freaked me out.
We continued until I saw the spires of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in the distance. I’d seen thousands of pictures, but no camera could capture the feel of Red Square. I’d never agree with the politics of the Kremlin, but I had no choice but to respect the history of the majestic city.
The snow had almost stopped, but as we approached the coordinates I’d entered into the GPS, the sky was still gray with low-hanging clouds.
“It has to be that dark building on the right,” I said, pointing over Clark’s shoulder.
He checked the map. “Yep, that has to be it. So, now we wait.”
He pulled the throttles back to just above idle, and I focused down the river toward the heart of Moscow.
“I know this is probably stupid,” I said, “but I’d like to take a look at the Kremlin since I may never have another opportunity. Something tells me that my connection with this country has almost reached its end.”
He tried not to grin. “The right thing to do is hide and wait.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He set that crooked, mischievous smile of his. “But doing the right thing rarely results in great drinking stories, so let’s go have a look at Putin’s office.”
We motored on as if we had every right and reason to be driving down the middle of the Moscow River. Nothing about my idea was good, but it was an opportunity too rare to pass up.
The cathedral spires grew larger and more dramatic as we neared. The wall made it impossible to get a good look at the Kremlin from the deck of the boat, but what I could see made goosebumps rise on my arms and neck.
Somewhere beyond that wall had been the beating heart of Communism, where gods of war plotted and schemed against the West. Colonel Victor Tornovich, the mastermind of the elaborate operation to infiltrate American covert ops with Anya Burinkova as the tip of his spear, had lived and worked behind those walls for decades. I’d quite literally sent him to Hell in an elaborate operation of my own that cost the lives of not only Tornovich, but a dozen or so other Russians and enough American CIA agents to bring a lump to my throat.
“Have you seen enough?” asked Clark.
I was speechless, and all I could do was nod.
By the time we set the anchor a quarter mile from Norikov’s home, the sky was dark, and the snow had begun falling once again. Night fell not only on Clark and me, but also on the city that embodied the philosophy that had taken everyone I’d once loved. Moscow had great potential to send its mighty foot atop my head and crush the life from my body, just as it had crushed my soul by murdering my family and destroying the final days of my dear mentor and beloved professor’s life.
Chapter 21
Kiss Me, Fool
Any covert operator will confirm that he’d rather be in a gunfight than a holding pattern. We weren’t interested in waiting, especially in twenty degrees on the Moscow River.
“We can’t tie up to Norikov’s dock,” Clark said. “Do you have any ideas how we’re going to get ashore and stay dry?”
I’d been thinking about that problem for an hour or so. “We should’ve kept the dinghy, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. I think our best bet is a modified Mediterranean mooring.”
Clark got the confused puppy look again.
“In a Mediterranean mooring, we drop an anchor a hundred feet offshore and then back up to the dock, where we tie crisscrossed lines from the stern. Then, we haul in on the windlass, hauling the anchor rode tight.”
“What’s the difference in that and just tying up alongside the dock?”
“The difference is that we aren’t tying off the stern to anything. We’re going to drop anchor, go back to the dock, secure a line to a stern cleat, and step off the boat. We’ll then let the line out until our boat—or whoever’s boat this is—drifts downstream against the anchor, and then we’ll tie off the stern line to whatever we can find. That’ll make the boat appear to be resting at anchor offshore. When it’s time to beat a hasty retreat, we’ll haul the boat back to the dock using the stern line, and then we’ll hop aboard and r
un like smoke and oakum.”
“Smoke and oakum? What the hell is that?”
“I don’t know. It’s something Captain Jack Aubrey says.”
“Who’s Captain Jack Aubrey?”
“Oh, never mind,” I said. “I don’t have time to teach an English lit class. Let’s just see if we can make this work.”
I maneuvered the boat into position off the bank of the river in front of Norikov’s house, and Clark dropped the anchor. The boat drifted downstream until we put out a hundred feet of chain rode, and then I pulled the starboard transmission into reverse and added enough throttle to start us moving slowly toward Norikov’s dock. Clark pulled a hefty coil of line from a locker and secured one end to a stern cleat while I kept inching us toward the shore.
I killed the engines, grabbed our packs, and we were ashore, standing on an old-school communist’s riverfront dock less than two miles from the Kremlin. I was supposed to be wearing an Atlanta Braves uniform and catching at Turner Field. Who could have ever guessed my life would come to this?
The plan worked just as designed. We watched the boat trail off downstream and settle against the anchor and chain rode. Our stern line sank, leaving it almost invisible except at the cleat on the boat and where it ran out of the water and across the frozen ground. If the next few hours of our lives went as we planned, we’d be on the boat and headed back toward the equator, where the temperatures were on the other side of freezing.
Norikov had apparently done well for himself since the fall of the Soviet Union. While most of his neighbors lived in cramped, multi-family homes, his was almost palatial in comparison. In addition to the size of the house, the waterfront side was private, thanks to a stand of poplar trees on one side and a high fence on the other. That privacy was a welcome surprise. Not only was I going to have to spend a little time picking the lock on the back door, but we’d also make the most of the privacy when it was time to exit the scene.
I knelt in front of the door and inserted my tensioner and pick into the single lock. “I hope there’s no security system.”
“I would think he’s probably got personal security with him most of the time, but who’s brave enough—or stupid enough—to break into Gregor Norikov’s house?”
I raised my eyebrows. “That would be us.”
I spent longer than expected picking the lock, but the knob finally turned, and the door swung inward a few inches. I listened for the beeping of a security system or the barking of a dog. Thankfully, neither came.
With my pick set back in my pocket, I drew my pistol and stepped through the door with Clark close on my heels. Room by room, we silently cleared the house until we were confident we were the only living souls on the property.
I pulled out my sat-phone and dialed Skipper. “We’re inside and alone.”
“It’s about time you called. Our man on the train said you got off eight hours ago.”
“Thanks for letting us know the conductor was an inside man, by the way. We almost threw him off the train.”
“We weren’t sure if we could actually get him on the train. It was a last-minute thing.”
“It worked out,” I said, “but we scared the hat right off his head.”
“Okay, back to new business.”
I was impressed by how quickly she was learning the trade. Ginger must have been a phenomenal teacher.
“Since you left the drone—and most of the other stuff I needed you to take with you—in Estonia, we’re flying blind a little bit. We’ve got a guy, though, and he says Norikov is having dinner with his favorite Swedish bikini-team girl at seven o’clock.”
“Did you say a guy?”
“Yeah, a guy—you know, a reliable source or whatever. Anyway, before you rudely interrupted me, I was trying to tell you that our guy says Norikov likes to have his arm candy tuck him in around nine thirty. He says the dude is usually snoring like a lumberjack by eleven, and then Little Miss Thing makes the Saturday night club circuit.”
I cataloged the information in my mind and tried to decide if it would be safer to wait until the girl left before having our chat with Gregor. I didn’t like the idea of being in Moscow any longer than absolutely necessary, but involving a young, frightened woman wasn’t my idea of a good plan.
“Can your guy let us know when Norikov leaves the restaurant?”
“Hang on.”
She was talking with Ginger, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Keep your sat-phone on,” she said. “I’ll call you back in twenty minutes if we can put that together. Is there anything else you need right now?”
“I could use a sandwich.”
“You’re in a rich man’s house in Moscow. Surely he has a refrigerator.”
I turned to Clark. “She just hung up on me. I think this analyst gig is going to her head.”
“I think she’s doing just fine,” he said.
I filled him in on the details Skipper had passed along, but he didn’t seem to listen to anything after the word refrigerator.
The kitchen was well stocked, so we grazed on anything we could eat with our fingers without producing scraps or garbage.
Further investigation of the house revealed plenty of places to hide, but Clark’s earlier comment about Gregor having personal security kept running through my head.
What if they sweep the house before he comes inside? What if they discover Clark or me? Will we have to kill the guards?
The idea of killing anyone while we were in the country illegally didn’t sit well with my logical brain. I wanted to get in, negotiate with Norikov, and get out with no bread crumbs, and especially no dead bodies in our wake.
Skipper called with an update. “Okay, here’s the deal. We’ve got another guy—not the same guy as before – but anyway, he says he’ll let us know when Norikov leaves the restaurant. You should have fifteen or twenty minutes from the time we hear from him until Norikov shows up at home—if he goes straight home. Based on what our guy said, Norikov will be in a hurry to get his beauty queen in the sack.”
“You’re the best, Skipper. Thank you.”
“Nope, Ginger is the best, but I’m learning. I’ll call you and let you know when the lovebirds are on their way back to the nest.”
I slid the phone back into my pocket and checked my watch. “If Skipper’s timeline is on the money, we’ve got a little less than an hour before our friend Gregor arrives. Just as we thought, he’ll be bringing home a playdate who, most likely, won’t be sleeping over after our boy conks out.”
Clark was still pillaging finger foods from the refrigerator. “So, are you thinking we should wait until his little mattress monkey scampers away, or do you want to hit them as soon as they get comfortable?”
“I think we should wait until she leaves, but we should also have a plan in case she stays the night.”
“I agree,” he said, finally closing the refrigerator.
“Okay, so here’s the plan. Regardless of the scenario, we’re always in complete control. We never, under any circumstance, let anyone get the upper hand. If we have to hit him while the girl’s here, she’s either going to scream her head off and fight like a wild animal, or she’ll freeze. Nothing in between.”
Clark was staring intently. “Agreed.”
“Good, so let’s play it like this. If the girl isn’t in the picture, we’ll wake him up with a gun in his mouth and stay in his face as much as possible. We can never let him believe he has a way out. Total domination is the play. Nothing less.”
Clark nodded. “Absolutely.”
“If the girl is in the equation, she’s the wildcard. We’ll have only three options with her. One, we put her down. Two, one of us escorts her out or subdues her. Three, we make her watch. The problem with option one is that I don’t feel good about killing an innocent girl. I don’t like option three because that brings the element of ego into play. Our boy, Gregor, may want to show off and play tough if she’s in the room. He’s more likely to ro
ll over and beg if we’re on him two-on-one.”
“I think you’re spot-on. So, plan A is to wait for the girl to leave.”
“Exactly,” I said, “but if she stays, I’ve got a newly acquired tool in my box that just might come in handy.” I pulled a syringe and vial of ketamine from my pack.
“Whatcha got there, Doctor Fulton?”
“Oh, nothing much. Just a little something to help people get some much-needed rest.”
Clark grinned and nodded his approval.
We walked through the house twice more to make sure we knew every nook and cranny. If things got wild, we would need to know precisely how to get out or where to hide. There would be no time for exploring if things started going downhill.
Skipper called to let me know Norikov had left the restaurant.
“All right, we’ve got about fifteen minutes.”
Clark checked his watch. “Let’s get in position.”
As much as I dreaded the cold, we had no choice but to wait outside in case Norikov’s personal security swept the house. We redonned our coats, hats, and gloves and headed back out the door. On the way out, I parted the drapes just slightly so we could get a picture of what was happening inside.
I quickly glanced out onto the river, relieved to see our boat was still resting like a good little getaway car. Our modified Mediterranean mooring was working perfectly.
Minutes passed like hours as we hunkered in the shrubbery near the dock. Every breath felt like daggers in my lungs, and I was forced to consciously control my shivering. I didn’t belong that far from the equator.
“Look,” Clark whispered.
The first floor of the house lit up like a concert hall, and I squinted to see through the break I’d made in the drapes. Two men in dark suits carrying flashlights and sidearms were sweeping the house. One of the men opened the back door, placed one foot outside, and gave a cursory glance across the yard and dock area. I held my breath. If the man caught a glimpse of the cloud that formed every time either of us exhaled, we’d be sitting ducks. Fortunately for us, he wasn’t the thorough type and quickly retreated inside.
