“Don’t shoot! She’s one of us!”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Sam was able to move Patrick’s arm and keep him from shooting when Zhanna came running out of the building. At first Zhanna ducked and pulled herself into a squatted fetal position. When she noticed the gun was Sam’s, and heard her shout, “She’s one of ours,” Zhanna stood and ran over to Sam, throwing her arms around her.
“Are you all right?” Sam said. As she squeezed Zhanna with one arm, she kept her gun hand trained on the door.
“Yes.”
When Zhanna pulled away, she could see that she had been slapped around a bit, but overall she was incredibly lucky.
“Is there anyone inside?” Sam was still worried about all of their safety.
“No, they just left.”
“Why would they leave you here unguarded?” Patrick said.
“Who are you?” Zhanna said.
Sam answered for him. “He’s CIA. Already saved my ass. Do we need to be on the move?”
“Yes. Right now. I’m so glad you are here. They are taking the virus to America!”
“Right now?” Sam said.
“We must go to airport, now!”
“Wait,” Patrick said. “Why would they say this in front of you? They wouldn’t want you to know.”
“Because they didn’t know I spoke English, so they used it around me. That, and I’m supposed to be dead. A man was supposed to be here already to kill me. I heard the name Vince.”
Sam shot a look at Patrick. Sam had saved Zhanna’s life by coming to the meeting place early that night. But she didn’t have time to be thankful.
“Patrick, can you put him in the trunk? We have to go!”
“What?” Zhanna said.
“Vince. We found him before he found you.”
Zhanna was at a loss for words.
“They didn’t happen to say which airport, did they?” Sam said.
“No, but driver said twenty-five miles. That is Sheremetyevo.”
“You know how to get there?”
“Yes, I’ll drive!”
Sam and Zhanna jumped in the front of the car, and after Patrick closed Vince in the trunk, he hopped in the back. Zhanna hit the road and swerved her way toward the airport. This was the first chance Sam had to ask Zhanna why she was with Kuznetsov’s assistant, Veronika, at the hangar earlier. Sam had thought about it a couple of times and couldn’t come up with a good reason. But she had to do one more thing before she asked her about it.
Sam pulled her phone and dialed Director Lucas.
“Give me some good news, Sam,” Lucas answered.
“I need you to do whatever you can to stop any planes from leaving the Sheremetyevo Airport. Commercial or private.”
“In Moscow? Sam, there’s no way I can do that.”
“Then prepare to lose millions of lives in America.”
Sam was never melodramatic, but she didn’t have time to beat around the bush. This was as serious of a request as she had ever made.
“You’re sure?” Lucas said.
“The virus is on its way to Sheremetyevo now. The ‘wait and see’ approach will burn us this time. I’m sure of it.”
“Let me call the president. Are you there at the airport?”
“We’re on our way, and we know who we’re looking for. Artem Kamenev.”
At the same time Sam said the man’s name, Zhanna shot her a look, and Director Lucas nearly shouted, “Kamenev?”
“Yes, why?” Sam said.
Sam could tell by the look on Zhanna’s face that she already knew what Director Lucas was about to tell her.
“As in Veronika Kamenev?”
Sam covered the phone and spoke to Zhanna. “Is Artem related to Veronika?”
“Her brother,” Zhanna confirmed.
In an instant the entire operation came together for Sam.
She uncovered the phone and spoke to Lucas. “Yes, her brother. He is the majority owner of Volkov Mining. Well, his holding company is.”
“Wow. It was right under our nose the entire time. When we researched Volkov, his name did not come up. How did you know that?”
“Dbie Johnson uncovered it,” Sam answered. “I’ll have her call you. But please stop the planes or have Artem arrested on site. Whatever you have to do!”
“I’ll call you back when I know something.” Director Lucas ended the call.
“The man who captured me is Veronika’s brother?” Zhanna questioned immediately.
“Yes,” Sam said. “And get this, Artem and Veronika are Dmitry Kuznetsov’s nephew and niece. They’ve used mafia money and virology education to construct the super virus.”
“Unbelievable,” Zhanna said. “We had no idea Dmitry Kuznetsov was involved. We thought he was dead after disappearing a while back.”
Zhanna saying “we” triggered what Sam was about to ask Zhanna before Director Lucas called. About how Zhanna became caught up in all of this in the first place.
“Who’s we?” Sam said. “How did you get involved in all of this?”
“We means FIS. Russian Intelligence. I was coming off a private job and had no work. I was going to call you, but before I could, FIS said they needed me. They overpaid me to be ‘security’ for Veronika. This was my first day.”
“You can’t be serious,” Patrick chimed in from the back.
“I no shit you,” Zhanna said. “First day. I was barely briefed on what Russian government was concerned about with Veronika before my lunch with her this morning. It was about mob ties. I was told to get close to her. We had a good lunch, and now she’s dead. But I learned a lot.”
“I guess so,” Sam said. “Not to blow your mind again, but her husband was the man coming to kill you.”
“You are shitting me?” Zhanna nearly swerved off the road as she drove onto the freeway.
“I’m not.”
Then Sam thought of something she wished she’d thought of earlier. “How does Artem know he has the virus in those vials he took from you?”
Zhanna glanced over with a puzzled look on her face. “I-I don’t know.”
“Because the vials I trashed to keep from getting shot outside the hangar could have been either the virus or the vaccine.”
Patrick leaned forward between them. “You mean this Artem guy on the way to the airport might not even know he could only be carrying the vaccine?”
“They were not marked,” Sam said. “I handed Zhanna the two on the left side, and I took the ones on the right. There is no way Artem could know what he has.”
“Then Artem may not be dangerous at all,” Zhanna said. “But how can we know? It is difference between no problem at all and catastrophe.”
Zhanna was right. How could they know? If they could find out which samples Sam trashed and which ones Artem Kamenev had, it would mean everything. There was no way Sam could find out. Not from what they had with them.
“Stop the car!” Sam shouted.
Zhanna laid on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop on the side of the road. Sam jumped out of the car and ran around to the trunk.
“What are you doing?” Patrick jumped out with her.
“Maybe he knows,” Sam said. “Vince knew about the incident at the hangar. He’s been involved this entire time. Maybe he knows the order Kuznetsov placed the samples in!”
Patrick popped the trunk and yanked Vince out. Sam shut the trunk, and Patrick slammed Vince against it.
Sam got in Vince’s face. “What order are the vials placed in the briefcase?”
“What? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Sam pulled out her gun and shot him right in the thigh. Through his screams of pain, she shouted at him. “Tell me or the next bullet is in your neck!”
Vince shouted in pain again. Sam raised her gun.
“Okay! I don’t know. He changes it every time in case something like today ever happened. You shot my leg!”
“Bullshit!” Sam pressed
the gun against his neck. “Tell me the order!”
“I would know if I was the one with the samples, but I didn’t bring these! I swear!” Vince pleaded.
“So you didn’t watch your wife die today?”
Genuine emotion moved over his face. “If I had been there, she wouldn’t be dead! This wasn’t my run. I was already here for all of my testing after Atqasuk. That was my last run. Just don’t shoot me!”
“You let the virus go in Atqasuk and the other towns in Alaska, didn’t you?” Sam said.
Sam felt the swell of anger rising. The man in front of her had been responsible for more than two hundred deaths already. Maybe more in Atqasuk, the latest Alaskan town to fall ill.
“Last chance,” Sam said as she pressed the gun deeper into his neck. “Tell me the order, or you die where you stand.”
“I-I don’t know the order—”
Blood splattered onto Sam before the sound of the gunshot registered or before she realized Patrick had moved his gun underneath Vince’s chin.
“We have to go,” Patrick said. “He didn’t know the order of the vials. We need to get to the airport and stop Artem.”
Vince’s body folded over and thudded against the pavement. Sam put away her gun, then wiped the blood from her face with the bottom of her thermal shirt. The three of them moved back toward the car without saying a word. Sam was happy she didn’t have to pull the trigger, but she would have liked at least a heads-up.
Zhanna pulled back onto the road and sped off toward the airport. That was when it occurred to Sam that she had one last chance at figuring out the order of the vials, as well as whether Artem Kamenev was heading toward America with samples that could destroy the United States or with harmless tubes of a vaccine that wouldn’t infect a single person.
Her best friend and partner in crime was with the actual source of both at that very moment, Dmitry Kuznetsov. Sam pulled out her phone and made the most important call of her life.
She called Alexander King.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Barrow, Alaska, 3:30 p.m.
Alexander King was following the tracking app on his phone from the passenger seat. He and Cali had switched seats so he could concentrate on managing phone calls and running Kuznetsov down. They were getting close to Kuznetsov’s location when King’s phone rang. It was a private number. King put the phone on speaker so he could still see the tracker, and answered the call without speaking.
“Bring the samples to me and I will give you back your friend.”
Cali shot a hopeful look in King’s direction.
“He’s not my friend.”
Cali frowned and went back to the road.
“Then he will die,” Kuznetsov said.
King could see Cali’s grip on the steering wheel tighten. He wished she didn’t have to hear this, but he didn’t have a choice.
“Then he dies. You think I would trade the tens of thousands of American lives, maybe more, for the life of one man I barely know? You must not know how things work in our country. Sacrifices must be made.”
“Have it your way.”
The call ended.
“X, I know this is none of my business, and I know that tough decisions are going to have to be made, but can you really just let them kill Josiah?”
King was quiet. Cali fought her emotions as she nodded her head. He didn’t have time to deal with what she cared about, no matter how much he cared about her.
“I get it,” she said. “This is more than I can understand and I won’t say another word.”
King checked the tracking app again. “It looks like we aren’t far.”
“How close?” Cali said.
“Half a mile, maybe.”
“He’s at the police station. It’s the only thing that close on this road.”
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“Positive. And I know a back way in. The night Josiah came on to me, we snuck in the back. He was trying to show off, but I didn’t like him like that.”
“Can you take us there without them seeing us?”
Cali jerked the Jeep off the road and onto some rough terrain. “I think so.”
“Perfect.” King contemplated not saying anything more, but he just couldn’t help it. “I don’t think they’ll kill him. That’s why I said what I said. The vials are too important to Kuznetsov.”
“You don’t have to explain.” They bumped over some more road, and then she killed the headlights. “You can put the tracker away, that’s the station.”
King squinted into the dying twilight. What she was referring to was no more than what looked like a couple of elongated shacks glued together, backed up to a wooded area. It looked like there were a couple of SUVs out front as well as what he swore was one of the military trucks from the gate at Volkov. Then they passed into a row of trees themselves.
“We should walk from here,” Cali said as she slowed the Jeep.
“There is no we, Cali,” King said. “You have to go back to the plane and be ready to go. Josiah’s men can keep you and the samples safe.”
King grabbed the briefcase from the floorboard behind him.
“Then why are you taking the empty briefcase?” she asked.
“Kuznetsov doesn’t know it’s empty.”
“I don’t understand,” Cali said. “Why don’t you just leave? You have what you came for. You have the virus and the vaccine. Why risk your life if Josiah’s doesn’t matter?”
“I never said Josiah’s life . . . Look, I don’t have what I came for. If I let Kuznetsov leave here, I will never find him again. And just because I managed the vials doesn’t mean he won’t try this again somewhere else.”
Cali nodded. “Just be careful.” She began to lean toward him when his phone rang. It was Sam.
“Sam, you all right?”
“No. X, I need to talk to Kuznetsov right now.”
“That’s not possible.”
“He’s not with you?”
“No, but I’m about to get him back.”
“Damn it!” Sam shouted.
“What’s wrong? How could he possibly help you?”
“Because the virus could be on the move right now. To the airport. I just don’t know if the Artem has vials of virus or vaccine. Kuznetsov would have been the last one to be able to tell us the order.”
“Sam, you have to stop Artem from getting on a plane. You know he’ll be headed for the US.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Sam shouted. “If he’s flying private, we’ll never make it. And we’ll never know where he actually ends up flying to. He won’t go straight to the US. If he’s smart, he’ll go somewhere else and try to drive it across the border.”
King’s skin began to crawl. All the progress he’d made there in Barrow was going to be for nothing if the virus got out from Moscow. There had to be a way to stop him.
“You told Lucas to shut down travel?” King said.
“Of course, but by the time it goes through the channels, even if the president himself is making the calls, it will be too late. You know that.”
King shifted in his seat toward the window to see if there was any movement at the police station, but he couldn’t see through the trees. He needed to go before Kuznetsov either moved again or more of his men came to his aid. When he shifted back toward Cali, ready to end the call, he felt something bulge in his pocket.
Kuznetsov’s notebook.
“Wait, Sam, I might have something.”
King shot his hand in his pocket and pulled out the notebook.
“I don’t know what will be in it,” King told Sam. “But I have Kuznetsov’s lab notebook.”
“Oh, please, God, be the answer,” Sam said. “Vince Huang said Kuznetsov always changed the order of the vials. He said he changed the order of them every time so no one would know but him. Please tell me he wrote it down!”
King handed the phone to Cali. “Hold the light on the notebook, please.” King began t
humbing through it. The first few pages were nothing but notes about the lab equipment. Not a good start.
What Sam said finally registered. “Wait, you have Huang. Just ask him the order!”
“Had him, you mean,” Sam said. “He’s recently deceased. He didn’t know the order because he wasn’t the one who brought the samples to the hangar in Moscow.”
“Shit, okay. Does that mean you have Zhanna?”
King stopped thumbing to take in Sam’s answer.
“We do. She’s fine. Now please worry about the notebook!”
It was a sigh of relief to know that Zhanna was okay. The deeper he went into the notebook, King saw more of the same meaningless notes. Then he noticed that every page was dated at the top. Kuznetsov telling him that he documented everything kept running through his mind. He skipped a chunk of pages to find the date he thought correlated with the first time the town in Alaska began getting sick. There was nothing on the first couple of pages.
“X, we are running out of time!” Sam urged.
“That’s it!” King shouted. He couldn’t believe what he’d found. As he ran his finger down the sheet, the name of the first town to get sick was there, with four groups of two letters beside it: Vi Va Vi Va.
“Vi Va Vi Va,” King read them aloud. “That’s what he wrote next to the first town’s name! Let me check the second one.”
“Virus Vaccine Virus Vaccine?” Sam said.
“That has to be it!” Cali said.
“I think so too, but hold on,” King said.
“Please, God, let it be Va Va Vi Vi when you get to the Moscow samples!”
King found the right dates for the next town. “Va Vi Va Vi for the second one. Let me skip to the last few days.”
He jumped ahead to a few days ago. There were notes about the vaccine working, just as Kuznetsov had said. And disgusting notes about what was going on in Atqasuk, the last town that was getting sick. Then he finally found the word Moscow. Beside it was the order of the vials that had traveled there and that Sam had intercepted at the hangar. He couldn’t believe it.
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 43
