Zrada

by Lance Charnes

  The return trip is no easier. The path she took has disappeared. Comb the weeds, check for bomblets, step, repeat.

  She uncovers another bomblet on its nose. It wavers, then starts to slide. She screws her eyes shut, waiting for the flash and thunder and the shrapnel tearing through her body.

  Nothing.

  She peels open an eye. The bomblet rests on a twig an inch above the ground. The twig bends slowly.

  Maybe three meters to the minefield’s edge. She picks the most open path, takes a deep breath, then sprints. When she hits bare dirt, she throws herself face-down on the ground, panting like she’s just run a 10K.

  Wham. Fragments cut through the weeds, zip over her head, and knock bark off the treetrunks.

  Galina eventually slips out from between the trees and stands watching her, arms folded. “That was the most dumb thing I have ever seen.”

  “Fuck you very much.” Carson staggers off toward the car. She paces a wide circle around the Slavuta while she slams a bottle of water and tries to make her hands stop shaking. Galina’s right: it was a dumb thing to do. But now that it’s done, she’s sure she can run up a mountain…at least, once she catches her breath.

  “I found this.” Galina drops another cell on the hood on her way to the driver’s door.

  It’s another agency phone, this one in a black case. The glass is cracked. Stepaniak’s? Olivia can tell her. That’s not her biggest problem right now.

  Galina reappears on the car’s other side, nipping at a water bottle. They stare at each other for a while. “You must be the most brave person I know, or the most crazy. Maybe both.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “What do we do now?”

  That’s Carson’s biggest problem. She holds up her phone. “This is how we tracked Stepaniak.”

  “I know.”

  “It was here almost nine hours. How far can he get in that time?”

  Galina shrugs. “Anywhere. He could be in the West, or near it.” She watches the water she’s swirling in her bottle. “You shot one. Maybe they’re hiding, or in hospital.”

  “Maybe. Where’s the nearest town with a hospital or clinic?”

  “Not in Komsomolske?” Galina stares west down the road like she’s looking for the answer in the haze. “Starobesheve. Less than ten kilometers from here.”

  Standing still means losing. Carson hates losing. “Let’s go there.”

  Chapter 22

  Carson settles into the passenger’s seat and closes her eyes once they’re on the road again. The thumping in her head has fallen into rhythm with the pulsing ache in her ribs. She can tolerate being a passenger for a change.

  Galina’s words echo in her head: he could be in the West. They’ll never catch up to Stepaniak in civilization. The Cranach may be lost to her and probably the museum for God knows how many more years.

  She still has the icon and half the money. Is that good enough?

  They’re close enough to town to get semi-decent cell service. Carson opens WhatsApp to text Olivia. Need to ask allyson a question.

  I will relay it. Olivia never texts contractions and always punctuates.

  Cant get cranach can bring home icon + half cash ok?

  Please stand by.

  A says, “I will not pay her for half a project. Make it work.”

  Shit. She really say that?

  I edited for content and clarity. Have you a reply?

  Does she? Carson’s gotten into these wrangles with Allyson before and hasn’t won yet. She’s always been able to “make it work.” Now that she can’t track Stepaniak anymore, she doesn’t see any way to work it out short of dumb luck or a miracle. That thought makes her headache even more miserable.

  After a couple of minutes, Galina squawks and yanks the car onto the rough shoulder.

  Carson’s head bounces off the headrest. Lightning flashes behind her eyes. “What? What’s wrong?” Galina twists to stare out the rear window; Carson follows her lead. A BMP—an olive-drab doorstop on tank treads with a hump of a turret on top—rumbles toward them faster than she thought they could go. Two six-wheeled trucks with canvas cargo-bed covers follow. No wonder Galina got them off the road.

  “Are they chasing us?” Galina asks.

  “No idea.” The BMP swells in the missing rear window. The car shudders. If these guys are looking for them, there’s no chance of an escape this time.

  The BMP roars by in a clatter of track links and squeaking bogies. The Slavuta rocks as it passes, then again when the trucks sweep past. The car fills with exhaust stink.

  Carson says, “Guess they’re not looking for us. You saw the crests?”

  “Yes. Makiivka Brigade.” Galina makes it sound like genital herpes.

  Dumb luck…or a miracle? “Follow them.”

  “Why?”

  “They can track Stepaniak. I think they have a bug on the SUV.”

  Galina stares at her with a now you tell me look on her face. She shakes her head, then jams the car in gear and sets out to catch the militia patrol. The road was rough before, but now it’s like driving over a rockslide. Galina waves out the windshield. “This is another reason I hate them. Their tanks tear up our roads.”

  The vibration’s driving long metal spikes into Carson’s temples. She drags the first-aid kit from the back seat into her lap while Galina swerves to avoid the worst road damage. She dry-swallows two Zitramon—like Tylenol—hoping they’ll kick in before her skull splits open.

  Soon they’re on the T0508 highway, trailing the convoy by about two hundred meters amid huge, plowed fields. The car’s front end shimmies like a hula dancer on speed. Carson’s head pounds harder every minute. Why’s the militia in such a hurry? What’s changed?

  Galina stomps the brakes, throwing Carson against her seatbelt. The Slavuta fishtails and squeals until it settles with a groan.

  The patrol’s trucks are herringboned across the highway about a hundred fifty meters ahead. Carson yanks her binoculars from the door pocket and focuses while Galina rolls the car onto the shoulder.

  Three men in current Russian camouflage cluster around the end of the last truck, aiming their rifles into the open cargo area. Scared-looking militia troops tumble onto the road with their hands up. The armed men force the militia onto the road face-down, their fingers interlaced behind their heads.

  Carson concentrates on the three gunmen: green balaclavas, body armor, Russian load-bearing gear, no patches. Each has two long weapons, a standard AK-74 slung behind his back and the pipe-like barrel of an AS Val suppressed carbine pointing at the militia troops. “Shit. Spetsnaz. Russian spetsnaz.”

  “What?” Galina’s eyes go round.

  Carson can’t see much of the lead truck, but it looks like the same thing’s going on there. Russians are shoving militia troops off the top of the BMP onto the road. “They’re rousting the militia guys. Can’t tell if this is an arrest or an execution.”

  “This makes no sense. Why—”

  A trooper from the last truck tries to run. All the Russians turn to shout at him. He makes it to the other side of the road before a Russian, shaking his head, raises his carbine and puts three rounds in the man’s back in what looks like one smooth movement. The runner staggers through a few more steps, then falls face-first into the grass along the road shoulder.

  Carson peeks at Galina. She looks confused rather than shocked or horrified. Not the first time she’s seen that, Carson guesses. Not the first time Carson has, either. It always leaves her with a hollow, slightly sick feeling that takes hours to go away.

  The spetsnaz operators force two prisoners to toss the body into the back of the truck. Then a Russian hurls an olive cylinder bigger than a beer can into the cargo bed; another does the same with the cab. An instant later, twin white flashes pump out a ridiculous amount of white smoke. Within seconds, a fierce white-hot fire swallows the truck.

  Carson barks, “Get us ou
t of here. Now.”

  Chapter 23

  “Your bitch is coming for you.”

  Stepaniak, stretched out on a stainless-steel exam table with his shirt off, slews his head more or less in Stas’s direction. The pain meds make focusing a chore but somehow don’t stop the burning agony in his shoulder wound or the pounding in his chest where Carson’s bullet slammed into his body armor. “What…are you…talking about?”

  “That Carson bitch. She’s on her way here. She’s off the highway, probably on farm roads.” Stas tosses the phone on Stepaniak’s belly.

  Stepaniak can barely figure out the phone’s screen. A fuzzy red dot crawls over a blurry map. He peers at Stas, who’s perched on a stool, looking like a vulture waiting for roadkill. Carson shot Stas in the back last night; now the man moves like he’s made of rusted gears. “Your grenade…didn’t work.”

  “Felt fucking great.”

  He would’ve objected had Stas told him ahead of time. They already had what they’d come for—trying to kill Carson was unnecessary. “Dear Stas.” Stepaniak’s voice is like soap bubbles on a breeze. “You have to…end this.”

  “Fuck that. You should’ve put one in her brain at the exchange. You made this mess, you deal with it.”

  “I would. Except…” Stepaniak flutters his hand over the IV tube in his arm, the bandages caking his left shoulder, his wrapped ribs, and his non-focusing eyes. The effort wears him out.

  Stas takes a swig from his unlabeled bottle of malynivka, Ukrainian home-brewed liquor spiked with raspberries. “How do I get to her? Getting cute doesn’t work.”

  “True.” Stepaniak tries to shift, winces, then settles where he was. “You’ve complained…about my plans. Make one of your own. We…can’t use the…Range Rover anymore. The militia…knows it. Try…something else.”

  Stas grows a predator’s smile. “Yeah. I’ll get it done. But I want half. I’m picking up your shit, I get paid for it. Understand?”

  A surge of heat manages to burn through the fog in Stepaniak’s eyes. “Do it first. Succeed first. Then we talk.” He glares as best he can. “Dear Stas.”

  Chapter 24

  Carson asks, “Should the car make this noise?”

  This noise is something like a washing machine spinning an off-balance load of wet towels. It had started this morning on the way out of town but faded away. Carson wrote it off as just another version of the Slavuta’s endless racket.

  Galina growls “no” through clenched teeth. She returns to urging the car to stay alive. “Come on, baby, just a little farther, you can do it…”

  They’d backtracked almost two klicks from the burning patrol before veering off on a farm road that led them deep into dead-flat fields. Luckily, the past couple of rainless days had let the dirt-and-gravel paths dry out. The noise returned after a few minutes of jouncing and hasn’t gone away since.

  The southern outskirts of Starobesheve are growing large in the windshield when the car starts to buck. The sharp jolting has no rhythm to get used to. Galina switches from baby talk to prayer.

  They turn right onto a semi-paved road and hiccup their way through what looks like some kind of industrial farm. Carson’s pressed herself against her seatback so she doesn’t get whiplash. “Where are you going?”

  “To a petrol station. It’s less than a kilometer.” She pats the dashboard. “Come on, just a few more minutes…”

  The Slavuta manages a couple turns while it chokes its guts out. It inches past some kind of truck yard. Then, bang. The engine stops instantly. Galina murmurs “no no no no no” as the car coasts another few meters, then creaks to a halt.

  They both sit for a few moments, disoriented by the sudden quiet. Galina tries turning the key, but all the starter does is click. She sighs, then rests her forehead on the steering wheel’s rim.

  Carson looks around. Two red canopies on mustard-yellow columns appear off to their two o’clock about a hundred meters away. “Is that the station?” Galina nods. “Let’s push.”

  Luckily, the Slavuta doesn’t weigh a lot. Carson does most of the pushing while Galina steers. They eventually roll into the gas station’s forecourt and stop near the minimart. Like most stations back home, it doesn’t have a service bay. The car’s going to stay broken.

  Carson and Galina stand staring into the engine compartment, not expecting to see anything they can fix. Carson asks, “Anyplace you can get this towed?”

  Galina shrugs. “There must be. I have to ask.”

  “Sorry the car died.”

  “It’s a surprise she lasted so long.” She sounds resigned, like she’s talking about a 95-year-old aunt.

  She? “How long have you had her?”

  “Years and years.” Galina needs a couple of tries to latch the hood shut. She blows out a long breath and runs her fingers through her hair. “Do you have a plan?”

  Do I? The original plan had been to get here and follow the militia to Stepaniak. Carson glances south; the plume of black smoke over the patrol is finally thinning. So much for plans. “Fix this one, or get another.”

  Galina’s eyes get big. “You would buy another car?”

  “Why not? We got money. Not getting you a Beemer, though.”

  “A pykap?” The hope in her voice doesn’t even try to hide.

  “Whatever.” Will Olivia let her expense it, or should she use the museum’s cash? Or both? Carson lives off her expense account; nearly all her agency pay goes straight to Rodievsky to service her dad’s debt. “Where do people here go to buy cars?”

  “I will ask.” Galina lays a hand on the Slavuta’s hood for a few moments, maybe saying goodbye. Then she sets off for the station’s minimart.

  Carson leans her butt against the fender and scans the highway east of the station. There’s not much traffic. A truck lot sits across the highway from the gas station, a handful of flatbeds parked randomly around a scattering of ratty single-story buildings. Just south of that is some kind of farm compound, judging from the barn-looking thing on the north end.

  The barn doesn’t interest her. The two men in camo standing in the driveway do.

  Rogozhkin peers at the sad little blue car through his binoculars. “You’re sure this is the one they saw?”

  Syrov says, “Reasonably sure, sir. A blue ZAZ Slavuta with body damage and a missing side mirror. Two passengers.”

  “Two women?”

  “They couldn’t tell. The car ran south when my men lit up the lorries.”

  “I see.” After burning the militia’s lorries and blowing the tracks off the BMP, Rogozhkin and Syrov’s men had regrouped in this farmyard. The owners knew better than to object. His Hunter and the team’s two Tigrs are parked behind the barn so they won’t be too obvious. Syrov had been monitoring the two troops he’d left watching the clinic until one of his men told him about the civilian vehicle that had witnessed the patrol’s end.

  Rogozhkin focuses on the woman leaning against the little car’s front wing with her ankles crossed. Short brown hair, broad shoulders. Big. Not fat, but tall and built for work. Her black jeans fit well. The pushed-up sleeves of her blue polo shirt show off strong, chiseled forearms. A fine physical specimen. But something looks off. He passes the binoculars to Syrov. “Does it look like she’s wearing body armor under that shirt?”

  Syrov examines her for almost a minute. “Hard to tell, sir. The shirt’s loose. I’d expect a woman like that to have bigger tits, but that could be the vest.” He hands Rogozhkin the binoculars. “Should I send a couple of men to check her out?”

  “Not yet.” He scopes her again. Not hard to look at. “There may be a woman mixed up with this Stepaniak. She may be with him or against him. She shot one of his men.” He waves the binoculars toward the petrol station. “She looks like she could do that. Keep an eye on her and the other one. Let’s see if we need to worry about them.”

  Carson concentrates so hard on the two Russian troops that sh
e doesn’t hear Galina walk up until she says, “There may be a place.”

  “Where?” The shorter Russian hands binoculars to the other one, then paces into the compound. Carson wants to get her own field glasses but knows these guys might think that’s sketchy.

  Galina doesn’t notice. “On Radianska vulytsya. There are two petrol stations next to each other. People with cars to sell sometimes leave them there. The man says it’s about eight hundred meters from here.”

  “Uh-huh.” Carson turns her back on the farm to face Galina. “Remember the Russians who burned that militia convoy? I think a couple are in that farm down there.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Watching us. Maybe because we’re witnesses.”

  “If that’s so, they will have come to take us by now.” Galina’s voice is wound tight. She’s trying not to look toward the farm but keeps peeking at it. “They may want to see what we do. If the police come here, maybe the Kacápskyi will try to kill us so we can’t talk.”

  Carson grumbles, “You’re just a ray of sunshine.”

  A silver four-door sedan turns into the station and pulls up three meters from them. A middle-aged guy with three or four days of shadow opens the passenger’s side window from the driver’s seat. “Can you help me? I think I’m lost.” Russian. Nervous-sounding. Sweating more than the weather can explain.

  Galina paces toward the car. “Where are you going?”

  The driver licks his lips. “Um… Dokuchajevsk.”

  “Oh, that’s easy.” Galina bends and braces her hands on her knees so she can look in the open window. “Go out on the highway going that way, then turn left…on…”

  Silence. Then, “Where’s your shotgun, bitch?”

  Stas’s raspy voice.

  Carson sidesteps to her left so she can see around Galina. Her hand goes automatically for the pistol stashed in her back waistband.