A voice from under the bulldozer spoke and Max laughed.
“What?” Marianne said.
“He says: yeah, it could be worse, you could be stuck under a big yellow hunk of metal.”
Vasily’s feet protruded from out of their former shelter, but that was as far as he’d gotten. He was much bigger than Marianne.
“He’s right.”
“I see a shovel clipped to one of the machines. This will only take a minute,” Max replied. Then he spoke in Russian and hobbled off to get the spade.
It took them considerably longer than a minute. Max’s wrist was too weak to do much, and Marianne was no use at all. By the time they’d gotten Vasily out, night was beginning to fall.
A pickup truck appeared at the fence. A man got out and stared at the demolished barrier for a long time, holding his head comically.
Max called out to him, and he sprinted over. A long conversation in Russian ensued, and Marianne began to feel faint. She was obviously managing to keep her feet from adrenalin alone, and that was wearing off quickly.
“Max,” she whispered.
He turned to her and suddenly looked concerned. “Are you all right?”
“Can you ask him if he has some food?”
A protein bar and a flask of vodka appeared almost immediately and she felt worlds better. But the Russians continued arguing. She tugged on Max’s sleeve. “I want to go home,” she said.
Max said something to Vasily and, between them, they walked the protesting man back to his truck. Vasily took the wheel and the man sat in the passenger seat, making one phone call after another. Max and Marianne sat in the back. Marianne fell asleep on Max’s shoulder almost as soon as the truck started moving.
Chapter 14
As Max and Marianne emerged from the infirmary, a group of soldiers waiting at the door asked them to accompany them, in English. She looked to Max for guidance, and the blond man just nodded, so they went without protest. The situation didn’t feel particularly threatening. The men were relaxed, just carrying out orders, escorting a couple of people who weren’t deemed dangerous—and one who was a friend—into a room.
Of course, there was very little Max or Marianne could do even if they had decided to cause trouble. They were inside a concrete office building in the Spetsnaz base surrounded by pretty much every Russian commando in the region. Not even Max would go very far, although his peers would likely go easy on him and simply immobilize him non-lethally.
Besides, the doctor had explained to Max that any kind of strenuous activity would tear the stitches on his ass, hurt his ribs and very likely do some unspeakable damage to his fractured scaphoid which, once the Colonel got done with him, would need to be immobilized… and possibly operated on if the cast didn’t heal it.
The doctor had explained all of this in English, likely in the vain hope that she would be able to make him see reason and take care of himself. It was almost as if the doctor had zero experience with men who thought that only dangerous things were worth doing—unlikely, as he was a Spetsnaz officer, as far as she could tell from his uniform. Maybe he was just an optimist at heart.
The uninjured Vasily had been separated from the group and, presumably, already debriefed. In any event, he wasn’t waiting for them when they reached the large room the troops deposited them in.
It was a classroom, she thought. Or, considering where they were, it might be a briefing room. Metal chairs and desks were distributed on the concrete floor, and there was a whiteboard at the front. Twenty-five normal-sized students could probably fit comfortably… so maybe twenty guys Max and Vasily’s size.
Max turned to her with a serious expression. “Call me old-fashioned, but I was hoping to see your ass before showing you mine. Or at least both at the same time.” Then his poker face broke and he burst out laughing.
Marianne smirked. “You keep acting this way and you may not get to see it at all.”
“I thought you wanted me to choose. I choose caveman, and this is how you treat me?”
She turned serious and gestured around the room, indicating the base, the whole of Russia and their situation. “Are we going to be okay?”
“That depends on what you mean by okay. We probably won’t be shot. I heard from one of the soldiers that Selene was found dead of a bullet wound near where we took the chairlift. They’ll probably suspect us.”
“But we didn’t do it.”
“Yes. So the ballistics people will clear us. But that leaves the more complicated part, the politics.”
“I just want to go home.”
“You will, I promise. It might take a while, however.”
“I don’t feel like waiting a while.”
“This is Russia. It might take a while anyway.”
“No. Can I borrow your phone? I saw you charging it in the clinic.”
“Of course.”
“I need to make an international call.”
“Do it. I… Let’s just say I wouldn’t deny you anything, ever.”
She got up on her toes and kissed him. She wished they could finally be alone somewhere.
Max pulled away again. He was always doing that.
“Are you going to call someone important?”
“Yes.”
“A politician? A senator? The American President?”
“Nope. I’m going to call someone who will give me immediate results if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Who?”
“My editor.”
A soldier opened the door and motioned for Max to follow him. Max looked back at her, shrugged, and left.
***
Terrence Vaidal glanced at the clock. It was five-thirty in the morning. No one should be calling about work at five-thirty, but the phone buzzing was the one that only work people had.
It would be about work. Everyone in the industry knew that he would take a call about a story at any moment, day or night. He needed to stop doing it.
The number was not one of his contacts, and it was longer than it should have been, a string of meaningless numbers. He debated whether to just let it roll over onto voicemail, but finally pressed the green icon with a sigh. “Hello,” he said.
“Terrence, it’s me.” The voice was unmistakable. It had haunted his working days for years, and haunted his dreams for a couple of unforgettable weeks. Now, it haunted his conscience.
Relief flooded him. “Marianne, are you all right? We saw what happened. The monsters… We feared the worst.”
“Yes, I’m safe,” she said. “But I need your help.”
“What is it? Money? Diplomatic pressure? Please tell me you don’t need a doctor.”
“Right now, I need you to tell me, in thirty seconds or less, what you guys know.”
Vaidal brought her up to speed about Tatiana’s story. Marianne was silent for a couple of beats, and then spoke in a flat voice. “Tatiana’s dead, Terrence. And Ronnie.”
“Ronnie… oh God. What happened?”
“That’s part of the story.”
“Fuck the story. Tell me where you are. I’ll send people to get you. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. Surrounded by Russian commandos who won’t let anyone hurt me. Relax. The story first. Promise me you’ll run it now. Today, first thing—it’s early morning there, right? It’s just after midnight here, and I’m really tired, but I think it’s morning, right?”
“Yeah,” Vaidal replied, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“Good. Also, you’re going to have to write most of it, because I’m nowhere near a computer or an internet connection. I’ll give you the telegraph version. Do you have a notebook?”
“It’s five-thirty, I’m in bed.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She paused for one second while he scrambled to grab the notebook that lived—as she knew because she’d seen it—beside his bed. “After the stuff with the dinosaur at the lab, Ronnie and I rented a car and…”
; ***
The colonel waited in his office-a spartan cubbyhole that showed little sign of use save for the fact that it contained a few books on a shelf. Max had only been there a couple of times, most recently to be informed of his brother’s death. He took a long look at the officer and saw the man was unhappy, but not overly so. Annoyed more than upset.
The guy would never be a decent poker player. Anyone could tell what he was thinking.
“Sit down Max,” the colonel said.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He sat, wincing as his butt came into contact with the chair.
“You look like shit.”
“Thank you, sir. I don’t feel much better.”
“However you feel, you aren’t anywhere near as unhappy as I am. Here I am, minding my own business when, suddenly, I get the call that there’s been a major incident with national and international security implications right on my doorstep. There are dead soldiers, dead journalists, dead people from security organizations so secret I’m not even supposed to admit might exist, dead helicopters from an important defense contractor, dead dinosaurs—and living ones, too—and a dead monster no one thinks should be able to exist.
“I’m thinking that’s all fine. I don’t do the spy stuff, I just have to respond when the shit hits the fan, so if the intelligence boys dropped the ball and didn’t ask for Spetsnaz support, I am perfectly all right. The political stench can’t touch me. So, while I’m trying to explain to the boys in Moscow that, since no one told me about anything, it isn’t my fault, it turns out that two of the dead soldiers are, in fact, mine, and two more walk out of it all with a few scratches.”
“I’d say we got more than a few scratches.”
“Speak for yourself. Vasily looks like he just came back from the beach. If you’re a bit of a wimp, it’s not my fault.” The colonel took a breath and Max tried to keep his smile from breaking out. The fact that he was being chewed out like a recruit meant that he wasn’t going to the firing squad… not as long as his superior officer could help it. And anyone trying to storm a Spetsnaz base against the commander’s will was not going to have a good day. The colonel went on. “Initially, my first instinct was to tell Moscow that your unit had gone rogue and murdered half the human and monstrous inhabitants of the woods outside Yekaterinburg but then I realized that they would never believe me. It would have taken at least five of you to do that much damage.”
“Marianne helped. You don’t know her. She’s the most dangerous person in the country. The Americans are probably already threatening the Kremlin with a nuclear strike if we don’t let her go now.”
“I have her file,” the colonel said, indicating a print on his desk. “She’s not that important.”
“That’s what you think.”
“That’s what I know. Now tell me what happened; Moscow is especially interested in the fates of Selene Grosjean and Park Sun-Lee. General Orlov was very agitated about them for some reason.”
“I think they’re both dead, but I didn’t see it for myself.” Max was stalling. He was trying to remember what he’d agreed with Vasily that they would tell the colonel. Finally, he shrugged and went with what he remembered. “It started when we were going to lunch out at the gas station. We ran into Grosjean on the way and she asked us to accompany her to the complex because there was a reporter who’d been stopped by one of her men, and that there was something else going on. That reporter turned out to be Marianne.” By offering as little detail as possible at this stage, Max hoped he wasn’t contradicting anything Vasily had told their superior officer. Fortunately, the colonel’s deficient poker face had not registered any alarm so far.
“And you didn’t think of calling it in?”
“We thought it would be a quick thing and when we realized there was trouble at the facility, we couldn’t get a signal. For some reason our phones didn’t work there.”
“They have a jamming field… I think they don’t trust their employees.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m convinced it was one of the employees that caused all the problems. Both the escape of all the dinosaurs and the explosion in the main containment area had to have been inside jobs.”
“Why don’t you tell me everything in order?”
“Okay. As I said, we realized that there was something wrong inside. The guards were all gone and the place looked deserted, so we advanced and entered a large enclosure…” Max went on to tell the story of the following two days with only slight modifications. The only thing he changed was that Grosjean wasn’t a prisoner but part of the expedition at all times. But he kept the rest of the narrative almost completely untouched, especially since most of it had occurred without the presence of the people in whom Moscow was interested.
The story took an hour to tell, and Max was feeling exhausted and in pain when he finally told the colonel what happened in the machine lot.
“And the girl?” the colonel asked.
“What about the girl? She was just along for the ride. Grosjean wanted to shoot her, but we decided to wait.”
“Is she really just a journalist, or was Grosjean right and she’s a spy?”
“Definitely a journalist.”
“Grosjean didn’t seem to think so.”
“Grosjean is a crazy woman who kills people for the hell of it.”
“Now she’s dead.”
Max didn’t bother to pretend to be surprised. “How do you know?”
“They found her body.”
“Good.”
“You make it sound personal.”
“I never liked her.”
“No one did, but we can’t go around shooting everyone we don’t like.”
Max bristled. “I didn’t shoot her. In fact, I did everything in my power to keep her alive. We got separated twice, and she seemed to be at war with Sun-Lee, but I had nothing to do with her death.”
“It looks bad. You and Vasily were the only ones who got out.”
“I didn’t shoot her.” He studied the colonel for a few moments. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
His superior grimaced. “The bullet inside her was fired from a North Korean gun. The story you told us about Grosjean and Sun-Lee being at war appears to fit the evidence and the bodies we found, and it matches with what Vasily said, so I can only conclude that you did your job to the best of your ability, and that your involvement in this mess was purely accidental. You are free to go.”
“Really?”
The colonel’s face hardened. “That isn’t what Orlov recommended, but Orlov has a hell of a lot of explaining to do in Moscow, and he probably won’t survive the political fallout. I predict that, in a month, Orlov will be a man with a nice pension, a dacha in the country and precisely zero power or influence. With Grosjean dead and Sun-Lee in apparent disgrace, I doubt anyone will want to raise a stink about a couple of soldiers who aren’t talking to anyone. We at least came out of this well so far, and I plan to keep it that way. One way to do that is to act like you did everything right which, as far as I can see, is correct. Every shred of evidence we have fits your story exactly, and I know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t have done anything stupid.
“So you are still on active duty, except you have some medical leave coming. And anyone who argues… well, unless they are in my direct chain of command, they will have to come and get you, and I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“What about Marianne?” Max said.
“The reporter? She stays where she is for now. Moscow wants to talk to her.”
“Can’t you do anything? I mean…” Max never got to finish, because the colonel’s phone rang.
The man picked it up and spoke into the receiver. “Yes, sir,” was all he said. He said it a number of times.
Then the colonel hung the phone up and gave Max a sour look. “That was General Kaminov. He just got off the phone with someone important, and he says we need to release the woman. Right now.”
Max
chuckled.
“I hate to say I told you so. Actually, I don’t hate to say I told you so. I told you so. Do you want me to drive her?”
The colonel rolled his eyes. “You can’t even drive with that hand.”
“Yes I can.”
“Whatever. Just get her off my base.”
***
“Can you drive this?” Max asked.
Marianne studied the controls. It looked like a big SUV, nothing too tough. “I’m a bit rusty on stick shift, but I learned to drive on one of them, and I managed that rental… so I guess I should be all right.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to break it, even if you try,” Max said. “They’re designed so that the kids right off the farm can operate them without damage. You should see some of what passes for driving around here.”
Marianne laughed. “You should see the George Washington Tunnel.”
“Maybe someday. Now tell me the truth. Who did you call?”
“I already told you. My editor.”
“I believe you,” Max said, even though his face registered anything but.
She fiddled with the gears until she found first and stalled the car immediately. She got it moving on the second try. “Well, after working that clutch, I won’t need to go to the gym,” she said.
“My colonel is convinced you’re a spy. He wanted to keep you on the base to ask you some questions. Your editor must be a very important man.”
“I’m not a spy,” Marianne said, recognizing the unspoken question in the comment.
“I know. That’s what I told him. Just take this road. We’ll reach Yekaterinburg in fifteen minutes or so.”
“All right.” They drove in silence for a couple of minutes until a soft sound from the passenger seat made Marianne look over. Max, leaning against the door, was snoring softly.
She slowed and turned onto a dirt track that cut across the main road. She drove until she couldn’t see the asphalt behind them, then stopped the car on the grass along the track and turned off the headlights. Complete darkness fell outside, while the interior was illuminated only by the dash instruments.
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