After clapping the employee on the shoulder, Misha turned to the group. “Checked, stocked, and prepared for takeoff. Who goes first?”
“Me.” Anya set her jaw and stepped forward.
Tucker felt a wave of sympathy and respect for her. Frightened though she was, she’d decided to face it head-on.
Without a word, she scaled the ladder. At the top, she dropped one leg into the hatch, then the other, and disappeared into the conning tower. Utkin went next, followed by Bukolov, who muttered under his breath, “Fascinating . . . what fun.”
When it came to Kane’s turn, Tucker double tapped the ladder’s rung. Awkwardly but quickly, the shepherd scaled the ladder, then shimmied through the hatch.
“Impressive,” Misha said. “He does tricks!”
You have no idea.
Tucker followed, then Misha, who pulled the hatch closed, tugged it tight over the rubber seals, then spun the wheel until an LED beside the coaming glowed green. With the sub secure, Misha dropped down and shimmied to the cockpit.
The sub’s interior was not as cramped as Tucker had expected. The bulkheads, deck, and overhead were painted a soothing cream, as were the cables and tubes that snaked along the interior. A spacious bench padded in light blue Naugahyde ran down the center of the space, long enough for each of them to lie down, if necessary.
Tucker leaned and stared out one of the portholes, noting that the sun was beginning to peek through, showing shreds of blue sky. Occasionally green water sloshed across the view as the sub rolled and bobbed. He straightened and took a deep breath, tasting the slight metallic scent to the air.
“If anyone’s hungry,” Misha called out from the cockpit, “there’s food and drink at the back.”
Tucker turned and saw that the aft bulkhead held a double-door storage cabinet.
“You’ll also find aspirin, seasickness pills, and such. We’ll stop every four hours for bathroom breaks. Are there any questions?”
“How deep will we be diving?” Bukolov pressed his face to one of the portholes, looking like a young boy about to go on an adventure.
“On average, eighteen feet. The Volga’s main channel is at least twice that. Plenty of room for us to maneuver as needed. Plus I have a hydrophone in the cockpit. I’ll hear any ships coming our way. If you’ll take your seats, we will be under way.”
Tucker sat on the forwardmost section of bench, and Kane settled in beneath it. The others spread out along its length, staring out portholes. With a soft whirring, the electric engines engaged, and the sub slid sideways away from the dock, wallowed a few times, then settled lower. The waters of the Volga rose to cover the portholes and flooded the sub’s interior in soft green light.
As Misha deftly worked the controls, the Olga glided out of the estuary and into the main river channel. They were still only half submerged.
“All hands prepare to dive.” Misha chuckled. “Or just sit back and enjoy.”
With a muffled whoosh of bubbles, the sub slid beneath the surface. The light streaming through the portholes slowly dimmed from a mint green to a darker emerald. Soft halogen lights set into the underside of the benches glowed to life, casting dramatic shadows up the curved bulkheads.
After a few moments, Misha announced in his best tour-guide voice, “At cruising depth. We are under way. Prepare for a smooth ride.”
Tucker found his description to be apt. They glided effortlessly, with very little sense of movement. He spotted schools of fish darting past their portholes.
Over the next hour, having slept fitfully over the past days, exhaustion settled over everyone. The others drifted away one by one, draped across the bench, each with a wool blanket and inflatable pillow.
Tucker held off the longest, but after a quiet conversation with Misha who assured him all was well, he curled up and went to sleep, too. He hung one arm over the side of the bench, resting his palm on Kane’s side. The shepherd softly panted, maintaining his post beside the floor’s porthole, studying every bubble and particle that swept past the glass.
1:00 P.M.
Tucker startled awake as Misha’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Apologies for the intrusion, but we are about to make our first stop.”
The others groaned and stirred.
Tucker sat up to find Kane curled on the bench with him. The shepherd stood, arched his back in a stretch, then hopped down, and trotted to the entrance of the cockpit.
“Tell your friend he cannot drive,” Misha called good-naturedly.
“He just likes the view,” Tucker replied.
Bukolov waddled forward and sat down beside Tucker. “I must say, you impress me.”
“How so?”
“I had my doubts that you could truly help me—us—escape Russia. I see now that I was wrong to doubt you.”
“We’re not out yet.”
“I have faith,” Bukolov said with a smile. He gave Tucker’s arm a grandfatherly pat, then returned to his section of bench.
Miracles never cease.
He felt his ears pop as the Olga angled toward the surface. The portholes reversed their earlier transformation, going from a dark green to a blinding glare as the sub broached the surface. Sunlight streamed through the glass. A moment later, forward progress slowed with a slight grinding complaint as the hull slid to a stop on sand.
Misha crawled out of the cockpit, climbed the ladder, and opened the hatch. “All ashore!”
They all abandoned ship.
Misha’s expert piloting had brought the Olga to rest beside an old wooden dock. Their tiny cove was surrounded by tall marsh grass. Farther out, up a short slope, Tucker could see treetops.
“Where are we?” Utkin asked, blinking against the sun and looking around.
“A few miles north of Akhtubinsk. We’re actually ahead of schedule. Feel free to walk around. You have thirty minutes. I’m going to partially recharge the batteries with my solar umbrella.”
Tucker crossed with Kane to the shore and surveyed the immediate area around the dock. He had Kane do a fast scout to make sure they were alone. Once satisfied, he waved the others off the dock so they could stretch their legs.
“Stay close,” he ordered. “If you see anyone, even in the distance, get back here.”
Once they agreed, Tucker headed back to the sub. Misha had the solar umbrella already propped over the sub, recharging the batteries.
As Misha worked, he asked, “Tell me, my friend, are you all criminals? I do not judge. You pay, I don’t care.”
“No,” replied Tucker.
“Then people are following you? Looking for you?”
“Not anymore.”
I hope.
Misha nodded, then broke into a smile; his gold teeth flashed in the sun. “Very well. You are in safe hands.”
Tucker actually believed him.
Anya returned early by herself and prepared to return below.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
“I . . . I did what I had to do,” she said, blushing a bit. “I left the boys so they could have some privacy to do the same.”
Tucker glanced down to Kane. It wasn’t a bad idea. It would be another four hours before they stopped again. “How about it, Kane? Wanna go see a man about a horse?”
2:38 P.M.
As the Olga continued to glide down the Volga, the group dozed, stared out the portholes, or read. Occasionally Misha would quietly announce landmarks no one could see: a good spot for sturgeon fishing, or a mecca for crawfish hunting, or a village that had played a major or minor part in Russian history.
Utkin and Anya traded scientific journals and pored over them. Bukolov studied his notes, occasionally stopping to scribble some new thought or idea.
With nothing else to do himself, Tucker drifted in a half drowse—until Bukolov abruptly slid next to him and nudged him alert.
“What do you make of this?” the doctor said.
“Pardon?”
Bukolov pushed
a thin journal into his hand. It was clearly old, with a scarred leather cover and sewn-in yellowed, brittle pages. “This is one of De Klerk’s later journals.”
“Okay, so?”
Bukolov took it back, scowled at him, and flipped the pages back and forth. He then bent the book open, spread it wide, and pointed to the inner seam. “There are pages missing from this last diary of De Klerk’s. See here . . . note the cut marks near the spine.”
“You’re just noticing this now?” Tucker asked.
“Because the entries seemed to follow along smoothly. No missed dates, and the narrative is contiguous. Here, just before the first missing pages, he talks about one of the men in his unit complaining of mysterious stomach pains. After the missing pages, he begins talking about his Apocalypse Seed—where he found it, its properties, and so on.”
Not able to read or speak Afrikaans, Tucker had to take the doctor’s word for it, but the man was right. The cut marks were there.
“Why would he do this?” Tucker asked.
“I can only think of one reason,” Bukolov replied. “Paulos de Klerk was trying to hide something. But what and from whom?”
7:55 P.M.
Misha announced another pit stop and guided the Olga toward shore. It was the third landfall of the day, near sunset. He wanted one more chance to stock up his solar batteries for the night. He pulled them up to another abandoned fishing dock. Clearly he had planned their route carefully, choosing backwater locations for their ports of call.
As the hatch was unsealed, Tucker was immediately struck by the cloying rotten-egg stench of the place, undercut by a heady mix of petroleum and burned oil.
“Ugh,” Anya said, pinching her nose. “I’m staying inside. I don’t have to use the bathroom that badly.”
Tucker did, as did Kane. So they headed out with Utkin and Bukolov.
The cove here was surrounded by swamp, choked with densely packed grasses and reeds, interspersed with dead dwarf pines. A maze of wooden boardwalks zigzagged through the marshy area, paralleling aboveground pipes. At several intersections, car-sized steel cones protruded out of the oil-tinged water.
“Apologies for the ugly scenery,” Misha called. “This is a Lukoil station—propane, I believe. Those metal funnels are burp valves. Sad. Before Lukoil bought the land, there was a fishing village here named Saray. Known for very good sturgeon. No more.”
The group wandered around the dock area, which forked in several directions, all of which seemed to head inland toward the ghost town of Saray.
“Tucker, come look at this!” Utkin called somewhere to his right.
With Kane at his heels, Tucker followed the boardwalk to where the other two men were standing beside a section of submerged gas pipe. He noted the water roiling there. He plunged his hand into the marsh and slid his palm over the pipe’s slimy surface until he found what he was looking for—an open control valve. He continued probing until his fingers touched a short length of chain. Dangling at the end was a padlock. Its hasp had been cut in half.
Sabotage.
“Go!” he yelled to the others. “Back to the sub!”
“What is it?” Utkin asked. “What—?”
He stiff-armed Utkin away. “Get Bukolov to the sub!”
Still kneeling, Tucker hollered to the sub, “Misha!”
“What is it?”
“A gas leak! Get under way!”
Tucker fought back the questions filling his head—like who, how, and when—and drew his gun. He searched the water and spotted a thumb-thick section of a pine branch floating nearby. He snatched it with his free hand and crammed it into the mouth of the leaking valve, like a cork in a bottle. The bubbling gas slowed to a sputter.
An ominous thumping echoed over the swamp, seeming to come from every direction at once.
Helicopter rotors.
Tucker burst to his feet and ran. Kane kept to his side.
Backlit by the setting sun, Misha was slipping through the sub’s conning tower hatch. The others had already made it aboard. Misha paused when he spotted Tucker’s flight.
Tucker waved his arm. “Go, go!”
Misha hollered back. “A cannery! Four miles downstream! I will wait!”
He vanished below, yanking the hatch.
Behind the Olga, a helicopter appeared across the river, streaking over the surface. It swooped over the sub, banked hard, then slowed to a hover above the marsh. It was a civilian chopper, not a Havoc assault bird. It seemed General Kharzin’s influence and reach had limits this far from his home territory.
The helo’s side door opened, and a slim figure appeared, carrying a fiery red stick in one hand. Leaning out, a long tail of blond hair whipped in the rotor wash.
Tucker’s heart clenched into a tight fist.
Felice Nilsson.
Back from the dead.
From fifty yards away, he raised his pistol and fired. The bullet struck the fuselage beside Felice’s head. She jerked back out of sight, but it was too late. As if moving in slow motion, the flaming flare dropped from her hand and spun downward.
Tucker swung away and took off at a sprint, Kane at his heels.
Somewhere behind he heard a whoosh, followed a split second later by a muffled explosion. Without looking, Tucker knew what was happening. The closely packed marsh grass had trapped the heavier-than-air propane as it leaked from the sabotaged pipe, creating a ground-hugging blanket of gas.
The flare had ignited it.
Orange-blue flames swirled through the swamp grass, chasing him. Heat seared his back. They reached an intersection and dodged left toward the river where the sub should have been. But it was already gone, sunk away.
The flames caught up with him, outpacing them, surging beneath the boardwalk. Fire spurted between the planks.
The end of the dock loomed ahead.
Tucker put his head down, covered the last few steps to the end of the boardwalk, then jumped. Kane brushed against him as they sailed through the air together—then a wall of fire erupted in front of them.
23
March 16, 8:18 P.M.
The Volga River, Russia
At the last moment, Tucker reached out and curled his arm around Kane’s neck. Together, they plunged through the fire and into the river. While Kane had trained for sudden immersion, his core instinct would be to surface immediately. Cruel though it sounded, Tucker needed to prevent this.
As their plunging momentum slowed, Tucker stuck out his arm, his fingers grasping until he found a clump of roots. He clenched tight and pulled them both toward the mud. Under his other arm, Kane’s body was rock hard with tension, but he did not struggle.
Tucker craned his neck backward and watched the worst of the fire blow out on the surface. The blanket of propane had quickly exhausted itself, but the swamp grass continued to burn. In his blurred vision, the flaming stalks along the marsh edges appeared like so many orange torches against the darkening sky.
One problem down, one big one to go.
Felice and the helicopter were still out there. He knew the Swede was too stubborn to assume the flames had done her work.
Tucker worked his way deeper into the swamplands bordering the river, pulling himself from one clump of roots to another. When his lungs could take no more, he let go and bobbed to the surface.
He immediately heard the thump of rotors back at the dock.
Felice continued to hunt for them, a hawk in the sky.
As he and Kane gulped air, the swamp grass crackled and smoked. Cinders hissed on the water’s surface. Tucker looked at Kane. The shepherd’s eyes were huge, darting left and right. Kane’s animal instincts were screaming Fire! Get away! But his trust in Tucker and his training were holding him in place.
Tucker hugged his partner and whispered in his ear, “We’re okay, we’re okay . . . easy . . . hold on . . .”
The words themselves didn’t matter. It was Tucker’s tone and closeness that made the difference. They were together. The te
nsion eased slightly from the shepherd’s body.
Around them, the fire began dwindling as it devoured the dry tops of the marsh grass, filling the cove with smoke.
Tucker released Kane, and they half paddled, half crawled through the water, heading still deeper into the swamp, aiming for shore. Though it burned his lungs and stung his eyes, he did his best to hide their passage under the thick pall of smoke.
As they drifted into the shallows, the water was only a foot or so deep. The grasses here were greener, still smoldering. Warning bells went off in his head. Though the smoking grass provided cover, it could also serve as a beacon. Their passage risked nudging aside stalks, causing the smoky columns to shift.
From the hovering helicopter, Felice would certainly spot the irregularity.
Slowly, Tucker lowered himself to his belly and wriggled deeper into the mud. He kept Kane close.
Now, wait.
It didn’t take long. With the sun setting, the helicopter crisscrossed the marshes, stirring up the smoke. It finally settled into a gliding hover over the marshy cove. He spotted the shape of the chopper through the pall.
If he could see the helicopter . . .
Not a twitch, Tucker told himself. You’re part of the swamp . . . you’re mud.
After what felt like hours, the chopper finally moved on as dusk settled. Slowly, the thump of the rotors faded away. Still Tucker didn’t move. With the sun down, the temperature dropped rapidly. The cold of the water seeped into his bones. He set his jaw against it.
Wait . . .
As he’d expected, the helicopter returned a few minutes later. Ever the hunter, Felice had hoped her quarry would have taken the invitation to bolt, but Tucker knew better.
There came a sharp crack of a rifle shot. Tucker flinched. His first fear was that Felice had spotted them, but he knew immediately this wasn’t the case.
Felice wouldn’t have missed.
She was trying to flush them out.
Crack!
Another shot, this one closer and somewhere to their left.
Tucker eased his hand over a few inches and laid his palm on Kane’s paw. The shepherd tensed, then relaxed. If Tucker remained calm, so would Kane.
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