by Tigner, Tim
The landscape below was spotted with drifting snow in some places and covered with wind-swept rocks in others. There was no civilization to be seen, and Yarik estimated they were at least a hundred kilometers from even the smallest of villages. It reminded him of the time he had parachuted with a group of hunters into Kamchatka looking for snow leopards. It was perfect.
A powerful explosion rocked Yarik’s ears when he was just a hundred meters from the ground. The blast sent a wave of heat billowing forth, slapping his face and sucking the wind from his chute. He dropped like a stone for twenty meters before reinflation, and then looked up to see the airplane plummeting to Earth. The resourceful bastard booby-trapped the plane.
With the plane gone, nobody knew he had parachuted after Alex. Even worse was that the only member of the Knyaz who knew that Alex had an accomplice was now stuck in the middle of nowhere. Of course, either Alex or that accomplice was already dead, but like cockroaches, where there was one, there were likely to be others.
Was the Knyaz infested? Apparently it was. Yarik cursed Victor, but was just as mad at himself. In all these years, they had only let one slip through, but if the past twenty-four hours were any indication, that one could cost them the game.
A moment later Yarik did a parachute landing fall on the same frozen plane where one fugitive had done just a landing-fall. He released his chute as soon as he planted his heels so that the raging wind would not drag him across the ground, plowing a furrow with his bald head as he went. Then Yarik sprang to his feet like a panther released and ran in the direction of the corpse. It was extermination time.
While searching for the body, Yarik found himself hoping that it would not be Alex. Learning the identity of the mercenary could be far more valuable to the Knyaz than just having Alex himself out of the way. And he wanted Alex alive.
Six anxious minutes after landing, Yarik found it: a blood-soaked corpse staring blindly at the sky. It was not Alex.
Superficial gore aside, the victim appeared to be asleep. The illusion would not last. Yarik had seen fall victims before. He knew that the impact liquefied their insides, and that the body would feel like a waterbed to the touch. At the first bite from wolf’s mouth, or peck from a vulture’s beak, the innards would ooze though the gash like honey from an overturned pot.
Judging by appearance, the mercenary was both a Russian and a soldier. He wore a combat uniform stripped of rank and insignia like a special operative’s, and cut his hair to regulation. Given what he had done in the cargo hold, he was clearly no stranger to combat either. But he was more than just a soldier. This man had released himself from the parachute in order to save Alex, meaning he had a martyr’s sense of honor.
Yarik pondered the implications for a moment as a frosty northerly wind howled about him. Martyrs did what they did for a cause. Yarik got a hollow feeling in his stomach. That cause was most likely the downfall of the Knyaz.
Yarik did not have much patience for martyrs. In his eyes, they were fools. He had to acknowledge, however, that their principles did make them dangerous. He could respect the threat imposed by a man who lent fanatical courage and discipline to his convictions. But that was one weapon Yarik did not want in his arsenal. There was no one and no thing for which he would have cut himself free. To the contrary, as a predator and a survivor, he would have seen it as his duty to cut the other man free.
Enough philosophy. It was time to learn the martyr’s identity. With that information, he could look forward to hunting down all the fanatical associates inclined to assist Alex in his cause. Yarik searched the body for a wallet or dog tags. Both were absent. He looked for some other type of identification, something that would tell a tale, but to his great frustration he found nothing in the man’s pockets but a couple of wigs and three pairs of glasses. The martyr must have had ID to enter the air base… “Damn you, Alex!”
The martyr’s lack of identification was frustrating, but a setback of no consequence. He would pry it from the American by the skin of his— Wait a minute. Suppose Alex died before Yarik could reach him? What if he were to fall through the ice of a frozen lake, or twist an ankle and become wolf-chow? Yarik had to catch Alex before Siberia did. It was crucial that he learn whom the Knyaz were up against.
Yarik paused to consider his backup options? He did not have a camera—he wasn’t the sentimental type—and he knew wolves would devour the body before he could return for it. Furthermore, the ground was too hard to dig a grave, and there were not enough rocks around to build one, not that he had time for either of those. Had Alex anticipated this predicament? Probably. He was a cunning bastard. Well, Yarik mused, he could scheme too.
It took but a moment for him to devise an elegant solution. This time it was Alex who had underestimated his opponent. Alex’s move may have been clever, but it was not clever enough.
Yarik’s blade was long and heavy, a cross between a hunting knife and a machete. He had acquired it a decade ago on the Ivory Coast from a man who had intended to take Yarik’s head but lost his own instead.
Yarik loved the feel of the finely carved cocobolo wood handle, and was hypnotized by the reflection of its surgical steel. On a stakeout he could content himself for hours simply sharpening the blade as it glimmered in the moonlight. For a kill, he favored the knife over other weapons—it was more surgical, more reliable, more personal, more precise.
With a swift, familiar movement he brought the blade whistling down onto the martyr’s wrist, severing the right hand with a practiced expertise. Since Yarik was confidant that his adversary was a military man, he knew that his prints would be on file. If he had not been so sure, he would have taken the head as well.
Time to move on. Looking up, Yarik could still see Alex’s tracks heading into the woods, although the north wind would soon erase them.
As the corpse deflated through the severed wrist like a fly in a spider’s mouth, Yarik slipped his trophy into a cargo pocket. His fingers came into contact with a plastic tube as he did so. It made him smile. The tube had a fourteen-digit code stenciled to its side and “Ferris” penciled in below. One way or the other, the American was his.
Chapter 38
Siberian Outback, Russia
Alex heard the plane explode and looked up with satisfied eyes to watch it plunge to earth. Andrey’s booby-trap had worked! As he watched, pointed questions bombarded his head like fallout from the explosion: Why had Andrey done that? Where was he? Was his number up in smoke?
For a moment the elation of regained freedom took Alex’s mind off the profound sacrifice his mysterious new acquaintance had made, and added fuel to his pumping legs. But only for a moment. It would take a while for Alex to get his mind around all of the ramifications of that heroic act, but one conclusion was inescapable: what had begun as an investigation for truth and had evolved into a fight for justice was now also a quest of honor.
Despite the shock that numbed him and the danger that surrounded him, Alex found it hard not to dwell in disbelief on the way events were evolving, colliding, cascading around him. It was like the scenes of a Schwarzenegger movie without the cuts and cameras. He had followed the twisted path of a clever murder to the discovery of a diabolical device. Then he had uncovered the connection between that device and a grand scheme for international industrial espionage. Now that scheme had brought him to the heart of Russia where invisible opposing forces were going to extraordinary lengths to either ruin or rescue him. Where would it end? His investigation was snowballing by the hour, the pool of blood was spreading by the minute, and the only conclusion that seemed completely clear was that he must not fail.
Alex’s elation over the explosion extinguished like a storm-blown candle as he caught sight of another parachute. It had just dropped below the tree line a couple hundred yards away. Yarik!
Alex was glad he had taken the time to strip Andrey of identification. Now he could use it, and Yarik could not. It was too bad his fallen comrade’s pockets had contained
nothing more than papers. The pocketknife was a pitiful weapon, although he was very pleased to have it as a tool. Of course this tool could create weapons, and Alex knew all about doing that, but improvisation took time. Time was another thing that Alex did not have.
The dormant reflexes developed during Alex’s relentless training had kicked in the moment he “hit the wind” jumping out the back of the doomed plane. Uncle Sam’s finest had honed his predatory habits and sharpened his survival senses, and now that he was back in the wild, Alex let the animal in him take control. Never mind the pitiful knife, Alex mused, he was a weapon. Then his inner voice retorted, Yeah, but Yarik is practically an army.
Alex knew he had two opposing forces to contend with: the Siberian predator behind him, and the Siberian winter before him. In addition to the extreme cold, he knew that death’s two other daughters, wet and hungry, would soon be knocking on his door if he did not take the appropriate measures to fend them off. His was a grim scenario, but it was also invigorating in a primitive kind of way.
In the back of his mind, Alex knew that all his actions might well be in vain if Yarik still had his number. He had given a lot of thought to that while tied up alone in the dark. If those words were to be taken literally, then it did not take much of a leap to conclude that the number Yarik referred to was the code that would trigger the bomb the giant had so gracefully implanted in his hindquarters. Game over. This was speculation, but it certainly fit in well with Elaine’s account of her coercion. Fact or fantasy, the possibility left Alex with no choice but to employ countermeasures: escape would require more than simply running away.
In the back of his heart, Alex maintained hope that Yarik had not passed along his number to anyone not on the plane, and that as a result his number was now up in smoke. After all, Yarik did not know that the airplane would explode, so it was likely he had left both the number and the transmitter onboard the doomed craft. Unfortunately, Alex could not count on that hope. His acting assumption had to be that Yarik had the code but not the means to transmit it. If that were the case then Alex would be safe until Yarik reached civilization. And that meant that while Yarik was trying to prevent Alex from escaping, Alex had to prevent Yarik from doing the same.
The hunted was also the hunter, but only Alex knew that. He was comfortable with the assumption that a man with Yarik’s personality would never consider the option that he too might be prey. It was Alex’s only advantage, and he intended to leverage it.
Alex had not been able to take in much geography during his descent—there had been a few other things on his mind at the time—but he knew that the airplane had taken off from Irkutsk. He also knew that he needed to head east from Irkutsk to get to that crescent-shaped lake near Academic City and the headquarters of the enemy. Alex assumed that the airplane had also been heading east since the headquarters would be the natural choice of location for an interrogation. He wished he had paid attention to that as he jumped. Of course in the end it didn’t really matter. Siberian distances were so great that a couple dozen miles this way or that were insignificant. What mattered now was that he had a meaningful bearing. He looked down at his compass-watch, and smiled.
Alex set a pace he knew he could keep up all day and then put his body on autopilot. The natural impulse was to sprint full-out for a few miles, to put some quick distance between himself and Yarik, but he couldn’t afford to get winded or sweaty. Fortunately he had a head start. Yippee.
Alex spent the first five-to-ten minutes going northwest so as not to give the giant a straight azimuth on him from the landing site. Then, as soon as he got to a place where the combination of wind and rocky terrain camouflaged his footprints, he turned east. He hoped this would work, but knew it probably would not. Alex had the distinct impression that Yarik was at home in the elements. Alex would act accordingly.
With autopilot on and senses alert, Alex diverted his mind to strategy. The first thing he needed was an inventory. He started with the most important thing, his own body. Fortunately he had not been hurt in the mêlée on the plane or during his parachute landing fall. Given the rough and rocky terrain, that was a blessing. He was hungry but not ravenous, and he knew from experience that he could last a couple exertive days without food. After that, though, if he did not get a big meal he would run the risk of collapsing. There would be time to worry about that later.
Alex knew from experience to take the extra minute to salvage supplies whenever and wherever possible. As he had not been in a plane crash there wasn’t anything to salvage from besides his crashed friend. He had taken Andrey’s wallet and documents, both to hide Andrey’s identity and so that he would have some papers himself. Given that it was an old photo, he might be able to convince someone that it was his pretty mug if they didn’t look at the birth date. Andrey was nearly twenty years his senior, but Alex might well look a couple decades older by the time he got to civilization. He would certainly be more Russian. Thankfully the wallet had also given him some money, although it was nothing compared to the $9,800 he had donated to Yarik’s cause. At least Boris had a good time.
The only other things he had bothered to salvage were Andrey’s coat and gloves. He would wear the second coat while sleeping, and would be saved by a second pair of gloves when his own inevitably got wet. Andrey’s boots were too big for him, but in any case his feet were very happy in his Asolo boots. He said a prayer of gratitude for the insight to purchase and retain them.
Alex had also saved his parachute, bundling it back up as quickly as possible and securing it in the pack. The silk would provide both a blanket and a tent, and the parachute cord would have myriad uses if his stay in the wild became a protracted one.
In the hardware department, Andrey’s pocketknife had large and small blades, screwdrivers, a can opener, a file, a saw, an awl, scissors, a toothpick and tweezers: very nice. He was especially happy to have the toothpick; caribou tended to get stuck between his teeth.
The last little bit of paraphernalia Alex had was his watch. It wasn’t issued by Q-Branch, but it may as well have been. The face of the titanium IWC Porsche Design compass-watch flipped up to reveal a compass below, complete with luminescent markings. Given the low cloud cover and the limited daylight hours Siberia enjoyed in late November, his favorite possession would save him both nerves and guesswork.
The good thing about running was that it kept him warm. The bad thing was that he couldn’t go on forever. Of course, the same applied to Yarik. Alex wanted to take comfort in the fact that Yarik was considerably older than he, but after seeing Andrey fight, he no longer gave age a discount.
Occasional flurries drifted down from the steel gray sky as he ran, foreshadowing pleasures to come. Those that hit his eyes conspired to freeze his lids together when he blinked. Those that hit his face absorbed precious heat. Some melted and rolled down this neck to saturate the top of his T-shirt. Once he stopped running and cooled off, Alex would enjoy a collar of ice. Just keep running…
That enchanting thought reminded Alex of how important it was for him to keep mentally preoccupied, now and throughout his wilderness trek. He would be lost if he began to focus on fright, exhaustion, or the various aches and pains that were about to beset his body. Fortunately, he did have a lot to think about.
Alex spent the first couple of hours actively recalling his survival training: how to keep warm, what to do for food, when to rest and when to run. Then he focused an evasion, on rolling his feet to avoid leaving tracks and keeping his profile off the horizon. It came back more quickly and clearly than he would have anticipated. Perhaps it was the frosty, pine-scented air. Perhaps it was the two-hundred-fifty pound giant on his tail. It didn’t really matter why those neurons were firing, as long as he had their wisdom at his disposal.
Once he had finished dredging the depths of his survival-training memory, Alex began putting together a wish list. Subconsciously, he feared that this was kind of like planning how to spend the lottery jackpot, but he kn
ew it was the sensible thing to do. He would have to pilfer from cabins quickly as he came across them, if he were lucky enough to come across any at all. Alex wasn’t feeling particularly lucky these days.
First on the list of necessities was food, followed closely by a sleeping-bag or blankets, matches, a canteen, a map, and any camping, cooking, hunting or ice-fishing tools he could lay his hands on. A gun was probably too much to hope for, but hey... Of course he couldn’t risk being seen, but if he were fortunate enough to come across a cabin he also couldn’t risk waiting around for just the right moment. He would have to be bold while relying on stealth and speed, thus the pre-prepared list. Yarik would also be drawn to a cabin like steel to a magnet. Perhaps Alex could use that force against him.
Yarik was not the only factor working against Alex. He also had the environment to worry about. Yarik did too, but not to the same degree. Alex did not have Yarik’s home-court advantage, so he did not know the topography, flora, or fauna. Nor could Alex allow himself to be seen by locals or risk making a fire.
Alex tried to focus on the positive. He knew how to survive and how to evade and he had the advantage of speed: tracking takes time. Unfortunately, this line of thought just led him back to the same, sore, inescapable issue: physical escape was not going to be enough. He was going to have to take the giant out. To do that Alex had to find some means of gaining a tactical advantage. He would have to orchestrate their encounter so that the time and place worked in his favor. He looked forward to that like a root canal, knowing that death was the only available anesthetic.
As time went on and no helicopters appeared in search of him, Alex got more comfortable with the assumption that Yarik could not communicate with the outside world. Thank goodness for small miracles. His thoughts drifted to the predator behind. Alex wasn’t even one-hundred-percent sure it was Yarik who had parachuted in pursuit—but he was ninety-five-percent sure. Alex knew that the seven soldiers in the cargo area were all dead and he was all but certain that Yarik had been in the cockpit. So unless Yarik had been the pilot, it was practically a given that it was he who had jumped, especially once you factored in the man’s tenacious personality.