Fortunately for Alexei and Ivan, Grigori had wronged them in his accusations of laziness. They had actually done a thorough job of packing for this mission even with the short notice they were given. Snowshoes and heavy boots were to begin each man’s ensemble. Two pairs of long johns and a ski suit were next. Heavy parkas with hoods, goggles, and scarves completed each ensemble. Their heavy gloves were stored in their pockets for when they were needed outside. Each man said nothing to his neighbor as they gathered in various portions of the plane to disrobe and put on their thermal gear. Though they’d already worked out a plan before takeoff, Gregori still felt the need to give orders.
“You two,” he said, pointing to the brothers. “I want you to stay behind and organize this mess. Then bind the rest of the equipment to sleds and bring it to me when I call for you.”
“You two,” he added, pointing to the cockpit. “I want you to evaluate and stabilize the condition of the plane. Get the brothers to help as needed, but we need to be able to take off at any time. Join me if I call for you, though I doubt that will be needed.”
“And you,” he concluded, pointing to Sasha. “I want you to follow me into town.”
Done giving orders and still the first to finish dressing, Gregori leaned against the bulkhead of the plane and glared out the window. It was fast growing dark and the snow, which was still relatively light, was thickening. The wind looked to be picking up its pace as well. This was no night for man or beast to be out for long.
Grigori wrapped a wool scarf around his neck and the lower half of his face. He then pulled on a set of ski goggles. Finally, he cinched the hood of his parka tightly around his face leaving a hole to see and breathe through. The last step was to clumsily don his heavy winter gloves.
Opening the door, the lower half of which unfolded into a set of stairs that buried itself in a drift, Grigori instantly felt the cold, no matter how well he had bundled himself against it. The wind buffeted him back and forth even though he was still standing within the interior of the plane. Taking one look behind to ensure that Sasha was following, Gregori stepped down the stairs into a winter hell.
The noise was deafening, even though it was nothing but the sound of the wind. Anatoli had left the landing lights on and even turned on some additional external light around the door, but these did little to light the night pressing in on them. Gregori was careful on the stairs, taking them one step at a time until he planted his feet firmly in the snow of the airfield. Looking up, he saw lights coming from a set of buildings just up the hill.
Intentionally forgetting to fasten his safety line to Sasha’s snowsuit, Grigori grabbed a pair of winter walking poles and made off toward the first building he could more or less see. The wind nearly knocked him over several times, but by staying focused on the lights up ahead he managed to forge a path over the snow to a building with large double doors.
To his surprise and chagrin, when he finally looked back, Sasha was standing right behind him, having kept pace all along. Sasha had been passing wind into the prevailing winds ever since they left the aircraft. It was only the deafening wailing of that wind that had covered the cacophony of his gastric bombardment, which could be smelled if not heard.
Grigori kicked off his snowshoes, picked them up, and leaned them against the side of the structure alongside several other pairs, though his were the only ones made of a lightweight composite. Walking up the steps to the main doors of the building, Gregori reached out and swung both doors fully inward, aided by a mighty gust of wind. As he did so, a crack of thunder was heard and the sky lit up behind him. The handful of people within the bar all looked his way with expressions of astonishment and perhaps dread. Gregori began to chuckle at the familiar reaction to his appearance. It was flattering, really.
Chapter 10: The Date
It was two o’clock in the morning and Brian O’Shay, a.k.a. the Mole, was three sheets to the wind. He was also having the time of his life. For some unexplainable reason, Brian had overcome his natural shyness, or, more accurately, his intense aversion to constantly being rejected by beautiful women, and had asked the boss’s secretary to go out with him. For some even more unexplainable reason, she had said “yes.”
Brian had been on cloud nine before the date. The drinks he’d had at the bar while waiting for the woman to show up on time had pushed him through cloud ten directly to cloud eleven. The woman actually showing up at their date nudged him over the line onto cloud twelve. They had been drinking ever since and the current cloud count had itself become cloudy.
It turned out that the girl’s name was Vicky, or Vanessa, something that started with a “V.” Brian was almost sure of it but at the same time didn’t really care. All he really cared about was the number of stuffed shirts hanging out at the bar gawking at the boss’s secretary walking into the Restaurant Dubrovnik on his arm. They may have never noticed that she was helping to guide him more than the other way around.
Eventually the couple collided with a table to Brian’s liking, or at least that’s where he chose to sit down. The couple already seated at the table would just have to move. This time the maitre d’ helped the boss’s secretary to raise Brian to his feet and guide him to an empty table in a private room in the back of the restaurant.
“Venus?” Brian began. “Do you mind if I call you Venus?”
“No, not at all.”
“You really have beautiful lips. Every time I see you put on lipstick, I can’t help but begin to fantasize about you putting my….”
“I think I can guess what you fantasize about, Brian,” the girl interrupted. “Why don’t you order the drinks?”
“You know, if I have another drink, I might just end up saying something I regret,” Brian confided.
“You don’t say,” the blonde replied, flashing a smile.
Brian had already lost interest in their conversation. Instead, his interest wandered to getting a waiter’s attention so that he could order a scotch on the rocks. This didn’t take long since the Restaurant Dubrovnik was very attentive to its guests.
“I’d like a scotch on the rocks. Make it a double,” Brian slobbered when the waiter arrived.
“Yes, sir. And the lady?”
“Just make it the same,” Brian suggested.
The lady amended her order to a glass of water. There was quiet at their table while Brian fidgeted.
“So, Virginia, you’ve gotta tell me, why did you decide to go out with me?” Brian asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the beautiful blonde replied. “I’d seen you around the office. I’d heard your name dropped by certain lips.”
“Makes me sound mysterious and important,” Brian noted.
“It made me curious.”
“About what?”
“What makes you so mysterious and important?”
Brian smiled, drooled a little, and temporarily forgot where he was. He lost control of his head for a moment and then shot upright and started snapping his fingers in the air until the waiter brought his drink. The incessant drinking had definitely done a number on Brian. But the effects of alcohol were probably nothing compared with the effects of the two roofies the boss’s secretary had dissolved in his drink while he was in “the shitter.”
“So, Brian, just how mysterious and important can a midlevel administrator be?”
Brian tried to stop his head from bobbing and focus on the blonde’s words. It seemed that the course of the evening’s conversation, which Brian had been trying to steer toward the contents of his date’s panties, had suddenly taken a dangerous turn.
“Pretty fucking mysterious and important, I can tell you,” Brian insisted.
“Go ahead. Tell me.”
And Brian did. He told her everything. He told her about how it all began, about passing information to unauthorized personnel, about secret bank accounts, and about the crashed plane near McIntyre’s Gulch. He concluded with his plans for a beautiful future together, just the two of them. Brian
reached across the table and began to toy with a piece of hair that had fallen at his date’s temple. She jerked away at first touch, but then allowed it.
Brian looked physically drained by the time he was done explaining. He was all talked out. It was almost as if he knew the boss’s secretary was wearing a wire and he wanted to unburden himself to the authorities. In any case, that’s what ended up happening. Because she was, and he did. After only thirty seconds of silence on the wire, the authorities knew he was through talking and moved in.
The boss’s secretary rose from the table the moment the men in black appeared within view. She moved as if she couldn’t get away from Brian fast enough. One of the agents was there by her side immediately to protect her. He draped her coat over her shoulders and led the woman away to have the microphone, transmitter, and battery pack untaped from her body.
Brian remained sitting at the table, head bent forward and shoulders hunched. He began to shake, as if his entire body was becoming wracked with tears. One of the agents bent forward to whisper in his ear.
“Now we own you,” he said. “We’ll be in touch.”
Straightening, the agent turned and led the other agents from the restaurant, leaving Brian alone at his table.
Brian’s shoulders continued to shake as he looked up, but now it was obvious that he was shaking with restrained laughter rather than tears. As the agents walked out the door of the restaurant, Brian burst out with peals of laughter because there was one last secret he had failed to mention. A secret that could cost them all their lives.
Chapter 11: The Confession
The strangers moved about the bar, walking boldly and not looking relieved to be out of the storm as normal people would have. One was enormous while the other only seemed enormous, perhaps because of his scars, his tanned skin and teeth, and mostly his overbearing personality.
McIntyre’s Gulch is actually fairly welcoming to strangers, if they aren’t Mounties, but no one was rushing forward, offering to hang up coats and fetch wassail bowls, in spite of the fact that these two men had just come in out of the storm. It was because we couldn’t identify what they were, beyond probably dangerous. You see, we just don’t get random tourists. Or skiers, or fishermen. Especially not in winter when roads are impassable. It’s not just that McIntyre’s Gulch is on a road to nowhere, it is at the end of the road to nowhere. Nobody is “just passing through” on their way somewhere else. We are the end of the line. People who come here almost always come on purpose.
Sure, once in a while we get a lost hunter, or a scientist studying caribou—once a geologist looking for some kind of mineral deposits. But two tough-looking men, in high-tech snow gear? Never. Though I am sure that everyone was resisting the idea with all their might, it had to have occurred to others besides myself that these men were connected with the downed plane and its cargo.
The enormous one took up a place by the door, looking for all the world like a prison guard. The scary one went up to the bar, and without a single leer at the Flowers, who is most leer-worthy, ordered a vodka.
“So, Capitalists,” the man said, after downing his vodka and hurling the shot glass across the bar where it shattered, spraying the moose with glass. “I want to hire a guide. Who would like to be richer by morning?”
“Oh God,” I groaned. “This will end in bloodshed.”
“What do you mean?” the Mountie asked, not taking his eyes off of the scary stranger who was waving a hundred dollar bill around. “All he’s done is break a glass on a moose and offer money for a guide.”
“Are you kidding? That moose is sacred. And everyone in this room is armed. Except me. I was having dinner with a Mountie and didn’t think I’d need a gun.” There was a tiny amount of acid in my voice.
“And you want one?” he asked, his gaze flitting back to me briefly.
“Don’t you?” I asked back in what I thought was a reasonable tone.
“I have one,” he said and patted under his left arm.
“Good.” I made a decision. “Alright, you’re getting your wish to know everything. Come on. We’ll go see Big John. Maybe we can stop this before things get out of hand.”
“So there was something on the plane.”
“Of course there was. And no one is going to give it up to these guys. All they’re going to get is a backwoods burial.” I really hoped that wasn’t true. But it was a lot of money, and I knew that some of my neighbors were not real resistant to certain kinds of temptation.
We got up slowly and I tried to look affable and harmless, a couple looking for the restrooms as we crossed the large room. We went to Big John’s office and tapped on the door. I didn’t wait for his call to enter before stepping inside.
Big John looked up from his paperwork and blinked at me.
“John, there are scary Russians out in the pub,” I said without preamble. “They are offering money for a guide and I bet it isn’t to see the caribou. Chuck is a good guy. It’s time we told the Mountie what’s up and never mind having a town meeting to discuss it. You’re the mayor. Act unilaterally for the good of the town. Before someone gets killed.”
Big John sighed heavily.
* * *
Sasha was hungry. And his feet were cold in his very tight boots that were rubbing blisters on his toes. Because his feet were so long, shoes never fit him properly. The brothers had gotten him the largest snow boots in stock, but they were still about three sizes too small.
Though he knew it was his duty to be at all times vigilant, he found himself distracted by all the lovely smells in the air. Not even the seeming coldness of the people in the establishment of the half-eaten moose could convince his stomach not to rumble.
Feeling suddenly overly warm, Sasha lowered the zipper on his jacket, being careful not to reveal his gun.
While Grigori tried bribing the unfriendly citizens, the pretty woman behind the bar poured out a cup of coffee, added something from a bottle, and then walked over to him. He blinked in surprise as she offered the mug and a small smile. The fumes that bathed his face were warm and delicious, almost nutty.
He said thank you in Russian and then again in English. Her smile widened and she patted him on the arm, demonstrating that she had a precise understanding of what was most important to a man on a very cold night and did not begrudge him a place out of the cold.
Though it was perhaps not good discipline, Sasha sipped at his coffee, enjoying the unknown but clearly potent alcoholic additive that cruised through his body as quickly as the blood could carry it. He began to feel almost cheerful and to have fantasies that the pretty woman with red hair would bring him something to eat as well, though it seemed unlikely that there would be time to eat with the increasing hostility weighting down the air.
Now that he looked about the room with thawing eyes, Sasha saw that most of the people had red hair and the rest gray, which probably had been red at one time. He wondered if they had interrupted some family celebration and if that was perhaps why the people had been unwelcoming when they first entered.
Of course, they were unwelcoming now because Grigori was talking loudly and he had no tact. Even capitalists don’t like to be called capitalist when the name was said with a sneer. Sasha sighed. He was not a religious man, but his mother had been a believer. He wondered if it would be wrong to try a brief prayer to a higher power that Grigori would shut up before they were driven back out into the storm without dinner. If he shut his mouth, they could have something to eat and wait for the others in comfort.
“Look, mister,” one of the red-haired men finally said. “No one is going out in that storm to look for anything, so put away your money. Sit down and shut up and try the venison. It’s delicious.”
This seemed very sensible advice, but Grigori began to swell up like an angry toad, his face turning redder and redder until Sasha wondered if perhaps his first prayer to the Almighty God would be answered by Grigori having a heart attack. If that fortunate event should happen,
Sasha promised that he would become a Christian man.
But Grigori did not fall to the floor. The stupid man reached for his pistol, but before he could pull it from his coat pocket, half a dozen of the people in the room were standing up and pointing guns at them. Well, at Grigori. Sasha was happy that he was not the object of their anger. Especially the pretty woman behind the bar, who was shaking her head in disbelief and tapping on the door that probably led to an office.
* * *
“And that’s all there is to it,” Big John said. “Everything is right here in the safe just waiting to be returned.”
I must say that I think he did an excellent job of making the town’s selfish and larcenous impulses sound almost praiseworthy. I especially liked the part about being afraid to mention the jewels on the phone line where someone—like the Russians—might be listening, and how he deftly managed to insinuate that it was the Mountie’s fault that they hadn’t had an opportunity for private speech so that Big John could inform him of the loot we had found in the plane. I did notice that while Big John mentioned jewelry and bonds, he didn’t have much—well, anything—to say about the cash or gold. Perhaps I should have called him on it and gone for full disclosure, but I thought that we had revealed enough for Chuck to make up his mind about a course of action.
“See, no drugs,” I said. “No white slaves either.”
“I have to call this in anyway,” Chuck said. He shook his head. “I’ll put it all in the best possible light. You may even be correct about there being a Russian listener out there. After all, they got here awfully quickly and if they had some kind of location device, they wouldn’t need a guide to the crash site.” He frowned. “I suppose that we must consider the possibility that someone in the office might have let the story of the plane slip out. We’ve had leaks before.”
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