"CMR, right?" Hansen asked. "Chechen Martyrs Regiment?"
"That's the guy. I tagged him. He's headed east into Russia--on his way to the auction, we hope."
"Hold on. All the attendees will be scrubbed before they reach the auction site. Any kind of beacon or tracker will be found."
"Not the kind we used." Hansen opened his mouth to ask the obvious question, but Fisher cut him off. "Another time. Trust me: You can scrub all you want and these trackers won't come off."
Hansen shrugged. "What's our plan?"
"You get your team in here and brief them. Once they're on board, we start moving east and wait for our trackers to phone home."
"What about Ames?"
"We'll deal with him later. For now he's part of the team. We include him in everything."
"What about his cell phone? And his OPSAT? He'll try to contact Kovac."
"Let him. Grimsdottir's made modifications to his phone and OPSAT. Every communication he makes beyond our tactical channels will go straight to her. She'll be playing Kovac and anyone else Ames has been talking to. He'll get voice mail, but Grim will respond to texts. Your phones aren't Internet-capable, right?"
"Right." Hansen smiled. "I like it. I like the plan."
"I thought you might. One thing, though: One of us has to stick to Ames like glue. If he slips away and gets a message out another way, we're done."
"Understood."
"How do you want to handle your people? I'd prefer to not get shot in the confusion."
Hansen chuckled. "I'll see what I can do."
FISHER sat along the office's back wall, the lights off. Ivanov, with a second dart in his thigh for good measure, lay on the floor before him. Hansen dialed his cell phone and recalled the team. Once they were inside he told them Grimsdottir had come clean, then gave them the Reader's Digest version of the story Fisher had laid out a few minutes earlier, save any mention of Fisher, his mission, Ernsdorff, Zahm, Qaderi, or how they were tracking him. These last two items Fisher had decided to hold in reserve.
Hansen fielded twenty minutes of questions and gripes before, finally, the team cooled off and seemed to accept its new mission. "One last thing," Hansen said. "We're taking on a new member. He's going to be our team leader from this point on."
The griping started again.
"Who the hell . . . ?"
"Why would Grimsdottir make a change at this point . . . ?"
Fisher took his cue and walked out of the office. Gillespie saw him first, did a double take, then reached for her gun. Hansen called, "Stand down, Kim. Everybody--hands at your sides."
"You gotta be kidding me," Ames said with his greasy smile. "Look who it is."
Noboru said, "Ben, what's going on?"
"I think I'll let Mr. Fisher explain that."
31
FISHER'S overt reentry into the Third Echelon/ Splinter Cell community took place not at the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland, amid back slapping and handshakes, but in a warehouse in Odessa amid the suspicious stares from a group of twentysomethings who, up until thirty minutes before, had been bent on taking Fisher dead or alive. And judging from the glares aimed in his direction, it appeared most of Hansen's people had been leaning toward the former choice. Predictably, once Fisher finished talking, Ames was the first to express his misgivings:
"I don't buy it. Not a bit of it. This is just another circle jerk."
"To what end?" Fisher asked.
"What? What's that mean?"
"For what purpose?"
"Who the hell knows? You people are nuts." Ames turned to Noboru, Valentina, and Gillespie. "Don't tell me any of you are buying this."
No one spoke immediately. Then Kimberly said, "I do." Then, to Fisher: "That night at the foundry . . . I almost shot you. You know that, don't you?"
Fisher nodded.
"You and Grim could have told us," Noboru said.
"We would have held up our end and made it look good. Screw Kovac."
"We couldn't risk it," Fisher said. "If he got even a hint that you guys were holding back, he would've canned all of you--including Grim. It had to be done this way."
Valentina said, "Why tell us now, Mr. Fisher--"
"Sam."
"Sam," she repeated. "Why tell us now? Seems to me you didn't have much trouble keeping us at bay. Why not keep up the ruse?"
"Two reasons. One, to stop this auction I'm going to need your help. There are too many variables, too many unknowns. We won't know until we get there, but my gut tells me this isn't going to be a one-person job. And two, when I went off the bridge at Hammerstein I bought myself some time, but I knew they'd find the car but no body. Kovac would get suspicious and accuse Grimsdottir of . . . anything. Any excuse to get her out. If I resurface, you guys get deployed and Kovac has to back off for a while."
"How did you survive the bridge?" Gillespie asked.
"Dumb luck and an OmegaO unit. I kept the windows shut and the car floated downriver. On the bottom, I waited to the last minute, then put on the OmegaO and got out."
Ames said, "Well, I'll give you this much: You've got brass ones, Fisher."
"Since we're reminiscing," Noboru said. "That was you at the Siegfried bunkers, right? You took out those two guys?"
"Yes."
"Why'd you do it?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"I don't know. . . . One less person chasing you."
Fisher shook his head. "High price for that."
Noboru considered this, then said, "Well, thanks."
"Don't mention it."
"Now that we're in on the con," Valentina said, "we're going to have to be real careful about what gets back to Kovac. If he's involved with this auction stuff, he can't get even a hint of what we're doing. If he's not involved but wants Grim out, we can't give him any reason."
"Agreed," Fisher said. He looked around. "Are we good?"
There were nods all around, except for Ames. Hansen saw this and said, "In or out, Ames? Either you're with us, or I'll kick your ass back to Fort Meade."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
Hansen didn't answer but offered a half grin.
"Yeah, okay. I'm on board. We don't have to hug or anything, right? I ain't doing that."
"Idiot," Gillespie muttered.
Fisher said, "Any questions?"
"I have one," Valentina said. "You said the guy you're tracking looks to be heading into Russia, right?"
"Right."
"If the auction's taking place on Russian soil, we have to consider that the government might be involved. If that's the case, we could find ourselves up against the Russian army."
"Anything's possible," Fisher agreed. "Let's cross that bridge when we get to it."
"Or die on that bridge when we get to it," Ames shot back.
THEY waited until Ivanov regained consciousness; then Hansen and the others left, while Fisher made sure his old friend/not friend had suffered no ill effects. He gave Ivanov fifteen hundred rubles--about five hundred U.S. dollars--for his trouble, called them even for the trouble Ivanov had caused him in Minsk, and left with the Russian's assurance that he was only too happy to forget the last two hours of his life.
Outside they split into two groups of three and checked into hotels near the passenger port terminal. Fisher, Gillespie, and Ames took the Mozart Hotel; Hansen, Noboru, and Valentina, the Londonskaya Hotel a couple blocks away.
Once in his room, Fisher texted Grimsdottir:
Mission accomplished. Call for details.
His phone trilled ten minutes later. Fisher answered and said, "Another pay phone?"
"Outside a 7-Eleven," Grim muttered.
"Oh, the degradation," Fisher replied.
"Smart ass. How'd it go?"
"Complicated. Hansen took a little hands-on convincing, but he came around."
"Was that before or after he called me?"
"Before. The rest of the team's on board, too, including Ames. He grumbled,
but I imagine he's thrilled at the idea of being able to give Kovac a blow-by-blow."
"If he tries Kovac, he'll get voice mail, and vice versa. He'll turn to texting soon enough; then he's ours. What we still don't know is how deeply Ames is involved. If Kovac's linked to the auction, that doesn't necessarily mean Ames is."
"We'll know. When the time is right, I'm going to have a heart-to-heart with him."
"Why doesn't that sound as friendly as it should?" In the background Fisher heard a double bing. Grimsdottir said, "My other phone. Wait." The line clicked into silence. She returned half a minute later. "Qaderi just left Moscow, heading east to Irkutsk."
"How do you know that?"
"The bots are into five devices in Qaderi's group: a laptop, three cell phones, and one satellite phone. They're all pinging, so the GPS coordinates are triangulated down to an eight-foot circle. They had him placed at the gate assigned to an Irkutsk flight."
"Score one for Terzo Lucchesi. Flight time?"
"Six hours, fifty minutes."
Fisher checked his watch and did the time-zone conversion. Irkutsk was six hours ahead of Odessa. With flight time that would put Qaderi there in thirteen hours, or at one in the afternoon Irkutsk time.
"How fast can you get us there?" Fisher asked.
"I'm on my way back to the office right now. I'll text you."
Grimsdottir disconnected and Fisher called Hansen with an update. "Thanks," said Hansen.
"How's the mood over there?"
"Still a little stunned, I'm guessing, but I gotta be honest: None of us is gonna miss chasing you around. You taught us some tough lessons."
"We had a saying on the Teams: The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat."
"I'm a believer. Listen, Sam, I'm at the ice machine. I think I may have solved one of our problems."
"How's that?"
"I'm bunking with Ames. He left his phone sitting on the bathroom sink. I knocked it into the toilet. He didn't notice it for ten minutes. It's dead."
Fisher chuckled. "How'd he take that?"
"As you'd expect. I feel better knowing his only option is the OPSAT now."
"Agreed. I'll call you when I hear back from Grim."
SHE called fifteen minutes later. "Best I can do is a Czech Airlines flight leaving at 4:00 A.M. your time, with connections in Prague and Moscow. You'll touch down in Irkutsk eight hours behind Qaderi."
"Unless the auction's in Irkutsk, he'll be traveling from there. I'm guessing car or train."
"Gut feeling?"
"Partially. Irkutsk is a big city, but it's still Siberia. It's about as remote as you get, and if I were holding this kind of auction . . ."
"Where better," Grim finished.
"As long as our bots keep phoning home, we'll be able to find him. Book the flights. I'll gather the troops."
32
RUSSIAN AIRSPACE
"YOU tried to wash me out, didn't you?"
The words penetrated Fisher's dozing mind and he opened his eyelids. He turned his head and looked at Ames in the aisle seat. The rest of the team was spread throughout the cabin. "What's that?" Fisher asked.
"I said that you tried to wash me out of the program."
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"Asking."
"The answer's no. I helped train you and I submitted my evaluation. That's it."
"But you didn't give me your stamp of approval."
"Doesn't work like that."
"But you're the man, the legend." Ames's voice dripped with sarcasm.
"I told them I thought you had the skills and the intelligence for the job but not the temperament. I haven't seen anything that changes my mind."
"Hey, the hell with you. I've done damned good."
Fisher shrugged, then closed his eyes again.
"What's the plan, anyway," Ames asked, "when we touch down?"
Fishing. "Depends on what our friend is doing. Wherever he goes, we need to be there."
"And who is this guy? What did you say his name was?"
"I didn't."
"What, you don't trust me?"
"Nobody else knows, either. It's compartmentalization, Ames."
"How're we tracking him?"
"Pixie dust." Fisher had to suppress his smile. His statement was almost closer to truth than fantasy.
"So let me get this straight: You won't tell us who we're after or how we're tracking him, and we don't have jack for a plan."
"That's about the size of it."
"Great, just great."
IT was after ten at night when their plane began its approach to Irkutsk International Airport. Having spent the last three hours of the flight staring out the window at thick cloud cover, Fisher was surprised to see an expanse of white. For as far as he could see the terrain was clad in moonlit snow. While they'd been traveling east, a late-spring snowstorm had come in from the west. Located so close to the Angara reservoirs, the airport had its own microclimate that left the area fogged in for much of the year, and with the drop in temperature, that fog had turned into a frost that clung to trees and telephone poles and power lines. Three years earlier an S7 Airlines Airbus A310-300 had crashed here, overshooting the runway before smashing into a concrete barrier and exploding. Of the 203 passengers aboard, only 76 survived.
"Just our luck," Ames said as the aircraft's gear squelched on the runway. "A Siberian blizzard."
"This is a win for us, Ames."
"How do you figure?"
"Our friend probably arrived just as the storm started rolling in. Everything would have slowed down until the plows started rolling. This storm might have cut his lead by half."
CUSTOMS went slowly but smoothly. Stripped of their wristbands, the team's OPSATs were taken for PDAs, which in essence they were. Fisher had divvied up the Ajax shaving-cream cans, giving one each to Noboru and Hansen. The darts, still inside his barrel pen, were inside his carry-on rucksack.
Fifty minutes after they landed the team pulled onto the airport's approach road in a pair of Lada Niva SUVs. The snow had stopped falling, but the clouds to the southwest were dark with moisture. More was coming. In the lead SUV, Fisher checked his iPhone's signal and was pleased to see five bars. Siberia or not, Irkutsk was still a metropolitan area, boasting six hundred thousand in the city itself and another hundred thousand within a fifty-mile radius. Irkutsk would lack many of the conveniences of a Western city of comparable size, but he and his team were far from being in the boondocks. Past that fifty-mile radius, however, was another story.
At the first sight of an open diner, Fisher, in the lead SUV, pulled into the lot. They went inside. The place was empty. The hostess gave them a "take your pick" shrug of her shoulders. They took the booth nearest the door. Fisher waited for the waitress to deposit the water glasses and silverware and leave before saying, "We've got some legwork to do. We need weapons, equipment, and cold-weather gear."
"Caches?" Gillespie asked.
"Nearest one is three hundred miles north of here in Bratsk. That's a single; the nearest multiple cache is . . . too far. We're going to have to get inventive. Noboru, you did some work in Bratsk once, right?"
"How did you? . . . Never mind. Yeah, I spent a couple of weeks there a few years ago. Great town. A lot of gray cinder-block buildings. Very Soviet."
"Can you make some calls? We'll need a local contact."
"I'll see what I can do."
Fisher nodded. "Who's got the best Russian?"
"I do," Maya Valentina said immediately.
"We've got OPSATs but no SVTs or subdermals. We're going to need to improvise. I'll give you a list. You and Kimberly hit electronics stores and hobby shops."
"Got it."
"Hansen, you and Ames find some army-surplus stores. Look for cold-weather and camouflage gear and anything else we can use."
Hansen nodded. Ames shrugged.
Fisher's iPhone chimed, signaling a text message. It was from Grimsdottir:
No movement three hours.
Stand by.
Grim had hyperlinked the latitude and longitude. Fisher clicked on the link and Google Earth opened and zoomed in. Qaderi's location put him on the western shore of Lake Baikal. Fisher shared the update with the group.
"What the hell is he doing there?" Ames asked.
Hansen said, "That's what we're here to find out."
They talked for a few more minutes, then got another text from Grim:
Road blocked at Q location (Rytaya River estuary) for last six hours. Plows working. Estimated time to clear, six hours.
"We just got another break," Fisher said, then explained. He checked his watch. "We're not going anywhere tonight. Let's find a place to settle in and wait for daylight. If we get on the road by noon, we'll only be four hours behind our target."
"Our yet-to-be-named target," Ames corrected.
"You'll know when you need to know," Fisher replied.
AS arranged, Fisher and Hansen met in the hotel's lobby an hour after they checked in. Aside from the desk clerk, who stood leaning over the desk with his head in a paperback novel, they were alone. They found a seat on one of the settees. The lobby was a pastel nightmare of light blue upholstered furniture, peach carpet, and gold curtains.
"Ames is pushing hard for information," Fisher told Hansen.
"That could mean nothing. He's that way--always trying to get over on people."
"Could be. When we're closer to catching up with Qaderi, I'm going to give everyone a few more details. If Ames has been waiting until he has more to feed Kovac, that should do it. Since he hasn't got a phone, he'll try the OPSAT."
"Then do we get to string him up by his ankles?"
"Something like that. In the end we're going to need him to cooperate, so we can't do anything . . . permanent to him."
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