by Tim Tigner
“Thank you, Mrs. Murphy, and have a good day.”
Once Sparrow had prepared his list of finalists, he quit U-Haul, donned a suit, and set off to visit each family. His tack was to pretend to be with the Census Bureau; his job was to determine if the family had any close friends or family. Most did, and Sparrow ended up visiting over two hundred finalists before producing the dozen target families Immaculate Conception required.
The Stormer family was moving from Detroit to Sacramento, where they planned to start a fresh life and a new business. Sixteen-year-old Victor and his “parents” intercepted the Stormers one night at a motel in Wyoming, killed them, and continued the drive the next day in their place.
They buried Jason in a deep grave with enough lime to dissolve him in no time. He was never found. Nobody was looking. Mr. and Mrs. Stormer, on the other hand, made the journey to Sacramento in an ice cream truck before the KGB transferred them to a deep freezer plugged in at a U-Store facility.
Six months later, the new Jason Stormer graduated from high school and applied to Stanford. Shortly thereafter, his KGB parents thawed Jason’s real parents, put them in a car, and “killed” them in an accident that burned them beyond the reach of an autopsy.
Victor’s KGB parents flew on to another assignment while Victor himself went off to college fully armed. He had friends and a history in Sacramento, a high school diploma, a fat insurance payment from his dear parents’ death, and a bulletproof cover. With seventeen years of citizenship now layered on, he was confident that nobody in America could possibly guess, much less find a way to prove, that Jason Stormer was born Victor Titov.
The string of problems he had been facing had to be a coincidence.
Victor entered the hotel room to find that the evening’s entertainment had already arrived. She was waiting for him on the bed in one of the suite’s white terrycloth robes. “My name’s Nikki,” she said, setting down a jar of minibar pistachios and standing. She dropped the robe around her ankles without another word.
Nikki was exactly what he had ordered. That was, of course, what one expected when putting a thousand dollars on his AmEx, but in this business, you never knew. She had slender arms rising to supple shoulders, which she pulled back gracefully to parade two golden apples, ripe for the plucking. They were teased from atop by her thick brown hair. Nikki had it coiffed in a wild, unkempt look, akin to the one in her eyes.
Victor felt his mouth go dry.
Still mute, Nikki walked over, crouched to her knees, and unbuckled his belt. She might have been nineteen when she walked in the door, Victor thought, but she’ll feel twenty-five by the time she leaves. Victor’s mind began to bathe within the carnal pleasures of the moment. Tensions released. Concerns assuaged. Then his pager leapt to life.
Some people react to spiders, others to blood. Some fear heights, others enclosed spaces. Nothing knocked the joy out of Victor like the vibration from his pager. The heavens might as well have opened up to drop a rattlesnake into his shorts; his reaction would have been the same. He had no illusions about what that hum signified. To Nikki, however, it was just another toy. She picked the vibrating box off his belt with a giggle and began pleasuring herself with it, staring dreamily into his eyes as she moved it in slow circles. Victor found himself paralyzed with shock. It was like watching a baby teethe on a hand grenade—hard to process. But the spell didn’t last. He snatched the pager away and went to the bathroom to read the message in private.
Sight unseen, a vibrating pager meant two things to Victor. It meant something was wrong, and it meant that his father was upset about it. Then there was the message format. Like an EAM sent to a submarine, Karpov’s messages did not allow for discussion or debate. They just demanded emergency action without providing explanation. It was a father’s way of getting the last word without even having to speak to his son. The pager was the voice that commanded him, the collar that enslaved him, and the whip that lashed him. Victor hated the pager.
He punched in his nine-digit security code and looked at the screen. Ferris slipped his tail in Irkutsk. Victor’s blood pressure surged such that he thought his eyes might pop like champagne corks. “No!” He punched the bathroom door hard enough to put his fist through both sides of the flimsy wood.
Nikki yelped.
Still fuming, he yanked his hand back through, driving splinters and drawing blood.
The pager went off again.
“Damn it!” he yelled, tossing the pager skyward in a mixture of shock and rage. He snatched it from the air with a slippery hand, and read the second half of the message: but Yarik has him now.
A calm settled over him like a warm blanket. He read it again, then wiped the blood from the pager and tended to his hand.
Victor liked Yarik. The giant was strong, sincere, and straightforward. He was also, without a doubt, the most instinctively sadistic person Victor had ever met. He wondered how that pursuit had unfolded and made a mental note to ask Yarik for the details the next time they spoke. Victor recalled the story of a fur trapper who had stolen supplies from a remote base while Yarik was visiting. Yarik chased him over the Siberian countryside, in the dead of winter, for four days, just for sport. What mortal could enjoy spending nights outdoors when the temperature was forty below zero? And over what, a rifle and a couple boxes of ammunition? Not this California boy.
The soldier sent to accompany Yarik reported what happened when they finally caught the trapper. Yarik zipped him up in a sleeping bag with his arms sticking out the top. Then he bound his wrists together around the trunk of a tree, and then left him there overnight. In the morning, while Yarik sipped his tea, he began interrogating the thief. What else had he stolen? To whom did he sell things? Did he have help on the inside? Questions like that. For each answer that Yarik didn’t like, he ceremoniously snapped off one of the trapper’s frozen fingers. When the interrogation was over, he just left him there. Victor superimposed Alex’s face on that mental image and grew a grin. Enjoy yourself, Alex.
With that thought, the blood returned to Victor’s loins, and he walked back into the bedroom intent on giving Nikki the good news. She was gone. He punched his palm in frustration and recoiled in pain. His grimace turned to a smile as he pictured the look that must have crossed the call girl’s face as his fist crashed through the door. He was too much of a man, even for the pros.
Chapter 29
SIBERIAN OUTBACK, RUSSIA
Without warning, four of the seven KGB soldiers began convulsing wildly as bullets tunneled through their bodies from below. The three remaining soldiers jumped to their feet from the opposite bench and stared in uncomprehending horror as their team members disintegrated before their eyes, the victims of an unseen power.
With the roar of the aircraft’s engines drowning out all sound in the cargo hold, it was unclear if gunfire or lightning or Satan himself were powering the bloody boogie. That doubt vanished a moment later when the Devil incarnate, all glistening red and bristling with rage, burst forth from beneath the four lost souls and turned his fiery gaze toward them.
Blood from the soldiers’ bodies poured down onto Andrey as the savage smells of cordite and copper filled the bench. The vile combination sparked an adrenal blast that primed him for the fight ahead. He swallowed an acrid cloud, summoned a barbaric cry from deep within, and sprang from the cargo bench like a demonic jack-in-the-box.
Andrey had the steady nerves of a twenty-year combat veteran, so he remained calm even though the sight that met his eyes sucked the wind from his lungs. Three soldiers were still standing, and he was out of ammunition.
The survivors stood before the opposite bench, a meter to the right of where Alex sat bound. Each wore the same wide-eyed expression of horror—despite having youth, numbers, and arms on their side. Andrey had burst forth prepared to neutralize a surviving soldier or two during their moment of shock, but he was facing a couple assault rifles and a large
, menacing knife.
He spun around, whipping a packed parachute by the end of its harness straps through a 270-degree arc, channeling all the power of his arms, legs, and back into building momentum before slamming it into the soldiers’ weapons and sending them sailing. The overextended swing also sent Andrey tumbling right into the trio, and the four of them landed violently in a heap on the floor.
From the writhing muddle, Andrey caught a glimpse of his comrade in arms. Alex was unmasked now and on his feet. Judging by the fire in his eyes, he was ready for redemption.
Andrey disabled the soldier above him with a double-armed bear hug from behind, while the dazed man on the bottom worked to wriggle himself free. Andrey used his left leg to pin the third soldier’s neck against the bench. With his right he kicked the man’s skull against its base with the heel of his heavy boot until it gave way with a crack loud enough to hear over the engine roar. Meanwhile, the soldier in Andrey’s arms kept flailing his head back in an attempt to break Andrey’s nose.
Then Alex arrived. He swooped in and slashed the bear-hugged soldier’s throat with a quick, fluid move of his knife.
Andrey turned his head to avoid swallowing arterial spray and yelled, “Go block the cockpit door!” Then he rolled free of the corpse and stood to face the remaining man, the Armenian brute who had favored a blade. No longer dazed, he rose to his feet wearing an air of confidence the surrounding scene did not support. As Andrey met his eye the Armenian flared his upper lip, flashing canine teeth while assuming the cool, forceful stance of a skilled martial artist.
Andrey had always been more of a wrestler than a fighter, his large frame better suited to developing a gorilla’s strength than a gazelle’s speed. But if he followed his natural inclinations and dropped into a wrestling pose, his opponent would understand the score and adapt his attack accordingly. So, instead, Andrey squared off with fists and forearms before him, announcing himself as a student of the sweet science.
The soldier feigned a punch then leapt and twisted with a spinning kick to the side of Andrey’s head. His practiced move was lightning quick and nearly impossible to block, but it was not Andrey’s intent to try. He accepted the blinding blow in order to catch the recoiling leg, trapping it high above the ground. Clamping down with viselike hands, Andrey somersaulted forward in a diving roll, snapping the soldier’s leg at the knee.
Were it not for the earsplitting screams, Andrey might have let the Armenian live. Instead, he planted his boot deep in the soldier’s solar plexus, momentarily extinguishing his anguished cry. Then Andrey smacked the switch for the tail landing gate with the side of his fist. As the rear of the craft began to open, he stooped and grabbed the back of the soldier’s uniform with both hands. Then he lifted and twisted like a hammer thrower, sending the silenced soldier soaring through the burgeoning crack and out into space.
Chapter 30
SIBERIAN OUTBACK, RUSSIA
Andrey bent forward to rest his palms on his knees while he chased his breath. When he looked back up Alex was there, buoyed with newfound freedom and percolating the energy of youth. Facing each other eye to eye for the first time, the two panting predators spent a silent moment sizing each other up.
“Is the door secure?” Andrey asked, breaking the verbal silence as he repocketed his knife. He leaned inward toward Alex so he could hear his response over the sixteen close-quarter pistol blasts that still rang in his ears.
“I blocked it as best I could,” Alex shouted, “but I don’t know how long it will hold. Let’s hope we can get out of here before they learn what happened.”
A murderous clamor erupted from the direction of the cockpit before Andrey could concur. He looked over at the vibrating door and pictured a red-faced Yarik fuming on the other side.
It was not the best time for such a ceremony, but something about the warrior’s code made Andrey pause and extend his hand. “Andrey Demerko.”
Alex looked at him for a moment before reciprocating, “Alex Ferris.” Then he added, “Thank you,” indicating the pile of bodies with a sweep of his head.
Andrey brushed off the latter remark and said, “Suit up” as he turned to appraise the landscape now visible far below. It looked as cold as a glacier, and no less desolate.
“Not yet. I have to kill Yarik before we leave.”
“We can’t risk a cabin assault. It’s too risky.”
“You don’t understand. He put that device in me, the Peitho Pill. Even if I get away, I can’t escape.”
In the background Yarik’s pounding intensified and then ceased altogether. He was up to something.
“Don’t worry,” Andrey said. “This plane is going down.” He withdrew two hand grenades from his belt, wedged them in the tailgate’s hydraulics, and pulled the pins. “Compliments of the Chulin Air Base arsenal.”
Alex gave him an understanding nod. When the pilot closed the gate, the grenades would release, and it would be bye-bye, birdie.
“Now shut up, suit up, and grab an AK. I don’t have any more ammunition for my Makarovs.”
Alex complied, nodded, and then leapt out into space. He had obviously endured all the Yarik he cared to take.
With a somber smile and a silent prayer, Andrey dove after his charge. It was his first flight as a guardian angel. He hoped it would also be his last.
Their altitude was somewhere in the range of six to seven thousand meters, so once they established eye contact, each assumed a diving pose. The increased speed made it harder for them to stick together, but the thin air demanded the quickest possible descent. This was no place to pass out.
As they rocketed toward the white expanse below, Andrey caught sight of the airplane above. It was circling back. They were not yet out of the woods. A long sixty seconds later, they leveled out, preparing to deploy. The two unlikely comrades looked each other in the eye for a moment, then nodded.
Andrey had to shift his AK from his right hand to his left in order to pull his rip cord. As he did so, he saw Alex’s canopy fail to inflate. His parachute had deployed, but the harness that connected the risers on the right side was severed, and the silk just streamed out uselessly above him like the luminous trail of a plummeting meteorite. The Armenian had probably slashed it with his hunting knife during Andrey’s swing for the bleachers. Would he get the last laugh?
Andrey discarded his AK and assumed the soaring-eagle position to slow his descent, grateful that he had not yet deployed. Then he looked over at the man he had chosen to save his country. Alex seemed to have his wits about him. The two men locked eyes as Alex released his useless chute.
Paratroopers were not skydivers, and thus unaccustomed to free-fall acrobatics. They made one unsuccessful pass, and then another, attempting with increasing desperation to converge in three dimensions as they fell to Earth. How many more tries did they have?
On the third pass, Alex caught Andrey by the ankle. Then the two veterans began to work the drill they had studied decades apart with different forces on separate continents. Working face-to-face, they attached the clips on the front of Alex’s harness to the D rings on the front of Andrey’s. Andrey gave them a quick test and then pulled his own rip cord. A second later his parachute bellowed open, and both men began to breathe again.
Their descent slowed, but it soon became clear that it had not slowed nearly enough. Looking up, Andrey saw the problem; it was an extra-light chute. All military parachutes were lightweight compared to sport parachutes, and this one was at the small end of that spectrum. It was designed for lightly equipped troops descending under fire. How one of those had gotten packed into a regular harness, Andrey did not know, but whatever the reason, the outcome was indisputable. They were both going to break their legs and probably their backs unless one of them found a way to substantially lighten the load. There were not many options available, and the rocketing ground left little time to experiment.
Alex dropped his AK, but that was like bailing a boat with a thimble. Then Alex lifted a leg to undo a boot, but Andrey stopped him. He knew what he had to do. These past months had just been borrowed time. He had used them well.
He grabbed Alex on both sides of his head, looked him in the eye, and shouted, “Don’t you fail me, Alex! Don’t you let my children down!” Then, before his charge could respond, Andrey Demerko, veteran of Afghanistan, Chief of Staff for the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and architect of the plan that would save his beloved nation from the clutches of criminals, cut himself free.
At one time or another, everyone wonders what he would think about if he knew he only had a moment to live. This was the second time Andrey learned the answer. He saw the smiles of his wife and children and those of the grandchildren to come, and he knew that he had done the right thing.
Chapter 31
NOVOSIBIRSK, SIBERIA
Doctor Anna Zaitseva’s lower lip was quivering as she looked up after finishing the day’s first operation.
The assisting nurse caught her eye. “It’s okay, Anna. You saved him.” Vova nodded down at the patient she had just closed.
Vova knew her well enough to guess what she was feeling; industrial accident cases always reminded her of her brother Kostya. “What’s next?” she asked.
They were a good team, she and Vova, albeit an unusual one. As a female doctor with a towering male nurse, patients almost always addressed him first. Then Vova would open his mouth and suggest in his effeminate lilt that they ask the doctor.
She gave Vova a grateful smile before repeating her question. “What’s next, Vov’?”
“Frostbite in theater three.”
As they went through the perfunctory interoperational routine of changing from soiled gowns to fresh, scrubbing, and regloving, Anna found that she couldn’t get her mind off Kostya. Her brother had died along with twenty-four fellow villagers from the vilest type of industrial accident: a radiation leak. She suspected it was also the worst possible kind: avoidable. But she didn’t know for sure. Not yet.