by Linda Ladd
“Good. They’ve got drugs up here, too, in that warehouse. I couldn’t find any at the compound, but it’s worth getting a search warrant for the house and barn.”
“What did Sokolov say about Irina? Is she all right?”
“He swears she’s safe at some convent, and so is Katerina. I think they’re both in Canada, probably Quebec City. I’m following Petrov and Sokolov when they leave the island. He told me Petrov’s got a cabin in Maine. He seems to think it’s not a drug house, but a safe place for Petrov to hide out when he crosses the border or goes on the run.”
“Where is it exactly? Want me to arrange backup for you out there?”
“Not sure yet. It’s supposed to be a place the Russians have used for years, close to the Canadian border crossing. They used it to get in and out of the U.S. with false credentials. He gave me the means to follow them, so I’m going to. The cabin sounds like a good place for us to take Petrov down. He won’t expect anybody to know where it is. Sokolov says Petrov never told anyone for fear of a CIA mole or a double-cross. He trusts Sokolov because of their past association.”
“Okay. Good God, Novak, just be careful and don’t get yourself killed. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to pull the trigger.”
“Stay right where you are, Lori. These people are ruthless. Let other people do the dirty work this time. You stay safe and sound inside the Pentagon building and surround yourself with guards.”
“I will, Novak, unlike you, always running toward danger.” She laughed softly. “One thing for certain, nobody’s going to get hold of me down here in the bowels of the Pentagon complex. I’m coordinating things, but my general is looking over my shoulder night and day. It’s in his best interest that this thing doesn’t go belly up.”
“Stay there, please. I don’t want to worry about you getting shot again.”
“Hey, Novak.” She lowered her voice. “I know I say it a thousand times, but don’t get killed. I want to go back to St. Barths. We had a fine time there, remember that?”
“I remember. We’ll do it again. Keep me posted, and watch your back.”
Novak hung up. He stretched out on the stern bench with Sokolov’s phone still open on Petrov’s GPS signals. He fell asleep out in the cool night air, and didn’t awake until cold raindrops spattered his face. He moved under the canopy as the downpour started in earnest, and rechecked the signals. There was no movement yet, and the marina around him lay dark and quiet.
He was up again just before daylight. The rain had let up, and the wind had died down during the early morning hours. The boat rocked gently on waves coming in from turbulence out on the open water, but the swath of thunder and lightning had veered out into the Atlantic away from Nantucket. The remnants of the storm were deluging the north part of the island. He brewed and drank a pot of coffee, then ate some toast. He was cleaning up when a text came in on Sokolov’s burner phone. Sokolov warned him that he and Petrov were flying up to Portland, Maine that afternoon, where they would rent a car and drive north to Canada. He added in a second text that allowed Novak to follow their GPS signals, verifying their travel route. That left Novak undecided about what to do. Almost everything Sokolov said or did from the beginning made Novak feel twitchy, but not enough to ignore their travel plans. He had to follow them, and he had to be careful.
After pulling down ocean charts and checking weather patterns and tides, he decided that sailing to Portland would be too time-consuming. The quickest voyage he drew up was nearly thirty-six hours on the water, so he decided to leave Sweet Sarah right there in Hap’s marina and fly out. He wanted to arrive in Maine before the two Russians, so he took the first available ferry across to Cape Cod. He needed to beat them there, rent a car, and be ready to trail them up through Maine. If it turned out that Sokolov was lying, Novak had decided to take that risk.
Novak called Lori and asked her to arrange the flight out of Cape Cod to Portland, and check flight manifests for Graham Turner, which was Sokolov’s American alias, something else he’d found in that burner phone. Not long after that, she called back with Novak’s plane ticket and arrangements for a four-wheel drive truck to be waiting for him at the Portland airport. More important, she reported that two men, one under the name of Graham Turner, the other under Joseph Lorde, had seats together aboard a plane leaving three hours after Novak’s flight took off. So Joseph Lorde was Petrov’s cover identity. He could beat them up there with plenty of time to get ready before following them up to that cabin. He felt relieved, and was very grateful for Lori’s help. She went on to say that her people were going to spring the bust in forty-eight hours, at 5:00 a.m., EST. He was pleased it was happening so fast, but it meant the capture of Petrov would be his solo responsibility. He relished the idea of bringing that killer in.
Four hours later, he sat in a Ram pickup truck at a Subway parking lot near the ramp that would take him onto Highway 201 and eventually up into Canada. He kept a close eye on their GPS signals. So far, they were doing exactly what Sokolov had said they would. When he saw they were on the 201, he waited about ten minutes before driving up the ramp and following them. Of course, he didn’t know if it was them inside that car. It could have been somebody else carrying Petrov’s backpack. He was going on nothing but trust now, something he knew he should never do with Stepan Sokolov. For all he knew, this car could have been a diversion and the two Russians could be long gone.
Novak kept following them. He would soon see if he was being played for a fool. The Atlantic storms had brought a cold front that swept into the whole of New England, so he had on a down jacket he’d purchased at the airport. He had also filled his backpack with everything he figured he’d need if he had to go it alone in Canada. He kept the GPS up and running, keeping a close eye on it. They were still traveling north, right at the speed limit, still ahead of him on Highway 201. They were within twenty miles of the border now.
After a while, he watched the GPS signal for a turn off the highway. It came not long after they hung a right on a rural state road. That’s when Novak knew for sure they were heading for the cabin. They had a good reason for going there, or Petrov wouldn’t have taken the time. Something had to be going on in the deep woods, and Novak didn’t like to think what it might be. He hoped they hadn’t stashed the two girls out there. The idea was alarming. He pressed down on the accelerator, but kept it just over the speed limit. He did not want to get pulled over and ticketed. That would waste time, and he could lose them.
Both sides of the highway were cloaked by seemingly impenetrable hardwood forests, the brilliant leaves dulled under cloudy skies and wet weather. The tops of the trees tossed violently under strong westerly winds. Leaves fluttered over the roadway and hit his windshield, and he had to avoid several broken limbs lying out in the highway. He passed a couple of pit stops with gas stations and fast food joints, and a few small towns that weren’t much more than spots in the road.
Right after they’d driven through a fairly good-sized town, Petrov turned again and headed off on a road that was not named on the map. Novak knew it had to lead into the cabin. He reached that turnoff point about fifteen minutes after Petrov. There was an old rusted mailbox lying on the ground. It had been broken off halfway up the post, probably by kids driving along, knocking it down with a baseball bat. Most of the writing was scratched out, but he could still see the last name: Adams. Novak slowed down, turned, and stopped. He let his truck idle just off the highway. Their signal had stopped, and not too far into the treeline. Novak had to be cautious now—Petrov would be watching for tails, and could have set up booby traps or cameras. The man was paranoid, and that penchant had kept him walking free for decades. He would know how to protect himself.
Novak pulled back out and drove maybe half a mile before he found a similar logging road that headed back into the same tract of woods. It looked unpassable, clogged with overgrown bushes and brambles. He pulled in far eno
ugh to conceal the truck in a thicket of pine trees. Climbing out, he donned the backpack, and started through the woods on foot. He hadn’t gone thirty yards before he heard the crack of a gunshot. He dropped down instinctively and drew his weapon. There was no second shot, but he could hear the sound of a car starting up. Within seconds, he saw a black Ford Explorer barreling into sight a good distance away, headed back to the highway. Novak stayed low until it roared out onto the main road in a squealing, skidding turn. Only the driver was inside, but he couldn’t tell if it was Petrov or Sokolov.
If it was Petrov and he was alone, that meant Sokolov was stranded at the cabin, or they kept a spare vehicle out there. Novak’s gut told him Sokolov was out there and in big trouble. He took off running through the tree trunks, angling in toward the parallel road, tripping on tangled vines and fighting sharp sticker bushes that tore at his clothes. When he gained the other road, he stopped and listened. Nothing moved—no birdsong, no traffic sounds filtering from the highway, nothing. He took off for the log cabin sitting alone in the distance. All he heard was the wind crackling through branches far above him and the crunch of rocks and dead leaves as he ran through them. The house was small and built of logs, sitting in a hardscrabble, rocky clearing. There were no paths, walks, or driveway, just that rocky road. There were no cars, either. The place looked deserted and closed up. He hunkered down again and watched, not sure who or what might be waiting inside. He wasn’t optimistic that it would be anything good for his health.
The front door was standing open. He ducked down and ran up to the side of the front porch. No one appeared, so he inched up to the door and ventured a quick peek inside. He kept his weapon up, ready to return fire. Inside the one big room, Stepan Sokolov was lying on the floor, his sweatshirt soaked through with blood. He appeared to be trying to make it to the door, a gun clutched in his hand. He was conscious. He struggled to turn on his side, and pointed his weapon at Novak. Novak ducked down, but Sokolov didn’t fire.
“Help me.” His words caught in his throat, and he rolled back onto his stomach, groaning in agony.
Novak knelt down beside him and shrugged off his backpack. He could already see torn flesh, and the gaping exit wound on Sokolov’s upper back. It hadn’t hit the spine, or the man would be dead. Blood was pooling beneath him, but the bullet had missed his heart. Novak shifted him on his side and pulled up the sweatshirt. A pulsating crimson stream poured from the single bullet hole in his upper torso. He was bleeding out and fast. There was so much blood now that Novak feared he was already too late to save him. It depended on what internal organs had been hit.
Jerking gauze bandages out of his backpack, he tore off the wrappers and held a wad of them tightly against the wounds. Then he started wrapping long strips of gauze around Sokolov’s chest, trying to slow the bleeding. Sokolov writhed with every touch, now only half-conscious. “I’ve got morphine, Sokolov. I’m going to give you a shot of it and get an ambulance out here.”
“It’s no use…too much blood…I’m dead…” He was weak, but he caught hold of Novak’s sleeve. “Promise me…promise you’ll get him, promise me…He’s going after Katerina. Don’t let him get her…”
“You’re not gonna die. Just lie still.” Novak finished taping the makeshift bandage in place, then dialed 911, telling them about the morphine and describing the old mailbox he’d seen out on the road as their turn-off point. The operator wanted him to stay on the line, but he hung up. “They’ll be here in minutes, Sokolov. They’ll get you to an ER and into surgery, and you’ll be fine. We’re not that far out of town. You’ll going to make it. Lie still and try to calm down or you’ll bleed out faster.”
Sokolov wasn’t calming down. He was working himself up into a panic. “He’s going after Katerina…He knows where I took them. He’s going to kill them.”
“How does he know?”
“I don’t know. They’re at the convent…go quick…”
“Why’d he turn on you? Does he know you’re working with me, that I’m following him?”
Sokolov shook his head. His eyelids were squeezed tight, his groans terrible now. “He made an excuse to stop here and then he just shot me…said I was a witness…Nobody would’ve ever found me.” He stopped there, trying to breathe, then roused up again urgently. “I should’ve known he’d do this. He’s tying up loose ends…thinks things are going to hell because you’re after him. He’s killing anybody who can identify him.”
“Where’s he headed after Canada?”
“Damascus.”
“Where are the girls? You gotta tell me, Sokolov, or they’ll end up dead. I’ve got to get to them first.”
“Quebec City…the old convent…he’s headed there, but I don’t think he knows where they are…but he can find out. He’s got friends…You’ve got to stop him.”
“What contacts? Who?”
“Russians, still up there…He’ll find her…they’re with one of them.” He stopped again, panting heavily now. “The border’s not far…go now and you can get him before he crosses. You can’t get through the border…with the gun…leave it. I got a safe house…near Old Town. Look in the burner for address…weapons there…codes for house…everything.” He stopped, his breathing hitched on what Novak feared was his last breath, but then spoke again. “Go, go…”
“I’m not leaving you until the ambulance gets here.”
“Kill him, Novak…promise me…save my kid.”
“I’ll get him.”
That was it. Sokolov shut his eyes and lay still, but he still had a pulse.
“Where are they? What convent?” Novak said down close to his ear. “You’ve got to tell me.”
He mumbled, but Novak heard him. “In the old church…in phone…hurry…”
Novak jumped to his feet when he heard a distant siren, the shrillness reverberating down through the quiet woods. He told Sokolov to hold on, but the man was no longer moving. Novak ran for his truck, jumping logs and fighting through the thick underbrush. When he was nearly there, the ambulance roared by on the road to the cabin. He figured Sokolov might survive if they got him into surgery in time. He slung his backpack into the front seat, jumped in, and fired the motor. He backed up into the trees and drove hard for the highway. He swerved out onto the blacktop and floored the truck, heading north. He had to get to Petrov before the killer found those girls.
Chapter 25
Novak did not catch Petrov in time. When he reached the official border crossing, the Russian was nowhere in sight. He had used false identity papers and passports and somehow gotten past the Canadian checkpoint. By the time Novak reached Quebec City, with its great battlements and towers of gray stone where it sat on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, Petrov’s GPS was moving around the city unimpeded. Novak followed the signal through the modern neighborhoods until he hit a busy thoroughfare called Rue Saint-Jean.
Petrov’s Explorer finally stopped a good distance ahead of him, at what was identified as the Hilton Quebec. Novak found the hotel easily enough and pulled into the parking lot. He watched Petrov’s SUV, afraid the girls might be inside the hotel. But then Novak decided that murdering two young girls inside a busy hotel was not Petrov’s style. Sokolov had said they were at a convent but Novak couldn’t find its name or address listed in the burner. There were lots of churches of every denomination in this city, so he started looking for a convent, but had no luck. He kept watching the Explorer, thinking Petrov was inside that hotel arranging his getaway flight to Syria and making phone calls to his Russian cronies in Quebec, trying to locate the girls.
Novak grew more nervous as the minutes ticked by. He had no weapon, and he needed one if he was going to confront Petrov. There was no way he could have gotten through Canadian customs at the border crossing without being searched, so he had wrapped his gun inside a plastic bag and slid it under the front seat of a rusted Pontiac coupe he’d noticed sittin
g abandoned in a weedy field a few miles south of the Canadian checkpoint. He hoped it would still be there when he got back, if he got back. The Canadian officials had searched his truck thoroughly, studiously polite, but their eyes grew suspicious when they examined the contents of his backpack, especially the medical supplies and GPS trackers and his six emergency burner phones. He explained he’d gotten in the habit of carrying supplies when he was in the Navy and kept it up when he went camping and hiking. They called to check out his name, but bought his cover story well enough to let him pass into their country. They probably shouldn’t have.
Sokolov had told him weapons were stashed at his safe house, and Novak had to take time to get them. He could keep an eye on Petrov’s location with the GPS, but he hoped to God that the Russian did not head out to murder the girls before he got back. The Explorer hadn’t moved, and he doubted that Petrov would take an Uber or call a taxi. A trained operative would not have a driver take him to an intended murder scene, especially not a man who had successfully remained on the run for years. He’d take the SUV when he located the girls, and afterward he’d wipe it clean and abandon it.
Novak did take time to call the Hilton’s front desk and ask if a Joseph Lorde was registered there. He spoke to the clerk in French, a language he’d learned well from a year in his youth that he’d spent with his mother’s Parisian family. The woman verified that the man had checked in several hours ago, and Novak thanked her and hung up before she could put him through to Petrov’s room. He hesitated because he didn’t want to lose Petrov, not in a bustling city this size. The burner Sokolov had given him had precise directions to Sokolov’s weapons stash inside his safe house, which Novak found about five or six blocks from the hotel. The address was on Rue Saint-Olivier.
Despite the traffic, it didn’t take him long to find it. The house looked big and old, built out of the same gray stone so prevalent around the city, and had a big round turret in the same French architecture. It looked as if it had been a grand home at one time, and sat far back off the street. There were shade trees all around it, many hugging the house. He drove up the driveway and parked near the front sidewalk. He sat there and looked around. Nothing moved inside that he could tell, and all the shutters were closed up tight. It occurred to him that Sokolov might have stowed the girls inside with an armed guard. By the time he climbed onto the porch, he dismissed the idea. He had a feeling Petrov knew about this place.