Forget London. We’ll go east, deep into the forest. Not even your angel will be able to find us.
I didn’t have to make a run for the border. Turn east, and I could disappear—forever, if I liked. I put my foot back on the brake and thought about that. I was beyond orders. No one could compel me to do anything. I’d been on the run for days. And now, finally, came the chance—perhaps the final chance—to escape.
But Rachel’s angel was real, all right, and I knew I’d never shake it off in the trees. No matter how deep I went, the damned thing would be on my tail until the day it finally caught up with me. I could outrun any man sent to hunt me. But not even by riding the fastest horse east from Arkhangel could I escape my fate.
It would be disastrous if the Russians intercepted the phone and the photograph of Rachel’s calculations. But destroying her Destroyer wouldn’t solve anything. Eventually another mind, perhaps even more brilliant—and more unhinged—than Rachel’s would rediscover what had been lost. And then we would be at their mercy, enslaved to the interests of some unforeseen tyranny.
No. Getting out of Russia wasn’t merely a case of ensuring my own survival, or even of sabotaging the Russians. I had to stick with the plan, and make certain that what Rachel had brought into being was either used for the greater good or never used at all—and I could guarantee that only from London. Rachel had been blinded by the brilliance of her creation, warped into madness by the power of it. Perhaps I would be, too. Perhaps Arkhangel’s promise of absolute authority would always prove impossible to protect against.
But there was someone I trusted to see clearly enough to navigate the landscape that Rachel’s angel would re-form—and yet Baaz had only one part of the algorithm. Without the photograph of the writing on the wall neither of us could unlock the secrets that had driven Rachel to her death.
It didn’t matter whose side Commander Frank Knight was on. Good or bad, he was just one man—and Grumpy Jock would make sure I got to Blighty in one piece. But only by returning would I ever know why I’d been sent out in the first place. The death knell might have sounded, but this watchman was still alive.
I hit the gas and turned west.
* * *
—
A HUNDRED AND fifty klicks farther on and an hour behind schedule, and the sky began to lighten. Mezga, Trukhino, Khvoynaya . . . the towns and villages of northwest Russia hid behind the snowflakes blowing constantly around the car. Saturday traffic was light, the local cops more concerned with keeping their feet warm and cars moving than shaking down drivers. No roadblocks. No sirens. No one in pursuit. No one I could see, anyway.
Sixteen hundred.
I pulled into Veliky Novgorod with an hour of daylight left and refueled for the third time. I bought food, too—a barely edible snack wrapped in plastic—and coffee. I kept my head down, covered with Aleksandr Denisovich’s driving cap, said the bare minimum to the teller and paid in cash. Then I parked on a quiet side street and swallowed a mouthful of the insipid brown liquid. At least it was hot.
While I ate, I mapped out the rest of the journey in my mind. If conditions remained the same, the drive to the border would take another five hours. That would put me at the RV at nine o’clock—with two hours to spare before Jack Nazzar and the Wing were expecting me. Where, exactly, they were supposed to expect me, I hadn’t said. But I was hoping that one look at a map of the border would leave Jack in no doubt.
Five years before, I’d trained on Russian Hind helicopter gunships in Poland with A-Squadron SAS. Jack had come along for the ride, never happier than when he was airborne. As part of one of the exercises he’d devised with MI6, we’d studied every possible exfiltration method and route out of Russia imaginable: commercial flights with operators using false IDs; border-hopping light aircraft flown by Romanian pilots; RIBs manned by the SBS collecting personnel on the Baltic coast and then taking them to a submarine rendezvous offshore; vehicle extraction by road in both summer and winter across the land borders with Ukraine, Finland and Latvia; and various combinations of all of them. But it was escaping via Estonia that had stuck in my mind as the most feasible, achievable plan. I hoped Jack had been similarly impressed.
Southeast of the Estonian village of Värska, Highway 178—a single-lane road fringed by forest and farmland—slipped out of the Baltic state and into Russia. It continued across sovereign Russian soil for just over a kilometer before crossing back into Estonia again. It was a geographical oddity, a cartographer’s hiccup called the Saatse Boot. And because the road led nowhere, except from one part of Estonia to another, the border crossings were open to local traffic and almost completely unguarded. To the southeast, the highway connected a small patchwork of villages virtually cut off from the rest of the country by poor roads and a vast expanse of forest. But to the northwest there would be easy and inconspicuous access for Jack and what I hoped would be his rescue mob.
Halfway along the 178’s course inside Russia there was a junction with a forest path, which cut through the trees for two klicks from the Russian village of Gorodishche on the east. As far as low-profile, easy-access exfil went, it was the only option. The track was too narrow for vehicles. But I was prepared to gamble that on foot, and with two hours to spare, I could make it down the track, along the road and over the northwest frontier of the “hiccup” to freedom.
It was time to go.
I nosed back out onto the highway, pointing toward the backwater city of Pskov and the border a short drive beyond.
* * *
—
TWENTY-ONE HUNDRED.
I was close now. The frontier with Estonia was only eight klicks away as the crow flies. But the point at which I’d have to ditch the Lada was another twenty klicks by road. I turned off the highway and parked up in the village of Molochkovo-Dubenets—a bitterly cold clutch of houses that clung to the southern shore of Lake Peipus, two massive bodies of water connected by a narrow sound that were cut vertically in two by the border. Its frozen wastes stretched away to the north for a hundred and forty kilometers—not that I could see more than a few meters of the lake itself, even with the headlights aiming directly at it. The weather had closed in dramatically since the last of the daylight had bled out of the sky hours earlier. Thick squalls of snowflakes now filled the air, spun into great white gyres whirling away from the headlights.
I’d planned to hug the lakeside northward along a winding rural road before cutting west to the jumping-off point, where I’d continue on foot. But the route ahead was already impassable. I was going to have to double back on myself and take a larger road that ran parallel to the lake, inland.
I killed the lights and closed my eyes in the darkness. I went to sleep immediately, and then woke abruptly as my head fell forward. I was exhausted, injured and overwhelmed by the blood tide Frank’s mission had unleashed. I pinched my eyes and rubbed my face. I was losing time. Two hours until RV—assuming there was anyone to RV with. The last stretch could take an hour to drive—after which I’d have to make two klicks on foot in the dark, thigh deep in snow. And that was assuming I could even remember the way. I was pushing it. If I hit one more dead end, it would all be over, anyway.
I switched the lights on again and turned the Lada around, retracing the short drive toward the main road. It took only a couple of minutes to reach the junction where I’d turned off. I emerged cautiously onto a triangle of snow-buried asphalt. And then the air lit up.
On the other side of the road the flashing warning lights of a Russian police four-by-four blitzed me with a red and blue strobe. An officer was already out of the vehicle, walking toward me, left hand outstretched, waving a light baton. The headlights of both our cars lit up his electric yellow hi-vis vest in the torrent of snowflakes between us. If I dropped the clutch and punched the gas, I’d hit him hard enough to put him down. But there would almost certainly be another officer in the vehicle. If I was going to
drop him, it had to be clean. I left the motor running and opened the window. The blast of air sharpened my senses. The officer touched the brim of his fur hat and smiled.
“Dobriy vecher!” he greeted me through the open window.
I wished him a good evening, too, and looked at the logo on the arm of his blue overalls: DPS—Russian traffic police. Five-ten, hundred and forty pounds. Clean-shaven. Nose like a hawk’s bill. A misdemeanor cop in a felony world.
“You’re a long way from home,” he said. “You must be lost.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not at all. Thanks for asking, though. Hell of a night, isn’t it?”
The headlights of the police vehicle opposite brightened to main beam, filling the junction with a powerful wash of white light. There were at least two of them, then.
“Da,” he said. “Takaya kholodina.” Bloody cold. The cop peered into the Lada, checking out the empty passenger seats. “It’s just that I saw you take the turn to Molochkovo-Dubenets. And five minutes later, here you are again.”
He laughed.
I laughed.
He must have clocked the Lada’s out-of-area number plates. If he was crooked, he’d try for a bribe before calling me in. If he wasn’t, and he had already asked for backup, he was playing it cool.
“No,” I said, raising my voice over the mounting hiss of the gale, “it’s just that the road to Pesok looks a bit sticky, that’s all.” I jerked my head toward the lake. “I’m going to head up to Krupp and see if I can get round that way instead.”
A gust of wind hit the side of the Lada, blowing snow into my face.
“Pesok?”
I nodded.
“OK, then. No problem.” He stepped back and raised his voice. “I’ll just check your license and insurance and you can be on your way,” he continued. “Wouldn’t want you out-of-towners to think we didn’t do our job right, would we?”
“Of course not, officer. It’s in my wallet.” I looked at him, still smiling. “May I?”
He nodded and I moved my right hand slowly behind me, putting my fingers into my jeans back pocket and producing a folded hundred-dollar bill. Benjamin Franklin had been getting me in and out of trouble for days now. He was worth a final shot, either way. I straightened the note and held it out, so the policeman could see how much I was offering.
“Here you go.”
He snatched the note immediately and folded it, palming it out of sight with a flick of the wrist so practiced he could have performed on stage.
“And your insurance, Mr. . . . ?”
“Ivanovich,” I replied. And then, producing another hundred-dollar bill: “My pleasure, officer.”
The second bill followed the first into his top pocket.
“It’s fortunate your paperwork was in order, Mr. Ivanovich.” He wrinkled his blade of a nose. “Have a good night.”
He turned and walked back toward his vehicle, signaling to his partner through the windscreen with a flick of the baton to kill the flashing top lights. I put the Lada into gear. I could do it now and eliminate any uncertainty. But I didn’t want to kill Russian cops any more than I did Irish or French ones. Corrupt or not, they weren’t the enemy. And, anyway, knocking a traffic patrol out could cause more problems than it might solve. As soon as they failed to respond to their HQ’s first radio call, someone somewhere would know something was up. Much better that everyone went home happy.
The patrolman opened the passenger door of his DPS Niva. I let out the clutch. My tires rolled forward, biting into the freshly fallen powder. But instead of climbing in, the cop hesitated for a moment, half-covered by the open door, before turning around to face me. His right hand dropped to his side, ungloved, struggling with the cover flap on his white leather holster.
His partner must have run the stolen Lada’s plate.
I floored the gas. The cop looked down at the holster trapping the pistol he couldn’t free, and then up again into my headlights. Mouth open, screaming, he put his left hand across his face, as if blocking out the glare would shield him from the impact.
It didn’t.
The Lada struck the passenger door dead center—hard enough to pin him between my front bumper and his chassis, but not hard enough to fire the airbags. He coughed a spray of blood onto my windscreen. From deep in his throat came a dreadful shrieking, cutting through the howl of the wind and the throb of the engine.
I opened my door and fell to the road, rolling clear on the frozen ground as the second cop stumbled out into the snow, little Makarov pistol in hand. He spun around and fired high, sending three shots whining well clear of my head.
There were five meters between us. I found my feet and kept low, thrusting forward, hitting him in the guts with my shoulder. His boots slid from under him and he came down on his back, gun arm up, sending more shots into the sky above us. I rolled away and grabbed his right wrist with my left hand, twisting it backward. Another shot rang out. The awful screaming from the police car stopped abruptly.
I rotated his arm and chopped down with the inside of my right palm. His elbow snapped inward. The pistol fell into the snow, tethered to his belt by an expanding coil of white safety wire. I unclipped it from the butt of the semiauto and stood up. The policeman was on his knees, left hand scrabbling at the road, right arm dragging limp behind him. He was half begging, half crying, pleading with me not to kill him. I let him go and went back to the patrol car. Through the shattered side window I could see the policeman I’d bribed, hanging lifeless. The last stray shot had passed through the Niva’s doorframe and hit him in the side of the head. The Makarov’s steel-core rounds punch way above their weight.
I needed to move on, and fast.
I leaned in and removed the keys from the ignition and threw them into the trees beside the junction. Then I fired a shot into the radio receiver. Lying in the passenger footwell was a metal flashlight. I reached in and took it, and then circled around to the nearside. Brain matter and blood clots patterned the snow-covered highway. Though my fingers were slowing with the cold, I did what the cop had failed to do and opened the flap of his holster. I extracted a fully loaded magazine and stuffed it into my pocket with the Makarov I’d already picked up.
My Lada hadn’t been damaged beyond smashed sidelights. I got in and cranked the engine and reversed, sweeping the beams of the headlights across the surviving patrolman. He was sitting up now, staring at me, clutching his shattered arm. Tears sparkled on his cheeks, glistening in the halogen glare. He’d lit a fuse that threatened to blow up the border in my face. Russia’s western sector was one of the most highly militarized on earth. His radio call could pull the combined weight of two entire divisions down on me—five thousand troops or more of which were within rapid striking distance of that area alone. Even if the local commanders didn’t know who I was, all that would matter to them was that they were hunting a cop killer.
As I drove, I dropped the magazine out of the Makarov. Empty. But there was a round in the breech. I juggled the steering wheel and the pistol and put on the replacement clip. Nine bullets in total. Then I felt inside my jacket to make sure the Angel of Death hadn’t taken flight. It hadn’t. Talia’s cell phone and the photograph of Rachel’s calculations were secure, pressed tight to my chest next to the snapshot of my mother.
I checked my watch. Twenty-one thirty. I had ninety minutes to get to the RV before the Russians likely sealed it off for good.
35
I drove north until I reached Krupp. there the road struck out west, through forest. Frozen birch trees inched past the window—silver statues glowing by the verges. Snowflakes the size of moths careered into the windscreen, as if pulled toward the car by the traction of the headlights. I checked the rearview mirror obsessively, looking for any sign of unwelcome company, but there wasn’t another car on the road.
I was losing time.
I
cursed the cops, the delays, the weather. Then I crossed what felt like a small stone bridge. I hit the brakes and slid to a halt and jumped out, running back to check. I shone the police flashlight at the side of the road. It was buried in snow, but I’d driven over the tiny, frozen Piusa River. I got back in and turned left down the next farm track.
I drove cautiously, but the way had been cleared. This was horse country. Most likely tractors were keeping the roads open for supplies to the farms and stables whose lights dotted the clearings between the trees. After a few hundred meters the lane looped back on itself. I crept forward in second gear, searching beyond the white veil clinging to the windscreen for the switchback to the forest path I hoped would take me to the border. Ten meters, twenty, thirty . . . I stopped.
Nothing.
I closed my eyes again, willing the image of the old satellite maps I’d spent so many hours poring over to reassemble in my mind. But all I could see were Rachel’s eyes staring back at me through the inferno in Arkhangel. I blinked. And there in the rearview mirror, illuminated in the red glow of my taillights, was the snow-fouled opening of the shortcut through the trees. The entrance to the track was hidden at ground level by a bank of frozen snow, piled up in the wake of a plow. I shoved the gear stick into reverse and rolled backward, taking the car off the road.
I switched off the engine and looked at my watch again.
Twenty-two thirty.
It had taken an hour to drive eighteen klicks, and the thought of the upcoming trek across country filled me with foreboding. My legs cramped; my shoulder burned; every time I flexed my right hand the cuts at the base of my fingers opened and stung. But then, just as I killed the headlights, the outline of what looked like a man flitted across the road in front of me, heading away from the track. I squinted into the snow swirls and scoured the darkness for any sign of him.
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