March 10, 2:48 P.M.
Nerchinsk, Russia
Tucker crouched beside Kane and carefully swung the hatch closed. The tunnel had exited beneath the shelter of a pine. Still, he swept fresh snow over the hatch to keep it hidden. Once satisfied, he wriggled his way out from beneath the boughs and into the open.
Kane followed, shaking snow from his fur.
“Ready for a little jog?” Tucker asked, acknowledging the press of time. He pointed east through the edges of a scrub forest. “SCOUT.”
Kane took off, bounding through the snow, bulldozing a path.
Tucker trotted after him.
They made relatively quick progress, covering three-quarters of a mile in an hour. He could have gone faster, but he did his best to stay below snowy ridgelines, out of direct sight of the town proper. Now was not the time to be spotted by a stray soldier.
As they reached a stand of birches, within a few hundred yards of the airbase, Tucker’s watch vibrated on his wrist.
He glanced down, seeing the countdown timer had gone off.
Grimacing, he pictured the train pulling into the Chita station.
How long until someone realizes I’m not on board?
With no choice, he urged Kane onward and followed, pushing through his exhaustion, focusing on his next step through the deep snow.
After another ten minutes, they reached the edge of the air base. The perimeter fence lay fifty meters ahead, topped by barbed wire.
Suddenly, Kane stopped in his tracks, cocking his head.
Then Tucker heard it, too.
A rhythmic clanging.
He waited, then heard it again, recognizing it.
A hammer striking steel.
The sound came from ahead and to the left, not too far away. He pushed to a break in the trees, where Kane had stopped.
Beyond the fence stretched a single long runway, lined by six hangars and twice as many outbuildings, most of which seemed to be bolstered by a patchwork of sheet metal. The eastern side of the base lay a little farther to the right, out of direct view. Somewhere over there was the shack where he was supposed to rendezvous with Dimitry.
But the loud clanging continued, closer at hand, coming from the base.
Curious, Tucker pulled out his binoculars, zoomed in on the buildings, and began panning. He searched for the source of the clanging and found it at the side door of a rusty hangar.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.
Standing in the doorway was Fedor. Under one arm, he clutched an aircraft propeller; in his opposite hand, an eight-pound steel mallet, which he slammed down on the propeller’s leading edge.
Gong.
The sound echoed across the base to where Tucker was lying.
Gong gong gong.
He lowered the binoculars and squeezed the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb. It was too late now. For better or worse, he’d hitched his wagon to this Russian bear.
He set out again, aiming right, searching ahead for the crumpled section of fence that marked the shack. At least, from here, the terrain offered decent cover. The air base had been abandoned long enough for the surrounding forest, once cut back for security purposes, to encroach upon the fence line. He kept to those trees, moving steadily, circling around to the eastern side of the base.
Tucker had just stopped to catch his breath when be heard the thumping sound of helicopter rotors. Swearing, he pushed into the shadowy bower of a Siberian pine. He whistled for Kane to join him.
As the shepherd rushed to his side, he craned his neck to the sky. The noise grew thunderous, making it difficult to discern the direction. Then the dark belly of the Havoc streaked overhead at treetop level.
The rotor wash stirred the powdery snow into a stinging whirlwind. Branches whipped overhead.
Had they been spotted?
What about their tracks through the snow?
There was something especially unnerving about being hunted from the air. His every primitive instinct was to run, but he knew that path was the quickest way to get cut in half by the Havoc’s chain gun.
So he stayed hidden.
The chopper moved past, slowly circling the air base, seeming to follow the perimeter fence. He watched its slow passage, staying hidden, until he could no longer hear the rotors.
Tucker waited another ten minutes, just to be sure. He used the time to reassemble Felice’s PSG-90. Once completed, he did a final check of the sniper rifle. Only then did he set out again, comforted by its weight.
In less than a hundred feet, he reached a corner of the air base. He stopped and used his binoculars to survey the eastern perimeter.
As Dimitry had promised, a section of fence had been flattened beneath a fallen tree. It lay about three hundred meters away—and there stood the shack.
The impulse was to hurry toward its relative safety, but he ignored it. Instead, he took a mental bearing and headed deeper into the trees, intending to circle wide and come at the shack from behind. He took his time, using the deepening shadows and snowdrifts as cover.
Finally, the shack came into view again. It was small, twelve feet to a side, with a mossy roof and timber walls. He saw no light and smelled no woodsmoke.
Satisfied, he bent down and pulled up Kane’s camera stalk. He also made sure the radio receiver remained secure in the shepherd’s left ear canal. Once done, he did a fast sound-and-video check with his phone.
With the GRU unit on the hunt, he wasn’t taking any chances.
And he certainly wasn’t going to enter that cabin blind.
Tucker pointed at the shack, made a circling motion with his arm, and whispered, “QUIET SCOUT.”
Kane slinks from his partner’s side. He does not head directly for the cabin, but out into the woods, stalking wide. His paws find softer snow or open ground, moving silently. He stays to shadow, low, moving under bowers that burn with the reek of pine pitch. Through the smell, he still picks out the bitter droppings of birds. He scents the decaying carcass of a mouse under the snow, ripe and calling out.
His ears tick in every direction, filling the world with the smallest sounds.
Snow shushes from overburdened branches, falling to the ground . . .
Fir needles rattle like bones with every gust . . .
Small creatures scrape through snow or whisper past on wings . . .
As he moves, he sights the cabin, glances back to his partner, always tracking. He glides to the far side of the shack, where the shadows are darkest, knowing this is best for a first approach, where fewer eyes will see him.
A command strikes his left ear, brash but welcoming.
“HOLD.”
He steps to the nearest cover: a fallen log musky with rot and mold. He drops to his belly, legs under him, muscles tense and hard, ready to ignite when needed. He lowers his chin until it brushes snow.
His gaze remains fixed to the structure. He breathes in deeply, picking out each scent and testing it for danger: old smoke, urine of man and beast, the resin of cut logs, the taint of thick moss on shingles.
He awaits the next command, knowing his partner watches as intently as he does. It finally comes.
“MOVE IN. CLOSE SCOUT.”
He rises to his legs and paces to the cabin, scenting along the ground. His ears remain high, bristling for any warning. He comes to a window and rises up, balancing on his hind legs. He stares through the murky glass, deeply and long, swiveling his head to catch every corner.
He spots no movement in the dark interior—so drops back to his paws.
He turns to stare at where his partner is hidden among the trees and keeps motionless, signaling the lack of danger.
It is understood.
“MOVE OUT. QUIET SCOUT AGAIN.”
He swings away, angling around the corner. He checks each side, spies through another window, and sniffs intently at the closed door. He ends where he started.
“GOOD BOY. RETURN.”
He disobeys, instead dropping again to his belly by the rotten log.
A low growl rumbles in his chest, barely heard with his own ears.
A warning.
Tucker watched the video feed jostle as Kane lowered to his belly, his nose at the snow line. He heard the growl through the radio and noted the pointed stare of the shepherd toward the deeper forest to the right of the shack.
He studied the video feed on his phone. Even with the camera, his eyesight was no match for Kane’s. He squinted at the screen, trying to pick out what had seized Kane’s attention. After ten long seconds, he spotted movement, fifty yards away.
A lone figure, hunched over, moved through the trees, heading toward the shack.
Tucker swore silently and dropped quietly to his chest. He shifted the sniper rifle to his shoulder, flicking off the safety.
The trespasser was also carrying a gun—an assault weapon from its shape and angles. The figure moved through thick shadows, hard to make out, camouflaged from head to toe in a woodland winter suit. He moved deftly, someone well familiar with hunting in a forest, every cautious step cementing Tucker’s certainty that this was one of the Spetsnaz soldiers, not a local hunter.
Thank God for Kane’s keen perception.
But why only one?
If there had been others, Kane would have alerted him.
It made no sense. If the Spetsnaz knew he and Kane were here, they would have come in force. This had to be a lone scout. He remembered the Havoc helo circling the perimeter of the air base. Apparently the unit commander must have sent a man or two to do the same on foot.
He raised the sniper rifle to his shoulder and peered through its scope, getting a sight picture. Once fixed, he subvocalized into the radio mike taped to his throat, passing on yet another command to his partner.
“TARGET. QUIET CLOSE.”
It was an order Kane knew all too well from their time together in Afghanistan: get as close to the enemy as possible and be ready.
Kane began creeping toward the man.
With his partner on the move, Tucker laid his cheek against the rifle’s stock and peered through the scope. The target was forty yards off, moving with practiced economy. He never paused in the open, only when behind a tree. His current line of approach would take him straight to Kane’s position.
Thirty yards.
Given the angle of the man’s body, Tucker knew a head shot would be tricky, so he adjusted the rifle’s crosshairs and focused on a point a few inches below the man’s left nipple.
The soldier stepped behind a tree and paused, ever cautious. Two seconds passed. The man emerged again from cover, ready to close in on the cabin.
It was Tucker’s best chance. He squeezed the trigger ever so slightly, took a breath, let it out—and fired.
In the last millisecond, the soldier’s arm shifted forward. The bullet tore through the man’s elbow, shattering bone and cartilage, but veering wide from a kill shot.
The man spun counterclockwise and disappeared behind the trunk of a spruce.
“TAKEDOWN!” he called out to Kane.
He didn’t wait to track his partner. Instead, he dropped the sniper rifle and charged forward, drawing his P22 pistol on the run.
Ahead and to his left, Kane leaped through the air and disappeared behind the spruce. A scream burst out, followed by a spatter of automatic fire that shred needles from the tree.
Tucker reached the spruce, grabbed a passing branch, and whipped himself around with his pistol raised. The soldier struggled on the ground, on his back. Kane straddled him, his jaws clamped on his right wrist. The assault rifle lay nearby, but the soldier had a Makarov pistol gripped in his free hand.
Time seemed to slow for Tucker. The man’s gun hand turned, straining to bring the weapon to bear on Kane. Then the Makarov bucked. Kane was strobe-lit by orange muzzle flash but unharmed. In his panic and pain, the man had shot too soon.
Tucker refused to give him another chance.
Stepping sideways, he took aim and fired once. The bullet drilled a neat hole in the soldier’s right temple. His body went slack.
“RELEASE,” Tucker rasped out.
Kane obeyed and backed away a few steps.
Tucker placed his boot on the Makarov, which lay half buried in the snow. There was no sense in checking the man’s pulse; he was dead. His mind switched to their next worry. The gunfire would have carried through the trees.
But how far? Who might have heard?
Tucker took a moment to double-check Kane for injuries. Finding none, he gave the shepherd a quick neck ruffle, then pointed in the direction the man had come.
“QUIET SCOUT.”
He had to know if reinforcements were on their way.
As Kane moved off, he pocketed the Makarov, stripped off the man’s camouflage suit, and stuffed it into his own pack. Though pressed for time, he spent a minute hand-shoveling snow over the corpse. The grave wouldn’t stand close scrutiny, but it might buy him precious seconds.
Finally, Tucker retrieved his rifle and moved deeper into the trees, where he found a tangle of fallen logs. If necessary, it would serve as a good sniper’s roost.
He checked Kane’s camera, but all seemed quiet out there. Satisfied for the moment, he radioed to his partner.
“RETURN.”
Thirty seconds later, Kane crouched next to him, panting.
“Good work, pal.”
Kane licked Tucker’s cheek.
Using the momentary lull, Tucker pulled on the camouflage suit.
“Now we wait.”
4:39 P.M.
After several long minutes, the snap of branches alerted Tucker. Someone was approaching from his eight o’clock position. As he listened, the plod of footsteps grew louder, distinctly different from the soldier’s cautious approach.
Not Spetsnaz.
A moment later, Dimitry appeared, lumbering through the forest.
Still, Tucker stayed hidden, waiting, suspicion ringing through him.
When Dimitry was ten feet away, seemingly alone, Tucker called out to him.
“Stop!”
Dimitry jumped, genuinely startled. He lifted both arms, showing empty hands. “Is that you, my friend?”
Tucker kept hidden. “You’re making a lot of noise.”
“Intentionally,” Dimitry replied with a half smile. “I didn’t feel like getting shot, da? I heard the gunfire.”
“We had a visitor,” Tucker admitted, relaxing somewhat. “Spetsnaz.”
“Is he—?”
“Dead. Dimitry, did you turn us in?”
“Nyet. But you are smart to ask. I swear I have told no one about you.”
“And Fedor?”
The old man shook his head. “He has his flaws, but he has never betrayed me or a customer. Besides, you must trust someone or you’ll never get out of here.”
Tucker both believed him and knew he was right. Even Kane wagged his tail, wanting to greet Dimitry. He finally stood up out of his blind.
Dimitry joined him, eyeing his winter suit. “New clothes, I see.”
“Someone no longer needed them.” Tucker pointed toward the air base. “Is Fedor ready to fly? Matters are getting a little tense out here.”
“I think so. When I called him, he had just finished making some adjustments to the plane’s propeller. Fine-tuning, he called it.”
Tucker smiled, remembering the crude hammering. “I saw.”
Together, they headed past the cabin and across the air base. Dimitry took him along a circuitous path that mostly kept them hidden, working their way toward the hangar.
“I am glad you are safe,” Dimitry said. “At the church, when I left you in that tunnel—”
“What exactly is that tunnel?” Tucker interrupted, remembering the fresh boards shoring it up.
“I found it by accident one morning. I felt a strange draft coming up from the floor and started prying up boards.”
“And you’ve been maintaining it?” he asked.
The suspicion must have been plain in his voice.
Dimitry smiled. “Myself and Fedor. I told you he was a smuggler.”
Tucker raised an eyebrow toward the town’s old bishop, suddenly remembering how deferential everyone in the bar had been toward Dimitry, more than could be explained by religious affection.
“Okay, perhaps Fedor has a partner,” Dimitry admitted. “It is hard to maintain my flock on faith alone. But, mind you, we don’t smuggle anything dangerous. Mostly medicine and food, especially during winter. Many children get sick, you understand.”
Tucker could not find any fault in such an enterprise. “It’s a good thing you’re doing.”
Dimitry spread his hands. “Out here, you do what you can for your neighbor. It is how we survive, how we make a community.” He pointed ahead. “There is Fedor’s hangar. I will check first. Make sure it is clear, da?”
With Kane at his knee, Tucker waited while Dimitry went ahead. He returned two minutes later and gestured for them to follow.
“All is good.”
Dimitry led them through the main hangar doors. Lit by a lone klieg light, a single-engine prop plane filled the small space. Tucker couldn’t make out the model, but like everything else at the air base, the craft seemed a hodgepodge of bits and pieces. But at least the propeller was in place.
He found Fedor kneeling beside a red toolbox on the floor.
Before they could reach him, Kane let out a low growl. The shepherd still stood by the door, staring out.
Tucker hurried to the shepherd’s side, careful not to show himself. He drew Kane back by his collar. Across the base, a pair of headlights passed through the main gate, turned, and headed in their direction. It was clearly a military vehicle.
He drew his pistol and crossed to Fedor. He raised the gun and aimed it at the man’s forehead. “We’ve got visitors. No matter what else happens, you’ll be the first one to go.”
Fedor’s eyes got huge, and he sputtered first in Russian, then English. “I tell no one! No one!” He stood up—slowly, his palms toward Tucker. “Come, come! Follow. I show where to hide.”
Tucker weighed his options as the grumble of a diesel engine grew louder. He remembered Dimitry’s earlier words: you must trust someone or you’ll never get out of here.
With no choice but to heed that wisdom, Tucker pocketed his weapon. “Show me.”
Fedor hurried toward the rear of the hangar, towing everyone with him.
The big man led them to a giant orange storage tank, streaked with rust, that sat on a set of deflated rubber tires. A hose lay curled next to it. Tucker recognized an old fuel bowser used to fill the tanks of planes.
Fedor pointed to a ladder on one side. “Up! Through hatch on top.”
Having already cast his dice, Tucker stepped to the ladder and crouched down. He turned to Kane and tapped his shoulder. “UP.”
Backing a step, then leaping, Kane mounted Tucker’s shoulder in a half-fireman carry. Together, they scaled the ladder and crawled across the bowser’s roof to the hatch.
Fedor headed toward the hangar door, leaving behind a warning. “Quiet. I come back.”
Hurrying, Tucker spun the hatch, tugged it open, and poked his head inside. The interior seemed dry.
At least, I won’t be standing hip-deep in gasoline.
He pointed down and Kane dove through the hatch, landing quietly. Tucker followed, not as deftly, having to struggle to pull the hatch closed, too. His boots hit the bottom of the empty tank with a clang. He cringed, going still, but the rumbling arrival of the military vehicle covered the noise.
In complete darkness, Tucker drew his gun, his nose and eyes already stinging from fuel residue. But he also smelled bananas, which made no sense. He shifted to a better vantage, but his foot hit something that sounded wooden.
What the hell . . . ?
He freed his tiny penlight and flicked it on. Panning the narrow beam, he discovered the back half of the bowser’s tank was stacked with crates and boxes, some marked in Cyrillic, others in various languages. He spotted one box bearing a large red cross. Medical supplies. On top of it rested a thick bunch of bananas.
Here was more of Dimitry and Fedor’s smuggling operation.
It seemed he was now part of the cargo.
From outside, he heard muffled Russian voices moving around the hangar—then they approached closer. He clicked off his penlight and gripped the pistol with both hands. It sounded like an argument was under way. He recognized Fedor’s tone, which sounded heated, as if in the thick of a furious negotiation. Then the conversation moved away again and became indiscernible.
After another ten minutes, an engine started, rumbling loudly, wheels squelched on wet tarmac, and the sounds quickly receded. Seconds later, feet clomped up the ladder, and the hatch opened.
Tucker pointed his pistol up.
Fedor scolded, “No shoot, please. Safe now.”
Tucker called out, “Dimitry?”
“They are all gone, my friend!”
Fedor groaned. “Da, da. As I say, safe.”
Tucker climbed up, poked his head out, and looked around. Once confident the hangar was clear, he dropped back down, collected Kane, and climbed out.
“Price higher now,” Fedor announced.
Dimitry explained, “They were looking for you, but mostly they learned about our operations here. Not unusual. Every village in Siberia has such a black-market system. So people talk. The soldiers came mostly to collect what could be most kindly described as a tax.”
He understood. The roving soldiers weren’t above a little extortion.
“Cost me best case of vodka,” Fedor said, placing a fist over his heart, deeply wounded.
“We told them that we were about to leave on a postal run,” Dimitry explained. “After collecting the tax, there should be no problem getting through. Even soldiers know the mail must flow. Or their vodka here might dry up.”
Tucker understood. “ ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor dark of night . . .’ ”
Fedor looked quizzically at him. “Is that poem? You write it?”
“Never mind. How much more do I owe you?”
Fedor gave it much thought. “Two thousand rubles. You pay, da?”
“I’ll pay.”
Fedor clapped his hands together. “Happy! Time to go. Put dog in plane. Then you push plane out, I steer. Hurry, hurry!”
Tucker rushed to comply.
Not exactly first-class service, but he wasn’t complaining.