The two of them sprinted through the forest, but they hadn’t gone far when they heard footsteps following. Tyler cursed. “They’re using our ropes to rappel down the wall.”
“We had no choice,” Anya said. “We had to leave them behind.”
A bullet crashed into a tree to Tyler’s left, and the two of them veered to the right. “True,” Tyler agreed, “but the point still stands. They’re going to reach us soon.”
“I know. We need to stay off the path and find another way to Blue Jay.”
A bullet whizzed by Tyler’s ear, and he said, “It might be time to go every man for himself.” He pulled his radio from his pocket and said, “Blue Jay, listen quickly. We’re under heavy pursuit. Don’t wait for us. Get this information to leadership ASAP. The man responsible for this is Ivan Mikhailovich. He’s a former Russian MGB agent who’s gone rogue. He has six R-1 rockets with nuclear warheads and modified engines with a range great enough to strike Washington, D.C.”
A horrible thought struck Tyler. Now that Ivan knew they were onto him, he might move up the timeline and launch the missiles sooner. “Shit, he might launch the missiles sooner now that he knows we’re onto him.”
“I’ll let them know,” Blue Jay said, his voice tense. “We can have this place bombed within twenty-four hours. Damn it, there’s no way you guys can reach me?”
“Don’t wait for us,” Tyler replied. “I don’t want to lead them to you and then none of us make it out. Get this information to Langley ASAP.”
“All right. Shit. Hey, before I go, though, do you know what happened?”
Tyler frowned and veered left as another volley of rifle fire impacted the tree to his right. “What do you mean?”
“The forest fire. I was about to launch the flares to distract the terrorists when I felt a big bomb go off. Was that one of Ivan’s?”
Tyler’s frown deepened. “No. We thought that was you.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“It was me.”
The sound of that voice drew a scream from Anya. Tyler whirled around and gasped when he saw Nikolai Fedorov beckoning toward them from a few yards away. The old man was covered in dirt and wore clothing made from what looked like fish nets painted green.
There was no mistaking those piercing blue eyes, though. Any doubt Tyler might have had was driven away when Anya said, “Father? What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you,” he replied in Russian, “but you must come now.”
Anya hesitated. Tyler’s brow furrowed.
“Tyler?” Blue Jay called over the radio. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Tyler replied. “Get that information to Langley.”
He put the radio back in its pouch and drew his handgun instead. Nikolai didn’t react when Tyler aimed the weapon at him. “How the hell do you expect us to trust you?” he asked the Russian agent.
“Ivan is a fugitive,” Nikolai replied. “And he has stolen nuclear weapons from the Party. He is a higher priority than Anya right now. I cannot handle capturing both of them, and it will be difficult for me to handle Ivan on my own. I welcome the interference you and your allies provide.”
“Or you’re capturing Anya now, and you’ll go get Ivan later,” Tyler suggested.
A spray of gunfire forced the three of them to drop to the ground.
“Perhaps,” Nikolai said, “Or perhaps I know how to rescue both of you. It’s your choice, Anya.”
Tyler felt a flash of anger that Nikolai would dismiss him so easily, but he didn’t have time to argue. Anya grabbed his hand and pulled him after her father.
Nikolai got to his feet with far more agility than a man his age should have been able to show. He ran with equal agility, and despite his lingering hatred for the Soviet spy and his distrust of the man’s attention, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the man’s athleticism. Tyler could only hope to be half so strong at Nikolai’s age.
Gunfire continued to follow them. The fire Nikolai had started was spreading fast, and its light illuminated their way but also made them bright and easily visible targets to the terrorists. Tyler really hoped Nikolai had a better plan than he seemed to have so far.
After perhaps a mile of running, Nikolai veered suddenly left and seemed to disappear. Tyler blinked and opened his mouth to exclaim, “What the hell?” but before the words left his mouth, Anya grabbed his arm and pulled him after her.
Tyler nearly fell when his next step took him into a deep crevice in the forest floor. Roots and branches scratched at his face, and he put his arms up to protect himself as he followed Nikolai and Anya deeper into the crevice. The heat and light from the fire faded quickly, and soon, Tyler couldn’t see in front of him.
“Keep running,” Nikolai called. Damn it, the man didn’t even sound out of breath. “Keep going straight. You will be safe. Do not use your light.”
Tyler very much did not approve of their choice to follow Nikolai, but he couldn’t really act like waiting for the Cuban terrorists to find and shoot them was a better decision. Besides, he’d had his chance to protest, and he’d let it slip by. He had no choice now but to hope Anya was right to trust her father.
They ran for a few minutes more before Nikolai called, “Stop.”
Tyler stopped, and a moment later, Nikolai switched on his flashlight. They were standing in front of a rusted iron door that resembled a massive bank vault. Tyler looked up to see that they were about ten feet below the surface. The crevice here was clearly a man-made trench, and through the open top of the trench, he could see the smoke from the fire rising into the sky.
Nikolai pulled a key from his pocket and slid it into the massive padlock that locked the door. It clicked open with surprising quiet. Or perhaps it was the roar of the fire drowning out the noise.
He opened the door, and there was no mistaking that it glided smoothly on its hinges. This door might be old, but it was well-maintained. Tyler’s suspicions rose again. When Nikolai gestured for them to enter, he said, “No. You tell us what’s going on right now.”
“I already did. I don’t have time to explain again. You will be safe in there, but if you choose not to take my offer, I have no way of stopping you.”
He switched his light off, and Tyler cursed and fumbled for his. When he switched it on, Nikolai was gone. He swore and said, “Anya, we… Anya!”
Anya had already entered the bunker and motioned for Tyler to follow. He sighed and hesitated a moment longer, but when he heard shouting behind them, he switched his light off and followed her inside.
“How are we going to lock the—”
He didn’t finish the sentence before the door closed behind him. An instant later, he heard the soft snick of the padlock engaging.
The damned bastard was behind me!
Tyler heard the hum of a generator, and a moment later, light flooded the bunker. Anya stood up from a panel on the far wall about fifteen feet distant. “There is enough fuel to last for several days. Hopefully we won’t need that long.”
Tyler looked around the bunker. They were in a small room, fifteen by ten feet or so, with a radio station on one side, and the control panel Anya had just used to switch on the power on the other side.
“What is this place?” Tyler asked. “Where are we?”
“An MGB hideout,” Anya explained. She walked to a small handle on the floor and pulled it up, revealing a ladder extending downward from the hatch. “This will lead to a living area, a storage closet, an armory and the engine room for the generator.”
“The MGB has hideouts in Cuba?”
“Apparently.”
Anya dropped down the hatch, and Tyler followed. As promised, the hatch led downward about twenty feet and ended in a small bedroom with two doorways, one that led to a living room/kitchen and one that led to a shower.
Anya quickly stripped out of her clothes and sighed with relief when the soiled articles were off of her. “I’m going to shower,” she said. “You can join me if you like.”
There was nothing lascivious in her tone. In fact, there was no emotion in her tone at all. Tyler stared at her in shock as she switched on the water. She tested the temperature and said, “It is cold now, but if you wait until I am finished, the generator may have heated enough for you to use warm water if you prefer.”
“Yeah, I’m a little more concerned with the fact that we just walked into a cell that your father locked from the outside. How the hell are we going to get out?”
“That is a question to answer later. Without his help, we would surely have died.”
She stepped into the shower and started to wash herself. It was a testament to Tyler’s concern that the sight of her naked body did nothing to titillate him at the moment.
“But why is he helping us?” he insisted. “Why is he here if not to capture you? Think about it. Why would the head of the Ministry of State Security be here undercover in Cuba himself? It makes no sense.”
“I know,” she said. “I don’t know why he rescued us.”
“I don’t know if he rescued us,” Tyler replied. “I’m pretty sure he just put us in a box so he can keep us here until he’s ready to take us back to Moscow.”
Anya sighed. “Maybe. It’s possible, but I don’t think so. If that was his goal, he would have taken us to a vehicle and then to a boat or a flight out of Cuba. I think he could be telling the truth. As wanted as I am, Ivan is a higher priority. I have worked to sabotage the nuclear program. He has worked to start a nuclear war.”
“So maybe Stalin’s finally gone crazy, and he’s ready to start the war.”
“If Stalin wanted to start the war, he wouldn’t do it by shipping missiles to Cuba under the command of an MGB field operative.”
Tyler pressed his lips together. That was a good point. “Still… I don’t trust your father.”
“I don’t trust him either,” Anya said. “But we didn’t have many choices.” She stepped out of the shower and reached for one of the towels hanging on a rack outside of the shower. “The water is warm now. I suggest you take one. There will be clothes to wear somewhere in the bedroom. I will find them and lay them out for you.”
Tyler’s eyes began to travel down Anya’s disrobed figure. He decided that was a good sign that he needed to take that shower. Someone someday was going to have a fun time writing about how it was that the male body could be so easily aroused in almost any circumstance.
By the time he stepped out of the shower, he was in better control of his emotions. All of them.
He dressed in the clothes Anya had laid out on the bed and met her in the kitchen. "Okay," he said calmly. "Sorry for freaking out earlier. I was a little… well, a lot shocked to see your father here. But I understand why you thought it was a good idea to just follow him, and I agree that we didn't have much choice. But now we're here, and we need to figure out where to go from here. So let’s leave aside your father’s motives and just figure out how to get from here to somewhere we can get a hold of the Wall.”
Anya looked at Tyler but didn’t reply at first. She slid a piece of paper to him across the counter and said, “Read that.”
Tyler glanced at the note, and his eyes widened. "Oh shit."
“Oh shit is right.”
The paper was a set of coordinates. The label at the top of the paper read startovaya ploschadka.
Launch site.