19

TERUMBU ISLAND, LATE JULY

Dawn arrived over the Russian camp, and with it came the commands of NCOs mustering their squads for roll call. Reluctantly, Anisimova rose with the dull light and the age-old military custom of morning parade.

With the sarin removed from the submarine, the Russian’s recovery of the gold inside the submarine had become unimpeded, and the amount of gold ingots breaking the surface was beyond anyone’s imagination. The sight of the bullion was intoxicating for everybody, and Anisimova looked forward to wresting the last ingot from the submarine and leaving this island.

He stood up from his army cot and stumbled toward his washstand. He splashed water from a steel pitcher into the waist-high basin just as his orderly pushed aside the blanket draped over the doorway and entered the room, carrying a breakfast tray: a mug of boiled tea, a jar of jam, a saucer with pats of butter, and a tin of biscuits.

“Here’s your breakfast, sir,” the young private said. “I also have messages from the seaplane camp and the communications room.”

“What is it, man?” Anisimova said after spitting rinse water out of his mouth. He stood and ran his wet fingers though his hair.

“The seaplane camp reports that the professor ran away, and the Kona Wave‍—I’m sorry, the Shanghai Mariner, reports that its crew has searched every square meter north and east of here. No sign of the Americans.”

Before Anisimova could respond, Yeshenko roughly pushed aside the blanket, almost pulling it from the nails above the doorway. He remained in the doorway while he spoke. “Go ahead and tell the ship to return. I’ve found our Americans.”

Anisimova scowled questionably as water dripped from his chin. “What do you mean you have found Havok? Have you seen him?”

“No, but the missing sarin and two missing men prove that he has arrived!”

“‘Missing’? The sarin is missing?” Anisimova blurted as he felt a warm liquid feeling deep within his bowels.

“Yes,” Yeshenko replied. “Get dressed and I will show you.”

The veteran soldier did an about-face and stepped from the door, letting the blanket fall back into place.

Minutes later, Anisimova, Yeshenko, Petroske, and Ohmsky, along with a few curious soldiers, stood outside the rear double doors of the laboratory. They saw Andropov standing next to the stack of boxes. He held the lid of one box in his hand; the lids of other boxes were on the concrete floor, propped against the stack.

Everybody could see the erect and gloved middle finger that Stone had rigged to pop out of the box.

Yeshenko, after a minute of surveying the room, turned to the jungle surrounding the building. His piercing gray eyes scrutinized the ground around the building. Finally, he spotted a trail of disturbed vegetation. He followed the trail around the corner of the building, with the others following. Yeshenko walked until he came to a patch of bare ground. He squatted and examined boot prints in the wet earth.

“These prints are deep, indicating heavy loads,” Yeshenko observed. He spat out orders without looking up from the boot print. “Ohmsky, go to communications. Contact the patrol. Tell them to listen for boat engine noises. Now that Havok has the sarin and more than likely the professor, his team will try to escape with both, if they have not done so already.”

“Yes, sir,” Ohmsky replied.

Before Ohmsky left, Anisimova sputtered out his own orders: “Yeshenko, get everybody out searching, including those useless airmen. If they can’t guard one female, then they can get off their backsides and earn their food.”

For once, Yeshenko had to agree with Anisimova. He turned his gaze from the boot print to Ohmsky. “Everybody!”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant repeated, and with a hurried salute, he turned toward the camp. The soldiers that had shadowed the group followed Ohmsky back to the center of camp.

Yeshenko continued his search of the area, with Anisimova and Petroske doing the same. After a few minutes, Yeshenko spotted something that made his heart wrench with pain: a cluster of black flies. He squatted and waved the buzzing insects away. What the flies left behind was a huge glob of dried blood that glued a clump of leaves together. He stared at the morbid remains of a missing soldier. After a minute of silence, he heard more buzzing off to his right. Enraged, Yeshenko stood, clenched his fists, and followed his ears to the buzzing. Several yards away, he found another cluster of flies gorging themselves on a meal of thick, dried carnage. He also noted a different type and size of footprint.

Yeshenko stepped to the others, who waited for his assessment.

“What’s wrong?” Anisimova asked.

“I found what happened to my missing men,” Yeshenko said through compressed lips. “Those two men have been with me for years. Their killers will pay.”

Petroske spotted the blood as well and knew what it meant, but he could not understand why Yeshenko was so upset. The love that Yeshenko had for his men was useless. After all, these men were soldiers and volunteers. No one should shed a tear for them.

“The men were killed separately,” Yeshenko said. “And their bodies were carried in different directions. I believe the stories the men have been saying about being watched are true. There is somebody else on this island besides us and our friends from Subic.”

***

While Yeshenko was contemplating the events that had occurred over the last few hours and the implications of this new information, his junior officer, Lieutenant Varonov, was leading a patrol to the north of the island. Though he was Yeshenko’s aide-de-camp, Varonov was bored with camp life and administrative duties, so he’d put himself on the patrol rotation to break up the routine. He never faltered in his duties to Yeshenko, though.

Varonov, having just received a phone call about the missing sarin and professor, looked to his right and left, and saw armed Russians waiting to follow his lead. He regarded, through the tangled jungle, the slight tinge of bluish gray highlighting the eastern horizon and the blue sea under it. As he stepped slowly forward, he turned his head to the foliage to his left and immediately brought his AK-47 up over his head while squatting. His quick movement signaled the five men to do the same. He lowered his weapon and pointed its muzzle directly in front of him. In the growing light, Varonov and his men could discern camouflage netting and the vague structure that the netting covered.

Hot coffee, Varonov thought. As he sniffed the smell of boiling coffee in the early-morning air, he could also hear low voices coming out from under the netting. He thought back, remembering the last time a patrol had been ordered to scout this area. That was three days ago, just when Kang arrived on the island along with his up-to-date radar on his yacht. These Americans ae sneaky bastards, Varonov thought as he contemplated his next move. He recalled Kang’s words from their meeting the other night. “These Americans are well-trained and experienced operatives, and not to be trifled with.”

Varonov, wondering why the Americans had not yet departed the island, looked down at his AK-47. All of his men were similarly armed. They squatted with their weapons at the ready, waiting for his orders. The message he had received from base camp was that the sarin canisters were missing, along with the professor, which more than likely meant both were aboard the boat. A plan formulated in his mind.

Varonov held out two fingers at the two men closest to the inland end of the cove. Using his V-shaped fingers, he pointed those two fingers to his own eyes, then to them, indicating for them to make their way to the other side of the cove and guard that side of the boat. He mouthed the words five minutes, then twisted slightly and looked back at the other three men. He held out his rifle, directing them to cover this side of the boat. Once Varonov was confident his men understood their silent orders, he nodded to them. The patrol moved out as ordered.

Under Varonov’s watchful eyes, the patrol slipped noiselessly into the trees surrounding the Outfit only yards away. He gave the two men who were making their way around the other side of the boat and cove five minutes to get in position. Then he pointed his index finger at the men with him and then at the end of the netting facing the opening of the cove, indicating for them to shoot at the stern of the vessel. He assumed that the sarin was on the boat, perhaps in the forward compartments, and shooting at the boat was a dangerous move for them all, but he had to disable it somehow.

Voronov rose slowly and shouldered his assault rifle. Taking aim at the rear of the netting, he let loose a short burst. The men with him followed suit, firing a short burst each, and everybody could hear the slugs thud into the dense tropical-hardwood hull planking.

A brilliant explosion flashed in their faces and surprised them. Burning bits of both the boat and the net arched from the explosion into the tree branches above the cove before drifting down to land on the remaining section of netting and the water. Within thirty seconds, the entire aft section of the boat was aflame. As the Russians watched the blaze consume the boat, they heard an inhuman scream escape the howling inferno and billowing smoke. They could also see a dancing shadow through the netting. Mercifully, the scream lasted only a few seconds.

Soon after the scream died away, a wreath of blinding, acrid smoke enveloped the Russians. The net was made of nylon, and as it melted, an oily cloud of black smoke filled the small cove. With no wind passing through the enclosure, the blinding fog had nowhere to go. It cut visibility to less than a foot.

Suddenly a deafening barrage of gunfire exploded from the boat, along with the high-pitched hissing of air. Voronov threw himself to the ground just as he heard an AK-47 return fire. A sapling two feet away from him shattered as bullets slapped into its narrow trunk. Smoke-induced tears streamed down his blackened cheeks, and the smoke burned the lining of his throat. Other assault rifles joined the firefight, and the entire cove was nothing more than a stirred-up beehive with bullets flying all over the place.

However, just as suddenly as the gunfire from the boat had erupted, it stopped, but his men kept firing. At first, he thought the Americans were firing, but it didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize that it was not ammunition being fired, but ammunition exploding in the inferno.

Fearing friendly casualties, Varonov yelled out into the blinding smoke, “Cease fire! Cease fire!”

The Russian weapons became silent, but the flames that were actively consuming the Outfit filled the silence, along with the hissing of compressed air from the scuba tanks. For long minutes, six throats coughed painfully. Twelve eyes cried and strained to look through the results of their work. However, all Varonov and his men saw was a grayish void.

While they searched the thick smoke, Varonov heard the ringtone of his cell phone. He answered the call.

***

An hour later, Varonov stood at attention in front of Yeshenko. He avoided looking into Yeshenko’s eyes.

Standing at the edge of the cove, away from the rest of the men, Yeshenko reprimanded Varonov. “All you had to do was wait! Could you not have waited? You are not a simple conscript. I thought you knew better.”

“Sorry, sir,” Varonov said sincerely. “I just wanted to find a way to disable the boat and prevent their escape. I did not plan on the fire.”

He had been with Yeshenko for years and had never let his commander down before. They were like father and son, and the fact that Varonov had disappointed the colonel was more painful than any amount of punishment he could receive.

Yeshenko did not respond to the apology. Instead, he looked over at the edge of the cove. Now that the smoke had cleared, he could see nothing but the burned-out hulk of the American’s boat. Charred wooden frames, the tops of two engines, and other boat paraphernalia, including the scuba tanks, poked above the soot-covered water. Yeshenko knew it had just been a simple mistake, but Varonov’s actions may have ruined their only chance to retrieve the sarin and capture the men who took it. Yeshenko had to do something to maintain discipline. The Americans had arrived at the island without being found out, two of his men were dead, and both the professor and the sarin were missing, all due to a lack of discipline and alertness.

“Lieutenant Varonov,” Yeshenko said after a sigh. “Get men to search the boat for bodies and containers of sarin. I want to make sure both the sarin and the Americans are accounted for, even if the sarin canisters exploded under the fire.”

Varonov stood straighter. “Very well, sir.”

Varonov turned to two soldiers who stood near him. He gave them both a nod, and each man handed his weapon to another nearby soldier before starting to unbutton his blouse.

Yeshenko returned his attention to the boat in the cove. The once-pristine cove was now a burnt and ravaged hell. The air smelled of thick, acrid smoke. Tree leaves had been turned brown, and the cool, clear water of the cove was black with floating oil and soot. Yeshenko watched as two of his men, stripped to their trousers, took turns diving amid the wreckage. One man remained on the surface to catch his breath and clear his eyes and nostrils of fuel and oil, while the other man pulled himself through the wreck, feeling for bodies and sarin canisters. Although what was left of the main deck was only two feet underwater, visibility was next to nonexistent. Long minutes ticked by before they found what they were looking for.

Yeshenko saw one diver stop, his chin just above the filthy surface of the water, as he grabbed at something unseen under the surface. To the horror of most everybody watching from the embankment, a black torso with ragged strips of pale red flesh hanging from its bones suddenly bobbed up. The diver who had dislodged the corpse reeled back as the ruptured skull and long, grinning teeth shocked him.

Yeshenko had spent a career fighting in wars from Syria to Venezuela and had witnessed his share of bodies in burned-out vehicles and houses. The diver who backed away from the grinning corpse evidently hadn’t seen death like Yeshenko had. He joined the other diver, who was clinging on to a tree root that poked out of the rocks at the edge of the cove.

Standing at the cove’s edge, Yeshenko looked at the blackened corpse as it bobbed gently in the water, black flies smothering the burnt flesh. After a few seconds, he turned his attention to the two men. “Could you recognize it? Was it the professor?”

The diver coughed and spat out black phlegm before answering. “It was very hard to recognize sir, but it was about the same size. I think so.”

Yeshenko wasn’t ready to gamble on an assumption. “Varonov,” he said, still looking at the body, “have the men search the surrounding forest and the beaches.”

“Yes, sir,” Varonov replied, having anticipated his superior’s order. “The men have already started.”