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Kornev rolled the refrigerator away from the wall and lifted a trapdoor. He descended into a special tunnel that didn’t connect with the other tunnels running beneath his home.
Not bothering to turn on the tunnel’s light, he used the flashlight on his cell phone to find his way. Located on a dirt shelf dug into the side of the tunnel was a go-bag. He grabbed the small backpack and continued walking through the corridor. This tunnel was longer than the others. Its passageway led under the street in front of his home and surfaced under yet another of his vacant homes. An alley separated the garage from the main house. The remote residence was located one full block away from the garages that attached to all his other tunnels.
Kornev surfaced via a stairway inside the garage. Parked inside was an ancient Moskvitch 412, covered in dust. It looked just as ugly as a cheap 1970s Russian-made car could look. The car wasn’t blue, yet it was not green either. Whatever color it had once been had faded over time into a razor-thin pigment that covered an equally thin layer of gray primer. The car would be invisible on the streets of Termez—blending in with the mishmash of vehicles imported from all the surrounding countries. The only detail that mattered to Kornev was that the car was in perfect working condition. He made certain all the vehicles in his fleet were well maintained. It made no sense to stash a getaway vehicle that wouldn’t start or get away.
Kornev opened the car’s creaking door and tossed his go-bag onto the passenger side of the bench seat. He walked behind the vehicle and lifted the garage door. Not expecting anyone lurking in the alley, he still gave a cursory glance prior to getting in the vehicle and starting it up.
He only had one stop to make before driving to the airport. He wanted to check on his friend, Nikita Sokolov, a doctor Kornev had served with in the military. His friend would have a fresh supply of antibiotics. In Kornev’s line of work, it always made sense to travel with a variety of lifesaving drugs. If for some reason he was injured, he might be forced to go underground and possibly long enough for a nasty infection to set in. Hence the need for the drugs.
The doctor’s home was on his way to the airport and that was a good thing because the doctor never answered his phone. He had an answering machine and used it to the exclusion of everything else. If you were someone he wanted to talk to, he would call you back at his leisure. If you weren’t, a single press of a button would erase you from the doctor’s mind.
Kornev hoped the doctor was home, but he didn’t have to hope too hard because his friend almost never left his home. It would just be his luck if this were the exception, he thought wryly,
The Russian pulled up in his friend’s driveway and got out.
He walked up to the doctor’s door and knocked. Knowing his friend was old and feeble and took his sweet time to do just about everything, Kornev waited a full minute before knocking again.
Nothing.
Kornev located the hidden key under a potted cactus on the front porch and used it to enter the home.
The first thing he noticed was not the doctor on the floor, the splash of blood on the concrete counter top, or the massive pool of blood congealed beneath and around the doctor. The first thing the Russian noticed was the smell. It was impossible to miss. The doctor had been dead for more than a week and was one level past the point of putrid. The smell was familiar to Kornev. When he and his now-dead friend had fought in the Afghanistan war, the horrendous smell of death had been common. The strange thing was you never got used to it. It was always a nauseating smell, even in tiny doses, but the smell in the doctor’s home was far from tiny. It was immense and caused Kornev to reflexively pull the collar of his shirt up to cover his nose. His mind flashed to Hail and his men doing the same when they had found him in the tunnel. Like it or not, Hail had saved his life. Would Kornev return the favor if he found Hail in need? Hell, no. He would let that pompous American rot.
Kornev wasn’t there to either discover his friend’s body or determine what had killed him. After all, dead was dead. Whether the doctor had died by accident or by someone else’s hand, nothing changed that fact. Kornev didn’t even attempt to determine what led to the doctor’s demise. Instead, he took a left turn down a narrow hallway and entered the spare bedroom that, for all practical purposes, had been converted into a pharmacy. Instead of furniture, four rows of shelves went from the floor to the ceiling. Each shelf was neatly stocked with just about every drug under the sun including antibiotics, painkillers, muscle relaxants, and antianxiety medications.
Kornev perused the aisles for antibiotics. He felt more regret for the eventual discovery and confiscation of this wonderful bountiful collection of pharmaceuticals once authorities found his friend’s body, than for the death of his friend. If he had more time, he might have considered removing the body, hence delaying the discovery of the drug stash. In addition to the drugs, Nikita had been a great asset to him. The doctor could remove a bullet and sew like a tailor, but as the man aged he became increasingly grumpy. Almost the poster child of a mean old man, Kornev found himself visiting the old coot increasingly less, not caring to hear about his ailments or what minor problem he had blown up into a major issue. Yet having a pharmacy was worth spending an hour drinking good vodka and letting Nikita spout off. If Kornev was hurt severely, he was willing to listen to the man for an hour or for however long it took Nikita to dig a bullet out of his body.
Kornev found what he was looking for and put the white bottle into his front pocket. After giving the situation another moment of consideration, he realized he would never return to his home here in Termez, Uzbekistan. Before, it had been a haven. Someplace he could hide and convalesce. Now that the CIA as well as that damned Marshall Hail knew about his safe house, Kornev realized he had used this little town to its full extent. He had other safe houses he could hole up in, and other secure locations he hadn’t shared with Hail or the CIA agent. It would take him a good chunk of time, but he would begin to reestablish more safe houses around the world. Who knows? Maybe he could also befriend another doctor.
The Russian selected a few more medications and exited the bedroom. The smell attacked him once more like a wild animal. He pulled up his shirt collar again to cover his nose. He considered saying some kind words for his dead friend but gave up, realizing he might pass out from holding his breath. He gave his old friend a military-like salute with his hand clutching a few blister packs of drugs before he left through the open front door.