AKTAU, RUSSIA
Dolov did not reappear. Instead, a short, frumpy-looking woman in her midthirties came into the room dragging Corrine’s bag. The woman said absolutely nothing, staring at Corrine as she checked her things. Apparently she was free to go.
The terminal was by then full of people. Food vendors were hawking wares from boxes and small pushcarts; she bought a bottle of mineral water and a sandwich, which she gulped down while walking back toward the Specials door. As she approached the office, a short man in a leather coat pushed away from the wall and came toward her. Corrine eyed him warily, not sure now who or what to trust.
“Ms. Alston?”
“Yes.”
“A friend sent me to get you,” said the man. “My name’s Tru. I’ve been waiting.”
He was an American, or at least his accent was; it had the brassy tone of the New York area in it.
“What friend?” she asked.
“Jack?” he said, more a question than an answer.
“What’s the weather like?” she said, starting the authentication sequence.
“Warm. Visibility at five miles.”
“And getting better?”
“Probably not.”
“That’s good enough.”
“I hope so.”
She swallowed the last of her water, then threw the bottle in a garbage can as she followed him toward a hall at the side of the airline counters. She hesitated, then tossed her bag, including her sat phone and wallet, in there as well.
Tru continued down the hallway, past a baggagescreening area to a large empty room. Various machinery sat at the far side of the room, piled and bunched up near the wall. To the left was a set of metal garage-style doors. Tru went to one, bent and opened it, waiting for her so he could close it behind them.
Corrine shivered as the outside air hit her. Tru walked to the left, steering around a large yellow tractor used to move aircraft. Jets were lined up along the rear of the terminal building, crews zipping back and forth as they were prepped and loaded. Tru’s shoulders rolled back and forth as he ducked past them; the short man strolled past the lineup of aircraft as if he were lord of the place.
Corrine followed as he turned to the left at the end of the building, walking out beyond a large Russian airliner toward a two-engine Airbus, which sat alone in the sea of concrete. The Airbus—an A310, capable of holding over two hundred passengers—had the red livery and insignia of the Turkish National Airline, THY Corrine expected to find a smaller plane beyond it, but when Tru crossed around to the left side of the aircraft she realized this was the only plane there. A rickety-looking push ramp was at the door directly behind the cockpit; two men in coveralls were standing nearby.
Her contact bounded up the steps to the open cabin door. Corrine hesitated at the bottom of the steps, then clambered up. As she reached the cabin, the men below grabbed the boarding ladder and pulled it away.
“Think you can button up?” Tru asked from the flight deck. “There’s a diagram on how to shut it.”
Corrine struggled at first, the movement slightly awkward, but once the door was moving toward the side it slapped in easily. She pushed through the curtain to her left, only to find that the rest of the airliner was completely empty.
“No movie today,” said Tru behind her. “Come sit up here with me.”
“Don’t you need a copilot or a navigator or something?”
“Nah. I know where I’m going. But I do get lonely.”
Corrine slid into the seat normally reserved for the first officer. The A310 had a glass cockpit, with the latest flight controls and data systems. While normal flight protocol would call for a two-member flight crew, an experienced pilot could fly the aircraft by himself. Tru was already talking in Russian with a member of the ground crew assigned to him, and in a few minutes the airplane’s engines spun to life. The pilot turned to her, gave her a smile, then released the brakes and began trundling down the access ramp, taking a place in the lineup to the runway.
“I don’t think we’re bugged, but you never know,” he told her. “I did do a check.”
“Thanks,” she said, as he turned the plane to the flight line.