Lory choked on whatever he was drinking when she told him about Hycha. “I’ll have the Ukrainians detain him for questioning. Maybe they can break him and get us something actionable.”
“Do you know where the signing is taking place?”
“In the old town hall at the end of Dluga Street. It’s a popular tourist area.”
She repeated the information for the captain and Davis, who pulled up a picture on his tablet and turned it so she could see. A wide stone street lined with tightly packed two-story houses ended at a large brick building with a clock tower topped by a belfry. All along the street were signs for shops and outdoor eateries, and the picture showed people, lots of people, strolling.
“A direct hit will annihilate that building.”
“That’s why you’re going to find the weapon and destroy it. You have fourteen hours, Jordan.”
No pressure there.
“I appreciate your vote of confidence, sir, but I need you to do something for me. I need you to bring Kia Zhen to Gdánsk.”
The silence that followed was so complete, Jordan thought for a moment the call had dropped. Then Lory’s voice erupted in her ear. “Why in hell would I do that?”
“In case we don’t find the gun. He’s met the Russians. He can identify them. Consider him our plan B.”
Adamski and Davis were leaning against the fender of the Land Rover when she hung up the phone. The captain’s team was headed to the train station in Elblag.
“How much have you told them?” Jordan asked.
“Only that we’re helping the Americans look for some Russians who are wanted for murdering one of their agents. I’m hoping they’ll have some answers for us by the time we get to Elblag.”
“How far away is it?”
“Seven and one-half hours by car. It won’t take us that long.”
A Special Forces’ tactical transport helicopter picked them up in Rzeszow, and the flight took just over two hours. It reminded Jordan of her old training missions, only this was for real, with real lives at stake. Their flight path crossed acre after acre of wooded land broken by small villages. Darker areas dotted the ground, most likely lakes. Unfortunately, there was plenty of wooded territory to hide in.
The GROM team radioed from Elblag. They’d interviewed the ground crew and let them go home. According to the crew, the long car had passed through the station. It showed on paper but couldn’t be confirmed by camera feeds.
Adamski sent them on to Gdánsk to check on the train and told them to wait there for further instructions.
On the ground in Elblag, Jordan and Davis walked across to the train station while Adamski refueled the chopper at the helipad. Jordan found it hard to believe that there were no visuals of the trains passing through. Nearing the building, she spotted two cameras up in the eaves.
“Check it out,” she said to Davis. “Why would the yardmen lie to GROM?”
“Maybe they didn’t. Maybe the cameras aren’t hooked up. Or it could be the system’s down.” He rattled the door, but it was locked up tight.
Jordan peered through the windows. The station was empty and locked for the night.
Davis rattled the door again. “What now? Do we call in the train crew?”
“And have them tell us the same thing they told Adamski’s team? I’d rather see for myself.”
“You’re not going to break in, are you?” When she pulled out the lock pick she kept tucked in her holster, he stepped back from the door. “Of course you are. Do we know what the punishment is for breaking and entering in Poland?”
She worked the pick in the door until she felt the latch give. “What are you talking about, Davis?” she said, turning the handle. “The door was unlocked.”
It didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for. The security camera feed was on the second shelf of the bookcase. Jordan rewound the tape and played it forward. The image was blurred, like the tape was old and had been recorded over a number of times, and the angle made it next to impossible to get a clear enough look at the train to tell anything about the length of the cars. Still something was off.
Jordan ran the tape again. “How many cars were on the train that left the station in Rzeszow?”
“Where would that be listed?”
“It’s on the top of the operations paperwork.”
Davis rifled through the papers stacked on the trainmaster’s desk and pulled out a sheet. “It says here the engine was hauling twenty-four cars.”
“Which is the number of cars I count on this tape.” Jordan stuck her hand in her back pants pocket and pulled out the sheet the yardmaster in Rzeszow had copied for her. Flattening it on the desk, she found the notation she was looking for and stabbed at it with her finger. “Right here it indicates the train left Rzeszow with twenty-five cars. The long car never made it this far.”
Back aboard the helicopter, the radio crackled. Adamski picked up the mic. A deep voice came over the static. “We checked the camera feeds in Gdánsk. The long car wasn’t part of the train when it pulled in.”
More confirmation that it hadn’t passed through Elblag. Jordan signaled for Davis to hand her the tablet. “Soldier, do you know what time the sun sets?”
“Around nine fifteen PM,” the voice came back.
Jordan pulled up the last satellite images of the area. “These would be the last pictures taken. They would have been shot around eight ten PM.”
She scanned the thumbnails with Davis looking over her shoulder.
There was the train!
Tapping the tablet screen, she enlarged the picture. The shadows had been long, but the train slithered along the track, a white snake in a sea of green trees. Near the middle, the long car was clearly visible.
“I found it,” Jordan said. “Where was this picture taken?”
Davis tapped the coordinates from the picture into the GPS app on his phone. “Just coming into Ostroda.”
“That’s south of here,” the captain said.
She skimmed through the rest of the images just to be sure. “The satellite moved out of range before the train left Ostroda. We have no way of knowing if the car was cut from service, switched to another track, or headed on toward Elblag.”
The captain’s face tightened.
“What?” she asked.
“There are some heavily wooded areas near there. If they jumped the train car near Ostroda and went into the trees, we may not be able to find them.”
“Except they couldn’t stay there,” Jordan countered. “Even if this is where they jumped off, it’s too far south. It’s at the edges of the gun’s firing limit. In order to hit their target, the Russians would have to move north.”
“Unless they headed northeast for the border,” Davis said. Jordan looked over at him, and he shrugged. “I’m just saying you have to consider the possibility they’re headed for Kaliningrad.”
Jordan shook her head. “I don’t buy it. There are easier ways to transport a weapon to the Russian enclave. But that’s not the point. The point is, we know they left the train somewhere between Ostroda and Elblag.”
“That’s a lot of ground to cover,” the captain said.
“The train car has to be on the tracks somewhere. Let’s find it first and go from there.”
While the captain readied for takeoff, he pointed to a cargo box near Davis. “Take out two Kevlar vests and put them on.”
Davis dug into the box, producing one vest that fit him and one that came close to fitting Jordan. She strapped it as tightly as she could, overlapping the sides under her arms.
“That’s still a lot of spurs and sidelines to cover,” he said through the mic. “This is farming country. Many of the towns have silos with train car access.” He pointed to a duffle lying near Davis’s feet. “There are some night vision goggles in there. The two of you should put them on.”
He flew south along the tracks, skimming close to the trees, while she and Davis searched the ground. Even with the night vision goggles, it was difficult to see.
“What about thermal imaging?”
He pointed to a screen mounted near the control panel. “There have been some hot spots, but they could be houses just as easily as anything else. I haven’t seen any unusual activity.”
From Ostroda, they flew west to east over heavily wooded areas that provided ample cover. Jordan stowed her night vision goggles and watched the thermal imaging screen.
They searched for over an hour and came up with nothing.
“I need to refuel again soon,” Adamski said, turning back after their last pass. “Once dawn breaks, we can take a small railcar and drive along the tracks. If they’re under cover of the trees, that’s the best way to find a sidelined train car. We’ll have better luck in the daylight.”
Jordan hated the idea of turning back, but she agreed with Adamski. They were getting nowhere like this.
“Have your men talked to the train’s driver?” she asked. “He should be able to tell us where a car was removed from the train.”
“Unless it happened at a stop where cars were to be added or removed. In that case, he might not have realized anything was out of the ordinary.” Adamski radioed his team. The news that came back wasn’t good. They had detained the driver in Gdánsk, but he’d come on in Elblag.
Jordan thought it a little too coincidental. “Is that a normal place to exchange drivers?”
She could hear the soldier asking the questions, the driver’s muffled response, and then the soldier’s voice came on again. “He says no, but sometimes it happens. In this case, it was prearranged.”
“Why didn’t the crew in Elblag say anything about it?” Jordan said.
“The change had to be done. The original driver had outlawed, meaning he’d been driving too long without any sleep. When we go back to pick up the handcar, we will question them again.”
“If they’re even around.” Jordan figured they were long gone by now.