Kiev—six hours later
Getting to the border was easy, even though none of them trusted the directions the butcher’s brother had laid out. Dan found a road, and a bribe to the Ukrainian guard saved them the trouble of shooting the poor bastard. Once across, they changed the plates so the vehicles looked like government trucks, and they were left alone.
The “brother” did look an awful lot like Olak Urum, Tolevi thought. But in reality he was a colonel in the Ukrainian intelligence service, which had concocted an elaborate plot to get the butcher killed in revenge for the many deaths he’d caused. Ironically, just like the butcher, he had started his career in the Soviet KGB.
Takes one to know one.
Now the butcher was coming back to the U.S. anyway, where he’d detail Russia’s lies for the world.
They drove for several hours before reaching Kiev and the airport. The plane was waiting in the commercial area. The guards there—all CIA—whisked them to the tarmac. Neither the butcher nor his brother, both sleeping with the aid of a heavy dose of propofol, objected at all.
They left the Ukrainian in the back of the van. The butcher was carried onto the plane in a stretcher. It was a 737 registered to a South African airline—according to the papers, at least.
“We got everybody?” asked White as the last para boarded.
Asshole CIA officers, thought Tolevi. Can’t even friggin’ count. But they always got to be in charge.
Screw him.
A million bucks.
I think Johansen owes me a bonus on this one. Call it entertainment tax.
How much would one of these planes cost?
Chelsea stood next to Bozzone as he was helped into his seat. He’d taken two slugs, one in the arm and one at the side of his chest, deflected by the ceramic plate in his bulletproof vest. Both he and Porter had been treated by one of the paras; both were going to be fine.
“More than you bargained for, huh?” Bozzone said as he sat down.
“What do you mean?”
“Guns. You didn’t expect that, right?”
“No. Not at all.”
“They said it would be dangerous. Were you scared?”
She had been scared. Yes.
But . . .
“I was scared,” she admitted. “But we made it.”
“We did.”
The plane began to taxi.
“I’m ready to go home,” she confessed.
“Me, too,” said Bozzone. “But it’s going to be dull after this. Real dull.”
“Somehow I don’t think so. But I won’t mind if it is.”