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Near Gelendzhik, Russia
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“Lia is safe?” There was a note of cautious optimism in Petrov’s tone. “She got away?”
From the opposing cell, Leopov answered. “Thanks to your warning.”
“Thank God for that,” the Russian said, leaning heavily against the chain link wall. “At least I will not have that on my conscience.” He sighed, then looked at Maddock again. “You are Americans.”
Since there was no hiding it, Maddock nodded. “I’m...” He hesitated, wondering whether to use his alias. Since Telesh already knew their real names, there didn’t seem to be much point. “Dane Maddock. She’s Zara Leopov.”
Petrov peered through the mesh, squinting to make out Leopov. “You are Russian?”
“Born here, but raised in America.”
“Ah. That would explain why you are not Leopova.”
Maddock gave her a quizzical glance.
“In Russia, the female surname is always feminized,” she explained. “My father was Leopov, so my last name should be Leopova.” She shrugged. “There was a mix-up when I started the naturalization process. Long story, and now’s probably not the time for it.”
“Agreed.” Maddock said. “Right now, I think we should focus on getting out of here. My back molars are floating.”
Petrov returned a blank look.
“He means he has to pee,” explained Leopov. “I do too. I don’t suppose Telesh lets you out for bathroom breaks.”
Judging by the smell, Maddock already knew the answer to that question, but Petrov confirmed it. “No. I thought he would, but...” He shook his head. “Whatever you do, don’t go on the straw. You’ll need it to keep warm. I learned that lesson the hard way.”
“That’s not going to be a problem,” Maddock said. “We’re not staying.”
“I do not understand,” Petrov said. “You are prisoner here, just like me.” He paused a beat, then his eyes lit up. “You know how to escape? You must take me with you.”
Maddock exchanged a quick glance with Leopov, a look that said, Can we trust this guy? Her ambivalent shrug indicated that she both understood the unspoken message, and shared his concerns, but that was something they could figure out later.
“This cage was designed to keep dogs, not people,” he said, kneeling down to inspect one section of sagging chain link. He wiggled it back and forth experimentally. There was about an inch of free play. “We’ve got something dogs don’t have.”
“Our intellect?” Petrov suggested.
Maddock chuckled. “The jury’s still out on that, but I was talking about opposable thumbs. And one other thing.” He stripped off his belt and held it up. “Tools.”
“You have a lockpick in a secret compartment?”
“Uh, not exactly. That would come in handy though.” He knelt down and threaded the inch-and-a-half thick leather strap through the chain-link at the bottom of the gate, and then brought it back through, securing the loop with the buckle. He then stood and, gripping the end of the belt with both hands, gave it a hard yank.
The sagging mesh came up several inches, the deformity expanding across the neat diamond-weave pattern. The gate remained intact but without its early perfect symmetry—more like a tangle of wire than a net now—and at the bottom, the gap had grown by several inches.
Maddock waited a moment, looking and listening to see if one of Telesh’s men would appear to investigate the disturbance, and then yanked on the belt again, and this time succeeded in widening the gap enough to fit through.
He immediately dropped flat and squirmed through the opening. The chain-link raked his shirtless back but he kept going until he was on the other side. He immediately bounded to his feet, gripping the belt between his hands like a garotte, and started down the aisle toward where Telesh and the others had exited. As he passed her, Leopov whispered, “Hurry back.”
He didn’t stop.
Passing a few more empty stalls, he came to a simple wooden door with peeling paint. There was no doorknob, but through the crack between the door and jamb, he could see that it was held shut by a thin metal bar—probably a simple cabin hook latch. He inserted the end of his belt into the narrow gap and slid it up. With hardly any resistance, the latch popped out of the eye bolt, and the door practically fell open. Maddock waited a beat then edged through the doorway.
Beyond was a large dimly lit garage, that looked like it might have been a repurposed barn. There were no cars, but four Suzuki LT500R “Quadzilla” all-terrain vehicles stood lined up against one wall. Work tables sat against the opposite wall, along with shelves full of sundry tools, mechanical parts, and cartons of oil.
A quick search of the shelves yielded a wire cutter, which Maddock slipped into his pocket, and a tire iron, which he decided would make a better weapon than his belt, should the need arise. Even better, he found an old cloth jacket hanging on a nail. He pulled it on. It was a little tight around the biceps and across the shoulders, oil-stained and decidedly musky, but better than being shirtless.
Hefting the tire iron, he continued down the length of the garage to the far end which was closed off with a set of carriage style doors. A regular door was set against an adjacent wall and Maddock tried it first. It wasn’t an exit, but something even better—a bathroom. The sink basin was streaked with an oily residue, and Maddock didn’t even want to think about the stains in the bowl of the commode—he just knew this was an opportunity he couldn’t afford to pass up.
After relieving himself, he returned to the carriage doors and eased them open a few inches. Night had fallen over the world, but across the darkened driveway stood an enormous, if somewhat rustic, two-story house, with light shining out through several windows. He studied the house’s exterior for several minutes, watching to see if there were roaming sentries or motionless lookouts posted on the porch, but aside from an occasional roar of laughter from the house, all was still and quiet.
He pulled the door closed again and headed back to the kennel. As he cut through the links of Leopov’s cell, he gave her a hasty report on what he had observed and outlined his plan.
“I think we can roll a couple of those quad-bikes outside, get them a ways from the house before we fire them up. You know how to ride one?”
She nodded.
“We can disable the ones we leave behind,” he continued. “That should give us a good head start.”
“Too bad we don’t know which way to go,” Leopov remarked. “You say there are no guards at all?”
“Nope. Either he seriously underestimated us, or...” He gave a slight nod in Petrov’s direction.
Leopov nodded. “That is my concern as well. Still, it’s not like we have much of a choice.”
As if waiting for his cue, Petrov let out a low wail. “You’re taking me with you, right?”
Maddock gave the Russian a hard stare. “It’s not going to be easy. And when Telesh figures out we’ve escaped, he’s probably not going to bother trying to take us alive.”
Petrov went pale, but nodded. “I don’t care. I can’t spend another night in here.”
“All right. You’ve been warned.” Maddock moved down to Petrov’s stall and clipped through the mesh. “The only way this is going to work is if you keep your trap shut. Do what we say, when we say. No questions. No hesitation. Got it?”
Petrov nodded.
“Okay, next question. Can you drive a quad bike?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I rode motorcycles when I was younger.”
Maddock considered this for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t think we can chance it. You’ll ride with me.” He wrinkled his nose. “But first, I think you need to make a pit stop.”
Working as stealthily as they could, Maddock and Leopov rolled one of the ATVs out of the garage and down the tree-lined dirt driveway until they rounded a bend that hid the house from view. Maddock instructed Petrov to wait there with Leopov, and then headed back for a second vehicle. The house had grown quiet, and some of the upstairs windows were dark, but the downstairs lights continued to blaze. Maddock quickened his pace. If Telesh decided to send one of his goons in to check the status of the prisoners, then their escape attempt would be stillborn. They had been lucky so far, but luck was capricious.
Unless it isn’t really luck, he thought.
Luck or not, he made it back to the garage without attracting any attention. He lingered there just long enough to yank the spark plugs from all but one of the remaining ATVs, after which he rolled the still functional quad bike through the carriage doors and started down the primitive driveway.
He was fifty yards from the garage, nearly to the bend, when an angry voice called out from behind him. He couldn’t make out what was said, probably because it was spoken in Russian, but he didn’t need a translator to know that their luck—if it was luck—had just taken a turn for the worse.
He risked a glance back and saw dark windows lighting up as the call roused the inhabitants of the house. A door opened, spilling light and shadows onto the drive as men raced out onto the porch.
Maddock pushed the quad faster until he was nearly running, then hopped onto it, swinging his leg over the saddle seat. Quickly, so as not to lose the momentum he had built up, he squeezed the clutch lever, tapped the differential into first gear, and then popped the clutch and twisted the throttle.
The Suzuki shuddered and almost stopped dead, but then the 500 cubic centimeter two-stroke engine caught and roared to life, shooting forward like a rocket off the launch pad. As it did, the road ahead lit up in the glow of an aftermarket headlight attached just forward of the steering column. Maddock considered trying to find a switch to turn off the lights, but decided that being able to see the road ahead was worth the risk of being visible from a distance in the night. He ran out first gear, shifted, and then he was at the bend. He skidded around the turn and almost ran into Petrov.
He squeezed the clutch and front brake levers simultaneously, and shouted. “Time to go, Zara! Petrov...” In the moment, he couldn’t remember the man’s first name. “Climb on or get left behind.”
As the Russian historian clumsily mounted behind Maddock, Leopov stood on the kickstarter of her own quad, and a moment later, a second strident chainsaw buzz filled the air.
“Better hang on!” Maddock shouted. As Petrov’s arms encircled his waist, Maddock eased off the clutch and the little quad bike lurched into motion.
A noise like a backfire sounded over the dual engine roar, then another and another—not explosions of uncombusted gas in the exhaust system, but pistol reports. Petrov’s already frantic embrace tightened.
“Keep low!” Maddock shouted, as much for Leopov’s benefit as Petrov’s.
Accompanied by a near constant torrent of gunfire, the two ATVs shot down a more or less straight stretch of the drive, but after just a few seconds, and no more than a tenth of a mile, a hairpin turn put a crimp in their escape plan. Still getting a feel for the machine, Maddock geared down and crawled through the bend. As he made the about face, and just before he poured on the throttle, he glanced back down the way they’d just come, and saw headlights coming around the first bend—not a quad bike, but something bigger, probably the van that had brought them to the remote dacha.
Crap, he thought. He had been hoping for a cleaner getaway than this.
Leopov shot ahead of him, her headlights illuminating a long straight stretch, rising across the flanks of a forested hillside—a switchback.
He twisted the throttle, ran out second gear, shifted to third. The headlights were lost from view, hidden behind the trees, but the noise of gunfire continued for a few seconds more. Maddock couldn’t tell where the shots were going, but it seemed unlikely that any of them were meant to find an actual living target. Telesh’s men had to realize the futility of shooting blind, but that did not seem to lessen their enthusiasm for it.
Another horseshoe bend loomed ahead, forcing him to slow, but not quite as much as before. The big tires squealed a little as the machine started to drift, but maintained contact throughout the turn. Once around the bend, the road began a sweeping left curve and then headed straight up the steep grade. Unburdened by a passenger, Leopov raced ahead, while Maddock had to gear down to avoid stalling. As a result, he was only about halfway up the climb when Leopov’s machine crested the rise and abruptly went dark as her machine dropped out of view.
“They’re behind us!” Petrov yelled.
Maddock risked a glance back just as a pair of headlights emerged from around the bend, maybe two hundred yards behind them.
Cursing under his breath, he ran the throttle to its stops, pouring two-cycle fuel-oil mix into the carburetor. Despite the wind of their forward motion, the smell of hot oil rose up around him as the engine temperature spiked. And then, as if he didn’t have enough to worry about, the shooting resumed.
“Come on,” he growled. “Move it!”
As if in response to his supplication, the Fates decided to show pity. The ascent flattened out a little, which gave the reluctant machine a chance to regain some of its momentum. Maddock quickly upshifted. He could almost feel the quad breathing a sigh of relief as he let off the throttle before releasing the clutch. With considerably less effort the four-wheeler shot forward, devouring the last bit of road leading up to the summit
Maddock’s exuberance at finally catching a break was short lived. In the instant that the bike surged over the crest, he realized two things. The slope on the other side was much steeper—the red taillight of Leopov’s quad was still visible, which meant she was probably only about a hundred yards or so ahead of him, but he judged it to be a good fifty vertical feet below him. That wouldn’t have been a problem except for the second thing—he was going way too fast.
The engine roared again as the quad’s compact tires lost contact with the road surface. Maddock felt his stomach drop as the machine took flight, soaring out into the air. He had only a fraction of a second to process what was happening and devise a strategy for maintaining control, and in that brief interval he saw everything around him with astonishing clarity. Illumed in the circle of light from the headlamp, the sloped road surface slid past beneath the front wheels, falling away almost but not quite as quickly as the vehicle itself. The wheels had been straight at the moment of liftoff, and the bike was keeping a true course—that was one point in their favor. With the added burden of a passenger, the nose of the quad was starting to rise—not necessarily a bad thing under the circumstances, but if it came up too high before the back wheels set down, the little machine would rebound and go tumbling end over end, pitching him and Petrov headlong.
His brain quickly shuffled through the list of riding techniques he had picked up over the years. Even if he stuck the landing, the impact would be rough. He had to compensate for the jolt, but how?
The answer was not only obvious, but instinctive, a trick he had picked up as a kid, jumping his Huffy off ramps cobbled together from fruit crates and 2X6 planks. He squeezed the clutch and put the gear selector in neutral, then tried to stand up on the pegs, both to correct the pitch and use his slightly bent knees to absorb some of the shock of the landing.
There was immediate resistance. Something... no, someone was holding him fast; Petrov’s arms were wrapped around him like a seat belt.
There was no time to explain what he was trying to do, what he needed Petrov to do in order to save their lives. His only chance was a pure, brute force solution. He redoubled his efforts, straining to lift Petrov off the saddle like a powerlifter executing a back squat. The Russian, who had nothing to hold onto except Maddock’s waist, clutched even tighter as Maddock lifted him off the seat, and then....
There was a faint screech as the rear tires met the road, and then a crunch as the front tires came down. The weight on Maddock’s back seemed to multiply by a factor of ten, overwhelming him, slamming him back into the seat, even as the quad bounced back into the air. He held on for dear life, trying to lift himself up again, but there was no time. The ATV came down a second time, bounced a little more and then, miraculously, stayed on the road, coasting down the steep hill.
Maddock’s knees were throbbing and he felt like a billy goat had just head-butted his ass, but despite the discomfort, he allowed himself a whoop of joy. But as the exhilaration of the jump faded, he risked a glance back and saw the rising glow of automobile headlights shining up from beyond the crest of the hill.
He clutched, shifted into third gear. The quad jerked a little as the engine compression fought to catch up with the machine’s momentum—a problem easily corrected with a twist of the throttle—and then they were charging down the hill.
Further down the road, Leopov’s taillight winked out as she rounded a bend. Maddock followed her into a series of serpentine turns that swerved back and forth across the downslope. The air, which had chilled noticeably during the initial ascent, grew warmer again as the dirt track led down into a sheltered valley. Up ahead, Leopov’s red light grew brighter as the distance between them shrank.
She’s stopped, he thought, and then saw why. Leopov had arrived at a Y-junction. Both paths continued the descent but without knowing more about where they were, it was impossible to say which was the quickest route to freedom.
It was a coin-flip.
But then a third option occurred to him. As he rolled up beside Leopov’s idling machine, he pointed into the woods off to the left. “Pull into the trees and shut down!” he shouted.
To her credit, Leopov didn’t question or challenge the seemingly unorthodox decision, but quickly wheeled in the indicated direction and drove into the treeline, with Maddock right behind her. The ground beyond the graded dirt track was irregular in the extreme, crossed with half-exposed tree roots, but the quads were called all-terrain vehicles for a reason. Leopov drove about fifty feet into the woods, then stopped and shut off her engine, instantly reducing the light level by fifty percent. Maddock pointed his quad in her direction, then shut it down, coasting the last few yards in total darkness.
In the sudden quiet, they could hear the noise of a vehicle roaring down the hill somewhere behind them. A yellow glow briefly suffused the forest as the van rounded the last bend, and then dimmed as it passed by. Maddock held his breath as the vehicle reached the fork and paused there, its occupants evidently pondering which direction to go. Faint shouts were audible over the din. Had they seen through the ruse?
The van’s engine revved, the glow brightening as it turned toward them...
And then it passed by again, diminishing into the distance as the vehicle continued down the left-hand path.
Maddock let out his breath in a sigh of relief. “They bought it.”
“Yes, they did,” Leopov remarked. “Unfortunately, I think maybe they chose that direction because it’s the road that leads to Gelendzhik.”
Maddock grinned into the darkness. “I hope they did. Now we know which way to go.”
“I do not understand,” interjected Petrov. “They will be watching the town and all the roads leading into it. We will not be hard to spot, especially riding on these machines.”
“You’re right,” agreed Maddock. “That’s why we’re going to walk.”
“Walk?” Petrov squealed, plaintively.
“We’ll stay on the road when we can,” Maddock went on, “and duck back into the woods if we see someone coming.” He glanced over at Leopov. “You said we’re near the border with Georgia?”
“Yes. Maybe a hundred miles or so. But if we can get to Sochi, there are ferries that can take us across the Black Sea to Turkey. That’s a lot closer. We should be able to borrow a car once we get to Gelendzhik.”
“It must be many kilometers,” Petrov protested. “We’ll freeze.”
“As long as we keep moving, you’ll stay plenty warm.”
“You are Russian, are you not?” Leopov cajoled. “What is a little cold. Or would you rather sleep in a dog’s bed? In your own filth?”
“Fine,” Petrov sighed in resignation. “I just hope it is not far.”