? ? ?
The car’s motor cut out, leaving Azarov coasting down the empty road. He’d erred on the side of anonymity when he’d bought a car not much better than the ?koda he’d been forced to abandon at Tarben Chkalov’s house. Now he was paying the price. Would Maxim Krupin survive because of a clogged fuel filter? Would it be a corroded spark plug wire that precipitated a nuclear exchange and allowed Krupin to escape retribution for what he’d done to Cara?
When the engine kicked in again, it sounded a bit stronger. He pressed the accelerator and the vehicle actually managed to accelerate to sixty kilometers per hour. His phone was still receiving a strong GPS signal, displaying the position of the ambulance as it entered a local airport that would be closed at this time of morning. Azarov switched to a satellite image and watched the ambulance pass by the terminal in favor of a runway along the southern edge.
The map showed a service road that circled the airport and he turned onto it, feeling the quality of the asphalt deteriorate. That, combined with the fact that he was forced to turn off the car’s headlights and navigate by the dim glow of the terminal, caused his progress to slow significantly.
The chain-link fence encircling the airport appeared on his right, providing him a point of reference as he curved around to the back of the facility. The ambulance’s headlights finally appeared in the distance, pulling to a stop next to a military transport plane.
The wind picked up with the arrival of dawn, covering the sound of his approach to a degree, but not so much that he was comfortable getting close. The motor cut out again and he released the accelerator, allowing the vehicle to glide to a stop about two hundred meters north of the plane.
Azarov got out and climbed the dripping wire fence, running crouched through the overgrown marshland on the other side. At fifty meters, he started to enter the glow thrown by the ambulance lights and illuminated cockpit, forcing him to drop to his stomach and crawl through the brush and mud.
His wool coat kept his torso dry but his pants were soaked through immediately, conducting the cold from the ground. He could hear voices but was unable to make out individual words as two men rolled Yuri Lebedev toward the plane’s open cargo bay. Nikita Pushkin and one other man remained near their vehicle, scanning the landscape with AN-94 assault rifles slung across their chests.
Azarov rolled to cake the back of his clothing with mud and then scooped up a handful to spread over his face and hair. It would be enough to allow him to creep forward another twenty-five meters before the risk of being seen was too great. Pushkin’s gaze swept toward him and Azarov squinted to reduce the reflection off his eyes.
Unable to close further, he could do little more than watch as the two men reappeared on the already rising cargo ramp. They jumped off and jogged back to the ambulance while the propellers started to turn. Pushkin’s attention was split as he shouted orders over the whine of the plane, and Azarov used the opportunity to gain another four meters.
To what end, he wasn’t certain. Krupin wasn’t there. At best, he was waiting for the plane somewhere else in Russia. But even that was far from guaranteed.
When the aircraft started to taxi, Pushkin and his men climbed back into the ambulance. Yuri Lebedev had been kidnapped, his family terrorized, and now he’d been handed off to the Russian air force. For good reason, Pushkin considered his job done.
The vehicle pulled away as the plane lumbered onto the runway in front of Azarov. A blast of wind and the illumination washed over him for a moment and then left him in dark stillness again.
He was about to call Joe Maslick to give him a sitrep and see if there was any way to track the plane, but instead rose to his feet and chased it. His fitness was far less than it had once been, but the image of Cara lying in the hospital propelled him at a speed that would have impressed even his disapproving former trainer.
He reached the tarmac, using the hard surface to accelerate to a full sprint. The plane was still positioning itself for takeoff, traveling at a speed that allowed Azarov to close on it. He aimed for the landing gear on the right side, fighting the gale generated by the propellers and managing to grab hold of the vertical pillar supporting the wheels. The roar in his ears was deafening as he leapt onto a steel bar protruding from the back of the assembly.
He’d used the only GPS tracker he had on the ambulance, leaving him with one option. He pulled his coat off as the plane began to accelerate, taking care not to allow it to get caught in the spinning tires.
His first attempt to tangle the heavy wool in the landing gear mechanism failed and the coat was almost blown from his hand. On his second try, he managed to snag it on something sharp.
The act of getting the coat secured while standing on the precarious, rain-soaked foothold had taken so much concentration that he hadn’t tracked on the plane’s speed. His perspective was badly distorted by the water lashing his face, leaving him no recourse but to simply let go. He curled into a ball and tried to protect his head as he half slid, half rolled across the tarmac. When he finally came to a stop sprawled in a shallow puddle, he didn’t immediately move, instead watching the plane lift into the air. Eventually, he began moving his limbs in a methodical search for broken bones or paralysis. Once he’d confirmed that everything was more or less functional, he laid back and let the rainwater run down his face.
The secure satphone had been given to him by the CIA and he assumed they were using it to keep tabs on him. If it managed to stay on the plane and the signal was powerful enough, they could track it. Would it lead directly to Krupin? Probably not. He was too cautious for that. But it would get them one step closer.
CHAPTER 37
RIGA
LATVIA
ONCE again, the world around them had turned deceptively normal. Rapp and Coleman were riding in an SUV driven by a young Latvian army officer wearing civilian clothing. They were west of the Riga airport, cruising along the A5 with the windows open and the lights on. The only thing that hinted of something amiss was the unusually heavy 3 a.m. traffic. Residents fleeing the city.
Rapp spotted a formation of lights in the sky, following them with his eyes for a moment before registering what they were. Not Russians. Latvian air force choppers headed for the safety of Poland.
“From a base to the southwest,” their driver Jarus explained. “They’re late. It should have been completely abandoned by now.”
“The Russians will target that, too,” Rapp said. “How far will they be from where we’re headed?”
“Perhaps two kilometers?”
“So, they could be on top of us too fast for us to react.”
“Yes, but it’s not likely. The base has been heavily booby-trapped and mined. They’ll have their hands full.”
He took an exit and headed east on a two-lane road cut through the trees. Unlike the highway, it was completely empty.
“Kind of eerie, isn’t it?” Coleman said from the backseat. “The calm before the storm.”
Another turn put them on a dirt track that penetrated into the forest. It was narrow enough that Rapp had to close his window to keep tree branches from hitting him in the face.
“Do your people know we’re coming?” Rapp asked.
“Most likely. But communications aren’t terribly reliable.”
Coleman and the Latvians had created an interesting experiment in unconventional warfare. The theory was solid, as was the country’s preparation, but it all relied on the destruction of the chain of command. Would it work in practice? Isolation and chaos were operating environments that Rapp had become accustomed to over the years, but soldiers tended to like more structure.