“My job,” Claudia responded. “What did you do with Scott? Is he—”
“Safer than us. Your job is logistics. Not operations.”
“I’m here to brief you,” she said, starting down the corridor. “That falls under logistics.”
“In the middle of the largest fucking naval engagement since World War II?”
“It’s not something I wanted someone else to do,” she said. “And, besides. There was no way to anticipate this.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but then just gave up. Winning arguments with her was virtually impossible, and in this case she was right. The fact that the president had approved this kind of an escalation came as a surprise even to him. He—and the Russians—had expected the Baltic to be a chess match with both sides primarily concerned with not allowing the situation to spiral out of control.
“Is Grisha here?”
“Yes.”
“And where’s his head at?”
“I haven’t spent enough time with him to give you a useful assessment. But Cara’s surgery went well.”
“What about my gun?”
“You’ll find one waiting for you on a bank of the Olenyok River. Or at least that’s what I’m told. Irene’s office is handling that end of the operation.”
She led him into a cramped conference room where Azarov was waiting.
“How was your swim, Mitch?”
“Cold.”
Rapp made himself a cup of coffee while Claudia started her briefing.
“The man Grisha was watching was picked up by Nikita Pushkin. We were able to track him to Zhigansk, a small town in rural Russia and then to a decommissioned military installation to the northwest. We’ve analyzed the satellite images from the last few months and there’s been a significant uptick in activity. We suspect that Krupin’s getting his treatments there.”
She spread a map out on the table and tapped a red circle on it.
“Remote,” Rapp commented.
“If it isn’t the middle of nowhere, it’s only a few kilometers away.”
“Do you think he’s there now?”
“We’re giving it a seventy-five percent chance.”
“Can you get us there?”
“It isn’t going to be easy. Not only is it remote, there’s only one road going in and out. There’s no reason for anyone to be up there, and that road’s going to be under heavy surveillance.”
“Can I assume that you’ve worked something out?” Rapp asked.
She nodded, though a bit reluctantly. “I got to thinking about your last operation in Russia—the one where you went in with a nature outfitter. It worked once, so we thought it might work again. Maybe a hunting guide, which would give you an excuse to be armed.”
“Your tone suggests you weren’t able to find one,” Azarov said.
“I’m afraid not. No one’s operating any kind of tour in that area right now. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we did find an inhabited camp.” She tapped another circle on the map. “Here.”
“That doesn’t look very close to our target,” Rapp said.
“About seventy miles as the crow flies.”
“Of some of the most rugged terrain on the planet,” Azarov commented.
“Virtually impassable,” she agreed.
The submarine dove suddenly enough that Rapp had to reach out and steady her. She fell silent for a few seconds but when no torpedoes or depth charges exploded, she ran a finger along a thin blue line on the map. “You can cover most of it using the Olenyok River. The rest, you’d have to do on foot.”
“You say ‘inhabited camp,’?” Azarov said. “What kind of camp?”
“Scientists. Mostly botany and wildlife. And this is where we got lucky. There are two American academics on their way there now.”
“You want to make a switch?” Rapp said. “Substitute us for them?”
Another uncertain nod.
“What do they study?” Azarov asked.
“Wolves.”
“I don’t know anything about wolves. And I suspect that Mitch doesn’t, either.”
She held up two thumb drives. “Everything you ever wanted to know about Canis lupus as well as your cover stories.”
“You don’t seem convinced,” Rapp said.
“I don’t think you should do it.”
“It’s your plan.”
“So you should listen to me when I tell you how horrible it is. Irene ordered me and her team to come up with the best strategy we could and this is it. It’s unworkable, Mitch. Your cover story is incredibly weak. You’re not a scientist and you have almost no time to prepare. The terrain is—”
“You said we could use the river.”
“That makes moving easier but leaves you exposed to possible overhead surveillance. If you’re caught, there are going to be questions, and you don’t even speak the language.”
Rapp nodded and scanned the map for a few seconds. “No one in that camp’s going to quiz us on basic wolf biology. As long as we know what we’re there to do and limit our contact, we should be okay. Can we travel on the river at night, then sleep in the woods during the day?”
She shook her head. “Too far north. The sun doesn’t set this time of year.”
“It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?”
“It’s what I keep telling you.”
“How much traffic is there on that part of the Olenyok?”
“Virtually none,” Claudia admitted. “But that’s no guarantee.”
“Wrong business for guarantees. Let’s assume we can sell ourselves as scientists, and that we reach our objective without drowning, getting shot, or being eaten by a bear. What are we going to find?”
“Basically an ammunition and equipment dump with eight warehouse-type buildings,” Claudia said. “The number of guards is a question mark. If there are any outside, they’re doing a good job of staying out of sight. How many are inside would just be speculation. Pick a number between zero and a hundred.”
“That’s helpful.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” Rapp said. “Let’s be optimistic and say we get in there. What then?”
“We kill him,” Azarov responded in a tone that suggested he wasn’t entertaining other options.
Claudia nodded. “The president and Irene are fine with that, but they’d prefer something . . . Subtle.”
Rapp actually laughed. “So we make it through seventy miles of no man’s land, get through whatever guards there are outside, gain access, get through the guards inside, and then make it look like natural causes?”
“That’s my point,” Claudia said. “This isn’t a plan, it’s desperation. In all likelihood, you’ll get killed or captured. And after that it won’t take them long to identify you. That would make a disastrous situation even worse.”
Rapp took a chair and gulped down some of his coffee, feeling it burn down his chest. “Can I count on you to back me up, Grisha?”
The Russian’s gaze lowered to the tabletop. “If I’m honest? I don’t know.”
“Explain.”
“My fitness is worse than it’s been since I was a child, and I’m having a hard time focusing. Two issues I’ve never had to deal with during an operation.”
“My understanding is that Cara’s doing fine.”
“Yes. But did Dr. Kennedy tell you why?”
“The liver? Yeah. You managed to surprise her. That’s not easy.”
“She seems to think I’ve become mentally unbalanced. That I’m emotionally incapable of handling my new life. She’s a wise woman and I’m concerned that she’s right. While I very much want to be the man who kills Maxim Krupin, I have to consider the possibility that my involvement could cause the mission to fail. Maybe you’d be better off relying on the team you normally work with.”
Rapp leaned back in his chair, examining the man. He was probably right, but Coleman was stuck and his men were all engaged in other operations. Not to mention the fact that none of them spoke Russian. “Give me specifics. Could you still run a marathon?”
“Of course.”
“How fast?”
Azarov’s eyes narrowed as he calculated the number based on extensive training history. “Two hours fifty-five on a flat asphalt.”
“Good enough to float down a river and do a little bushwhacking.”