The Cold Edge (25 page)

Kjersti climbed down from the chopper cockpit, throwing her headset onto the seat.

“What's the matter?” Anna asked her.

“We're grounded. Fog isn't expected to lift until later this evening. It would be different if we were heading to Hamar. They've got three mile visibility there.”

“That's all right,” Anna said. “We'll go by car.” She was actually relieved, not trusting her stomach to another flight.

Victor Petrova had just finished a large meal of fish and potatoes and vegetables, topped off with a great apple strudel and ice cream.

Now, sitting in his communications room, he glanced at all of his monitors. But the fog was so thick he could only see a few feet out on the outdoors cameras. So he concentrated on the indoor cameras.

His cell phone rang and he picked up.

“Yes,” he said.

Listening carefully, he waited until the caller had finished. He had trained his contact well. A quick briefing. To the point. Just the facts.

Petrova grunted and then hung up. Then he yelled as loud as he could until one of his men came into the room. It was a little person like Petrova. A Ukrainian, though.

“Make sure we're ready,” Petrova said. “Looks like we'll have some company soon. Make sure the cars and the boat are ready.”

The Ukrainian nodded but waited for more.

“That's all,” Petrova said.

The man started to leave.

“Wait. Where's that big Swedish bastard?”

“I don't know,” the Ukrainian said. “I'll ask around.”

“He was checking on the dogs,” Petrova said. “Look there first.”

The Ukrainian hurried off, probably to avoid any more instructions.

Damn it. He should have had cameras installed in the garage. Maybe not to watch the damn dogs, but to at least keep an eye on his BMW and MG.

His cell phone rang again and Petrova reluctantly picked up.

“Yes?”

“Hello, my little friend.”

My God. What balls. “Jake Adams. Is that you?”

“Afraid so.”

“You've got something that's mine,” Petrova said. “There's a finder's fee.”

“Where'd you get all the Alexandrite?” Jake asked him.

Sure. He should have expected Adams would open the damn box. He heard a familiar sound in the background. A dog whine. A smile crossed his face.

“What you do with the big Swede?” Petrova asked.

“He's taking a nap.”

Petrova laughed. “I'll bet. Why don't you come into the house and we'll talk.”

“Not until you tell all your little friends not to shoot,” Jake said. “One of them could actually hit me. Then you'll never find your gems.”

“Done. Give me five minutes and you can come in through the front door. Nobody will stop you.”

The line went dead. Petrova hunched and then called all his men to tell them to let Jake Adams pass. That man had balls like pumpkins. He smiled with that thought.

●

Jake had thought about it and realized he could have shot it out with Petrova's men, but that would not accomplish his goal. He would only be killing men he had nothing against—men who were loyal to Petrova, true, but who might not even know the true nature of the man's deeds. Hired guns.

Instead, Jake needed to talk with the man. Maybe he knew this all along. He also knew that Victor Petrova couldn't kill him outright without fear of losing his precious gems. That was his hold card. His queen waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting knight.

Before making the call, he had made a quick call to his own voice mail, leaving a coded message for himself. It was his only insurance policy. Just in case Petrova's men didn't like following orders.

He stuffed his backpack with his gear in a corner of the garage, his only weapon one 9mm handgun with an extra magazine, which hung below his left arm under his jacket. That done, Jake walked out of the garage, his hands out to his sides. Both of the little security guards that had roamed the grounds scurried toward him, their guns pointed in the air. Hopefully they had gotten word from Petrova to let him pass.

The little guards escorted Jake to the front door of the large estate. Before entering the house, they found Jake's gun and extra magazine and took it from him.

Inside, Jake immediately noticed the place had been converted to all things Russian—right out of a St. Petersburg palace—with high ceilings, dark wood floors, and old paintings of Russian aristocracy encased in gilded frames.

When Jake hesitated for a view, one of the men jammed the barrel of his automatic weapon into Jake's back. As they walked slowly through the mansion, more little people poked their heads out of doors and wandered about their business—whatever that was.

Finally, Jake entered a grand room, a library of sorts, with a panel of security screens breaking up the old dark wood style with high tech. Sitting in a leather chair, swiveling from side to side, was Victor Petrova.

He had changed quite a bit since the last time Jake had seen him. Older. A little more weight on his tiny frame.

“You look like shit,” Petrova said. “Probably need a drink.”

Jake ignored that comment and stretched his arms out, his palms up. “Let me guess. You represent the Lollipop Guild?”

“Ha, fucking ha. Still a comedian. But now a drunk comic. Not very original.”

“Can we get on with this,” Jake said. “I really need to take a piss.”

“Great. Right to the point.” Petrova shifted his eyes to his men and then back to Jake.

Jake knew that Petrova had probably calculated every more Jake would make, from Oslo to Svalbard and right to Lillehammer. But Jake still had a few things in his favor. He had the gems.

“I've got something you want,” Jake said, “and you need to keep me alive long enough to find out where I've hidden them. That about do it for you?”

Petrova laughed out a breath through his nostrils. “Yeah, that's about it.”

Jake reached into his pocket and found the Alexandrite gem that had fallen from the metal box. When it hit the light it changed color instantly from a purplish-red to a vibrant green under the fluorescent lights overhead.

Nearly gasping, a smile crossed the weathered face of the little man. “Aren't they beautiful?”

They were, Jake had to admit. “More so than diamonds or rubies or emeralds. But why the grand ruse, Victor? Why didn't you just send your men to find the gems yourself? Wait. Let me guess. You either feared the polar bears would eat your men, or they would be enveloped by the glaciers.” No smile from Jake. He returned the gem to his pocket and watched Petrova's eyes move along with Jake's hand.

“Now what fun would that have been, Jake?” Petrova shook his big head side to side. “I thought you knew me better than that.”

“Right,” Jake said. “Why do the easy when the elaborate would be so much more fun? You like to fuck with people. You have to do it. Can't breathe without finding ways to screw with the minds of others each and every day. Let me know when I'm getting close.”

Petrova's head had swayed from shoulder to shoulder as Jake talked. Impatient and impertinent. “You were a pain in the ass in Volgograd. But you cracked then and you'll eventually tell me where to find my Alexandrites.”

Shocked, but Jake tried not to show it. He had been held captive in that historic city for two weeks during the Cold War, beaten and starved and beaten some more. Jake had given them information, anyone would have, but everything he had given them was crap. Not one fraction of actionable intelligence of any kind. He knew it and Victor Petrova knew it. Jake had always guessed that this man had been around somewhere during his captivity, but it had never been confirmed. Until now.

“Sure, I'll give you the location,” Jake said. “And then another and another and another. Your men will be running around like true Munchkins searching for a pot of gold.” Okay, maybe he shouldn't have mixed his metaphors so drastically.

“I'm a little person,” Petrova said, exasperated. “Get over it. Move on. Tell me what I need to know.”

This was going about as well as Jake had guessed it would. “You're a fuckin' troll,” Jake finally said. “But I'll take you to it. Only you.”

One of Petrova's eyes closed. His perplexed look. “Why would you do that?”

“Because then we're going to split it fifty/fifty.”

“Why not just take them all for yourself?”

“And have to kill every little person in Europe who happens to bump into me? What would that do to your population?”

Now Petrova finally smiled. “You're right. I would hunt you down like a pig.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

“We have a deal?” Jake asked.

The little Russian glanced at his screens and then back to Jake. “Why not. There's enough there for both of us.”

That was too easy, Jake thought. But then Victor Petrova was the master of disinformation. He would say just about anything at this point to get him one step closer to the box of Alexandrites.

Suddenly an Elvis song shot from Petrova's cell phone.
Hound Dog
. The Russian picked up and listened carefully. Then he glanced at the window, which showed only fog. He turned his head and mumbled something into the phone, but Jake could only pick up a couple of Russian words. He turned back and slapped his phone shut, then jumped down from his chair and shuffled across the hardwood floor toward the door.

“Let's go,” Petrova said. “Elvis is leaving the building.”

The two little guards escorted Jake behind their boss, a man grasping each of Jake's hands. Strangely enough, he felt like a dad with his kids at the zoo.

They were all on the move. The local police had cut off any road leading to Victor Petrova's estate, which wasn't hard, since only one road lead out there. Two police boats were in the water; one with two police officers and another with Toni, Colonel Reed, and a police officer at the wheel. All of the others, including the SWAT unit, had driven by vehicle, slowly, through thick, dense fog. There would be no air support, though, and that bothered Anna.

Set up now outside the main gate of Petrova's compound, Anna gave the order for SWAT to crash through the gate. The other vehicles followed closely behind and set up a defensive position near the main house. Officers flowed out of vehicles in all directions to cut off any escape.

Anna and Kjersti stood back at their vehicle monitoring radios. Wind blew across the open grass yard, nearly knocking both from their feet.

Anna knew the plan wasn't perfect. She had wanted to send police officers around the outside fence, but knew any breech of the fence would surely tip off Petrova. So she had agreed to the direct approach. She watched as SWAT flowed into the house, the huge garage, where dogs barked loudly, and into the surrounding forest.

Within a couple of minutes, reports started coming in from various officers. Not good.

“Petrova has to be here,” Kjersti said. She got onto her radio and ordered something in Norwegian. Then she heard back and shook her head.

“What are they saying,” Anna asked her.

“The place is entirely empty. Not one person found.”

Kjersti's radio squawked, followed by a man speaking English. “We found a backpack in the woods. Also, a canoe hidden in the bushes down by the lake.”

“What about Petrova's boat?” Anna asked into the radio. The fog was still so thick they couldn't see the water from their position.

“The dock is empty,” the man said.

Great. They left by boat. She got onto her radio and asked for the position of their two boats. “How many could fit on Petrova's boat,” Anna asked Kjersti.

“I don't know. It's a twenty-one foot power boat with a two-hundred-twenty-five horse inboard. Perhaps six.”

“Six normal-size people?”

“I see where you're going,” Kjersti said. “Maybe ten like Petrova.”

Finally she got her response from the two police boats. The heavy winds were rocking them all over the place. They were perhaps one hundred yards from the dock. Could barely see even that. Anna ordered them to fan out and search for the missing Petrova boat.

“Where are they heading?” Anna asked Kjersti.

Kjersti hunched her shoulders. “Sweden. But not by boat.”

“How far can they get on this lake?”

“Hamar. Hell, almost to the Oslo airport. It's a hundred miles long. But in this fog they could be anywhere.”

“If you had to guess,” Anna pled.

“There's not much on the southern end of the lake. The highway comes up against it down there. If he had a car waiting, he could pick up the highway and cross into Sweden. But if I were him, I would get off somewhere near Hamar. The Swedish border is closer there. That's assuming he's going to Sweden. I mean, he will find no refuge there.”

A man hurried across the grass toward them. He carried a backpack and set it at Anna's feet, opening it for her to see. But she didn't need to see what was in there. She thanked the man and he went away.

Kjersti said the obvious. “That's Jake's backpack.”

“So he got here first and is now with Petrova.”

“But he wouldn't have brought the box,” Kjersti said. “He'd use that for bait. What do you think Jake has planned?”

That was the problem. Anna didn't have a clue. She simply shook her head.

●

The speed boat cruised along at a remarkable pace, considering the fog and wind. It wasn't maxed out, but enough to bring tears to Jake's eyes as he focused his attention on the men surrounding him. They were all little people like Victor Petrova, who sat on a bench seat next to Jake. There were five other men, one at the wheel, standing on a platform to see over the bow, and the other four spread out on the benches across from Jake and Petrova. Must have been part of Petrova's inner circle, Jake guessed. Then he noticed his backpack at the feet of one man. They had found the one in the garage. He wondered if they had removed his back-up weapon from there.