The River of Bones v5 (12 page)

“I wish we could go to Lake Baikal right away and find them,” said Molly.  “You look so thin.  Haven’t you been well?”

“There’s this man, how do you say in your country, who’s stalking me, and I live in fear every day.  My friends tell me he’s the
Mafiya
godfather of Siberia, and they’re very afraid of him.  He sits in his limousine, watches me, yells out the window that I must not ignore him, and says my father is still alive.  I’ve prayed months for you to come.”

Cold fear snaked inside Molly’s stomach, and she wondered what she’d gotten herself into with her reckless behavior.  What now, Faircloth, she asked herself.  Then she had an answer, as insane as it seemed.

“Can you get me a pistol, a semiautomatic with an extra clip of ammunition?”

“Yes, on the black market.  But what are you going to do?”

Seeing they were alone and feeling like a lonely mother, she wrapped her arms around Sasha and held her.  “Kill him if I must, because I’m not going to let you live like this any longer.”  Afterward, they cried, sharing their emotions.

Later, they spent the afternoon touring the institute that Sasha directed, studying mineral resource maps, ore samples, rough diamonds, and nuggets of gold, silver, and platinum that the huge facility kept on display.  Siberia
was
rich, but
the distances the precious minerals were from civilization were staggering, sometimes thousands of miles.  No wonder the District Guard had given up looking for Sasha’s father so fast, Molly told herself.  His helicopter had gone down in an area the size of Texas, and that vastness only represented a small part of the wilderness that lay before her.  She suddenly felt every fiber in her body screaming for help.  Jake and Simon, where are you?

That evening they drove to Sasha’s apartment in her father’s old Volga, each lost in her own thoughts.  Molly felt like she’d found the daughter whom she’d never had in real life, and hoped Sasha would grow to love her as much.  Emotional compensation, making up for the death of her son, she supposed.  The joy of having someone to hold on to, especially in the middle of a foreign country, was wonderful.  It didn’t erase her doubts about what to do, but, God willing, by morning she’d have a plan.  They would get her bags out of the Hotel Sibir and live together from now on, protecting each other from the trouble around them.  She didn’t feel like a temptress now, because this spy stuff had gotten really scary.  What did she think she’d do with a pistol once she got one?  Are you getting in way over your head, Faircloth?

She gasped when they reached Sasha’s apartment.  The poor girl began to unlock four different deadbolts set along a
steel door.  My God, what a way to live, and no wonder she looked as skinny as a rail.  She had lived in fear for weeks.  A plan began forming in Molly’s head.  “How long before you can buy me a gun?”

Sasha opened her door, and they walked inside.  “Maybe the day after tomorrow,” she said.  “If you have American dollars to spend everything becomes easy in Russia.  But you should know that we will be buying the pistol from the very man I fear so much.  He controls the black markets.”

“How often do you see him?”

“He parks outside my building twice a month.  His driver tries stopping me, but I stay with my friends and we walk away.”

“Doesn’t Akademgorodok have police officers?”

Sasha huffed in exasperation.  “They always seem to be missing when he comes around.  He pays them to stay away.”

“Then it’s just his driver and him, no bodyguards?”

“No.  Who should he fear?”

“Me.”

Sasha quickly inhaled and stood silent.  “What are you going to do?”

“Is there a place where I can hide that’s close to him when he’s waiting in his car?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a building where I can run to for safety?”

“The building I work in.”

“Do you still have your father’s clothing?”

Sasha nodded her head . . . and now her face started brightening.  She walked across the apartment and unlocked another door.  “This is my father’s bedroom,” she said.  “Please take what you need.  But we must alter things to fit because you are so much smaller.”

The next morning Molly and Sasha drove to Novosibirsk and picked up her things at the hotel, walked to the consulate and changed her visa, listing Sasha as the sponsor and official guide, then drove back to Akademgorodok, feeling much happier.  Afterward, Sasha talked to a friend, who in turn talked to a friend who talked to another friend, and all three said a pistol would not be a problem.  In fact, what kind and how many did they want?  Heartened, Molly ordered two Glock 19s with laser sights, known worldwide for their reliability and deadly aim.

They rehearsed the ambush for several days, first by locating a thick evergreen next to the curb where the crime boss usually parked, then surreptitiously tramping a footpath through the snow on the far side of the tree to the furnace room on the basement floor of the Geology and Geophysics building.  They stayed late one night and built a blind under the same tree, so Molly could hide herself.  Finally, on the morning of the planned attack, they unlocked the doors she would need for her escape and bolted the others, spoiling the chance of anyone chasing her.  They were all set, presuming the black marketer showed up and waited for Sasha like he had in the past.  This time he’d be in for a big surprise.

Just before noon, Molly left Sasha’s upstairs offices and walked down to the furnace room, checked the two men who worked there had left for their midday meal, forced a toothpick into the hall door’s keyhole, and broke off the protruding end.  Now no one could enter from the corridor.  Next, she stepped inside the furnace room and dug out the men’s coveralls and fur hat that Sasha and she had hidden under a workbench.  Glancing at her watch, she pulled her disguise over her clothing and jammed the keyhole on the door that led outside with another toothpick.  The spruce tree where Sasha and she’d built the blind stood fifty feet away.

Looking around, she saw only a few people in the distance, and no one seemed to notice her, standing there like a worker.  The weight of the pistol and extra clip inside her pocket felt reassuring, and she wondered why she sensed such a deep purpose inside.  She walked to her hiding place, again saw no one watching her, and crawled out of sight.

A few minutes passed.  Then a long Mercedes drove up and stopped, thirty feet away.  A dimwit could hit a dime at this distance, she thought.  Her firearm’s instructor had been surprised by her marksmanship with a pistol and laser sight.  Problem was . . . paper targets were one thing and humans were another.  She had read enough crime stories to understand there was a big difference, though she still felt confident.  Maybe because she hated the black-market boss so much.

After a few minutes she saw Sasha walk out the building’s doorway with her friends, then along Prospect Lavrentyeva, heading for the Toadstool, as usual.  They came toward her.  The rear window of the limousine rolled down, humming its electric sound.  Tobacco smoke rolled out and she caught the scent.  The driver opened his door and stepped out.  God, he looked big.  Her hands started trembling.  She took a deep breath and held it, sensing her training coming back.  Her instructor’s words sounded in her ears—grip the gun with both hands and straighten your arms, activate the laser by pushing the little switch, move the red beam to your target, squeeze the trigger.  She fixed the tiny dot on the godfather’s nose and tightened her index finger.

Pow!
  She felt the pistol kick back and saw the red dot disappear for an instant, flying up with the recoil.  The man screamed, his hands clutched his face, and he sank out of sight.

Give the car two more for good measure.  She watched the red beam reflect off the opposite side window and tightened her finger twice more. 
Pow—pow! 
Holy cow, bulletproof glass.  The two rounds had only cracked the far window into spider webs.

Then she saw trouble.  The driver had pulled his own pistol and was looking left and right, searching for the shooter.

Hit him in the shoulder and make him drop the gun.  She focused the red laser on his chest, swung it over, and pulled the trigger once more.  The man spun sideways and his left hand flew up to his collar bone.  He screamed.  She heard people running and screaming all around the  Geology building.  Sasha was running, too, pretending to escape with the people who had been startled while walking by.  Run like hell yourself, Faircloth, because no one is looking.  She raced for the furnace room door, her feet flying.

Ducking inside, she slammed the door and bolted the lock.  Nobody could get in unless they broke down the door.  She took off her coveralls and hat, opened the furnace, and pitched her pistol and disguise into the fire.  She shut the furnace, ran to the hallway door, and peeked out.  Several people were down at the far end, hiding and peeking out the windows.  She set the doorknob so it would lock behind her, closed the door, and crept down the corridor to the women’s toilet.  Once inside, she hitched up her skirt, pulled down her panties, and waited.  The remaining rounds and extra clip would soon explode, and the rest would be easy because now she really
was
shivering with fear. 
Pow . . . pow-pow . . . bang!
  The ammunition exhausted itself in the furnace.  She tore out the bathroom door and up the hallway, screaming, pulling up her panties and lowering her skirt all at once.  The people at the end of the hall stared at her, and she saw they felt embarrassed for her and didn’t have the slightest clue.  Move over, Jake and Simon, because here I come, ready or not.  I know how to pull dangerous stunts as well.

CHAPTER NINE

BRATSK, SIBERIA

The instant
Feliks Zorkin read the news about the attempted murder of the godfather of Siberia he knew he’d be blamed.  He couldn’t believe his luck—if his luck wasn’t bad, then he didn’t have any at all.  Already, the whole
Mafiya
was searching high and low for him, but now they’d
really
get serious.  Costing the top
boss a million rubles might have been worked out, assuming he could have produced the pink diamonds in the end, despite the disaster on the Marcha River, but being suspected of shooting off the godfather’s
nose was an entirely different matter.  He couldn’t imagine the bounty that would be placed on his head . . . ten million rubles, fifty million rubles.  Cut it off, carry it back, and collect—that would be the word passed around Russia, the whole world for that matter.  The
Mafiya
was even strong in America.

His past work with the defunct KGB had saved him so far, and the training he’d received as a young man was now paying off big dividends.  He knew where to hide, how to travel, and when to sneak around, even inside the
Mafiya,
though, ultimately, money would matter the most.  Half of the old KGB
spies left out in the cold by the failure of communism had gone over to the worldwide mob.  Why not?  The best money was there, good American dollars, spendable anywhere on earth.  He could escape to South America if only he had some . . . Chile, perhaps.  He had heard it was beautiful there, except now every previous KGB
agent in the world would be hot on his trail.  Big bucks were at stake.

What should he do?  For the time being hiding in Bratsk would be good enough, but eventually someone would wonder why he never stepped outside his little apartment, looking like the same man.  The
babushkas
sitting at the entrance of the long building, soaking up the springtime sun, would soon start questioning each other.  “Who is that man over there?  How come he never works?  Why does he wear sunglasses today, but yesterday he could see just fine without them?  If he has nothing to hide, why does he always live alone?”  Then the cursed, snoopy grandmothers would leave their sidewalk benches, climb upstairs, and ask their sons and daughters and grandchildren the same things.  The whispers would begin creeping around town and the
Mafiya
whores would tell the
Mafiya
cab drivers at the airport all about him.  After while, the godfather would hear about the suspicious stranger and send someone around to take a look.  Damn the
babushkas
, they were always watching, and nothing happened in Russia without them knowing it.  They had been his greatest source of useful intelligence when he’d worked as the KGB’s Second Chief Directorate, in charge of domestic security for the Soviet Union back in the glory days of communism.  Now the old bitches were his bitter enemies, and somehow he had to find a safe place to hide.  But where, because who was as powerful as the ubiquitous
Mafiya
?

Suddenly, the answer struck him—the military, or at least what remained of it after so many years of neglect by Moscow.  The armed forces had all the airplanes and helicopters, people and firepower he needed.  What if he went to the District Guard stationed at the Bratsk airport and cut a deal with the local commandant?  The poor leader and his soldiers probably hadn’t been paid on time for months and likely were eating moldy rations and wearing ragged uniforms made for the Afghanistan War 20 years back.  He had heard the common solder was not to be trusted these days, often stealing weapons and equipment for the black market, even plutonium for nuclear weapons if they thought they could get away with it.  The more he thought about it the better he liked the idea.  He would teach the crime boss in Novosibirsk a lesson or two.  Maybe he’d get the military to run a T-90 battle tank right over his home sitting so prettily on the shores of the Ob Sea.  Yes . . . he would do a turnabout.  He was the former Second Chief Directorate and knew damn well how to play the game.  Who would dare mess with him?

He rose, turned over his chair, and screwed off the right front foot.  Flipping the chair once more, he shook it as hard as he could, and saw the last diamond he had remaining fall on the floor.  He picked up the tiny gem, put it in his mouth, and repaired the chair.  He sat again, spit out the only prayer he had left in the world, stared at it, and remembered. . . .  It had looked so simple at first.  How could it have all gone wrong?