"Yeah?" Ames said from the back. "Exactly how deep?"
"Almost a mile," she replied, then went on: "Over 330 rivers feed it; it's fifty miles across at its widest point. If you drive at forty miles an hour, it'd take you ten hours to go from the south end to the north."
"Yeah, that's big, all right."
"And old," Fisher added. "Almost twenty-five million years."
"And you claim our guy's somewhere around here?"
Fisher nodded and checked his OPSAT; they were fully operational now, having been synced and updated by Grimsdottir back at Third Echelon. Qaderi had started moving again two hours earlier. He was now a hundred miles north of the Rytaya River estuary, and two hundred miles ahead of them.
"Sun's going down soon," Ames said. "What's the plan?"
"Depends on our target," Fisher replied. "If he keeps going, so do we."
QADERIdid keep going, until just after seven, when his signal stopped in Severobaikalsk, a town of twenty-seven thousand about twelve miles from Lake Baikal's northern tip. With nightfall, the wind began gusting more heavily and the snow picked up. Shortly after nine they pulled into a shantytown of hunting huts on Cape Kotel'nikovskiy that Grimsdottir had spotted, via satellite, earlier in the day. The lights of their SUVs washed over a dozen or so thick canvas yurt-style tents built on wooden platforms. The pine trees, blanketed in snow, stood shaggy and formless around the clearing.
"Why the hell are we stopping?" Ames asked, climbing out.
"Roads are icing up," Fisher replied.
"What is it, you lose your nerve?"
Valentina walked past, heading for the yurts. "Take a look at the map, Ames. For the next fifty miles, were down to one lane--most of it running along cliffs above the lake. You wanna go for a swim, suit yourself, but not us."
"How do you know our target hasn't stopped at the auction site?"
Fisher said, "You don't go to the trouble of coming to Siberia just to gather in a population center."
"And if you're wrong?"
"There are at least a dozen more guests coming. The storm's going to delay some of them. Relax, Ames. Take a breath."
THEYhauled their gear into the sturdiest-looking yurt, which had eight wooden bunks with thin straw mattresses situated in a circle around a potbellied stove. Valentina and Ames found a pair of kerosene lanterns, hanging from the crossbeams, and lit them. Written in Cyrillic, a handwritten sign on the post read,Honor system. If you stay here, leave something: money, supplies, etc. Together Siberia is home; separate, a hell.
Ames said, "Yeah, well, if they ain't got a decent can around here, I'm going to leave 'em something, all right."
"I saw some outhouses at the edge of the clearing," Gillespie said. "West side."
Fisher caught Noboru's attention, gestured for him to follow, then went back to one of the Ladas to retrieve a couple boxes of rations Fisher had left behind. "How'd you do with our project?" Fisher asked.
"Good. I think. I worked on it on the backseat until about an hour ago. Told Maya they were flashbang launchers. I've got two pistols and two launchers. The pistols are single shot; no magazine, and you'll have to reload a CO cartridge every time. Good news is, the range and velocity are there. The launchers are the same deal, but they take two cartridges, and to get even close to a hundred feet you'll have to use a high trajectory--fifty degrees or more."
"Good work," Fisher said. "We're not going to get a chance to test them. Give me a number. Best guess."
"Ninety percent chance they'll work as designed."
Fisher smiled. "Ninety, I'll take."
"I gotta tell you, Mr.--I mean, Sam. I gotta tell you: Keeping this from the rest of the team doesn't sit right with me."
"I'd be worried if you were okay with it. Hang on. You'll know why shortly."
BACKin the yurt, Fisher announced, "Let's get some sleep. We'll be moving again at first light or when the wind and snow let up, whichever comes first."
He got nods all around.
Gillespie held up her olive drab sleeping bag. "Ben, where did you get this thing? The rest of the gear's okay, but this thing . . ." She laughed. "It looks like it's from the Cold War. It smellslike it's from the Cold War."
Hansen chuckled. "It's all the surplus store had. Got a bargain, though. A dollar a piece."
From his bunk, Ames called to Fisher, "Hey, boss."
"Sam will do."
"Okay, sure. Explain it to me again: This arsenal--why aren't we just blowing the hell out of it? I mean, we've got Semtex. Why not just rig the whole lot of it and call it a day?"
"Two reasons," Fisher replied. "One, I doubt whoever arranged this auction is stupid enough to keep it all in a big pile; we're talking about tons of equipment. We don't have enough Semtex for that. Two, these people are going to be our Trojan horses. Once they leave here, we'll track them wherever they go. In the space of a week, we'll learn more about these groups' logistics and transport routes than we've learned in the last five years. When they arrive at their destinations, we mop them up, along with anyone else we find."
"That's all assuming the bad guys don't find your trackers."
"Safe assumption."
"It's a big decision for you and Grim to be making on your own."
Hansen said, "Make your point, Ames."
"No point. Just sounds like Sam here's going a little cowboy on us."
"I'll make you a deal," Fisher said. "If this all goes to hell and we're both still around when it's over, you can say you told me so."
THIRTYminutes after the lanterns were turned down the yurt was filled with sounds of snoring. Fisher waited until eleven, then sat up. Two bunks down, Hansen was doing the same. Fisher nodded at him and got one in return. Silently they put on their cold-weather gear, then padded over to Ames's bunk. Fisher reached into his jacket pocket, unscrewed his pen, and dumped the lone dart into his palm. Hansen moved around to the head of Ames's bunk and knelt down. Carefully Fisher reached out and pricked Ames below the ear. Hansen clamped his hands over Ames's mouth until he stopped struggling and lapsed into unconsciousness. While it was more guesswork than science, Fisher had worked with the darts long enough to know that Ames had gotten a fractional dose. He'd be under for ten or fifteen minutes.
Working together, they lifted Ames from his bunk and laid him across Hansen's shoulders, fireman-style. Hansen headed for the door of the yurt and slipped outside. Fisher waited five minutes, then lit one of the kerosene lanterns. One by one he shook awake Gillespie, Noboru, and Valentina. All three were alert and upright in five seconds.
"What's up?" Noboru asked.
Gillespie noticed the empty bunk. "Where's Ames?"
"Get your gear on and grab your OPSATs," Fisher commanded. "It's time for show-and-tell."
FISHERled them across the clearing, where they mounted the steps to one of the four-person yurts and slipped inside. Dangling from the center beam was a kerosene lantern, its sputtering flame bright enough only to illuminate Hansen's face beside it. He reached up and turned the knob until the yurt was filled with yellow light.
Wrists and ankles bound to the bed frame, Ames lay spread-eagled on a bunk in the center of the space.