“Very well,” Rostov said, feeling numb. When the ranking general in the GRU summoned you to the Kremlin, there was nothing else to do but comply. “I will arrange a flight to Moscow first thing in the morning.”
“Do not bother,” Zhestakova said. “There is someone en route to you.”
“Do I know this person you are sending?” Rostov said, digging — hopefully not his own grave.
“No,” Zhestakova said, “I am quite sure you two have never met.”
“Tonight?” Rostov said.
“At any moment,” Zhestakova said. “It would be best if you were waiting at the airstrip when my jet arrives.” He ended the call without another word.
Rostov felt a cold wind blow across his neck — as if the Fates had just cut short the threads of his life.
Chapter 49
Quinn rolled and came up with his pistol in time to see Hazel run from the willows waving her hands and shouting. An elderly Native woman stood around the corner two houses away, pointing a pump shotgun at Quinn. She eyed Quinn warily but lowered the shotgun when Hazel explained that he was friendly.
Any element of surprise evaporated with the shot. The other two Russians would come out to investigate in no time.
Quinn waved Beaudine out of the bushes, shouting for her to bring the Lapua as he retrieved the dead Russian’s AK. He plugged his left ear and fired a string of three rounds, one-handed, into the snowbank in front of him. Beaudine ran up behind him. She started to talk but he held up his hand and reached for the radio on the dead man’s belt. Predictably, another voice broke squelch to check on him.
“Vsyo Kharasho?” a deep Russian voice said. It sounded like a demand.
Quinn held the radio ready to speak, looking at Beaudine for a translation.
“He’s asking if you’re all good.”
“How do I answer?”
“Da, narmalna,” she said. Yes, normal.
Quinn repeated the phrase back, holding the small radio nearly a foot away from his mouth to add some distortion to his voice.
“OK,” the other Russian said, laughing as he said something else. Quinn could hear the cries of a woman each time the mike was keyed.
“He wants to know if you had to stop to take a piss,” Beaudine said.
Quinn clicked the talk button a couple of times, showing that he’d received and understood but didn’t care to answer back.
The Russian spoke again and Beaudine translated. “He says they’re about to finish up and will be along in a few minutes.” She shook her head, obviously having heard the woman’s sobbing on the other end of the radio.
Quinn wanted to check the wound in his thigh but there was no time. The Native woman had been fifty yards away and thankfully hadn’t been using a rifle. Quinn estimated at least a dozen pellets of birdshot had caught him from just above the knee to the point of his hip. It was extremely painful but not debilitating.
“Sorry,” the woman said, walking up with her shotgun. “I thought you was one of them.” She eyed the carnage around the dead man and turned away to throw up in the snow.
“Understandable,” Quinn said, grimacing as he took the Lapua from Beaudine. “We’re going to have to do something to draw them out quickly,” he said, “before they ‘finish up’ and kill someone else.”
“Agreed,” Beaudine said.
Quinn explained his plan, then gritted his teeth at the new pain in his leg and moved quickly to the front of the house nearest the school. He backed up far enough from the house that he had a view — and a clear line of fire — down both the main street toward the airstrip and the river side of the houses. Then he stretched out belly-down in the snow behind the rifle. Settling in with the gun, he flipped up the scope covers, then motioned for Beaudine to fire the dead Russian’s Kalashnikov into the ground. As planned, he gave it a three count, and then keyed the radio several times. Demands for a situation report barked from the other end. He said nothing.
As much as he hated to expose Hazel to any more violence, he wanted to avoid a repeat of the woman shooting him with the shotgun. He put the girl beside him with the binoculars so she could differentiate the Russians from any village men who happened to walk in front of his crosshairs.
Two men exited a house at the far end of the street just seconds after Beaudine began to frantically key the radio mike. Both carried their long guns up and ready to engage. Quinn had already estimated the distance to be three hundred meters. He rested the crosshairs over the man on the left and squeezed off a round. The shot went low, hitting him just below the knee. The gun fell from the wounded man’s hand and he tipped sideways, unable to stand on the shattered leg. Quinn adjusted quickly, bumping the Lapua sideways so the second man appeared in his scope. He adjusted his aim, holding the crosshairs just over the top of the second Russian’s head. The round impacted center mass, dropping him where he stood.
“I am glad you killed him,” Hazel said, still looking through the binoculars. “I loved Miss Bernadette. That man shot her and just laughed…”
“Are you sure there were only three?” Beaudine said, coming up beside them at a crouch with the AK.
Hazel nodded. “There was another guy, but he took off on stolen Honda.”
“Take your brother to the school,” Quinn said, wincing at his wound as he got to his feet. “Tell the others we’re here and not to shoot at us.”
“I live right there,” the woman with the shotgun said, nodding two houses down. “I’ll go put it out over the CB.”
Ten minutes later Quinn and Beaudine stood around the wounded Russian with a dozen very angry members of Needle Village. Ms. Bernadette and the Stubbins brothers all had relatives and dear friends among the crowd. Quinn had put a makeshift tourniquet around the Russian’s leg and leaned him against the wooden steps of the house where he and the other Russian had only recently been terrorizing a young mother and her infant daughter. The woman was shaken but defiant and now stood over the terrified Russian with a hatchet that she looked ready to put to good use.
It took no interrogation for the man to tell them his name was Ilia Davydov, the pilot. He told Quinn what he already knew, that a man named Feliks Zolner, sometimes called Worst of the Moon, had been charged to capture or kill a scientist named Volodin. Between sobs and panting breaths, Davydov answered every question posed to him, describing what Zolner looked like, the type and caliber of rifle he carried, and even the kind of food he preferred — simple Russian tea and jam. He had no idea who had hired Zolner or how he planned to get out of Alaska now that the plane was damaged.
“He is a quiet man,” Davydov said, panting. “He hires us to assist him, but we are never told the entire story. That is his alone to know.” He looked at Quinn with pleading eyes. “Please,” he gasped. “I have only just begun working for him.”
“You killed my friend,” Hazel said. She’d ignored Quinn’s directive to go wait at the school and now stood with the adults, mostly women and a couple of elderly men, who had gathered in front of the house.
Davydov shook his head. “The others,” he stammered. “They shot her for sport, to wound her. I did not want to see her suffer so I ended her pain.” He glanced at Beaudine, then quickly back to Quinn. “You must believe me, I try to be merciful. To kill her quickly.”
Beaudine scoffed. “If you really wanted to show some mercy you could have put a bullet in the two bastards that shot her in the first place.”
Quinn shouldered his pack and picked up the Lapua.