Feeling returned to his arm, and he groped through his parka for a Marlboro. Popping one into his mouth, he worked a gold-plated Zippo lighter. Flicking the lid, he whipped his thumb across a gear that sparked flint into flame. Nicotine stifled the butterflies in his stomach. He reached for his wireless phone.
As Chernokov drove the truck full of warheads along a grass-covered forest road, he heard the rear doors clanking as they vented fentanyl.
He placed his wireless to his ear.
“Yes?”
“We’ve been betrayed,” Renard said. “I’ve been shot and abandoned. We must abort.”
Chernokov’s stomach knotted.
“I will retrieve you both,” Renard said. “I have two Zodiacs, and I’ve memorized the local charts. We can make for Petrapovlosk or perhaps the fishing havens to commandeer a trawler.”
Chernokov gaped at the moonlit silhouette of a KA-52 Hokum attack helicopter. Rotor wash whipped treetops, and turboshaft engines whined. A troop transport helicopter rose behind the Hokum and descended behind the trees.
The Hokum hovered in front of Chernokov.
“Jump!” he said.
The Hokum’s twin 30-millimeter guns erupted. The rounds splintered branches, shattered the ten-wheeler’s windshield, and shredded Ivanovich.
Chernokov leapt, rolled, and scampered into underbrush. Through the trees, he saw soldiers approaching. He cursed and lifted the wireless to his ear.
“Are you still with me?” he asked.
“Yes, of course,” Renard said. “What’s happening? I hear chopper blades and cannon fire.”
“There are ground troops… a Hokum… Victor is dead.”
“Merde! I’m sorry for Victor, but we must make haste. Meet at our rendezvous point. Circle through the trees to the south and—”
“You would risk your life for me?”
“I’ve never betrayed an ally. The Zodiac will be hard to see, and it is fast. We can escape.”
Chernokov heard an infantry officer barking commands to the squad of soldiers.
“Save yourself,” he said. “Find a fisherman’s house two miles to the north. Pitevski… he will hide you. At daybreak, find a merchant, Yvgeni Kuznetsov. As a contingency, I paid Kuznetsov in advance.”
“No, you must join me,” Renard said. “Make for shore.”
“You will inform my family of my love for them.”
“No, do what you must. Run! Swim to me! I got you into this. I will get you out.”
“You will ensure my family’s well-being?”
“Circle to the south. I will meet you.”
“Promise me… my family’s future,” Chernokov said.
He knelt by a pine and unscrewed the silencer from his pistol. A deep sigh issued from the phone.
“I promise you my friend,” Renard said. “They will want for nothing.”
The words comforted Chernokov as he chose his fate.
Renard pressed a palm against his exit wound and drove the Zodiac northward. A crack of gunfire shot from the trees, startled him, and died in the sea’s blackness.
Although the Russian traitor had been an instrument in his chess game, two years of befriending and promising Chernokov a better life weighed on Renard’s conscience.
“My God,” he said. “What have I done?”
CHAPTER 4
The shuttle bounced through turbulence and jostled the wound in Pierre Renard’s shoulder. A salmon fisher’s wife had bandaged his wound so that he could delay professional attention until he could find a private physician.
He studied the passenger beside him. Thick eyebrows cast shadows across the eyes of Yvgeni Kuznetsov, a wealthy Russian exporter. A scar cut through pockmarks on Kuznetsov’s cheek.
“Fortunately,” Renard said, “the pain in my wound keeps me awake. Lord knows that you’re not providing lively companionship.”
“I attended to your safety after you led my friend to his death,” Kuznetsov said.
“Chernokov accepted the risks.”
“You seduced a desperate but good man to his death.”
Fumbling for his Marlboros, Renard realized that he was wearing Kuznetsov’s clothes. The beige dress shirt and tweed blazer held no cigarettes to calm him, but he was relieved to feel his lighter, his wallet, and his encrypted cell phone.
“Then why are you helping me?” he asked.
“Chernokov asked me to prepare an evacuation in case your plan failed. He made me swear to take you or Ivanovich to the States in case he did not survive. I am carrying out the last wishes of the friend you killed.”
“I assume he paid you well?” Renard asked.
Kuznetsov folded his copy of Fortune.
“I will use my connections to assist you through Customs,” the Russian said. “After that, my obligation ends. If I see you in Russia again, I will see that you are strangled by your own intestines.”
Outside Anchorage International, Renard called his Parisian office in the 5th Arondissement, southwest of the Pont Neuf. As his cell phone rang, he envisioned Marie Broyer, his assistant and lover.
Marie’s image teased his mind. Her brown hair fell in waves to rounded breasts. The pastel dresses she preferred highlighted her narrow waist and shapely hips. High cheekbones and petulant lips complemented a striking face.
Her beauty, refinement, and reliability made the thirty-five-year-old Sorbonne-educated doctor of languages irresistible to Renard.
“Hello, Verincourt Enterprises,” she said in French.
Her throaty voice revealed that he had awoken her.
“It’s me,” he said. “We’re encrypted. Speak freely.”
“It’s good to hear your voice,” Marie said. “I was worried.”
A cab stopped curbside, and a uniformed attendant opened the door. Renard shook his head, shifted his phone to his other ear, and walked away.
“I hear automobile tires,” Marie said. “You’re not where I expected you to be.”
“The operation was a failure,” he said. “I’m lucky to have escaped with my life. The others are dead.”
While he let Marie absorb the news, Renard used his free hand to maneuver a Marlboro to his lips. He sparked flame from his Zippo lighter and inhaled the tobacco taste.
“Dead? How?”
“The Russian Army. A Chinese mole must have infiltrated the Taiwanese Defense Ministry and informed the Russians. I suspect one of the Minister’s deputies, but I will find out for myself when I return to Taipei.”
“You were nearly killed, and now you want to return to Taipei? Foolhardy. The Taiwanese are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. Come home.”
Renard was exhausted and in pain. He lowered the phone and vented his frustration to the Alaskan cold.
“Damn it, woman. How many times have we been through this? I must arm Taiwan to reset the balance. I was blinded by greed and pride and spent the last ten years arming the wrong side. I must set this straight.”
He returned the phone to his ear.
“You were mumbling,” she said.
“I was just… lamenting. All this time invested into an operation, and to have it fail like this.”
“You must feel terrible,” she said.
“Those men I lost yesterday — they were my recruits, but they had become like friends. Ivanovich had no family, but I must see to…”
A sour taste filled his mouth. Blaming the cigarette, he tossed it to the pavement and fumbled through his blazer for a new one.
“…the Chernokov widow and orphans.”
“How are you taking this all?” she asked.
Renard inhaled and watched smoke from his fresh cigarette twist in the gray sky.