“You think Kline told them?”
“It seems like a pretty good possibility.” He held up another finger. “Four, out of all the salvage outfits operating around the Baltic Sea, our bad guys decided to hire the Yalena, a Russian ship. And five, our bad guys have people in Russia. They were there last Saturday, when they killed Baklanov and his crew. They were there when they killed Anna Baklanov. And they’re still there, looking for this kid-presumably because he can identify them.”
“Which is why we want the kid,” she said.
“Which is why we need that kid.”
October leaned back in her seat, her hands curling around the ends of the armrests as the plane hurtled down the runway toward takeoff. “We know something else,” she said.
He swung his head to look at her. “What’s that?”
“We know that if they find that boy before we do, they’ll kill him.”
“If we don’t figure out who’s doing this and stop them, tens of millions of people are going to die.”
“You say that like the boy doesn’t matter.”
Their gazes met, and Jax knew they were both remembering the same thing: a dark-headed, gangly boy with one arm thrown across the shoulders of a happy, panting mutt. “No,” said Jax softly. “The boy matters.”
58
Kaliningrad, Russia: Friday 30 October
7:05 A.M. local time
Stefan awoke cold and tired and hungry. He’d passed a restless night, startling at every loose board banging in the wind, every furtive rustling from the unseen creatures of the dark.
Just before dawn he abandoned all attempts at sleep and crawled out of the ruined stable where he and the pup had sought shelter from the snow. He was digging for old potatoes in a snow-dusted field when he noticed a boy of perhaps ten or twelve staring at him from beneath the bare branches of a nearby chestnut.
Wrapped in a warm navy jacket, the boy was small and skinny, with large teeth and freckles and straw-colored hair that peeked out from beneath a woolen cap. He said, “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you,” said Stefan, straightening slowly. “What’d you do? Sneak out of your room last night?”
The boy’s head jerked back. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing.” Stefan squinted at the distant walls of the school, an idea forming in his head. “If I gave you a message for Father Alexei, could you get it to him?”
The boy kicked aimlessly at the snow around him. “Maybe. Depends on how much you’re willing to pay me.”
Stefan hesitated, then reached in his pocket. “I have this piece of amber.”
Rodriguez stood at the window of the small farmhouse they’d commandeered on the outskirts of Yasnaya Polyana. Wrapping his hands around a mug of coffee, he blew softly on the hot brew, his gaze on the light fall of snow that blanketed the surrounding fields.
They’d left Zoya and Nikolayev watching the farm for the night. But Borz had never shown up, and their attempts to raise him had met with a troubling silence. Rodriguez looked at his watch and frowned. What the hell had happened to him?
At the kitchen table behind him, the SAS guy, Ian Kirkpatrick, was sipping a cup of tea while Salinger adjusted his equipment and yawned. Suddenly, he sat forward. “The mother’s getting an incoming call.”
Rodriguez swung around. “Record it, and put it on audio.”
A man’s gruff voice boomed out. “Nadia? It’s me. I wanted to let you know I’ve heard from Stefan. He’s alive!”
“Stefan? You spoke to him? Oh, praise God.” There was a moment’s silence, during which they heard the woman blow her nose. “Where is he?”
“Hiding. He’s afraid to come home. He thinks the men who killed his uncle may be watching your house.”
“Hiding? What has my Stefan done that he has these bad men after him?”
“Nadia, Nadia. I don’t know everything yet. I’m leaving now to take him some food and clean clothes. I’ll come to you after I’ve seen him. Have patience.”
The woman said something unintelligible, and hung up.
“Fuck,” said Rodriguez. “Who the fuck was that? Play it again.”
They had to listen to the recording three times before Rodriguez finally caught the woman’s last words.
“Thank you, Father.”
Kirkpatrick pushed up from his chair as Rodriguez reached out to snap off the recorder. “It’s the village priest. The little shit contacted his priest.” He reached for his jacket. “Call Zoya and Nikolayev. Let’s go.”
The flight from Moscow touched down in Kaliningrad in a swirl of billowing snow. They were met by the familiar unsmiling Tatar, who drove them across a stretch of empty runway to where Andrei was waiting for them in a blue-and-gray Ansat helicopter, its main rotor stirring up an eddy of biting snow as it beat the air.
October took one look at the Ansat and froze halfway out of the car. “A chopper? I hate choppers.”
Jax gave her a sharp nudge toward the helicopter’s open door and shouted over the roar, “Get over it.”
“You’re late,” yelled Andrei, handing them each a headset as they clambered aboard.
“I need to stop flying Aeroflot.” Jax slipped the headset over his ears and adjusted the mike. “Where are we going?”
Andrei nodded to his pilot. “Yasnaya Polyana.”
The Ansat lifted off the ground, its tail kicking up and nose dipping as it flew forward. Jax glanced over at October. She’d put on her headset and was sitting stiffly upright, her hands clasped together between her knees, her gaze fixed straight ahead.
Andrei said, “You don’t like helicopters, Ensign?”
“No.”
“Given what happened in Iraq, I’m not surprised.”
She swung her head to stare at him. “How do you know what happened in Iraq?”
“He’s a spy,” said Jax. “Probing into people’s deep dark secrets is what he does for kicks.” To Andrei, he said, “Why Yasnaya Polyana?”
“That’s where Stefan Baklanov’s mother lives. It’s also where the militia picked up Borz Zakaev.”
“You say he’s Chechen? That doesn’t sound good. Any chance he has ties to al-Qa’ida?”
Andrei shrugged. “Not that we know of. But it’s possible. He worked with the CIA and American Special Forces in Afghanistan back in the eighties, when you Americans and Osama bin Laden were allies, supporting the mujahedeen against us.”
“Don’t remind me,” said Jax.
Andrei showed his teeth in a smile.
“So what did you learn from this guy?” said October.
“Unfortunately, very little.” Andrei shrugged. “He had a weak heart.”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means he’s dead,” said Jax.
Her eyes widened. “You mean you tor-”
Jax brought his heel down on her instep, hard, and said to Andrei, “What can you tell us about the kid?”
“We sent someone out to talk to the mother this morning. She still thinks her son died with the others on the Yalena. If the boy is alive, he hasn’t contacted her.”
Jax grunted. “He’s obviously being careful.”
“He needs to be careful. When my men were leaving the mother’s farm, they noticed a black Durango parked up the road.”
They were coming in low over a village, the blades of the chopper flattening the long grass that thrust up through the new snow. Jax said, “Someone’s staking out the mother’s house?”
“So it would appear. We’ve set a couple of militiamen to watch the watchers.”
“Why didn’t you just pick them up for questioning?” said October.
“Because I have no more use for small fry. I want the big fish. If we leave them alone, the minnows in the Durango will lead us to him.”
Adjusting his field glasses, Carlos Rodriguez watched as the old priest came out of his cottage to load two bundles into the sidecar of a rusty Ural motorbike.