“Komsomolsk Square,” the woman repeated, pointing now for emphasis.
Laughing Dragon pulled the car to the side of the road and shut down the engine. He turned his head toward her and his smile washed away. “You ever interrupt the Beatles again, Li… you know what. Zai jian.”
She knew. Two months ago in Shanghai, outside a warehouse along the shipping docks, a contact had told him to shut his mouth when the Laughing Dragon had erupted into a guffaw at the man for slipping on wet pavement. She had never seen the Dragon escape so quickly. Zai jian. Goodbye to the man.
She bowed her head to him. “Wo dong. I understand.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
The two of them got out and headed across the square toward the river. By the time they reached the edge of the square and crossed the snowy park to the edge of the river, darkness had set in completely over this part of Russia-a place that reminded Li more of Manchuria.
Laughing Dragon stopped suddenly, his hand on her arm. “We talk English,” he said to her. “More preciously, I talk English.”
“Precisely,” she corrected.
“Exactly. How else I learn words meaning to Abby Road album?”
Always back to the Beatles, she thought.
Further up the river a figure appeared from behind some pine trees, his hulking figure a silhouette against the industrial skyline across the river.
Laughing Dragon pulled Li forward.
“Close enough,” came a harsh voice, heavily accented, followed by a gloved hand extended outward.
The two of them stopped, the only sound the soft flow of water rippling against a pile of rocks on the river’s edge. She knew nothing of the man. That was out of necessity, as always. He was Russian. That’s all she knew. From five meters she could not see his face.
“What go up must come down,” Laughing Dragon said.
“Only if someone shoots it down,” the Russian said.
Coded pleasantries over, the Russian slid his hand inside his wool coat and extracted what appeared to be a bundle wrapped in plastic. He threw the package and it landed at the feet of Laughing Dragon, who reached down for it.
“Wait,” the man in the shadows said. “Wait until I go. Everything is there.” With that, the man backed behind the pines and was not seen again.
Poor tactics, she thought.
Laughing Dragon glanced at her. “You think he not very smart?”
“We could have had another person up the river,” she said.
He let out a more subdued laugh and then pointed at a red dot bouncing around Li’s chest. “And we both die here in Khabarovsk on bank of river.”
She looked around trying to find the source of the red dot, knowing she would be dead before she heard the sound if the shooter dared to pull the trigger.
Her boss reached down for the bundle and then nodded for them to head back toward the car.
“Why not open the package?” she said, looking around for the red dot.
“It there. It always there. If not, it be last time.”
They shuffled across the square to the car. Once inside, Laughing Dragon opened the package. There was a stack of American dollars, a series of photos, and instructions in English. Which was one reason she had been called in. Her boss could speak English, but his reading was limited to children’s books. He shoved the bills inside his jacket and handed her the instructions.
She looked them over, memorized her part, and then set the paper on the seat next to her. Although she had just gotten off a flight from San Francisco that morning, catching a connecting flight from Beijing, she now saw she would be heading back to America as soon as she could catch a return flight. She would have to push her contact there. Hurry him into something she knew would include more gratuitous sex. Although that repulsed her, she knew the reward would be well worth the unpleasantness. But first she would have to work here with Laughing Dragon.
Hours later, twenty miles southeast of the missile test site, in a bar on the outskirts of Khabarovsk, Jake Adams leaned back in his chair and poured another shot of vodka down his throat, Yuri Pushkina doing the same and then both slamming the glass to the table.
Letting out a deep breath, Jake said, “All right, that’s the last one, Yuri.”
The Russian laughed and then his face became serious. “Come on, my friend. This is my retirement.”
Putting his arm around the Russian, Jake whispered, “It wasn’t your fault. They’ll see that.”
Yuri shook his head. “They always find someone to blame for these things.”
“Even so. You’ll have your pension.”
“I could work at McDonald’s in Moscow. I’m sure they hire me.”
Jake glanced about the smoky room, which was crowded mostly with off-duty soldiers and tungsten miners, still dressed in grubby denim overalls. The vodka had set his head spinning, but his old friend would need his counsel and companionship. Jake would have to switch to beer, though. He stopped a waitress and ordered a beer and another shot of vodka.
“I don’t want beer, Jake,” Yuri said to him.
“That’s for me. No more vodka.”
An hour passed. Patrons came and went, but the two of them continued their assault on the Khabarovsk alcohol supply.
Yuri finally moved his chair closer to Jake, put his arm around his neck, and said, “I shouldn’t tell you this.” He hesitated as his eyes shifted about the room. “But I’m sure you already know this. My superiors know what happened to our missile.” He raised his bushy brows and smiled at Jake. It was the same smile he had displayed when Jake awoke in the back of the taxi a the Volgograd airport years ago-Yuri in civilian clothes then and extolling his virtues for saving Jake’s ass.
When Yuri didn’t elaborate, Jake said, “And?”
“And I think you know.” He pulled his arm from Jake, crossed both of them over his thick chest, and then leaned back in his chair.
Jake had no idea what in the hell was going on. “I’m lost, Yuri. I think I’ve had too much to drink.”
“You know.” His voice resonated and brought stares from two young soldiers at the closest table.
Shaking his head, Jake said, “No, I don’t.”
“Your fucking plane.” This time Yuri whispered loudly, his words slurred.
Jake wasn’t sure what in the hell he was talking about. But he was aware of the two soldiers, who were nowhere near their level of inebriation. “Let’s get some air, Yuri.”
The large Russian started to his feet and his chair slipped out and crashed to the floor, but Yuri recovered before following the chair to the wooden surface.
As the two of them got to the sidewalk, Jake realized that the February air had dipped down toward zero. The Russian leaned up against the brick building and lit a cigarette, bringing the tip to a bright orange.
“What the hell you trying to tell me, Yuri?”
“You know.”
“No. I don’t.”
The man considered him carefully, watching Jake’s facial expression. “You don’t know, my friend.” He sucked on the cigarette, let out a stream of smoke and said, “The stipulation to this test from the Americans was to observe the test from a plane over the Sea of Okhotsk. You know this much?”
“No. Remember, Yuri, you brought me into this. I have nothing to do with the U.S. government. I was here as an independent observer.”
The Russian considered this.
Jake was as confused as a child in a physics lecture. He had been living in Innsbruck, Austria, where he had been for the last few years running a private security firm, when he had gotten the call from Yuri, followed by a round-trip airline ticket from Munich to Vladivostok, Russia, and an expedited visa for his passport. Based on his past affiliation with the old CIA, he had been compelled to notify the Agency. But that was all he knew.