Текст книги "The Kill Switch"

Автор книги: James Rollins

Соавторы: Grant Blackwood
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

“I found it by accident one morning. I felt a strange draft coming up from the floor and started prying up boards.”

“And you’ve been maintaining it?” he asked.

The suspicion must have been plain in his voice.

Dimitry smiled. “Myself and Fedor. I told you he was a smuggler.”

Tucker raised an eyebrow toward the town’s old bishop, suddenly remembering how deferential everyone in the bar had been toward Dimitry, more than could be explained by religious affection.

“Okay, perhaps Fedor has a partner,” Dimitry admitted. “It is hard to maintain my flock on faith alone. But, mind you, we don’t smuggle anything dangerous. Mostly medicine and food, especially during winter. Many children get sick, you understand.”

Tucker could not find any fault in such an enterprise. “It’s a good thing you’re doing.”

Dimitry spread his hands. “Out here, you do what you can for your neighbor. It is how we survive, how we make a community.” He pointed ahead. “There is Fedor’s hangar. I will check first. Make sure it is clear, da?”

With Kane at his knee, Tucker waited while Dimitry went ahead. He returned two minutes later and gestured for them to follow.

“All is good.”

Dimitry led them through the main hangar doors. Lit by a lone klieg light, a single-engine prop plane filled the small space. Tucker couldn’t make out the model, but like everything else at the air base, the craft seemed a hodgepodge of bits and pieces. But at least the propeller was in place.

He found Fedor kneeling beside a red toolbox on the floor.

Before they could reach him, Kane let out a low growl. The shepherd still stood by the door, staring out.

Tucker hurried to the shepherd’s side, careful not to show himself. He drew Kane back by his collar. Across the base, a pair of headlights passed through the main gate, turned, and headed in their direction. It was clearly a military vehicle.

He drew his pistol and crossed to Fedor. He raised the gun and aimed it at the man’s forehead. “We’ve got visitors. No matter what else happens, you’ll be the first one to go.”

Fedor’s eyes got huge, and he sputtered first in Russian, then English. “I tell no one! No one!” He stood up—slowly, his palms toward Tucker. “Come, come! Follow. I show where to hide.”

Tucker weighed his options as the grumble of a diesel engine grew louder. He remembered Dimitry’s earlier words: you must trust someone or you’ll never get out of here.

With no choice but to heed that wisdom, Tucker pocketed his weapon. “Show me.”

Fedor hurried toward the rear of the hangar, towing everyone with him.

The big man led them to a giant orange storage tank, streaked with rust, that sat on a set of deflated rubber tires. A hose lay curled next to it. Tucker recognized an old fuel bowser used to fill the tanks of planes.

Fedor pointed to a ladder on one side. “Up! Through hatch on top.”

Having already cast his dice, Tucker stepped to the ladder and crouched down. He turned to Kane and tapped his shoulder. “UP.”

Backing a step, then leaping, Kane mounted Tucker’s shoulder in a half-fireman carry. Together, they scaled the ladder and crawled across the bowser’s roof to the hatch.

Fedor headed toward the hangar door, leaving behind a warning. “Quiet. I come back.”

Hurrying, Tucker spun the hatch, tugged it open, and poked his head inside. The interior seemed dry.

At least, I won’t be standing hip-deep in gasoline.

He pointed down and Kane dove through the hatch, landing quietly. Tucker followed, not as deftly, having to struggle to pull the hatch closed, too. His boots hit the bottom of the empty tank with a clang. He cringed, going still, but the rumbling arrival of the military vehicle covered the noise.

In complete darkness, Tucker drew his gun, his nose and eyes already stinging from fuel residue. But he also smelled bananas, which made no sense. He shifted to a better vantage, but his foot hit something that sounded wooden.

What the hell . . . ?

He freed his tiny penlight and flicked it on. Panning the narrow beam, he discovered the back half of the bowser’s tank was stacked with crates and boxes, some marked in Cyrillic, others in various languages. He spotted one box bearing a large red cross. Medical supplies. On top of it rested a thick bunch of bananas.

Here was more of Dimitry and Fedor’s smuggling operation.

It seemed he was now part of the cargo.

From outside, he heard muffled Russian voices moving around the hangar—then they approached closer. He clicked off his penlight and gripped the pistol with both hands. It sounded like an argument was under way. He recognized Fedor’s tone, which sounded heated, as if in the thick of a furious negotiation. Then the conversation moved away again and became indiscernible.

After another ten minutes, an engine started, rumbling loudly, wheels squelched on wet tarmac, and the sounds quickly receded. Seconds later, feet clomped up the ladder, and the hatch opened.

Tucker pointed his pistol up.

Fedor scolded, “No shoot, please. Safe now.”

Tucker called out, “Dimitry?”

“They are all gone, my friend!”

Fedor groaned. “Da, da. As I say, safe.”

Tucker climbed up, poked his head out, and looked around. Once confident the hangar was clear, he dropped back down, collected Kane, and climbed out.

“Price higher now,” Fedor announced.

Dimitry explained, “They were looking for you, but mostly they learned about our operations here. Not unusual. Every village in Siberia has such a black-market system. So people talk. The soldiers came mostly to collect what could be most kindly described as a tax.”

He understood. The roving soldiers weren’t above a little extortion.

“Cost me best case of vodka,” Fedor said, placing a fist over his heart, deeply wounded.

“We told them that we were about to leave on a postal run,” Dimitry explained. “After collecting the tax, there should be no problem getting through. Even soldiers know the mail must flow. Or their vodka here might dry up.”

Tucker understood. “ ‘Neither snow, nor rain, nor dark of night . . .’ ”

Fedor looked quizzically at him. “Is that poem? You write it?”

“Never mind. How much more do I owe you?”

Fedor gave it much thought. “Two thousand rubles. You pay, da?”

“I’ll pay.”

Fedor clapped his hands together. “Happy! Time to go. Put dog in plane. Then you push plane out, I steer. Hurry, hurry!”

Tucker rushed to comply.

Not exactly first-class service, but he wasn’t complaining.

12

March 11, 11:15 A.M.

Novosibirsk, Siberia

“And how confident are you of Dimitry and Fedor?” Ruth Harper asked.

Tucker stood at a pay phone next to an open-air fish market. The pungent smell of sturgeon, perch, and smelt hung heavily in the cold air. He had spent the previous ten minutes bringing Harper up to speed. He was surprised how happy he was to hear that southern lilt to her voice.

If not Tennessee, then maybe—

“Do you trust those Russians?” she pressed.

“I wouldn’t be making this call if either of them had ratted me out. Plus, I’ve been strolling the snowy streets of Novosibirsk for the past two hours. I’m clean. And it’s still another twelve hundred miles to Perm. If I pick up a tail, I’ll have plenty of time to shake it loose.”

“Still, you’re cutting the rendezvous close.”

“Bukolov will keep. If they—whoever they are—had any idea where he was, they wouldn’t be after me. Which reminds me, any further word about the source of that leak?”

“No luck, yet. But from the story you just told me—one involving GRU and Spetsnaz—we know the enemy has powerful connections in either the Russian government or military. I’m looking hard at the Ministry of Defense, or maybe someone at a cabinet level of the government.”

“Maybe you’d better be looking at both.”

“A scary proposition. Do you want help out there?”

Tucker considered it for a long moment. “For now, no. We’ve got enough players in the field. Makes it confusing enough.”

Plus he liked working alone—well, not quite alone.

He gave Kane, seated at his knee, a reassuring pat.

“If I change my mind, Harper, I’ll let you know.”

“Do that. As it happens, I’ve got nobody to give you right now.”

“Busy on the home front?”

“Always. World’s a dangerous place. At least Sigma can offer you some logistical support. Do you have a wish list for me?”

Tucker did. After reciting the provisions he needed, he signed off. He would find all he asked for once he reached the city of Perm, secured and cached in a safe house.

But first he had to get there.

Harper had arranged clean papers and seemed confident that Russian immigration and customs did not have him on any watch list, making it safe for him to fly. Furthermore, Sigma’s intelligence team had arranged another level of countermeasures, booking false tickets, hotel rooms, and car rentals. He was everywhere and nowhere.

Still, whether it was his inherent wariness of all things governmental or simply a tactical change of mind, Tucker called a local car rental agency after hanging up with Harper and booked an SUV for a one-way trip to Omskaya, some four hundred miles to the west. He had no reason to distrust Sigma, but there was no mistaking the reality of his current situation. He and Kane were out here alone, without any hope of reinforcements.

Harper had tasked him with getting Abram Bukolov safely out of Russia and to the United States. How exactly he accomplished that was his decision.

And he preferred it that way.

With Kane on a leash, he walked the mile to the rental car office and picked up the vehicle, a Range Rover of questionable age, but the engine purred and the heater worked.

Tucker took it and left Novosibirsk at midday, heading west down the highway to Omskaya. Three hours later, he pulled off the highway and drove six miles north to his true destination, Kuybyshev.

It never hurt to employ his own countermeasures.

Following the pictograph signs, he pulled into the local airport. Using a map and a smattering of Russian, he booked a flight to Perm.

Sixteen hours after he left Novosibirsk, his flight touched down at Perm’s Bolshoye Savino Airport. He waited in cargo claim for Kane to emerge from the belly of the plane, then another hour for immigration to clear them both.

Minutes later, he and Kane were in another rental vehicle—this one a Volvo—and headed into the city proper.

From the car, he called Sigma for an update.

“Still no blips on immigration or customs,” Harper informed him. “If they’re still actively hunting you, they’re not doing it that way.”

Or they’re giving me enough time to get to Bukolov before snapping shut the trap.

“Is this safe house I’m heading to manned?” he asked, intending to collect the provisions he had requested without delay.

“It won’t be. It’s an apartment. Call the number I gave you, let it ring three times, then again twice, then wait ten minutes. The door will be unlocked. Five minutes inside, no more.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Simplicity works, Tucker, and this is a lot simpler than meeting someone on a park bench with a flower in your lapel and your shoelace untied.”

Tucker realized this made sense. In fact, one of the acronyms soldiers lived by was KISS—Keep It Simple, Stupid.

“Fair enough,” Tucker said, but he gave voice to another troubling matter. “It’s South Carolina, isn’t it?”

“Pardon?”

“Your accent.”

She sighed heavily, giving him his answer.

Wrong.

“Tucker, the details for your meeting tonight will also be in the safe house.”

“And my contact?”

“His name and description are included in the dossier you’ll find there. He’s hard to miss.”

“I’ll call you after it’s done.”

“Keep out of trouble,” she said.

“Are you talking about both of us, or just Kane?”

“Kane would be much harder to replace.”

Tucker glanced to his partner. “Can’t argue with that,” he said and signed off.

Now came the hard part—grabbing Abram Bukolov without getting caught.

13

March 12, 8:55 A.M.

Perm, Russia

His visit to the safe house was thankfully anticlimactic. He left with four new passports—two for him and two for Bukolov—along with a roll of cash, a pair of credit cards, a second satellite phone, and the location of his meeting with Sigma’s contact, the one who was supposed to lead Tucker to Bukolov.

This mysterious contact was also high on his list of suspects as the source of the intelligence leak that almost got him killed. The man’s dossier rested on the seat next to him. He planned on studying it in great detail.

Next, Tucker took advantage of a list of local suppliers left at the safe house. He traveled to a bakery whose basement doubled as an armory. The baker asked no questions but simply waited for Tucker to make his weapon selections from a floor-to-ceiling pegboard. He then wrote down the price on a piece of paper, which he handed to Tucker with a gravelly, “No negotiate.”

The next supplier, the owner of a car lot, was equally taciturn and effective. Through Harper, Tucker had preordered a black Marussia F2 SUV. Of Russian manufacture, it had a front end that only a mother could love, but it was a brute of a vehicle, often modified for use by first responders or as a mobile command center.

After paying, Tucker told the owner where to leave the vehicle—and when.

With six hours still to spare before he was supposed to meet with his contact, Tucker proceeded to the neighborhood in question: the Leninsky District on the northern side of the Kama River. Once there, he parked the Volvo and began walking. In between scouting locations and routes, he was able to relax and take in the sights.

Straddling the banks of the Kama and within the shadow of the snow-topped Ural Mountains, Perm was home to a million people. While the city had its share of Soviet-gray architecture, the older Leninsky District continued to maintain its original European charm. It was a cozy neighborhood of tree-lined streets and secluded garden courtyards, spattered with small cafés, butchers, and bakeries. To top it off, the sun shone in a cloudless blue sky, a rare sight of late.

As he strolled, no one seemed to pay much attention to him: just a man walking his dog. He wasn’t alone in that regard. Much of Perm was taking advantage of the handsome day. Kane took particular interest in a pair of leashed dachshunds that passed by on the sidewalk, all three dogs doing the customary greeting of sniffing and tail wagging. Tucker didn’t mind, as attached to the other end of the leash was a buxom, young beauty in a tight sweater.

The day certainly had brightened.

Eventually, as they crossed the half-mile-long bridge spanning the Kama, he abruptly found himself in a different world. On this side of the river, it was distinctly seedier and less populated. The area was mostly forest, with roads that were either dirt or deeply potholed. The few inhabitants he encountered stared at the pair as though they were alien invaders.

Luckily, where he was supposed to meet his mysterious contact was only a quarter mile from the river. He studied it from a distance, getting the lay of the land. It was a bus stop shelter across from a sullen cluster of businesses: a grocery store, a strip club, and a body shop.

Tucker finished his reconnoiter, then gladly crossed back over the bridge.

He and Kane returned to the Volvo, found a nondescript hotel in the area, checked in, and took a fast nap. Tucker knew that once he had Bukolov in hand, he might not get a chance to sleep again until he delivered the man across the border.

That is, if he ever reached the border.

In the end, he didn’t sleep well at all.

8:12 P.M.

By nightfall, Tucker found himself parked in an elementary-school lot on the wrong side of the tracks—or in this case, the wrong side of the river. The school had boarded-up windows with a playground full of rusty, broken equipment that looked perfect for spreading tetanus.

He had picked this spot because it lay within a hundred yards of the bus stop where he was supposed to meet his contact. He shut off the engine and doused the lights and sat in the darkness for five minutes. He saw no other cars, and no one moving about. Again no one seemed to be following him. This made him feel more uneasy, not less.

It was what you couldn’t see that usually got you killed.

He turned to Kane, motioning with a flat palm. “STAY.”

He had debated the wisdom of leaving Kane behind, but if the meeting went awry, he wanted to make sure he had an escape vehicle. And considering the neighborhood, Kane’s presence in the Volvo was better than any car alarm.

He often wrestled with this exact quandary. With the memory of Abel’s death never far, he had to fight the temptation to keep Kane out of harm’s way. But the shepherd loved Tucker, loved to work, and he hated to be separated for long.

They were a pack of two.

Even now, Kane displayed his displeasure at Tucker’s order, cocking his head quizzically and furrowing his brow.

“I know,” he replied. “Just mind the fort.”

He took a moment to check his equipment: a Smith & Wesson .44-caliber snubnose in his belt, a hammerless Magnum revolver in his coat pocket, and a similar .38-caliber model in a calf holster. Additionally, he kept a pair of quick-loaders for each in his pockets.

This was as close to armed to the teeth as he could manage.

Satisfied, he got out, locked the car, and started walking.

He hopped a chest-high fence and crossed the school’s playground to the north side. He followed a line of thick Russian larch trees, bare and skeletal, around a vacant lot that was dominated by mounds of garbage.

On the other side, fifty yards away, stood the bus stop. The curbside shelter was little more than a lean-to over a graffiti-scarred bench.

Across the street, under the strip club’s neon sign—a silhouette of a naked lady—four thugs lounged, laughing, smoking, and chugging bottles of beer. Their heads were shaved, and they all wore jeans tucked into black, steel-toed boots.

Staying out of their sight line, Tucker checked his watch. He still had twenty minutes.

Now came the waiting.

Back at the hotel, he had read the dossier on his contact, a man named Stanimir Utkin. He was Bukolov’s former student and now chief lab assistant. Tucker had memorized his face, not that it took much effort. The man stood six and a half feet tall but weighed only one hundred fifty pounds. Topped by a shock of fiery-red hair, such a scarecrow would be hard to miss in a crowd.

Right on time, a cab pulled to a stop before the bus shelter.

The door opened and out climbed Stanimir Utkin.

“Come on,” Tucker mumbled. “Don’t do this to me.”

Not only had Utkin arrived by cab to the exact spot of their meeting—displaying a reckless lack of caution—he had come wearing what appeared to be an expensive business suit. His red hair glowed in the pool cast by the streetlamp like a beacon.

The cab pulled away and sped off.

The driver was no fool.

Like sharks smelling chum, the four thugs across the street took immediate notice of Utkin. They pointed fingers and laughed, but Tucker knew this phase wouldn’t last long. Utkin was too tempting of a target, either for a mugging or a beating—or more likely, both.

Tucker jammed his hands into his pockets and tightened one fist around the Magnum. Taking a deep breath, he started walking fast across the open lot, keeping out of sight as he headed toward the back of the bench. He covered the distance to the bus shelter in thirty seconds, by which time Utkin had begun glancing left and right like a rat who had spotted a snake.

One of the thugs threw a bottle across the street. It shattered on the curb near Utkin’s toes.

The skinny man stumbled backward, falling to his seat on the bus bench.

Oh, dear God . . .

Ten feet behind the shelter, Tucker stopped in the shadows and called out, keeping his voice low enough so only Utkin could hear him. According to the dossier, the man spoke fluent English.

“Utkin, don’t turn around. I’m here to meet you.”

Another beer bottle sailed across the street and shattered in the street. Harsh laughter followed.

“My name is Tucker. Listen carefully. Don’t think, just turn around and walk toward me, then keep going. Do it now.”

Utkin stood, stepped out from under the shelter, and headed into the abandoned lot.

One of the thugs called out, and the group started across the street, likely drawn as much out of boredom as larceny.

Utkin drew even with Tucker, who hid behind a stack of tires and trash.

He waved him on. “Keep going. I’ll catch up.”

Utkin obeyed, glancing frequently over his shoulder.

By now, the thugs had reached the bus stop and entered the lot.

Tucker stood up, drawing out his Magnum. He took three paces into the light, showing himself. He raised the pistol and drew a bead on the lead thug’s chest.

The group came to a fast stop.

Tucker summoned one of the Russian phrases he’d been practicing. “Go away, or I will kill you.”

He raised the Magnum, a mean-looking weapon. His Russian language skills might be lacking, but some communication was universal.

Still, the leader looked ready to test him, until they locked gazes. Whatever he saw in Tucker’s eyes made him change his mind.

The leader waved the others off, and they wisely retreated.

Tucker turned and hurried after Utkin, who had stopped at the fence that bordered the schoolyard. He was bent double, his hands on his knees, hyperventilating.

Tucker didn’t slow. He couldn’t trust the thugs wouldn’t rally up more guys, additional firepower, and come after them. He grabbed Utkin’s arm, pulled him upright, and shoved him toward a neighboring gate.

“Walk.”

Coaxed and guided by Tucker, they reached the car quickly. He opened the front passenger door and herded Utkin inside. The man balked when he spotted Kane in the back. The shepherd leaned over the seat to sniff at the stranger.

Tucker placed a palm atop Utkin’s head and pushed him inside. Still panicked, the man balled up in the passenger seat, twisted to the side, his eyes never leaving Kane.

Not the most auspicious introduction, but the man had left him little choice.

Tucker started the engine and drove off.

Only once back over the bridge and in more genial surroundings did Tucker relax. He found a well-lit parking lot beside a skating rink and pulled in.

“The dog won’t hurt you,” Tucker told Utkin.

“Does he know that?”

Tucker sighed and turned to face Utkin fully. “What were you thinking?”

“What?”

“The taxi, the business suit, the bad part of town . . .”

“What should I have done differently?”

“All of it,” Tucker replied.

In truth, Tucker was partly to blame. From the dossier, he had known Utkin was a lab geek. He knew the meeting site was dicey. He should have changed it.

Utkin struggled to compose himself and did a surprisingly admirable job, considering the circumstances. “I believe I owe you my life. Thank you. I was very frightened.”

Tucker shrugged. “Nothing wrong with being frightened. That just means you’re smart, not stupid. So before we get into any more trouble, let’s go get Bukolov. Where is your boss?”

Utkin checked his watch. “He should still be at the opera.”

“The opera?”

Utkin glanced up, seemingly not bothered that someone seeking to escape the country, someone being hunted by Russian elite forces, should choose such a public outing.

Tucker shook his head. “You remember when I said don’t be stupid . . .”

Over the next few minutes, he got the story out of Utkin. It seemed—faced with the possibility of never seeing the Motherland again—Abram Bukolov had decided to indulge his greatest passion: opera.

“They were doing one of Abram’s favorites,” Utkin explained. “Faust. It’s quite—”

“I’m sure it is. Does he have a cell phone?”

“Yes, but he will have it turned off.”

Tucker sighed. “Where is the opera house and when does it end?”

“In about an hour. It’s being held at the Tchaikovsky’s House. It’s less than a mile from here.”

Great . . . just great. . .

He put the Volvo in gear. “Show me.”

10:04 P.M.

Ten minutes before the opera ended, Tucker found a parking spot a few blocks from the Tchaikovsky’s House. As angry as he was at Bukolov for choosing to preface his defection by dressing up in a tuxedo and attending a public extravaganza, the deed was done. Still, this stunt told him something: Bukolov was either unstable, stupid, or arrogant—any of which did not bode well for the remainder of their journey.

Tucker left Kane in the car and accompanied Utkin down the street. He stopped across from the opera’s brightly lit main entrance and pointed toward its massive white stone façade.

“I’ll wait here,” he said. “You go fetch the good doctor and walk to the car. Don’t hurry and don’t look at me. I’ll meet you at the Volvo. Got it?”

“I understand.”

“Go.”

Utkin crossed the street and headed toward the main entrance.

As he waited, Tucker studied the crimson banner draped down the front of the theater. The fiery sign depicted a demonic figure in flames, appropriate for Faust, an opera about a scholar who makes a pact with the devil.

I hope that’s not the case here.

A few minutes later, Utkin emerged with Abram Bukolov in tow. The billionaire leader of Russia’s burgeoning pharmaceutical industry stood a foot shorter and forty pounds heavier than his lab assistant. He was bald, except for a monk’s fringe of salt-and-pepper hair.

Following Tucker’s instructions, Utkin escorted the man back to the car. Tucker gave them a slight lead, then followed. Once he was sure no one was tailing them, he joined them at the car.

“Hello!” Bukolov called, offering his hand.

Irritated, Tucker skipped the formal introductions. Instead, he used the remote to unlock the doors. “Utkin in front, Bukolov in—”

“Doctor Bukolov,” the man corrected him.

“Whatever. Doctor, you’re in the back.”

Tucker opened the driver’s door and started to climb in.

Behind him, Bukolov stopped and stared inside. “There’s a dog back here.”

“Really?” Tucker said, his voice steeped in sarcasm. “How did he get back there?”

“I’m not sitting next to—”

“Get in, or he’ll drag you inside by your tuxedo lapels, Doctor.”

Bukolov clamped his mouth shut, his face going red. It was doubtful many people had ever spoken to him like that. Still, he got in.

Two blocks later, the pharmaceutical magnate found his voice. “The opera was tremendous, Stanimir—though I doubt you would have appreciated the subtleties. Say, you, driver, what’s your name? Is this your dog? He keeps staring at me.”

Tucker gave Utkin a narrow-eyed glance, who got the message.

“Doctor Bukolov, why don’t we talk about the opera later? We can—”

The man cut him off by tapping on Tucker’s shoulder. “Driver, how long until we reach Kazan?”

Resisting the urge to break his fingers, Tucker pulled to the nearest curb and put the Volvo in park. He turned in his seat and faced Bukolov. “Kazan? What are you talking about?”

“Kazan. It’s in the oblast of—”

“I know where it is, Doctor.” The city of Kazan lay about four hundred miles to the west. “Why do you think we’re going there?”

“Good God, man, didn’t anyone tell you? This is unacceptable! I am not leaving the country without Anya. We must go to Kazan and collect her.”

Of course we do.

“Who’s Anya?” he asked.

“My daughter. I will not leave Russia without her.”

11:22 P.M.

Sticking to his original plan, Tucker headed out of town, stopping only long enough to trade the Volvo for the new Marussia F2 SUV. They found the brute of a vehicle parked where he had instructed it to be left on the south end of town. It was fully gassed and carried a false license plate.

Reaching the P242, he continued west for an hour, doing his best to tune out Bukolov’s rambling monologue, which ranged from the mysterious Anya, to the industrial history of the region, to Kane’s disturbingly intelligent mien.

On the outskirts of the small town of Kungur, Tucker pulled into the hotel parking lot and decided he’d put enough distance from Perm to regroup.

He got out and called Harper and brought her up to speed.

“This is the first I’ve heard of this Anya,” Harper said.

“You described the doctor as eccentric. You were being generous.”

“He may be a bit”—she paused to consider her words—“out of touch, but there’s no mistaking his brilliance. Or his desire to leave Russia. And to answer your unspoken question, we’re convinced he’s on the up-and-up.”

“If you say so.”

“Where is he now?”

“In the backseat of my SUV, having a staring contest with Kane. I had to get some air. Listen, Harper, if Anya is the brideprice to get Bukolov out of the country, that’s fine, but let’s make sure she’s real before I head to Kazan. That’s a good seven-hour drive from here.”

“Agreed. Give me her full name.”

“Hang on.” Tucker opened his door. “Doctor, what is Anya’s last name?”

“Bukolov, of course! She’s my daughter. What kind of question—?”

Tucker straightened and spoke to Harper. “You heard?”

“I did.”

The professor added, “She works at the Kazan Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics. She’s quite brilliant, you know—”

Tucker slammed the door, muffling Bukolov’s ramblings.

On the phone, Harper said, “I’m on it.”

Bukolov rolled down the window a few inches. “Apologies. How forgetful of me. Anya took her mother’s surname—Malinov. Anya Malinov.”

Harper heard that, too. “Got it. Name’s Malinov. What’s your plan, Tucker?”

“In the short term, to check into a motel. It’s almost midnight here.”

Tucker waited until Bukolov had rerolled up his window. He took a few additional steps away before broaching a touchier matter.

“Harper, what about Utkin?”

The lab tech continued to remain on the short list of potential leaks—but were such breaches accidental or done on purpose? Tucker trusted his gut, along with his ability to read people. He found nothing that struck a wrong nerve with the young man, beyond simple naïveté.

It seemed Harper had come to the same conclusion. “Our intelligence can find nothing untoward about Utkin. He seems as honest as they come.”

“Then maybe it was a slip of the tongue. Something said to the wrong person. By Utkin . . . or maybe even by Bukolov. That guy seems a few fries short of a Happy Meal.”

“I’ll keep looking into it. In the meantime, I’ll dig into this Anya business overnight and get back to you by morning.”

With the call done, he led everyone to the hotel for the night, booking a single room with two beds. Tucker parked Kane at the door, knowing the shepherd would keep guard for the night.