Tyler laughed. “Right. I told her if she could wait three months, we’d be in her neck of the woods for another job and would stop by to see what she had. So here we are.”
“She’s a kook.”
“Likely, although she sounded remarkably with-it on the phone. I’m sure whatever the object is, we’ll turn it over, frown at it with concern, take a sample and some photos, and then tell her that its origin is indeterminate. We won’t give her a conclusive answer, but we won’t dash her hopes for an alien artifact, either. After that we can head into Queenstown.”
“I hear they’ve got a good pizza place there called The Cow,” Grant said. “Then we can figure out what to do for fun. You know, I do have the parachutes in the trunk.”
Tyler smirked at him. “You don’t give up, do you? I told you. Bungee jumping, yes. Skydiving, no. At least with the bungee you’re already tied to the bridge.”
For the next thirty minutes, Grant steered them down a twisty cliff-hugging road called the Crown Range, where the drop-offs were so steep and Grant’s driving was so suspect that Tyler started to wonder just how much more adventure he could stand during the trip.
Once they got below three thousand feet, the snow cleared and Grant upped the speed. They made up so much time that Tyler texted Fay that they’d be twenty minutes early.
Tyler guided Grant through green pastures and farmland dotted by quaint bed-and-breakfasts. When they turned onto Fay’s road along a deep ravine carved by the Shotover River, Grant sighed as it climbed back above the snow line. In another few minutes they saw a sign for the Turia Remarkables Sheep Station, named for the jagged Remarkables mountain range looming over Queenstown’s Lake Wakatipu. Fresh tire tracks split the driveway’s snow.
“Maybe this means she left,” Grant said hopefully. “I’m starving.”
Tyler looked at his watch: 9:40 a.m. Twenty minutes early for their appointment. “That would explain why she hasn’t texted back.”
They followed the tracks for half a mile until they reached a stately white clapboard home with an attached garage. Behind it was a large red barn. Except for a few evergreens surrounding the house, the countryside was bare of trees. A fence disappeared into the hills on either side.
The snow tracks separated into a pair that led to the garage and a second set leading to a Toyota sedan parked in the circular driveway in front of the house. Grant pulled up next to it.
Tyler got out and laid his hand on the Toyota’s hood. Still warm, just like he expected. No rancher would drive a sedan. Two pairs of footprints wound to the door. Fay must have visitors.
No sheep or ranch hands were visible, probably out working somewhere on the station’s two thousand acres.
“Nice place,” Grant said.
“Looks like ranching has been good to her. Shall we say howdy?”
Grant nodded, and they crunched through the snow. When they were within ten feet of the front door, two shotgun blasts erupted from inside the house.
Their Army training kicking in, Tyler and Grant both dived to their bellies without hesitation. Grant gave him a look and silently mouthed, “What the hell?”
Tyler was about to suggest they make a hasty retreat to the Audi when he was stopped by a woman’s shout, followed by a third shotgun blast closer to the right side of the home. Tyler turned his head and saw a man skid around the corner of the house.
He raised a pistol, but before Tyler could yell, “Don’t shoot,” the stranger fired wildly in their direction, bullet impacts kicking up snow all around them.
That was all the prodding they needed to find cover. Grant scrambled toward the house and rammed the front door open like a charging rhino. Tyler was hot on his heels and slammed it closed once he crossed the threshold.
The hallway seemed shrouded in darkness until Tyler realized he was still wearing his sunglasses. When he doffed them, he saw that shards of a broken lamp littered the floor and buckshot holes peppered the wall.
From his right came the unmistakable sound of a pump-action shotgun chambering a new round. Tyler looked up to see a striking woman who had to be seventy-five-year-old Fay Turia, though she didn’t look a day over sixty. In her white hair cropped just below the ears, slim sporty figure, and bright green eyes, Tyler perceived the echo of the stunning beauty she must have been fifty years ago. Only the wrinkles around her eyes and neck and several liver spots on her hands betrayed her true age. She held the shotgun firm to her shoulder, as if she were not merely comfortable with the weapon but adept at handling it.
“Who are you?” she growled. The yawning barrel was the size of a manhole at this distance. Smoke wafted from it.
Tyler put up his hands. “I’m Tyler Locke. You must be Fay. I believe you invited me and my friend, Grant Westfield, for a friendly visit.”
Recognition dawned on her face, and the scowl melted away, replaced by a toothsome smile.
“Welcome to my home, Dr. Locke,” she said cheerfully, as if she were about to serve tea and crumpets instead of hot lead. “Would you mind terribly calling the police?”
TWO
Nadia Bedova stared at the water glass, hoping that Vladimir Colchev would not show up. Nestled next to her feet was the package that he’d requested.
Her seat at the outdoor cafe afforded a spectacular view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, clusters of tourists visible along its spine partaking in the Bridge Climb. A cruise ship docked across Circular Quay provided the backdrop for ferries, catamarans, and jet boats motoring past the ivory shells of the famed opera house.
Despite her calm expression, Bedova’s stomach churned as she waited. Four of her fellow operatives from Russia’s foreign intelligence service — the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki or SVR for short — were stationed at key locations nearby: two in the crowded walkway between the cafe and water, one at another table outside, and a fourth inside the restaurant housed under a five-story apartment tower. In addition to the mass of tourists strolling along, bikers and skateboarders occasionally rolled through. None of them would escape the operatives’ notice. They were here to apprehend Colchev or, if necessary, to kill him.
His actions had driven her reluctantly to this point. If he had just disappeared, he might have been left alone. But his last contact with her made it obvious that the SVR would have to bring him in or get rid of him once and for all.
A voice issued from the tiny microphone in her ear. One of the men in the walkway.
“I see him. One hundred meters behind you and coming this way.”
Bedova didn’t turn. “Is he alone?”
“Yes.”
The agents had already checked everyone else in the vicinity, and nobody seemed suspicious or put in place to help Colchev. He really was on his own, just as he’d said on the phone this morning.
She felt him touch her shoulder and didn’t flinch. She looked up and saw him smiling back at her. He was as fit as she’d ever seen him — broad shoulders, slim hips, steely gray hair — and she suddenly experienced a rush of memories of when they’d been together.
He bent down and lightly kissed her cheek. Then he came around the cafe’s front railing and took a seat opposite her. Now that he was in the shade, he removed his sunglasses and the intense eyes she remembered drilled into her.
“You look lovely, Nadia,” he said in a silky bass, using his native Russian.
She responded in kind. “I miss you, Vladimir. Why don’t you come home?”
“You know I can’t do that. At least not yet.”
“When then?”
“I have something to do first.”
“Is that why you needed this?” Bedova handed the bag over to him. He unzipped it, confirmed that the
