too interesting to bear.
“I’m in Red Square”. Have a helicopter pick me up in front of Lenin’s Tomb as soon as possible. We’ll follow the highway west.”
“It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.”
“Then you’d better hurry, Captain.”
Chernov broke the connection, pocketed his phone and looked out across Red Square again. In three days Russia would be Tarankov’s. Before that happened McGarvey would be dead, and it would be time to get out for good. He decided that he wouldn’t regret any of it. - ‘
THIRTY-SEVEN
About seventy-five miles east of the Latvian border, McGarvey followed*a narrow dirt track off the highway down to a thick stand of birch and willows that followed a creek. Although most of the trees had not budded yet, the growth was thick enough to obscure the outline of the Mercedes from the highway and from the air. Even if someone was looking for him, which he doubted, he would be safe here until dark.
With the engine off, he stood smoking a cigarette as he listened to the burble of the gently flowing creek, and the distant hum of an occasional truck above on the highway. Through a stand of trees on the opposite side of the creek he could see a farm field rising to the crest of the hill. But there were no farm buildings or animals in sight. Nor did it seem as if the field had been worked in recent years, because it was overgrown with a brown stubble.
Crossing the border had presented no problems. When it was his turn the same customs official as before came out to examine his papers.
“No lunch this afternoon, Comrade Allain?” the official joked.
“Not this time,” McGarvey said. “But I’ll be back next week, and maybe I’ll bring something good.” He handed the official an envelope with five hundred marks in cash.
One of the border guards came out of the shack with the long-handled mirror, but the officer waved him back.
“Sometimes he takes his job too seriously,” the officer said, pocketing the money. “A lot of them do.”
The meaning was clear.
“Do you take a day off each week?” McGarvey asked.
“Sundays.”
“I prefer to rest on Sundays myself.”
“It’s a good philosophy,” the officer said. He stepped back and motioned for the gate to be raised.
With dusk beginning to settle in, McGarvey removed his gun from the computer, loaded it, and pocketed the spare magazines and silencer. Then he started on the extra spare tire, deflating it, popping the seal with the tire irons, and removing the plastic bags containing Voronin’s KGB uniform. Next he unlatched the primary spare tire from its bracket on the cargo compartment lid, and removed the uniform cap. The cap and uniform went into a nylon zippered bag which he tossed in the back seat.
If he were to be stopped and searched before he got to Moscow he would have no explanation for the uniform. But since he would be driving at night, and’ planned on remaining well within the speed limit, there was no reason for him to be stopped.
He reattached the main spare tire to its bracket, then reinflated the extra spare tire using the electric pump plugged into the car’s cigarette lighter.
When that was done, he tossed the pump and tire irons into the thicker brush, cleaned his hands in the creek, then lit a cigarette as he waited for the deepening dusk to turn to darkness.
A faint sound came to him on the light breeze and he cocked an ear to listen. A helicopter, he thought. Maybe more than one. He tossed the cigarette aside, and stepped away from the overhanging trees.
The sun had already set but the western sky was still dimly aglow, making it easy for him to pick out a formation of four helicopters heading cross country toward the southwest. They were Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters, their silhouettes easily distinguishable. So far as he knew the FSK did not use such aircraft, which meant there was probably a military base somewhere in the vicinity. The most likely explanation was that the formation was on a training maneuver.
McGarvey glanced up at the highway. The helicopters were heading in the general direction of the border. Such exercises were common because of the ongoing trouble between the Latvian government and Russians still living in Latvia. The maneuver could be one of intimidation.
But he doubted it. The timing was too coincidental. But if they knew or suspected that he would be coming across from Latvia, then a great deal of his preparations had somehow been blown. Possibly by Yemlin. Possibly his Allain passport had been compromised. The list wasn’t endless but it was long. He’d been on too many assignments where a number of little errors and coincidences added up to a major problem for him to ever believe that he was truly safe.
When the helicopters finally disappeared in the distance, he started the Mercedes. At the crest of the hill he paused a moment to make certain there was no traffic in either direction, then headed east on the M9 toward Moscow a little over three hundred miles away, as he considered his options should the helicopters return.
It was dark by the time the modified HormoneD search and rescue helicopter finally cleared Moscow’s airspace, the city of Volokolamsk directly ahead of them. Petrov sky had picked Chernov up on Red Square late because there’d been some delay in obtaining the necessary clearances from the Moscow District Military Command to overfly the city. Once they’d passed the outer ring highway the pilot found the M9 and followed it west, the throttles pushed their stops. The crew had not been told what the mission was about, but they were suitably impressed by Bykov’s credentials so that when they were told to hustle they asked no questions. They hustled.
Traffic on the motorway was heavy, but Chernov expected that it would thin out to next to nothing on the other side of Volokolamsk, which was one hundred kilometers from the center of Moscow, because there were no major cities between there and the Latvian border. The problem, of course, was picking out a specific automobile in the dark, when all that was distinguishable were headlights.
Petrovsky had been speaking or! the radio, and he came forward to where Chernov was braced behind the copilot, a concerned expression on his face.
“He crossed the border two hours ago.”
“Under the Pierre Allain passport?” Chernov demanded.
“Da. He’s driving a gunmetal-gray Mercedes sport utility vehicle, with the proper in-transit documents. There was no reason for the customs people to detain him because the warrant for McGarvey didn’t show up until fifteen minutes ago.”
“What about the air force up there?”
Petrovsky looked uncomfortable. “They sent up a squadron of Mi-24s, but their instructions were to remain within their training area. They’re not authorized to go any farther.”
“Exactly how far is that?” Chernov asked, holding his temper in check.
“Two hundred kilometers from the border.”
“They spotted nothing, of course. Because he had nearly a two-hour head start,” Chernov said. He turned forward and tapped the pilot on the shoulder. The man cocked his head, but did not take his eyes off the windshield.
“Sir?”
“As soon as we get to the other side of Volokplamsk, I want you to fly right up the middle of the M9, but no higher than eight or ten meters. I want to be able to identify every vehicle down there. Can you do that?”
“Yes sir,” the pilot said. “What are we looking for, Colonel?”
“A gray Mercedes four-by-four.”
“Will do,” the pilot said.
Chernov turned back to Petrovsky. “Radio the base commander up there and tell him that I want his
