there,” she replied, plainly bewildered by his question. “Through the kitchen.”
The two Americans slid around her and moved rapidly down the hall. Behind them, someone began pounding loudly on the dacha’s solid front door.
“Militsia!” a loud voice boomed. “Open up!”
Jon and Fiona walked on even faster.
The kitchen was quite large and equipped with every modern convenience ?a gas range, refrigerator, freezer, microwave oven, and all the rest. Mouth-watering smells hung in the warm air. In the corner, another of Madame Zakarova’s servants, a young, strongly built man, sat finishing his dinner, a bowl of pelmeni?meat dumplings smothered in sour cream and rich butter. He looked up in astonishment as they came hurrying past him.
“Hey, where are you ??”
Smith waved him back to his chair. “This lady is not feeling well,” he explained. “She needs some fresh air.”
Without hesitating, he pulled the heavy wood door open. Light and warmth spilled out into the icy darkness, illuminating a narrow expanse of deep, white snow. The dacha occupied a small clearing in the forest, and the closest trees were only a few meters away. A small trampled path through the snow led off toward a collection of trash cans set against the rear of the house.
“Quick now,” Smith whispered to Fiona. “And once we’re in among the trees, run like hell. Circle to the left. Don’t stop for anything or anyone until we reach Kirov. Got it?”
Grim-faced, she nodded.
Together, the two Americans headed out toward the forest, crunching up to midcalf in the icy powder. Smith took a quick breath, feeling the clean, arc-tic bite deep into his lungs. Just a few seconds more, he thought. That’s all we need to get clear.
Suddenly three armed men stepped out from among the trees. All three wore snow camouflage parkas and carried Russian-made AKSU submachine guns. Two were shorter than Smith, but they were powerfully muscled and moved with the quiet confidence of trained soldiers. The third man was an inch or so taller than Jon and his eyes were a wintry slate-gray. There were matching strands of gray in his pale blond hair.
Smith and Fiona froze in their tracks.
“Put your hands up, please,” the tall man ordered quietly in English. “Otherwise my men and I will be forced to shoot you here and now. And that would be regrettably messy, would it not?”
Slowly, Smith raised his arms, keeping his palms out to show that he was unarmed. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Fiona doing the same thing. All the color had drained out of her face.
“A sensible decision,” the blond man approved. He smiled coldly. “I am Erich Brandt. And you are the notorious Colonel Jonathan Smith and the lovely, though equally notorious, Ms. Devin.”
“Smith? Devin? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jon said stiffly. “My name is Strand, Dr. Kalle Strand. And this is Ms. Lindkvist.
We are scientists working for the United Nations.” He knew it was a futile gesture, but he wasn’t willing to concede everything so easily to the other man. Not yet anyway. “Who are you exactly? Criminals? Thieves? Kidnap-pers?”
Still smiling, Brandt shook his head. “Come now, Colonel. Let’s not play such silly games. You’re no more a Swede than I am.” He took one step closer. “But I do congratulate you. Very few men have ever evaded me for so long.
Smith said nothing, trying hard to tamp down his anger at having been herded into this trap so easily. The cars coming up to the front of the dacha had mostly been a feint, he realized bitterly?a means of prodding them out here into the open.
Brandt shrugged. “Stoicism is also a trait I admire. But only to a degree.”
He jerked the barrel of his submachine gun toward the dacha. “Inside.
Move.”
Slowly, Smith and Fiona backed up.
There were three other gunmen inside the house now. They were holding Madame Zarkova and her three servants?the maid, the young man from the kitchen, and an older man with a few strands of hair plastered across his bald scalp?as prisoners in her sitting room.
Still seated regally in her high-backed armchair, the older woman stared in outrage at Brandt. “What is this nonsense?” she demanded angrily. “How dare you invade my home!”
The former East German secret policeman shrugged. “A regrettable necessity, Madame,” he said smoothly. “Unfortunately, these people” ?he indicated Smith and Fiona?”are spies. They are enemies of the State.”
“Ridiculous,” Zarkova scoffed.
Brandt smiled again. “You think so?” He turned to his men. “Bind their hands. And then search them. Be very thorough.”
Conscious of the several weapons pointed straight at him, Smith stood still, reluctantly submitting as his hands were roughly bound behind his back with a length of plastic cable?flex-cuffs of the same kind used on insurgents and terrorists captured by U.S. troops in Iraq. He heard Fiona hiss in pain through her clenched teeth as the same thing was done to her.
Once they were tied up and helpless, Brandt’s men frisked them expertly, checking every place a weapon or any other piece of useful equipment might be hidden. Smith bristled, angrier and angrier inside, both with them and at himself, as the search went on, growing ever more intrusive. The blond wig came off, revealing his dark hair, and he was forced to spit out the cheek inserts that had altered the shape of his face. He knew it must be far more humiliating for Fiona than it was for him.
Brandt stood watching without visible reaction as his men first found Jon’s 9mm pistol, then Fiona’s 5.45mm Makarov PSM, their elements of disguise, their forged passports and other papers, and, finally, their high-tech Covert-One-issue cell phones. They set the weapons and other equipment on a coffee table in front of him. Only when one of the men pulled Fiona’s concealed switch-blade out of her right boot, did the blond-haired man show any serious interest.
He picked up the knife, touched the button on its slender black hilt, and saw the long, deadly blade flick out. One pale eyebrow went up in surprise.
He turned to Fiona with a dry smile. “I saw the gruesome wound this little toy of yours inflicted on one of my men, Ms. Devin. And Dmitri was a trained assassin. Clearly, you are something more than a mere journalist.”
She shrugged defiantly. “Think what you like, Herr Brandt. I’m not responsible for your fevered imagination.”
Brandt chuckled. “Brave words, Ms. Devin. But empty words, I suspect.”
He turned back to Madame Zakarova, who sat watching the proceedings with a fierce scowl. “You see?” he said, still smiling. “Weapons. Disguises. Forged passports. And sophisticated communications devices. Tell me, Madame, are these the normal accoutrements carried by Swedish medical researchers?or are they devices better suited to foreign spies?”
“Spies,” the older woman admitted quietly, turning paler.
“Just so,” Brandt said calmly. He reached into a pocket inside his camouflage smock, took out a pair of thin latex gloves, and then began slowly and methodically putting them on. Everyone in the room watched him in silence, unable to pull their eyes away. “Your late husband was a high-ranking member of the Party in the old days, Madame. You are not a simple member of the uneducated masses. Tell me, what was the penalty for espionage and for treason?”
“Death,” she whispered. “It was death.”
“Exactly right,” the German told her. He finished donning the gloves and then glanced toward the visibly frightened servants sitting lined up on one of the sofas?a slim-legged nineteenth-century antique richly embroidered in a bright fabric of blue and gold. “Which of you is Petr Kliinuk?”
The older, bald-headed man hesitantly raised one hand. “I am, sir,” he muttered.
Brandt smiled thinly. “And you are the one who contacted us, when you heard that your mistress was going to meet with these foreigners?”
Klimuk nodded, more eagerly now. “That’s right,” he said. “Just like you asked me to do earlier today. You promised that if I reported anyone snooping around asking questions about her husband, I would get a reward.”
