a chair behind him and pulled it on. Calmly he took a pistol from the desk drawer, slipped the magazine out to check the load, then snapped it back into place and tucked it into a pancake holster at the small of his back. Another drawer yielded a smaller automatic in a holster, which he strapped to his right leg.
'This is not a man who trusts others,' Viktor commented.
'No,' Sergei agreed. This was the first time since they'd had Kumarin under surveillance that the man had strapped on the hideaway pistol.
'I think,' Viktor said calmly, 'that you are through waiting.'
A sleek black limousine pulled up in front of the building and waited. After a short time, Kumarin appeared and climbed into the back.
When the car started forward, Sergei put the sedan in gear and eased out into the traffic in pursuit. His heart felt like a triphammer against his ribs.
* * *
For a few minutes after the truck stopped, Ajza sat in the rear compartment in the dark. Slivers of light crept in from outside. The sounds of traffic and the frequent stops let her know they were in a city. Given the distance they'd driven, she felt certain it was Moscow.
Maaret sat with her child in one corner of the compartment. She hadn't been allowed to milk the goat or prepare bottles before they'd left, and the baby had nursed everything she had. As a result, he was now hungry and whimpering.
A guard pulled aside the tarp covering the rear of the truck. 'Shut that baby up,' he ordered.
'He's hungry,' Maaret pleaded. 'There's nothing I can do.' But she pulled him close and he quieted.
Ajza knew the baby wouldn't be silent for long. She stood up to loosen her stiff muscles and felt a burst of nervous energy.
Beyond the open tarp, the Moskva River gleamed like a silver ribbon beneath the quarter moon. Pleasure boats carried tourists along. At the river's edge, numerous small craft were moored at several docks. Inland were warehouses and specialty shops.
The Kitai-gorod was arguably the oldest neighborhood in Russia. Built in the early sixteenth century, it had been much changed and added to since. Many of the old historical buildings had been razed to make room for the businesses that grew up around the river trade. Now many of those businesses chased tourist money.
The area the trucks had stopped in was mostly deserted. During the day, Ajza thought, the street was probably filled with shoppers and blue-collar workers.
'Get out,' the guard ordered.
Ajza waited in line for a moment, then crawled out of the truck. She took the baby when Maaret handed him down, then gave him back to his mother when she stepped down.
A panel van pulled to a rocking halt only a few feet away. The side door slid open and two of Taburova's men stood there with assault rifles.
Taburova got out on the passenger side and gestured to the women to come closer. 'Over here. Quickly. We don't have much time.'
The men operated like an assembly line, hauling explosive vests from the cargo van and buckling the women into them.
'Be careful of these vests,' Taburova warned. 'Once they are secure, any attempt you make to remove them will result in detonation.'
Having no choice, Ajza stepped forward and a man slipped a vest onto her. Then he handed her a chador to pull on over it. She stepped away, lightly fingering the deadly vest.
'Are you still ready to die to kill our enemies?' Taburova asked.
Ajza looked at him. 'Yes,' she answered. She glanced back and saw Maaret being fitted for a vest while still holding her child. Ilyas's child. She turned back to Taburova. 'I am ready now more than ever.'
And if it came to that, she was as prepared as she could be to give her life. But she wanted Ilyas's child free and out of harm's way first. For the moment she planned to stay close to Taburova. She didn't think he would set off the vests if he was close to anyone wearing one.
52
Headlights flared at the corner and a long black limousine coasted down the street. Ajza watched as it stopped almost a hundred yards away, well out of range of the explosives. From the way it sat so heavily on its tires, Ajza guessed it was armored enough to be blastproof.
Taburova nodded to his men and took out his cell phone. He listened for a moment, then closed the phone and walked to one of the nearby warehouses. After he entered a code on the keypad, the door opened and he went inside.
Ajza stood near the door, just close enough to draw Saleh's attention. He barked at her to stay back, but she remained close enough to see Taburova open a crate and take out an assault rifle. In the dim light it took Ajza a moment to recognize it as an American military M4A1.
She'd found the cache of weapons.
Excitement raced through her, then quickly died when she realized she had no way to contact the people who had given her the mission. The weight of the explosive vest scared her.
Taburova took his cell phone out and spoke briefly again. When he finished this time, he walked toward a sedan parked beside the warehouse.
'Saleh, get the vans loaded,' Taburova ordered.
Ajza tried to guess what Taburova was going to do with the sedan. He had the weapons. All he had to do was load them. She knew he was the type to supervise something like this. But he was making no effort to do that.
Saleh looked uncomfortable, too, and he looked even worse when Taburova climbed in the car and drove away. The other men looked to Saleh for guidance. At last he shrugged and put them to work.
Looking around at the women wearing the explosive vests, at the Chechen rebels carrying the American weapons, Ajza knew what was going on. It was a setup. Taburova and whoever was in the limousine were the only people who were supposed to walk away from this.
* * *
'Taburova's leaving?' Jake's surprise was audible.
Kate cursed as she opened the communications channel to the team she had standing by in Moscow. It had only just arrived and the members hadn't had the chance yet to deploy properly. They were running sloppy on this one and she hated that.
'Move in,' she said. 'Move in now and take them all down. See if you can jam those explosives.'
'Roger that,' the team leader responded.
'Mark them,' Kate told the tech-support teams.
Almost instantly, moving figures lit up on the screens to designate the commandos on loan to Room 59 for the operation. They were too bunched up and hadn't effectively saturated the hot zone.
Jake got to his feet, no longer able to sit. His jaw muscles worked fiercely. 'Taburova has the detonator.'
'I know,' Kate said.
'As soon as he gets clear, he's going to set them off, kill his guys so they can't rat him out and then call the FSB down on the area immediately.'
'I know.' Kate stared at the screen and saw the one lone figure running after the car Taburova had driven off in. But another car was in motion too.
'What do you want us to do?' Viktor asked in his quiet, steady voice.
Kate thought about the women and the explosive vests, but she also thought about Kumarin. She didn't want the general to get away.
Ajza was closing on Taburova's vehicle. Let her catch him. Please let her catch him, Kate thought.
'Stay with Kumarin,' Kate said. Then she took a deep breath. It was all out of her hands now.
