This was just getting more and more disappointing. “And why is Soviet Union Online after you?”
“Because the pyramid had Russian writing on it. Just four letters, in red: CCCP.”
The next silence went on for a while, and was punctuated only by the sound of other diners grumbling about local carbon prices.
“I leaked some photos before Google came after me with their nondisclosure agreements,” Ambrose explained. “I guess the Soviets have Internet search-bots constantly searching for certain things, and they picked up on my posts before Google was able to take them down. I got a couple of threatening phone calls from men with thick Slavic accents. Then they tried to kidnap me.”
“No!”
Ambrose grimaced. “Well, they weren’t very good at it. It was four guys, all of them must have been in their eighties, they tried to bundle me into a black van. I ran away and they just stood there yelling curses at me in Russian. One of them threw his cane at me.” He rubbed his ankle.
“And you took them seriously?”
“I did when the FBI showed up and told me I had to pack up and go with them. That’s when I ran to the U.N. I didn’t believe that ‘witness protection’ crap the Feds tried to feed me. The U.N. people told me that the Soviets’ data-mining is actually really good. They keep turning up embarrassing and incriminating information about what people and governments got up to back in the days of the Cold War. They use what they know to influence people.”
“That’s bizarre.” He thought about it. “Think they bought off the police here?”
“Or somebody. They want to know about the pyramid. But only Google, and the Feds, and I know where it is. And NASA’s already patched that part of the Mars panoramas with fake data.”
Disappointment had turned to a deep sense of surprise. For Gennady, being surprised usually meant that something awful was about to happen, so he said, “We need to get you out of town.”
Ambrose brightened. “I have an idea. Let’s go back to SNOPB. I looked up these minus-three people, they’re eco-radicals but at least they don’t seem to be lunatics.”
“Hmmph. You just think Kyzdygoi’s ‘hot.’” Ambrose grinned and shrugged.
“Okay.—But we’re not driving, because the car can be tracked.
Ambrose had evidently never taken a walk in the country before. After Gennady convinced him he would survive it, they parted outside La France, and Gennady watched him walk away, sneakers flapping. He shook his head and strolled back to the Tata.
Five men were waiting for him. Two were policemen, and three wore business attire. One of these was an old, bald man in a faded olive-green suit. He wore augmented reality glasses, and there was a discrete red pin on his lapel in the shape of the old Soviet flag.
Gennady made a show of pushing his own glasses back on his nose and walked forward, hand out. As the cops started to reach for their Tasers, Gennady said, “Mr. Egorov! Gennady Malianov, IAEA. You’ll forgive me if I record and upload this conversation to headquarters?” He tapped the frame of his glasses and turned to the other suits. “I didn’t catch your names?”
The suits frowned; the policemen hesitated; Egorov, however, put out his hand and Gennady shook it firmly. He could feel the old man’s bones shift in his grip, but Egorov didn’t grimace. Instead he said, “Where’s your companion?”
“You mean that American? No idea. We shared a hotel room because it was cheaper, but then we parted ways this morning.”
Egorov took his hand back, and pressed his bruised knuckles against his hip. “You’ve no idea where he is?”
“None.”
“What’re
“Inspecting SNOPB,” he said. Gennady didn’t have to fake his confidence here; he felt well armored by his affiliation to Frankl’s people. “My credentials are online, if there’s some sort of issue here?”
“No issue,” muttered Egorov. He turned away, and as he did a discrete icon lit up in the corner of Gennady’s heads-up display. Egorov had sent him a text message.
He hadn’t been massaging his hand on his flank; he’d been texting through his pants. Gennady had left the server in his glasses open, so it would have been easy for Egorov to ping it and find his address.
In among all the other odd occurrences of the past couple of days, this one didn’t stand out. But as Gennady watched Egorov and his policemen retreat, he realized that his assumption that Egorov had been in charge might be wrong. Who were those other two suits?
He waited for Egorov’s party to drive away, then got in the Tata and opened the email.
It said,
Gennady puzzled over those last two words for a while. Then he got it. “Come alone!”
Shaking his head, he pulled out of the lot and headed back to the hotel to check out. After loading his bag, and Ambrose’s, into the Tata, he hit the road back to SNOPB. Nobody followed him, but that meant nothing since they could track him through the car’s transponder if they wanted. It hardly mattered; he was supposed to be inspecting the old anthrax factory, so where else would he be going?
Ambrose’d had enough time to get to SNOPB by now, but Gennady kept one eye on the fields next to the road just in case. He saw nobody, and fully expected to find the American waiting outside Building 242 as he pulled up.
As he stepped out of the Tata he nearly twisted his ankle in a deep rut. There were fresh tire tracks and shattered bits of old asphalt all over the place; he was sure he hadn’t seen them this morning.
“Hello?” He walked down the ramp into the sudden dark of the bunker. Did he have the right building? It was completely dark here.
Wires drooled from overhead conduits; hydroponic trays lay jumbled in the corner, and strange-smelling liquids were pooled on the floor. -3 had pulled out, and in a hurry.
He cursed, but suppressed an urge to run back to the car. He had no idea where they’d gone, and they had a head start on him. The main question was, had they left before or after Ambrose showed up?
The answer lay in the yellow grass near where -3’s vehicles had been parked that morning. Gennady knelt down and picked up a familiar pair of augmented reality glasses. Ambrose would not have left these behind willingly.
Gennady swore, and now he did run to the Tata.
The restaurant at the Pavin Inn was made up to look like the interiors of a row of yurts. This gave diners some privacy as most of them had private little chambers under wood-ribbed ceilings; it also broke up the eyelines to the place’s front door, making it easy for Gennady to slip past the two men in suits who’d been with Egorov in the parking lot. He entered the men’s room to find Egorov pacing in front of the urinal trough.
“What’s this all about?” demanded Gennady—but Egorov made a shushing motion and grabbed a trash can. As he upended it under the bathroom’s narrow window, he said, “First you must get me out of here!”
“What? Why?”
Egorov tried to climb onto the upended can, but his knees and hips weren’t flexible enough. Finally Gennady relented and went to help him. As he boosted the old comrade, Egorov said, “I am a prisoner of these people! They work for the
Gennady coughed. Then he said, “I’ll bring the car around.”
He helped Egorov through the window then, after making sure no one was looking, left through the hotel’s front door. The unmistakable silhouette of Egorov was limping into the parking lot. Gennady followed him and, as he unlocked the Tata, he said, “I’ve disabled the GPS tracking in this car. It’s a rental; I’m going to drop it off in Semey, which is six hundred kilometers from here. Are you sure you’re up to a drive like that?”
The old man’s eyes glinted under yellow streetlight. “Never thought I’d get a chance to see the steppes
