going to check on the others. We leave in an hour.”
As the man headed out, Noboru rifled through the bag and saw that Fisher had purchased just the tools he needed. Now it was time to get creative. Noboru gathered all the materials on the bed, stared at them for a moment, then got to work.
38
Qaderi had started moving again and was presently a hundred miles north of the Rytaya River estuary, about two hundred miles ahead of the team.
They loaded the SUVs with the gear Hansen and Ames had bought, as well as the electronic equipment Gillespie and Valentina had found in a few local shops. And they bolted off in the afternoon, the moment they got word, and were now working their way through blowing snow along the western bank of Lake Baikal — and the twelve hundred miles of shoreline that twists and turns along its four-hundred-mile length. The lake’s massive proportions were dwarfed, however, by its depth: almost a mile, making it the deepest freshwater lake in the world. When Hansen gazed out across it, he could not see the opposite shoreline through all the wind and snow.
The road was narrow, snow-and-ice covered, and Fisher didn’t dare push past fifty miles per hour, so it was generally slow going.
From the backseat, Ames announced that is was nearly 5:00 P.M. and the sun was beginning to set. “What’s the plan?”
“Depends on our target,” Fisher answered. “If he keeps going, so do we.”
Hansen agreed and asked Ames if he had a problem with that.
“Not really,” said the man, crossing his legs. “But can we take a bathroom break?”
Hansen snorted. “Hold it.”
Their target finally paused at 7:00 P.M., about twelve miles from the lake’s northern tip, in a town of twenty- seven thousand called Severobaikalsk. With nightfall came even heavier winds and snow, and Hansen, serving as navigator and sifting through satellite intel from Grim, led Fisher toward a shantytown of hunting huts on Cape Kotel’nikovskiy. The town was no more than a dozen or so thick-canvas yurt-style tents, circular structures with cone-shaped roofs.
Fisher explained to the pestering Ames that the roads were icing up and that most of the path for the next fifty miles was a single lane running along the cliffs above the lake. They could easily slide off the road, and that would be that. Moreover, their target had stopped for the same reason: weather. Ames argued that he could have reached the auction site. Fisher said that maybe he had, but others were coming and they, too, would be delayed, so they would make the best of it until the front passed. They hauled their gear into the most secure-looking hut, where they found eight wooden bunks with thin straw mattresses organized in a circle around a potbellied stove. After they’d fired up a pair of kerosene lanterns hanging from the crossbeam, Hansen spotted a sign, handwritten in Cyrillic, on one of the posts: Honor system. If you stay here, leave something: money, supplies, etc. Together Siberia is home; separate, a hell.
Ames said he was going to leave them something, all right, and headed back outside toward the outhouse.
Fisher looked at Hansen and cocked a brow.
Noboru got the high sign from Fisher and went outside to help him carry in some more gear. Fisher asked about their little project, and Noboru reassured him that he felt good about the modified paintball guns and estimated a 90 percent chance of their operating correctly. Noboru said he wasn’t comfortable keeping their plan a secret from the rest of the team, as Fisher had instructed him to do, but Fisher assured him that all would be revealed in time.
Back inside the yurt, Gillespie was complaining about her sleeping bag: “It looks like it’s from the Cold War!” She went on to moan about the bag’s moldy stench.
Hansen said she’d have to live with the smell, but at least he’d bought them for a dollar a piece — a bargain!
Ames, of course, couldn’t allow anyone to have any fun and immediately dampened the mood by asking Fisher why they couldn’t just blow up the 738 Arsenal.
“Two reasons,” Fisher replied. “One, I doubt whoever arranged this auction is stupid enough to keep it all in a big pile; we’re talking about tons of equipment. We don’t have enough Semtex for that. Two, they’re going to be our Trojan horses. Once they leave here, we’ll track them wherever they go. In the space of a week, we’ll learn more about this group’s logistics and transport routes than we’ve learned in the last five years. When they arrive at their destination, we mop them up, along with anyone else we find.”
Ames tried to poke holes in the plan.
Fisher said he’d make a deal: “If this all goes to hell and we’re both still around when it’s over, you can say you told me so.”
Hansen glimpsed at the time on his OPSAT: 11:00 P.M. The others were fast asleep. He sat up and glanced over at Fisher’s bunk. He was already awake and nodded to Hansen. They rose and slipped into their cold-weather gear, then moved to Ames’s bunk. Fisher pricked Ames just below the ear with an anesthetic dart, while Hansen held his mouth. Ames nearly bit Hansen before he went limp.
Holding his breath, Hansen lifted the rat bastard in a fireman’s carry and went outside, taking Ames to another yurt. Inside, he lay Ames spread-eagled on a bunk and used some old paracord to bind his wrists and ankles to the rickety wooden platform. They’d removed the mattress; that would come into play later.
After a moment to catch his breath, Hansen found and lit another kerosene lantern, though he kept it dim to conserve fuel. Fisher went off to fetch the others.
A few moments later, they all filed into the tent, shocked about what they were seeing. Fisher warned them about what was happening, while Hansen slipped outside to fetch the bottle of gasoline they had earlier prepared.
Within five minutes, Ames woke up, and after voicing his questions and demands, and being summarily dismissed, Fisher cut to the chase: “You’re a traitor.”
Ames whined like a little boy, denying everything, and even tried to emphasize that he was a Splinter Cell.
Hansen wanted to tell Ames what a rat he was, and then pummel the runt to within an inch of his life, but he held back. Fisher was asking the questions and went on to tell Ames that they knew he’d contacted Kovac’s office when he’d gone off to use the outhouse. Fisher said he could prove it because he had a transcript, which he’d sent to all their OPSATs. He instructed the team to review the script, and there it was, in black and white, Ames’s full text report. He’d given up everything: their location, make and model of their vehicles, weapons, and the details he had regarding the auction and planned attack on the Laboratory 738 Arsenal. It was all there. Hansen guessed the little bastard had been desperate enough to send the text because he no longer had access to a cutout.
“Ames has been working for Kovac for a while,” said Fisher. “We’re not sure how long, but we’re about to find out.” Fisher went on to explain how Ames used Karlheinz van der Putten as a scapegoat, since he couldn’t reveal that he’d learned where Fisher would be through Kovac’s office. Fisher said that van der Putten had not received any money for the information. Fisher had personally gained access to van der Putten’s financials, and they reflected no payoff from Ames.
Fisher also explained that he’d been in Vianden to visit an Austrian named Yannick Ernsdorff, whom he’d already told Hansen about and who was, he now shared with the rest, the banker for the auction they were hoping to infiltrate. Kovac was nervous because he and Ernsdorff were working for the same man.
“And who is that?” Noboru asked.
Fisher sighed deeply. “We don’t know.”
“Does he?” asked Valentina, gesturing to Ames.
