The policeman said something similar in Russian, then began blowing his whistle.
8
Before Conners paid off Gribak, he made sure he understood how to work the starter and ignition on the truck, which had been modified to discourage thieves. Then he dropped the Chechen off at his father’s store and drove a few blocks to an empty lot where Gribak had said it was safe to leave the truck. He left the rifle under the front seat but took a few of the grenades from the back and walked to the hotel. When he reached the rooms he was a little surprised not to find Ferg there, even though they weren’t supposed to meet for another half hour; Ferguson was always showing up places ahead of schedule, the kind of guy who met you at the end of the bar a drink and a half ahead. Conners checked both rooms, then sat in his, waiting. The TV was old, the picture was fuzzy, and the only channel it seemed to receive was some sort of Russian cooking show. He left it on anyway.
Three hours later, Ferg still hadn’t appeared. Driving back into Groznyy to look for him was out of the question, but Conners felt as if he had to do something. He walked to the truck and started it up, driving around the town before realizing he was running a good chance of getting lost. It took twenty minutes of left-hand turns for him to find his way back to the lot. Frustrated and needing sleep, he parked and walked back to the hotel, where once again he was surprised that Ferguson wasn’t sitting there waiting for him.
“Well God,” said Conners, pulling off his shoes. “I’d make you a deal — I’ll give up drinking if you take care of the little bugger. He’s full of himself but in a good way, the bastard.”
He pushed under the covers, his clothes still on, his pistol in his hand. After a while, he fell asleep.
When he woke, Ferguson was sitting in the chair next to the bed.
“Jesus, Ferg,” said Conners, opening his eyes. “What happened to your face?”
“Before or after I got the shit knocked out of me?” said Ferguson, rising. His neck hurt like hell, but otherwise the wounds were mostly cosmetic.
As long as he didn’t breathe.
“Hey, Ferg, you OK?”
“Yeah.” Ferguson took a swig from the vodka bottle in his hand. “First I got robbed, then the police rolled me. Good thing I had a money belt.”
“ ‘Cause they didn’t find your cash?”
“Because there was cash for them to find.” The police had used some sort of pepper spray on him. Fortunately, the men were either locals or too intent on robbing him to check with the ministry office; they’d even left his fake passport on the dirt next to him.
“It’s part of the plan,” said Ferg, rising. “Get dressed. They have a strict dress code where we’re going — no jammies.”
“Where’s that?”
“Jail,” said Ferg.
9
Guns’s brain flip-flopped as Massette told him a story about watching a group of assassins in Morocco. Though a native of Tennessee, the warrant officer’s English had a decided French slant. Even without the odd inflections, the story he told would have been difficult to follow, tracking back and forth between Paris and the narrow streets of North Africa. Jack Massette had been “loaned” to the DGSE
“And so I shot him,” said Massette, reaching the punch line, “with the police in the next room.”
“The Paris police?”
“No, this was in Algiers. We had to pay these guys five hundred bucks so we could leave. I thought it was pretty cheap.”
Guns was going to ask how he’d gotten to Algiers when the train started to move again. As he put the Russian Calina in gear, the engine revved like a psychotic lawn clipper. The Vaz-made car looked and drove like a Ford Focus that had gone through one too many rinse cycles, but it had the virtue of going relatively far on a tankful of watered-down Russian petrol.
The road veered sharply to the left, following the rugged line of the hills. The border with Kazakhstan was about five miles to the south; Rankin and Corrine had already gone across. The road gradually became narrower and soon changed from macadam to barely packed gravel. The train tracks ran off to the left, running through a shallow valley to the border crossing. Though they saw that the train was stopping, there was no place for them to pull off; the two men lost sight of the cars as they drove on, looking for a good place to stop.
By the time Guns found a lot in front of a roadside inn, they’d lost sight of the train. Massette got out and walked to the right; Guns took his pocket binoculars and went left, crossing the road and sliding down the hill about twenty yards before reaching a place where he could see the train. It had pulled onto a siding to let another train pass; the soldiers accompanying it milled around, waiting as the approaching passenger train climbed the grade, its single diesel engine spewing black smoke.
Guns began walking back toward the car, angling up the slope. He was just about back to the roadway when an old jeeplike vehicle pulled alongside and stopped. Two men got out; he stopped for half a second before realizing he was undoubtedly staring at members of the Russian Federal Border Service in civilian dress.
As nonchalantly as possible he continued across the slope. The men shouted at him. Guns looked up at them and waved, not sure exactly what to say or do until one of the men reached beneath his jacket and unsnapped the flap on his holster. Guns gestured meekly and began climbing the slope.
The man asked in English what he was doing with the binoculars.
Guns looked at them in his hand, trying to come up with an explanation that would make sense. Before he could find one, a voice on the road above began speaking in a jovial French.
“Permit me to introduce my colleague, Dr. Miles from the University of Paris,” said Massette, switching to English as he spoke to the two Russians. He pattered on about ornithology and the presence of a rare wren native only to these hills. Massette’s performance was aided by a bird book which he produced from his pocket, and within a few minutes he was quizzing the Russians about possible sightings. They were FSB agents, more dangerous than border guards, but he was so convincing that the conversation continued for more than ten minutes; had the Russians not been en route to an appointment they undoubtedly would have adjourned to the nearby inn, picking up the first round.
“Good thinking,” said Guns when they were back in the car.
“I learned with the French that bird-watching is a very valuable hobby,” said Massette. “As long as you take it to extremes.”
Corrine watched from the hilltop as the train rounded the bend and headed into the long tunnel. She put the glasses down, then checked the map. The train would change engines at a small yard about fifteen miles from here. Guns and Massette were supposed to cover the switch but had been delayed at the border crossing; Corrine had to decide whether to stay with the train and lose it as it went into the yard, or leave so they could circle northeast to get to the only point where the yard itself would be visible.
Given that the yard was the most likely place for something to happen, she opted to leave. She pulled out her phone as she walked back to the car, telling Massette and Guns what was up. Massette complained that the
