Rick Mofina - Whirlwind

“Prepare ourselves?”

“Rescuers are finding fewer survivors,” Thomas said. “The chances of anyone, let alone a baby, enduring three-hundred-mile-an-hour winds, injury, then more than forty-eight hours of exposure without water or food, are remote.”

“Are you telling me to give up hope?” Jenna said.

“No, no, not at all. We’re only advising you to bear in mind that we’re running out of time.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Jenna snapped. “Please don’t try to tell me my son is dead! Until I see him, Caleb is not dead! In my heart he’ll never be dead!”

“We’re not suggesting that, Jenna.”

“We will find him. I swear we’ll find him.”

London

The Boeing 767 departed London’s Heathrow Airport and cut westward across the night sky toward the southern tip of Greenland.

Destination: Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Canada.

From his upholstered leather seat in executive class, Pavel Gromov studied the constellations. Like an ancient soldier, he divined purpose from the stars, vowing to his dead wife and sons that he would achieve his goal.

I will return to Russia with my grandson.

Gromov sipped his vodka and glanced at Yanna Petrova next to him in the window seat. Her face was in her eReader, but more often it was turned to the window. Her attempt to flee from him before their departure in Moscow had been bold but thwarted when the airport security people on Gromov’s payroll alerted him.

“Need I remind you of the consequences if you do not cooperate, Yanna,” he’d warned her when they were alone.

“You’re vile!” she’d spat at him.

She’d barely spoken to him on their Aeroflot flight from Moscow to London. It was the same now, bound for Canada before they entered the United States.

Gromov contemplated the ice in his glass, pleased that he’d moved fast on his plan to find his grandchild. He’d used his connections to secure expertly forged travel documents for both of them. Made from stolen official security papers, they were flawless. They’d come at great speed and great expense. He’d used key sources to ensure corresponding information supporting the counterfeit papers would be found in all the necessary databases.

Matters didn’t go as smoothly with Yanna.

She’d been startled then furious to arrive home and find him waiting alone in her apartment.

“Why are you here? Get out!”

“Fyodor fathered a child.”

“It can’t be true.”

“I learned this from the clinic. Without you I never would’ve known I have a grandchild.”

“But how did this happen?”

“My police sources had informed me that the clinic is involved with a black market network. They used his sperm to impregnate an American woman who gave birth to a baby boy in Texas. You are going with me now to get him.”

“Impossible. You’re insane.”

“Call your office and inform your boss that a relative of yours in the Urals has died and you must travel immediately to Yekaterinburg. Say that you will be away for two weeks. Our flight to London leaves in four hours. Make the call and pack now. It’s hot in Texas.”

Yanna stared at him then looked around her apartment, probably for some way to escape her situation. “You’re a criminal and I refuse to help you!”

Gromov showed her photos on his phone of her parents’ home and her little sister’s apartment. “It is not a decision you are free to make.”

He’d made it clear her family would be killed if she didn’t help him. Overwhelmed with rage and fear Yanna had reassessed her situation, bit back on her anger then made the call and packed.

Now she put down her eReader, buried her face in her hands and began to cry.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” she asked Gromov in Russian.

Subduing his voice, he ordered her to keep her voice low.

Yanna turned and bristled at him. “I still cannot accept this. I demand to go home, now!”

Gromov did not respond.

“I could go to prison for what you’re forcing me into,” she said.

“Do as I say and you won’t be arrested.”

“You’ve practically abducted me and are threatening my family if I don’t help you steal someone’s child.”

“No,” Gromov growled through gritted teeth. “I am rescuing the baby stolen from me, from Fyodor, and you! You, Yanna, will be the mother of this child.”

“I do not want this child! It’s not mine!”

“It’s Fyodor’s child. You yearned to have his child. Accept that this is fate. I will provide for you. You will be wealthy beyond anything you could imagine. And with the time I have left, I will help raise the baby.”

“To be a soulless criminal like you?” Yanna stared at him, breathing hard with disgust.

Gromov said nothing.

“Fyodor was right to sever his life from yours,” Yanna said.

Gromov clenched his jaw then he sipped vodka. His Adam’s apple lifted then settled and he blinked several times.

“No,” he said. “Not like me. I’m leaving the vory way behind me. Look at all it has cost me. I have paid a price for my sins.”

“So now you seek absolution? You’re an old vor trying to slither his way into Heaven through some desperate criminal act of insanity.”

Gromov felt the beginnings of a smile before he sipped more vodka and decided that he liked Yanna Petrova and her moxie.

“Something like that,” he said.

“Suppose you locate this child,” she said, “and suppose through your methods you take custody of him. How are we going to leave the United States and enter Russia with a baby without raising any suspicions?”

“Don’t worry. I’m arranging everything.”

Yanna turned to the window, withdrew into herself and said nothing for the remainder of the flight.

After Gromov and Yanna’s plane landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, they proceeded to the checkpoint for passport control and immigration. As Canadian citizens they entered the country easily, collected their bags then proceeded to the ground transportation section where they were met by a driver holding a small cardboard sign bearing the handwritten name Popovich.

Inside the luxury sedan, the driver took all of Gromov’s and Yanna’s counterfeit documents and gave them each a large envelope with new Canadian documents, passports, airline tickets and plastic ID cards under new names.

Reviewing her new Canadian identity, Yanna gave up trying to gauge just how connected Gromov actually was. It frightened her, for he seemed to have friends in very high levels of security around the world.

The city’s skyline, dominated by the needlelike CN Tower, rose before them as their car sped along Toronto’s expressways. They traveled some fourteen miles southeast to the heart of the city and a central airport known as the Toronto Island Airport.

They boarded a twin-engine turboprop operated by a small commercial airline for a ninety-minute direct flight to Newark.

Walking through the terminal, they got in line for U.S. Customs. Yanna went first. For a fleeting moment while standing at the desk, she wanted to divulge everything to the Americans, plead for mercy and a return flight to Moscow. Glancing over her shoulder, she felt the heat of Gromov’s eyes on her and the full force of his threat.

If I make it home, it will be to mourn my family.

Yanna proceeded as normal and was cleared for entry. Upon entering the United States, she resigned herself to enduring her ordeal until the end, praying that she would return home to her ordinary life.

When Gromov got to the desk, the agent took his Canadian passport, cracked the spine and inserted it into the passport reader. He checked the photo to ensure Gromov matched it. Then he looked at Gromov’s customs card.