Don Pendleton - Road Of Bones

When his remark produced no comment, only shifting eyes and feet, he said, “You had the targets literally in your sights, but let them slip away. How does that happen? Does anyone care to explain your failure?”

Grudgingly, the leader of the party—Nikolay Milescu—answered. “They went to a charter company,” he said. “We spotted them outside the terminal, but not in time. When we moved in, they drove away.”

“Alerted by the clumsiness of your approach,” Levshin said. “And since you did not have a vehicle nearby, pursuit was hopeless. Right?”

Milescu nodded miserably. “Yes, sir.”

“Which one of you was the sniper?” Levshin asked.

A hand went up. Its rat-faced owner said, “I was,” remembering to add the “sir” a split second too late.

“What is your name?”

“Stolypin, sir. Gennady.”

“Have you practiced with your weapon?” Levshin pressed him.

“I’m familiar with it, sir.”

“What was the range from which you fired this morning?”

“Say one hundred meters, sir,” the sharpshooter replied.

“Using a telescopic sight?”

“Yes, sir,” Stolypin replied.

“And yet, you missed—what was it? Three times?”

“No, sir,” Stolypin said.

“No? You didn’t miss three times?”

“I missed the man, sir. Once, as he was running.”

“And your other two shots? What became of them?”

“I hit the car both times, sir.”

“Did it stop?” Levshin asked.

Stolypin swallowed hard. “No, sir.”

“Another failure, then,” Levshin said. “What shall I tell Moscow, when I am asked if you deserve to be employed? More to the point, if you deserve to live?”

“We can fix it,” Milescu said, sounding desperate.

“How will you do that?” Levshin challenged him. “Invent a time machine and go back to the moment when your idiot incompetence spoiled everything?”

“No, sir,” the gunman said, “but we can find them. We can bring them in or kill them, as you like.”

“So, are you psychic now? If you combine your five pea-brains, can you reach out and tell me where the targets are right now?” Levshin asked.

Milescu swallowed the sarcasm and replied, “They need to get away from Yakutsk, sir. If they can’t fly, that means they have to cross the river. Travel east. There are no airstrips. They must drive to Magadan, and either sail from there or fly from Sokol Airport.”

“And your plan,” Levshin replied, “is…what, exactly?”

“Stop them at the Lena crossing, sir. Or, if we miss them there—”

“Meaning you’ve failed again,” Levshin said, interrupting.

“—then we fly ahead to Magadan and meet them when they get there, sir.”

“I think not,” Levshin said. “If you can’t catch them on the ferry, if that very simple task defeats you, I don’t think that you deserve a flight to Magadan. If that happens—if you should fail again, and your superiors decide to let you live—you’ll follow up and take them on the road. The trip would do you good, I think. Make men of you, perhaps.”

Milescu muttered something that was probably, “Yes, sir,” while his companions stood slump-shouldered, staring at their shoes.

“Go on now,” Levshin ordered. “And if any of you have religion, pray you don’t fuck up again.”

* * *

THE LENA FERRY was a death trap. Bolan knew that if they weren’t ambushed on arrival at the dock, or killed on board, they would find shooters waiting for them on arrival in Nizhny Bestyakh. No matter how he broke it down, they had to find another way across the river.

And with no bridge anywhere nearby, that meant a charter boat.

Another problem: if their enemies had any sense at all, they wouldn’t just stake out the ferry terminal; they’d also have watchers on the Yakutsk waterfront, to head off any end-runs via private boats. That meant contact with a pilot couldn’t happen on the docks.

Where else would they find sailors at that hour of the morning?

“Drinking breakfast,” Anuchin offered. “Vodka is the Russian equalizer.”

There was no shortage of taverns in Yakutsk, as Bolan soon discovered. Bars catering to river boatmen were located near the waterfront, but not directly on the docks, dispensing food and alcohol around the clock as crews departed or arrived on varied schedules. In winter, when the river froze, Bolan supposed they were a place for stranded sailors to commiserate over the tedium of being stuck on shore.

In any case, he didn’t think the hunters seeking Anuchin would be looking for her in saloons at breakfast time.

The first place that they tried had two early customers, both of them obvious holdovers from the previous night, well advanced in pursuit of oblivion. The second bar had better prospects—six in all—and two of them were relatively late arrivals, only warming up their shot glasses.

Anuchin donned a smile and approached the better-looking of the nearly sober pair, a robust forty-something character with gray hair showing underneath a yachtsman’s cap that had seen better days. Hell, make it better years. Bolan stood by while she confirmed the skipper could speak English, more or less, then led him to a table in the corner nearest to the tavern’s door.

“You want to go Nizhny Bestyakh, but not on ferry, eh?” The captain smiled. “Afraid someone will see you, da? Maybe a lovers’ getaway?”

“I see we can’t fool you,” she said, flicking a glance toward Bolan that was shy and bawdy, all at once. Some actress. “Naturally, we would expect to pay a premium for causing you such inconvenience.”

The skipper beamed. “I still remember love, you know,” he said. “But I must also eat and pay for fuel, eh? So…six thousand rubles?”

Something like two hundred U.S. dollars. Bolan nodded, told him, “Done,” and peeled off a dozen 500-ruble notes.

Their new best friend in town—Yevgeny Glushko—made the money disappear into a pocket and asked Anuchin, “So, when did you wish to go?”

“There’s no time like the present, eh?” she answered.

“You’re in luck!” Glushko declared. “My boat is fueled and ready. We can leave at once.”

“You have a car?” Bolan asked.

“Car? No car. I walk from pier.”

“Relax,” Bolan replied. “I’ll drive.”

Moscow: 3:22 a.m.

FOR BREAKFAST, Colonel Eugene Marshak had a glass of bacon-flavored vodka. He regretted that he had no eggs to go along with it, but since real food meant waking up his wife, he settled for another glass of bacon.

Waiting for the cursed telephone to ring.

He wasn’t drunk, couldn’t allow himself that luxury as long as loose ends in Yakutsk were threatening to weave a noose around his neck. Marshak’s superiors were watching him—perhaps a few of them were losing sleep, as well—and if he didn’t solve the problem soon, that task would pass to other, more capable hands.

Which meant the end of him, for all practical purposes. He likely wouldn’t be imprisoned, as was common in the bad old days, but being stripped of rank and influence was tantamount to social death. He would be unemployable, beyond some menial position. He would lose the Moscow flat, his summer dacha on the coast.

Mariska would most certainly abandon him, which might turn out to be the only bright spot in the whole disaster. She could leave with nothing, since there would be nothing left to steal, and Marshak could descend into an alcoholic haze without her shrill, incessant carping to disturb him.

Or he could assert himself, demand more of his soldiers in the field and solve the problem now, before it spun further beyond control.

The phone rang once, and Marshak scooped it up. “Yes!”

“I’m afraid there’s been another problem, sir,” Stephan Levshin told him.