Eric Lustbader - Last Snow

“No surprise there.” Annika was busy going through the security guard’s uniform. “Ah, but look what I found,” she said, holding up a set of car keys.

At that moment there came a hammering on the door, along with querulous voices raised in mounting fear. Jack grabbed the chair on which Kirilenko had been sitting, wedged the back under the doorknob at an angle so the back legs were braced against the floor. At the same time Annika raised the blinds on the window, only to find that the glass was reinforced with wire mesh. The hammering became more insistent, they could hear someone calling for help or backup, they couldn’t distinguish which. Annika took a second chair and smashed it into the windowpane, then she repeatedly slammed it against the wall until one of the legs came loose. She gripped this, hacking away at the wire mesh to make a hole large enough for them to get through.

They heard a shot from behind them and the door lock exploded inward. Now the only thing between them and the officials in the corridor was the angled chair, which was already shuddering from the pressure being exerted on it from the other side of the door.

“Let’s go!” Annika said, helping Alli through the aperture she’d made.

Jack went next, then Kirilenko. Finally Annika herself climbed out. Without any other choice, they began to run away from the building, a route that took them directly onto one of the runways. A jet was just on the turn from the taxiway onto the head of the runway. They could hear its engine winding up to launch it along the runway and into its glide path up and away from the airport.

Behind them the office they had vacated was swarming with people, screaming and shouting. A shot was fired at them, and they broke into a ragged zigzag as they reached the runway itself. By this time the jet was already rolling along the tarmac, picking up speed with the firing of its four massive engines.

Over the mounting roar they could just make out the high-low sound of a police car siren, and then, as Jack threw a glance behind them, the car itself careened into view. They were so close to the oncoming jet they began to choke on the fumes, and Jack pulled Alli close to him, away from the nearest engine on the outside of the jet’s left wing. They bent over double as they ran awkwardly across the vibrating tarmac, the foreshortened sight of the oncoming plane making it look as large as an apartment building.

The careening police car, putting on speed, was heading directly for them, and Jack, realizing their only hope was to maneuver so the plane was between them and their pursuers, led the way. The vectors formed their three-dimensional patterns in his mind, changing as their position changed in relation to the jet. He could see the one path that would keep them safe. Holding Alli’s hand, he continued on across the tarmac even as the jet threatened to intersect their path. It was so close now it blotted out most of the sky, like the onward rush of a hurricane or a tornado, the sky black and shiny and so close above their heads its windswept underside turned into a scythe.

Heads down, huddled on their knees like refugees, they clung to one another as the storm came upon them, the huge belly of the aircraft rushing by above them, the two sets of enormous wheels hemming them in on either side before they sped by at teeth-rattling speed. Then the four of them were freed, up and running again toward the far side of the tarmac, choking on the fumes pluming off the engines, their eyes tearing, the lining of their noses inflamed, the backs of their mouths aching and dry.

The jet had taken off from the western runway. Just beyond a wide verge, a steep slope led down to a grassy field on the far side of which was the parking lot, including the separate area for employee vehicles. They crossed over the verge and scrambled down the slope as the jet was lifting off the tarmac. The police vehicle, which had stopped to allow it to pass, had reached the runway.

The incline was too steep for the police car, which stopped on the verge to allow three uniformed cops to disembark and sprint toward the slope. They half slid, half skidded down the incline. One of them tripped, lost his gun, and had to make a detour to retrieve it. Then he was up and running, but because he was ashamed that he had lost ground to his two fellow officers, he stopped, planted his feet at shoulder width, and, cradling the butt of his Makarov in one hand, aimed at the fleeing figures and fired round after round until the pistol was empty.

_____

DYADYA GOURDJIEV was in a box. Just five minutes after receiving the call from Annika and making one of his own he discovered that he was being shadowed by two men, one behind him, the other in front of him. This was the nature of the box, a method of surveillance employed when you were sure of the target’s superior skills at countering surveillance.

He was perhaps six or seven blocks from the street outside his apartment where he’d shot to death the two Izmaylovskaya hit men. Arsov would not be pleased, but the last thing on Gourdjiev’s mind was Arsov’s displeasure. These two men who had him in a box could not be handled the same way because they weren’t grupperovka goons, they were government men, Kremlin men, Trinadtsat , and therefore under Batchuk’s direct command. He knew they must be Trinadtsat because they wore the signature black leather trench coats. The moment Batchuk had asked about Annika, having come all the way from Moscow, Dyadya Gourdjiev knew that she had gotten herself into terrible trouble. It wasn’t often Batchuk asked him about her—he knew better—it had been several years, in fact. Perhaps his interest stemmed from her two companions, but Gourdjiev doubted it. Batchuk’s interest was in her, no one else.

As he strolled along Kiev’s windswept streets, dragging his surveillance box with him, he wished he knew what she was up to, but Batchuk had been right about one thing: She was far too canny to tell him about her plans. She would never expose him to the risks she herself was taking. He wished, too, that he could talk her out of taking such risks, but he knew it would be a fool’s errand. Annika was an extremist; he’d seen it in her almost from birth. This was who she was and no one, no circumstance or experience, could change that. But there was another reason why he’d never tried to talk her out of the life she’d chosen: He was secretly proud of her, proud that she was fearless, tough, and clever. He’d taught her, true enough, but she brought a great deal to the table: You couldn’t teach someone to be clever, just how to be cleverer still, and as for being fearless, he was convinced that was a genetic trait.

As he moved at a normal gait he continued to check the box he was in, using any reflective surface he came upon: shop and car windows, the side mirrors of parked vehicles. The two shadows varied their distance, occasionally allowing people to get between them and their assignment in order to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

At this point there was no possibility of losing them; he hadn’t the time. Besides, he had no problem with them knowing where he was going, it might even give them a laugh.

The brothel was on the west bank, in the Pechersk district, in a beautifully restored postwar building with a splendid view of the river that more or less bisected the city. He could have ascended in the tiny elevator, but he preferred to take the stairs, which were wide, curving, and ornamented with a polished, hand-turned wooden railing that felt good and solid beneath his fingers. By the time he reached the third floor he was only slightly winded, but his legs felt terrific. He hadn’t been this exhilarated in years.

The young girl took his coat and scarf into her booth just inside the vestibule. Ekaterina, in one of her more provocative ensembles that showed off her long legs and her ample breasts, came bustling out, and kissed him on both cheeks. Linking her arm through his, she asked him what he was in the mood for, the usual or something a bit different. She spoke in French, because it lent her establishment a degree of upscale romance.