in Yakutsk after they were gone. Why borrow trouble from the Mob or the authorities if he could bag a double payday from a single river crossing?
But the skipper didn’t make a call.
Which, naturally, didn’t mean he wouldn’t, once they cleared his deck. A quick heads-up to someone, maybe old friend Ilya at the motorcycle shop, and any soldiers waiting for them in the general vicinity could gather for the kill.
And it would have to be a kill. That much had been agreed. Anuchin was dead set against enduring more interrogation, and surrender ran against the grain for Bolan, going back to schoolyard brawls in childhood. Anyone who tried to stop them now would pay a price in blood.
Bolan could feel the Zarya slowing, hear its engines winding down as Glushko began his docking maneuvers. Nothing fancy for the old tub, just a gentle sidling in against a pier with old tires hanging off the side to serve as bumpers. When the hull and rubber kissed, a teenage boy came running up to help Glushko secure the mooring lines.
The soldier checked out the wharf rats who surrounded them. A motley gang of fishermen, dock hands and sailors, people looking for a bargain at the nearby fish stalls. Any one of them could have a weapon tucked away beneath a coat, a shawl or sweater. Any pair of eyes that swept the Zarya’s deck could be comparing Anuchin’s face to photographs they’d seen.
Bolan shook hands with Captain Glushko on the pier, knowing they’d never meet again, then followed Anuchin into town.
Aboard the Lena Ferry: 9:19 a.m.
“THIS JOB IS SHIT,” Viktor Gramotkin muttered.
“Just be thankful that you have a job,” Nikolay Milescu said. “That your tiny brain is still inside your head.”
“It’s not my fault Stolypin missed his damned shot at the airport,” Gramotkin said. “If I’d had the rifle—”
“Yes. You talk a good fight,” Milescu said. “Tell Levshin about it, why don’t you?”
“That bastard? I’m not scared of him.”
“Of course not,” Milescu said. “We all saw the way you put him in his place.”
“You wait. The next time he—”
“Yes, yes. Shut up and take another turn around the deck downstairs.”
“You think we missed them?” Gramotkin asked him. “Nikolay, they missed the goddamn boat!”
“Check, anyway, and stop your bitching.”
Gramotkin left him, grumbling as he moved off toward the nearest stairwell.
Thankful for the respite from complaints, Milescu scanned the upper deck once more, confirming what he knew without a second look.
A wasted effort.
They’d been first aboard the ferry when it left Yakutsk, and studied every face that boarded after them. The female sergeant from the FSB wasn’t among them, and it therefore made no sense to think her bodyguard was on the boat, either.
But they had orders. They would ride the ferry, watch and wait, until a message came from Yakutsk or from Nizhny Bestyakh to tell them the targets were spotted. Then, depending on the ferry’s position, they would either proceed at a snail’s pace to join in the hunt, or waste more time while the boat unloaded, then reloaded and retraced its path.
Milescu recognized the need for consequences when they had bungled the job at the airport in Yakutsk. Another boss might have killed them on the spot—or at least killed Stolypin, for missing his shots—but Levshin had given them a second chance of sorts. Milescu only hoped they wouldn’t be stuck midriver on the ferry when the targets showed themselves again.
There was, of course, no question that the runners would be caught. Even if they somehow evaded capture in Nizhny Bestyakh, where could they go? One miserable road was their only escape route, and how would they travel? In some junker bought or stolen off the streets? Where did they hope to go, with soldiers behind them and more waiting ahead in Magadan?
Milescu almost felt sorry for the stupid traitor and the stranger who had volunteered to help her. What a lousy bargain he had made, at any price.
Like Grigory Rybakov, Milescu thought, loaning out his soldiers to the FSB. What did the godfather hope to gain by meddling in the cloak-and-dagger world of secret agents? Wasn’t running Moscow’s underground economy sufficient challenge?
Still, it was not Milescu’s place to question orders. He had come this far from Kapotnya’s filthy streets, in the southeastern quarter of Moscow, by following directives from older, vastly richer men. Why would he break the pattern now, when it would only leave him destitute at best—or, far more likely, get him killed?
If he was told to ride the ferry day and night until the river froze, then he would ride the ferry, waiting for the targets to reveal themselves. And he would keep any objections to himself. Let Viktor Gramotkin be the lightning rod, if any word of disaffection found its way to Stephan Levshin or the boss of the Izmaylovskaya clan.
Let the blow fall on him, while Milescu smiled all the way to the bank.
* * *
YEVGENY GLUSHKO’S MAP was accurate. It led Bolan and Anuchin to the motorcycle shop, located eight blocks from the waterfront, sandwiched between a restaurant and tannery. The warring smells of spicy food and curing hides combined for an assault on the soldier’s nostrils as he watched the cycle shop from half a block away.
Once again, he found no obvious ambush waiting there.
“Ready?” he asked Anuchin.
“Ready,” she said, slipping a hand inside the pocket of her long coat where a pistol was concealed. She might have trouble getting to the submachine gun hidden in her heavy shoulder bag, but if it went to hell within the next few seconds, Bolan thought he could take up the slack with his Kalashnikov.
He stepped out of the alley first, with Anuchin covering his back, then felt her take a place beside him as they crossed the street. Pedestrians passed by, ignoring them. Bolan relaxed a little as they reached the shop and stepped across its threshold, but he still remained on full alert.
A scruffy guy in greasy coveralls, his gray hair tied back into a ponytail, approached them. Anuchin mentioned Glushko’s name and asked for Ilya, whereupon the man nodded and answered her in what appeared to be a Russian dialect.
Bolan knew he had a choice to make: reveal himself as a foreigner, or let Anuchin make the deal and hope it went all right. Without impugning her ability to rent a motorcycle, Bolan was the one who had to drive it, so the choice was made.
“English?” he asked the shop’s proprietor.
“Yes. I speak.”
“We’re heading east on the Kolyma Highway,” Bolan told him. “We need a bike that can handle the road with two people and some gear aboard.”
“The Road of Bones, eh?” Ilya answered, looking at the two of them as if they’d lost their minds. “Maybe a helicopter you should rent and fly to Magadan.”
