Under Fire

  “They’re done,” he announced. “Come on, let’s get moving.”

  “Fuckin’ hell,” Spellman murmured.

  • • •

  IT WAS SHORTLY after ten o’clock when they pulled up to the spotlighted Yuzhno border checkpoint. Jack braked the truck to a stop, put it in park, but left the engine running. He was worried it wouldn’t start again.

  Before the checkpoint’s drop-gate stood four men in Dagestani politsiya uniforms. On the other side of the gate an armored personnel carrier blocked the road. Its 14.5-millimeter cannon was pointing in the GAZ’s direction.

  “That’s not very friendly,” Ysabel murmured.

  After the firefight, it had taken the better part of two hours before they were back on the road, the first ten minutes of which involved Jack and Spellman jumping down on the jeep’s hood until its bumper tore free of the GAZ’s. Once done, they manhandled the truck’s rear tire back onto the shoulder, then Jack, Seth, Ysabel, and Spellman stood guard as Medzhid’s bodyguards went about fixing the GAZ’s engine. While the truck’s combat-constructed grille had absorbed most of the AK rounds, the radiator hoses were nicked in a dozen places. After expending an entire roll of duct tape and a spool of baling wire, they were moving again.

  “I will handle this,” Medzhid said through the canvas divider.

  He hopped down from the tailgate, then strode to the checkpoint.

  The men saluted Medzhid, then Medzhid took one of them aside and started talking. After a few minutes they shook hands and Medzhid walked to the GAZ’s passenger window and stepped onto the running board.

  “The sergeant has heard nothing more about the Almak story. He will tell no one we crossed. With luck, we will be in Makhachkala before morning.”

  • • •

  WHEN THEY REACHED BUYNAKSK, thirty miles southeast of the capital, Jack pulled off the highway and into a vacant lot across from a gas station; its fluorescent lights hummed in the darkness.

  Jack shut off the engine, jumped down from the cab, and walked around to the tailgate.

  “What’s going on?” Seth asked.

  “This is where we part ways.”

  “What’re you talking about? Who’s ‘we’?”

  Jack said to Medzhid, “Do you think you can arrange a car for us?”

  “That is no problem, Jack, but first answer Seth’s question.”

  “We have a lead on Pechkin, a man named Dobromir in Khasavyurt. If it pans out, we might be able to get Pechkin off the field. With him out of the way, your odds improve.”

  “What lead?” asked Spellman. “When did you get it?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Jack replied, with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “This shouldn’t take us more than a day, two at the most. We’ll find you when we’re done.”

  “Let me send some men with you,” Medzhid said.

  “You need them more than we do.”

  “Not necessarily untrue, I’m afraid. The Khasavyurt district isn’t fully under my control. The commander there, Major Umarov, is Chechen. I suspect he’s not quite convinced I’m as politically tolerant as I claim.”

  Jack read between the lines: If he and Ysabel got into trouble in Khasavyurt they could expect neither help nor acknowledgment from Medzhid. For Dagestan’s chief of politsiya to be associated with a jailed American and an Iranian citizen on the eve of the coup would be disastrous. And according to Gavin, so corrupt was the government of Khasavyurt that its last mayor had been ousted for aiding terrorism.

  Of course, this was only part of their problem. In the past three years Khasavyurt had seen seven bombings and two cross-border raids from Chechen terrorists. In all, ninety-two Khasavyurt citizens had died.

  Spellman asked, “Is this worth the trip, Jack?”

  “I think it is.”

  “Okay,” said Seth, “go run your errand, then get your ass to Makhachkala. We may have to pull the trigger sooner than we’d planned.”

  Khasavyurt

  CROSS-COUNTRY, the distance from Buynaksk to Khasavyurt was only sixty-five kilometers, but Dagestan’s highway system being what it was, Jack and Ysabel found themselves following the GAZ east toward the capital before they could turn north for the remaining eighty kilometers of the journey.

  It was eight a.m. before they reached the city and were immediately greeted by signs of the most recent bombing attack, a six-acre patch beside the highway that was piled high with the remains of an apartment block.

  “That’s what four hundred pounds of explosives can do,” Jack remarked.

  “How many died?” asked Ysabel.

  “Just workers, forty of them. The apartment hadn’t opened yet.”

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  • • •

  DESPITE ITS BLOODY recent history, they found the city quiet and seemingly normal. People starting their day stood on sidewalks, chatting and laughing as they waited for buses. Along the main road, Shamilya, shops and markets were opening for the day, owners hosing down and sweeping the pavement and setting out displays.

  Jack stopped at a gas station. As he topped off the car’s tank, Ysabel went inside and bought a two-page tourist brochure and map of the city; reliable online versions were nonexistent.

  Once they were back on the road Ysabel gave Jack directions, which took them across the Yaryksu River, which inside the city was funneled into a concrete-sided canal. Over the bridge railing the water was brown and sluggish with spring silt.

  “Cotton, fruit canning, and wrestlers,” Ysabel said, reading from the brochure. “Those are Khasavyurt’s claims to fame.”

  “Wrestlers?”

  “Six Olympians. Don’t pick any fights, Jack.”

  “Noted.”

  Across the river they turned left, then left again onto a frontage road overlooking the canal. On their right was a block of tall, narrow houses with red tile roofs; from each one sprouted a satellite TV dish. Each home was separated by an alley no wider than Jack’s shoulders.

  “It should be up here, in the middle of the block. Number 4215.”

  Jack drove past the house, then pulled to the curb.

  “How do you want to do this?” asked Ysabel.

  This question had been on Jack’s mind. They didn’t have the time it would take to tail Dobromir and learn his comings and goings. Jack had decided on the direct approach.

  “We’ll let Helen do the talking,” he said, then opened his door.

  They walked back down the block to Dobromir’s house. Jack pushed the buzzer. Inside, a dog started barking; it sounded big. The door opened, revealing a bald man with a broad face. Beside the man was a dog with thick, shaggy fur and a blunt snout. It growled. The man made a clicking sound with his tongue and the dog turned and trotted away.

  Jack said, “Vy gavarite pa angliyski?”

  “Yes, I speak English.”

  “Helen sent us.”

  “I do not know any Helen.”

  Jack pressed play on his phone and held it before the man’s face.

  Helen’s voice came over the speaker. “Dobo, my love, I’m afraid the job did not go as planned. This man’s name is Jack. I told him you would help him—”

  Jack shut off the video.

  Dobromir asked, “She looked ill. What did you do to her?”

  “It’s a long story. May we come in?”

  Dobromir hesitated for a moment, then stepped aside and let them through into a cramped foyer covered in peeling red stick-on tile. Dobromir clicked shut the door’s dead bolt, then did the same to a second and third one at the top and bottom. The door was steel.

  “Come,” he said, then headed down the hallway.

  Ysabel whispered to Jack, “Did you know they were involved?”

  Jack nodded.

  “What’s with the door?”

/>   “Cost of doing business, I guess.”

  They followed Dobromir to a room lined with overflowing bookshelves. From wall to wall the space was no more than twelve feet; from front to back, thirty feet. A semicircle of three LCD computer monitors sat on a desk against the wall. Dobromir gestured for them to sit on the couch.

  “Let me see the video,” he said.

  Jack cued it up again, then handed him the phone. Holding it close to his face, Dobromir hit play.

  “Dobo, my love . . .”

  As Helen continued speaking, Jack kept his eyes on Dobromir’s face. If this was going to go bad, it would happen in the next thirty seconds.

  When Helen neared the end of the message, Dobromir’s eyebrows narrowed. “The man that is showing you this, Jack, shot me. But I do not blame him and neither should you. He came to rescue the girl and he was defending her. The man named Rasulov had ordered me to do terrible things to her. Roma killed the boy and he would have done the same to her. I would not have let him, but Jack did not know this. I want you to help him. Dobo, you will always be my one and only—”

  Dobromir shut off the video. He handed the phone back to Jack. His face was hard, his eyes cold.

  “I want a copy of that.”

  “Sure. You’re taking this very well.”

  “She did not blame you, so I do not blame you. She was always the boss, my little Helen. And my smarter half.”

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Ysabel said, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “It comes with the job. We knew that. I had not heard from her in a couple of days. I was afraid something had gone wrong. Tell me this much: Did she suffer? The truth.”

  “She was in shock, so not very much.”

  “Where is her body?”

  “We buried her by the ocean.”

  “Good.”

  Ysabel asked, “Were you two married?”

  “No, Helen did not believe in it. Paper isn’t love, she always said. So, Jack: I assume you want to find Farid Rasulov?”

  “His real name is Oleg Pechkin. He’s with Russian intelligence.”

  “Motherless whores,” Dobromir muttered. “Tell me what he looks like.” Jack gave him the description Seth had provided. Dobromir shook his head. “That is not the man I met. True, he was Helen’s point of contact, but I never met him. I should have.”

  “You usually meet people that hire you?” Ysabel said with surprise.

  “If they are unwilling to meet face-to-face, they are not for us. And I only take a contract after I have done my homework. I never sent Helen on a job blind.”

  “Who approached you with the contract?”

  “He said his name was Ashworth,” Dobromir replied. “He was British.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Short, with brown hair, going bald.”

  Raymond Wellesley, Jack thought. Apparently the SIS man wasn’t above getting his hands a bit dirty. Though both he and Pechkin were behind Aminat’s kidnapping, they’d compartmentalized their involvement, one of them arranging the contract, the other interfacing with Helen.

  “This was never a ransom job, was it?” Dobromir said.

  “It was about leverage. They were trying to get the girl’s father to cooperate with something he didn’t want to do.”

  Dobromir accepted Jack’s vague explanation with a nod. “Bad business. Of course, I know Ashworth is not the man’s real name, but I could find nothing else about him. I can give you both their numbers, though, and an address in Makhachkala. It’s an apartment building I followed Ashworth to. He did make it easy. I could not see which room he went into.”

  “Where did you two meet?”

  “At a restaurant on Nabetsky Street.”

  “How far away from the address you’ve got?”

  “Four blocks.”

  This could be something, Jack knew. Though Wellesley was an old espionage hand, it was human nature to eat and shop close to home, regardless of whether the stay is for the short or long term. Perhaps Wellesley was smug enough to have set up a permanent base of operations in Makhachkala. Where they found Wellesley they would probably find Pechkin.

  Dobromir walked to his desk, tore a sheet from a notepad, jotted down the information, and handed it to Jack. He glanced at the two phone numbers: Both had Makhachkala landline prefixes. He committed them to memory.

  “Is there anything else I can do to help?” Dobromir asked.

  Jack wanted to say, “Quit the abduction racket,” but didn’t. Too soon. Perhaps Helen’s death would be enough for Dobromir to consider retirement. Though he and Helen had never harmed a hostage, it was still an ugly business.

  “Maybe,” Jack replied. “If I ask, will you make contact with Pechkin?”

  “And say what?”

  “I don’t know yet. I have to think about it.”

  “I will do you that favor if you do one for me: Bring either Pechkin or Ashworth to me. Both would be preferable, but I will settle for one.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  A buzzer sounded from one of Dobromir’s computers. “Perimeter alarm,” he said, then leaned over the middle monitor. “Someone’s here, at the back door. Were you followed?”

  “No.”

  Dobromir tapped on his keyboard and a video feed appeared on the monitor’s screen. Jack could see a pair of uniformed men standing before the door, their faces distorted by the fisheye lens.

  “Politsiya,” Dobromir said. “This cannot be a coincidence.”

  “We didn’t bring them,” Jack replied.

  “I believe you. Perhaps they will go away.”

  One of the officers turned and gestured to someone off camera. A moment later a man came into view carrying a handheld battering ram. The other two stepped away and the man swung the ram backward.

  From the back door came a muffled thump of steel on steel.

  Dobromir turned and said to them with a grim smile, “It seems they are not going away. You two need to go. This way.”

  He led them through an arched opening between two bookcases, then left down another short hallway. At its end, the back door buckled inward. The doorjamb splintered and chunks of plaster dropped to the floor. Without pausing, Dobromir kept going, then turned left again onto a winding staircase. At the top was a small bedroom containing a trundle bed, a nightstand, and a small writing desk. Fixed to the nearest wall was a short ladder.

  Downstairs, the ram pounded into the door again.

  “Go through the hatch,” Dobromir said. “It will lead you to the roof. Go now!”

  “What about you?” asked Ysabel.

  “They will search, find nothing, then take me to the station and ask questions. I will be home by suppertime. Do not go back to your car. Take mine.” He dug into his pocket and handed Jack a key ring. “It’s a blue Volga two blocks west of here.”

  “Thanks,” Jack said.

  “I’ll be expecting your call.”

  Dobromir headed back down the stairs. The blows from the ram were coming faster now, one every two seconds.

  “Up the ladder,” Jack told Ysabel.

  She climbed to the top, slid free the locking bolt, then opened the hatch. Sunlight streamed through.

  Jack heard a crash, then a bang as the steel door slammed open against the wall. He looked down the stairs.

  In rapid-fire Russian the police started barking orders. Over the tumult, Jack could hear Dobromir trying to answer, his voice soothing, cooperative.

  Ysabel rasped, “Jack, come on!”

  Dobromir appeared on the steps, backing up, his hands raised. The muzzle of a pistol was almost touching his nose. The cop holding it came around the corner, looked up, saw Jack, and shouted, “Stoj!”

  Dobromir wrapped the man in a bear hug and they began bouncing against the wal
ls. “Go!” he shouted.

  Jack put his hand on the ladder rung.

  The roar of a gunshot filled the stairwell. Jack looked back and saw Dobromir lying on the stairs with a bullet hole in his sternum. The cop raised his gun and took aim on Jack. “Stoj . . . stoj!”

  Jack dodged left, grabbed the leg of the nightstand, and swung it around the corner and down the stairs. He heard the smack of wood against flesh, followed by the sound of the cop tumbling down the stairs.

  He scrambled up the ladder and out the hatch, then leaned back in and grabbed the locking bolt. Ysabel slammed the hatch shut and Jack slid the bolt into the latch. While the bolt was as thick as his thumb, the hatch was made of sheet metal. It wouldn’t hold for very long.

  WHICH WAY?” Ysabel asked, gasping for breath.

  Jack turned in a circle, trying to orient himself. To his left he saw the concrete wall of the canal. That was east. He turned and ran for the other edge of the roof with Ysabel close behind.

  He skidded to a stop and peeked over the eaves and down into the alleyway that separated Dobromir’s house from his neighbors’. Clotheslines crisscrossed the gap so thickly that they looked like a fishing net. The bottom of the alley was lost in shadow.

  Jack backed up a few steps, then leapt to the next roof. Ysabel did the same and they kept running, dodging chimney vents, low-hanging wires, and satellite-dish risers until they reached the last roof on the block.

  To the west, Jack heard sirens approaching, growing louder as they converged on Dobromir’s house.

  Ysabel said, “Here, Jack.”

  She was kneeling beside the curved railing of the fire-escape ladder. He walked over. Directly below them was a blue Volga—Dobromir’s, Jack assumed. They’d soon know.

  A police car, its lights and siren off, rounded the corner at the other end of the block and headed toward the canal. Jack and Ysabel pulled away from the edge until they heard the engine fade into the distance.

  “There’s no point in waiting,” Ysabel said, then started down the ladder.

  At the bottom they stood in the alley a few feet behind the entrance.