Using the C-17’s tail numbers, her contact at Incirlik had learned that a Diplomatic Overflight Permit had been issued to the C-17 by the government of Brazil. He’d also discovered that a similar permit had been issued to the same aircraft by the government of Peru. In fact, Peru required a Non-scheduled Overflight Permit and a Non-scheduled Landing Permit. That landing permit disclosed the plane’s ultimate destination: Juliaca.
The GRU was not without its own assets, and the Snow Maiden was able to catch a flight aboard a GRU owned and operated Gulfstream G650 out of nearby Adana 
Airport. While en route, she received help treating her gunshot wound from the attendant (clean entry and exit, no major complications). She arrived in Juliaca nearly two hours before the C-17 without refueling and flying literally on fumes. Following the agents up to La Rinconada had not been difficult. She’d hitched a ride aboard a mining truck that had left only a few minutes after the two men had departed in their pickup truck. She’d bought a Bible at the airport and clutched it as though she were a Christian missionary, a missionary with 9mm and .40-caliber pistols tucked under her arms and more than one thousand dollars in American greenbacks jammed in her pockets.
Her reports back to Izotov were fragmented. New lead, leaving Sochi. Following up. What about the girl, he’d asked. No reply…
If she reported Nadia’s loss, they’d come for her. Izotov’s assistants were already trying to reach her regarding the deaths of the FSB agents.
It was better now to overlook the losses and keep focused on Kasperov. If she brought him back, losing the girl would mean nothing.
She was close now. Closer than ever.
“Sam, we’ve got a corporate chopper taking off, heading up to the mine,” said Charlie. “Just the pilot and copilot on board.”
While the kid’s voice buzzed through his subdermal, the words seemed unintelligible at first as Fisher focused once more on the Snow Maiden, who was now holding a suppressed pistol to his head. He glanced over at Briggs, who was lying on his side. His eyelids fluttered open.
Fisher sat up and blinked hard. They were outside another mining entrance. It appeared that she’d dragged them out with the help of several ruddy-faced young men who where standing behind her, counting U.S. banknotes — tens and twenties. There were no security men, no bosses, just this small group and the Snow Maiden, and they, too, were all hidden from view by a line of parked bulldozers to their immediate left. His pistol, crossbow, trifocals, and OPSAT were gone. He wasn’t sure about his karambit, but he wasn’t reaching back for it. Not yet.
“What’s your name?” she asked, her English heavily accented but discernable.
Fisher averted his gaze and muttered, “Grim, if you can hear me, we might be needing a little help.”
Suddenly, the Snow Maiden hunkered down and ripped the SVT patch from his throat. “What’s your name?”
“My name’s Sam,” he said in Russian.
She switched to Russian. “Who was the man you were chasing?”
“My daddy.”
“Answer me!”
Fisher widened his eyes. “You want to find Kasperov, right?”
“You know where he is?”
“That guy we were chasing… did he get away?”
She nodded.
“Then there’s no time. We need to go!”
She snorted. “We need to go? I don’t think so.” She pressed the suppressor against his forehead. “Where is Kasperov?”
Fisher narrowed his gaze. “I know who you are, Snegurochka. I’ve heard all about you.”
“Then you know this conversation will not end well.”
“Not for you.”
She leaned in closer and brought a hand up to his chin. “You look tired. You look… broken. You’ve been doing this too long.”
“Or not long enough.”
“Where is Kasperov? You tell me now, otherwise I’ll cut you slow, the way I cut Nadia’s friend.” In her other hand she now gripped his karambit. Well that answered the question regarding his knife.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“You mean besides my new friends here?” She gestured back to the miners.
“Yeah.”
“If you know all about me, then you know I brought an army.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“I have comrades posted throughout the entire city, with another twenty people back in Juliaca. Not only will we capture Kasperov, but I’ll be bringing you two back with me. Three prizes in one day. And, of course, I’ll be interrogating you myself.” She ran the tip of the karambit across Fisher’s cheek, not deep enough to cut him but with a promise that she would.
“That sounds like a date. Can we go now?”
“You really are in a hurry.”
“We need to go.”
“How many bodyguards does he have?”
Fisher cursed. “Look, we’ve got no time. He’s on the run right now.”
Briggs sat up now, glanced back to the miners, and spoke rapidly in Spanish: “She’s a Russian spy. We’ll double what she gave you. Think about it.”
“Show me the money,” said one of the miners.
Briggs grimaced and said, “I got five hundred bucks in my pocket. He’s got even more.”
“They’re lying,” cried the Snow Maiden.
“I promise we have the money,” said Briggs.
“Hey,” Fisher cried, regaining the Snow Maiden’s attention. He steeled his voice. “Coming after us was your first mistake.”
“Oh, really?”
“Letting us live was your second.”
She chuckled under her breath.
“Trying to hold two weapons on me at once? Well, that was your third.”
As he was speaking, Fisher was already visualizing his maneuver the way great athletes visualized their victories before even competing.
His arms came up in the sweeping, poetic movements of an Olympic swimmer, seizing the Snow Maiden’s pistol with one hand and forcing it away from his head while he grabbed the wrist of her knife hand and drove it back. That must’ve been the arm where she’d been shot, as her struggle was much weaker on that side.
Briggs needed no cue, no orders. He was already rushing behind the Snow Maiden to put her in one of their now well-practiced blood chokes.
Her reflexes took over, her hand involuntarily flexing, and she fired a round into the air while Briggs applied more pressure.
To Fisher’s surprise, one of the miners, the tallest, rushed over and dug fingers into the Snow Maiden’s grip, prying free the karambit, which tumbled to the slush-covered ground. Seeing this, Fisher placed both of his hands on her pistol and began wrestling it free. He managed to squeeze his fingers up, above hers, and pressed the magazine release button. The magazine tumbled from the handle. She still clutched the gun, but now she only had one round in the chamber.
With a guttural hiss, the Snow Maiden reached up and tried to claw Briggs’s face, even as Fisher tore the pistol from her grip, the force nearly knocking him onto his rump.
The Snow Maiden slipped her legs behind Briggs’s ankles and suddenly tripped him back, onto the ground, the impact breaking his hold on her.
Even as Fisher brought the pistol around, the Snow Maiden was rolling backward, launching herself into a reverse somersault and landing on her boots.
She gasped, her face and neck flushed, a weird grin splitting her lips. “Pull the trigger,” she urged him. “And don’t worry, the round won’t explode in the chamber.”
Fisher glanced at the pistol and the red LED light just beneath the hammer. Damn, it was electronically keyed only to her.
“Maybe the knife?” she suggested, glancing toward the blade half covered in mud.
Fisher looked to the miners. “Double what she paid you,” he said in Spanish.