Cold gray eyes flicked toward the sound of creaking wood — someone heavy plodding down the hallway in bare feet. It would be Kravchuk, up to take a piss. Zolner had warned him about keeping company with prostitutes. The man’s prostate could no longer last two hours, let alone an entire night. Zolner hated the thought of training a new spotter. Sitting in a sniper hide with someone who had to urinate every other moment was impractical. Zolner eyed the Grach 9mm pistol on the varnished pine night table beside his bed. As if on cue, Kravchuk’s graveled voice carried in from the hall on a series of coughs. A smart man, he did not want to be mistaken for an enemy and shot through the wall.
“It’s just me boss, going to the toilet.”
As large as the bed was, it was almost too short for Zolner. At a brawny six feet eight, his heels came within inches of the footboard.
Zolner threw back the covers and swung long, powerful legs off the bed. He’d showered the night before, putting on a fresh set of wool underwear so he could be ready to move at a moment’s notice.
Igoshin had thought to ingratiate himself by telling Zolner all about the dark and dangerous man who’d beaten him up with the fire poker. Quinn, that was his name. According to the babbling Russian, the blond woman traveling with him was FBI, which was curious. In Zolner’s experience, American policemen traveled in packs, and then called in even more reinforcements at the slightest provocation. These two were hunting Dr. Volodin, so FBI or not, that made them a problem.
Foolishly believing that he and Zolner were operating on the same team, Igoshin bragged that he’d sabotaged Quinn’s airplane, swearing through broken lips and a swollen face that it had to have crashed somewhere in the bush not long after takeoff. Zolner had allowed the buffoon to remain alive only because he might remember some significant information during the night. In Zolner’s world one did not ingratiate himself by getting beaten by the enemy. Weakness was to be weeded out, never tolerated. Wolves did not accept excuses from one of their own if it was injured and unable to hunt. Useless members of the pack became a valuable food source and were simply eaten for the good of all.
Zolner planned to question Igoshin once more before he left and then put the useless man out of his misery. He hadn’t decided yet what he would do with the old couple — if they were even still alive. Yakibov, the former Spetsnaz soldier, had made it clear that he considered the woman a spoil of war. Zolner thought his spotter to be a sadistic bastard, but Yakibov appeared to have even Kravchuk beaten in that regard.
Seated on the edge of the soft mattress with both feet on the floor, Zolner rubbed a large hand over the bristles of his salt-and-pepper crew cut, then down across his face, feeling the stubble and the small scar that ran across the bottom of his chin. He had few external scars, and the man who had given him that one had paid dearly for the privilege.
Rolling off the bed to drop facedown to the cool wooden floor, he pushed himself into a plank position. His dear mother had told him when he was very young that her grandfather had done fifty push ups each morning before anything else, even over the long and tortuous months of the Battle for Stalingrad. Zolner had followed in his great-grandfather’s footsteps, finding a routine of morning exercise got his blood moving and made him immediately more alert.
Zolner performed each pushup with the same exactness that he did everything. Afterward, he took himself through a series of stretches, some seated, some standing, always paying particular attention to his breathing. Some would have called what he did yoga.
Kravchuk’s cough in the hallway drew his attention toward the door.
“Boss?”
“What is it?” Zolner said, bending at the waste to touch the flat of his palms to the ground. His thick chest pressed against his thighs.
Kravchuk coughed again, a habit even more problematic than the overactive bladder. “Davydov has the plane ready to go at first light…”
“And?” Zolner said. With Kravchuk, there was always an “and” of late. The man could never get to the point without a lengthy preamble. Zolner expected his pilot to have the plane ready to go the instant he wanted to leave. There was no reason to inform him of that fact.
Kravchuk coughed again. “That guy, Igoshin, he has been begging to talk to you. He says it is important.”
“Of course he does,” Zolner said. Igoshin had surely spent the fevered night mulling over dozens of scenarios where he could trade information for his pitiful life.
Zolner’s hunting boots were waterproof and quiet, making little noise on the polished wood as he trotted down the stairs and into the lodge’s great room fifteen minutes after he’d finished his morning stretches. He carried his rifle loosely in his left hand. It was pleasing to see that Kravchuk had a fire going in the stone hearth, adding a small element of cheer to the otherwise dreary mood in the log interior.
Zolner’s camouflage clothing and freshly shaved face combined with his rigid posture to give him the look of an officer in some elite unit. In truth, he’d never been a part of the actual military, working instead on contract for specific generals and colonels who could get their hands on enough money to meet his price.
Zolner folded out the aluminum legs of the bipod and set the rifle on the long wooden table so the weapon rested upright, protecting the three-thousand-dollar 12-52X56 Valdada scope. Both the rifle and the attached suppressor were covered in a white and gray “Yeti” Kryptek camouflage pattern, perfect for winter stalking.
Kravchuk slid a bowl of cooked oats across the table — as was expected of him first thing in the morning.
Igoshin slumped where Zolner had left him, in a large leather chair beside the fire, panting heavily, a bag of frozen vegetables pressed to the bloody mess that had once been his face. He’d been dozing, or maybe half unconscious considering the extent of his head injuries, but he glanced up at the noise of the bowl sliding on wood and tried to push himself to his feet.
“Please,” Zolner said, “stay where you are.”
Igoshin fell back with a low groan, vegetables to his face.
Henderson, the lodge owner, sat tied to one of his high-backed wooden dining chairs. His wrists were red and torn from struggling against the ropes. His shirt torn, Henderson’s head lolled in a state of near insanity, half teetering between consciousness and complete madness. His eyes were swollen shut from crying. Blood and spittle drooled down his grizzled chin, smearing the pale flesh of his shuddering chest. He’d no doubt heard the incessant screeching from his wife as Yakibov demonstrated the special techniques a disgraced Spetsnaz soldier had at his disposal for the treatment of a female war prize.
Kravchuk must have told Yakibov that Zolner was up, because he dragged the shattered woman in by her hair before Zolner even had time to take a bite of his oats. Zolner nodded to another of the high-backed chairs and Yakibov shoved her into it.
“We’re not complete animals,” Zolner said, wiping a bit of milk from his lips with a paper napkin. “Allow the poor woman to sit by her husband.”
Yakibov grunted, sliding the chair and the women across the room. Zolner wondered if he’d even taken the time to sleep.
Mrs. Henderson’s eyes were open but catatonic, staring a thousands meters into the distance, unfocused. There was nothing left of the fiery spark they’d held when Zolner and his men first arrived. It was unlikely she recognized her own husband or even knew where she was anymore.