“I always suspect foul play,” said Burke. “But in this case, I believe he was abducted. Gerry isn’t the most stalwart guy, but he’s fiercely loyal.”
“When you say immediately, how immediately do you mean?”
“I didn’t realize there were different shades of interpretation.”
“Not interpretation, implementation,” said Shelby. “How critical is Simmons?”
“He represents a dangerous nexus to the entire cause.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to find him,” said Shelby.
“I appreciate the fact that you don’t confuse authority with power,” said Burke.
“I prefer not to limit myself.”
Epilogue
Anatoly Reznikov bounced in his seat, the vastly oversized luxury SUV apparently jumping another fucking chasm. The seatbelt instantly locked into place against his chest and constricted his breathing. A sense of panic set in soon after that, no doubt a symptom of the goddamn hood over his head. His trembling hands scrambled to disengage the seatbelt, which required him to expel every bit of oxygen left in his lungs to create enough slack in the belt to set him free. Once again, his hands couldn’t seem to figure it out, and he found himself clawing at the latch and whimpering in desperation. The tightness across his chest suddenly eased and the seatbelt released.
“There you go, my friend,” said Sokolov.
Reznikov fumbled to grab the end of the seatbelt from Sokolov’s hands, managing to click it back in place by himself. One of the Americans chuckled.
Under other circumstances, he might consider a simple thank you, but not with Sokolov. Helping him with the seatbelt wasn’t an act of kindness on the mercenary’s part. The fucker had sold him like cattle to the highest bidder. The mercenary was making sure that his payday didn’t get damaged in transit.
The beast had dragged him from one dank shithole airport to another, spanning Southeast Asia, until they finally boarded a private jet that hopped the Pacific and landed in some Mexican city named after a dog. He feared that would be his last luxury for a long time.
Upon landing, the wide leather seats and unlimited food and booze transformed into dusty trunks and wooden crates that smelled like animal feces. This went on for a few days until they stopped at a border city, where Sokolov finally let his guard down. During one of Sokolov’s frequent squabbles with the Mexicans hired to transport them, Reznikov slipped out of a dank garage into an equally squalid neighborhood and ran for the nearest sign of civilization. A distant gas station.
A quick taxi ride later, he found the dingiest-looking bar in the red-light district and somehow convinced the owner to pour him some vodka. Jet-fuel variety, but still welcome. He drank several shots, entertaining the grimy crowd with his Russian toasts, and patiently waited for Sokolov to find him, mostly so he could cover the bill. The easily amused group of locals looked like the types that would cut his throat at the first sign of insolvency.
True to form, the mercenary showed up while he was in the middle of deflecting an increasingly hostile string of questions in Spanish and English, aimed at determining if and how he intended on paying his bill. The bar’s mood had turned dark enough that he wished he knew better Spanish. Or any Spanish.
He could have turned them on Sokolov in a heartbeat. A hint that the Russian carried lots of cash could easily buy a slit throat in this city. Reznikov saw his freedom in their murderous eyes, a fleeting glimpse he wasn’t likely to catch again. The group that had taken possession of him at the border crossing was slick and well organized. They made the Bratva look like undisciplined rabble.
Americans without a doubt, and government from what he guessed, which perplexed him. His previous government-sponsored stay in the United States had nearly ended with his assassination at the hands of the CIA officer Karl Berg. They clearly didn’t want him dead, or the men that met Sokolov on the banks of the jungle river in India would have put a bullet in his head. They went through a lot of trouble to get him here and to do it discreetly. The Americans needed something from him. Something they hadn’t needed in 2007. He was intrigued despite the stifling hood over his head.
They drove for a brief amount of time before one of the Americans spoke.
“Unbag ’im. We’re clear.”
Reznikov squinted after the impenetrable hood was ripped from his head, despite the SUV’s deeply tinted windows. He took a moment to reorient himself within the vehicle. Sokolov sat to his left, behind the driver. A look over his shoulder revealed two serious-looking gentlemen, one of them stuffing the black hood into a tan backpack. Reznikov noted the Taser pistols within easy reach of the men, certain that far more lethal options were hidden nearby.
Jumping out of the vehicle wasn’t an option, even if he could somehow convince himself to take the risk. The doors next to Reznikov and Sokolov contained no handles or buttons, and a thick, clear glass shield separated the front seating area from the passengers. No viable escape option appeared to exist, and even if he somehow got out of the vehicle, where the hell would he go?
A featureless hardscrabble landscape extended as far as the eye could see in every direction. A constant low-grade rumble from the tires combined with the little he could see through the dust-caked windshield convinced him they were speeding down a dirt road toward a destination still too far away to see. The land reminded him of the vast Kazakh steppes, but drier and harder. Reznikov had no concept of where they had driven him or how long he’d been in the SUV. He had lost all track of time shortly after they started.
“We’re getting close,” said the man in the front passenger seat.
Reznikov leaned sideways and peered through the windshield. Getting close to what? Nothing had changed. He started to look away when the horizon subtly changed. It was still flat and barren, but something was different.
“What is it?” asked Sokolov.
“What do you care?” said Reznikov, keeping his eyes fixed on the vast emptiness ahead of them.
A few minutes later, the distant outline of an endless fence took shape, nearly blending with the environment. The SUV raced toward the barrier, thick coils of concertina wire topping the out-of-place barrier. The fence lazily parted ahead of them, and Reznikov started to wonder if the driver was paying attention. The vehicle barreled through the opening with less than a foot of space on each side. The fence shrank away behind them, the gate already returning to seal the gap. Now what? The landscape in front of them looked the same as before.
They drove past the fence for what felt like ten to fifteen minutes; then the SUV started to slow. Reznikov looked around. Still nothing. The vehicle decelerated rapidly, plunging down a ramp into a subterranean complex, where it came to a stop.
“Final destination, gentlemen,” said the man in the front seat.
He didn’t like the sound of that at all. Armed men met them at the bottom of the ramp, opening the doors on both sides of the SUV. Nobody grabbed Reznikov or pointed a weapon at him, but the message was clear. He hopped out of the vehicle and looked around, impressed by what he saw.
It was difficult to take in the full scope of the facility from where he stood, but he guessed they had descended into a man-made excavation the length and width of two soccer fields. Judging by the height of the SUV compared to the nearest wood-beam-reinforced earthen walls, Reznikov estimated the dig to be thirty feet deep, entirely covered by thick sections of camouflage-style netting supported by an expansive latticework of metal beams and supports. Two men worked swiftly to replace the section of netting at the top of the ramp they had just entered. Clever.