“This location is compromised,” Erin said. “We have to assume your vehicle or ours was tracked here.”
My heart sank. The Land Rover contained all our gear. Could the Russians have marked and tracked every embassy vehicle? In the era of big data and AI surveillance, anything was possible.
“You need to leave now,” Erin told us. “The truck three to our north with the red container. Access code is seven-six-three-four. Inside are four Kawasaki motorbikes, fueled and ready to go. Get out of here. Use the blue route and go to the old bakery on Fadeyeva Street in Lefortovo District. The Red Man has the key to everything you need. Just tell him you need bread. Go!”
West moved toward the exit as the false wall rose. I followed. We crouched to step beneath it. When I glanced back, I saw Erin, Cecily, and Kate priming explosive charges to destroy all the gear in the container.
The door opened and West and I jumped onto asphalt and ran north toward the red container. I saw flashes of vehicles between the parked trucks as police and unmarked vehicles raced through the yard. We didn’t have long. The roar of approaching engines set my heart pumping. As we neared the red trailer, I understood what Erin meant by the blue route. There were blue butane canisters scattered around the yard but when I looked closely, I saw they weren’t placed at random. They indicated an escape route.
West climbed onto the red container and tapped the code that Erin had given us into the keypad. The doors clicked open and he swung them wide to reveal four powerful dirt bikes, each with a helmet perched ready on the seat.
“Can you ride?” he asked.
I nodded and hauled myself into the container. I grabbed the black bike and West took the silver one. We each put on a helmet that matched our bike.
I jumped on, pressed the ignition, revved the engine, kicked down into first gear, and shot forward, jumping out of the container and hitting the road. West followed and we both took a hard right, aiming for the furthest blue butane canister we could see.
Behind us, two police vehicles and an unmarked saloon gave chase. I kicked up through the gears and twisted the throttle to put some distance between my bike and our pursuers.
My heart leapt into my throat when I heard a loud explosion. I glanced over my shoulder to see a huge fireball over the tops of the vehicles chasing us and the surrounding containers. The three spies had destroyed their operations center.
We raced on, wheeling and turning to follow the route marked out by the canisters, and soon the road ran out and our wheels were chewing up dirt.
One of the pursuing police vehicles broadcast commands over its loudhailer, and the passenger in the unmarked saloon started taking pot-shots at our wheels.
West and I weaved around, trying to stay clear of the bullets as we raced toward what appeared to be a dead end — a line of containers set against the perimeter fence.
I thought we’d been led to disaster until I saw two butane containers either side of a tiny, barely visible gap between two of the containers. It was just wide enough for a motorbike and rider.
I raced toward it and lined myself up as best I could. There was no chance to slow down with the pursuit almost on us, and if West and I got this wrong, hitting one of the containers at 60 m.p.h. with no body armor would be devastating.
I roared toward the gap, held my breath, and shot between the two containers. West made it too. I heard the screech of brakes and the crunch of dirt as the vehicles behind tried to stop. One of them couldn’t and hit the container to my right, which shuddered as I cleared the end and passed through a gap that had been cut in the perimeter fence.
We joined the road beyond the yard and raced east. My thundering heart only started to quieten when we’d put half a mile between us and our pursuers. I was in awe of the planning and preparation that went into making Agency locations secure.
West and I finally slowed when we reached the gas station about two miles away. We pulled into the forecourt, stopped the bikes side by side and raised our visors.
“Holy hell, that was close,” he said.
I nodded and exhaled deeply. “I hope they made it out okay.”
“Chief Sebold is a pro,” he assured me. “They’ll be fine.”
“I guess we need to go to Lefortovo District,” I remarked.
“And find the Red Man,” he added. “Follow me.”
He lowered his visor and I did likewise before trailing him out of the gas station, heading north through Moscow.
Chapter 90
I remembered the Lefortovo District from my last time in Moscow. Dinara Orlova and I had encountered Madame Agafiya, the proprietor of a brothel, in the impoverished quarter when we’d been on the trail of an old friend of hers. Not much had changed since my last visit and daylight showed more of the neighborhood’s flaws. The tall blocks that dotted the area were crumbling and covered in graffiti. Discarded food containers, empty bottles, nitrous canisters, and needles were scattered in the gutters. This rundown area was once intended by the Soviets to be a residential utopia. It had forgotten once capitalism reached Russia, then left to deteriorate by politicians who saw no benefit in restoring the old place.
The bakery was on Fadeyeva Street, a road of dilapidated apartment blocks and empty shops. Most of them had been boarded up, including the old bakery, a single-story detached building about the size of a tennis court that lay between two low-rise apartment blocks. The place would once have been a community hub, providing bread and sweet pastries to the neighborhood, but now it was still and silent, slowly decaying like the buildings around it.
West parked in a spot in front. As he took off his helmet, I pulled up next to him.
“No sign of the Red Man,” he said.
“Let’s take a look around,” I suggested, removing my helmet.
He nodded and we dismounted. We walked along the potholed road, crossed the broken sidewalk, and I followed him down the driveway that ran between the bakery and the adjacent block.
We entered an open space that must have been the old delivery yard. There was a set of steel double doors that looked newer than the rest of the building. Mesh covered the rear windows, but even so some of the panes behind the protective metal grilles were cracked and broken.
Weeds were growing in the yard, particularly around an ancient bakery truck that stood on bricks.
“Any sign of the Red Man?” West asked, and I shook my head.
The yard was overlooked on three sides by a trio of five-story apartment blocks with small square windows. Most were dirty, some were cracked, and a few looked as though they were about to come away from their frames.
A booming voice shouted something in Russian and I turned to see a huge man with a thick head of red hair and a matching bushy beard yelling at us from the ground-floor window of the apartment beside the driveway.
“I think that’s our Red Man,” I remarked.
“He’s not happy,” West said, before replying in Russian.
The man’s mood softened at the sound of West’s words, and we walked over.
“What did you say to him?” I asked.
“I told him we need bread,” he replied.
A three-feet-high fence separated the driveway from a narrow stretch of scrubland beside the block, and we stopped beside it.
“Americans?” the Red Man asked.
He was bare-chested, giving off a wild, unstable vibe.
“How can you tell?” West asked.
“Your clothes. Your accent. You never get it quite right,” he replied. “How is it I can do Alabama,” he said in a perfect Mobile accent, “but you folks can never nail Moscow?”
West scoffed. “Maybe we don’t eat enough pelmeni?”