It had to look like a closet smoker had set the fire; initial suspicions of arson could expose her. When the newspaper burst into flames, she dropped it and the cigarette into a wastepaper basket and shoved it under a shelf of flammable cleaning fluids. She crept from the closet and shut the door. Black smoke poured through the cracks. Maybe she’d overdone it.
She returned to her office and handed Kosyk the keys to the makeshift holding cell. “Prisoners are all yours. Try not to lose them.” Bogdanov then left the building, hoping Faith and the commander escaped before Kosyk got to them.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
LYSENKO RESEARCH FACILITY, MOSCOW
2:33 P.M.
“Shto sluchil…?” The guard’s words trailed off as Summer shoved the shard into his throat and twisted. Blood squirted onto Summer’s arm as he pulled the glass through the tough tissue. The guard crumpled to the floor. Summer grabbed his gun, lunged behind the desk and wrapped his body over Faith.
Faith could feel Summer’s heart pound. For a moment the smell of the guard’s fresh blood overpowered the smoke of the smoldering fuse. Then the C-4 exploded. The deafening blast shook the room. A gust of air slapped her. Abruptly there was an eerie silence.
“Go, go, go, go, go.” Summer leaped up, pulling Faith with him through the cloud of smoke and dust.
Pools of formaldehyde mingled with broken glass, chunks of human brains and other debris, forming a macabre swamp. The guard’s blood swirled into the brew. Faith skidded, falling toward the floor. She held out her hand to catch herself and it smashed into a sliver of glass. Summer reached around her waist and caught her before the rest of her hit the ground.
A good portion of the wall was missing. She was grateful for the low-quality Soviet mortar and the high level of Summer’s expertise. She stepped over the rubble and lowered herself to the sidewalk. Sirens wailed in the distance as people poured from the building. A shriveled babushka leaned on her broom of lashed twigs and watched.
“This is your town. You lead the way,” Summer said.
“Hell, I don’t know where we are.”
“Then we’re going this way.” Summer broke into a sprint.
They reached the end of the tree-lined block. The drone of sirens was coming closer. They took a left and dashed onward. She looked around to get her orientation, but the four-story buildings could have been anywhere in downtown Moscow. They raced past a Gastronom grocery store with cans stacked in pyramids; it could have been any one of hundreds of such establishments in the city. The sirens screeched from directly ahead, but they were in the middle of a block, with nowhere to run.
Faith’s heart pounded so hard she thought her body was shaking with its beat. She gasped for air and held her aching side. “You go on. I can’t go much further. Let them get me. Save yourself.”
“I don’t leave team members behind-especially you. I’ll carry you if I have to. Come on.”
The sirens were almost upon them. She forced herself to continue, slowing with each step. A hundred meters ahead a driver closed the back door of a blue delivery truck.
“Punch it, Faith. Here’s our ride.”
She mustered every last bit of energy. About thirty feet away from the truck, she heard the engine start. Summer rolled up the cargo door and hopped in the back. Summer held out his hand for her and the truck started to move.
Just a little farther. Faster. Faster.
She grabbed at his hand and leaped just as a fire engine roared by. He grasped her by the wrist and yanked. Pain shot through her injured shoulder. Summer pulled her into the truck with the ease of a dog tossing a stuffed toy. The metal door protested with a loud squeak as he pulled it down, shutting out all light.
“Whew, this is one stinky country. You all right?” Summer said.
“I’m alive.”
The truck hit a pothole and something slimy raked against the side of her face, knocking her off balance. Summer caught her, his fingers pressing into her sore ribs.
She scraped at the thick substance as she stifled a gag. She pulled a disintegrating Kleenex from her pocket and wiped away what she could. “This is vile.”
Summer opened the door a crack for light. Decapitated pig carcasses swung like greasy pendulums from hooks on the roof.
“Oh, man. Couldn’t you have picked a bakery truck?” Faith said.
The truck fell into another pothole and a carcass swung toward her, but Summer pushed her down against the floor. The draft from the movement blew over her neck.
“We’ve got to make our way through these piggies to hide from the driver before the next stop,” Summer said.
Faith breathed through her blouse. “You’re kidding. It’s all I can do not to barf right now.”
“Buck up, Faith.”
“No, I’m drawing a line in the lard right here and now. When the truck stops, we jump out. We’ve gone far enough. If we get coated in lard, we’re sure not going to blend in with the locals very easily, and every mutt in this city is going to be after us.”
“We’ve got to get to the embassy. You know where it is?”
“That’s the last place we want to go. Soviet militia and the KGB patrols it to keep everyone from running in and asking for asylum. You can bet they’ll have our descriptions before we get there. Even if we could get in, I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of help.”
“I’m active-duty military. I was kidnapped by the KGB and brought here as part of some plot to kill Gorbachev and blame it on the US. Believe me, I’ll get their attention.”
“Even if we get in, there’s not much they can do for us. You think the KGB would let them drive us out to Finland in an embassy car? I can guarantee it’d have a bad accident before it could get past the Moscow ring road. The Americans would probably put us up in the basement with those Russian Baptists who’ve camped there for years. You think you’re frustrated now that you haven’t made full commander? Imagine what a few years in an embassy basement with friends of Jesus will do for your career.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
DZERZHINSKAIA METRO STATION, MOSCOW
3:15 P.M.
Bogdanov shoved through the crowds of Muscovites sneaking home early from work and wished deodorant supplies were a higher priority for the Party. Her nose was used to Germany. She slid a key into a door ostensibly restricted to metro personnel and entered an antechamber with a plainclothes KGB guard sitting at a metal desk that filled half the room. A colorful diagram of the metro was posted to his right and a painting of the metro station’s namesake and the founder of the Soviet secret police to his left. Felix Dzerzhinsky’s eyes always seemed a bit too glassy; she suspected miniature surveillance cameras were hidden inside as a fitting tribute to the brutal spymaster. Bogdanov flashed her KGB identification and stepped into the high-speed elevator to Lubyanka. Her stomach stayed on the ground floor while the West German-built elevator transported her nearly thirty stories to the surface.
She crept into her recently assigned office undetected and retrieved volumes three and four of the Faith Whitney file she had signed out from the central repository earlier in the day. Weeks before, as soon as she learned of Kosyk’s interest in Whitney, she had familiarized herself with the contents. From this analysis, she believed she could predict where Faith would turn for help.