Independence Day (35 page)

“Then we’re fucked.”

64

ELEKTROSTAL

Cloud saw the red icon in the shape of a star suddenly pop to the front of his screen. He double-clicked it, then scanned the flag:

22:00:15

Reinholt T.C.

Minsk NA MSQ UMMS 223

Withdrawal

NBRB

Exch. 75000 BEL ruble * RUS ruble

Cloud read and reread the alert. Reinholt was not one of the men, so why had the flag popped?

He went into the database and brought up the last two days’ worth of electronic signatures for both Brainard and Reinholt. Brainard’s last event was the purchase of drinks at a Minsk restaurant. The cash withdrawal at the airport ATM was Reinholt’s first. He did a quick directory search on Reinholt, using his passport identification to architect his financial activities—credit cards, bank accounts, and anything else the database had. Reinholt had three credit cards and two bank accounts. All of them had been created that day. In fact, the ATM withdrawals were the first electronic signature—the first transaction—Reinholt had ever made.

“Perhaps he’s a mountain man?” said Cloud to himself, facetiously. “Lived in a tree house for his whole life. Just happens to have a few credit cards along with a bunch of money in the bank. Now he wants to go to Moscow. Makes perfect sense.”

It was Langley’s asset, Brainard. He was at Minsk National Airport, where he’d just exchanged Belarus rubles for Russian ones.

Cloud looked at a publicly available schedule of flights between Minsk and Moscow. There was only one more flight that evening, a 10:07
P.M.
Belavia flight.

He glanced at his watch: 10:00
P.M.

Within a minute, Cloud discovered a vulnerability in one of Aeroflot’s servers, enabling him to penetrate the airline’s computer network. By 10:04, he was looking at the passenger manifest of Belavia flight 9984 Minsk to Moscow. He thought for a minute. Then he copied the list of names and ran it against the Belavia customer database. Only one name was new. Either Langley had an alias they were employing for Brainard’s trip to Moscow unaffiliated with his identity, or they’d provisioned new identity in the last hour. If it was the former, there was little Cloud could do at this point.

At 10:06, Cloud dialed Minsk Customs emergency hotline.

“Customs hotline.”

“My name is Rudyev and I work for Federal Security Service,” said Cloud. “You have a suspected terrorist on flight nine-nine-eight-four. A Mr. Reinholt. He’s seated in 9B. Do not let that plane leave the ground.”

*   *   *

Two minutes later, from his seat aboard the plane, Brainard watched through a large terminal window as at least a dozen uniformed Customs agents charged through the terminal.

He picked up his cell and dialed Carter.

“I’m blown. Let Bill know.”

65

NOVGOROD, RUSSIA

Dewey got on the main highway between Saint Petersburg and Moscow, the M10. With every passing minute, he knew FSB would put more men on finding him. But those same minutes bought Dewey distance and—the farther away he got from Saint Petersburg—anonymity. They would be looking for him near the city. Then he remembered what Calibrisi told him. His photo was on the wire. His likeness attached to the APB posed a significant challenge.

There was something to take his mind off the feeling of being hunted, however …

He’d felt it for the past hour now, down his leg: cold, wet, raw.

So far, he’d been able to ignore the pain, as he’d been trained to do, but it was deep and it was getting worse. Dewey’s sheer size, and the layers of muscle on his arms, torso, and legs, prevented several bones from breaking when he’d hit the ground outside the Four Seasons, but that was little consolation right now. The bleeding wasn’t stopping.

Dewey looked at his leg. From the knee down, the trousers were solid red.

He unzipped his pants. Slowly, as he drove, he pulled them down below his knees, groaning in pain as the rough fabric chafed against the wound. In the dim light, he could see a deep gash glistening in fresh, dark blood.

He’d ignored it thus far, but the blood loss would debilitate him if he didn’t deal with it.

At the first exit, Dewey turned off the highway. He pulled into a modern orange-and-white Eka gas station.

He climbed out of the car and stuck the pump nozzle into the fuel tank, then limped toward the gas station, glancing down at the thin, wet trail of blood dripping from his right pant leg.

The wind had picked up. He looked at the black sky and could see clouds undulating with stripes of white and, below, far in the distance, lightning. A storm was coming.

He remembered words from training:

You will learn to operate in the worst types of weather, so when it comes, you’re ready. A storm is an opportunity. It’s the time when strength and power can be freely used. In this way, the weather is a weapon. The best offensive operations occur at night, during storms.

The store was crowded. Dewey walked the aisles, looking for something to stop the bleeding. He picked up a package of baby wipes, scissors, duct tape, garbage bags, a bag of salt, cornstarch, bandages, and paper towels. He grabbed two large bottles of vodka, then looked up and made eye contact with a teenage girl, who abruptly turned and walked away. Dewey glanced at a mirror in the corner, seeing his face. He was drenched in sweat, and his skin was bright red. His clothes didn’t fit. He looked from the mirror to the floor. A small pool of blood had collected at his shoe. He saw an advertisement in the far corner of the convenience store. It was a photo of a fish, hooked to a fishing pole, as the fisherman pulled it flying out of a stream. Near the advertisement, he found a large stainless steel fishhook, a spool of fishing line, and a pair of pliers.

He stepped into line. The chaos of the crowd helped conceal the trail of blood at Dewey’s feet. People were too busy to look down, as they fumbled for their wallets and cash. As Dewey got to the front of the line, his eyes shot left, to the door. But it wasn’t something outside that caused him to turn. Instead, it was a bulletin attached to the door. It was a large poster, freshly hung. A Wanted poster. Dewey’s photo was spread across the center.

Luckily, the photo showed a man with long brown hair. Chopping off his hair had been a good call.

Dewey turned calmly back to the cashier. She was young and plump, with neon-blue-tinted hair, dressed in an Eka uniform.

Dewey pointed behind her to a pack of cigarettes. He added a lighter to the pile as well.

The cashier scanned the items, barely looking up.

Dewey glanced back to the Wanted poster as, to his right, he heard a commotion. He knew it somehow concerned him. He tried not to turn. Then he felt a tap on the shoulder. Looking, he saw a middle-aged man, a father, pointing at the ground and the growing patch of blood on the linoleum floor. Next to him was his daughter, who was crying at the sight of it, her mother’s hand over her mouth.

The man said something in Russian. Dewey ignored him, turning back to the cashier as she bagged up his items.

Dewey pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and looked back to the Wanted poster. Two men were reading it and examining the photo of Dewey. As one read the poster, the other’s eyes settled on Dewey, staring at him as he waited for his change. From the corner of his eye, Dewey registered the man hitting his friend in the arm, trying to get his attention. The other man turned and joined his friend, staring relentlessly at Dewey.

Dewey picked up the bags and walked toward the door, directly at the men, who remained at the door, watching Dewey approach, suspicion in their eyes. As Dewey came closer, they didn’t move. They were blocking the door. One pointed to the ground, at the trail of fresh blood that followed Dewey, then said something in Russian. Dewey paused as he was about to walk into them. When neither moved, Dewey put his right arm between the two men and barreled through the door, knocking both men to the side.

He knew he needed to cut off the distraction immediately.

Dewey looked to the station wagon. It was to the left, at the pumps. He went right. Glancing back, he saw the two men following him.

The first drop of rain struck his head, then another, and then it was a downpour.

At the corner of the building, Dewey went right again. One of the men yelled. Dewey dropped the shopping bags and moved along the wall of the building toward the garage.

He heard the fast rhythm of boots behind him. Both men were now chasing after him.

Both bays of the garage were closed and the lights were out. Dewey moved to the door, slamming his left shoulder against it. The doorframe cracked, sending wood from the doorjamb to the ground. Dewey pushed in the door and was inside a dirty office that stank of petroleum.

The men were now on his heels.

He cursed himself for not bringing the Skyph with him.

Dewey cut left, into the darkness. He sprinted along the near wall, hands out, feeling his way. At a large tool chest, he stopped and crouched out of sight.

The pain in his right knee was getting worse. He shut his eyes and focused on not groaning, lest he alert them where he was hiding.

One of the men charged into the garage. He groped for a light switch, found it, and flipped on the lights. The near bay was empty. In the second bay, a car was raised up in the air.

From his crouching position, Dewey turned his head and searched the wall. Above him, he saw a large black hydraulic lever used to raise and lower the cars.

The first Russian was soon joined by the other.

They both clutched guns. One man flanked left, the other right.

Dewey reached to his calf and removed his combat blade. He held it in his right hand. He watched as one of the men crossed the garage, gun out, searching for him. He kicked over garbage cans, peered behind oil drums, and rummaged along the wall at the far side of the garage.

The second Russian called out something as Dewey squatted against the tool chest, his knee firing sharp bolts of pain up his leg as he tried to keep still and quiet.

Dewey couldn’t see the second man, but he heard his footsteps scuffing the ground as he moved toward him. When he felt a small bump on the other side of the tool chest, he held his breath. Then the front of a running shoe came into view just inches away.

Dewey took one last glance across the garage. The other man was inching toward the mechanic’s well beneath the raised car, looking to see if Dewey had climbed down inside.

Squatting on the concrete floor, Dewey stared up at where he knew the other Russian would emerge. He clutched the knife in his right hand. The gunman took one more step. His face was visible above the tool chest. A second later, the muzzle of his gun appeared just inches away from Dewey’s head.

The other Russian was inching cautiously to the mechanic’s well beneath the raised auto.

“Come on,” muttered Dewey as his eyes returned to the closer man.

His eyes found Dewey. But by the time he could scream, Dewey had sprung up at him, slashing the knife through the air and spearing it into the man’s gut, then pulling it back out and stabbing it into his chest.

Unmuted gunfire shattered the air as the Russian opened fire on Dewey, but Dewey was moving, shielded by the chest. Then he reached over his head and grabbed the hydraulic lever, yanking it just as a slug struck the wall in front of him. The car atop the hoist dropped down on top of the gunman, crushing him.

Dewey pulled his combat blade from the dead Russian’s chest. He searched his pockets and removed a cell phone. Then he moved to the door.

Outside the garage, the skies had opened up. Rain was cascading down in sideways sheets of warm water. Dewey welcomed the water against his skin, cooling him, washing away the blood.

At the front of the Eka store, he retrieved the shopping bags. He walked quickly to the station wagon, hung the nozzle back on the pump, climbed inside, then sped out of the gas station. Soon, he was back on the highway. He fell into a line of slow-moving vehicles almost paralyzed by the violent storm.

Dewey moved to the middle of the front seat, steering with his left hand and using his left foot for the gas and brake.

He reached beneath the seat, found the gun, and set it in the driver’s seat.

He pulled out a bottle of vodka. He unscrewed the cap and took a big gulp, then another, trying to quell the pain now emanating from his knee.

Dewey put the tip of the Gerber against his right knee. He counted to three, then pushed until the blade punctured the trousers. He pushed the blade down the length of his calf, cutting away the pants. He put the knife between his teeth then grabbed the pants and tore them aside, exposing his knee.

The traffic abruptly came to a halt; Dewey hit the brakes just inches from striking the bumper of the car in front of him. He took another swig from the bottle.

In the dim light, Dewey could barely see his knee, only a sheen of wet blood. When he turned on the overhead light, the sight was gruesome. The knee looked pulverized. The skin all around the wound was black and purple, while the wound itself was open and raw.

Dewey poured vodka over the wound, biting hard on the knife handle and letting out a mumbled groan as the pain seared him.

He opened the glove compartment and set the knife on the shelf.

Dewey splashed more vodka on the gash, then pressed a handful of baby wipes against the wound. He reached into the shopping bag and found the fishhook and put it between his teeth. Without looking, he threaded the fishing line through the eyelet, then tied a hangman’s knot.

His eyes were startled by something up ahead. A set of police lights, red and blue, flashed in the distance, coming in the opposite direction, moving recklessly fast. Another cruiser was behind it, then a third. The roar of the sirens couldn’t be heard at first, dulled by the rain, then it grew loud as the vehicles swept by.

Dewey removed the bloody baby wipes and tossed them to the floor. He poured more vodka into the wound.