The Survivor Read online

  “Mr. Kramer!” she said, extending a gloved hand. “I’m Irena Shulyov. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to meet you. We only just got word from the pilot that you were coming in. We never expected him to fly in this weather. Are you and your people all right?”

  “Fine,” Rapp said, regretting not putting Scott Coleman front and center to deal with her. He did easygoing charm a lot more convincingly. “There was a little turbulence there at the end, but not too bad.”

  Her expression was incredulous, and he realized that he’d overplayed his attempt to be disarming. Shulyov’s clientele were probably accustomed to safer and more luxurious travel methods. In contrast, he and his men had spent half their lives stuffed into the back of C-130s. At least the aircraft they’d come in on that day had windows and wasn’t a prime target for every radical old enough to lift a rocket launcher.

  “We heard there’s a wolf pack in the area,” he said, changing the subject. “Do you think we’ll have a chance to get a few photos?”

  She looked past him at Coleman, who was still tossing duffels to McGraw and Wicker on the ground. Dumond had carved out a rough seat in the snow and was planted in it, trying to calm down.

  “That’s a lot of gear.”

  “We weren’t sure what to bring, so I guess you could say we brought everything.”

  “This is no problem,” she said, still looking a bit confused. “Let me help you carry your bags to the truck.”

  She started around Rapp, but he blocked her path and thumbed toward Dumond. “We can handle it. My friend over there got a little airsick on the way in, though. Maybe you could take him to your rig. A little sympathy wouldn’t hurt, either.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry! Of course.”

  Shulyov rushed to his side and helped him up. Keeping an arm locked in his, she chatted encouragingly as they made their way across the snowpack.

  “Cute,” Charlie Wicker said, coming up next to Rapp.

  “Your kind of woman.”

  Wicker was debatably one of the top five operatives in the world and undisputedly one of the top three snipers. He’d grown up in a small town in Wyoming hunting with his brothers. When he was twelve, he’d gotten separated from them in a storm not unlike this one. After three days, everyone assumed he was dead and that they wouldn’t find him until the snow melted in the spring. On day four he’d emerged from the wilderness without a scratch, dragging an antelope he’d shot.

  Rapp originally thought it was just a legend, but when Wicker left the SEALs to join Coleman’s company, he’d pulled the man’s file. In it was a copy of the news story, complete with a photo of a skinny kid with a big grin and a rifle towering over his back. Since then, not much had changed.

  “Grab the gear and let’s get out of here,” Rapp said. “I want to be on the trail in an hour.”

  CHAPTER 51

  IRENA Shulyov seemed to be piloting the vehicle entirely by memory. The powerful headlights illuminated nothing but a disorienting tunnel of snowflakes that looked like they were being shot from a cannon. Powerful windshield wipers swept manically across the glass, but appeared to have no purpose other than to create an electric whine that competed with the howl of the wind.

  According to the Agency’s weather forecasters, the storm would continue through the night with temperatures dipping into the single digits. Windchill would be in the negative-twenty range. Not exactly Rapp’s favorite operating conditions.

  A few years back he’d acknowledged this gap in his skill set and joined a couple of SAS friends on a two-month-long training session in Antarctica. To this day, he remembered it as sixty of the most miserable days of his life—a blur of frozen appendages, unruly sled dogs, and hypothermia.

  Rapp had managed to be the first to drag himself across the finish line of a hundred-mile self-supported race across the tundra. He could still hear the instructor’s comment: “Well, you can’t ski for shit, but you’ve sure got a big motor.” Even fresher in his mind was the frost-bitten chunk of his right thumb that turned black and fell off. It eventually grew back, but he still didn’t have full sensation.

  “I don’t want you and your friends to worry!” Irena Shulyov shouted over the ambient noise. “We have a high-pressure system coming in tomorrow. Blue skies and no wind. It will be a perfect day for touring and taking photos.”

  That jibed with what he’d been told but unless things went very wrong, he and his team would be long gone before visibility got much over a mile.

  “Sounds great.”

  “How is your friend doing?”

  Rapp glanced back at Dumond, sandwiched between Coleman and Wicker. It was a bit hard to tell in the dim light but he seemed a little less green than he had back at the plane.

  “Fine. He’s really looking forward to taking in the sights.”

  Rapp couldn’t see her face, but the giant hood she was still wearing moved forward and back in what he assumed was a nod.

  “Is there anything in particular you and your friends would like to do? I see you brought skis. Avalanche danger will likely be considerable but there are some lower-angle slopes that will remain stable. We’re expecting at least two meters out of this storm.”

  She spoke a little too fast, jumbling her passable English. It was possible that the nervousness was just a holdover from having her clients coming in on such a dangerous flight, but he suspected it was more than that. It would be pretty clear to anyone with even a room-temperature IQ that they weren’t middle managers from Procter & Gamble. So now Irena Shulyov found herself alone in the wilderness with a group of men who would probably be familiar to her from her father’s time in the Russian military.

  “What kind of work do you do?” she asked, the silence obviously magnifying her discomfort.

  “Product development.”

  “What kind of products?”

  “How long have you lived here?” Rapp said, changing the subject.

  “All my life. I went to college in St. Petersburg but hated the city. The people, the cars. The buildings blocking the sky. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.”

  Rapp was about to ask another question to keep the conversation focused on her, but she pointed through the windshield.

  “We’re here. That’s the main building. My guides have prepared food and we have drinks available there if you like. If you’re tired, though, I can take you directly to your cabins.”

  “Are all of your guides in the main building?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many do you have working for you?”

  Rapp knew he was being less than subtle, but there wasn’t time to screw around.

  “Only two,” she said. “My permanent men. In the high season I have as many as six.”

  “Why don’t we swing in for a drink, then,” Rapp said. “I’d like to meet them.”

  “Of course.”

  Irena relaxed a bit and it was no mystery why. According to Nash’s intel, her two guides were brothers, both in their mid-thirties and both born and bred in the area. One was former army and the other had spent eight years roughnecking on oil rigs. They weren’t to be underestimated.

  She pulled up in front of a log building and Rapp twisted around to face the rear seats before getting out. “Irena’s going to introduce us to our guides.”

  Coleman gave a barely perceptible nod. The hope was that this would go smoothly, but the only thing that really mattered was that it went fast. The clock was ticking.

  Snow blasted the exposed skin on Rapp’s face, turning to ice on his beard as they passed through a rough-hewn door. Inside, it was probably only about forty degrees, but that temperature felt like the tropics by comparison.

  “The main building is a bit rustic,” Irena apologized. “But don’t worry. The cabins were completely updated only a year ago.”

  The modest heat was generated by a single greasy woodstove in the corner. The room was approximately thirty feet square with a rest-room at the back. The door to it was open and Rapp
confirmed that it was unoccupied. Both guides were standing next to a low table arranged with liquor and food. They looked as formidable as expected.

  Dumond went straight toward them, giving each a polite smile before going for the vodka. His actions were more the product of his near-death experience on the plane than a preconceived plan, but they worked nicely to divert the men’s attention. Coleman used the opportunity to check out a shortwave radio near the building’s only window. Wicker and McGraw took up positions on either side of the door.

  “Alexi, Stepan,” Irena said. “I’d like to introduce you to Mitch Kramer.”

  Rapp shook their hands and exchanged a few pleasantries before pointing to a map on the wall. The CIA had some broad-stroked stuff and a few high-resolution photos, but this looked quite a bit more detailed.

  “So where are we?”

  Irena tapped her finger near the center while her men took drink orders from the rest of his team. “Right here. Tomorrow we’ll go out through this shallow canyon to the north. The plateau it leads to is where the wolf pack has been seen. With the weather clearing, I think we have a good chance of getting close enough for photos.”

  Rapp ignored the tourist route and followed the elevation markings toward a dotted line that dead-ended about thirty miles to the east. “What’s that? A road?”

  “Of sorts,” Irena said. “It leads to a small commune. It’s kept relatively clear in order to get supplies in and out.”

  “What kind of commune? Are they artists? My wife loves pottery.”

  “No. They keep to themselves. We won’t be going anywhere near there.”

  A cold blast of air hit them and she turned to wave a cautionary hand at Wicker and McGraw as they pulled the door open. “It’s dangerous outside in this kind of weather. If you’d like to go to your cabin, I can send one of my people with you.”

  “No worries,” Wicker said. “We’re just going to stand under the light and have a smoke.”

  “This isn’t America. You can smoke in here.”

  Wicker smiled and they disappeared outside.

  Irena motioned for one of her men to follow but Rapp moved to intercept. “They’ll be fine. How about you make me a drink? Vodka.”

  He looked at Irena and she shook her head, motioning again toward the door. Based on her expression, she wasn’t sure what was happening and this was her way of finding out. Probably inevitable, but not the way Rapp had wanted it to go down.

  He blocked Stepan’s path again, this time shoving him backward. Surprise flashed across the Russian’s face and then he reached out to grab the front of Rapp’s jacket. He was a bear of a man typical in this part of the world—six one, 240, with thick forearms covered in dark hair and tattoos. Someone best dealt with quickly.

  Rapp grabbed Stepan’s thumb and bent it back before sweeping the man’s right leg just below the knee. He executed the maneuver about half speed—enough to put the Russian on the ground, but not enough to do any permanent damage.

  The air rushed out of Stepan’s lungs, but he looked more surprised than injured. More problematic was the fact that his equally burly brother had come around the makeshift bar and was in full charge. He made it only a few steps before noticing Coleman tracking him with a silenced Glock. That was enough to bring him to a halt, but it was an open question whether he was smart enough to stay that way.

  “Irena,” Rapp said. “You own this company, right?”

  She was completely frozen, eyes locked on the gun. Finally, she managed to answer. “Yes.”

  “Then you’re in command and these men are your responsibility. You understand you can’t win, right? All that can happen is that you and your people get hurt.”

  She said something in Russian and Alexi helped his brother to his feet. Then both retreated to the bar.

  “We . . . We don’t have anything worth stealing,” she said, trying to decipher what was happening. “What do you want from us?”

  “I want you to go to bed,” Rapp said. “Tomorrow morning I want you to sleep in. Your fees have been paid and we’ll be wiring another fifty thousand U.S. dollars to cover damages.”

  “Damages?”

  Right on cue, McGraw came back through the door. “They use walkie-talkies for local communication and the shortwave is connected to an antenna out back. We’ve cut the wires and Wick’s on the roof dismantling their satellite dish.”

  “What about the snowmobiles?”

  “All well maintained and gassed up. We’ve loaded the gear on the five newest ones and disabled the others. Keys are in ’em.” He glanced at his watch. “Wick said he’d be ready to go in four and a half minutes.”

  Rapp loved working with Coleman’s team. No complaints, no hesitation, no detail too small or timeline too tight. He turned back to Irena. “Do we have a deal?”

  CHAPTER 52

  THE Russian-built snowcat was shut down, leaving an icy world illuminated only by a distant glow. Travel up the makeshift road had taken almost nine hours and had involved digging a path through three drifts too dense for the vehicle’s front shovel.

  Kabir Gadai stared through the windshield, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. Spindrift swirled from the towering banks on either side, but with less violence than it had only an hour ago. The snowflakes were still thick and heavy, but now floating straight down at a predictable rate. With the engine off and the storm subsiding, the breathing of the five ISI operatives packed in behind him now dominated.

  Based on what he knew from the odometer and intermittent GPS signal, the source of the dim light was Pavel Katdsyn’s village, perhaps a half kilometer to the east. As had become customary, there was no time to collect detailed intelligence or recon the area. They were in a race against America’s Central Intelligence Agency and once again Gadai would have to endure risks that would normally be unacceptable.

  According to his FSB informants, the village was inhabited by approximately ten families, some of which included children. Focused on hacking and Internet scams, they weren’t involved in any activity that could create territorial disputes, and they paid significant protection money to both organized crime and the police. Combined with the remote setting, this suggested—but by no means guaranteed—that they would have light security.

  “I’ll go in using the road,” he said as his men began piling out of the vehicle. It was the most straightforward of the three attack plans they’d devised. Unfortunately, it was also the most dangerous. With visibility so limited, though, the risks were outweighed by the benefits. Every moment of delay increased the potential for a confrontation with the Americans.

  Gadai started the snowcat and propelled it forward. His men would follow at a distance that allowed them to remain in darkness.

  At first, he thought the entrance to the village was completely unguarded, but then he spotted a man running toward him. He was wearing mismatched down pants and jacket, both in garish colors that made him stand out against the white background. The rifle over his shoulder hung up as he clawed at it, finally coming free and allowing him to aim the weapon in Gadai’s general direction. It was a pathetic display that confirmed his suspicions about security. No doubt the men of the village took turns on watch with no regard to ability or training.

  Gadai slid the driver’s-side window down and shouted a greeting in Russian as the man cautiously approached. Satisfied that he posed little threat, Gadai turned his attention to the small enclave beyond his windshield. The photos he’d seen appeared to be accurate. The village formed a rough U shape, with four buildings on each side of a snowpacked street and one at the end. All were two stories, constructed primarily of local timber and metal sheeting. A single snowcat and various snowmobiles were visible but showed little sign of use. None could be dug out quickly enough to be used as escape vehicles and fleeing into the wilderness on foot would be suicide.

  When the man got to within a few meters, he called out to Gadai. The Pakistani smiled in an attempt to put the man at ease, but al
so in reaction to his own good luck. He possessed only a single blurry photo of Pavel Katdsyn and had assumed that he would have to question the guard out of fear that it could be him. The man’s pure-blood Asian features made that unnecessary.

  Gadai lifted the silenced pistol from his lap, aiming it through the open window and squeezing the trigger. The round hit the man directly between the eyes and he crumpled to the snow without so much as a whimper.

  Gadai’s team appeared a moment later, running past the snowcat and fanning out in a well-coordinated pattern. He jumped down to the snow and sprinted toward the first building on the left as his men began accessing the others.

  The door was unlocked and he went inside, entering an open room with threadbare sofas and a kitchen stacked with dirty dishes. There was a set of stairs to the left and he began to ascend, dragging a hand against the wall as a guide in the darkness. He heard a muffled scream from outside and picked up his pace, concerned that it might wake the house’s occupants.

  His instincts were right. When he slipped into a room on the upper floor, he found a man desperately searching an old chest of drawers for a weapon. He spun when Gadai stepped on a loose floorboard and instinctively threw an arm in front of his face. He was wearing only a pair of briefs, but his long hair provided a convenient grip point that Gadai used to drag him down the stairs and out into the snow.

  He began to babble in Russian, but Gadai ignored him, scanning the upper windows of the buildings for any threat. There was nothing, though. His men had control of the situation and were marching people out of their homes at gunpoint. Men, women, children, and even infants appeared, some fully dressed and others naked or in bedclothes. His team lined them up on their knees, standing behind them with weapons at the ready. Some were shouting angrily, others pleading. The children wailed, already shivering as their skin reddened in the frigid temperatures.

  “Who here speaks English?” Gadai said.

  They all looked at each other but no one answered. Normally, he would have just stood there and let them freeze but he had neither the time nor patience for that. Despite his heavy clothing, he himself was beginning to suffer from the bitter climate.