"Sir, it'll take you anyplace you want," said the pilot agreeably.
Suvorov eased into the empty co-pilot's seat and buckled the harness. "I wasn't told our destination," he said.
"Russia, eventually," the pilot said with a smile that was anything but humorous. "First thing is to find where you came from."
"Came from?"
"My orders are to fly you around the back country until you identify the facility in which you and those two windbags in the back have spent the last eight days. When we accomplish that mission, I'm to fly you to another departure area."
"All right," said Suvorov. "I'll do my best."
The pilot didn't offer his name and Suvorov knew better than to ask. The man was undoubtedly one of the estimated five thousand Soviet-paid "charges" stationed around the United States, experts in specialized occupations, all waiting for a call instructing them to surface, a call that might never come.
The helicopter rose fifty feet in the air and then banked off toward Charleston Bay. "Okay, which way?" asked the pilot.
"I can't be sure. It was dark and I was lost."
"Can you give me a landmark?"
"About five miles from Charleston; I crossed a river."
"From what direction?"
"West, yes, the dawn was breaking ahead of me."
"Must be Stono River."
"Stono, that's it."
"Then you were traveling on State Highway 700."
"I turned onto it about half an hour before the bridge," The sun had heaved itself above the horizon and was filtering through the blue summer haze that hung over Charleston. The helicopter climbed to nine hundred feet and flew southwestward until the highway unreeled beyond the cockpit windows. The pilot pointed downward and Suvorov nodded.
They followed the outbound traffic as the South Carolina coastal plain spread beneath them. Here and there a few cultivated fields lay enclosed on all sides by forests of long-leafed pines. They passed over a farmer standing in a tobacco field who waved his hat at them.
"See anything familiar?" the pilot asked.
Suvorov shook his head helplessly. "The road I turned off of might be anywhere."
"What direction were you facing when you met the highway?"
"I made a left turn so I must have been heading south."
"This area is called Wadmalaw Island. I'll start a circular search pattern. Let me know if you spot something."
An hour slipped by, and then two. The scene below transformed into a maze of creeks and small rivers snaking through bottomland and swamps. One road looked the same as another from the air.
Thin ribbons of reddish-brown dirt or potholed asphalt slicing through dense overgrowth like lines on the palm of a hand. Suvorov became more confused as time wore on, and the pilot lost his patience.
"We'll have to knock off the search," he said, "or I won't have enough fuel to make Savannah."
'Savannah is in the state of Georgia," Suvorov said, as though reciting in a school class.
The pilot smiled. "Yeah, you got it."
"Our departure point for the Soviet Union?"
"Only a fuel stop." Then the pilot clammed up.