The 14th Colony (Cotton Malone 11)

Then it clicked.

Belchenko no longer held the rifle.

“Where’s your weapon?” he asked, remaining behind the doorway.

“No need for it anymore.”

The words came low and slow. The cat had gotten Chatty Cathy’s tongue. Or maybe—

“Let’s go out the other way,” he said to Belchenko.

“That’s not possible—”

Gunfire erupted from inside the great room, the noise bellowing in the high ceiling. Malone shifted his weight forward and dove, his body stretched outward, and landed on the wood floor, momentum gliding him across in front of the sofa, near the exterior windows. He kept the rifle steady and caught a blur of movement in the half darkness as a form emerged from the shadows. He pulled the trigger and sent a volley of rounds that way. The form recoiled and bucked against the wall, then shuddered and twitched before sliding down into a patch of shadow, losing all shape and identity. He scrambled for a heavy wooden table, uprighting it before him as cover.

He listened.

No sounds, other than a low howl from the wind outside. Three men had been on the truck. Three were now down. He slowly came to his feet, keeping the rifle aimed, finger heavy on the trigger.

He heard a grunt and cry of pain from the far side and rushed over.

Belchenko lay on the floor.

He spotted a black mass of multiple bullet wounds. Blood poured out each one in ever-widening circles. Apparently, the first shots had been aimed the old man’s way.

He bent down. “Was he waiting for you?”

“Sadly,” Belchenko managed. “And I so … wanted to get out of here.”

But he wondered about that observation, considering the shooting with the rifle and the risk taken with the warning. “That’s not possible.”

The alarm from Belchenko’s face must have mirrored his own. Pain took hold and the older man winced, screwing up his eyes in agony.

“It appears I’m no longer … useful to them,” the older man said. “They seem to have figured things out … without my help.”

The wounds were bad.

“There’s nothing I can do,” he said.

“I know. Go. Let me die in peace.”

Belchenko gazed at him dully, lips parted, breaths coming in short, uneven gasps, coughing and grunting like a wounded animal. Flaccid eruptions of blood spewed from his mouth. Not good. The lungs had been pierced.

“I lied … earlier. I know Zorin’s plan.”

Pink froth bubbled at the corner of the mouth, the body trembling in pain.

“We spent decades … looking for weaknesses. America … did the same to us. We found one. Fool’s … Mate. But never had the chance … to use it. The … zero amendment. It’s your … weakness.”

Belchenko tried to speak again, a croaking, gargling sound, like speech, but inarticulate. A flock of spittle appeared on his lips, his eyes bulging. What he had to say seemed important. But the words didn’t come. They remained trapped forever between the tongue and teeth as the eyes dilated with death and every muscle went limp.

He checked for a pulse. None.

In repose, the face looked surprisingly old.

“Fool’s Mate”? “Zero amendment”?

“Your weakness”?

What did it mean?

No time to consider any of that at the moment. His mind shifted into survival mode. He stepped to the door, eased it open, and saw that it led out to the paved area that spanned in front of the dacha, the same space he’d negotiated earlier before entering the hot bath. Before leaving he took a moment and examined the man he’d shot. Middle-aged. Green fatigues. Black sweater. Boots. No Kevlar. Perhaps they thought this an easy kill. He searched the corpse but found nothing that identified either the man or his employer.

Were these guys military, as Belchenko had declared?

He fled the house, alert for movement. Bitter cold stung his face and a breeze from the lake dissolved his white, vaporous exhales. In the wash from the floodlights he saw the Goat from earlier parked fifty feet away. He grabbed his bearings and debated searching for a cell phone among the dead but decided that wouldn’t be smart. He saw the fence, the dark skeletons of the trees, and the knoll that led down to where the truck he’d commandeered earlier waited, then decided, Why go there and freeze along the way?

There’s a vehicle right here.

He trotted over and saw keys in the ignition, so he climbed inside beneath a canvas roof and coaxed the engine to life. Dropping the gearshift into low he swung the front end around and accelerated. The tires spat snow and the truck leaped forward, headlights searching the darkness as he left the dacha behind.

He followed the twisting black road down toward the main highway, trailing a billow of exhaust. Halfway, another set of headlights appeared coming his way, which momentarily blinded him. He swerved right and avoided the vehicle, which he saw was similar to his own, two dark shapes visible through the foggy windshield. He found the highway and turned south, the cab swaying with speed, the engine straining. In the rearview mirror another set of headlights amid a plume of snow appeared from the drive and fishtailed in a controlled arc.

The other Goat.

Headed toward him.

He saw a figure emerge from the passenger-side window.

Then the stutter of automatic weapons fire began.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Zorin drove east on the darkened highway, leaving Lake Baikal behind and heading toward Ulan-Ude. The town had sat beside the Uda River since the 18th century, first inhabited by Cossacks, then Mongols. He liked the name, which meant “red Uda,” intentionally reflective of a Soviet ideology. The Trans-Siberian Railway brought the place prosperity, as did the major highways, which all converged there. Until 1991 its 400,000 inhabitants had been off-limits to foreigners, which explained why so many of the old ways still flourished.

When the Soviet Union fell there’d been a national rush to eradicate the past. Every statue or bust of any communist leader had been either destroyed or desecrated. There’d even been talk of closing Lenin’s tomb and finally burying the corpse, but thankfully that movement never gained strength. Unlike the rest of Russia, which seemed eager to forget, the people of Ulan-Ude remembered. In its central square remained the largest bust of Lenin in the world. Nearly eight meters tall, over forty tons of bronze, the image itself striking. Thanks to some special coating its dark patina had survived the elements, the area around its base a favorite gathering spot. He’d many times driven the one hundred kilometers to simply have a black coffee nearby and remember.

Ulan-Ude also accommodated the nearest international airport, which would be his way to Canada. He wasn’t wealthy. His time with the KGB had paid him minimally. When the job ended there’d been no severance, pension, or benefits. Which explained why most operatives chose to go to work for the crime syndicates. They’d offered lots of money, and for men who’d risked their lives for little to nothing the lure had been too tempting to resist. Even he finally succumbed, hiring himself out locally, mainly in and around Irkutsk, being careful never to sell his soul. He had to admit, they’d treated him fair and paid well, enough that he’d amassed twelve million rubles, about $330,000 American, which he’d kept hidden at the dacha, in cash. Some of those funds had gone to pay for Anya’s journey, and the rest he would use now.

He glanced at his watch.

The American should be dead by now.

He’d left instructions for the body not to be found. Whoever sent Malone would come looking.

Three days ago he’d made arrangements for a charter jet, all pending his conversation with Belchenko. That aircraft was now waiting at Ulan-Ude. He finally knew the destination, except that a visa would be needed for him to enter Canada. Of course, he could not legally obtain one, nor was there time. Instead, he’d developed an alternative, and a promise of more cash to the charter company had secured its muc

h-needed cooperation. He could only hope that Belchenko had told him the truth.

But why wouldn’t he?

He kept driving, the frozen blacktop rumbling beneath the headlights. Weather here loomed as alien as outer space. For him winter seemed merely a prison of crystalline cold. This year’s version, though, had been bearable. Perhaps an omen? A harbinger of good tidings that this mission might be successful? He’d been living on frayed nerves far too long. He’d often wondered if he was the last true communist left in the world. The ideology in its purest form seemed long gone—or perhaps it never existed, or at least not as Karl Marx had intended. The Chinese version was unrecognizable, and the various smaller regimes scattered around the globe were communist in name only. For all intents and purposes the philosophy he’d been taught had become extinct.

He inhaled the roasted air blasting from the car’s heater.

The pale scimitar of a moon peeked through the clouds. His mouth was dry with tension, old instincts pricking at him in a familiar way. For him there would be no more squandered chances. And though he might be only a shadow of his former self, he no longer felt the fear he had that day in 1991 when the mob stormed Lubyanka. Instead, he was fortified with conviction, and that realization brought him calm.

Anxiety had dogged him for too long. Nothing provided much in the way of peace. His anger could not be bridled, but it could be temporarily sedated with sex and alcohol. Luckily, he’d never become addicted to either. Those were weaknesses he would never allow. He considered himself a man of heart and conscience. He stayed quiet, rarely quarreled, and avoided disputes. Life had tried to turn him into a zombie, stifling all feeling, but in the end it had only fed his vengeance. The fact that he recognized that reality seemed proof he remained in command of himself. He was not merely a piece of flesh with teeth and a stomach. He was not a relic, either. Nor was he insignificant.

Instead, he was a man.

A whiff of memory flew through his mind.

The day when he first spoke to Anya.

He’d traveled down this same highway to Ulan-Ude to savor the sounds of the city—engines, horns, sirens—to watch the hunched babushkas in head scarves and shapeless dresses, and to sit with the men in topcoats of rough bleached cloth, sprawled out on benches, most tired, pasty, and strained. He loved the bazaar, a broad paved street shaded by trees and heaved with people. Open booths of wood, turned brownish black by age, lined either side. Most displayed grain, rock salt, spices, or local produce. Some offered clothes and merchandise, others sold canned goods and candles. He’d drawn comfort from the thick smell of the crowd, an odd mix of perspiration, damp wool, garlic, cabbage, and leather.