“Hola?” he answers.
“It’s Peter Sokolov.”
There’s a moment of tense silence; then he hisses into the phone, “Why the fuck are you calling me? It’s too late; there’s nothing I can do. They’re all over that dinky airport. I told you, I can’t do anything when the whole department—”
I hang up before he finishes and look up to meet two sets of identical green eyes.
“Looks like Esteban’s airstrip is a no-go,” I say evenly. “Any other ideas?”
50
Sara
I return to find Peter and the twins clustered around the entrance to the cockpit. All three men are on their feet, gesticulating with jabbing motions as they argue in Russian with Anton.
My stomach dives. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Our Venezuelan contact sold us out,” Ilya says over his shoulder. “Or maybe he was caught—we don’t know for sure. Either way, the police are waiting for us to land, which means we need to stretch our fuel supplies and get to another—”
“There’s no stretching the fuel, Anton told you that.” Yan’s voice is hard and sharp. “I say we chance it with the police. If our fuel runs out, that’s certain death, but with the cops—”
“We have seven percent left,” Peter says. “That’s enough to get us to some other airport nearby.”
“Where they’ll be waiting for us anyway,” Yan says. “We’re already on their radar, and if we miscalculate even a tiny bit…”
“It’s better than walking into a certain trap,” Ilya says. “I say we land somewhere else. Like some private airstrip, or a highway, or maybe even—” He stops abruptly and rushes over to the laptop Peter was on earlier.
“What is it?” I ask, my heart hammering.
“Colombia.” His deep voice is incongruously excited. “We’re not far from Esguerra’s Amazon compound, and he has an airstrip inside…”
“You’re kidding, right?” Yan crosses his arms. “There’s no way our fuel would last that far—and that’s assuming Esguerra would even want to help. He’s eyeballs deep in his own shit right now.”
“Yes, but it’s all the same shit, don’t you see?” Ilya’s thick fingers fly over the keyboard. “We’re the reason he’s under attack. So—”
“So he’ll gladly save the police the trouble and shoot us down himself,” Yan says. “Either way, I don’t see how we’d have enough—”
“I’ll rerun the fuel numbers with Anton,” Peter says and disappears into the cockpit.
I stare after him, my nausea returning as I process the fact that there are no good options for us.
Even if we don’t run out of fuel on the way to Esguerra’s compound, the arms dealer is unlikely to welcome us.
“We may have enough to get to Esguerra’s place,” Peter says, reappearing in the doorway. “It all depends on the speed and direction of the wind. Right now, we’ve got a strong tailwind. If it stays as is, we’ll make it.”
“The wind? That’s what we’re betting on?”
Nobody responds to Yan’s rhetorical question, so he walks over to the couch and plops down, muttering what sounds like Russian curses under his breath.
“I just reached out to Kent,” Ilya says, looking up from the computer. “He’s at Esguerra’s compound right now. Maybe he can convince him to let us crash with them for a bit.”
“There’s no time for that,” Peter says. “By the time they hash it over, we’ll be out of fuel. I’m going to call Esguerra directly. He has to let us land. It’s our only chance.”
51
Peter
The Colombian arms dealer picks up on the third ring.
“Trouble in paradise?” he says silkily.
“On your end too, I imagine,” I answer calmly. The last thing I want is for Esguerra to sniff out any hint of desperation. “I think we can help each other.”
He laughs derisively. “Yeah, sure.”
“Do you know who’s behind this shit show?”
“I have a pretty good idea. The former general, right? The fucker you didn’t kill because you wanted to play house in the suburbs?”
Fuck. Of course he would know this already. Information is as much Esguerra’s stock in trade as the weapons he produces.
I change my tactics. “Listen, I’m sorry this has spilled over to you and your business. But the only way to fix this is to expose Henderson and what he’s done. And I know exactly how to do that.”
“Really? Isn’t this the guy you’ve been hunting unsuccessfully for three years?”
I ignore the mockery in his tone. “Yes—which means no one knows as much about him as my team and I. It will take you months, if not years, to gather all the data that we have on his friends and relatives, and to go through all the hiding spots we’ve found and eliminated. Face it: You need me to fix this clusterfuck of a situation quickly, before you lose even more money. How much are all the raids at your factories costing you? Ten million a day? More?”
I was just guessing about the raids, but judging by the silence on the phone, I’ve struck a nerve.