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“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.
“I’ll ask only one more time. Who here speaks English?”
“What do you want?”
Gadai turned toward the man who had spoken. He was fully dressed but his daughter, probably no older than six, was wearing only a long T-shirt. He had wrapped his arms around her for warmth and was trying to quiet her sobbing.
“I want Pavel Katdsyn. Are you him?”
“No. Pavel isn’t here. He left weeks ago.”
For a career criminal, he was an almost laughably bad liar.
Gadai raised his pistol and aimed at the girl. The man tried to put himself between her and the weapon, but the cold made him a fraction too slow.
CHAPTER 53
RAPP’S team had abandoned their snowmobiles about a mile back and were now making slow progress through the wilderness on skis. Gaps had formed in the clouds, creating intermittent splashes of stars. Not much light, but with the snow reflecting it, there was enough to proceed without night-vision equipment.
Since this frozen landscape was fundamentally indistinguishable from Charlie Wicker’s backyard, Rapp had put him on point. McGraw was breaking his own trail thirty-five feet left and Coleman was keeping roughly the same interval to Rapp’s right. Just ahead, following unsteadily in Wick’s tracks, was a very unhappy Marcus Dumond.
Despite the young hacker being dressed head-to-toe in white, his outline was clearly visible. When it started to waver, Rapp swore under his breath and accelerated to a near run. Once again, he was too late. Dumond tipped right, overcompensated, and ended up buried in the deep snow. When Rapp pulled alongside, Dumond was thrashing like a drowning man, digging himself in deeper in an attempt to keep his nose and mouth clear.
“Marcus, stop moving!” Rapp said in a harsh whisper. “This stuff’s like quicksand.”
“What am I doing here?” he whined, sounding like he was on the verge of breaking into tears. “I’m freezing and I’m exhausted. Just leave me. Just leave me here to die.”
There had been no choice but to bring Dumond along. Coleman was probably the best computer guy they had on the ops side, and he still hadn’t fully figured out texting.
“Spare me the melodrama, Marcus. Now grab my pole.”
Dumond threw out a mitten-clad hand and after a few tries, Rapp managed to get him back on his skis. “Slow and steady, kid. Okay? If you feel like you’re starting to lose your balance again, stop before it’s too late to get it back. Understand?”
“Mitch, I—”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
He gave Dumond a full minute’s lead before starting out again. To his right, he could see Coleman pacing him. Wick and McGraw were out of visual range, but they would have stopped, too, in order to keep the intervals he’d stipulated.
Miraculously, the next ten minutes passed without any more problems. The wind had died down and the snow absorbed sound with startling efficiency. Beyond the hiss of his skis, the only thing audible was the occasional dull whup of snow dropping from overloaded tree branches.
Rapp came to an abrupt halt when the silence was broken by the faint echo of a gunshot. “Marcus, stop!” he said into his throat mike. “Crouch down on your skis and don’t move.”
There was no follow-up shot and all his men checked in safe. After staying motionless for almost a minute, it seemed clear that whoever had fired wasn’t aiming at them.
“Wick. Can you get a bearing?”
“Hard to say with the acoustics but I’m pretty sure it came from the village. It’s dead ahead less than five hundred yards.”
Rapp accelerated, stopping next to Dumond to pull him back into a standing position. “Stay. Just stand here and don’t do anything.”
“What? Alone? Are you crazy?”
“You’ll be fine.”
