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Mid-morning traffic meant it took two hours to reach the bakery once we’d entered the city. We sat in heavy queues, surrounded by bored, frustrated, or patient Muscovites. I was envious of their lives. Regular, predictable and mundane. I didn’t think I’d ever have an existence like that.
When we finally rolled along the potholed driveway beside the bakery, everyone was awake and glad to be at our journey’s end.
There were no other vehicles in the yard and no sign of the Red Man, so I parked near the loading-bay doors. I jumped out and opened them—to find myself staring down the barrel of a gun.
CHAPTER 101
“EASY, PHIL,” ERIN Sebold said.
He was a member of her six-man security team, and lowered his weapon after his principal gave the okay.
“Mr. Morgan, Master Gunnery Sergeant West says you have a gift for me,” Erin said.
She was standing by a black Ford Excursion SUV, one of a trio of such vehicles parked next to the two Volkswagen Transporters in the bay.
“Bring it in,” I said, waving at West.
He hopped into the driver’s seat and drove our Transporter inside, stopping near Erin’s security team. Dinara jumped out while West and Feo climbed in a more gingerly fashion. Both men were feeling their injuries.
“They’re wounded,” Erin remarked. “Why aren’t they in hospital?”
“You try telling them that,” I replied.
“I’m almost as stubborn as my American friend here,” Feo said, nodding at West, and Erin laughed.
“At least his sense of humor seems healthy enough,” she remarked. “And what about you, Master Gunnery Sergeant West? How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better, but the rest on the journey back did me good.”
Erin turned toward me. “So where is this gift?”
West moved to the rear of the truck and I joined him. I opened the back door to reveal Valery Alekseyev, bound and gagged, lying on his side between the equipment cases. He looked at us fearfully and tried to talk, but his words were nothing more than muffled grunts.
I climbed inside, grabbed him and dragged him out. West and I frogmarched him across to Erin, who was stunned.
“Valery Alekseyev, Director of the SVR … How?” she asked in disbelief.
“He made some bad choices,” I replied.
“We can’t …” Erin began. She hesitated. “Can we?”
“Director Alekseyev is going to defect to the United States,” I told her. “He’s worried that if he stays in Russia, his life will be in danger. Isn’t that right, Director?”
Alekseyev nodded.
Before we’d put him in the back of the van, Feo and West had made it clear there were dozens of people in Russia with motive and means to want him dead, most of them among the Private personnel he had abducted.
“Director Alekseyev isn’t asking for an expensive package,” I went on. “He’d like to share what he knows about Russian Intelligence in exchange for a simple home in the Midwest that might feel a little like a prison.”
“Director Alekseyev wantsthat?” Erin asked.
I saw him hesitate.
“Or we can bring him before a court the moment we get him stateside and he can rot in a supermax prison.”
Alekseyev shook his head.
“See? He’s got at least four of my colleagues’ murder on his hands, and he will answer for that one way or another,” I said.
