CHAPTER ONE
REPUBLIC OF BELARUS
TUESDAY, JUNE 11
8:50 A.M.
Cotton Malone knew the signs of trouble. He should, since he lived in that perilous state more often than not. Take today. It started off innocent enough with breakfast at the superb Beijing Hotel. A touch of the Orient in a former Soviet bloc nation. First class all the way, as it should be, since he had company on this journey.
“I hate planes,” Cassiopeia Vitt said.
He smiled. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
They were five thousand feet in the air, headed southwest toward Poland. Below stretched miles of unpopulated forest, the towns few and far between. They’d come east as a favor to former president Danny Daniels, who’d appeared in Copenhagen two days ago with a problem. The chancellor of Germany was looking for someone named Gerhard Schüb. A Belarusian woman named Hanna Cress had appeared in Bavaria with some incredible information, then had been murdered, but not before uttering one word.
Kaiser.
“Do you think the two of you could take a quick trip to Minsk and see if you can learn more about her and/or Gerhard Schüb?” Daniels had asked.
So they’d chartered a plane and flown from Denmark yesterday morning, making inquiries all day.
Which had attracted attention.
“Do you think we can get out of this country in one piece?” she asked.
“I’d say it’s about fifty–fifty.”
“I don’t like those odds.”
He grinned. “We’ve made it this far.”
They’d barely escaped the hotel after the militsiya arrived in search of them. Then they’d made it to the airport just ahead of their pursuers only to find that the plane they’d arrived in yesterday had been confiscated. So he did what any enterprising bookseller who’d once served as an intelligence officer for the United States Justice Department would do, and stole another.
“I really hate planes,” she said again. “Especially ones I can barely move around in.”
Their choice of rides had been limited, and he’d settled for a GA8 Airvan. Australian made. Single engine, strut-based wing, all metal, with an odd, asymmetrical shape. A bit squared-off and boxy would be a more accurate description. Designed for rough airstrips and bush landings. He’d flown one a few years ago and liked it. On this model the eight rear seats were gone, making for a somewhat roomy cabin behind them. Advertisements painted to the fuselage confirmed that this was a skydiving plane, and it had been easy to hot-wire the engine to life.
He watched as she studied the ground out the windows.
“It’s not that bad,” he said.
“That’s all relative.”
She was gorgeous. The Latin–Arab gene mix definitely produced some exceptionally attractive women. Add in being smart and savvy with the courage of a lioness, and what was not to love. Little rattled her save for she loathed the cold, and where he hated enclosed spaces she detested heights. Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to be able to avoid either.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked.
“I’d say north of Brest, which sits right on the Polish border. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the town, off to the south.”
He’d dead reckoned their course, keeping the morning sun behind them and following the dash compass on a southwest heading. Too far north and they’d end up in Lithuania, which could continue their troubles. Poland was where they wanted to be, safe back in the EU. The Belarus State Security Committee remained the closest thing to the old Soviet KGB that still existed. It had even kept the same shorthand name, along with the rep as a major human rights violator. Torture, executions, beatings, you name it, those guys were guilty. So he preferred not to experience any of their methods firsthand.
He kept a light grip on the yoke, which sprang up from the floor rather than sticking out of the control panel. He had excellent visibility through the forward and side windows. The sky ahead loomed clear, the ground below a sea of dense trees. A road ran in a dark, winding path among them with an occasional farmhouse here and there.
He loved flying.
A plane was, to him, like a being unto itself. Flying was once supposed to have been his career. But things changed. Which, considering his life, seemed like an understatement.
He made a quick scan of the controls. Airspeed, eighty knots. Fuel, forty-five gallons. Electrical, all good. Controls, responsive.
Below, to the south, he caught sight of Brest in the distance.
Perfect.
“There’s our marker,” he said. “The border’s not far.”
They’d made good time on the 120 miles from Minsk. Once inside Poland he’d find a commercial airport to land where they could make their way out of the country on the first available flight. Far too risky to keep using this stolen ride.
He backed off the throttle, slowed their speed, and adjusted the flaps, allowing the Airvan to drop to a thousand feet. He intended on crossing at low altitude, under the radar.
“Here we go,” he said.
He kept the trim stable, the two-bladed propellers’ timbre never varying. The engine seemed to be working with no complaints. A few knocks rippled across the wings from the low-level air, but nothing alarming.
Then he saw it.
A flash.
Among the trees.
Followed by a projectile emerging from the canopy, heading straight for them.
He yanked the yoke and banked in a tight, pinpoint maneuver that angled the wings nearly perpendicular to the ground. Luckily, the Airvan had game and could handle the turn, but their slow speed worked against them and they began to fall.
The projectile exploded above them.
“An RPG,” he said, working the yoke and forcing the throttle forward, increasing speed. “Apparently we haven’t been forgotten.”
He leveled off the trim and prepared to climb.
To hell with under the radar. They were being attacked.
“Incoming,” Cassiopeia yelled, her attention out the windshield.
“Where?”
“Two. Both sides.”
Great.
He maxed out the throttle and angled the flaps for a steep climb.
Copyright © 2021 by Steve Berry
