Page 110 of The Collector
“About an hour and fifteen minutes south of Pulkovo.”
“Which means they’ll be on board their plane before the missiles come down on that truck.”
“I rather doubt that.” Lavon pointed toward the computer screen. Pulkovo had just put in place a complete ground stop. “Might I suggest an alternative?”
“There are none, Eli.”
Lavon glanced at Lars Mortensen. “We could use the Danish consulate in Saint Petersburg as a lifeboat.”
“We might get them into the consulate,” said Mortensen, “but it will take years to get them out again.”
“Then I suppose we’re left with only a single option.” Lavon enlarged the map on his computer screen and pointed out a spot northwest of Saint Petersburg.
Gabriel looked at Mortensen. “I need a plane.”
55
Maksimov
The Lukoil petrol station was about a thousand meters from the now meaningless border between Russia and Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. Anatoly Kruchina arrived at 8:19 a.m. Not bad given the terrible road conditions, he thought, but a few minutes behind schedule. He parked the truck at the edge of the broad tarmac and killed the engine, reveling in the sudden silence. Not for the first time, he thanked God that he did not earn his living by driving a truck.
He lit apapirosaand surveyed his surroundings. Two customers were filling their tanks at the pumps. One was a weather-beaten old man, the other a gum-chewing teenage girl. A third car was parked outside the entrance of the convenience mart. That one had a couple of kids in the backseat. Kruchina had two of his own. They lived with their mother in Volgograd. He hadn’t seen them since the beginning of the war. They thought he was a hero, his kids. A defender of the motherland, a fighter for Uncle Vova. Kruchina had begged their mother to smash the television.
He checked the time. It was 8:22. He climbed out of the cab and went into the convenience mart. The mother of the two childrenwas standing at the checkout counter. She looked to be in her late twenties, a war widow, no doubt. They were everywhere. She gave Kruchina a glare of disapproval, as though wondering why he wasn’t in uniform. Kruchina, for his part, wondered whether the woman and her two children would soon be dead.
He wandered the aisles for a couple of minutes, accumulating food and drink, and returned to the checkout counter. The woman on the other side looked as though she hadn’t slept in a month.
“What time do you get off?” he asked.
“When the war is over,” she joked, and scanned his items.
Kruchina paid in cash and went out. The two kids in the backseat of the car stuck out their tongues at him as their mother pulled away. Leaving the petrol station, she headed eastward into Russia. Keep driving, thought Kruchina. Whatever you do, don’t stop.
He opened the door of the Kamaz and hauled himself into the cab. His encrypted radio chirped as he tore open his first bag of potato chips. The man at the other end of the distant connection didn’t bother to identify himself.
“Have you arrived at your destination?” asked General Igor Belinsky, director of the GRU.
“I have.”
“Is the device armed?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“My ride home must have lost his way.”
“He’ll be there any moment. Arm the device immediately.”
“Of course,” answered Kruchina. “Right away.”
He set aside the radio and gazed eastward down the highway. There was not a car in sight. There never would be, he thought. At least not one meant for him.
He made a final check of the time. It was 8:28 a.m. Then he unscrewed the cap from an American soft drink and, raising the bottle to his lips, ceased to exist.
On the southern fringes of Saint Petersburg, Ingrid had reattached her Genesis phone to Russia’s MTS cellular network long enough to consult the online departure board at Pulkovo Airport. Not surprisingly, given the dreadful weather conditions beyond her window, it showed that no flights were landing or departing. She received additional confirmation of this fact a few minutes later via a secure satellite text message from Gabriel, who instructed her to proceed to the Finnish border instead. At present it was closed to Russians without valid EU visas, but Ingrid and Magnus, as citizens of Denmark, were free to make the crossing. Provided, of course, their Russian hosts allowed them to leave.
They skirted the center of Saint Petersburg on the high-speed toll road and made their way to the E18, the primary motor link between Russia and Finland. Magnus was at the wheel. He had been there since their last stop for fuel and caffeine, some four hours earlier, at an all-night petrol station in a hellhole called Myasnoi Bor. Ingrid had planned to stuff the Russian nuclear directive into the rubbish bin of the women’s toilet, but she fled in horror the instant she opened the door.
