For a split second Jack considered the launched boat a window of opportunity, thinking he’d risk diving off the dock and swimming underwater out to it. But then he glanced back at the AR-15 and changed his mind. If it had just been a handgun, he might have taken the risk. But with an AR-15 that could be put on automatic, it would have been suicide.
“What are we going to do with him?” Alexei questioned after a brief pause. “We can’t let him leave.”
“Obviously not! For the moment, just lock him in the icehouse!” Viktor ordered angrily. “Then both of you come right back up to the house. We need to have an emergency meeting to decide what to do in general, and we have to do it now! We can deal with this bastard later.”
“Yes, sir!” Alexei said, saluting with his right hand while holding the Glock in his left. He then gripped the pistol in both hands and aimed it directly at Jack as Viktor and Nikolai stepped off the dock and hurried up toward the house. “You heard the commander,” Alexei snapped motioning with the Glock. “Start walking! And I warn you. No sudden movements or I swear we’ll shoot!”
“Oh! That’s what it is: an icehouse,” Jack said, forcing himself to sound calm. “I was wondering what that curious building was. Very interesting! I never would have guessed, even though it makes sense being mostly underground.”
“Shut up and move!” Alexei ordered.
Jack was prodded to step off the dock onto the grass and then to begin moving in the direction of the icehouse. Alexei and Dmitry with their guns at the ready followed immediately behind.
As Jack walked, he was feeling progressively frantic. Although he was thankful he’d not been shot on the spot, the idea of being locked in a half underground icehouse in a bathing suit didn’t sound a whole lot better.
Chapter 26
Friday, July 25, 5:48p.m.
Bennet Estate
Hamilton County, New York
The tension was unmistakable as the four Russian scientists-and-technicians-cum-militiamen stared at one another across the kitchen island’s expanse of granite. They had just settled into their seats. Some very early dinner preparations were in evidence on the opposite end of the island near the eight-burner cooktop. Prior to Alexei having sounded the alarm, Viktor and Nikolai had started their evening cooking efforts. Just a few minutes earlier Alexei had been locked in a Ping-Pong marathon with Dmitry before coming up to the kitchen for a cold beer. It was then that he happened to catch sight of Jack at the barn door.
“I’m afraid this is not an auspicious development,” Viktor growled, hands gripping the edge of the countertop hard enough to make his knuckles white. His expression was serious and determined.
“ ‘Not an auspicious development’?” Alexei sputtered. “That’s thefreaking understatement of the year. I’ve been afraid of this Jack Stapleton from the moment JD mentioned him on the phone days ago. I’ve been warning you over and over, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Let’s not be insubordinate, Corporal Ivanov!” Viktor commanded angrily, emphasizing the wordcorporal. “He’s not going to be our nemesis; he’s our prisoner. But I admit having him surprise us here like this is not a favorable circumstance. I’ll give you that.”
Alexei threw his hands in the air. “ ‘Not a favorable circumstance’?” he mimicked even more flippantly. “That’s worse than saying it’s ‘not an auspicious development.’ We shouldn’t even be here. We should have left on Monday and already be back in Russia.”
“Corporal Ivanov, that’s enough!” Viktor shouted with his face empurpling.
Irritably Alexei glanced over at Dmitry for a show of support, but Dmitry visibly settled deeper into his barstool and looked away. It was obvious that the last thing he wanted to do was get caught in a power struggle between Viktor and Alexei.
Alexei then looked over at Nikolai, but Nikolai looked away as well. Alexei was clearly on his own. He lowered his hands and let his shoulders sag. With no support, he was clearly outgunned.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Viktor said, leaning forward, regaining his composure, and reasserting his command. “Alexei, you are going to go out to the barn right this minute and do another protein level on the current batch in the fermenter. I want to see if the theta prion concentration warrants a harvest, and if not, I want you to determine as best you can how long it will take. Once we have that information, we’ll cement our departure plans. Nikolai and Dmitry! I want you two to go ahead and immediately pack the truck. That will give us the opportunity to leave at a moment’s notice, in the unlikely circumstance it becomes necessary.And while you two are at it, I’d like you to make absolutely certain we have all our American and Canadian currency available and handy. In fact, put it all in the glove compartment along with our passports! While you three are busy with those chores, I will be sending a number of coded texts to let the GRU and the FSB know we’ll be on our way within days, certainly within a week and maybe sooner. Any questions or comments?” Viktor stared challengingly at each of his subordinates in turn, supposedly to give everyone an opportunity to respond. No one moved. “Okay, get to it!” he said, loudly slapping the countertop. “Now!”
“I have a question,” Alexei said, suddenly finding his voice despite feeling intimidated. “What are we going to do about the pathologist?”
“You and Dmitry locked him in the icehouse, right?” Viktor demanded.
“Yes, of course,” Alexei said. “That’s what you ordered us to do.”
“That’s fine for now,” Viktor snapped. “At the moment we have much more important things to worry about. With no clothes and no shoes and locked away, he’s out of the picture. Let’s concentrate on getting done immediately what I’ve outlined, then we can worry about having him join Ethan and JD.”
“What if he told someone he was coming here to Bennet Estate and they show up asking about him in the next hour or two?” Alexei questioned. “What are we going to say? What would we do?”
“That’s simple,” Viktor responded. “We just say we haven’t seen him. You heard him. He said he was out canoeing. And by now the canoe will be a good distance away and soon to be in the middle of the lake. At some point it will probably get pushed up against the opposite shore. When people start searching for him, they’d be looking in the surrounding forest and that portion of the lake andwhen they start, we’ll see them and be warned. Right now we’ve got much more pressing things to worry about than the damn meddling pathologist. Let’s get to it!”
After a short hesitation, everyone followed his lead. While he rushed off to the library, Nikolai and Dmitry quickly headed into the neighboring storeroom where everything they’d need on their travel to Montreal, including packaged food rations, had been amassed during the previous weeks. The general escape plan was to drive to a remote forested location in New York State close to the border, preferably on an old, rarely used logging road, a number of which they’d already located, abandon the truck, and walk across into Canada, which was essentially how they’d gotten into the United States some six weeks earlier. Once in Canada, they would hike to the nearest town, rent a car, and drive to Montreal where they would take the first flight either to Amsterdam or preferably Istanbul. As for personal items, each had a backpack in his bedroom, and that was to be it as far as baggage was concerned. All the biomedical equipment in their makeshift biomolecular recombinant laboratory was to be left behind.
Alexei suddenly found himself abandoned in the kitchen. Although the others seemed almost energized by Jack Stapleton’s unexpected appearance, he most definitely was not. Instead, it terrified him, sending his pulse and blood pressure soaring. Just thinking about the man and the threat he posed compelled him to reach into his pocket and pull out the Glock. The mere sight and heft of the weapon had enough of a calming effect to enable him to think.
Almost immediately Alexei decided to go ahead and do what he had been fantasizing about doing, and that was to hustle out to the barn, do a prion concentration check, and then report back to Viktor that the concentration was adequate for a harvest no matterwhat the actual result was. After all, no one ever checked his work, specifically no one had checked his results on any five of the previous theta prion purification episodes. Then he would go through a sham purification process so that he and Dmitry could dump the supposed harvest into the municipal water system like they had done with the other real harvests. Once they had done that, he was certain that Viktor would allow them to get the hell out of Essex Falls. It was Alexei’s growing concern that every day, even every hour, they didn’t leave, the chances that they were going to be apprehended by the American authorities and probably tortured increased dramatically.
