The hope was that the Malinois would perform as well as he had in Sergiyev Posad and pick up the scent of their teammates. Clearly failing at the moment, Kane lowered his nose and shook the long trip from his fur.
They had left in the middle of the night, traveling the seven hundred miles in a pair of trucks. It had taken them fourteen hours to reach Arkhangelsk, a portside city on the White Sea. Once there, they had collected the bush plane from a fishing charter, which required Yuri handing over a satchel weighted down with rolls of rubles.
Afterward, they had made the thirty-mile hop to the lake. To continue their ruse as simple fishermen, Fadd would start drilling holes through the ice and set up rods.
But there would be no one to man them.
Monk waved to the western shore, to a snowy forest covering low hills. “Let’s head out.”
The five men and Kane set off across the ice.
It was a sullen march.
Yesterday afternoon, Gray had returned after nearly drowning in the lost library. He had reported the deaths of Bishop Yelagin and Father Bailey. He had also shared what knowledge that sacrifice had gained them: the possible location of a lost continent, one that came with a dire warning, a danger that could threaten the world if unleashed. Gray and the others, including Sister Anna, were already en route by air to the city of Pevek on the coast of the East Siberian Sea, where they would take a helicopter out to a commercial icebreaker and begin their search of those frozen waters.
But despite the urgency of finding the site, of discovering the nature of that threat before the Russians claimed it, they could not abandon Tucker and Dr. Stutt, or even Marco. Not without attempting a rescue.
To that end, they had recruited additional allies—and resources.
Once off the lake and onto the wooded shoreline, Yuri removed a GPS unit from his pack. He took a moment to get his bearings, then set off into the hills, tracking a red dot on his screen. After fifteen minutes of hiking, they topped a rise.
“We’re here,” Yuri stated firmly.
It took Kowalski a few breaths to spot the white camouflage netting bulging at the bottom of the hollow ahead of them. It helped that there were some tread tracks leading to the spot, though the overnight snow had partially filled the path.
“Suit up and let’s get going,” Monk said, searching the skies between the pines. The winds had picked up, blowing snow from branches and dusting over them. “That storm’s coming in fast. We want to be in the teeth of it by the time we reach the base.”
Yuri and his two men rolled back the netting, revealing a pair of vehicles.
One was a Berkut-2 snowmobile. It had a two-man heated cab built over skids. Atop it was mounted a PKP Pecheneg 6P41 machine gun. In the back was an open-air gunner’s seat, positioned over a rear cargo space.
The second vehicle was an A-1 double snowmobile. It looked like a motorcycle with a sidecar, but one sitting on oversize treads.
From the duffels, the team loaded additional rifles and sidearms into the two vehicles, then stripped down and changed into Russian Arctic combat gear, which consisted of camo suits in shades of white and gray. They pulled dark balaclavas over their heads, followed by white helmets with black visors.
As they geared up, Kowalski kept next to Yuri. He asked a question that had bothered him since they left Sergiyev Posad. “Why’s your boss so willing to help us?”
“He is paid very well,da?” Yuri shrugged.
Kowalski knew that Painter and Kat had arranged the equipment drop-offs with Bogdan, who also coordinated their transportation. The industrialist had plenty of underworld connections to facilitate all of this. Plus, it was well known that a slew of Russian military hardware had the unfortunate habit of falling out of trucks.
Kowalski kept staring at Yuri until the man admitted more.
“I tell him what you do, what you plan to do.”
Kowalski remembered catching Yuri on the phone back at the Vatican embassy, speaking to his boss. “You’ve been reporting in, so what?”
“Bogdan is a happy man. Very rich. Very smart. Sanctions are bad already. War would be much worse. He is not alone in wishing for peace. He sees the wisdom in supporting a cause that will keep his funds flowing smoothly and steadily.”
“I thought war was profitable for guys like your boss.”
“For a few,da. For most others,nyet.” Yuri stared toward the horizon. “Bogdan also has five children and seven grandchildren. I have two daughters myself.”
This last surprised Kowalski.
Yuri tugged on his helmet. “Not all costs of war are measured in profits.”
He snapped the visor shut, ending this discourse, and headed toward the Berkut.
