Tomorrow, I’ll call my daughter and tell her the bad man is gone.
I can hold on a little longer. I’ve held on this long.
37
Pytor
The SUV bounces over frozen ruts, and every jolt sends a bolt of fire from my biceps to my collarbone.
Daria is in the passenger seat with her seatbelt pulled tightly and her hands clenched on her thighs. Grisha drives with the headlamps off, navigating by the pale wash of moonlight on snow. Nobody speaks. The radio sits in my lap, but Boris’ last transmission still rings in my ears.
They found the bastard.
“Turn here.” I point to a gap in the tree line where two birch trunks lean against each other. A logging track threads between them, barely wide enough for the vehicle.
Grisha swings the wheel immediately. Branches scrape the roof and both side panels as we push through, and the SUV lurches sideways over a frozen drainage ditch before the ground levels out into a narrow clearing.
Boris is waiting beside his vehicle with Eduard and two of Marat’s men. All four are kitted up in vests, sidearms, and riflesslung across their chests. A thermal scope is mounted on Boris’ rifle, pulled from the backup gear in Marat’s truck.
I climb out and cross the clearing to them. The cold cuts through my jacket and settles into the wound on my arm.
“Talk to me,” I order.
Boris points northwest through the trees. “Lodge is four hundred meters in that direction. Single story, stone foundation, timber walls. One door facing south; two windows on the east side, one on the west. Chimney on the north wall. Eduard’s scout confirmed a single heat signature on the thermal. He’s alone.”
“Weapons?”
“We heard one shot fifteen minutes ago. Sounded like a handgun. Could be a warning shot, or could be him trying to bust a lock on something inside. Either way, he’s armed with at least one pistol.”
“Ammunition?”
Boris shrugs. “He grabbed whatever he could carry when he bolted from the cabin. Based on what we recovered from his men, he’s working with a standard magazine, maybe two. Twenty rounds at most.”
Eduard steps forward. He’s covered in snow from the waist down and breathing hard from the trek. “Circled the structure from the north. There’s a root cellar entrance on the back side, but the door is rusted shut. Tried it myself. That thing hasn’t opened in years. The south-facing door is the only way in or out.”
“Any movement through the windows?”
“Curtains are drawn on all three. I caught his shadow crossing the east window once, about ten minutes ago. He’s mobile but favoring his right side. Must be where we got him.”
“Options,” I bark at Boris.
Boris ticks them off on his fingers. “One: We wait him out. The temperature is dropping, and that lodge hasn’t been maintained in years. If the chimney is as damaged as it looks, the heat will bleed out all night. Cold and blood loss will do our job for us.” A second finger goes up. “Two: We breach. One door, one hostile. Stack on the entry, flash, and clear. Textbook room-clearing exercise.”
“Option three,” Eduard adds, “we call out. Give him a chance to surrender. Federal warrants are active. If he walks out with his hands up, we hand him to the authorities and let the courts bury him.”
Boris and I look at each other. We both know what Dmitri expects. The instruction was implicit but unmistakable: Bring me a result, not a problem.
“He won’t surrender,” I say. “Bogdan Lebedev has spent his life running from consequences. Prison terrifies him more than a bullet does. He’ll fire through the door the second he hears a voice.”
“We could offer it anyway,” Eduard counters. “On the record, we gave him the option. What he does with it is on him.”
Fair enough. I nod. “Eduard, position your men on the east and west flanks. Nobody fires unless I give the command or they take fire first. Once they’re in place, Boris and I will take the south approach. Grisha holds the tree line with the vehicle in case he gets past us.”
“He won’t get past us,” Grisha mutters from behind me.
“No,” I agree. “He won’t.”
The men break to take their position. Two scouts disappear into the trees. Grisha jogs back to the SUV and backs it to the edge of the clearing, where he has a clean sightline to the lodge through a gap in the birch trees.
