Chapter 11
Titov parked behind the second motel building, out of sight of both the office and the major streets on either side. Abramova met him at the door and he slipped inside. Nikitin was on the bed, apparently asleep.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“Matvey won’t die, if the surgeons are good. If he can keep his mouth shut, he might even get loose,” Titov said. “He’s not on any police records here or with Interpol.” Then he shrugged. “If the cops here have any imagination, he’s probably fucked. But we’ve done what we could.”
“These security cameras are a curse,” Abramova said. “If they find this car I rented, they might be able to track me. I tell you, the cameras are everywhere.”
“Then we should move again,” Titov said. And, “I like your hair.”
She ignored that and said, “Your Jeep might be a problem, if they find the farm. I think they will find the farm, with clues from the doctor. She would have had some idea of passing time, and style of the old house. The neighbors know your Jeep…”
“Maybe we should have done her.”
“Last year’s snow,” Abramova said.
Titov nodded at Nikitin: “What about Lev?”
“He can move, with pain. The opiates kill the pain, but make him sleepy and unreliable. When I bought the hair dye, I bought more simple painkillers, not as strong, but his brain will be clear. I think we let him wake up, give him some of this acetaminophen, a lot of it, and then try to find a way to get clear. Get a new car…”
“I have all American identification and good driver’s licenses and credit cards,” Titov said.
“Let’s do what you did this morning: rent a new car.
Call and make a reservation. It’s all by computer, computers don’t get suspicious, they just rent.
One of my driver’s licenses is from Normal, Illinois.
I even have a membership with the Plus Your Points with Enterprise. ”
“I have nothing better,” Abramova said.
“Have you had anything to eat?” Titov asked. “I stopped on the way here, I got sandwiches…”
“Wonderful. I could eat an ox,” Abramova said. “Let’s eat and wait for Lev to wake up, make an assessment. If we reserve a car now, it will be ready when you go to the airport.”
· · ·
Nikitin woke a little after noon, had some groggy questions about Orlov and Milwaukee.
He began to pull himself together after eating two sandwiches, and Abramova checked his butt wound.
The blood had stopped leaking and the wound looked drier than it had, but inflamed.
Nikitin swallowed more antibiotic tablets and four Tylenols, said he could move if he had to, but he’d rather not.
“I’m going to get a car,” Titov said. “You’ll only have to walk ten feet from the door.”
“That I can do.”
· · ·
Titov changed into a suit and tie, then left in the Jeep: they all agreed there was a small risk, but he had good identification.
They smuggled the couch cushions from the Jeep into the motel room, so if he was stopped, he’d look and sound like an ordinary American with a black Jeep, a common car in snow country.
And it worked smoothy enough. Titov left the car in a crowded parking garage at the airport, after wiping everything in the interior that might hold a fingerprint.
DNA, he couldn’t do anything about. If things worked well, he’d recover the car and drive back to his apartment in Chicago.
If it didn’t, he’d be in Moscow, or dead, and the car would be irrelevant.
Still, the loss would sting: he liked the car.
A lot. He would not get anything like it in Russia.
The deal at the Enterprise location was purely routine.
Titov got a modest-looking red Ford SUV, checked the mileage and, satisfied, hurried back to the motel.
When Abramova let him into the room, she’d already packed the clothes and gear bags and Nikitin was on his feet, one hand on a wall, practicing walking.
“Not bad for twenty-four hours,” Titov said.
“Less than that. I would appreciate it if we could find a place to hide for a while,” Nikitin said.
“We can do that, no problem,” Titov said.
· · ·
Abramova and Titov made three trips to the parking lot, hiding the rifle case, the spotting scope, and the tripod between bags. When they were ready, Titov said to Abramova, “I’ll help Lev. You go ahead, make sure the hallway is clear.”
Abramova nodded. Her PLK was on her belt, under her sweater, and she put her hand on it as she stepped into the hallway. She sensed—maybe heard—somebody to her left, looked down the long hallway and…
A woman, she thought a desk clerk, was just turning the corner, followed by a hard-looking thin man.
She thought soldier and her hand gripped the pistol, and then a third man, tall, dark-haired, the nemesis, the man who’d been in the street, shooting at them as they were fleeing the assassination scene—he was right there, coming around the corner.
She’d seen him in the Wagoneer’s big wing mirror, was for a split-second uncertain about that, but then he made a move for his pistol but Abramova already had hers in her hand and she yanked it from under the sweater and fired a blizzard of bullets down the hall, driving the three people back around a corner and she thought she’d hit at least one of them and probably two.
Then Titov was there with Nikitin, Nikitin’s gun in his hand, and he shouted, “Take him,” and Nikitin said, “I can go,” and Nikitin stumbled toward the exit and Titov opened fire down the empty hallway, chipping away at the corner as Abramova dropped her magazine and slapped another into place and began shooting.
Then Titov was gone and she backed after him through the door to the parking lot, shooting as she went, and then she was outside and into the front passenger seat, struggling to pull the door closed as Titov accelerated out of the lot, around the corner of a motel building into a side street and right away from the motel.
Abramova was kneeling on the front seat, looking out the back, reloading, said, “I see nobody…I see nobody…nobody following…”
Titov drove hard for a block under the interstate highway, then made a right turn and slowed, went two more blocks, took a left into a side street, and then kept heading north, Abramova still kneeling on the front seat, looking for pursuit…
There was none.
Abramova buckled into the seat and said to Titov, “You did well, Melor. Welcome to the team, huh?”