Page 48 of Jacob

“Would love for Jacob to hit the ground running, but it’ll be dark soon. I found someone who might be an informant, but he’ll only meet in daylight. Very skittish. Not even money could change his mind, which means whoever he’s afraid of is beaucoup bad. Fucker’s incredibly greedy. Sorry, Doctor.”

Alex waved her hand. “I told you it’s Alex, and no problem.”

The pilot came on. “We’ve begun our descent. Please stow away loose items and fasten your seat belts.”

“Okay, I’ll see you soon,” Nick said. “I’m at the airport.”

“Roger that. See you in a few.”

Jacob turned to Alex but she was engrossed in her tablet again. He reached across her gently, pulled the seat belt over. She lifted her arms but was barely paying attention. He got a glimpse of her tablet screen and understood one word in ten.

Well, he’d got himself a brainy woman, so he’d better get used to it.

He settled and waited until the plane’s tires gently kissed the tarmac and nudged Alex again.

“Honey?”

She looked up at him blindly.

“We’re here.”

* * *

Alex had traveled widelyfor the WHO and the CDC but Vostokova was new to her. Stepping out of the plane onto the steps, she took a deep breath and looked around. It looked like an airfield in the middle of nowhere, at dusk. The air smelled of aviation fuel and dust and coming snow. The sky was low and gray, casting no shadows. In the distance was a building that looked like a bunker.

“Honey?” Jacob had preceded her and she understood he wanted to go first in case there was danger. He scanned their surroundings constantly, but it didn’t look like there was a living soul in the airfield. Jacob was holding his hand out to her. “We have to be quick.”

“Of course,” she murmured and followed him quickly down the few stairs and into a waiting SUV with the passenger door open. Jacob motioned that she should get in first. She slid in and as soon as Jacob pulled the door closed, they took off.

“Hey, welcome to beautiful Vostokova,” a deep voice rumbled from the shotgun seat.

“Hello Nick,” she said and he smiled at her in the rear-view mirror. As with Jacob, it looked like smiling hurt that hard face. “Doctor.”

“Alex,” she gently corrected.

“Alex.” He shifted his gaze in the mirror. “So I’ve checked you into the Stella Hotel. It’s what passes for a five star in this place, but don’t get excited.”

Jacob slanted a glance at her. “Don’t worry about me,” Alex said. “On mission, we sometimes sleep in tents. If it has clean beds with mattresses and running water and no cockroaches, I’m fine.”

Nick dipped his head. “Yeah, I think I can guarantee a cockroach-free experience. Jacob, I have eight men and they are on a rotating roster. We have?—”

And he and Jacob launched into a highly technical discussion of their security arrangements, including the alarming term ‘lines of fire’. She didn’t want to know. She’d learned early in her long scientific training that trying to follow technical experts when she didn’t know the basics was pointless. If she followed closely, she understood one word in five. If she paid less attention, one word in ten. They knew what they were doing. After a couple of minutes, she just let go and looked out the window at the passing scenery.

It was a typical third-world country that wasn’t doing well. The airfield was surrounded by fields, with low rolling hills. Dotting the hills were stone huts which elsewhere would be shepherd’s huts, but here were probably homes. The land was divided up by low drystone walls, most of which needed fixing.

It started to sleet. Not pretty postcard snow, but wet slivers of ice that made everything look hard and abandoned, like an alien planet. Inside the vehicle it was toasty warm and completely insulated. They drove through the terrible weather as if it were nothing. The driver had complete control of the vehicle, whereas she would have freaked. Jacob and Nick continued speaking as if they were driving in the Bahamas.

She was sure they didn’t even notice the weather.

Many stone houses looked abandoned, but still had lights in them. Soon there were more houses and what, if you were charitable, could be called towns. A few stone buildings with tin signs over the doors, but still no one to buy what the signs were advertising. The landscape eventually turned into one continuous town and she could actually see some people, bundled up against the cold, huddled against the sleet.

No one looked happy.

And then they were in the city, a mix of recent construction and Soviet-era cement brutalism architecture. They passed by a church with an onion dome, a local market with all the produce carts covered up by tarps, a small park with a few leafless trees. They were following a tram line now and a narrow street opened up into a large cobblestone plaza with, smack in the middle, the statue of a medieval monk.

Across the square was a huge stone building with an elaborate façade andHotel Stellawritten in huge red letters across the top of the building.

“We’re here,” Nick said unnecessarily and they swerved into the parking area in front of the hotel. A valet came rushing out from the lobby and picked up the keys. He motioned to another valet for the bags but both Nick and Jacob said no.

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