Page 75 of Ascendent
“Why are they like this?”
“Likewhat, Seryozha?”
“Yuri! Heknows! About Sasha and me!” Sergey leaped to his feet, started to pace. “He carried Sasha back to my apartment after his surgery and put him in my bed. He didn’t bat an eye! Andyou! Youknowhim, somehow! You and he, you worked together at Andreapol! Like you knew him from somewhere! What’s going on? Whoarethese people?”
“Not over the phone.I’ll meet you tonight.”
“Ilya—”
“Trust me,Seryozha. Okay?”
I trust you with me. Do I trust you with Sasha?
“Tonight, Ilya,” he growled. “I need answers.”
* * *
Sasha hoveredin the gap between the train cars, balanced on the coupling. Tracksclack-clackedbeneath him, a steady roll as the train glided through the outskirts of Novosibirsk. Dusk was falling, spilling shadows like paint through the forests, the blurry boundary between wilderness and the industrial edge of civilization.
Get off in Novosibirsk, near the end of the train yard. Yuri and Mikhail will meet you there.
He’d stared at his phone for a long moment after he’d read Sergey’s text. Why were Sergey’s bodyguards flying to the middle of Siberia for him? They’d barely spoken since their workout in the basement of the Kremlin. He hadn’t seen them for a while.
There are so many of us. Grisha’s taunt, coming back to him. He’d seen the truth with his own eyes. Enough men to empty abandoned Russian military bases, enough men to transport weapons across Siberia, completely under the radar of the FSB, under Ilya’s nose.You and yourhuisosdon’t stand a chance.
The train yard at Novosibirsk drew closer. The train’s wheels clacked down the rails, rhythmic shudders and jolts he felt through his bones.
What if Yuri and Mikhail were sleeper agents? What if they were with Moroshkin? What if they had duped him, had duped Sergey? Even Ilya?
Did he get off the train?
We were in a resistance cell here. In Moscow. We watched Moroshkin’s men line up a dozen of our friends. They were executed in Red Square.Yuri’s words rumbled through his memories, in time with the rocking of the train.
Who did he trust? He didn’t know anymore, not after Kilaqqi and Bear and flying to the highest heaven. He’d hated himself, and now he didn’t. He’d trusted no one. But now…
Sergey had sent Yuri and Mikhail to him. And he trusted Sergey.
The rail yard rumbled past, miles of crisscrossing tracks and abandoned train cars and cargo containers. Old ends of track held rusted-out engines. Far ahead, at the front of his train, the lonely double whistle rang, long and loud.
There. A dark SUV, parked on the far side of the rail yard. A beast of a man stood on top of a berm, a pitch-black shadow in the twilight. Dusk had sucked away his features, turned him into a void.
Sasha leaped and rolled, hitting the gravel ground with his shoulder and his hips. He pushed up quickly, stayed low, and darted through the cars, over the tracks, and made his way toward the waiting man. He heard the SUV’s engine turn over, rumble on.
“Mr. Andreyev?”
“Yuri.”
Yuri held out his hand to help Sasha up. A moment too late, he remembered his palms, his fingers, were still stained with Grisha’s dried blood. Yuri stared down at Sasha’s hand, turned it over. His gaze flicked up and held Sasha’s.
“Flight Lieutenant Utkin?”
He nodded.
“Dr. Biryukov is at Krasnoyarsk. He found the body at the police station.” Yuri guided him to the SUV. Its lights were still off. Sasha could see Mikhail in the driver’s seat by the light of the dashboard, the glow of the instruments.
Yuri opened the rear door for Sasha.
“There was hemorrhagic fever at Andreapol?”
