Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(108)
Viktor stared stoically at Konstantin, perhaps in silent rebuke, perhaps not. Konstantin elided over it; the captain and all these men were beneath his notice. So far as he was concerned every member of spetsnaz was cannon fodder. On the front line, in enemy territory, theirs not to reason why.
Besides, Konstantin had more important matters to attend to than standing around with the little people. Turning his back on the captain and what was left of his detail, he said, “Scrape the remains off the platform, Captain. The sooner the better. The Sapsan’s next departure has been delayed far too long as it is.”
“And fuck you too, sir,” Viktor muttered under his breath as he watched Konstantin blur into the haze of the station.
—
“We’re being followed,” the Angelmaker said, half turned so she could look out the rear window.
“For about a mile now,” Bourne replied.
“Well?” Her voice was like a newly sharpened stick. “What do you propose to do about it?”
This barbed exchanged brought Savasin out his self-imposed exile from the real world.
“Nothing.”
“Why the hell not?” the Angelmaker said.
Bourne smiled. “Patience.”
They were still on the Outer Ring Road, more than five miles from the address Savasin had given Bourne. With a jolt, the first minister looked around, their location snapping into place. “Bourne, we’re nowhere near the exit we need to get to Dima’s.”
“That’s the point,” Bourne said, as he swung off the Outer Ring Road. He sped down the off ramp and onto the tangle of city streets.
“They’re still on us,” the Angelmaker reported.
Bourne said nothing, concentrating on the road ahead. He was looking for an anomaly: a detour, a construction site, an abandoned warehouse. Instead, he found a trestle train crossing.
“Hang on,” he said tightly, as he turned the wheel hard to the right. The car rattled down the tracks.
Savasin’s eyes opened wide, his mouth hung open in stupefaction. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Nobody asked you, your highness,” the Angelmaker snapped.
When Mala had started to call the first minister “your highness” Bourne had not a clue. Perhaps when they had been walking and talking together on the platform in Leningradsky Station.
The car behind them had turned onto the road that paralleled the tracks. Bourne could see its shadow flickering between the pine trees. Night had fallen, as suddenly as if an immense cloak had been thrown over the city. Lights burned, but dimly, as they were on the far outskirts where factories, power stations, and slums huddled against one another as if in an attempt to keep warm. The air was filled with soot and oil particulates; the pines were black with it. And then the moon, made hazy by the thickened atmosphere, lost its shape, vanishing altogether in the gathering clouds. It began to snow, a gray shower in the twin beams of the headlights, reminding Bourne of the photos he’d been shown during Treadstone training of the houses surrounding Auschwitz and Buchenwald half obscured by the pall of gray ash pluming from the tall brick chimneys of the crematoriums.
Bourne increased his speed, even as the snow began to come down first in veils and then in sheets, inflicting multiple compressions on visibility. It was no longer possible, for instance, to be sure they were still being paralleled by the following vehicle. Then, all at once, a powerful spotlight pierced the snow and the pine needles. It swung back and forth like a maddened eye, before picking them out. It flickered, its dazzling light dancing off the side of their car, then leaving them in utter darkness for long moments at a time.
Savasin appeared mesmerized by the blinding light.
“How did they pick up our trail?” the Angelmaker asked.
Bourne was too busy at the moment to give either of them attention. He was fully concentrated on the dimly glowing ball of light that hovered four feet above the tracks. It grew brighter as it rushed toward them. And then, as the Angelmaker cranked down her window, over the howling of the gusting wind they heard the distinct clickety-clack of the oncoming train, felt the strong push of the air it drove before it.
“Bourne, what the hell are you doing?” Savasin shouted in clear distress. “You’re going to get us all killed!”
Leaning forward, the Angelmaker clamped down on Savasin’s shoulders, said, “Shut up, your highness. Let him do what he does best.”
The train was almost upon them now. The engineer must have seen them, finally, because he let out a blast on his air horn, and then, seeing that the car ahead wasn’t turning, sounded the horn again and again, until the searchlight from the car running parallel to them swung to illuminate the train so the occupants could see what was coming.
This was the moment Bourne had been awaiting. He turned the wheel hard over left. For a heart-stopping instant the car stalled as the tires hit the left-side rail. Then he gunned the engine and the car, bouncing upward, ran over the rail, and they were off the track, crunching down over the narrow cinder bed, still in danger of being clipped by the front of the train, which was so close now it loomed over their heads like a fire-breathing demon, a solid wall of flashing steel and grinding wheels.
Then they were in the woods, jouncing between spindly pines, churning the gray snow to slush, the almost bald tires slipping and sliding until Bourne guided them beyond the far tree line, onto a country track that eventually led them to paved road. Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a crossroad with signs enough to orient Savasin.