Chapter 50: Petrozavodsk
They weaved along the shore of Lake Onega for an hour and a half, longer than Rudy expected. The highway was paved but rough, and logging trucks and other haulers slowed them down. Funny, Rudy thought, no fish trucks here, but men and women waded and cast lines everywhere along the lake. Wooden churches popped up in almost every village, with dark pine shingles curved into onion domes. In the middle of nowhere, they saw one long abandoned brick church with birches growing up through its headless bell tower.
The lake disappeared behind the forest that dominated the landscape at the Petrozavodsk city limit. Rudy tapped the tank and heard an empty echo. A small white and blue sign directed Rudy to a benzin station set back in the woods almost out of sight of the road.
“We won’t need much fuel,” Ksenia said. “Our escape man will have a pilot and a small plane at the airport, north side of town. There might even be room for the bike.”
“I’ll fill up anyway. How’s our cash holding up?”
“We’re fine, but the debit card we get from our repairman will cover everything else.”
Rudy filled the tank, and they returned to the highway. In clearings Rudy could see a thick band of clouds over the northwest horizon. Smaller clouds were puffing up and shading the city.
Ksenia directed him downtown, then right, off the main road. To their right Rudy saw golden domes—round, not onion-pointy, so newer, nineteenth century—and an orthodox cross peeking above the trees of a park that took up a city block. “Hardware store ahead on the left,” Ksenia said over the headset. Rudy started slowing down. “Park by—wait. Keep going. Right. Around the block.” They rolled by a hardware store—Contemporary Paints–Doors–Windows–Balconies–Engines—which shared a barn-façaded building with an inn and café. A sign in the store window said pereryv—break. At the curb two men sat in a dark gray sedan. Close behind was a service van, same color, no windows behind the driver. Rudy’s stomach sank. He coasted into the turn, then kept a steady, quiet speed to the opposite side of the block, the sunny south. The cathedral was entirely concealed by the trees. So were they, from the opposite side. “Stop here,” Ksenia directed. They put their feet on the pavement, but Ksenia stayed in the saddle, and Rudy kept the engine idling.
“That’s FSB outside,” Ksenia whispered into her mic. “The shop’s compromised.”
“What do we do?”
“The agents haven’t made their move. There’s a spot… come on.” Ksenia got off. Rudy killed the engine and followed Ksenia to the north side of the cathedral. The trees remained thick enough to yield no clear line of sight to the street or the hardware shop.
Ksenia meandered them toward a monument, “Memorial to the Chernobyl Liquidators”, a grey stone half-circle mounted on a pedestal above a bed of fresh red flowers. The stone sculpture had the outline of a mushroom.
Seated on the edge of the flower bed was a blocky man with thick, stiff salt-and-pepper hair and shoulders that strained his black striped sweater. He turned an alert, grim face toward them as they approached. “Riding again,” he said, looking them both over, “with this amerikanyets?”
Rudy nearly tripped into the man. It was the Captain, from Suzdal.
“I thought I heard my bike,” the Captain said, looking at Rudy, betraying his own surprise. “I didn’t believe it, but here you are. You have kept her in good shape.”
Rudy couldn’t have spoken, even if Ksenia had given him a moment. “Viktor,” she said to the Captain. “Agents.”
“Yes,” the Captain sighed. “Sons of bitches came at noon, haven’t budged. Here—” he stepped close to Ksenia and slipped a thick tan envelope directly into her jacket. “Your passport. We don’t dare take your American friend in for a photo. And cash, pulled from other boxes.”
“No card?”
“Accounts all compromised. I don’t think there’s an electronic kopeck left in any of your banks. You’ve really brought down shitfire.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Dear girl, not your doing. Shitbag Putin and his sacklickers. It had to happen. Time to retire—” and here he turned to Rudy “—maybe ride motorcycle to Siberia.”
They heard shouting, glass breaking, gun shots. “Damn those goatfuckers!” The Captain leaned close to Ksenia. “Go with God,” he said, kissing Ksenia on both cheeks. Then he clapped a meaty hand on the back of Rudy’s neck, pressed his forehead to Rudy’s, and looked at him with the same fire in his eyes that had burned when he and his partner had thrown the thieves out of the dormitory in Suzdal. “Protect her.” Then the Captain nearly spun Rudy around as he pressed past him and walked briskly away, off the path, into the trees.
Ksenia grabbed Rudy’s arm and pulled him away from the chaotic sounds out on the street north of the park, around the other side of the cathedral, opposite the way they came.
“Airport?” Rudy asked as they approached the bike.
An explosion rattled the street. Smoke rose slowly behind the cathedral. Two shots rattled the air. A siren sounded far off. “No,” Ksenia said. “If FSB has the shop and the accounts, they have the pilot. We keep going.”
They hurried away from the noise, back to the bike. Rudy felt some small relief putting on his helmet again, hiding his face behind the dark visor. He kicked the bike to life, Ksenia zipped her jacket and hopped on behind him, and they headed out to the highway. When they stopped at the intersection, the Captain himself, now wearing a black helmet above his black sweater, roared by, heading southeast on the route they’d taken into town, on a big red Indian Super Chief. Rudy didn’t have time to wonder; he turned, and they headed the other way, north and west, out of town, again into the woods, toward Finland.