Road Of Bones

Stolypin had a VSK-94 sniper’s rifle with him on the roof, the silenced model, semiautomatic, with a 20-round box magazine of 9 mm SPP rounds.

“No!” Milescu snapped over his walkie-talkie, up and moving toward the nearest exit. “Do not fire! You know the order.”

“Yes,” Stolypin answered back. “Alive or dead.”

“With higher pay if she’s alive. Just watch and wait, until we get there.” To the others then, in case they weren’t in motion yet, he said, “All hands to Private Jets, south of the terminal!”

His men confirmed with clicking signals, staying off the air. They would be closing on the target, moving swiftly but without a frantic sprint to draw attention from the terminal’s police officers.

Milescu reckoned he should thank the woman, if he got the chance. Her desperate stupidity had saved him from a long day sitting at the airport, wasting time while someone else hogged all the glory.

Now, his task was simple—neutralize the woman’s escort, one way or another, and collect her for the boss. Take both alive, if possible.

And deliver them to a fate worse than death.

Private Jets Charter Service

“I DON’T SEE ANYONE,” Tatyana said. “Do you?”

“Not yet,” Bolan replied.

Which proved precisely nothing. They could be under surveillance from a distance, and he wouldn’t know it until bullets from a sniper’s rifle dropped them on the tarmac, dead or dying by the time the echo of the shots arrived. The Executioner had done that sort of work himself, times beyond counting, and he knew the risks involved.

But sitting in the sedan, outside the hangar, wouldn’t keep them safe.

“Sit tight a minute,” Bolan said, and stepped out of the car. He left the key in the ignition for her, just in case, but saw no adversaries as he scanned the runway. No one lurking in the hangar’s shadow. No vehicles close enough to box them in.

The problem now: they had to discard their weapons prior to boarding, or they’d run afoul of customs when they got to Tokyo. Japanese law forbade private possession of firearms, except for strictly regulated sporting shotguns and air rifles, with maximum penalties of ten years in prison and a fine of one million yen per offense.

Bolan nodded, alert as Anuchin stepped out of the car. The hangar stood no more than thirty feet away, their Hawker 800 already rolled out and prepared for departure. In profile, it was nearly eight feet shorter than the Learjet 60 Bolan had arrived on, but its wingspan ten feet greater.

Eighteen minutes to boarding, by Bolan’s watch, if they got through the sign-in procedure on time. And from there—

Bolan knew a curse in Russian when he heard one. He followed Anuchin’s gaze and saw two men approaching at a run from the direction of the airport terminal. As he watched, a third man cleared the exit, laboring to catch the other two.

So much for signing in.

“Come on!” he snapped, turning back toward the car. When he was halfway there, a sharp crack on the pavement marked a near-miss from a distant rifle, somewhere high and well beyond the runners.

Bolan dropped into the driver’s seat and gunned the sedan’s engine. Anuchin was a second later, and she had to slam her door as he was wheeling out of there, tires screeching on concrete. The choice was fight or flight, and Bolan picked the option that would maximize their chances of survival with a long-range shooter in the mix.

He fled.

The runners weren’t in range to use whatever weapons they were packing as he roared away from them. The rifleman had no such handicap, however, and his second shot glanced off the roof of their vehicle with a resounding bang!

Still no sound from the piece itself, and since the sedan couldn’t aspire to supersonic speed, that meant the rifle had a sound suppressor. Its shots wouldn’t alert police inside the terminal unless he took a hit and crashed the car.

In which case, Bolan figured, they were dead.

Anuchin had retrieved one of the weapons liberated from her captors, a compact PP-19 Bizon submachine gun, but it wouldn’t do her any good unless he stopped the car, or someone tried to cut them off before they cleared the airport’s ring of access roads.

Which, in the circumstances, was entirely possible.

A last shot from the sniper struck their trunk before Bolan swung left around a cargo terminal, putting its bulk between the shooter and himself. Another moment put them on the highway leading back to Yakutsk, with no evident pursuit.

At least, not yet.

“So, we’re not flying out,” Anuchin said.

“Not today,” Bolan agreed.

“And we cannot hide in Yakutsk.”

“I wouldn’t like the odds,” he said.

She slumped. “In that case, there is nothing left except the Road of Bones.”

CHAPTER FOUR

First thing, they ditched the sedan their enemies had seen, however briefly, at the airport. Its replacement was a four-door Lada Priora, stolen from the Kruzhalo shopping center along with a spare set of license plates to complete the short-term disguise. That done, when they were relatively safe, Anuchin briefed Bolan on what lay ahead once they crossed the Lena River.

“They will be watching the ferry,” she cautioned. “They know that we have no way out now, except overland, which means the Kolyma Highway.”

“I don’t fancy a swim with the gear,” Bolan told her.

“No, that can’t be done. It’s too far and too cold, even this time of year. We’ll require a small charter to take us across. Leave the car in Yakutsk and make other arrangements in Nizhny Bestyakh.”

“What kind of arrangements?” Bolan asked.

“Something rugged, for the road ahead,” Anuchin said. “If we had a Lada Niva we could try it, but I think a motorcycle is more suitable. Also much easier to find on such short notice. You can ride on two wheels?”

“Not a problem,” Bolan said. “But what’s this thing about a road of bones?”

“Officially,” she said, “it’s the M56 Kolyma Highway, linking Yakutsk and Nizhny Bestyakh to Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk. The distance is something over two thousand kilometers, close to thirteen hundred miles by your reckoning. Those who live along the highway call it Trassa—the Route. They need no other name, since it is literally the only road in the district.”

“Where do the bones come in?” Bolan asked.

“Stalin ordered construction of the highway in 1932, using inmates from the Sevvostlag, the Northeastern Corrective Labor Camps. Work continued using gulag labor until 1953, when the highway reached Magadan—a labor camp itself, in those days—and Stalin, at last, had the decency to die. We call the highway Road of Bones for those who died while building it and were buried beneath or beside it. How many? Who knows?”

“So, it’s a straight shot on this road from Nizhny Bestyakh to Magadan?” Bolan asked.

“Hardly straight,” Anuchin replied. “There are rivers to cross, with or without bridges, and parts of the so-called highway are crumbling away. Between us and Magadan there are two villages, Tomtor and Oymyakon. Both claim to be the coldest place on Earth, in winter. This time of year, they’re simply…chilly.”

“So, aside from special wheels, we’ll need new clothes,” Bolan observed.

“And camping gear, if we can carry it.”

“One bike or two?” Bolan asked.