Final Winter

They took the airfreight exit and Vladimir felt again a grudging admiration for the skillful way the boy drove the truck. Imad maneuvered the tractor-trailer truck and its cargo with ease as they got closer to the support buildings. There was a constant roar of jets taking off from the airport, up into the blue Memphis sky. Vladimir followed the trails of some of the jets, thinking to himself that Elvis, one of the few Americans he admired, had once looked up at this very same sky.

‘Where now?’ Imad asked.

Vladimir looked back to the sheaf of papers in his lap, part of the package sent to him anonymously in Macao all those months ago. To think of all the work that their unseen employers had done to bring them here…

‘Well?’ the driver demanded.

‘Up to the main gate,’ Vladimir said. ‘Once we get through the main gate, take your second left.’

‘All right.’

The truck slowed as the traffic grew heavier. All of the vehicles ahead of them seemed to be just like their very own: trucks bringing freight and packages to be shipped elsewhere. Something caught in Vladimir’s throat as he saw the busy traffic, the aircraft overhead, the quality of the roads and fencing and everything else. This was one of the smaller cities in this benighted nation, yet it seemed busier than Moscow had ever been. No wonder Russia had lost.

Imad braked and wiped at his brow. ‘You know what I’m going to do, once we get paid off?’

‘No, what?’ Vladimir asked.

‘I’m going to rent a hotel room and sleep for a day and a night. Take a long shower. Eat room-service food, good food, not that diner and McDonald’s shit we put up with these days. And then go hire two whores. Two whores to entertain me, all day and all night… And you?’

‘Almost the same. But a hotel in a small town. With good cable service, so I can watch all the news channels, when… when things begin.’

Imad said, ‘Then maybe I’ll do the whores first. Just in case.’

‘That’s a thought.’

Imad shifted into gear again. The truck moved forward. He said, ‘What kind of security will they have?’

‘We’ll see, won’t we?’

‘Yeah.’

Another jolting shift, and then a gatehouse. An overweight black woman, wearing a dark blue uniform, carrying a clipboard. Imad rolled down the window, passed over a sheet of paper provided by Vladimir. The woman barely glanced at the truck as she matched the shipping number on the dispatch sheet to the daily printout and then passed the paper back up to Imad. She made a quick flicking motion with her wrist, already looking to the truck behind them.

Imad glanced over, grinned as he shifted into gear again and gave the accelerator a jolt.

They were in.

Vladimir said, ‘Looks like security was great.’

‘Are you joking? The security was nothing!’

It was Vladimir’s turn to smile. ‘The security was great. For us. Up ahead, the second left, like I said.’

~ * ~

When the elevator door started to open, Adrianna dug her heels into the carpeting and pushed the chair carrying Darren’s body down the hallway. Don’t look back, she thought, don’t look back. Don’t look back.

Ahead of her was the kitchen, and there was a jolt as the wheels of the chair passed from the hallway’s carpeting to the tile floor.

Don’t look back, don’t look back.

To the right, the door to the walk-in freezer. She opened the freezer door, went back to the chair, the lolling form of Darren. Then the door started to close.

Damn it!

Adrianna propped the door open with one of the dining-table chairs, and then went back to her own chair. Into the chill air of the freezer. There. Some of the boxes of frozen food were piled so that there was a space a few feet wide at the rear. She undid the belt with cold fingers, jolted the chair forward, and the body of the NSA analyst tumbled to the floor with a loud noise.

Not too loud, she thought. Please, God, not too loud.

Another bit of maneuvering, and then she started to pull her chair behind her. Then she thought better of it.

Dining chair back out into the kitchen, freezer door closed. Adrianna walked to the sink just as—

Stacy Ruiz came in, heels clicking on the floor. She wore a tight yellow dress that emphasized her impressive chest and her auburn hair was down around her shoulders. She yawned, looked at Adrianna as she headed to the coffee maker.

‘How’s it going, Adrianna?’ she asked.

Adrianna’s heart was racing so hard she couldn’t believe Stacy couldn’t hear it. Stacy poured herself a mug of coffee, and Adrianna swallowed. ‘It’s going all right.’

‘Good. Jesus, this place is practically empty. Just you and me and a couple of staff in the back rooms upstairs. Sure is quiet.’

‘That it is,’ Adrianna said.

Stacy took a swallow of coffee, looked over at the closed freezer door. ‘Yeah. Quiet as a tomb.’

~ * ~

On the airfreight access road there was a small pylon, painted yellow and black. AIRBOX, it said, in large letters.

‘What next?’ Imad asked.

‘Hangar one, bay four.’

Imad said, ‘All right. Hangar four, bay one.’

‘No, I said hangar—’

‘Russki, you have no sense of humor. None. I heard you right the first time. Hah.’