Final Winter

After leaving the highway, they passed a street sign: WELCOME TO KIRKLAND: POP. 1661.

‘We are almost there,’ Vladimir said.

‘And you? What do you fight for?’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘Later. Find the address. Here.’

From his leather folder, Vladimir pulled out the directions for their destination. Imad eyed them and soon buildings appeared, one- and two-story buildings — how depressing to be out here in the middle of this desolate area. How to survive? How to live? And how did these odd people in this even odder country get the energy and the drive to accomplish everything they had done?

‘Slow it down,’ Vladimir said. ‘I don’t want some constable or deputy sheriff pulling you over for speeding.’

Imad muttered something. Vladimir knew it was an obscenity and didn’t care. Imad took a left and they headed out from the center of town to a small shopping plaza. It was late and the stores were closed, but there was one place, well lit. The Space Station. Shoshone County’s Finest Self-Storage Area.

‘There,’ Vladimir said. ‘Pull over.’

The truck grumbled to a halt and he opened the door, stepped down, wincing as a cramp shot through his left leg. They were at a chain-link fence and a central gate, secured by a keypad. Vladimir punched in a series of numbers and there was an audible click. The gate automatically creaked open, its electric motor whining. When the gate was fully open, Imad shifted the Freightliner and the truck drove into the large parking area. Ahead of them were four low-slung buildings made of concrete blocks with slanted metal roofs, and with rolled-down doors that were secured by locks. Imad drove over to the furthest building on the left and Vladimir followed. Imad pulled ahead until the rear of the trailer was adjacent to one of the locked doors.

Vladimir walked up to the door, took the combination lock in his hands. The metal was cold. He waited for a moment before working the tumbler. For the past several months, his unseen handlers out there — he doubted it was a single man, for who could have done this all by himself? — had enticed him from his self-imposed exile in Central Asia, across Asia to Shanghai and elsewhere, paying him and pleading with him, and easing his way out here. From money transfers to package deliveries in out-of-the-way post offices, he had secured his fake identification, the travel papers, even the trucking documents that had gotten him and Imad through Canada.

At first he had thought the whole thing was an elaborate trap, to pull him out of his exile and to place him in a position where the American Special Forces could seize him and what he’d made… but that no longer made sense. They could have gotten him and Imad days ago — hell, weeks ago! If he had been left unmolested by the desire of some intelligence agency out there to find fellow travelers or co-conspirators, then by now the intelligence agency must know that they didn’t exist. There was just him and Imad, the driver, and when this was through he had plans for Imad.

So.

Vladimir jiggled the lock in his hand. To carry on, or to walk way? There was enough money in his Cayman Islands account for him to live comfortably for the next decade or so, but he wanted more. And the ‘more’ he wanted wasn’t just money.    _

Imad stuck his head out of the passenger’s side window. ‘What are you doing?’ he called down. ‘Have you forgotten the combination?’

Vladimir didn’t bother to reply. He started turning the tumbler. There was a chance that it would all end here, that when the lock was unsnapped — like now — and the lock was pulled away — like now — and when he rolled up the metal door, black-suited American military men would tumble out, seizing him and Imad and beating them to the ground, and—

The door rattled up. From the outside illumination he could make out a light panel. He flipped on the switch.

Save for three black plastic cases, about a meter long and a half-meter wide, the storage compartment was empty.

So we go on, Vladimir thought. We go on.

~ * ~

Late at night in Maryland, Darren Coover sat in his easy chair in his condo unit, his NSA-issued laptop on his lap, the encrypted-data line working just fine, and everything was just fine, save for the throbbing headache he had at the base of his skull.