“Where is the Bull?” he asked.

  “Where are Beth and the children?” I countered.

  “Here.” He nodded toward the vehicle on my left. “Give me what I want and this problem will be over for both of us.”

  I studied the man. He was a proven liar and a spy. There wasn’t a single reason I should trust him. He sneered at me as if challenging me to disprove how powerless I was. Beth and the children gave him a clear advantage over me, and he knew it.

  “Why me?” I asked. “Why did you hire me?”

  He smiled. “We needed to find the woman and you are an adequate investigator,” he replied, lingering on the word “adequate.” “Get the Bull and I will tell you where our interests aligned.”

  I glowered at him before returning to the Toyota. I opened the driver’s door, leaned inside, and grabbed the bronze figure from under the front seat. I left the door open and returned to Andreyev, who eyed the figure greedily.

  “Tell me,” I pressed. “Why me?”

  “There was a certain degree of opportunism involved,” Andreyev replied as he took the heavy bronze object. “‘Two birds with one stone,’ to use one of your American expressions. You see, Mr. Morgan, you made some powerful enemies in Moscow, and for a while they had to play nice, but when this chance came along, well, it was only ever going to end one way. The order for your engagement came directly from the Kremlin. As did this.”

  He turned abruptly and yelled a command in Russian. As he hurried toward his car, his masked subordinates drew their weapons and stepped forward. I look around fearfully. This ruinous, rusting industrial wasteland was where I was destined to die.

  CHAPTER 86

  THE MASKED MAN closest to me raised his pistol. I backed toward the open car door. He aimed at my head, but never got the opportunity to pull the trigger. A terrifying rattle tore up the silence as a burst of bullets chewed the concrete directly in front of him and his accomplices. The six masked men were startled, and I took advantage of their shock to run toward the Toyota. The machine gunfire continued and Andreyev barked commands. His masked gunmen turned their weapons on the source of the thunderous volley, but the window on the seventh floor of a warehouse to the east was too far away for an effective pistol shot. Two figures appeared intermittently in the aperture, but only in silhouette, vanishing between every burst of muzzle flash. Their machine guns spat flames and bullets and created chaos. Andreyev’s gunmen took cover behind their vehicles as the rounds shredded concrete, drilled through steel, and shattered glass.

  I jumped through the Toyota’s open door, landed in the driver’s seat, threw the car into gear, and stepped on the gas. A couple masked men saw what I was doing and shot wildly at the car as I sped away, but their bullets went wide. As I put distance between me and my would-be killers, I looked in the rearview and saw them scramble into their vehicles, which were being riddled by bullets. The three SUVs fled the scene under a hail of gunfire, which followed them until they disappeared behind a chemical processing facility west of the courtyard.

  I turned off the service road and followed a set of fresh tire tracks through the snow. I drove around the warehouse. When I rounded the final corner I saw one of Private’s staff cars, a blue Nissan Rogue, parked by the entrance. As I pulled up beside the Nissan, the back door opened and Justine and Mo-bot stepped out.

  I joined them in the snow.

  “That sounded ugly,” Justine said, hugging me.

  “It was pretty intense,” I replied.

  “Didn’t mean to get so close,” Joshua Floyd said, emerging from the pockmarked old building. Jessie was with him. They each carried a full auto-converted AR-15 over their shoulder.

  “You did great,” I responded. “Thanks for keeping me alive, yet again.”

  I turned to Mo-bot.

  “How are we doing?” I asked.

  She leaned into the Nissan and took a tablet computer from the back seat. She showed me the screen, which displayed a constantly changing map. At the center was the locator beacon representing the tracking device we’d installed inside the bronze figure I’d given Andreyev.

  “We’re picking up the signal loud and clear,” Mo-bot said.

  I turned to Floyd. “Let’s go get your wife and kids.”

  CHAPTER 87

  WE FOLLOWED ANDREYEV’S convoy along Highway 209, keeping half a mile behind them, so there was less chance of being spotted. No one said much because we all knew the stakes. Floyd was particularly grim-faced, and I wondered how difficult it had been for him not to shoot the men who’d taken his wife and children. But if he had killed Andreyev and his accomplices, there was a good chance we would never have found Beth, Maria, and Danny, so he’d restrained himself in the face of the scorching desire for vengeance that burned bright in his eyes.

  I steered the Toyota off the 209 onto the Glasco Turnpike, a rural road that led toward Overlook Forest. We were in the New York wilderness, a few miles from Mount Marion. We drove through a white landscape, taking care to stay out of sight of the convoy. The road was deserted and the frozen landscape eerily still. I couldn’t help but feel the nausea of anticipation as we rolled on, and somehow the silence in the car made it worse. I looked at Justine, who sat next to me, and she gave me a strained smile. Jessie, Mo-bot, and Floyd were in the back, each of them lost in their own world. Floyd caught me looking at him in the rearview and nodded somberly. I recognized his expression; it was that of a warrior ready for action.

  Ten miles from the 209, Mo-bot spoke. “They’re turning off. Left, in about eight hundred yards. From the satellite imagery, it looks like a farm. There’s a trail for about a mile and then some buildings.”

  I slowed as we approached the turn.

  “That’s it,” Mo-bot said, and I nodded and took a left that led me between two huge stretches of tall trees.

  After a while, the forests either side of us thinned and gave way to rolling farmland. I slowed down, stopping just before the brow of a slope.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  I got out and ran along the icy gravel track to the crest of the hill. I crouched as I approached and peered down into a broad hollow to see the SUVs parked beside a farmhouse. Three large barns flanked a courtyard set a short distance away from the house. I saw two men standing guard outside one barn.

  The corrugated-steel building seemed the obvious place to start looking for Beth and the children.

  Andreyev stepped out of his SUV. His men did likewise. They removed their ski masks and chatted; some lit cigarettes. Andreyev examined the Bull and said something to the men around him before heading away from the house toward the barns. My heart sank. I hadn’t expected things to move this quickly.

  He crossed the yard and signaled to the guards standing outside the farthest barn. One of them turned to open the door.

  I had hoped we would have more time for surveillance, but it seemed we would have to act immediately.

  I edged back from the brow of the hill, got to my feet, ran to the Toyota, and leaned inside.

  “We’re going to have to move now,” I said. “I think he’s going for Beth and the children.”

  CHAPTER 88

  BETH WAS CRYING with exhaustion and the children were weeping as their little hands clawed desperately at the earth. All three of them were digging the hole Beth had started with the broken length of pipe. She felt a growing sense of desperation. Time was not their ally, and she knew escape was their only way of avoiding death. Danny’s fingers were raw, Maria’s bleeding.

  “Please stop,” Beth said. “Let me do it.”

  “No,” Maria replied tearfully. “We want to help. We have to get out!”

  Danny’s face was covered in dirty streaks from where he kept wiping it with his muddy hands. Fresh tears sprang to Beth’s eyes as she looked at her brave children.

  “I’m so proud of you both,” she choked out. “Let me check it.”

  The hole was now big enough for the children to escape, but at last attempt it had been too small for Beth. She pushed her head into it, scrabbled under the wall, and tried to force her shoulders through. She could see the snow-covered field on the other side of the steel wall and was invigorated by a blast of cold fresh air. She pushed but the earth would not yield. She couldn’t negotiate her way through. It was a matter of centimeters only. She pushed herself back under the wall and inside the barn.

  “A little more,” she said, and they resumed digging.

  She hacked at the ground with the length of pipe, and the children clawed the loose earth clear. Her spirit was almost broken and she longed for sleep, but she couldn’t afford to indulge her ruined muscles and broken mind. Her children needed her to keep going.

  She stopped suddenly and so did Maria and Danny. They heard the sound of a lock being opened.

  “Go!” Beth said, grabbing Danny.

  “Not without you,” he cried.

  “I’m coming,” she told him. “Go.”

  She pushed him into the hole and under the wall then grabbed Maria.

  “Take him to the woods,” Beth said. “Hide!”

  “Mom—” Maria began, but Beth cut her off.

  “Go.” She kissed her daughter on the head and pushed her into the hole. Maria wriggled through and Beth tried to follow. She threw herself down as she heard the door open behind her. There was a shout in Russian and she heard footsteps pounding across the concrete floor of the barn.

  She pushed against the frozen ground and cried with the pain and effort. She could see the snow-covered field and the forest in the distance, but there was no sign of the children.

  Please let them be safe, she thought.

  She pushed desperately as the footsteps drew closer, but she was stuck half in and half out of the barn. Then she felt hands on her shoulders and turned to see the children either side of her, Danny to her left and Maria to her right. They grabbed her under her arms.

  “Push!” Maria yelled. “Come on, Mom. Push!”

  Behind her the heavy footsteps were close. She knew she had just seconds. Beth pushed with every remaining ounce of strength. There was a gunshot. Then another. She felt the wall above her shake under the impact of the bullets. Fear and anger surged, but most of all she was propelled by the desire to be with her children.

  She strained every fiber and felt the cold earth shift. She elbowed aside a giant clod of soil and wriggled further through the hole. Steely fingers grabbed her ankle, but she kicked out and pulled her leg through. Someone tried to shoot through the wall but the bullets stalled against the tempered steel.

  She heard shouts in Russian from inside the barn and knew they were coming for her and the children.

  “Run!” Beth yelled.

  She grabbed the kids and pulled them forward, aiming for the treeline on the other side of the field. The snow was deep and hard going, and she was bloody, bruised, and battered, but she was free.

  And determined to stay that way.

  CHAPTER 89

  JOSHUA AND I were in the Toyota, watching Jessie take position on the brow of the hill. She lay prone in the snow and set up her AR-15 on a bipod, then checked the magazines of ammunition she had in a small bag beside her.

  I glanced in the rearview and saw Justine and Mo-bot heading toward the road. Justine was on the phone, calling the cops as we’d agreed. She looked nervously in my direction.

  “She’s set,” Floyd said. I glanced at Jessie and saw her giving a thumbs-up.

  I put the car in gear. “Ready?” I asked.

  Floyd patted his AR-15 and nodded.

  I stepped on the gas and we lurched forward, spitting icy gravel as the wheels fought for traction. We crested the hill and saw most of Andreyev’s men were congregating around the farmhouse. They looked up the moment they heard the engine, and sprang into action when they caught sight of us racing toward them.

  My attention was suddenly drawn from the farmhouse by the sight of three figures running away from the far barn. They were heading toward the forest on the other side of the field. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing: Beth, Maria, and Danny had somehow managed to escape! I pointed them out to Floyd and a smile began to appear on his face before it quickly hardened to a look of grim resolve.

  Andreyev and the two guards who had been stationed outside the barn were running along the exterior wall. They would soon have a line of sight on Beth and the children.

  The men by the farmhouse opened fire on us. As bullets thudded into the ground all around the SUV, Jessie replied on our behalf and sprayed the group with bullets. The rattle of machine gunfire sent panic through Andreyev’s men. Two of them went down with bloody wounds and were hauled into the farmhouse by their retreating accomplices.

  Andreyev stopped in his tracks when he heard the gunfire and yelled something at the two guards before changing direction and running back toward the courtyard. The two guards continued their pursuit of Beth and the children.

  I steered off the track and took us around the house and through the thick snow that covered the bumpy hill. We sprayed ice and slush everywhere and bounced around wildly as the engine roared. Above us, Jessie kept laying down covering fire, pinning Andreyev’s men inside the farmhouse.

  We hit level ground and shot past the house, into the field beside the east barn. One of the guards pursuing Beth turned and opened fire on us. The other shot at her and the kids.

  “Stop the car,” Floyd said.

  I stepped on the brake and we skidded to a halt. Floyd jumped out and raised his AR-15 to his shoulder.

  I heard gunfire and looked to my left to see one of Andreyev’s men shooting at us through the back window of the house.

  I pulled my Glock from the holster in the center console, opened the door, and returned fire. The man staggered back, wounded, and I turned just in time to see Floyd target the guard who was shooting at us. His pistol could hardly make the distance, but the AR-15 had no such trouble. Floyd squeezed the trigger. The first bullet tore through the man’s throat. The second pierced his skull.

  Beth and the children were almost at the trees, the second guard not far behind. As his comrade’s body tumbled into the snow, Floyd quickly shifted his aim to the guard pursuing his family. He squeezed the trigger and hit his target in the center of his back. The man went down instantly.

  An engine roared and I looked left to see a black Porsche Cayenne shoot out of another barn. Andreyev was at the wheel. He raced across the courtyard and out into open countryside away from the farmhouse. He was heading for a track that cut through the woods.

  “You go. Look after your family,” I told Floyd. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “Thank you, Jack. For everything you’ve done.”

  He slung his rifle, shut the car door, and set out at a sprint.

  I popped the Toyota in gear and went in pursuit of the fleeing Russian.

  CHAPTER 90

  BOTH CHILDREN WERE shrieking and Beth was almost hysterical. They were shooting at her babies! These monsters were prepared to slaughter children. They just had to make it to the trees…

  Maria was a few paces ahead. Beth saw her daughter glance back.

  “I’m with you, baby,” she assured her.

  Maria stopped suddenly.

  “Don’t give up. Keep going!” Beth shouted. But Maria stayed where she was and pointed at something behind them. Danny had run on ahead, but he looked back and suddenly stopped as well.

  Beth turned to see what they were staring at. Instead of the gunman she expected to see pursuing them, she saw something she couldn’t believe. Tears flooded her eyes. They streamed down her face. They fell into the thick snow.

  “Daddy,” Maria said softly.

  Beth shook with relief as she saw Josh running toward them with a rifle slung over his back.

  Maria broke free and ran past the two dead gunmen. She sprinted through the snow and leaped into her father’s arms. He wept with joy as he showered her with kisses. Danny went next and raced to his father. Josh scooped him up and carried his children to Beth.

  He set them down and looked at his wife with all the love in the world.

  She threw her arms around him and they kissed until she collapsed against him, exhausted by the ordeal, unable to quite believe it was over.

  “I love you,” Josh whispered.

  “I love you too,” Beth just about managed through the choking flood of emotion.

  “Come on,” Josh said, wiping his eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He held the children’s hands and led them away.

  Beth took one last look at the place that had nearly broken her and robbed her of her children, before following her family into the trees.

  CHAPTER 91

  THE TOYOTA’S ENGINE roared and the suspension clattered and clunked as I followed Andreyev along the rutted forest track. His car had more grunt than mine, but we were both pushing our vehicles to the limit. Plumes of smoke belched from the twin exhaust of the Porsche SUV. The Toyota’s cabin filled with the stench of overheated metal and I opened the window for a blast of fresh air. Andreyev’s Cayenne was churning mud and snow, flinging it everywhere. With the window open I could hear the growl of the engines and every bang and thud as our chassis bounced around violently.

  We sped along, winding between the trees. I fought for control of the Toyota at every bend while the snow and ice threatened to send me spinning. Both cars fishtailed wildly, wheels churning, and exhausts burning.

  As we came out of a bend, I accelerated and nudged his bumper. He pushed his car faster and opened some distance. I could see the forest thinning ahead, and then clear sky. The track spat us onto a single-lane highway. Andreyev bounced through a bank of slush onto asphalt and skidded around to head south. I narrowly avoided colliding with a mail truck heading north. Ignoring the prolonged sound of the truck’s horn, I swung south to chase the Russian.