Near Wales, Alaska
Rokva waited while the ship’s crew tied down the mooring lines to the massive pilings then began fitting the gangway into place. He could see Greagor Lebed, Wladimir Igoshin and “Fast Eddie” Nome at the end of the dock, the glow of their cigarettes standing out like three crimson dots against their silhouettes.
Luckily, despite it being early November, the temperature had not dropped dramatically in the last several days, allowing for a smooth docking without the danger of the ship being damaged by ice. Soon it would be a different story. Rokva had already planned on this being their last trip until the spring. The air was cold and, along with the pervasive salt smell of the ocean, it burned his nostrils. The gangway was almost in place. He took out his cigarettes and removed one from the pack.
“Give me one of those,” Sergei said, coming up behind him as silently as a ghost. Stealth movement was only one of Sergei’s many talents that he’d honed to perfection during his time with the Spetsnaz. Like his father, Sergei was a legend in the Russian special forces. It was rumored that during his tour in Chechnya he had racked up so many kills on covert operations they had stopped counting them. He wore his customary black jumpsuit and had an AK-47 with a metal folding stock dangling from a lanyard against his chest. He also had a Tokarev pistol in a low-slung holster on his right upper thigh. The man looked like the devil’s chief enforcer.
Rokva held out the pack and Sergei pulled one out. He snorted, tore off the elongated hollow filter and tossed it into the dark water. “Shit, it is fucking cold,” he said, leaning down to put the tip of the cigarette into the flame of his old friend’s lighter. “It is even worse than Moscow.”
Rokva smirked. “Welcome to Alaska.” He dropped the lighter and the cigarette pack into the pocket of his parka, and he and Sergei strode down the gangway.
“I’m concerned with Greagor’s drinking,” Rokva said.
“So what? The poor son of bitch has to do something to keep warm in this place.”
“It is interfering with his duties. He was insolent with me on the phone. And the second plane is down. He is supposed to keep things ready.”
“Do you want me to discipline him?”
Rokva considered that. He was already formulating a new plan in his mind, taking into consideration the limitations they now faced with travel options. “Not yet,” he said. “Perhaps I will send him back on the ship and perhaps not. In any case, I don’t want him running once he gets back to Russia.”
“He can run,” Sergei said, his lips curling back over his teeth, “but he cannot hide.”
The wood of the pier felt good under Rokva’s feet. He hated sea travel and always felt better being on solid ground, even if it was in this godforsaken place.
As they got to the starting point of the pier, Nome smirked. The Georgian could see the line of idling trucks on the road about fifty feet up the snow-covered embankment. Behind him, his men, all armed with AK-47s, had already started ushering the cargo off the ship. Two of his most competent men, Aleksi Galkin and Vasilli Denisov, were supervising. There were thirty-five people, of which only nineteen would fit comfortably on one plane, but he was certain they could get at least twenty-two of them, considering some of them were children. If he eliminated the men, that was.
Boris followed, carrying his medical satchel in one hand and the sample case in another. Behind him, two of the others guided a cart stacked with the special medical containers down the gangway.
“Took you long enough,” Nome said, extending his hand to his boss. An attached mitten dangled from the sleeve of his parka. “I guess your buddy here already told you we got a slight problem with one of your planes?”
Rokva looked at Lebed, who seemed to wither visibly as his gaze went from his superior to Sergei’s imposing form.
Apparently the vodka did not supply him with enough temporary courage to be disrespectful in person, Rokva thought. But then again, who would be so in front of Sergei?
“I am sorry, boss,” Lebed said, quickly lighting a cigarette and dragging on it. “I have made arrangements for another, as you instructed. It is coming from Anchorage.”
The mafiya captain glared at the man. “That is quite a delay.”
Lebed raised his arms. “It was all I could get at such short notice.”
“No matter,” Rokva said. “I am leaving a few men here to complete something. When the plane arrives, you can follow with them.”
His subordinate blew out a prodigious cloud of smoke mixed with his frosty breath. “But I am eager to accompany you. Is that not our plan?”
Rokva didn’t bother to reply. Instead he turned to Boris, who was a few feet away.
“Give the samples to Wladimir,” Rokva said to him and then turned to the third man in the group. He looked like a walrus with his large, unkempt mustache and round face.
“You have the smaller plane standing by to take you to Anchorage?”
The man’s head bobbled up and down.
“Get going now. As soon as you arrive in Vancouver, take these samples to Patel. Tell the Indian we will be arriving with the shipment within thirty-six hours.”
Igoshin nodded and accepted the sample case.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Rokva snapped, the irritation evident in his voice.
As he tucked the case under his arm, Igoshin headed for the idling vehicles.
“Hey,” Nome asked, “what you got going with the Indians?”
Rokva allowed his expression to reflect a benign composure as he realized that while they’d spoken primarily in Russian, he’d said the word Indian in English.
“Not one of your Indians,” he said. “From India. He is our connection in Canada.”
The skin around Nome’s eyes wrinkled slightly as he nodded. “I told you before, you can’t trust them. Not the ones around here, anyway.”
“Apples and oranges. We will need the use of one of your houses. One with several clean rooms. For a few hours.”
“Not a problem,” Nome said before his head jutted forward. “Hey, what the hell?”
The Georgian turned to see several of the cargo males stopping to bend over and vomit. They were about ten feet away now. Another was retching, as well, and then the first dropped his pants and began depositing a blast of diarrhea over the edge of the pier.
“What the hell’s wrong with them?”
“They never got their sea legs,” Rokva said.
Nome frowned, wrinkling his nose. “Christ, they stink.”
“Which is why we will need a shower or bathtub facility.”
“Wait a minute. No way. If you think I’m gonna clean up after all those assholes, you got another think coming.”
Before Rokva could speak, Nome’s cell phone rang and he quickly answered it. More of the cargo males began to vomit. Another pulled down his pants as the more healthy ones, the women and the children, hurried past.
“Pull up your damn pants, you pigs,” Rokva yelled in Russian. “You disgust me.”
Galkin heard his boss’s statement and kicked the bent-over man in the rump. He went flying.
“Greagor, go make yourself useful in herding those cows into the trucks.” He