Road Of Bones. Don Pendleton

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.

       Looking embarrassed, Anuchin said, “I’ve never driven one.”

       “Okay,” Bolan replied. “That limits how much we can pack, keeping the weapons.”

       Bolan tried working on the calculation in his head. A trip of thirteen hundred miles on normal roads, with stops for gas and minimal rest, should take about one day at a steady speed of sixty miles per hour. Slow it down for the terrain that Anuchin had described, however, and the clock went out the window. Add the fact that they would almost certainly be hunted, once her enemies—now Bolan’s—found out where they’d gone, and you were looking at a road trip on Route 666.

       A little slice of hell on Earth.

       The soldier considered it and asked, “When do we start?”

      * * *

      “I’M WONDERING,” Stephan Levshin said, “whether any of you need to be alive.”

       The five men facing him looked nervous, rightly so, since they had failed at what was meant to be a relatively simple task. Although he stood alone before them, and all five of them were armed, Levshin was unafraid. These so-called soldiers were disgraced and dared not lift a hand against the man who pulled their strings.

       When his remark produced no comment, only shifting eyes and feet, he said, “You had the targets literally in your sights, but let them slip away. How does that happen? Does anyone care to explain your failure?”

       Grudgingly, the leader of the party—Nikolay Milescu—answered. “They went to a charter company,” he said. “We spotted them outside the terminal, but not in time. When we moved in, they drove away.”

       “Alerted by the clumsiness of your approach,” Levshin said. “And since you did not have a vehicle nearby, pursuit was hopeless. Right?”

       Milescu nodded miserably. “Yes, sir.”

       “Which one of you was the sniper?” Levshin asked.

       A hand went up. Its rat-faced owner said, “I was,” remembering to add the “sir” a split second too late.

       “What is your name?”

       “Stolypin, sir. Gennady.”

       “Have you practiced with your weapon?” Levshin pressed him.

       “I’m familiar with it, sir.”

       “What was the range from which you fired this morning?”

       “Say one hundred meters, sir,” the sharpshooter replied.

       “Using a telescopic sight?”

       “Yes, sir,” Stolypin replied.

       “And yet, you missed—what was it? Three times?”

       “No, sir,” Stolypin said.

       “No? You didn’t miss three times?”

       “I missed the man, sir. Once, as he was running.”

       “And your other two shots? What became of them?”

       “I hit the car both times, sir.”

       “Did it stop?” Levshin asked.

       Stolypin swallowed hard. “No, sir.”

       “Another failure, then,” Levshin said. “What shall I tell Moscow, when I am asked if you deserve to be employed? More to the point, if you deserve to live?”

       “We can fix it,” Milescu said, sounding desperate.