Red Ink (22 page)

“Good. Stay on him.”

“Easier said than done. He keeps changing lanes. It’s damn near impossible.”

“Yeah, we’re going to have to do something about that, aren’t we?”

“Do something about it?”

“Tricks of the trade, Katkov.”

“It must be quite a trick at seventy miles an hour.”

“You’d be amazed at what I’ve done at seventy miles an I hour.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eye and lets a smile spread across her face. “But this might have to wait.”

“What might have to wait?”

“Open the glove box.”

I thumb the button. The door flops down and whacks my knee. Half the contents follow: maps, Tampax, a tube of lipstick, ball-point pens.

“Sorry, I’ve been meaning to get that fixed. There’s an ice pick in there somewhere.”

“What are you going to do with an ice pick?”

“You’re worse than a precocious two-year-old.”

I rummage through the glove box. My fingers soon come upon the cold aluminum handle tucked between the scraps of paper and folded maps. Scotto glances over, nods mysteriously, and keeps driving. I stare at the ice pick, trying to imagine what it could possibly have to do with tailing a speeding eighteen wheeler in the middle of the night.

27

T
wo hundred miles south of Hagerstown, the concrete interstate zigzags through rugged terrain that Scotto explains is the heart of the Shenandoah Valley—Blue Ridge Mountains to the east, Appalachian Range to the west. I’m smiling in amazement. Not at the breathtaking vistas she describes, which are obscured by darkness, but at an intriguing thought that occurs to me. “You know, we’ve been on the road over three hours and not a single checkpoint.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“The KGB. When they were in business, highways didn’t connect cities and towns; they connected secret police checkpoints. You couldn’t drive twenty kilometers without having to stop.”

“That’s about, what? Fifteen miles?” she says, as a sign flashes past proclaiming: CHARLOTTESVILLE, RICHMOND, NEWPORT NEWS —I-64—NEXT EXIT. “No wonder the place went in the toilet. I mean, what’s the point?”

“Intimidation. Iron-fist control of every last citizen. They checked papers at every stop; and if you exceeded the bounds of your residency stamp, you’d be sent back, sometimes imprisoned.”

“But not anymore.”

“Well, there are still some restrictions, but on the whole, it’s improving.”

“See, Russia
is
escaping its past. Between that and McDonald’s, who knows what they’ll cook up next?”

“Pizza.”

“A major commitment to the twentieth century.”

“A rather costly one. I’ve been evicted from my apartment.”

“I’m not sure I follow that.”

“They’re tearing it down to build the world’s largest Pizza Hut.”

She breaks up laughing. “I’m sorry, Katkov. I don’t mean to laugh at your expense. It’s just that—”

The radio crackles, interrupting her. “Unit three to leader. Unit three to leader. My guy’s peeling off,” an agent in one of the other pursuit units reports. “Heading east on Sixty-four.”

“Copy that. Stay with him,” Scotto replies. “Shell Game Leader to units two and four. Leader to two and four. What’s your status?”

“Unchanged,” agents from both units respond, confirming their targets are still proceeding south.

Scotto signs off and slips the radio into its hanger. “Talk to me, Katkov. Where’s our boy?”

“Still in the fast lane,” I reply, steadying the binoculars. “I’d say about five hundred meters ahead and pulling away.”

Scotto glances to the speedometer that’s pushing eighty. “Tell me about it. He’s really hauling ass.”

“He’s what?”

“Hauling ass—moving fast—speeding.” She darts into the adjacent lane, expertly weaves between several vehicles, and accelerates into the blind spot a distance behind the trailer. “Now, don’t lose him, she orders, activating the windshield washers lest I have an excuse. Jets in the Buick’s cowling begin blasting the road grime with sudsy water, then the wipers start sweeping across the windshield. The one in front of Scotto streaks a chilling blood red swath across the glass. She gasps, horrified, and frantically thumbs the washer button until the gory smear is gone.

The eighteen-wheeler is maintaining its high rate of speed, and the Buick is having no trouble holding its own, when several short bursts from a siren alert us to the police cruiser bearing down on us.

Scotto groans, backing off the gas as an explosion of rainbow-colored light fills the air.

“I’m afraid I spoke too soon.”

“Yeah, you jinxed us.”

“Any chance you can reach them on the radio?”

“I wish. No way we’re on the same frequency.”

“But the truck . . .” I protest as she begins working her way across the lanes toward the shoulder. “We’re going to lose contact with the truck if we stop!”

“We’ll lose the whole ballgame if we don’t. Every ‘smokey’ in the area’ll be on our ass. Best we can do is get this over with fast and play catch-up.” She chirps to a stop, takes her official identification from her purse, and starts to get out of the car.

“Remain in the vehicle!” an amplified voice commands. “Return to the vehicle, now!”

Scotto freezes, drops back into the seat, and slams the door, infuriated.

“Roll down the window. Put your hands on the steering wheel or dash. Keep them there until instructed to do otherwise.”

I glance to the side-view mirror. Two police officers in blue-gray uniforms are strutting toward us, jackets girdled in black leather, jodhpurs tucked neatly into jackboots, black wide-brimmed hats tilted forward jauntily. One takes up a position behind me. The beam from his flashlight streams through the windows, sweeping slowly across the Buick’s interior. The other officer, a crisp, imposing, square-jawed young woman, leans to Scotto’s window. Sergeant’s stripes slash across her sleeve. “Evenin’, ma’am,” she drawls. “ ’Fraid y’all can’t do that sort of thing in this state. May I see your license and—”

“See this,” Scotto interrupts, sticking her ID and badge in the sergeant’s face. “Special Agent Scotto, U.S. Treasury. We’re in pursuit, we’ve gotta move, and we’ve gotta move
now.”

The sergeant’s expression runs the gamut from panic to chagrin and back. “Oh?! Sure, sure. Y’all give me the vehicle’s license and description, I’ll get it on the air and set up an intercept.”

“No! No intercept,” Scotto exclaims, panicked by the thought. “Put mine on the air, and instruct your people
not
to intercept me. Say it’s official USG business. I don’t want to
spook this guy, Sergeant. I want him to get where he’s going. Understand?”

Scotto doesn’t wait for an answer. She slams the pedal to the floor and leaves the officers standing in a cloud of grit from the shoulder. The Buick fishtails back onto the highway, streaking the concrete with rubber; then, in response to Scotto’s expert handling, it settles down and accelerates in neck-snapping lurches with each gear change. The speedometer is soon pushing ninety.

I spend the next several hours squinting through the binoculars, darting from one license plate to the next; but Virginia 439LHT665 isn’t one of them. It isn’t long before my eyes are burning and my stomach is growling. So is Scotto’s. We make short work of a bag of chocolate chip cookies—a new experience that may just rival my addiction to cigarettes and vodka. The road signs that flash past read: LYNCHBURG, ROANOKE, PULASKI. The rig’s driver could’ve taken any of these turnoffs, but Scotto is betting on Atlanta.

We’re approaching the Virginia-Tennessee border when a garish sight appears in the distance. The tangle of pink, yellow, and lime green neon flashes BRISTOL TRUCK STOP. More eye-catching signs shout: CAFETERIA, LAUNDRY, SHOWER FACILITIES. Others advertise: DRIVE-THROUGH WASH, COMPLETE SERVICE CENTER, 30 REFUELING BAYS. The sprawling main building is surrounded by a broad expanse of macadam where more than a hundred tractor-trailers are neatly aligned.

“He’s in there,” Scotto says confidently, wheeling onto the grounds.

“What makes you so sure?”

“My fuel gauge and my bladder. Truck or no truck, the guy who built this place figured it’s about as far south as you can go without filling one and emptying the other.”

Whoever he was, he was right. Scotto isn’t the only one in need of relief, and the fuel warning light leaves no doubt the Buick is running on fumes. After dealing with the necessities, we drive to one side of the grounds and begin cruising back and forth between the rows of eighteen-wheelers in search of our target. We soon spot a rig with container 95824 in its flatbed, but the Arkansas plate identifies it as one of the two remaining decoys. Scotto raises the other agents on the radio.
Both pursuit units and both decoys are here; to our delight, so is our target.

“There it is,” she blurts when we finally locate it. She parks a distance away in a darkened area between the rig and the main building. “Ice pick,” she commands like a surgeon.

I slap it into her palm. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. On second thought, get us some coffee. Lots of it. Black.”

“You’re sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Piece of cake. Anybody hassles you, just play dumb and make believe you don’t understand English. That should be easy for you.” She winks, then gets out of the car and walks swiftly toward the truck.

I watch until she disappears behind the trailer, then zip my parka and head for the cafeteria. Laughter and loud voices erupt as several drivers come through the door and lumber across the tarmac, expelling puffs of breath into the cool air. The bearded one in the quilted vest and cowboy boots splits off and comes in my direction. I wait until he passes, then glance over my shoulder. It looks like he’s headed toward our rig. Each step he takes tightens the knot that’s forming in my gut. Damn. He
is
headed for it, right for it. He pauses at the cab, rubs a smudge off a chrome fuel cap with the cuff of his jacket, then begins checking the rig’s tires and undercarriage prior to hitting the road. There’s no way I can warn Scotto without making him suspicious; but maybe I can distract him, ask for directions or something? I hurry after him, but Scotto emerges from behind the trailer before I can make the intercept.

“Hey, what the fuck you doin’ back there?” the driver challenges.

Scotto takes her own advice, shrugging and backing away, pretending she doesn’t understand English.

“I asked what you were doing, bitch!” He grabs Scotto’s arm and shoves her in the direction of the cab, then sees me coming and pounds on it with his fist. “Harlan?! Harlan, we got us a problem here!”

I’m waiting for Scotto to go for her gun, waiting for the other agents to come to our rescue, but I wait in vain. They’re nowhere to be seen, and she continues playing the confused foreigner, telling the driver to go fuck himself in her New York-accented Russian.

“Excuse please,” I call out, purposely fracturing my syntax. “Excuse please. She is not speaking the English yet.”

“No shit!” the driver growls. He pounds on the cab again. “Harlan?!”

The door opens, revealing Harlan to be a sleepy-eyed young fellow in a baseball cap, cradling a shotgun. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“Caught her nosing around the rig.”

Harlan jumps to the ground and levels the weapon at us menacingly.

My eyes widen at the double-barreled muzzle. The thought that a twitch of this kid’s finger could cut me in half has my knees knocking. “I couldn’t stop him,” I say to Scotto in Russian, the words sticking in my throat. “What are we going to do now?”

“Lighten up,” Scotto counsels coolly in Russian. “Give him some bullshit about me getting lost on the way back from the ladies room.”

“Sir? Sir, excuse please again? She is not nosing the rig; she is coming from the room for the ladies, and . . . and her way became lost. Please, we are on the, how you say? The honeyball?”

“Honeyball?” the driver echoes with a cocky smirk. “You aren’t speaking the English yet either, pal. You may be balling her, but the fuckin’ word’s
honeymoon.”

“Oh, yes, we are balling on the honey
-moon,
and for the first time in the free country too. Is wonderful.”

Scotto forces an insipid smile and clings to me like a frightened waif. “Be affectionate, dammit,” she orders sweetly in Russian, as if she’s relishing every minute of this. “You told this asshole we’re on our honeymoon. It better look it.”

The driver bristles with paranoia. “What? What’s that?” he challenges as I wrap an arm around Scotto protectively. “She make some crack about me?”

“No. No, she . . . she is asking if you know of the sights to be seeing?”

“Yeah,” he smirks. “Ever been to Siberia?”

“C’mon, Curtis,” Harlan says, lowering the shotgun. “They’re jus’ tourists. Leave ’em be.”

“Leave my fucking rig be, bitch.” He glares at us, then unhooks
his keys from his belt loop and struts toward the cab, his boots pounding the tarmac.

The kid lingers, his pronounced brow knitted with remorse. “I never met no Russians before. I don’t want y’all getting the wrong idea. Americans are good people. I mean, if it wasn’t for Reagan and Bush, them Commies’d still be running the show, right?” He turns toward the cab, then brightens with a thought. “Disney World. Yeah, that’s where y’all oughta go.”

“Diz-nee-vherl?” Scotto repeats, sounding it out like a Russian who’s never heard it before.

“Hey, she’s really getting the hang of it. It’s in Florida. Orlando. Me an’ my girl went once?” he says, his voice rising with childish wonder. “Fan-fuckin-tastic!”

“Come on, Harlan, let’s roll!” the driver calls out from the cab.

“Y’all go down there,” the kid concludes, hurrying off with his shotgun. “Y’all go down there, and find out what Americans are all about.”

We force smiles and head for the Buick, arms around each other’s waists. Scotto’s wired, living on the edge again. I’m relieved, yet seething with indignation. “Regan and Bush?” I exclaim through clenched teeth. “Reagan and Bush destroyed Communism? Self-delusion is what you Americans are all about!”

“Come on, at least give us credit for putting a banana peel or two in Lenin’s path, will you?”

“They were totally unnecessary. Communism is an absurd idea. It was doomed from the start.”

“Okay, okay. Lighten up. We’re on our honeyball, remember? Come on, grab my ass or something. This is a truck stop.” Her hand drops to my buttock and squeezes it so hard that I yelp. She opens the trunk, rummages in one of the boxes, and hands me the bottle of vodka. “You earned it, Katkov. You did real good.”

“Thanks.” I steady my hands, unscrew the cap, and take a long swallow. “I was quite terrified. Still am.”

“Me too.”

“Shit of the bull, Scotto. You were enjoying it, immensely, and you know it.”

“I guess so,” she says with a laugh that ends in a reflective smile. “I can’t explain it, but it’s a rush every time. When I
think of the things I’ve done. . . .” The husky roar of a diesel kicking over pulls her out of it. We clamber into the Buick. I toss the bottle into the box on the backseat. Scotto pokes her fingers under the cuff of her jacket and pulls the ice pick from the sleeve. “Stick this in there, will you?”

“Quite frankly, I was waiting for you to stick it in him.”

“I came close,” she admits, adrenaline still pumping, “but it would’ve blown everything.”