Savage Son (James Reece #3) - Jack Carr Page 0,140

flour, smoked fish, sugar.

On he went, passing villages and settlements; in his natural element, moving toward his target.

He had never felt so free.

There was only the hunt.

CHAPTER 87

Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia

Six months later

REECE HAD SPENT DAYS watching from his hide-site in the hillside. The animal skins kept him warm and the marmot jerky he’d most recently dried nourished his body. He knew he’d lost weight and muscle mass moving over two thousand kilometers across Siberia, hunting for the man who had killed his father.

Hate kept him warm. Thoughts of Katie, his homeland, his future, were buried.

He had built fires when he was able, slept in snow caves or debris shelters, and kept moving. One step at a time. Always forward.

He used the FAL sparingly. The bow became his primary weapon for the procurement of food; he preferred it that way.

He traveled as the ancient hunter-gathers had moved; nomads following the migrating herds, foraging as they went in a constant struggle to survive. Reece had a different purpose that pushed him forward. A violent nomad, he had a mission: death.

He knew they’d come. The Mi-8 circled and landed on the gravel HLZ just outside the main house. An older man emerged from the helicopter first, the lead from the advance detail running to the chopper door to escort him and his guest to the relative warmth of the dacha.

Then came the little man. At this distance a positive identification was not possible, but Reece was not working within the confines of the law. Reece knew. The small man bundled up against the cold was his prey: the traitor Oliver Grey.

Reece would watch for another day and then make his move.

* * *

“Oliver, why do you keep looking out that window?” Ivan Zharkov asked, looking up from the stove. He preferred to cook for himself when he was at the dacha; it reminded him of his humble beginnings. His children had missed the struggle of the early days and that saddened him. While he had been forged through adversity, his children had grown up with the trappings of wealth, which bread a softness. All except Aleksandr, whose sickness had been his downfall.

“There’s not even a fence out there, Pakhan.”

“That is because Siberia is our fence. Even the native people only infringe on the very edges, superstitious about the event that gave us this beautiful land.”

Oliver had known about what the world termed the Tunguska Event and had heard Zharkov tell of his connection to the area many times. The old man was fascinated with it.

“The indigenous Evenks and Yakuts believe a deity sent a fireball as a warning. It was one they heeded. It destroyed two thousand square kilometers, Oliver. Those that didn’t initially believe were convinced afterward when the sky glowed for days.”

“Did they ever figure out what it was?” asked Oliver, knowing there had been numerous theories and speculation over the years.

“There was no crater. Some think it was a meteor that disintegrated before impact, the soft ground devouring its remains, absorbing its power. Others say it was an underground volcano. It may have been a comet, its ice becoming part of the land. I’ve even heard that it could have been a small black hole colliding with earth. No one really knows. Over a hundred and ten years later it remains the largest recorded impact event in recorded history and nobody knows what it was. Regardless, we are in the epicenter of that event. Everything for eight hundred miles in every direction was destroyed except for right here. Those trees are all that are left,” he said gesturing out the large windows before him. “Like the Genbaku Dome at the epicenter of the Hiroshima bomb the Americans dropped on Japan, those trees are all that remain. We too shall remain, Oliver. With the changing tides of geopolitics, the bravta will remain.”

“I think you should still have additional security measures in place, Pakhan. If James Reece comes, our guards won’t stop him.”

“Oliver, how many times must we discuss this? Our source in the United States confirms that James Reece is in Maryland. I have people watching the airports, train stations, shipyards. All ports of entry have his facial recognition data in their systems. He won’t set foot inside Mother Russia without us knowing. He did take care of a rather nasty problem for me. Aleksandr is no longer a threat, planning to push the old lion out of the pride. My other children are enjoying their spoiled lives as the progenies