lack of basic services, crime, corruption, and desperation. Across the country, standards of living, life expectancy, and literacy were all decreasing.
Russian President Fedor Peshkov and his cronies had grown astronomically wealthy by raping the country. It was a modern kleptocracy. They lived like royalty, and there was nothing the average Russian could do.
Every election was rigged, and those journalists, dissidents, or political opponents of Peshkov who did stand up were quickly knocked down, or worse.
In Russia, you learned not to question Peshkov or his allies. Survival existed along one path—the path of least resistance. No one in today’s Russia had ever taken on the government and survived, much less won.
But as much as the citizens of Russia detested Peshkov, Harvath was under no illusion as to where their loyalties lay. Their pride came from a deep sense of nationalism, something Peshkov was expert at manipulating.
Not a week went by that he didn’t accuse America of being the source of his nation’s woes. It was straight out of the Soviet playbook.
An ex-KGB man himself, Peshkov was masterful at pointing the finger overseas in order to distract from his problems at home. If he didn’t continually blame “capitalism” or “American arrogance” or “American imperialism” or any of the other bogeymen he laid at the feet of the United States, the Russian people might start wondering if he and his government were to blame for their crappy existence.
On the run in almost any other nation, Harvath might have been more hopeful of soliciting aid from sympathetic locals. The history of snitching, even on family members—along with the consequences for not snitching—were so entrenched in the Russian psyche, though, that it barely seemed worth considering. An American evading authorities represented only one of two things: a big reward, or a big punishment. And even the most clueless Russian, in the deepest of the sticks, was wise enough to know what would happen if they didn’t do right by the powers that be.
With that in mind, Harvath’s plan was simple: stay out of sight and as far away from civilization as possible. The only exception was for supplies, and even then, his search would be limited to the very outskirts of any town or village.
Cleaning out the saucepan, he put on water for tea. While it heated, he would check the situation in the shed. There was one thing more he needed to add to his supplies before he could leave.
CHAPTER 27
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The final item Harvath was missing was a length of tube or a hose—anything that would allow him to siphon gas from any vehicles he found along his way. Short of stumbling across full cans that he could just up and run with, this was his plan for replenishing fuel.
Without having powered up the GPS, he had no way of knowing how much fuel he was going to need. His goal was to stop as infrequently as possible—get in, get what he needed, and get going. That was the plan. Whether it would actually work remained to be seen.
After an extensive pass back through the workshop, Harvath found neither a hose nor any tubing. That was a problem. “Hoping” to find a siphon somewhere along the way was stupid. Hope was not a plan.
Think, he admonished himself. There had to be something. Then it hit him. He already had a length of tubing back in the cabin.
Stoking the cast-iron stove, he picked up an old water bottle he’d come across and headed back. Once inside the cabin, he opened the plastic bin and pulled out the wall cord for the booster pack. The rubber insulation was, in effect, nothing more than a four-foot-long tube.
Fully cutting off the end that plugged into the booster, he then carefully sliced through the insulation at the other end, making sure not to cut through any of the wires inside. Then he placed the plug on the floor, stepped on it, and pulled off the insulation.
It worked perfectly. He had his tubing.
Though he would have preferred a much wider pipe through which to siphon, it was better than nothing.
Opening the toolbox, he removed a sharply pointed awl, probably used to poke holes in leather. Unscrewing the cap from the 1.5-liter water bottle, he pierced a hole through it and then widened it with a screwdriver. He only needed it to be slightly narrower than the insulation tubing.
Screwing the cap back onto the bottle, he threaded in one end of the tubing and smiled. That was