“Just one of the problems of flying without filing a flight plan.” Rand concentrated on getting the unmarked, unlighted Ilyushin Il-4 in focus as it approached the dirt strip. “Keep an eye on the countryside. We don’t want to explain what we’re doing here.”

“Nobody would ask,” Reed said. “They’d just shoot us.”

“Like I said-”

“He’s going straight in,” Reed interrupted, excitement in his voice. “You got him?”

“Yeah. Watch that you don’t flash sunlight off your binocular lenses.”

“Kiss mine. We’re going to nail the Siberian’s baby-killing ass.”

Rand grinned. The thing about having an identical twin was that he was…identical. You talked to each other because you could. But it wasn’t necessary. He’d do what you’d do in his place.

No thought required.

The plane leaped into focus. No insignia. No numbers. No identifying marks at all.

Surprise, surprise.

Silently Rand went to work.

Camgeria

Early morning

The man known only as the Siberian sat behind the copilot and watched the scrubland flash by at eye level on both sides of the plane. At the last possible instant, the Ukrainian pilot lifted the Ilyushin’s nose and slammed the metal bird onto the rough dirt runway with the sound of someone whacking a tin coffin with a baseball bat.

The turboprops reversed hard and spooled up, screaming like the undead. The plane bucked and humped on the rough dirt surface. Red dust swirled up from the wheels and the prop wash, sticking to the smears of hydraulic fluid that covered both wings of the aircraft. The first direct rays of the sun turned the smears into blood.