Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [200]
Adnan went to the workbench mounted on the aft bulkhead and opened the top left-hand drawer. Inside was the knife he’d found during his earlier search. It was J-shaped, with a needle-sharp point and a finely honed edge, used, he assumed, to gut fish.
He gripped the wooden haft, blade angled up, then stepped to the first bunk. He took a deep breath, then placed his left hand on the man’s chin, turned the head toward the mattress, then jammed the tip of the blade into the hollow beneath his earlobe and drew the knife up, following the edge of his jawline. Blood gushed from the severed carotid; in the darkness, it looked black. The man gave out a soft moan against Adnan’s palm, then spasmed once, twice, and went still. Adnan moved to the second man, repeated the process, then to the third. In all, it took ninety seconds. He dropped the knife onto the deck, then went up into the salon and washed the blood from his hands. He knelt down beside the sink, opened the bottom drawer, and withdrew the 9-millimeter Yarygin pistol he’d secreted there. He drew back the slide an inch to ensure that a bullet was chambered, then cocked the hammer, flipped off the safety, and stuffed the pistol into the side pocket of his jacket. Finally, he grabbed a plastic coffee cup from the drying rack.
He climbed back up the ladder and into the pilothouse.
“Coffee,” he said, handing the cup to Salychev with his left hand. The captain turned, reached for it. Adnan drew the Yarygin from his pocket and shot him in the forehead. Blood and brain matter splattered against the side window. Salychev slumped backward and slid down the bulkhead. Adnan flipped the autopilot switch on the helm console, then grabbed Salychev by the ankles, dragged him to the ladder, and rolled him down into the salon.
Back at the helm, Adnan took a minute to recheck their position with the ancient Loran-C unit, then he flipped off the autopilot and adjusted course.
The linear dark streak of the island appeared on the horizon an hour later, and an hour after that, Adnan slowed the engines and came about following the shoreline east until the Loran-C’s display showed the correct coordinates.
The island was known as Kolguyev and was, according to Adnan’s chart, part of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, an almost perfect circle of wetlands, bogs, and low hills measuring eighty kilometers across and home to one lonely settlement called Bugrino on the southeastern coast, populated by a few hundred Nenets, who fished, farmed, and herded reindeer.
Adnan throttled back to idle and turned off the ignition. He checked his watch: ten minutes late. He pulled the portable spotlight from the bulkhead rack and walked onto the deck. The coded blink of his spotlight was immediately followed by the correct response from shore.
Five minutes later he heard the soft rumble of an outboard motor. A speedboat appeared out of the darkness and pulled alongside the port gunwale. Four men were aboard; each was armed with an AK-47. Adnan didn’t recognize any of them. Not that it mattered; the spotlight code matched, and if it was a trap, there was nothing to be done about it now.
“You are Abdul-Baqi—Servant of the Creator?” one of the men, the leader, Adnan assumed, asked.
“No. Servant of the Everlasting,” Adnan replied. “It’s good to see you here.”
“And you, brother.”
“Toss me your bowline and come aboard. It will take at least two of you to lift.”
While Adnan wrapped the line around the gunwale cleat, two of the men climbed aboard, unchained the containment vessel from its position on the deck, and carried it back to the gunwale, where the two men aboard the speedboat took it and set it on the deck. The last two men joined their partners.
“Any