Black And White Ops

Chapter 5

The car turned again as Rick took an indirect route to where they had to go. No one seemed to be following them, but he knew that wouldn’t last long. The SVR was on to him and all they had to do was tighten the noose. He wanted to go to the Moscow Station and take a train out of the city, but right now they had to find a place to cool off before the SVR started to close in. It wouldn’t take long. If nothing else, Russia knew how to run surveillance the right way.

“The Moscow station is the best way out of here,” he told her. “It hooks up with all Siberian and northern rail lines. All I need to do is find a way to get to it and we’ll be heading to the West. But I can’t go there just now. They’ll be looking for us and we need to find a place to chill for a few hours. I know just the place.” He turned the car again, trying to avoid all the traffic cameras lining the main streets.

Rick had already disabled the car’s own external cameras and tracker. It was a feature of the country that all the insurance companies required cars in Russia to have tracking equipment and exterior cameras. Sometimes it could be helpful, such as a recent meteorite crash which was recorded everywhere in Siberia by dash cameras. But the ultimate reason for the cameras was to show who was at fault in a collision or how fast they were traveling. Needless to say, the SVR had plenty of ways to hack into the cameras and tracking devices when they had the reason.

Rick’s destination was the Hermitage Museum near the Neva River. The museum had originally been constructed by Katherine the Great to house her growing collection of art. It was part of a complex of buildings attached to the Tsarist Winter Palace and was open to tourists. Because of the immense size of the building, it was very easy to spend days touring it. The museums had survived the German air strikes of WWII and were among the most favorite attractions of foreign visitors to the city. In other words, it was the perfect place to get lost inside.

Rick pulled the car into the parking space for the museum and turned off the engine. He checked the parking lot and noticed plenty of cars in it. More than enough to hide his rental car. The police and SVR had only so many men working his detail and it would take them a long time to check the registration on every car in this lot. In a few hours they would start to become bored when no new sightings had been reported. Besides, they would be occupied by his recent visit to the warehouse and what had transpired there.

“The important thing is that we have the super drive,” he told Monique. “With it we still have something to use to bargain our way out of this country. I wish I had the opportunity to put you in the Muslim clothes, but those disguises aren’t reachable until we reach the station and I find my locker. In the meantime we’re going to have to pretend to be another mixed race couple visiting the museum.”

A shadow swept across the car and Rick grabbed Monique, pulling her under him and clamping his mouth to hers. Monique knew pleasure and fear at the same time. She felt his lips on hers and as he grabbed her shoulders and began to kiss her like a lover who had been absent too long.

They found a public washroom before going into the museum which allowed each of them to freshen up before going inside it. They continued inside holding hands like any two lovers on a day out, not far from the truth. Monique stayed as close to Rick as she could. The attendant at the booth took the money from Rick and barely glanced at them, surprisingly enough. St. Petersburg was a cosmopolitan town and very similar in some ways to the other European part of Russia. Still holding hands, they walked into the museum and began looking at the exhibits.

Rick and Monique soon found themselves in the Egyptian hall. It was tiled and the ceiling overhead had white arches. Monique stopped for a few minutes just to take it all in. Rick stepped a few paces in front of her and looked it over. Glass cases lined the walls and artifacts were presented by themselves on the floor of the hall. A large number of people were milling around, discussing the exhibits in all languages. Rick, with his command of language, picked up French, German, plenty of Russian and even Estonian in the comments he heard about him. The room they were inside was one of the hundreds which made up this particular building.