And the bad guys were in hot pursuit. Lia heard the deep-throated bark of a German Shepherd and the shouted orders as more guards spilled out onto the deck or began descending after the fleeing Deep Black agents.

The trees were bigger toward the bottom of the slope, a tangle of open woods, with scattered boulders, some as large as a small house, tucked in among the trees. Lia came to a jarring halt as her boots hit a tree trunk; the slope had leveled off enough here for her to stand and begin picking her way down the rest of the hill on foot.

Akulinin reached the road first, dropping to the ground and facing back up the hill with his handgun at the ready. Lia dropped down beside him. Someone above them opened fire with an assault rifle, spraying away wildly on full-auto, but with no clear target. Bullets whined high above their heads or thunked into tree trunks; the two agents held their fire. Even sound-suppressed rounds might give away their position, and in any case, at this range they wouldn’t hit anything save by sheer luck.

They could hear thrashing sounds from above as men crashed down the slope after them. Several bright lights flared among the tree trunks, the shafts of light probing among the branches and brush. Lia nudged Akulinin in the ribs and pointed to the right. Together, the two began moving southeast along the hillside. If that crowd took the straight route down, they’d be on top of Lia and Akulinin in another few moments. Even in the dark, the men might be able to follow the double trail of skid and scuff marks down the slope.

And there were the dogs.

How many pursuers were there? During the circuit with the dragonfly, the Art Room had identified six guards outside-including the dog handlers and including the man at the front gate-but there might be more inside. It was a big place, and Kotenko might easily be paranoid enough to maintain a small personal army up there.

Lia and Akulinin worked their way silently about a hundred yards farther up the road and crossed over to the far side. That gave them a good view of the edge of the woods beneath the cliff, and the guards would have to leave the cover of the trees and come out into the open if they wanted to cross the road.

Behind Lia and Akulinin, a low surf hissed along the beach. The sky was overcast, hiding the moon, but her LI goggles showed the waves in oily tones of green and black. A shame we didn’t bring a getaway boat, she thought. Or a submarine…

“Dragon!” she called. “We’re on the southwest side of the road now, just above the beach.”

“We’re just turning onto the coast road,” Llewellyn replied. “Three kilometers, maybe three and a half…”

Which meant perhaps one or two more minutes. And the flashlights were much closer now, darting and bobbing among the trees at the base of the hill, a hundred yards away. A guard emerged from the shadows, moving along the edge of the road. A second appeared a moment later, tugged along by an enthusiastic dog.

Akulinin braced his pistol, sighting along the barrel. “I could try for a long shot from here,” he said.

“Negative,” Lia told him. “All that’ll do is tell them where we are, and give them a chance to surround us.”

“Damn…” He lowered the weapon. “Those dogs will find us…”

“We’ll worry about that when they get closer.” Lia was angry, and the words came out more harshly than she’d intended.

She was angry at herself, though she was having some trouble identifying just what it was that had made her so mad. They’d done everything right, so far as she could tell, taking the op step-by-step.

But in this kind of work, any operation that ended with shots being fired was a failure, at least on some level. The opposition should never have even known they were there. It was the op on the St. Petersburg waterfront all over again… and the second op in a row for her to end in a firefight. This was getting old very, very fast.

The two men and the dog were closer now… about fifty yards away. They were walking slowly, and the man in front had a flashlight that he was using to examine the bushes and shadowed recesses on both sides of the road. Other men were spreading out in the distance, some going down to the beach, others following the road to the northwest.

And she could hear the crack and snap of still more searchers in the woods directly across the road now, moving unseen among the trees.

“Dragon!” Akulinin whispered. “Any time now would be very good!”

“Another kilometer,” was the reply. “Can you show me a light?”

“Negative!” Lia replied. “We have bad guys right across the road from us, and more coming along the road! If we move, they’ll spot us!”

The tactical situation, she realized, was deteriorating to the impossible. Even if the van arrived right now, there were enough gunmen about to lay down a deadly barrage.

“Listen, Dragon,” Lia said. “I think we need another plan. You can’t come in here without getting killed!”

“Already got a plan, m’lady!” Llewellyn replied. “Sit tight! We’ll have you out of there in a mo’!”

The two walking down the road were twenty yards away. The dog, its nose to the earth, whined, then growled.

“Can I take them now?” Akulinin whispered.

Something dropped out of the night.

Even with the LI goggles, it was hard to see what it was, but it looked like a bird or a bat, and it was swooping low in front of the two guards with a flutter of wings, making both of the men shout and duck.

It took Lia a second to realize what was happening. The dragonfly! Someone back in the Art Room had brought the dragonfly in as a diversion!

At almost the same moment, a vehicle came careening up the road from the southeast, traveling backward at a high rate of speed. Lia could see the taillights glowing brilliantly in her goggles, followed by the sudden flash and glare of the brake lights.

The guard with the flashlight raised his assault rifle.

“Yes!” she told Akulinin. “Now!”

They opened fire together, sending a fusillade of 9mm rounds slamming into the two guards, and both collapsed in a tangle at the side of the road. The dog, its leash trailing behind it, bolted toward them and was in mid-leap when the dragonfly slammed into its back. The animal yelped and turned, snapping at something no longer there. The dragonfly swooped once more…

And then the van was there, the back door open, with Vasily leaning out and waving them on. More men were crashing down through the woods on the other side of the vehicle, and somewhere up the road a burst of automatic weapons fire cracked against the night.

“Don’t forget your tool kit!” Lia called as she dove for the back of the van, lunging in headfirst.

Akulinin didn’t answer as he landed heavily beside her, but she saw that he did, indeed, still have the heavy metal box with him.

“Go! Go! Go!” Vasily was screaming as more gunfire cracked and thundered close by. Lia heard the clang of bullets piercing metal, but Llewellyn, in the driver’s seat, had floored the accelerator and the heavy vehicle peeled rubber as it sped up. Through the open back doors of the van, Lia got a glimpse of running figures on the road well behind them, until Vasily managed to slam both doors shut.

There were bullet holes in the windows of the back door and more in the side of the van, just above their heads. That had been entirely too close…

“Hang on!” Llewellyn called back to them. “Next stop, the Georgian border!”

Lia lay on the floor of the van, trying to slow the galloping pace of her heart.

Behind them, the dragonfly swooped far and high out over the Black Sea before suddenly inverting and plunging at high speed into the water. On the security camera pole at the dacha entrance, the piece of hardware left behind by the probe burned as its magnesium casing ignited, a tiny, hot star at the top of the pole that left nothing behind but a severed length of cable and a charred spot on the wood.