Desperate Ground

by L J Morris

Sergei heard a shout from the man he had left by the exit. ‘They have her, Sergei.’

  Bazarov’s number two clenched his fist. Now he’d be back in the good books. He shouted to his men in the basement. ‘You two, out.’

  The two guards ran up the stairs and all three of them rushed along the corridor to the main entrance.

  Sinclair stood just inside the door, hands on her head, flanked by the Russians who’d found her. Sergei approached and stood right in front of her, his face an inch from hers. Sinclair could feel the Russians foul breath on her skin. Sergei looked deep into her eyes. ‘You’re mine now.’ He pulled back his fist and rammed it hard into her ribs.

  Sinclair doubled over, breath exploding from her lungs. She collapsed on the floor, trying to suck in air as the guards stood over her.

  * * *

  Josephine Quinn was looking through the eyepiece as the scanner took an image of her retina. Slightly blinded in one eye, she looked up at the display. Her picture and details were next to Garrison’s. They both had three green lights beneath them, showing that the checks had been successful; their identities were confirmed. One more password was now required to load the firing mission and begin the launch countdown. Quinn stared at the flashing box on the screen that demanded her input.

  Bazarov turned towards her. ‘What are you waiting for, Mrs Quinn? Enter the password.’

  Quinn didn’t move. ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘I’ll remind you that the safety of your children depends on this. Should I ask Sergei to go and fetch them?’

  Quinn was in turmoil. Her maternal instinct to protect her children was overpowering, but she couldn’t be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

  Bazarov slammed the desk. ‘Mrs Quinn.’

  The swing doors to the control room burst open as Sinclair was thrown through them. She careered into a desk and fell to the floor, bloodied and winded.

  Bazarov backed away from Quinn. ‘Miss Sinclair. I’m so glad you could join us.’ He gestured to his men. ‘Pick her up.’

  They picked up Sinclair and pushed her into a chair opposite Quinn. She had blood running from cuts on the side of her face and the corner of her mouth. She coughed and spat more blood onto the floor. ‘Hello, Jo. How’ve you been?’

  ‘Oh my god. What have you done to her?’

  ‘Nothing yet, Mrs Quinn. You can keep it that way by entering the password.’

  ‘Don’t do it, Jo. The kids are …’

  Sergei smashed Sinclair’s head into the desk. She was dazed, almost losing consciousness. Bazarov pulled out his knife and drew it across the side of her neck. Blood oozed from the wound and the Russian positioned his knife to cut again.

  Quinn reached out to try and stop him. ‘No. I’ll do it.’

  Quinn’s hands trembled. She looked at Sinclair, at the knife resting on her friend’s throat and the blood running onto the desk. She clenched her fists and tried to steady herself. There was nothing else she could do. She keyed in the final password and hit enter. ‘God forgive me.’

  Bazarov released Sinclair and sheathed his knife. ‘Thank you, Josephine.’

  They all looked at the screen. The pictures of Garrison and Quinn had been replaced by large numbers that had begun to count down. One hour till the launch of the missiles. The read-out underneath gave updates on the status.

  COMMUNICATIONS CONFIRMED: MISSILE GYROS ACTIVATING.

  Each of the missile icons now had its new target’s latitude and longitude beneath it. Just a series of numbers, but each one corresponded to a location within the US: Washington, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles; every missile aimed at a major city.

  Bazarov nodded to his men. ‘Take everyone into the lab next door, and one of you stay with them, no one leaves.’ He couldn’t kill Quinn until the mission was complete, he needed her to fix any problems.

  The guards gathered Quinn, Garrison and the remaining engineers together and shepherded them out through the double doors and into the other lab. Sergei grabbed Sinclair and followed them but Bazarov stopped him. ‘Not her, Sergei. Follow me and bring her with you.’

  Quinn turned around, noticing that her friend was being led away in another direction. ‘Ali. No. Where are you taking her, you bastard? You said you’d leave her alone.’

  ‘I didn’t promise you anything, Josephine. I’m afraid your friend here has caused us far too much trouble. I don’t need her any more. Sergei is going to take her outside and put a bullet in the back of her head.’

  ‘NO.’ Quinn bolted towards Sinclair but a guard grabbed her around the waist and dragged her off into the lab. The doors closed behind them, her futile screams echoing down the corridor.

  Bazarov and Sergei led Sinclair to the office where Vadim was waiting. Bazarov opened the door and all three entered the room. Vadim was sitting on a couch, cradling his glass in his left hand and holding a large cigar in his right. ‘Viktor. Everything is going to plan I hope? No last-minute fuck-ups?’

  ‘We almost had a problem. Let me introduce you to Ali Sinclair.’ He waved to Sergei who pushed Sinclair to the floor in front of Vadim.

  ‘Miss Sinclair is an agent of the British Government. Sent here to find out what I was up to.’

  Vadim looked down at Sinclair. ‘So, you’re Ali Sinclair. Have we been infiltrated, Viktor? Remember, I need my anonymity.’

  ‘It’s not a problem, Vadim. The British thought they’d stumbled across some espionage, an attempt to steal information about Kraken. They have no idea what is really happening. By the time they figure it out, it will all be over.’

  ‘Excellent. I do hope she won’t survive long enough to blow my cover.’

  Sinclair got to her knees and held up her head. ‘I’ll remember your face and I’ll see you dead.’

  Vadim laughed. ‘You won’t see the end of the day. Nothing personal. Strictly business, you understand.’

  Bazarov nodded to the door. Sergei lifted Sinclair and pushed her out of the room.

  Sinclair walked with her hands on her head along the length of the outside wall. She didn’t look at the other guards who formed the cordon, she kept her eyes focussed ahead of her. She wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her fear. Sergei walked two paces behind her with his assault rifle pointing between her shoulder blades.

  They reached the rear of the building where Sinclair had climbed out of the window.

  ‘Stop.’ Sergei barked at her. ‘Get on your knees.’

  Sinclair knelt among the old crates and metal waste. She dropped her hands to her knees. This was it, this was where she was going to die: on her knees in the dirt. She always thought she’d go down fighting but, when it had come to it, there was no point. She was going to die either way.

  Sergei shouldered his assault rifle and took out his Glock. ‘I told you I’d kill you, bitch.’

  ‘Just get on with it you prick.’ A million thoughts ran through her mind. This must be what they meant by your life flashing before your eyes.

  Sergei cocked his weapon and chambered a round.

  Sinclair looked up at the sky. Vapour trails from commercial airliners crisscrossed the cloudless blue sky. Normal people going about their normal lives, oblivious of the shitstorm that was about to be unleashed. A flock of birds flew overhead, heading for the jungle canopy. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  McGill squeezed the trigger. The sharp crack of the shot chased the bullet through the foliage but Sergei would never hear it. The round struck him just above his right ear and blew a hole the size of an orange in his skull as it exited on the left. Sergei dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, already dead.

  Sinclair spun round. Sergei’s eyes were frozen open – a look of surprise, asking a question that would never be answered. She picked up his assault rifle and checked for any other threats. A noise to her right caught her attention and she brought her aim round, ready to fire.

  McGill knelt beside the fen
ce, his rifle still aimed at Sergei. The fence on that side of the compound had been neglected where it was overgrown by the encroaching jungle. McGill had cut the wire ties from the chain link and been able to lift it up enough to scramble under. He stood up and ran over to join Sinclair, giving her a hug, thankful that he’d been in the right place at the right time. ‘Jesus, Ali. That was close.’

  Sinclair fought back tears of relief. She was beginning to think that McGill was her guardian angel. She definitely owed him a drink – if they survived that long. ‘I’m gonna need therapy after this one.’

  ‘Like you didn’t need professional help before.’

  Sinclair pulled away from McGill and gave him a playful punch in the chest.

  McGill checked for any sign of followers; the other Russians must have heard the shot and thought Sinclair was dead. He dragged Sergei’s body into the undergrowth and threw some palm fronds over it. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here, Ali. We need to put a plan together.’

  ‘Right behind you, Frank.’

  Chapter 25

  Before Kurt Halloran had joined the FBI, he served in the US Marines. He served in the first Gulf War and Afghanistan before injuries had slowed him down enough to win him promotion and a desk job. He’d called it a day after that, but still served in the reserves and retained his rank. When his boss, Johnson, had received the call from Easter, filling them in on the threat that the British had found, he’d called his contact at the Pentagon. They hadn’t hesitated, and Johnson was soon calling Halloran into his office.

  ‘Grab your kit, Kurt, you’re going on active service again.’

  Secretly, Halloran felt a buzz of excitement. He missed the adrenalin rush of combat. He knew a lot of people thought that made him a bit of a psychopath, but it was the one thing that made him feel alive.

  Within the hour he was in the back of a plane heading for the US Navy assault ship, USS America, currently stationed in the Caribbean. During the flight he re-read the documents he’d been given, to make sure he had it all in his head. The British had flagged up the possibility of a nuclear launch being initiated from a test facility. Bombing the place was a no go. It would wipe out the only way of stopping the countdown. His job was to brief a marine team and launch an assault on the island.

  The British had two operatives in situ but their status was unknown. No one had heard from them for some time and it wasn’t clear if they were alive or dead. His main role during the assault was to get control of the nuclear trigger and secure Josephine Quinn and Admiral Garrison. If he could get the Brits out too it would be a bonus.

  The events of the last few days were falling into place now. He’d always had a nagging feeling that they were part of a much bigger story, but he hadn’t had access to the information to put it all together. The FBI had wasted time looking for the mysterious woman from the motel and the golf resort. Now it looked like she’d been on their side from the start. He was being sent on this mission to help the agency cover things up. Make it look like they were in control all along. Someone would get a rocket up their ass after this but that could wait. First, they needed to stop this guy, Bazarov, from launching his attack on the US.

  He looked out of the window as the plane approached the ship and started its landing pattern. By the time the plane lifted off again, he would be briefing the marines and getting ready to climb into the Knighthawk helicopters that would fly them in to their target. He studied the photographs of the two British operatives; he had to be able to recognise them quickly. He felt sorry for them. As always, it was people like them and him who paid the price for other people’s fuck-ups. They were soldiers and knew the risks, but it sounded to him like the British had dropped their people in the shit and left them to it. The poor bastards weren’t in with much of a chance.

  Halloran’s briefing didn’t go into details of the backstory – the events of the last few days – it wasn’t necessary. All the marines needed to know was who they were up against and what the objective was. Halloran took them through the expected size and quality of Bazarov’s private army. He took them through a map of the island and walked them through the blueprints of the facility. Last, he showed them the photos of Sinclair and McGill. ‘These two guys are friendlies. McGill is a marine, just like us. If you see them, give them all the help they need.’

  Two Knighthawk helicopters were now in position on the flight deck of the USS America and ready to go. Halloran finished his briefing and the marines gathered together their equipment. He checked his assault vest, spare magazines, sidearm, and radio. He put on his throat mic and carried out a radio check with his team.

  This was it, plans had been made and gone over, weapons were checked and letters to loved ones written. Now it was time to focus on the assault, all other thoughts pushed to the back of his mind. He picked up his M4 carbine and followed the other men out of the briefing room and up to the flight deck.

  The Knighthawks’ pilots completed their own pre-flight checks and fired up the engines as Halloran and the marines climbed on board. One final radio check confirmed approval for the mission, and the two helicopters lifted off the flight deck and headed west.

  * * *

  Sinclair and McGill sat in a small clearing, one hundred metres from the compound fence, their weapons laid out in front of them. They had two assault rifles, three Glock semi-automatics and two Kizlyar knives. Enough for the two of them. The big problem they had was ammunition. They had gathered everything they had taken from Sergei, and the guards they had killed. Once they’d loaded the ammunition into magazines, they had one each for the Glocks and four for the assault rifles. McGill loaded one into his AR-15 then passed two to Sinclair. ‘We don’t have much ammo, Ali. If you can pick any up from the guards you take out, all the better.’

  Sinclair loaded a magazine into her assault rifle and drew back the cocking handle. The spare magazine went in her pocket. ‘If we don’t get any backup we’re pretty much fucked.’

  McGill discarded the third Glock and put the other one into his hip holster. ‘Carter will be doing everything he can to get the Yanks to assault this place. Hopefully they’ll know we’re here, otherwise they could be just as dangerous to us as the Russians.’

  ‘It’d be a real shame to make it this far only to get taken out by our own side.’

  McGill nodded. ‘Wouldn’t be the first friendly fire we’ve been in, Ali.’

  Sinclair stood up and slung her assault rifle over her shoulder. ‘So, we go for the anti-aircraft missiles first?’

  ‘We have to. It’ll use up some of the time we have but there’ll be no backup arriving if that thing is still operational.’

  Sinclair looked at her watch. ‘I reckon we’ve got about forty minutes to stop the countdown. Let’s get to it.’

  McGill climbed to his feet and they headed through the foliage towards the Rapier launcher.

  They approached the anti-aircraft installation from slightly different directions, knives drawn. They had to keep this as quiet as possible to begin with, and save ammunition. Once they were ready to assault the building they would need it to be very loud, but not just yet.

  The Rapier system’s launcher and control trailers were positioned in a clearing on some raised ground, with a clear line of sight over the most obvious line of attack – east across the compound and out to sea. Behind them, the mountains provided cover and made it very difficult to fly in from that direction.

  A generator hummed at the back of the clearing and helped to cover any noise Sinclair and McGill made. Beside the generator were a fuel dump and some wooden crates. It looked like the two men who were manning the position, didn’t think they would be needed to shoot anything down. They were sitting on a log, well away from the generator and the trailers, playing cards and smoking. Their weapons were leant up against a tree and there were empty beer bottles lying on the floor at their feet.

  Sinclair was closest to them and would lead the attack. She inched closer and closer, staying
as quiet as possible, but at the same time ready to explode into action if she was spotted. Six feet from the men she came up to a crouching position, her knife in her right hand. She nodded to McGill then covered the remaining distance in two steps. She clamped her left hand around the nearest guard’s mouth and drew her knife across his throat. Arterial blood spurted onto the other guard as the man tried to stand up. Sinclair wrapped her legs around him and clung on to his back as he struggled for the last few seconds of his life. He dropped to his knees, backwards onto Sinclair, and bled out.

  The other guard didn’t have time to react. By the time his friend had stood up and sprayed him with blood, he too was in a fight for survival. McGill wrapped his left arm across the man’s throat and drove the knife into his back. He pulled him backwards off the log and, withdrawing the knife, turned him over and plunged the blade into his heart.

  Wiping their blades clean, they re-sheathed them and set about searching the corpses for ammunition. Each guard only had the magazines that were in their assault rifles. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing and was a big increase in Sinclair and McGill’s current stock.

  ‘No need to hide the bodies, Frank. This’ll all be over before anyone has time to find them.’

  ‘And hopefully we’ll still be alive at the end of it.’

  The two of them rushed over to the fuel dump. There were large forty-gallon barrels of diesel and petrol alongside smaller jerrycans, and four long crates containing spare missiles. They quickly moved the smaller containers and the crates over to the missile launcher, stacking them up around it.

  McGill opened one of the smaller cans and poured petrol over their stack and the large drums. He took out his flint and scraped sparks onto the fuel. It lit almost immediately into a bright fireball. ‘That should take a few minutes to blow. Gives us time to get round to the window.’

  Sinclair picked up her weapon and they set off into the jungle.

  It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the back of the building where Sinclair had had her escape from death. Sergei’s body was still hidden where they’d left it. They pulled up the rusty chain link fencing and crawled beneath it to enter the compound.