The Hunt

by Jack Arbor

  “What leads you to conclude that?” Baxter tugged on his goatee.

  The coffee in Max’s cup, though weak in flavor, felt good as it slid down his throat.

  Baxter crossed his arms. “This thing, if it’s going to work between us, has to go both ways.”

  Max studied the surveillance monitors mounted on the wall. The yard was grainy and dark. Nothing moved. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  I can’t do it. Max shook his head.

  The MI6 agent ambled to the stove and stoked the fire with a metal poker before tossing in a fresh log. “For the record, I agree with you. There’s a lot to this we’re not seeing. An obvious trap set for you in Turkey. The introduction of the Fedorov file, hidden in such a way that surprised Spartak. It smacks of something deeper, as you say.”

  Quinn yawned, rolled over, and Max rubbed her belly.

  Baxter tugged on his goatee. “What’s the best course of action—”

  The dog’s ears perked up. She jumped from the couch and stood poised at the door while emitting a low growl. Startled, Max retrieved the shotgun from where it leaned against the desk, and Baxter stepped to the door, his head cocked. A minute went by. Quinn growled, motionless. Baxter moved to the wall and examined the security monitors.

  Max positioned himself next to the door.

  Another minute went by.

  And another.

  Without a sound, the dog relaxed her ears and padded to the couch where she curled herself into a ball and closed her eyes.

  The two men locked eyes while Baxter retrieved a pistol from a desk drawer. “The benefit of you burning down my office is that it enabled me to rebuild with modern security measures. Bulletproof glass and walls reinforced with steel plating.”

  Max pointed at the door. “And a doggie door.”

  Baxter plopped into the chair and checked the gun’s magazine. “Right.”

  Max sat on the edge of the couch, shotgun across his lap. A vision of the raven-haired woman entered his mind. Was she outside? Crazier things have happened. “You don’t happen to have a bug scanner, do you? A wireless signal detector?”

  Baxter’s bushy eyebrows knit together. “You think someone’s tracking you?”

  Mas shook his head. “I’m probably just being paranoid.”

  With a scowl, Baxter rummaged in a drawer before finding a cellphone-sized black box with a beefy antenna. He flipped on the device and approached Max. “It has a one-meter radius.” He waved it around Max’s legs, arms, and torso before shaking his head. You’re not giving off any signals.” Baxter flicked it off and stowed the device back in the drawer. “So we have a deal?”

  Max cocked his head. “What deal?”

  A chuckle from Baxter. “You already forgot. MI6 will help you. In return, you help us find Kate Shaw and beat the consortium to the punch.”

  The coffee mug was empty. Why did everyone want to find Kate? “Is the search for Kate a sanctioned MI6 operation?”

  Head bobbing, Baxter grinned. “Of course. The chief approved it. He’ll be glad to hear you’re on board.”

  The chief was the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, a peer of the director of the Central Intelligence Service, and Callum Baxter’s direct superior. Max swallowed on a dry throat as he watched the dog. Her eyes scanned the room, but otherwise she was calm.

  Baxter cleared his throat. “We have a deal?”

  At that moment, Quinn’s ears perked up again before she jumped off the couch, approached the door with her neck stretched out and growled.

  Baxter spun in his chair to look at the monitors, while Max set his mug on the desk and stepped next to Quinn, who was frozen while pointing her snout at the door, a rumble coming from her throat. “Anything on the monitors?”

  The MI6 agent peered at a grainy black-and-white screen showing the backyard where the fence intersected with the home’s brick wall. “Thought I saw something, but I get a lot of false positives on this thing. The cameras have motion sensors that are supposed to ignore small animals and branches blowing in the wind.”

  “Does she jump at every animal?”

  The only sound in the room was Quinn’s low growl. “Negative.”

  As the dog’s growl grew louder, Max shoved shells into the shotgun while Baxter watched the monitors. Seconds ticked by.

  Baxter leaned against the edge of the desk, his eyes roving from monitor to monitor. “You sure you came alone?”

  Max nodded once. “I took the usual pains to make sure I wasn’t followed.”

  When Quinn sat back on her haunches, her growl became a whine.

  “I just saw movement.” Baxter jabbed at a monitor. “Right corner of the main house.”

  Max put his hand on the doorknob. “I’m going out.” Gripping the Mossberg with two hands, Max slipped out of Baxter’s office. The foul weather had kicked up again, and snowflakes swirled in the air and melted into little spots of water as they hit his leather jacket. He ducked around the office walls where a line of young plum trees ran along the fence between the outbuilding and the main house, his feet sinking into the wet earth. He kept to the darkness between the trees and fence, the shotgun held up, cheek against the stock, his senses tuned. When he got to the end of the row of trees, he stopped, crouched, and waited. Aside from the waving branches, he saw nothing.

  Maybe the cameras picked up the moving trees.

  Across from where they thought they spotted movement, he hid in a stand of shrubbery. Rows of honeysuckle sat in stony silence devoid of their leaves. This part of the fence was lower to allow gated access to the side and front of the house. His eyes were accustomed to the cloudy gloom, and no shadows moved among the shrubbery.

  While avoiding the splash of light from Baxter’s office, he followed the vegetation to the gate. As he approached the stand of honeysuckle, he stopped and pulled a penlight from his pocket and shined it on the ground. His heart skipped a beat.

  Footprints.

  Small, with a thick heel.

  The gate was open a fraction of an inch. Max flicked off the light and gave his eyes a moment to adjust before prodding the gate open with his foot. Mossberg up, he walked along the side of the house.

  The ground here was gravel and devoid of vegetation, so he had no trouble picking up the footprints again in the sodden front yard. He followed them along a short hedge of conifer and out to the street, where they disappeared on the wet pavement.

  In this part of the city, the streets were narrow with one row of parking along either side, leaving barely enough room for a Mini Cooper to pass. The cars were all dark, and nothing stirred. He returned to Baxter’s office, reported what he learned, and leaned the gun against the desk.

  Baxter took the gun with a grunt. “I never leave that gate open. Can’t have Quinn wandering the streets.”

  Collapsing on the couch, Max accepted a cup of steaming coffee.

  “So, the deal?” Baxter stood, arms crossed.

  “Yes. We have a damn deal.”

  The MI6 agent chuckled. “And?”

  Max groaned. “And I need your damn help.”

  Eighteen

  Salzburg, Austria

  “Sir, your phone.”

  The giant calling himself Nikita Ivanov accepted the device from his assistant and barked into it. “Go.”

  He listened as he marched down the corridor. Outside, a bitter arctic freeze settled on the eastern side of the Alps enveloping the city in a layer of frost. Inside, the massive home was toasty thanks to a thermal heating system under the floors. Still, the mansion’s stained glass windows were rimmed with ice. He had many homes, including the castle in Germany and a sprawling estate in Greece, but this was his favorite.

  His wide network of spies and informants—ranging from old men who did nothing but tail people to young career-minded professionals at all levels of government and industry—were arranged in a reporting hierarchy with mid-level managers who collected the intel and
doled out payments and reported up to higher bosses. One of those higher bosses was on the other end of the call. “Sir, it’s just as you expected. Stepanov met with Spartak two weeks before the aborted gun deal. While we don’t know all of what was said, we do know Spartak expressed doubts about going ahead with the transaction. He suspected a trap, but Stepanov forced him to go ahead with it.” The caller added a few more details before hanging up.

  Ivanov tossed the phone back to his assistant without breaking his pace. His suspicions were confirmed—a group of men were conspired against him. A group of men on his council. Men he had trusted.

  A thumbprint scanner opened a set of double doors, and he left his assistant behind. A long corridor of stone, its walls decorated with neoclassical art works of heroic warriors and soft nudes, stretched in front of him. He pounded down the hallway, ignoring the art, and used his thumbprint to open another set of doors. After enduring more corridors, stairs, and security checkpoints, he marched into a room buried deep beneath his mansion.

  His team was already in place. Felix, his wiry bodyguard and jack-of-all-trades, sat nursing a mug of coffee. The wavy-haired Sophia, a disillusioned American from somewhere in Texas, was hunched over a computer working a mouse and speaking rapidly into a headset. Whiteboards around the room were covered in diagrams, schematics, and images, while three large monitors showed news feeds from around the world. These two were the only people he trusted to root out the conspiracy against him.

  He didn’t bother to sit, and his voice was a bark. “Where are we?”

  Sophia ended her call, tapped a few keys, and the picture of a man in a Russian army uniform appeared on a monitor. Broad shoulders but a sallow face with a hard look in his eyes. Endless rows of medals, tape stripes, ribbons, and insignia on his breast.

  She stood. “Ruslan Stepanov, head of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, known as GRU. Former standout Spetsnaz, now oversees the department with twenty thousand of the elite troops. Rumored to command a hundred retired Spetsnaz as his personal bodyguard unit.” A clicker advanced through dozens of images of Stepanov in various military uniforms, some showing him in suit and tie, a few catching him in social moments with a drink in his hand. Most images showed him shirtless and engaged in feats of strength, bare-fisted boxing bouts, and men striking his midriff with steel bars. “He once claimed that he’d retire if any current member of the Spetsnaz bested him in a physical contest. He’s still in office.”

  Ivanov grunted. “Keep going. I know all this.”

  Sophia advanced the slides until an organizational chart showed on the screen. “As number two on your petroleum council, Stepanov is next in line to the Chancellorship should you become…ahem…deceased.” A slide advanced to show a financial statement. “We know Stepanov’s personal finances are highly leveraged. He invested in a few deals that went south. For example, he underwrote Spartak’s recent failed gun sale, and his personal spending habits are atrocious. Cars, houses, jets for his personal use.”

  Felix chuckled. “Oligarch wannabe.”

  “He views his ascension to the chancellorship as a financial windfall,” Sophia said. “A way to get out of his current jam. He sees his peers building wealth while he flounders.”

  She advanced to another slide that showed Stepanov shaking hands with the current Russian president. “We’ve uncovered evidence that he’s providing intelligence on your council’s actions to the president in direct violation of the council’s bylaws. There isn’t anything that your council does that the president isn’t informed about.”

  “Stepanov is angling to be the next Russian president,” Felix said.

  Sophia nodded once. “That’s our assumption. The president isn’t getting any younger—he’s sixty-eight—and there will need to be a replacement soon.”

  Ivanov grunted again. This was a topic which he discussed many times with his superiors, although he wasn’t about to inform Sophia or Felix of that. “Besides his link to Spartak’s weapons trafficking, what evidence do we have of their conspiracy against me?”

  The muscles in Sophia’s normally stoic face tensed. “So far, nothing. Only conjecture and speculation.”

  “What about his links to other council members? I need to know what other council members are aligned with him and against me.”

  Sophia crossed her arms. “Nothing concrete yet, sir. Electronic chatter and surveillance reports indicate he has at least one other member on his side. We’re working on an identity.”

  Felix set his mug on the table and stood. “Let me at Stepanov. I’ll get it out of him.”

  Ivanov’s deep laugh filled the small room. “Soon, Felix.” He gestured for Felix to sit. “For now, we tread lightly. The operation with Asimov and Spartak went off just as we planned. I need evidence of Stepanov’s treachery before we take drastic action otherwise my people will be very upset. Keep on him. Trace the money. Get evidence.”

  “Yes, sir.” Felix dropped back into the chair.

  “Now what of Asimov’s movements? Any indication of Kate Shaw’s whereabouts?”

  Sophia shook her head. “So far, nothing. We lost him for three days. He showed up in London and met with MI6 twice. He traveled to Rome and met with Victor Dedov before eluding us again. We speculate he’s joining up with MI6.”

  “Makes sense, given the Brompton bomber thing.” Ivanov paced and rubbed his chin. That was an outcome I didn’t predict. “Do we know why he met with Dedov?”

  “Only a guess, sir. Maybe Asimov wants to know why Dedov was buying weapons from Spartak—”

  “I’d like to know that also.”

  “Right.” Sophia set the clicker on the table.” We believe Asimov arranged to sell the weapons to Dedov during the Rome meeting.”

  That brought Ivanov’s pacing to a halt. “Interesting. Why?”

  Sophia pursed her lips. “Unknown, sir.”

  Felix lifted his mug. “Perhaps to arm Dedov’s men who guard the castle in Switzerland where Asimov’s sister and nephew are holed up?”

  “Perhaps,” Ivanov pointed at them before leaving. “Okay, keep on it. Call me the minute you know something.”

  Nineteen

  Unknown Location

  They don’t look like locals, do they? The natives have brown skin, sweaty faces. These guys are white jarheads with coarse skin, square jaws, and muscles bulging through sweaty T-shirts. Dark beards laced with gray. Tattoos of bloody daggers and skulls. A gold chain. Leather holsters with secured pistols. That rules out a grab. Guess I’ll lie here and see what they do.

  Pain radiated to her spine as two of them grabbed her bare arms, lifted her like a doll, and propelled her through the door and down the hall, her bare toes dragging on the dirty tile. She fell into a wooden chair caked with feces and blood where her arms were secured with hard leather straps.

  Some of that blood is mine, isn’t it? All of it, I guess. That chair was clean when I got here. When was that? Can someone please wipe the mucus off my chin?

  Two of the men filed from the room. Two others remained by the door.

  I have to pee. What’s taking so long? A wet warmth appeared on her bare legs. Great, guess I’ll just pee here. As good as anywhere. Her gaze grew hazy and her head became difficult to hold upright so she let it loll to the side. That’s better.

  She lost all concept of time until blurry humanoid forms filled the room, lurching, shuffling, crawling. What was that children’s book Andrea used to read to me? About the wild things? Yes, that’s them. A giggle sounded in the room. Whoops, was that me?

  Hunger gnawed at her stomach, which she ignored. Easier to be weak than to eat.

  Long ago she fought them. Clawing, biting, kicking. Guttural screams. Tears. Yelling. Begging. That was before the beatings. Before the drugs. Before the hunger strike. Now she couldn’t make her muscles work, and oddly she felt no emotions. Just a dull haze. So she rocked back and forth, held up by the leather straps, waiting for what, she didn’t know.

&n
bsp; I held out, that’s for sure. That’s for damn sure. Just like they taught me. But shit babe, that pain. It didn’t end. At some point, I didn’t care. I stopped caring. It wasn’t worth it, so I told them. So why am I still here? When does it end? The end has to be better than this.

  Sounds came from the blobs. More questions. Those damn questions. Fuck the questions, the never ending questions. Where is Mikhail Asimov? Who is Nikita Ivanov? Where is Spencer White? What is the Komissariat for the Preservation of State?

  I don’t know, damn it. If I knew, I’d tell you. There’s nothing left, don’t you know that? Idiots.

  A fuzzy white blob materialized in front of her. A prick on her arm, near a set of veins that were peppered with needle marks, and a surge of euphoria flooded her mind, followed by a moment of clarity.

  Aah.

  The room crystalized, and the white blob became the fat man. His white lab coat was stretched over a massive girth. Beady eyes peered into her eyes with a penlight. “Welcome back, dearie.”

  Latin accent. High pitched for his girth. That kind of weight can’t be healthy, can it?

  A video camera stood on a tripod in front of her with a blinking red light. The two guards remained near the door, their arms crossed. The doctor, as she called him, took a step back. A hypodermic needle clinked as he set it on a silver tray.

  The doctor’s words were slowly enunciated. “You know the drill by now. Tell me where we can find Mikhail Asimov. Or maybe you know him better by the name you gave him, Max Austin.”

  What is he saying?

  The doctor bent so his face was directly in front of hers. “Aw, dearie, you don’t want to disappoint me, do you? How about Spencer White? Tell me where he is.”

  What’s a spencer white?

  The fat man mopped his brow with a dingy handkerchief before retrieving another hypodermic needle and filling it with a clear liquid from a vial. “Why do you persist, my dear?” His big gray teeth flashed. “Such a lovely gal. If you’ll only tell us what we want to know, we’ll set you free. Give you some food, let you clean up, take a rest. Now tell me. Who is Nikita Ivanov? What is his real name? What is the Komissariat for the Preservation of State? We know you know. All you have to do is tell us and all will be forgiven.”