by Jeff Abbott
Irina felt a thrill of victory. Judge and Sam had made the mistakes she needed them to make. Now on a private road, away from public view, she could deal with them and write the history of the past few days as she saw fit. And she would survive.
They opened careful fire, the back of the Mercedes windshield shattering, bullet marks pocking the trunk. The Mercedes fishtailed, spun, accelerated but stayed on the road. Both sides of the road were covered in thick pine forests, with only infrequent gaps.
“That is not a border patrol chopper; that is Irina,” Danny said. “Open your door a crack and be ready to run. We’re abandoning the car. They can’t see us in the forest.”
“They can reach the weather station before we do.”
“We risk it.” He shoved the keys for the hidden tunnel into Sam’s hands. “Hold these for me. Go across if I don’t make it.”
“I’m not leaving…”
“Shut up.”
Sam cracked the door open. Danny did the same.
“On your mark…”
Danny sluiced the car under the cover of the pines. Sam opened his door wider and Danny shoved him hard. “Run for it! Get to the station!” And he shoved Sam out the passenger side, Sam tumbling in the dirt.
And then the Mercedes roared back out onto the road, a target, U-turning and heading back the way they’d come.
Leading the chopper away.
“Danny! No!” Sam yelled. Tricked, he thought; he tricked me.
Through the pines he could see the agile little helicopter make its sharp turn, following the damaged Mercedes.
Sam had a knife in a leg holster he’d taken from the trunk before, a Makarov pistol, and…the polonium, in the eyedrops bottle. Still in his pocket.
Think.
“Don’t let him get back on the main road!” Irina ordered. The helicopter chased the Mercedes, hunting a gap in the forest cover.
“There! Drop!” The chopper dipped down, dropping behind the car, opening fire on its tires. They shredded and the Mercedes spun out, stopping sideways on the road.
Danny scrambled out the opposite side, opening fire with a VKS Vykhlop large-caliber silenced sniper rifle, firing 54-millimeter special subsonic ammunition. The bullets were STs-130VPS armor-piercing rounds.
The chopper dropped to the road so the two operatives could chase Danny on foot.
Danny aimed the Vykhlop at the copter’s rotors. The little special-ops choppers were agile but vulnerable.
The two security operatives jumped from the helicopter, advancing on the car, making careful shots, keeping him covered. The chopper rose and roared over him, nearly sideways, and Danny made the shots of his life, two bullets hitting the rotor assembly, shredding through the metal, and the chopper spun.
Irina saw Danny’s face in a blur as the chopper shot past and she screamed in fury.
He fired again at the back rotor, destroying it. And then the rifle jammed. In rage, he threw it aside and drew a pistol from a holster on his hip.
The pilot brought it down into the pines in a controlled spiral, Irina bracing herself for impact. Then they were down, jarringly hard, but level. Irina jumped from the chopper moments after it hit the ground, drawing her pistol, running toward the side of the car where Danny was pinned. She took cover behind a thick tree trunk.
“Lay your weapon down and surrender, or you die.”
He was caught between her and the two security operatives. He stared at her for a long moment and then, taking his time, he threw out his pistol, which clattered in the dirt.
“Hands up!” she ordered. He obeyed.
She looked in the Mercedes. Sam wasn’t in the sedan. “Where is Sam?”
“He slowed me down,” Danny said. “I killed him.”
“I don’t believe you,” Irina said. “Get him up. Bind his hands.”
She sent the two operatives into the woods, searching for Sam. The pilot’s leg was slightly injured and he wanted to radio for help, but she said no. He limped along beside her, Danny in front of them, hands zip-tied, bleeding from a cut from the shattered glass of the car.
The two operatives vanished into the woods, armed with assault rifles.
“I think Sam got out of that car,” Irina said.
“He wouldn’t have had time.”
“You didn’t know we would be here.”
“I had my suspicions.”
“I don’t think Sam would leave you. He’s shockingly soft-hearted.”
“Don’t think that when he puts a bullet in you, Irina. Which he will.” He thought, My only hope is to get her to walk into whatever trap Sam is laying for her.
“Where is he?”
“I guess you need us both dead so you can accuse us both of making an attempt on the president’s life?”
She glanced at the pilot, who showed no reaction to Danny’s statement. “You are a remarkable liar,” she said. “Accusing me when I am the one capturing you.” She was still miked up to her team. “Report.”
Both replied there was no sign of Sam.
“He must’ve run for the weather station. Really no reason for you to come all this way and then veer away from it, to engage us. You were buying him time.”
“He’s not with me. If he was I would have gotten him closer to the tunnel and then made my stand,” Danny said.
“Sam!” she yelled into the woods. “Come out and we can make a deal. Otherwise your partner dies.”
“This is Burundi,” he said, and she had no idea what he meant. “Just in reverse.”
Sam waited in the quiet of a slight depression in the forest floor, quickly covered in dirt and leaves, and when the operative came by Sam jumped up and tackled the man. He clamped a hand over his mouth and slashed his throat. Special Projects had taught him this silent killing in fieldwork and for one second his stomach pitched at what he had done. But this was war, and he took the earbud off the dead man and put it in. Then he dragged the body into the slight depression in the earth he had used. He took the man’s weapons. He had no idea what voice procedure Irina’s team used in their signals. He needed to find the other operative and the pilot—he had no idea how many might be in pursuit of him, but he knew that model of chopper didn’t carry more than four. He had no idea if she had summoned a team to the weather station.
But he wasn’t going to Finland without Danny.
“One, two, report,” Irina said.
“One, clear,” the first man replied, and it was echoed a few moments later by the second man, panting slightly. “Two, clear.”
“You know why she only brought three of you?” Danny said to the pilot. “Containment. She can’t have the world knowing she tried to kill Morozov. So she’ll either pay you very well or she’ll kill you. Or you’ll kill her, if you’re smart. You have a gun—shoot her. That’s my advice. I’m dead anyway, so what does it matter to me?”
“The lies of a desperate man,” Irina said.
“Ask yourself: If you’re chasing two men who have tried to assassinate a president, do you only send four people?” Danny laughed.
The pilot said nothing—didn’t reach for his gun—but he glanced at Irina.
“Sam!” she yelled again. “Come out, now.” She stepped forward and held up a knife. “Or I start cutting pieces of him off! Do you hear me?”
His voice was steady, utterly calm. She wondered if this quality of his was why Sergei had made him into his secret weapon. “Sergei slept with a lot of other women. And he would tell me things about you. Annoying habits. Times he wished he’d stayed single.”
“Shut up,” she said. She decided as soon as they were at the weather station she would shoot Philip Judge in the knee. She didn’t want to bother dragging him through the woods.
Sam didn’t hear her clearly as the mike wasn’t active when she yelled her ultimatum. He was too far distant, but he heard a garbled cry. Irina had made a simple mistake in asking both operatives to respond, which told Sam there were only two and he’d killed one. He wasn
’t sure if there was a pilot or not; he thought there must be but the helicopter had gone down: He’d heard the slash of the rotors smashing into the trees. His brother had managed to bring down a chopper. Three remaining hostiles, and Danny. If Danny was still alive.
“Target acquired,” he said in Russian, “fifty meters off weather station. Running northeast from the road.” And he let fly two shots and waited.
The second operative appeared on his left and Sam shot carefully, with the AS Val. Its integrated suppressor kept the noise down. He did the pattern shot he’d been taught at the agency, head, head, chest. The man dropped.
“Target acquired,” she heard reported in the mike, and then shots.
She glanced at Danny. “I think they’ve killed your sidekick.”
And she shot the pilot in the head. He fell.
“That’s your fault, with your stupid accusations,” she said. She shoved the gun in Danny’s back and pushed him toward the sound of gunfire.
Danny said nothing. And then the flutter began in his brain. He’d shuttered the red eye back at the Mercedes because they would have killed him if he kept fighting. And he wanted to live. He wanted time again with his brother, the only person who’d understood him. He wanted life again, a life without secrets. He had thought he did not care, that it did not matter, but now it did.
The imaginary red eye in his brain opened.
“Irina.” Sam’s voice came into her earbud. “Your men are dead. I’ve killed them both. And I’ll make a trade with you.”
“What?”
“The eyedrops you took off Judge aren’t the poisoned ones. I have the polonium. Judge never poisoned Morozov. You bring me Philip Judge and I’ll give you the polonium.”
And if he was telling the truth? Then she could kill Morozov later. If he was lying, she would kill them both. All she needed was the two of them dead, with the poison. Fine. “Where are you, Sam? I’ll be happy to trade you.”
“Come to the weather station. To the tunnel.”
Irina ran through the woods, and the assassin did not try to slow her down. Now, now, she would have the end of the story she needed. The CIA agent, Sergei’s killer, a poison that could only come from a government facility—and Morozov, finally dead, with the CIA clearly responsible for it. Her long game had paid off.
She ran toward the weather station, pushing the bound assassin ahead of her.
Sam reached the weather station. No sign of life. The door was locked. He used one of the keys to open it. If this was a bolt-hole then he thought there might be something helpful inside: a phone, a laptop, another clip of ammunition. What was here? A bare desk, a computer, meteorological equipment, a bookshelf. A bathroom. Spray cleaners, toilet paper.
Where was the tunnel? The bookshelf. He yanked on its side and it pulled away from the wall, revealing a steel door. He opened it with the other key and pushed the door open. Dim, eerie lights flickered in the darkness, offering patches of light and longer stretches of darkness. He couldn’t see its end.
The moment they were in the tunnel, she thought, she would kill them both. They would be trapped, exposed, on the long stretch. She could fill the tunnel with gunfire. The Russian government would say the CIA knew about the tunnel, maybe even through Katya’s treachery. And the polonium, if its container broke when she shot Sam full of bullets, could be contained in the tunnel safely. Two American assassins, radioactive with the same poison that had killed the president—it was like a gift.
“Irina?” Sam’s voice called to her from the open tunnel. She positioned Judge in front of her.
“Yes, Sam?”
“Why was Anton Varro writing you a letter about your husband?”
The question startled her, turned a knife in her heart. “What?”
“The letter I found on Anton’s body. I think it was for you. He writes you about what your husband is doing—perhaps telling you he’s taken prisoners that he shouldn’t, warning you of the consequences, so you’re ready. On fine French stationery that Morozov gives as a gift. He was spying on your husband for you, wasn’t he? Did you ask him to? Did you win him over the way you won me?”
“Shut up,” she said.
“Anton wrote about the brothers, and I didn’t realize at first that he meant the Morozovs.”
She was silent.
“I asked myself, in the middle of a very dangerous stretch of Afghanistan, the son of a billionaire with him, running drugs to fund illegal operations the Morozovs don’t want traced, and he pits Anton against a defiant prisoner. He lets Anton die. He recruits that prisoner to be a private weapon that only he knows. Why does he do those things? Because he knew you and Anton were spying on him. His own wife.”
“That’s not true.”
“He covered up the truth about Anton’s death. And we have the letter he wrote,” Sam said. “Betray us and it will be published in the States. If he knew Anton was spying on him for you and died for doing so, then I think the Varros will react badly. I think the other families will abandon you.” A bluff—the letter didn’t hold enough specifics to hurt her. But she didn’t know that.
“I only have your word this letter exists.”
“But you know he wrote it. Because he was writing you. How else do I know about the Cartier stationery he used?”
A hammer hit her gut. “I…”
“That very expensive stationery that Morozov gives all his friends’ kids. Found in a grave with a body that a DNA test will confirm to be Anton Varro and a dead CIA agent. I wonder what the world will think of Morozov then,” Sam said.
Irina was silent.
Sam’s voice softened. “Irina. Come with us. You can’t stay in Russia. They’ll kill you. Morozov isn’t poisoned. I replaced the polonium with water. He isn’t going to die.”
“You’re lying. You’re lying.”
“He’s not,” Judge said to her. “Come with us. I think the CIA will happily give you asylum.”
“I’ll trade you your partner for the polonium. That’s my only offer,” she said. She felt a stark hatred for this young man. It was the only way to draw him out. She needed them both dead now.
“Fine,” Sam said. “Send in my…partner.”
She shoved the bound Danny forward, keeping the gun locked on his head, into the doorway leading to the tunnel. It was a dimly lit black pit. Thin light flickered from a few bulbs down the tunnel. She saw in the uncertain glow Sam had his own gun aimed at her.
“Set the polonium down,” she said. She wondered if she could shatter the container with a bullet while he held it. That would kill him and make his body radioactive.
“Let him go. He walks into the tunnel, and then I set it down for you,” Sam said.
“All right,” Irina said.
“Come on, Danny,” Sam said.
Danny didn’t move.
Danny, Irina thought. His real name. I never knew his real name.
“Come on, now. I know what I’m doing,” Sam said.
Danny gave Irina a final glare and moved down the stairs into the darkness.
“Now the poison,” Irina said.
“I’m going to put it on the steps at the end of the tunnel, on the Finland side, as we leave.”
“No. Here.”
“No, you might come after us. I don’t think you’ll risk exposure to it if I take it with us until we’re safe on the other side.”
“You’ve killed all my men.”
“Good reason for you to come after us.”
They heard the sound of a helicopter. Sam thought, She’s got reinforcements coming. But the sound was to the west—Finland, very close. Close enough to be the end of the tunnel. Seaforth, maybe? Figuring out where he had gone, tracking the inner circle properties along the border. He’d given him enough information to make a serious attempt before the phone died.
“Put it down now,” she said. The arrival noise of the helicopter seemed to unhinge her, as if she knew their escape was close at hand, and everything she’d
done was ruined.
She needed it in his hand. If it was in his hand she could destroy it and him; then she would be free.
“No. At the end of the tunnel. We shut the door on the Finland side; you take it and go back to Russia. Try again to kill Morozov, if you like.”
“You could cheat me.”
“I won’t. I just want him. Irina, I’ll give you my word I won’t cheat you.”
“Then show it to me,” Irina said. “Prove you have it.”
“All right,” Sam said. “All right.” Slowly he pulled the eyedrops bottle from his jacket pocket.
Her gun was aimed at the back of Danny’s head as he moved forward. Then he stopped.
“Hold the bottle up,” she said. “I can’t see it.”
Sam did and the moment he raised his left arm she fired. The bullet tore through his forearm and he dropped it. He went to one knee, aimed past Danny, and returned fire. He shot her in the leg as he fell.
She went down to one knee, screaming, but aiming again. Danny reversed course and barreled into her, before she could shoot at Sam or the polonium bottle again. Her gun sputtered as it fired into Danny. He wrenched away from her, pulling the gun from her grip.
“You shot Sam,” he said. “You shot him.” He seemed to not realize he’d been shot himself. Blood burst from his mouth.
“Danny, don’t!” Sam said, from the floor. They fought for the gun and Danny fired another shot into her, into her thigh. She screamed.
“Run,” he simply said again, leveling the gun at her head.
Irina turned and staggered, the blood pouring from her leg in sharp pulses, staggering up the stairs.
