by Will Jordan
Hurriedly stripping off her wet and mud-stained BDUs, Anya glanced at herself in the mirror, frowning at the gash that had been torn along her right hip during her encounter with Drake. It had happened as he’d slashed at her with her own knife, the blade cleaving through the fabric and the skin beneath. She had avoided the worst of it, but the mere fact that he’d been able to hurt her had stung her pride. Perhaps that was why she had retaliated with such ferocity.
She’d barely noticed the injury at the time, having long ago learned to push past such minor discomforts, but the blood was going to be a problem now if she expected to get inside without arousing suspicion.
Fortunately she had a solution.
Using a couple of paper towels to clean off the worst of the blood, she reached into her bag and retrieved a roll of duct tape, tore off a length and pressed it against the cut. Removing it wasn’t going to be fun, but that was something she could deal with later. Right now it was enough to stop the bleeding.
She donned the smart office clothes as quickly as she could manage, tucking in the blouse and pulling the jacket over her shoulders. The shoes went on next; their impractical design uncomfortable and almost unfamiliar to her after years of wearing military boots.
Next she ran a comb through her hair. It was still damp and dishevelled after her flight through the woods, but a wall-mounted hand drier took care of that. A touch of hairspray was enough to hold it in the kind of neat, efficient style that she had seen other female FSB agents in this building wearing.
She was grateful that she was still wearing her hair short. The last thing she needed was for it to come loose and get in her eyes at a crucial moment. She’d made that mistake once before and it had almost cost her life.
The last task was the least pleasant of all. Leaning over the sink, she surveyed her reflection as she hastily applied foundation make-up and a neutral, understated lipstick. She’d always hated make-up, the pointless frivolity of its application and laborious removal, but at times like this there was no option if she wanted to blend in.
On second thoughts, she undid another button on her blouse and tightened the straps of her bra to push her breasts a little higher, revealing enough cleavage to elicit a favourable reaction from any male agent she passed. It went against her instincts to use sexuality to her advantage, but there was no denying its effectiveness in a largely male-dominated profession.
Anyway, she had paid a high enough price over the years for the simple fact of being born a woman; she saw no harm in reaping some rewards now.
Last out of the bag was something she was infinitely more comfortable with – her silenced Colt M1911 automatic. She had been using that reliable old sidearm since the very start of her career as a paramilitary operative, and in her opinion it was still one of the best handguns ever produced. It had never let her down.
She raised the automatic, checking that the magazine was firmly locked in place and the safety catch engaged. The M1911 was a single-action weapon with a manual safety, allowing it to be carried ‘cocked and locked’, meaning there was a round chambered and the hammer was drawn back.
Satisfied that all was well, she holstered the Colt inside her jacket, adjusting her posture a little to compensate for the extra weight of the weapon plus the bulky silencer.
She stretched, arching her back and raising her arms above her head. The joints popped as her muscles strained against them, but she felt better for doing it. Aches and pains that she hadn’t noticed before were beginning to nag her, and she could guess why. Her body had taken a lot of punishment over the course of her long career, and at last the years were starting to catch up with her.
You’re getting old, she thought with a wry smile as she clenched and unclenched her right hand. The hard, compact muscles in her arm bunched and contracted with the movement.
She wasn’t frightened or apprehensive – she’d been doing things like this for too long to feel such emotions now – but she did feel a certain sense of anticipation. A heightened awareness, a rush of chemicals to her brain as her body readied itself once more for the primal battle of survival.
She looked at her watch again. Almost time.
Stuffing her wet, mud-stained BDUs into the canvas bag and locking it inside one of the stalls, Anya checked her appearance in the mirror one more time, remembering to pin her ID badge to the breast pocket of her jacket.
All things considered, she felt she was good enough to pass muster.
She would find out soon enough, she thought as she removed the wedge from the door and stepped out into the corridor beyond.
Chapter 40
Seated behind his expensive desk, Ivan Masalsky leaned back from his computer and stretched, rubbing the stiff muscles in his neck. Being the head of FSB operations in Chechnya was a demanding job at the best of times, and it had become even more difficult in the wake of the attack in America. Rather than sympathy, the killing of several FSB officers on a peaceful mission to a foreign country had instead stirred up potent anti-Russian sentiments amongst the Chechen population.
He should have left his office hours ago, but circumstances now found him working late into the evening trying to deal with the aftermath of the ill-conceived raid on Glazov’s farm.
He was going to have some serious words with everyone involved when they returned, beginning with Miranova exceeding her authority and hopefully ending with Drake and his companion on the next flight back to Langley.
He glanced at his coffee cup. Barely half an inch of dark sludge remained in the bottom, and that was long cold. Reaching for the intercom beside it, he buzzed through to his personal secretary in the outer office: a beautiful young woman named Katarina whom he’d selected for this job by hand, as it were.
Her crisp, efficient voice answered straight away. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Have some fresh coffee brought in, would you?’
No way was he taking on such a confrontation until his brain was firing on all cylinders again. And if nothing else, it was an excuse to watch Katarina enter and leave the room. Truly the woman had the finest ass he’d ever seen. He wasn’t ashamed to look at it, and he got the impression she knew full well what he was doing.
What the hell. He was old, but not that old.
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Thank you.’
With that pleasant prospect buoying his mood a little, he turned his attention back to the computer and the stack of orders waiting for his sign-off. He was just moving his mouse to open another email when suddenly his world turned upside down.
A bright lightning flash from outside was followed an instant later by an earth-shattering boom that blew out all the windows in his office and threw him to the floor like a rag doll.
The explosion was louder and more powerful than Anya had expected. The floor beneath her feet shook visibly, streams of dust and pieces of ceiling plaster fell down around her, and a moment or two later the lights flickered and went out.
She had tried to park her 4x4 far enough away from the office complex to avoid major structural damage when the 300 pounds of industrial explosive hidden inside detonated, but it had to be close enough to cause sufficient chaos for her plan to succeed. On reflection, perhaps another 20 yards might have been advisable.
Still, it was done now. The rest was up to her.
The thunderous detonation had been followed by a few seconds of stunned silence as the analysts, support staff, planners, intelligence experts and soldiers throughout the compound tried to process what had just happened. People are slow to react to things they don’t expect, particularly when that thing happens to be a car bomb that’s just destroyed a good portion of their security perimeter and blown out every window within half a mile.
Moving with swift, confident strides, she hurried down the corridor and into the stairwell leading up to the third floor, her heels clicking on the hard concrete steps. It was far from an easy climb in her uncomfortable new shoes, but it was the only way – the elevators
would likely have shut down already.
Anya had made it up the second flight of steps before the first alarm started blaring.
Masalsky’s ears were ringing, his head throbbing from the explosion that had just engulfed the building. He could feel the warm wetness of blood on his cheek, neck and arms where slivers of glass had peppered one side of his body, shredding clothes and skin. None of the injuries seemed to be life-threatening, and he was too dazed to feel much pain yet.
The air was thick with dust and smoke, stinging his eyes and throat. Coughing and retching, he managed to push himself up from the floor and staggered over to the window.
In the open area below, chaos reigned.
Some kind of explosive had detonated near the outer wall, obliterating a large section of it and leaving behind a smoking crater the size of a bus. Nearby vehicles had been turned over and hurled aside by the force of the blast, and God only knew how many people had been killed. A pall of smoke hung over the entire area.
And then faintly as if from a great distance, Masalsky heard the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons fire. Hardly able to comprehend, he squinted through the smoke in search of the source. And sure enough, he spotted muzzle flares lighting up the murky gloom below.
This was no random car-bomb attack, he realised in a moment of gut-wrenching panic. It was a coordinated strike, using the blast to breach the outer defences and allowing an armed strike team to storm the compound.
He had to do something. Turning away from the window, he lurched and staggered across the remains of his office, his sense of balance destroyed as surely as the perimeter wall outside.
Emerging into the smaller secretarial office beyond, he looked around for Katarina. A soft moaning directed his attention left, where the young woman was curled up in the corner, a bloodied hand pressed against one side of her face.
She certainly wouldn’t be called beautiful after today, he realised with a lingering sense of revulsion. A shrapnel fragment had opened up her face from chin to ear, peeling back skin and muscle to reveal the obscene whiteness of bone beneath.
He could do nothing for her, just as she could do nothing for him. Abandoning the injured woman, he stumbled through the debris of her office and into the corridor beyond. He didn’t even know where he intended to go or what he would do when he got there; only that he couldn’t just sit here and wait for armed gunmen to fight their way up to him. There was no telling how many there were, or what their ultimate goal was.
He had barely managed to wrench the door open when a female agent came running towards him, emerging like a wraith out of the smoke. Unlike him, she seemed to have escaped injury. Perhaps she’d been on the other side of the building when the bomb went off.
She was saying something, but with his ears still ringing from the blast he was unable to discern the words.
‘Speak up!’ he growled, one hand pressed against a cut at his neck.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ she repeated, practically yelling right in his face.
‘Of course I’m not fucking all right! What the hell is going on out there?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, sir,’ she admitted. ‘The radio net’s down. But we have to get you to the shelter.’
Like any field station, the FSB compound in Chechnya had its own secure panic room in the very core of the building, built for senior executives to take shelter in during emergencies. With reinforced walls, armoured doors and its own air and electrical supply, it was as close to impregnable as any room could be.
‘Sir, do you hear me?’ she asked. ‘We have to go now!’
Masalsky thought about Katarina and what would happen to her if the insurgents managed to fight their way up here. For a moment he actually considered sending the agent in to get her, but the boom of a grenade explosion outside was enough to forestall such thoughts.
Masalsky nodded grimly. ‘Fine. Let’s go.’
With the female agent leading the way, they hurried down the corridor, their eyes watering as smoke from various small fires began to fill the air.
Halting beside the elevator, Masalsky hit the call button.
‘Forget it, sir,’ she called out, physically dragging him away from it. ‘The power’s out. They won’t be running.’
He frowned as she led him onwards, throwing open a door to the stairwell. It was lit only by the dull red glow of emergency lighting. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sherkova,’ she replied over her shoulder. ‘Anya Sherkova.’
Masalsky shook his head as he hurried to follow her down the stairs. ‘I don’t know you.’
‘I only transferred in three days ago, sir. Makes my last posting seem quite dull.’
He was starting to wish he had more people like her. Despite the chaos around her, Sherkova thought and acted with clear, logical decisiveness. It was almost as if she wasn’t even fazed by what had happened …
No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than she stopped, watching as the door at the bottom of the stairwell flew open and two agents hurried through. Both male, both in their forties, and both clutching automatics. Masalsky recognised them as agents from the base’s protective services division, and felt a surge of relief at their arrival.
Anya, however, was harbouring very different thoughts.
These two men represented a serious obstacle that had to be overcome quickly if she expected to get out of here alive. Still dazed and confused by the blast, they hesitated on seeing her, their weapons drawn but not pointed. They were trying to work out whether she was a friend or foe.
‘I’m taking Director Masalsky to the shelter,’ she said, drawing on as much authority as she possessed. She pointed back up the way she had come. ‘But there are a lot of casualties upstairs that need your help.’
The one on the left, probably the more senior of the two, shook his head. ‘The director’s our responsibility. We’ll take it from here,’ he said as he tried to shove his way past her.
It was a fatal lapse of judgement. Just as he moved by, her right arm lashed out, striking him squarely in the throat. There are few more vulnerable places in the human body; a single good strike to the throat with either a blunt object or a fist can drop even the most hardened operative like a stone.
This man was no different. Temporarily stunned and unable to breathe, he let out a sharp grunt of pain and fell to his knees, choking and gasping. The weapon fell from his grasp, clattering to the concrete floor.
She wasn’t going to give him time to recover. A knee to the face sent him sprawling at the foot of the stairs, his glazed eyes and limp body confirming that it would be several minutes at least before he recovered enough to pose any threat.
Such was the speed and ferocity of her attack, his comrade was only now starting to process what he’d just witnessed. Without breaking stride, Anya drew the M1911 from her suit jacket, took aim at the second agent and squeezed off a single round. There was a loud thud as the round discharged. Even with a silencer, the .45 made a lot of noise in the confined space of the stairwell.
The thud was followed a heartbeat later by a soft wet crunch as the round obliterated his skull, along with the fragile organ it was supposed to protect. He went down, leaving a splatter of blood on the concrete wall behind.
She allowed herself but a fleeting moment of regret for what she’d just done. He had died out of necessity, not desire. But it couldn’t be helped, just as she couldn’t allow emotions like that to intrude on her thoughts. If they did, she was as good as dead.
Masalsky stared at the scene before him in blank shock, as if failing to understand what had just happened. Then, a moment later, survival took over.
In panic he turned and tried to flee back up the stairs, thinking to take refuge in one of the offices up there. It was a vain hope, and quickly dashed.
He hadn’t managed to stumble more than a few feet before he felt something sharp fired into his back. There was a click, and suddenly white-hot pain filled every part of
his body. His legs gave way beneath him and he collapsed to the floor, convulsing as thousands of volts surged through his nervous system.
When it stopped at last, he was barely conscious, unable to move. He looked up through bleary eyes and saw Anya throw aside the taser she had used to incapacitate him; then his vision swam and he blacked out.
Anya holstered her pistol and knelt down beside the unconscious man. With Masalsky down and the two FSB agents neutralised, now came the hard part – getting him out of the compound without being killed in the process.
If everything had been prepared as expected, there would be a vehicle waiting for her downstairs. All she had to do was get Masalsky down there and into it, which was easier said than done. Carrying an unconscious man weighing upwards of 170 pounds was a daunting task even for her.
She kicked off her shoes, knowing they would do her no favours now, and took a few deep breaths to prepare herself. Doing her best to distribute his weight across her shoulders, she heaved him on to her back, took a deep breath and forced herself up from the floor. Her muscles burned with the effort but somehow she managed to pick her way between the two fallen agents and through the stairwell access.
She emerged into the ground-floor corridor in time to see an overweight man stagger past clutching a bloody wound on the side of his head. He didn’t even glance at her as he passed, intent only on helping himself. That suited her just fine.
Anya knew there was a fire escape about halfway along the corridor that opened out into a small parking lot sandwiched between two wings of the office complex. Breathing hard and with a sheen of sweat coating her brow, she forced herself onwards with the heavy bulk of Masalsky pressing down on her with each step.
The door was already standing ajar when she reached it, apparently having been used already. With her strength waning she staggered through into the cold, smoke-filled world beyond.
As she’d hoped, this side of the building was largely untouched by the blast, as were the half-dozen cars in the small parking lot.
