by Will Jordan
Her eyes flicked from car to car until she found the one she wanted. It was a GAZ-2330 ‘Tigr’, the Russian military’s standard multipurpose all-terrain vehicle, and one which also saw heavy use by the FSB.
Ignoring the scattered groups of injured and shell-shocked office workers who were milling around trying to decide what to do next, Anya staggered over to the Tigr and felt beneath the driver’s side wheel arch. Sure enough, a key had been secured there.
In short order she had unlocked the rear door and heaved Masalsky inside, unconcerned about how rough she was being with him. He’d live. For now, at least.
Pausing only to secure his hands behind his back with a pair of plastic cable ties, she returned to the driver’s cab and leapt up into the seat. With his weight no longer on her shoulders, she felt light as a feather despite the burning pain in her muscles.
The engine fired up first time, and Anya wasted no time pulling out of the parking lot, having to honk the horn to get a couple of stunned-looking men in bloodstained suits to move aside.
Rounding the main building, she headed straight for the vehicle checkpoint, not bothering to slow down as she approached. No way was she giving anyone time to start thinking and questioning the situation. She spotted the two soldiers cowering behind the concrete blocks that formed part of the guard position, saw one of them scramble to raise the barrier to make way for her.
These men were concerned only with stopping enemies getting in, not hindering the passage of FSB vehicles trying to get out. For all they knew, the armoured Tigr might have been part of a counter-attack to drive the enemy back.
She caught Yerzov’s eye as she roared through the checkpoint, saw the fleeting look of recognition and dawning comprehension on his face, and then in a flash he was gone. The compound, the checkpoint, the firefight – it was all behind her now.
Allowing herself to experience a fleeting moment of elation, she reached for the cellphone in her pocket and dialled Atayev’s number while fighting to keep the big vehicle steady as it rumbled through potholes and patches of mud.
‘I’m clear,’ she said as soon as the ringing stopped.
‘Do you have him?’ She could hear the anticipation, the anxiety in Atayev’s voice.
She glanced in her rear-view mirror at the unconscious man bumping around in the cargo area. He was a mess, and he would undoubtedly be far from his best when he regained consciousness, but he was alive. That was their agreement.
‘I do.’
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the roar of her engine and wind whistling past the windows. But Anya could have sworn she heard a faint exhalation of breath over her radio.
‘Good,’ Atayev said at last. ‘Get yourself to the rendezvous. We’ll be waiting for you.’
As the phone clicked off, Anya turned hard left on to the main drag. The road surface was a little smoother now, and she pressed down harder on the gas pedal, eager to put as much distance as possible between herself and the FSB compound.
The diversionary attack mounted by the rest of Atayev’s group would have been called off by now, the gunmen retreating under cover of smoke and darkness before the FSB could organise a counter-attack and bring in air assets. As some semblance of order was restored, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out their director of operations was missing.
That, however, was Atayev’s problem. She had fulfilled her end of the bargain, for now at least. There would be more work for her before this was over.
Chapter 41
Once again Drake found himself in the 4x4 as it bumped and jolted its way through the darkened forests of Chechnya. They had departed the farm compound less than ten minutes ago, leaving behind a newly arrived security team to police up the site.
Forensics experts would comb through the rubble once the fire had burned down, though Drake doubted they would find anything of value. Anya, true to form, had been thorough in her efforts to wipe out any evidence that could compromise her.
His thoughts were interrupted as Miranova took an incoming phone call. The expression on her face soon made it obvious that something was seriously wrong.
Straight away Drake felt his stomach knot.
‘Something up?’ Mason asked, picking up on her change in demeanour.
‘Be quiet!’ she snapped, annoyed by the interruption. She was silent for another few seconds as she digested the remainder of the message. ‘There has been another attack. Our field station in Grozny has been hit.’
‘How bad is it?’ Drake asked, bracing himself for the worst.
She shook her head slowly. ‘We are still getting reports from the scene, but it looks like a car bomb followed by an armed assault. The explosion was powerful enough to breach the outer wall and destroy most of the office complex.’
‘The kind of blast you’d expect from three hundred pounds of industrial explosive?’ Mason suggested, his expression grim.
Miranova glanced at him but said nothing.
‘I’m sorry, Anika,’ Drake said, not knowing what else to say at that moment. She could never know how much he meant those words.
He couldn’t understand it. The attack in DC had been a surgical strike intended to achieve a single goal – the capture and execution of Anton Demochev. The deaths of a few FSB agents who’d stood in the way had been a matter of necessity.
This car-bomb attack was a hammer blow in comparison, crude and unsophisticated. Surely there had to be more to it than simple mass carnage?
Drake was about to speak up when suddenly Miranova’s radio headset crackled into life again. It was impossible to know what was being said, but the look in her eyes told its own story. If possible, she looked even worse when the transmission at last ended.
‘What is it?’ Drake asked, unable to stop himself. ‘What’s happened?’
She closed her eyes and slowly exhaled, marshalling her emotions before responding. ‘Ivan Masalsky is missing.’
Chapter 42
Afghanistan, 7 October 1988
It happened for the first time about two weeks after her capture. The beatings and torture sessions were achieving nothing – that much was plain to everyone involved. No matter what they said, what they threatened her with, what they did, she gave them nothing in return. But like any good tactician, her interrogator knew when to take a different approach.
Hauled from her cell in the middle of the night, she was carried down the hallway to another room; a new room she had never been in before. Straight away she felt the icy prickles of fear running down her spine. A new room meant a new kind of pain, and when she saw the single steel-framed bed pushed against one wall, she had a feeling she knew what kind they had in mind.
She had fought, of course. Rational thought had given way to animal instinct by this point. She had lashed out; kicked, punched, scratched, even tried to bite her captors. But there were four of them and only one of her, and they were all bigger, heavier, stronger. And she was already weakened by the abuse she had taken.
The blows rained in against her until her vision blurred and her resistance subsided. Vaguely, as if viewed from some other point of view, she was aware of her hands and feet being bound to the steel frame, her trousers pulled down and off, her legs being spread apart.
All of it seemed strangely removed. She could have sworn it was happening to someone else. Even as the first guard dropped his trousers, even as she felt his hands roughly groping her breasts.
Only when she felt the first gut-wrenching penetration did reality snap back into place with shocking clarity. Her mask of control, her armour slipped away, shattered by the horror and disgust of what was happening to her. In an instant she was fifteen years old again, pinned face down on the desk of the orphanage administrator, feeling his hot breath on her cheek, hearing his laboured breathing as he struggled to pull her trousers down.
Instinct took over.
She cried out in pain and anger, bucked and thrashed and twisted in an effort to break free, but it was a
ll useless. There was no escape this time. The ropes cut into the skin of her wrists and ankles, burning, slicing, drawing blood. She tried to bite at him, but all she earned for her efforts was another hard blow that snapped her head back and left blobs of light dancing across her vision.
And all the while, the stabbing pain and thrusting and the sickening feeling of helplessness continued. Once convinced of her own invincibility, she saw now just how foolish and naive she had been. She was being violated, debased, her body abused in the worst way possible, and she could do nothing to stop it.
At last her cries subsided, her resistance ceased, and the only sounds that could be heard were those of the dull wet slapping of flesh against unwilling flesh, and the straining grunts of the guard slowly building to a climax.
Anya said nothing as the nightmare went on, managed even to keep from crying out in pain. She wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. Instead she tried to remove herself from that room, tried to view what was happening as a simple biological process, no different from any other.
But it was different. It was very different indeed, and no number of mind games could ever change that. She squeezed her eyes tight shut, her muscles tensing one last time as it finally ended.
‘Why do you do this to yourself, Anya?’ a voice asked as the guard rolled off her and pulled his trousers up again, his task complete. It was His voice; cold, clinical, without remorse or compassion. ‘You’re allowing this to happen, and for what? For whom? No one is coming for you. No one cares about you.’
Anya kept her eyes squeezed shut, refusing to let the voice in, refusing to acknowledge its words. They had done their worst already. What more could they do to her?
‘Oh, you think it’s over? You think we’re done now? There are many guards in this prison, Anya,’ the voice went on. ‘Believe me, we have all night.’
Anya kept her eyes shut even as another set of footsteps approached.
Grozny, Chechnya, 23 December 2008
Anya kept her foot on the gas as the big military truck bumped along the muddy dirt track, its suspension groaning under the strain. Ranks of dark pine trees slid by on either side, crowding close to the road. They were so densely packed that the forest floor barely saw sunlight.
The Tigr which had served so well as her getaway vehicle had become a liability now. It wouldn’t take the FSB long to figure out that she had used it to make off with one of their most senior commanders. Then they would come after her with everything they had.
She was also very much aware that her blouse and business suit were wholly impractical for the task at hand. She wasn’t even wearing shoes, forcing her to use her bare feet on the pedals.
It was time to make a switch.
The road opened out up ahead, revealing an overgrown clearing with a cluster of buildings in the centre. An old homestead whose roof had long since collapsed, a couple of toolsheds made from rusted corrugated iron, and a barn that had once housed trucks and tools for tree felling. Its timbers were blackened and warped with age, its roof leaking and its doors missing, but the basic structure remained more or less sound.
Anya had no idea what had become of the original owners of this place. Considering the wars that had raged in Chechnya over the past couple of decades, she doubted any of them would be returning to reclaim their land now.
Pulling into the quiet darkness of the barn, Anya killed the engine, closed her eyes for a moment and let out a slow, calming breath. Outside, the wind had died down and the snow had given way to a steady drizzle of rain. She could hear it pattering off the roof and dripping down around the Tigr, mingling with the tick of the cooling engine.
The sound of rain had always been a calming one for her.
It wasn’t very often that Anya experienced moments of true peace. She’d had little enough opportunity in her life, and in truth she wasn’t given to deep contemplation. But there were rare times, particularly in the wake of a successful operation, when she allowed herself to let go. She allowed her guard to lower, allowed her restless mind to ease, and just felt the world around her.
Those were the moments that reminded her most of who she was. As a child she had been relaxed and carefree; a daydreamer who would lie on the grassy hill near her home and just stare up at the infinite sky for what seemed like hours, marvelling at the simple, unspoiled beauty of it. The idea that it could all be taken away from her in one heart-rending day had never entered her young mind.
Life, however, had since taught her otherwise.
A low, gurgling moan from the rear compartment warned her that Masalsky was starting to come round. Refocusing her mind on the task at hand, she threw open her door, leapt down from the cab and drew the M1911 from the holster inside her jacket. She surveyed her darkened surroundings for a moment, checking that nothing had been moved or disturbed in her absence.
There were no footprints on the muddy ground, no vehicle tracks apart from her own, no sign of any recent human activity. Good.
Satisfied, she circled around to the rear of the big truck. The floor of the barn was bare earth, damp from the recent rain and soft underfoot. She could feel it squelching between her toes as she walked.
Keeping the automatic to hand, she hauled open the door and surveyed her prize.
With his suit ripped and torn by the blast, his greying hair in disarray and his face smeared with soot, Masalsky was certainly looking far from his best. But he was alive, and regaining the use of his limbs judging by his ineffective flailing.
She’d better act fast. Clambering inside, she hooked an arm beneath him and with some effort pulled him up into a sitting position. His body might not have been cooperating fully yet, but his mind was in working order. She saw a moment or two of blank incomprehension in his eyes, followed by a slowly dawning awareness as he realised the situation he was in.
‘You are Ivan Masalsky,’ she began. She knew full well who he was, but she wanted to be sure he could hear and understand her.
He said nothing, just stared at her.
Raising the automatic so he had a good view of the weapon, she pressed the silencer against his forehead, her face devoid of emotion. ‘Let me be clear. If you’re not the man I’m looking for, you die right here. Now, are you Ivan Masalsky?’
That was enough to get through to him. He nodded, still staring at her in disbelief. There wasn’t much fear in his expression. Not yet, at least. She couldn’t tell if it was down to shock, training or simply a strong sense of composure.
Whatever the reason, it was a relief to her. She had no time for people who cried and whimpered and pleaded. As if any of those things would make a difference.
‘Who are you?’ he finally asked.
‘No one.’
‘What do you want with me?’ Again, there was little fear in his voice. He was sizing her up, trying to decide what sort of adversary she was and how he could turn the situation around.
‘I don’t want anything from you.’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘You infiltrated a secure compound, you impersonated an FSB agent and you risked your life to get to me. You must have done it for a reason.’
‘My job is to deliver you; nothing more.’ She reached into her jacket, pulled out a small flick knife and used it to sever the cable ties around his wrists. With his arms now freed, she backed off a few steps and raised the automatic to cover him. ‘Now, strip.’
His eyes opened wider. ‘What?’
‘Don’t make me tell you twice,’ she warned. ‘Take your clothes off. All of them.’
It wasn’t unknown for the FSB to include tracking devices on their more valuable operatives, allowing them to be located quickly and easily if they went missing. Cellphones, wallets, even his shoes could have a satellite tracker hidden inside. The only option was to remove everything.
Anya kept her weapon trained on him as he peeled off his tattered suit jacket, then his shirt, shoes and trousers, glaring at her in resentment the whole time. His movements were slow and
uncoordinated at first as the feeling gradually returned to his limbs.
It was strange, Anya thought. This man was one of the most powerful figures in the FSB, accustomed to inspiring fear and respect wherever he went. But here, with the suit and the bodyguards and the security stripped away, he was nothing more than a pasty middle-aged man with narrow shoulders, thin arms and a pot belly.
When he was finished, Anya retrieved a pair of jogging slacks and a grey sweatshirt from a bag at the rear of the Tigr’s passenger compartment, then tossed them to him. He got the idea and quickly pulled them on, already shivering in the chill air.
‘Now lie face down on the floor with your hands behind your back.’
He did as commanded without resistance. Keeping the automatic ready, she knelt down beside him and used another pair of cable ties to secure his wrists once more. They were strong enough that no human could break them through brute strength alone, and unlike handcuffs they had no lock that could be picked. She repeated the process with his ankles, then rolled him over on to his back so he could get a look at her.
‘Listen to me carefully. We’re here to change vehicles. I’m going to bring a car over and help you into a hidden compartment in the trunk. It’ll be cramped and hot, but if you cooperate and don’t panic then you’ll reach your destination alive. If you fight me or try to escape, I will hurt you. The more you resist, the worse the pain will be. Do you understand what I’ve just told you?’
Again he nodded. He didn’t seem like the hysterical type, but Anya had learned from long experience that a compliant prisoner was ten times easier to handle than a frightened, desperate one. The key was to explain what was happening, what was expected of them and what would happen if they resisted. Once the rules were established, it was their call whether or not they wanted to break them.
‘Good. Then stay here and don’t make a sound.’
Leaving him briefly, she leapt down from the truck and strode over to another car parked in the barn, dwarfed by the intimidating bulk of the Tigr. This one was a simple blue Lada Niva 4x4 that looked about as old as she was.
