by Will Jordan
Drake clenched his fists as pent-up frustration threatened to boil over. ‘I don’t need a moral lecture, especially not from you, Cole. Let’s not forget why you’re here.’
‘I know exactly why I’m here,’ Mason assured him, his voice dangerously cold now. ‘And it’s not to become a martyr. You’re going to get us all killed if you don’t give this up.’
He’d heard enough. ‘If you haven’t got the nerve for this, then piss off back to DC. Otherwise, shut the fuck up and do your job.’
Mason took a step towards him, and instinctively Drake felt himself tense up, his body readying itself for a physical confrontation.
The bleep of Drake’s cellphone was the only thing that seemed to break the spell. Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he fished it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. It was Frost.
‘What is it, Keira?’ he snapped, still glaring at Mason.
‘Good evening to you too,’ Frost countered. ‘Who took the jelly out of your doughnut?’
Drake was in no mood for her attempt at humour. ‘Things aren’t going well here.’
‘Then maybe this’ll make you feel better.’ She paused for a moment, as if to let the tension build up. ‘I think we’ve found your missing man.’
Anya said nothing as she listened to the screams echoing from down the corridor, instead concentrating her attention on field-stripping and reassembling her M1911. It was hardly a vital task, but it at least kept her mind occupied.
There was certainly nothing around here worthy of her attention.
Thirty years ago the hardened concrete aircraft shelter in which she now sat had contained Soviet fighter-bombers, intended to launch ground attacks against a possible US invasion from Turkey. Now it was nothing but a cavernous, draughty expanse of crumbling concrete and rusted pipework. Another decaying symbol of a forgotten time.
Her Lada 4x4, which had barely been up to the task of getting here, looked faintly ridiculous parked in such ominous surroundings. Outside the rusting steel doors a frigid wind sighed past, carrying with it stinging pellets of freezing rain.
The other four men in the derelict room seemed untroubled either by the cold or by the sounds of Masalsky’s torture, celebrating their success with a crate of beer as they recounted their exploits during the attack on the FSB compound. They were still pumped up after the short but intense action, filled with adrenalin and endorphins that made them giddy and excitable.
She had often heard combat described as a drug, and in truth she had once felt much the same way. There had been a time long ago when, flushed with the enthusiasm and misplaced confidence of youth, she’d even sought out the thrill that came from living on a knife edge of survival, like a junkie endlessly searching for a more powerful hit.
It hadn’t taken her long to discover just how misplaced that confidence had been.
‘So I turned the corner and I came face to face with this big fat fucker,’ said Goran, a wily little Serbian mercenary who had become one of the most outspoken members of the small group. ‘I raised my weapon to fire. And you know what he said to me?’
Aside from alcohol and violence, the thing he loved most in the world was the sound of his own voice. He was easily as old as Anya, yet he spoke and acted like a boisterous teenager, boasting about everything from the men he’d killed to the women he’d bedded.
He took a long drag on his cigarette, as if he thought it would build the tension.
‘“Wait”,’ he finally said. ‘Can you believe that? “Wait!” As if we could sit down and talk things through.’ He shook his head. ‘Stupid asshole. I dropped him a second later.’
His story was accompanied by raucous laughter from Branka, a fellow Serb who looked so much like Goran that the two men could have been brothers. They might well have been for all Anya knew. She had little inclination to learn more about them. All she knew was that when they were together it was virtually impossible to shut them up.
The other two men were decidedly more reserved. Dokka, a big Chechen guerrilla fighter who had served in both wars against Russia and had the scars to prove it; and Yuri, a Ukrainian who shared some of Goran’s outspoken personality, but who often found himself at odds with the two Serbs.
Having finished his tale, Goran took a long pull on his beer and then turned his attention to Anya. ‘And what about you, maco? You must have some stories to tell.’
Anya didn’t look up. Maco was a Serbian term of endearment that loosely translated as ‘kitty cat’, though in a cruder sense it could be interpreted as ‘pussy’. It didn’t take much imagination to guess the association in his mind.
He’d started calling her by the new nickname within an hour of meeting her and, wary of destroying her tenuous position within the group, she had tolerated it as she’d tolerated so many other things in life – with brooding silence.
‘Not really,’ she evaded as she started to thumb rounds back into the weapon’s magazine. She never knew when she might have to use it.
‘Come on, don’t be so fucking dull!’ he taunted. ‘You were in there on your own, surrounded by FSB. And you came out alive. Tell us how it happened.’
Goran’s exposed arms and hands were covered with tattoos; everything from numbers to crucifixes to pictures of naked women. He didn’t need to tell anyone where he’d got them from. Anya knew that the numbers and obscure symbols formed a complex code explaining which Russian gulag he’d done time in, and even which cell block.
She glanced up at him, her blue eyes like pools of ice in the gloom. ‘Things went as planned. Nothing more.’
She saw a brief flash of anger in his eyes. She was embarrassing him by refusing to play along with his game, by leaving him hanging. And she guessed Goran wasn’t the kind of man who appreciated being embarrassed, least of all by a woman.
Quietly Anya pushed the magazine back into the port on her M1911, applying a little more pressure until she felt the click of the locking pins engaging. If Goran tried to make a move, she would be ready for him.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the anger vanished. He smiled and inclined his bottle to her in a mock toast.
‘That’s what I like about you, maco. You’re so cold when you do this shit.’ He took another drink, then glanced at Branka and switched to Serbian, thinking she couldn’t understand him. ‘I guess she saves all her warmth for the bedroom. Maybe I’ll find out?’
Anya felt herself tense up, even though the rational part of her mind warned her to show no emotion. She couldn’t help it – she’d listened to just about enough of his crude banter over the past few weeks, and was approaching the limits of her patience.
Ten years ago she’d been in command of one of the most formidable paramilitary groups on the face of the earth, equalled by none. Now here she was in a derelict aircraft shelter on an abandoned airfield, taking abuse from a man she could kill a dozen times over with her bare hands.
Just for a moment her eyes reflected her thoughts, her anger, her pain, her years of pent-up frustration and impotent rage straining to break free, held in check by nothing more than her iron will. It was only a glimpse, a snapshot, a lightning flash in the darkness that illuminated the world as it was, but it was enough for Goran. The smile faded; the fire of his bravado seemed to flicker out.
He glanced away, unable to hold her gaze.
The screams were cut off abruptly by a single gunshot that reverberated around the cellar like the pealing of thunder, signalling the end of Masalsky’s ‘interrogation’.
Turning around, Anya watched as Atayev emerged from a doorway on the far side of the shelter and strode briskly towards them, removing a pair of work gloves and tossing them aside. Next he unzipped the overalls, stained crimson with Masalsky’s blood, and stepped out of them to reveal civilian clothes, still clean and neat. Only the tiny splash of blood on the left lens of his glasses gave any hint of what he’d just been involved in.
‘Did you get what you needed?’ Anya asked, rising to her feet.
‘After a fashion.’ Atayev patted his jacket pocket, bulging with the square frame of the video camera. Anya had no desire to view its contents. ‘He was more stubborn than Demochev. Took some persuading.’
Anya said nothing to this. She had seen men take pleasure from inflicting pain and suffering, had even been on the receiving end more than once herself, but Atayev was different.
His actions weren’t an outlet for some inner perversion or the festering legacy of past abuses. They were a rebirth, a renewal. When he removed his bloodstained overalls, he was shedding another piece of his previous life, coming one step closer to his transformation into something new, something better.
He seemed to sense her disquiet. Reaching up, he removed his glasses, took a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wiped the blood away, looking almost self-conscious now.
‘It bothers you,’ he observed coolly. ‘What we do.’
‘Torture is a poor tool for any soldier,’ she said, deciding to be honest.
‘But I’m not a soldier.’ He replaced his glasses and ran a hand through his receding hair. ‘And neither are our enemies.’
Anya nodded, reluctantly acknowledging his point. It still didn’t change how she felt.
‘If you want to leave, I won’t hold it against you,’ Atayev prompted. ‘You’ve already done more than I would ask of anyone.’
‘You know why I’m here,’ she replied. ‘I’ve come too far to turn back now.’
He smiled and laid a hand on her shoulder, and for a moment she saw a flicker of the husband and father he’d once been. ‘I’d hoped you would say that.’
‘There’s something I must ask you,’ Anya said, lowering her voice. ‘When I encountered Drake tonight, he believed I’d tried to contact him before the attack in Washington. I did no such thing, which means someone else did. Someone who knew where I would be.’
Although she was trying not to sound threatening, she had to know the truth from this man, had to know she could trust him. For her, the best course of action was simply to ask.
From a young age Anya had been endowed with the ability to perceive the subtle visual cues and signals that people give off without conscious awareness. She couldn’t explain it exactly, but that same skill allowed her to anticipate her opponent’s movements in a fight, and even to know with a fair degree of certainty when they were lying.
If that was the case with Atayev, she would kill him and the rest of the men in the hangar without hesitation, and take her chances alone. The automatic shoved down the back of her jeans was loaded and ready to be fired. What he said in the next few seconds would decide his fate.
She didn’t have to say anything more. He sensed her implied threat, and the danger he was now in. ‘I had no part in that, Anya. That’s the truth.’
She sensed no hint of deception in either his voice or his expression. If he was lying to her, his skills at deception rivalled the best operatives the Agency had ever produced. She was obliged to conclude that he was being honest with her.
‘And can you say the same of the rest of your men?’ she asked, with a momentary glance at Goran and the others.
Atayev said nothing, though his expression made it obvious that he was just as unsettled by the implication as she. One or more of their group could be compromised.
The bleep of his cellphone interrupted their brief conversation. Retrieving it from his pocket, Atayev opened the incoming text message. The look in his eyes made it clear the news wasn’t good.
‘Is there a problem?’ Anya asked.
He pocketed the phone once more, his brow furrowed in thought.
‘A change of plan,’ he corrected her. ‘We may have to move faster than we’d intended.’
Chapter 45
Drake braced himself as the Mi-24 attack helicopter ploughed through another gusting crosswind, jolting him in his seat and straining his already injured shoulder. Steep slopes mantled by fir trees flitted past his window at over 150 knots, their features so identical that they looked like a storm-tossed sea in the darkness.
They were contouring one of the many river valleys that ran through the area, using the steep tree-covered slopes both to hide the chopper from sight and to mask the considerable noise of its engines as they approached their target.
Mi-24s were best known by their NATO code name ‘Hind’, but they had also been endowed with the rather more flattering nickname of Flying Tanks by their pilots, and one look at them was enough to see why. Fifty-seven feet long and half as wide, bristling with guns and rockets, and protected by a belt of armour able to withstand 20mm cannon shells, they were massive, imposing machines of war. Acting as both heavily armed gunships and troop transports, Hinds had no equivalent anywhere in the Western arsenal.
They had given the Mujahideen a few headaches in Afghanistan back in the eighties, and remained formidable aircraft twenty years later. He had never been inside one himself until today, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.
As he’d hoped, Frost had once again come through for them. One of the Agency’s newest Block IV KH-11 spy satellites had been passing over the FSB compound at the time of the attack, allowing the technical specialist to track the vehicle used to abduct Masalsky.
The trail had led her to an abandoned military airfield north of Grozny before the KH-11’s orbit had carried it beyond the horizon, preventing further observation until the next pass. From what Miranova had been able to learn, the airfield had once belonged to the Russian air force, used to house MiG fighter-bombers before being decommissioned after the Cold War. The years of conflict in Chechnya had destroyed what little infrastructure remained, putting it permanently out of use.
And now here they were, roaring through the darkened skies over Chechnya in a desperate race to find Masalsky before his captors executed him.
For Drake, however, this race had a far more personal goal. He was after Anya, and nothing else. She had crossed the line today. If she wanted to play rough, then so be it. He was coming for her, and nothing and no one was going to get in his way.
As the chopper banked hard right, Drake was suddenly very conscious that one slip-up could see them plough straight into the side of a mountain. The airframe shuddered under the strain as gravity fought against its 26,000 pounds of armour, fuel and engines.
‘Are you all right?’ Miranova asked over the intercom, her face illuminated by the red glow of the aircraft’s dim internal lighting.
‘Helicopters and I don’t mix,’ he said tersely, memories of being shot out of the sky by a Stinger missile in Afghanistan still fresh in his mind. ‘How long until we get there?’
She raised an eyebrow, but wisely decided not to pursue the matter further. ‘We are close. Only a couple of minutes.’
Drake clenched his fists. A lot could happen in a couple of minutes.
‘Ground teams have sealed off all nearby roads, and one of our unmanned drones has been vectored in. We have the entire area covered by thermal imaging. If anyone tries to leave, we will see them.’
He wished he shared her confidence. Anya had already proven herself more than capable of both second-guessing and outwitting them. Next to her he felt like a rank amateur, even with the formidable resources of the FSB to call upon.
‘So what’s the assault plan?’ he asked, trying to focus on the task ahead of them.
‘We will fast-rope down, secure the airfield and recover Masalsky. The helicopter will provide close air support if we need it.’
Drake hadn’t missed the ‘we’ in her statement. Clearly she intended to go in with the assault team. ‘When was the last time you did this?’
‘More recently than you, I think.’
She paused for a moment, head cocked as she listened to an incoming transmission.
‘Stand by,’ Miranova warned as the chopper’s nose flared upwards, rotors beating the air as they clawed their way out of the river valley that had carried them almost all the way to their target. ‘T
hirty seconds!’
The speed of the full-powered ascent caught even Drake by surprise, and he felt himself pushed down into his seat by the acceleration. He felt as if he’d left his stomach behind. Chancing a glance out the window, he could just make out the dark shapes of trees skimming by frighteningly close.
Cresting the lip of the valley, their flight path at last began to even out as the Hind swung right, coming in for its final approach to the target.
‘Ten seconds!’
Pushkin, the FSB tactical agent who had been with them during the raid on Glazov’s farm, rose to his feet, gripping a safety strap to steady himself as the pilots fought to keep the aircraft steady. The nose was rising again to bleed off speed and bring them in to hover over the target.
Drake glanced over at Mason, who had remained more or less silent for most of the flight. Whatever their disagreements earlier, both of them knew better than to hold a grudge while their lives might be on the line.
‘Good to go?’
Mason looked at him and, contrary to his usual wisecracking style, merely nodded.
Drake could guess why he was on edge. Fast-rope descents required a lot of upper-body strength, as one’s entire weight was placed on the arms. Descending a rope from a swaying helicopter in freezing weather conditions was difficult enough for a fit and healthy adult, never mind someone like Mason who was coming back from a long spell of inactivity.
‘If you’re not feeling up to this—’
‘I’m fine, for Christ’s sake!’ Mason snapped, anger flaring in his eyes. ‘Just worry about yourself, Ryan.’
Drake never got a chance to make a comeback. Gripping the hatch release, Pushkin unlatched it and shoved hard, pushing it backwards on its rollers.
Straight away a maelstrom of wind and freezing rain assailed them. Like the rest of the team, Drake was clad in several layers of insulated fabric, but the cold seemed to penetrate right through as if they weren’t even there. The thump, thump, thump of the rotor blades just overhead drowned out any attempt at verbal communication. It was hand gestures only for now.
