by Will Jordan
Kamarov nodded, satisfied that for now at least, they had the situation in hand. However, all the technology and resources at his disposal would mean little when the shooting started. If the woman they’d been sent here to recapture was waiting for them in that truck, some of the men accompanying him would undoubtedly die.
Twenty years ago in Afghanistan he’d had the element of surprise on his side. He’d had an entire platoon of Spetsnaz operatives at his disposal, and still he had lost three men in the vicious firefight.
And he was old now.
The pain in the joints, the slightly impaired reactions, the gradual loss of strength. He hadn’t felt any of it back then, but he did now. He was old, his body slowly failing him as the years wore on. And yet here he was, once again preparing to take on the most dangerous opponent he’d ever faced.
How could she be anything else?
After all, Anya had been the director’s favourite; his student, his protégée. Her betrayal had cut as deep as any physical wound.
And now he wanted her back.
Drake hadn’t been alone for long before the door swung open once more and another man sauntered into view, holding what looked like a bag of tools. Gratefully laying the heavy burden down on the table, he turned to regard Drake for a long moment of thoughtful silence, as if he were a workman sizing up a job.
He was a small man, lean and wiry, the veins in his exposed arms standing out hard against stringy muscle as he reached into his pocket and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. Remembering his manners, he held the pack to Drake.
‘You want one, my man?’ he asked, speaking in a heavy Slavic accent.
Drake shook his head.
‘Don’t smoke, huh?’ The man smiled with amusement. ‘Very wise, my friend. Bad for your health.’
Helping himself to one, he lit up and took a long, slow draw, still watching Drake as if he was a task to be undertaken.
‘My name is Yuri,’ he said at length. ‘Pleased to meet you, man. You are Drake, yes?’
‘That’s right.’ There was little point in lying to him.
Yuri smiled and nodded. ‘You are English. That is good. I like English, I have cousin there.’ His eyes lit up as an idea came to him. ‘Hey, Manchester United, huh?’
‘Yeah, Manchester United,’ Drake agreed, not sure where this was leading.
‘Ronaldo. He is fucking good player, yes?’
If you say so, Drake thought. He knew as much about football as he did about flower arranging. ‘Good player. Yeah.’
Yuri leaned back and took another long draw, apparently satisfied that he’d broken the ice. ‘I like you, man. We are bros now. Yes?’
‘Yeah.’ Somehow Drake didn’t imagine they’d be Skyping each other when this was over, but he was content to keep him talking.
‘Okay, bro. Here is the deal. You are going to die here in this room. This is bad, I know. But there are lots of ways to die. Some are easy,’ he said, reaching behind his back and pulling an automatic from his belt. Drake couldn’t see it very well in the harsh light, but its small frame suggested a Walther PPK or something similar.
Unzipping the bag, he emptied the contents on to the table before him. An array of electric drills, saws, hammers and knives clattered to its surface, many of them rusted and stained from long use.
‘And some are hard.’
Satisfied that he had made his point, Yuri laid the handgun on the table and turned back towards Drake. ‘I can make this really easy for you, man. One round to the head. Bang! And it’s over. I want to do this for you, because you are my bro and I want to help you, but you have to help me too, man. If you tell me everything you know about the FSB, I promise I will make this quick and simple. You won’t even feel a thing. But if you want to be a crazy guy and hold out on me, I think you’ll be having a really bad day.’
As if to emphasise his point, he lifted up a cordless drill and pressed the trigger to test the batteries were still good. Sure enough, the rusty, bloodstained drill bit turned with a high-pitched whine.
‘So you think about that, man,’ Yuri advised. ‘You think about that really hard while I get ready.’
Flicking his cigarette away, he reached into the bag for a pair of white plastic overalls; the kind worn in car body shops for spray-painting. Only in this case, the waterproof coating was designed to resist splashes of blood.
Drake, however, had no intention of ending up as Yuri’s next torture project. He was simply biding his time, waiting for his would-be torturer to get distracted long enough for him to act.
Anya had done far more than break his finger during their brief conversation earlier. Just before she snapped the digit, he had felt her press something into his other hand. Something small, ridged and metallic.
A key.
He didn’t understand how or why she had done it, and now wasn’t the time for seeking answers. What mattered right now was freeing himself and taking out the man who was just itching to use that cordless drill on his kneecaps.
As Yuri laid the overalls down in front of him and began to step into the legs, Drake knew his chance had come. Fumbling with the small key until it finally slipped into the lock, he gave a single quick turn. There was a moment of taut resistance before he felt and heard the faint click as the lock disengaged.
He wasn’t going to waste time fucking around with the second lock. Not now. Shrugging his wrist out of the cuff, he pulled it through the loop of plastic cable tie securing it to the chair, took a single deep breath to get more oxygen in his bloodstream and launched himself at his enemy.
There was no time to consider a detailed strategy for attack. His first, last and only concern was taking Yuri down and keeping him there.
Alerted by the sudden movement, his opponent looked up from what he was doing just as Drake barrelled into him, knocking him backwards to crash into the table, which promptly gave way under the impact. Tools, knives and other instruments clattered off the tabletop to land all around them, while the work light, the only source of illumination, fell sideways and shattered against the floor, plunging the room into darkness.
The two men, groping blindly in the near-pitch darkness, were now locked in a desperate struggle for survival.
Yuri might have been small and lean, but what he lacked in size he more than made up for in aggression and resilience. Having recovered from the shock of Drake’s escape and his bruising collision with the table, he immediately went on the offensive, lashing out with fists, boots and even fingernails.
Drake laid into him with a hammer-like blow to the side of his face, gashing his cheek to the bone, yet the man barely seemed to react to it. Growling with rage, he clawed at Drake’s eyes, trying to blind him. Drake dodged and weaved like the boxer he’d once been, desperate to avoid his hands while at the same time pummelling his chest and stomach with punch after punch, ignoring the stabs of pain from the broken finger. That would be the least of his worries if Yuri managed to blind him.
He was just drawing back his arm to strike again when suddenly the smaller man lunged at him, mouth open wide and teeth bared like an animal. An instant later those same teeth clamped down on Drake’s neck where it met his shoulder, puncturing the skin. He let out an involuntary cry of pain as they started to tear through the muscle layer beneath. The little fucker was literally going for his jugular, and only sheer luck had caused him to miss his target. But that luck wouldn’t last for long.
This was one fight that needed to end now. Yuri was already doing serious damage, and Drake couldn’t force him off without taking a chunk of his neck away at the same time. He needed to give the man some incentive, and he had a pretty good idea what to do.
Abandoning his fruitless attempts to pound Yuri into submission, he reached down between his legs, clamped a hand around his genitals and twisted with every ounce of strength he could summon.
There are few men who could endure an attack like that, and Yuri wasn’t one of them. The grip on Drake’s neck slackene
d, and a low primal growl of pain began in his throat as Drake’s fist tightened around his most vulnerable area.
Drake wasn’t about to give him a chance to recover. At last managing to free himself from the man’s tenacious grip, he pulled back and butted Yuri full in the face, feeling the crunch of cartilage giving way under the impact. A sudden spurt of warmth on his forehead told him he’d broken the man’s nose.
Yuri was in trouble now, and they both knew it. Clutching at his nose, he threw himself backwards and tried to kick and scramble away from Drake while snarling something in his own language.
Drake knew he had to silence the man before his cries warned the others. Unable to see much in the near-darkness, he instead groped around for the tools that had been knocked off the table during the fight. He would have loved to chance upon the automatic Yuri had brandished earlier, but the chances of finding it quickly were slim.
He felt his fingers brush the plastic casing of some kind of power tool. Either the electric drill or a circular saw that Drake had also seen amongst Yuri’s implements. Whatever it was, he ignored it. He had no time to fumble with the controls in the dark, and in any case, he needed to kill Yuri quickly, not patiently slice pieces off him.
Then at last his hand closed around a long wooden handle with a metal striker mounted at one end, and he knew he’d found what he needed. As his father had once told him, technology was all well and good, but sometimes what you really needed was a good solid hammer.
Snatching up the instrument with his good hand, he closed in on Yuri, following the curses and groans of pain, took aim and brought the hammer down on the top of his head. There was a dull wet crunch as the metal striker cleaved its way through bone and brain before finally stopping as the handle struck what remained of his skull.
The effect was as profound as a gunshot. Yuri’s cries ceased instantly and he went down, collapsing face first on to the concrete. A long, low groan and a spasmodic jerking of his legs was the only sign that he’d been alive only seconds before.
It was over.
Breathing hard, Drake let go of the hammer and reached up to touch the bite mark on his neck. His hand came away slick with blood. He couldn’t tell how bad the injury was, but he could still turn his head despite the growing pain as the damaged muscles started to seize up. If he’d severed an artery, he would already have been dead.
As for the rest of him, the picture was less rosy. His head still pounded from when Anya had knocked him down, and his broken finger throbbed with waves of pain that travelled up his arm like electricity, mingling with the dull ache in his damaged shoulder. His tussle with Yuri had left him with more cuts and bruises to add to the list.
Still, he could move and think, and he needed to do both now.
Reaching out, he rolled the dead man over to search him, quickly locating the petrol lighter he’d used to spark up his cigarette. A small dancing orange flame leapt up on his first attempt, allowing Drake a proper look at his immediate surroundings for the first time.
If there had been any doubt that Yuri was dead, one look was enough to confirm it. The hammer still protruded from the top of his head, the metal striker deeply embedded in his skull. A sticky pool of blood, brain matter and pieces of shattered bone gleamed in the light of the flame, while his eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling, now dull and unfocused.
A quick check of his pockets revealed a couple of spare magazines for whatever automatic he’d brandished during the torture session, a packet of cigarettes that were of no use to Drake, and a cellphone in his back pocket.
‘Thanks, bro,’ Drake whispered, helping himself to the phone.
Closing his eyes for a moment and searching his frantically racing mind for the right number, he punched it in and waited in anxious silence for the call to connect.
Like most major American embassies, the Moscow branch featured an extensive communications suite, allowing it to stay in secure contact with Washington and other diplomatic missions around the world. The fact that such a suite also allowed the staff there to monitor transmissions in their host nation was a natural by-product, and for this reason most embassies had a contingent of Agency personnel.
‘What more do we know?’ McKnight asked, barely able to contain her impatience as several technicians worked to uncover more details of the incident that seemed to have Moscow’s law-enforcement units shitting bricks.
‘Details are still sketchy,’ one of them warned. ‘It takes time to decode their transmissions.’
‘Any word on survivors?’ she persisted. ‘Or even where the FSB are directing their field teams?’
‘We’re working on it.’
‘Goddamn it, one of our operatives is out there!’ she snapped, causing a momentary silence to fall on the room. ‘While you’re working on it, he could be dying.’
Mason winced, surprised to see her lose her cool so soon after quelling the argument between himself and Frost. He sympathised with her, and even shared her frustration, but shouting at these men would achieve nothing except to have them removed from the room.
‘Sam, take it easy, okay?’ he said, gently steering her away from the bustling communications centre. ‘I know you’re worried about Ryan. But you’ve got to let these guys do their job.’
‘That’s not all I’m worried about.’ She looked at him, her gaze betraying doubt and uncertainty. ‘What if he’s not a hostage, Cole?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He said he was going to protect Anya, right?’ She lowered her voice. ‘What if Ryan’s the one responsible for this “incident”?’
Mason hesitated, not sure what to say. He found it hard to believe Drake would go that far, but neither could he definitively deny it. When it came to Anya, all bets were off.
His thoughts were interrupted when McKnight’s phone started ringing. Snatching it up, she frowned at the unknown number before hitting the receive-call button.
‘Who is this?’
‘Sam, it’s me,’ a low, urgent voice said. A British voice. Drake’s voice.
Her eyes lit up, and she raised her free hand to snap her fingers several times, getting the attention of every agent in the room. ‘Ryan! Jesus Christ, what’s happening? Where are you?’
‘The safe house was hit. I’m in some kind of basement, don’t know where. You need to … trace this call.’ There was an urgency in his voice, but it was also heavy with pain. He was hurt.
McKnight jerked a finger at the nearest technician. ‘Have someone trace the call on my cell right now. And start recording the conversation. Move!’
As they went to work, she turned her attention back to the call. ‘Talk to me. What’s your situation?’
‘I’m alive. I don’t know about Miranova,’ he evaded. ‘Listen, I might not have much time. The man behind this is called Buran Atayev. He’s convinced that Beslan was a false flag operation planned by the FSB. He’s trying to punish them for what they did.’
‘Is he there?’ she asked, hastily scribbling down the name.
‘He was, but he’s already gone,’ Drake admitted. ‘I think he’s planning to go after Surovsky. And he has Anya with him.’
McKnight closed her eyes. The edge of pain in his voice was more noticeable when he spoke her name. ‘I’m sorry, Ryan.’
‘You don’t understand; she’s the reason I’m not dead. She helped me escape. I don’t know what her plan is, but she’s not a hostile, Sam. You have to believe me.’
McKnight said nothing to that. She was inclined to take any such opinions of Anya with a grain of salt. ‘Okay, sit tight and keep the line open. We’ll find you.’
‘I’d love to, but it’s only a matter of time before they find out I’m loose,’ Drake replied. ‘Anyway, I have to go after Miranova. She’s here somewhere.’
‘Ryan, you can’t—’
‘I have to,’ he interrupted. ‘She trusted me. She doesn’t deserve this.’
‘And what about you? What do you deserve?’
McKnight said nothing. She could feel her throat tightening, could feel her eyes watering. She turned away from the other agents in the room, not wanting them to see her.
‘Don’t be,’ she managed to say at last.
She heard a faint sigh on the other end. ‘Look, whatever else happens, you have to keep the FSB out of this. They’ll kill Anya the first chance they get. Miranova’s not running this op any longer; they’ve brought in some guy called Kamarov. I don’t know who he is, but I’d bet my life he’s here to end Anya’s.’
McKnight clenched her teeth. ‘We’ll do what we can.’
‘Thanks, Sam. Thanks for doing this.’ There was a momentary pause, both of them aching to say things they knew they couldn’t. ‘I have to go. I’ll contact you again if I can.’
‘Take care,’ she said as the line went dead.
No sooner had she ended her conversation with Drake than she turned to the technician charged with tracing the call. ‘Tell me you have something.’
He nodded, listening intently to his own phone while information was relayed from Langley. ‘We’ve got him.’
Chapter 59
Using the dim light from the cellphone’s screen, Drake began to search amongst the debris for the automatic lost during the fight. There hadn’t been time to look for it earlier, but now at least he had a few moments to recover the weapon.
He found it beneath the table, partially covered by the tool bag that had fallen on top. Drake snatched it up and, unable to see properly, racked back the slide. He heard the distinctive ping of an ejected round hitting the floor, confirming that there had already been one in the chamber. Still, he’d rather lose one round now than have the weapon fail to fire at a critical moment.
As he’d suspected, it was indeed a Walther PPK, a German semi-automatic whose design dated back to the 1920s. James Bond might have cemented their iconic reputation, but their reliability and compact size had made them ideal concealed-carry weapons long before that. They’d been manufactured by different countries and in different calibres over the years, and he suspected the one he was holding was a cheap Romanian or Hungarian model. Still, presumably it would go boom when he pulled the trigger, and that was good enough.
