by Will Jordan
There are times to think and times to act. Times when even a momentary delay could mean the difference between life and death. This moment was definitely the latter.
Hurling his chair aside, Drake sprang to his feet and rushed at the woman. He had no idea what was going on, but he certainly didn’t intend to become victim number three.
He hadn’t made it more than two steps before Miranova’s weapon swung around to face him.
‘Don’t,’ she hissed, staring at him down the sights, her eyes completely devoid of mercy or compassion. She was a trained killer, a professional operative like himself, and one wrong move on his part was all the justification she needed to pull the trigger.
Skidding to a halt, Drake stared at the woman in disbelief.
‘The other thing you should always remember about chess, Mr Drake,’ Atayev said, having sat calmly through the entire confrontation without even flinching. ‘Even a king can be brought down by a humble pawn.’
Chapter 66
Washington, DC, five days earlier
‘I want to go over that revised speech as soon as it’s ready,’ Anton Demochev said, flicking through the incoming messages on his cellphone as he talked. Outside, the rain-lashed buildings of central Washington swept past. ‘We need more emphasis on the fact that this is our initiative.’
Like the vain, egocentric fool that he was, Demochev was relishing the prospect of making the announcement of a joint US–Russian counter-terrorism strategy to the country’s media. No doubt he intended to take most of the credit himself, even though the deal and the bulk of the negotiations over shared intelligence would be handled by far more deserving subordinates.
None of those things concerned Miranova at that moment, however, as she’d just felt her own cellphone vibrating. Quickly reaching for it, she opened the newest message.
As expected, it was simple, direct and to the point.
Now.
Reaching down, she checked her seat belt was firmly in place, took a deep breath and braced herself for what was coming.
It happened fast. A sudden explosion of glass and blood up front announced the impact of the high-powered sniper round, killing the driver instantly.
Such was his complete disbelief at what had just happened, Demochev could muster only a single word. ‘What?’
Miranova said nothing. With no one to direct it, the car slewed sideways on the busy freeway, clipping another vehicle as it went. Miranova stared out through the shattered windscreen as a concrete barrier hurtled towards them. A heartbeat later the car made contact with the solid obstacle in a sickening, crunching, jarring impact that jerked her forwards in her seat with bruising force.
And then, just like that, an unnatural stillness descended on the car, as if a storm had just passed over them. Miranova opened her eyes and looked around. Spots of light were swimming across her vision and the blood pounded in her ears, but she was alive and, as far as she could tell, unharmed.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Demochev gasped, staring around in wide-eyed shock. ‘What the fuck happened? Andre, what’s going on?’
Andre Lagonov, Demochev’s personal assistant, never got a chance to respond. With a crunch of metal, the passenger door beside him was forced open. Lagonov turned just in time to see a silenced pistol thrust through the gap, and jerked violently as a single round entered his forehead.
The door beside Demochev was forced open in similar fashion, only this time a taser was levelled at the car’s occupant. Demochev let out a startled cry as the weapon discharged its payload of several thousand volts, and slumped forwards to curl up in a foetal position in the footwell.
Miranova said nothing while this was happening, and made no move to intervene as the semi-conscious man was dragged from the wrecked vehicle.
She looked up into the gaunt, unsmiling face of Goran, one of Atayev’s hired thugs, then glanced at the automatic he was holding. Supposedly it was loaded with low-powered, soft-lead slugs; the kind that the Kevlar vest she was wearing should easily see off. But she was under no illusions – this was going to hurt.
‘Ready?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Lower right side. Don’t go for the chest.’
The last thing she needed was to break a couple of ribs.
Without hesitation he took aim and fired a single shot. The impact felt like a cannonball fired straight into her gut, and she buckled forwards, coughing and gasping. She could taste bile in her throat and fought the urge to throw up.
‘You all right?’
‘I’m … fine,’ she managed to say. ‘Help me up.’
She stifled a groan as he hauled her out of the wrecked car and towards the waiting ambulance, having to support the injured woman while she got her breath back. Demochev was already on board and restrained, ready to be ferried to the underground parking lot where they would switch vehicles.
After that, the pain of the crash would be the least of his problems.
Miranova wasn’t looking forward to it much herself. Her part in the charade would require her to be tied, hooded and forced into a hidden compartment within the van they’d be using. It was a task she didn’t relish, but it was necessary if she was to gain the trust of the CIA.
And in the end, the rewards would more than make up for it. Despite the pain, she allowed herself a triumphant smile as she clambered into the ambulance, surveying the once-powerful FSB leader lying curled on the floor.
In the end this would all be worth it.
Chapter 67
Drake could summon up no words as he stared at the woman he’d trusted, whom he had thought he knew, and who was now standing with her weapon trained on him. All traces of emotion had left her.
Only now did the full magnitude of his mistake finally settle on him like a crushing weight.
Anika Miranova, who had miraculously survived the attack in DC that had killed all her colleagues; who had conveniently led them out of that storage lock-up mere seconds before it exploded; who had been instrumental in forging a joint investigation between the CIA and the FSB; whose convenient leaps of deduction had led them to Glazov, then to Kalyuyev; who had always provided just enough information to keep them in pursuit of their adversaries while never quite allowing them to gain the upper hand.
‘Once you make your opponent believe that a threat is real, you need only justify that belief. You give up those pieces which are no longer useful, allowing his confidence to grow with each sacrifice, allowing him to come closer and closer to victory while always keeping it just beyond his grasp.’
Miranova, who had survived the shoot-out at the foundry, who had allowed herself to be taken prisoner so she could end up by Drake’s side for the final confrontation with Atayev.
Miranova, who had just killed two of her fellow agents, and was even now working to unlock Atayev’s restraints with one hand while keeping Drake covered with the other.
‘And at that moment, even as your opponent reaches out to seize victory, you strike.’
‘How can you do this?’ Drake spat, his eyes burning with anger and disgust. ‘Killing your own people for this man?’
‘They are not my people any more than they are yours, Drake,’ Miranova hit back, showing not a hint of regret for what she had done. ‘Now get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head. Do it now.’
He didn’t doubt she would shoot him dead if he resisted. She was a trained killer, and had already demonstrated her ability with ruthless efficiency. With little choice but to comply, Drake placed his hands behind his head, interlocking his fingers, then lowered himself on to his knees.
With a twist of a key, Atayev’s cuffs slipped loose. Rubbing his wrists, he rose up from his chair with unhurried ease and stretched, as if awakening from a deep sleep. He glanced at the pawn still in his hand, smiled in amusement, and laid it carefully back down in the centre of the table.
Frisking one of the dead agents, Miranova withdrew an automatic from his bloodied suit jacket and tossed it to At
ayev, then hurried from the room.
At last Atayev’s plan was rendered chillingly obvious. Drake’s capture at the safe house, his escape from the torture chamber and call to Miranova for help, the computer virus attack, the assault on the warehouse and the deaths of Atayev’s men, even the capture of Atayev himself had been nothing but a carefully crafted deception to make them believe Atayev was beaten, that they had won and he had lost.
All of the killings, the sacrifices, the betrayals, all of it planned and executed with absolute precision to bring Atayev to this place, at this moment, with his most hated enemy of all.
The final piece.
The black king.
‘It was all for him, wasn’t it?’ Drake said, hardly believing the scale of their failure to anticipate his plan. ‘Surovsky.’
Atayev nodded. ‘He was untouchable. There was no other way I could get to him.’
‘How did you manage to turn her?’
‘I didn’t,’ Atayev said simply. ‘She joined me willingly, agreed to dedicate her career to finding the truth about Beslan. For four years she has been the perfect FSB agent, working her way up until she was in a position to give me what I needed.’
His queen. The most dangerous and vital piece at his disposal, and nobody had even recognised the threat she posed.
But her ruthless attention was turned elsewhere at that moment, giving Drake a precious few moments in which to act. He eyed the weapon in Atayev’s hands, weighing up his chances of disarming the older man before Miranova returned.
He was armed with an MP-443 Grach; a modern 9mm handgun that was now ubiquitous amongst the FSB, and more than capable of making a mess of anything that wasn’t protected by several layers of Kevlar. Atayev was no expert with firearms, but even he couldn’t miss from this range. Drake would have two or three slugs in him before he could close the distance. No good.
‘Forget it,’ Atayev warned as if sensing his thoughts. ‘Cooperate and you might live through this. Resist and you certainly won’t.’
The decision was rendered moot a few moments later as Miranova appeared with Viktor Surovsky in front of her, his hands cuffed behind his back, his thinning grey hair in disarray and his eyes wide with fear. He grunted in pain as Miranova shoved him roughly down into the chair that Atayev himself had occupied only moments earlier.
Straight away Atayev’s demeanour changed. The layers of logical, calculated self-control seemed to peel back as Drake watched him, revealing the core of absolute, unquenchable hatred within.
‘Hello, Viktor,’ Atayev said, practically spitting out each word. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to speak with you.’
Surovsky began to spout off something in Russian.
‘Now, now,’ Atayev chided. ‘Speak English for Mr Drake here. I want him to understand every word.’
‘W-who are you?’ Surovsky stammered. ‘How do you know me?’
‘Who am I?’ Atayev repeated, taking a step towards him. ‘Of course, you don’t know who I am. There is no reason why you should ever have heard of me. I am nothing to you.’
Atayev held out a trembling hand to Miranova, who reached into her pocket and gently handed him a small, old, creased and faded photograph. He stared at it for a long moment, his eyes holding a look of such sadness and longing that even Drake could see how much it meant to him, then slammed the photo down on the table.
‘Look at it, Viktor. Look at it!’ he shouted, grabbing the older man’s head and forcing him to look straight at the picture.
It was an image of a young girl, perhaps ten years old. She was sitting cross-legged on the porch of some house, beaming a dimpled smile right at the camera. Even in the tarnished image, Drake could see the sparkle in her eyes, and her resemblance to Atayev.
‘There is no reason you should know her either, is there?’ Atayev asked. ‘Let me tell you. Her name was Natasha, twelve years old. Killed by a Russian Army bullet. She was my daughter. And she was one of four hundred other innocents who died at Beslan because of you, Viktor. Because of you.’
‘I … I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Surovsky pleaded. ‘This is madness.’
Balling up his fist, Atayev swung a right hook against the side of Surovsky’s face. It was a clumsy, uncoordinated strike from a man clearly not used to using his fists, but it was delivered with such unrestrained fury that it snapped Surovsky’s head sideways. The older man let out a cry of pain as blood began to flow from a cut over his eye.
‘Do not lie to me!’ Atayev shouted right in his face. ‘You engineered the attack at Beslan, just as you did the other terrorist attacks. You sacrificed the lives of hundreds of the same people you swore to protect. You turned our country against itself. You silenced everyone who tried to get at the truth. And you did it for one reason – power.’
Surovsky was trying to shake his head, but Atayev’s grip prevented it. ‘No! No, that is not true.’ His eyes flicked to Miranova, as if hoping to reason with her. ‘I would never do such a thing! Only a monster would even think of it.’
For a moment, Drake’s mind flashed back to his earlier conversation with Miranova about that very same thing.
‘Be careful fighting with monsters, lest you become a monster.’
‘And a monster is exactly what you created,’ Atayev said, releasing his grip. ‘Along with your partners in crime.’
On cue, Miranova handed him her cellphone. Selecting the video-playback option, Atayev turned the screen towards Surovsky as the first file began to play.
The image on the screen was of Demochev, stripped to the waist and bound to a chair, breathing hard and clearly in pain. His face was bruised and bloodied; testimony to the ferocious beating he had just taken.
‘Once again, tell me your orders,’ said an off-screen voice. Atayev’s voice.
‘My orders were … to suspend border patrols along a certain route,’ he rasped. ‘The route leading to the school. We were … to make no effort to stop the terrorist group.’
‘Even though you knew where they were going,’ Atayev’s voice prompted.
Demochev closed his eyes and his shoulders began to shake up and down as he broke down in tears. ‘Yes.’
‘And who gave you these orders?’
‘Please … he will kill me if I—’
‘Who gave the order?’ Atayev demanded.
Demochev’s shoulders slumped in defeat. ‘Viktor … Viktor Surovsky.’
The screen went blank then as Atayev selected a second video file and hit play. This one, unsurprisingly, featured Masalsky in a similar state of duress. If anything, he looked even worse than Demochev had.
‘What were your orders?’ Atayev’s off-screen voice asked.
Masalsky’s head was down, as if he barely had the strength to lift it. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, his speech slurred.
‘To suspend all surveillance activity on known terrorists, and release any members of the group already in custody.’
‘And where did the orders come from?’ the voice demanded.
Masalsky raised his head up then, revealing the extent of his injuries. ‘The orders … were given by Director Surovsky.’
Having made his point, Atayev laid the phone down on the table and turned his attention back to Surovsky. ‘Do you still deny it?’
Surovsky was staring blankly at the phone, frozen as if in shock. Then, slowly, he turned his head around to look at Atayev.
‘What you did to those men … they were under torture,’ he protested weakly. ‘Their confessions mean nothing.’
‘Confessions extracted under torture have always been good enough for the FSB,’ he reminded his captor. ‘Admit what you did.’
‘Why? So you can kill me just like you did them?’
‘I have no desire to kill you,’ Atayev assured him. ‘But over the past few days I have become very good at hurting men while keeping them alive. I no longer have the time or the tools I would like, but I can show you a little of what I learned.’
>
With that, he levelled his weapon at Surovsky’s leg and without hesitation, fired. There was a small explosion of blood and fabric across his left thigh as the single round tore through skin and muscle tissue, and a moment later the crack of the gunshot was drowned out by Surovsky’s howls of agony.
‘That was only a flesh wound,’ Atayev said once his cries had subsided a little. ‘The next one will not be. I will give you three seconds to speak the truth, then I will shoot out your left kneecap. Three seconds later I will take your right. You will never walk again, Viktor. After that, I leave it to your imagination. One.’
In desperation, Surovsky’s eyes turned on Miranova. ‘Whatever he has paid you, I will triple it. Get me out of this. You will suffer no blame for what you did. I swear it!’
The woman said nothing. She was far beyond such petty bribes now.
‘Two.’ Atayev’s finger tightened on the trigger.
‘Let me go and I can get you out of Russia,’ he said, turning his attention back to Atayev. ‘I-I can give you money, a new name, a new life, anything. Name it!’
‘Three!’ Atayev warned, turning his head away to avoid the blood splatter as he pulled the trigger.
‘All right!’ Surovsky cried, bucking and kicking in his chair. ‘All right, damn you! I admit it! I admit it.’
Atayev’s grip on the weapon relaxed just a little. ‘Go on.’
Surovsky let out a defeated sigh and allowed his head to slump forwards, the harsh electric light shining off the balding dome of his head. Bloodied and broken, he was a pathetic-looking figure.
‘I was responsible for Beslan,’ he said at last, refusing to look up when he said it. ‘And the other attacks. I allowed them to happen when I could have stopped them. All those deaths … they are on my hands.’ Finally he managed to drag his head up to look Atayev in the eye. ‘Your daughter … Natasha, she died because of me. Because of me.’
For several seconds, nothing was said. A silence, stunned and absolute, descended on the room. After all the protests, the deflections, the manoeuvring and the threats, to hear him finally come out and say it, to face up to what he had done at last, left them simply dumbstruck.
