Endwar: The Hunted

by David Michaels

  Chopra scowled. “Another sick game? You want us to entertain you?”

  She shook her head. “What you’re telling him is the truth, and I agree with it. I admire your ambition and loyalty to him and his family. There aren’t many people like you in this world, a world controlled by greed and corruption. And I’m no different. I only want the money and the oil-reserve locations. But his nation will recover. And he needs to lead it. He can help the emirates rise up against Russia.”

  “You can’t be serious,” he said.

  She holstered her pistol beneath her coat. “I am. Believe me. I am.”

  Just then the room’s phone rang, and they all looked at each other. Holding her breath, the Snow Maiden answered, and her heart sank as the man on the other end said, “Is this Viktoria Antsyforov?”

  She slammed the receiver down and raced to the window. “Come on, we’re leaving!” she shouted.

  With the latch thrown, she shoved up the window and was about to climb out when gunfire pummeled the wall beside her, splintering the wooden shingles. She caught the briefest glimpse of a man standing near a small car, aiming an automatic rifle. His green balaclava concealed most of his face. He’d intentionally worn green to send her a message.

  FIFTEEN

  West Bank Guest House

  South of Dover

  The Snow Maiden hit the floor and crawled across the room as Chopra wrenched open the door, placing himself between Hussein and the incoming fire.

  She screamed for them to go, and she was just behind, bolting up to slam the door after herself but not before something thumped on the wood.

  Oh, no ...

  She hollered again for them to move.

  And just as she reached the staircase, the room exploded behind her, the concussion knocking her down the stairs and crashing into Chopra and Hussein, who tumbled themselves as shouts and screams rose from below.

  Her pistol slipped from her holster as she tried to pull herself up from the tangled mess of the old man and kid.

  Before she could sit up, Hussein had her gun and pointed it at her. “Now you work for me. Just like him,” the kid said, flicking a glance at Chopra, who was just sitting up and straightening his glasses.

  A crash came from the other side of the house, and after a few loud footfalls, the man wearing the green balaclava rushed into the doorway, turned, and spotted them.

  “Shoot him!” she cried as she reached for her second micro pistol tucked into an ankle holster. She had a third gun and a couple of knives as well—a switchblade and a small, sheathed neck knife that hung from a piece of paracord.

  Remarkably—perhaps even miraculously—the kid got off the first shot, striking the terrorist thug in the shoulder. The guy’s first salvo went wide as he took the hit, and then another ripped across the ceiling, sending plaster tumbling down onto their heads.

  The Snow Maiden squinted through all the dust and finished him with two more shots—much to the kid’s surprise. She gave him a look: You think I carry only one gun? Then she bolted off the stairs and grabbed the thug’s rifle, searched his pockets, and found a set of keys.

  “Shoot me or come along,” she told Hussein. “Because this bastard’s not working alone.”

  “They’ll kill the sheikh!” cried Chopra. “We must protect him!”

  “They’re after me. You’re excess baggage, and those guys travel light. So yeah—they’ll kill the kid.” She rushed to Hussein and thrust out her hand. “Give me back the gun.”

  “I think I’ll just—”

  The kid didn’t get to finish. She ripped the pistol from his hand in one deft movement, and he’d screamed as she’d bent his trigger finger.

  “Out now!”

  They complied, and once clear of the stairwell, they charged out a back door, leaving the house staff lying on the floor behind sofas or beneath tables.

  She told them to hold there, just outside, where she called Patti, who told her she was clear to go for the thug’s car.

  Taking a long breath and holding it, she made her break, racing around the house, weaving between bushes, traversing a small stone path, then wrenching open a wrought-iron gate to race across a brown patch of grass toward where the thug had parked his car. She fervently believed he was not working alone and felt a pang of fear over trusting Patti, who no doubt was watching via hacked satellite transmissions.

  As she crossed the grass, the gunfire came in from across the street.

  She dove onto her belly near an old oak, then elbowed her way behind it. Using the camera function on her cell phone, she kept tightly behind the trunk and slowly moved the camera out until she could see the street in the tiny screen: Two men had set up behind the row of parked cars.

  The shuffling of feet from behind made her whirl back. Chopra and the kid had joined her. “I told you to hold back there!”

  “The house is on fire,” cried Chopra.

  He wasn’t kidding. The stench had already grown unbearable, and the staff members were rushing out into the yard, screaming and talking on phones. Sirens began to sound in the distance.

  “You have the keys to that car?” asked Chopra. “Give them to me. I’ll be ready to get us out of here.”

  “Sure, I’ll trust you with those,” she said. “Come on.” She rose and fired some covering shots to drive the men down as she ran from the tree to the car, just ten meters. The thugs returned fire, the rounds booming and ricocheting as she threw herself behind the back wheel. Chopra and Hussein charged up and crouched behind her. The old man could barely catch his breath, and the kid wasn’t faring much better. This was probably more exercise than they’d had in a year.

  With a pop and hiss both tires on the opposite side of the car went flat.

  “There goes our ride,” said Hussein.

  The Snow Maiden cursed, looked back at Chopra, and handed him the car keys.

  “Thanks a lot,” he spat.

  Two thugs. No escape plan. And Patti’s intel was obviously worthless.

  She closed her eyes for just a moment. Took a breath. All right, she’d been in worse situations. Time to go on the offensive.

  The Blackhawk could not land on the hovercraft and didn’t have enough fuel left to engage in a slow, one-by-one extraction of Brent’s team via the hoist.

  So Brent had no choice but to cut loose the pilot. The hovercraft was equipped with two small Zodiacs for emergencies, so he and the others would launch them and head back to Dover, where Dennison said she’d have them picked up.

  “Wait, getting something else now,” she told Brent, showing him streaming video from a house near Dover that was now on fire. “Reports of an explosion and gunfire. Not sure if it’s related.”

  “It has to be,” said Brent, watching as his people prepared the two Zodiacs for launch. “Can you get me some ground transport once we reach the harbor?”

  “I’m on it. But don’t get your hopes up, Brent. This could just be something else. Looters? Who knows ...”

  “They pulled a switch at the restaurant, so they didn’t get very far, I’m telling you.”

  “I’ll see if there’s any other air support available. If we can get another chopper over there, we might have a shot.”

  Chopra flinched as another bullet burrowed into the car and sparks flew somewhere above him. He crouched tightly near the rear wheel, keeping Hussein close to his side. He draped an arm around the boy, who threw the arm off, saying, “You’re not my father. And that’s creepy.”

  “Who are they?” Chopra asked the Snow Maiden, whose expression had formed a tight knot of intense thought. “Did you hear me?” he added, raising his voice.

  “Stay here. Don’t move,” she said, then shifted around the car, out of sight.

  “We can make our break now,” Hussein said. “We’ll run back to the house. Hear that? The fire department’s coming.”

  “We’re staying here,” said Chopra. “And if those guys out there are her enemies, they might be our friends.”
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  “You know, you got a point,” said Hussein.

  “Finally, you’re willing to listen to the old man.”

  Hussein snorted. “For now.”

  “Your father was a great man.”

  “That was random.”

  “You can be as great ...”

  A fresh spate of gunfire made Chopra lean out from behind the car.

  He gasped.

  The Snow Maiden had darted across the street, drawing the fire of one man while the other ducked back behind his car. She made it all the way across without being struck, or at least it felt so, and then she dropped onto her belly and glanced ahead, where she spotted a pair of legs.

  She propped up the rifle, held her breath, and fired a three-round burst, striking the man in the ankle. He cried out, went down, and that’s when she rushed up, around the car, and ran straight at him.

  He looked at her and began to bring around his gun, only the eyes showing beneath his green balaclava.

  Her rounds drummed evenly across his chest, forming a perforated slash mark, and he flailed back like a leaf in the wind. She ran by, searching for the other guy, the kill as instantaneous and robotic as that.

  She was taking a hell of a risk, all right, betting that the kid and the old man would be too scared to take off. Her attention was now divided between the car across the street and the row in front of her.

  Then she saw it, movement just head. The tiniest portion of a green balaclava showed above the trunk of an old Mercedes. She threw herself beside the nearest car, rifle at the ready.

  “Hey, fool,” she shouted in Russian. “Tell Green Vox to stop wasting my time.”

  “You’ve already told him,” the thug replied. He’d chosen to speak in English but his accent was thick and familiar; South American, she knew. “I’m Green Vox!”

  “Sure, whatever. It doesn’t matter. But let me ask you—how’d you find me?”

  “You’re sloppy. You’re just very sloppy.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Izotov’s helping you, Nestes. Isn’t he?”

  “Do you want to talk now or embrace in death?”

  “That’s dramatic. Unfortunately your death won’t be. It’s all very routine.”

  “I’m glad you remember me ...” Surprisingly, he shifted out from behind the car, rifle pointed skyward. He wrenched off his mask to reveal a bearded face and piercing blue eyes.

  Jose Nestes (not his real name) was a drug lord from Colombia who had joined the Green Brigade Transnational in an attempt to form a splinter group he called “the Forgotten Army.” Nestes’s dream was to lead a terrorist organization large enough to undermine the efforts of the superpowers themselves. He claimed to have brought together several of the world’s most notorious terror organizations, including Hezbollah and the Taliban.

  But Green Vox—or at least the original one the Snow Maiden had worked with—had rejected this idea, in favor of his ecological agenda. He fancied himself as more of a noble terrorist trying to save the planet than a crime lord trying to undermine the global economy, a goal that in and of itself seemed rather laughable to her.

  Yet Nestes, if he was being honest, had somehow seized the Green Brigade’s reins and was, quite possibly, steering the group in another direction.

  “I want to make a deal with you,” he said. “You know I’m serious, because you could kill me right now. We don’t have time to discuss details. But we need to talk.”

  “If you wanted to make a deal, then why didn’t you just drop by for tea?”

  “Can you blame me for trying to kill you? There’s a bounty on your head. A huge one. Didn’t you know that?”

  “You’re right. We don’t have time for this.” She rose and started toward him, lifting her rifle.

  He brought his rifle down and aimed at her. She should’ve shot him, but his offer sounded strangely intriguing, so here they were now, in a standoff.

  “I guess we both die,” he said.

  “Yeah, but you die first, and I always get the last word.”

  The Snow Maiden’s cell phone began to ring. She cursed.

  “That wouldn’t be Patti calling, would it?”

  She froze.

  In shock.

  If you knew about the Ganjin, then you were in the Ganjin—or you didn’t live long.

  “Who’re you working for?” she demanded.

  “For you now.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “There are those who don’t appreciate your service and would rather terminate your employment.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” she asked. “You’re just playing a little game. And I’m not biting.”

  The fire trucks’ sirens resounded loudly as they turned the corner and barreled down the road.

  She tossed a look to them, then summarily shot Nestes. He staggered back and fell to the ground. She bent down over him.

  “You just made a big mistake,” he gasped. “I could have helped you ...”

  With a chill, she rose, ran across the street, and screamed for the old man and kid to get in the car. She jumped into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine, and they tore away from the curb, riding on two flat tires.

  In all her years of covert intelligence work and trade-craft, she had never made a more sloppy or pathetic escape. Maybe they were all correct. She had lost her edge.

  Or maybe there were just too many forces working against her this time: the Americans, the Brits, the Russians, the terrorists, and now ...

  What the hell had Nestes been talking about? Were there enemies within the Ganjin that wanted her killed?

  If they managed to get the hell out of the U.K., then she and Patti were going to have a very long talk. She glanced quickly at her phone; indeed, Patti had been trying to contact her.

  Brent’s team arrived at the docks near Dover. Dennison confirmed that the Snow Maiden, along with Chopra and Hussein, had been at the West Bank Guest House, now ravaged by flames. They’d left, heading northeast up Folkestone Road, but they had lost sight of them at Dover Towne Centre, where a massive traffic jam still blocked all roads.

  Brent and his Ghosts jogged the short distance to that business center, broke off in pairs, fanned out, and conducted an exhaustive search of a three-block radius. They found the Snow Maiden’s car, two wheels shot up, parked along a dense greenbelt near Priory Hill. She’d obviously broken out of the traffic jam and driven right through the woods, judging from the extensive damage to the vehicle, the tracks, and the gaping lines in the pavement from the rims.

  Dennison tried to enlist the aid of the local authorities, but the request had been denied because they had their hands full with the massive crowds at the docks.

  All Brent and his Ghosts had to do now was find the three people amid near-rioting crowds flooding toward the coastline.

  Brent stationed Riggs and Schleck up on two of the highest buildings, where they’d maintain surveillance on the docks via Schleck’s drone.

  Splinter Cell Thomas, still bleary-eyed and distraught over the loss of his brother, volunteered to coordinate with Third Echelon and was communicating directly with them to gain more intel.

  They spent the remainder of the day searching in vain, and as night fell, Brent stood near a roundabout opposite the harbor. “Hammer, you got anything? Anything at all?”

  “Negative, Ghost Lead. Negative ...”

  He checked in with Thomas. The NSA had nothing either.

  “She’ll turn up again,” said Lakota, drawing up to Brent’s side. “She might lay low here for a day or two, but I’ll bet she’ll cross into Europe. They’ll keep eyes in the sky focused on this route, and they’ll pick her up.”

  Brent sighed. “They’ll disguise themselves and slip out in the middle of the night. And we can’t stay here forever.”

  “What’re you saying?”

  “I’m saying that ... at least for me ... this is the end of the line. Before the night’s over, Dennison will call me back with o
rders to pull out.”

  “We can’t give up.”

  “They want results. And we didn’t provide them. They’ll bring in fresh meat to get the job done. But hey, I had a good run. The Ghosts are number one, that’s for sure. At least I had a chance to play with you guys ...”

  Lakota shook her head. “I won’t let that happen. All right, you were a little too hardcore by taking us back to Robin Sage, but you’ve been an excellent captain, sir. I would serve with you anytime, anywhere.”

  “Thanks.” He smiled wanly. “But I’m done here.”

  She frowned. “You shouldn’t be taking this so well.”

  “I’m not. It’s all an act. After you leave, I’ll curse. I’ll break something. I’ll get an ulcer, and my eyeballs will explode from my head.”

  “Now that I can believe. But please, sir, if she pulls us off, you have to argue. You have to fight.”

  “Trust me, I will, but I’ve been around long enough to know how these things go. The unit on the ground takes the responsibility for the loss.”

  “That’s not always true. We’re only as good as the intel they provide. If they keep putting us two steps behind and can’t provide the assets, how can they hold us accountable?”

  “Dennison went out on a limb for me. I owed her results. Simple as that.”

  “Let me talk to her.”

  “Forget it.” Brent extended his hand. “It’s been an honor and a pleasure.”

  “No, I won’t take your hand. I won’t. It’s not over.”

  Brent shrugged, lowered the hand, and stared out across the harbor, where crowded ferries and dozens of private craft thrummed toward the French coastline.

  SIXTEEN

  Geneva

  Forty-eight Hours Later

  After abandoning their car in the park, the Snow Maiden, Chopra, and Hussein had fled to the equipment storage room of a nearby tennis club. They’d hidden there until nightfall, at which time they were met by their old taxi driver, who brought changes of clothing and took them to the docks to link up with a yacht bound for Calais. Patti had arranged it all.