The Persona Protocol

by Andy McDermott

  ‘You didn’t see it?’ al-Rais said with suspicion.

  ‘It was under the snow! I don’t have X-ray eyes.’

  ‘Can you get it out?’ asked Zykov.

  ‘I’ll have to cut it. I’ve got the tools, but it’ll take time.’

  ‘How long?’ demanded al-Rais.

  ‘I don’t know. Twenty minutes, half an hour? I need to check that the driveshaft isn’t damaged too.’

  ‘That is too long,’ said the terrorist leader. ‘We’ll carry the generator to the plane.’

  Although he couldn’t see him, Adam somehow knew that the driver was shrugging. ‘Up to you. But I’ll have to cut it free anyway.’

  ‘Get it out,’ al-Rais ordered. Muffled footsteps followed as the men headed to the trailer.

  Frustrating minutes passed, Adam still unable to risk moving. The running commentary from Holly Jo and Kyle told him that the RTG was being taken from the Vityaz, then slowly carried down to the waterfront. Tony and his team were still over two miles distant. ‘It’s all downhill from here,’ Holly Jo added hopefully. ‘Oh, wait, that didn’t come out quite like I wanted . . .’

  ‘I know what you meant,’ said Adam. ‘Is anyone close to me?’

  ‘Just the driver. Everyone else is almost at the jetty.’

  ‘Which way is the driver looking?’

  ‘He’s got his back to you,’ Kyle said.

  Adam raised his head. The driver was kneeling at the Vityaz’s central coupling, using a small saw to cut the cable. Beyond the stalled all-terrain vehicle, he saw the scrum of men bearing the RTG, Zykov’s bodyguards having joined in to lighten the load. He was unsurprised that the leaders of the three groups were not volunteering their own services. ‘Okay, I’m going to get closer to the plane.’ He cautiously backed up to the tree line. The conifers’ drooping branches, laden with snow, provided good cover. He looked east, seeing the buildings through the trees. Still watching the driver, he headed towards them.

  ‘Adam!’ Kyle, urgent. He ducked behind a trunk and froze. ‘I just saw movement on the infrared camera, other side of the tracks. I think it’s Bianca.’

  ‘I told her to stay still,’ he muttered, peering across the cutting. The Vityaz obstructed his view.

  ‘I guess she got cold.’

  ‘I don’t see her. Where is she?’

  ‘Two o’clock from the ATV, looking north. About thirty yards from the edge of the trees. I think she’s following your tracks.’

  He couldn’t see her. ‘Damn it! We should have given her a headset.’

  ‘Hindsight’s always twenty-twenty, brah. Oh, wait – she’s stopped. She’s about twenty yards from the cutting. Hold on, I’ll zoom in . . . yeah, she’s hunkered down. Doesn’t look like she’s planning to get any closer.’

  That was a relief, but she was far from out of danger. There was no way he could tell her to retreat without exposing his own presence to the conspirators. ‘Okay. Warn me if she moves.’

  He set off again. Through the trees he saw the RTG’s porters gingerly bringing it along the jetty. While the wooden structure had been built to carry heavy loads of minerals to waiting boats, many harsh winters had passed since it was last maintained, and nobody appeared fully convinced that it would take the weight of the generator – to say nothing of the men themselves.

  Before long he reached the largest building. He quickly made his way to the rear. A door hung off its hinges. He drew his gun and stepped inside.

  The former headquarters of the mining operation had been ravaged by weather and looters. Anything of value had been stripped from its interior, only trash remaining. He moved carefully through the derelict structure to a front window.

  It gave him an excellent view of the jetty. He got his first proper look at the Beriev. It was a big aircraft, its high wings over a hundred feet in span and the fuselage very nearly as long. The hatch in its flank was still open, a bored young man sitting in it smoking a cigarette. Lights in the cockpit revealed the pilot watching the ponderous advance of his cargo.

  Adam looked back to the shore. Sevnik, Zykov and al-Rais were less than fifty feet from him.

  His hand tightened on the gun’s grip. One shot, and Muqaddim al-Rais would be dead . . .

  But the threat his organisation posed would not. Somebody else would take over. Unless al-Rais was captured alive, and the PERSONA used to extract all his secrets. Patience.

  ‘And so, we are done,’ Sevnik proclaimed loudly. ‘I suppose you want your share now, Ruslan Pavelovich.’

  Zykov gave him a sarcastic smile. ‘It would be nice to have it before you leave for your tropical paradise, yes.’

  Sevnik did not appreciate the joke, but nevertheless he crouched and opened one of the cases. He took out and unfolded a nylon holdall, then started tossing bundles of banknotes into it. Zykov counted them off. ‘Two million,’ he said before long. He zipped up the bag and lifted it. Two million dollars in tightly packed hundreds required surprisingly little effort to carry. ‘Good doing business with you, Kirill Makarovich.’ Sevnik grunted in response, closing the case and standing to watch the men on the jetty.

  ‘Tony’s just over a mile out,’ Holly Jo told Adam through a crackle of static. ‘Coming from the south-west. They’ll be there in about eight minutes.’

  ‘Okay.’ But did he have eight minutes? Despite their concern about the state of the jetty, the men had still managed to get the RTG to the plane. The man with the cigarette flicked it into the water and disappeared inside the cabin. The porters eased their heavy burden through the hatch. The Be-200 listed, the float beneath the end of its starboard wing dipping lower into the icy water.

  The terrorists climbed into the aircraft to secure the RTG. The Russian soldiers and Zykov’s bodyguards, meanwhile, decided that their part in the heavy lifting was done. They returned to the shore. ‘All right!’ said Sevnik. ‘Let’s go!’ Hefting the cases, he set off back through the cutting. The soldiers followed, one taking out a walkie-talkie and issuing a curt instruction. A few seconds later, Adam heard a muffled whine through the trees. The Hind had started its engines.

  That was good: with the Russian troops and their gunship gone, Tony’s team would no longer be so drastically outnumbered. But if they didn’t arrive soon, their numerical advantage would be worthless. Al-Rais and his men would have left with their prize, leaving only Zykov, his bodyguards and the Vityaz’s driver.

  He looked up the cutting at the stalled Vityaz as Sevnik’s group, moving at a rapid trot, passed it. The driver finally freed the cable from the hydraulics. He watched the soldiers go, then turned to toss the metal line into the snow—

  Something made him freeze.

  Adam knew immediately what the driver had seen. His footprints.

  None of the Vityaz’s passengers had crossed the cutting. The driver peered into the woods, puzzled, then plodded to investigate the mysterious tracks.

  It wouldn’t take him long to work out that someone else had been there. Adam checked the plane. The RTG was being lashed into place. ‘How far away is Tony?’

  ‘A few minutes.’

  ‘Do they know the situation here?’

  ‘Yes. They’re moving as fast as they can.’

  ‘Adam,’ cut in Kyle urgently. One of al-Rais’s men, Qasid, was coming back along the jetty, but that was not what he was warning about. ‘The driver – he’s following your tracks into the woods.’

  Adam looked back along the cutting. ‘I don’t see him. Is he behind the buildings?’

  ‘No – he’s following them back the way you came. He’s heading straight for Bianca!’

  30

  Firefight

  A mixture of cold and fear had driven Bianca deeper into the trees. The longer she spent crouching amongst the firs, hands and feet slowly numbing, the more exposed she felt. With no idea what was happening outside the little woods, her imagination came up with its own frightening possibilities. Were soldiers patrolling the area? Were al-Rais’s terrorist
s combing the forest for intruders?

  A loud bang followed by a commotion from the stalled Vityaz had been the final straw. Something had happened – but what? Was Adam in trouble? Even knowing that it directly contradicted Adam’s instructions, she followed his trail. Just being able to see what was going on, she felt, would calm her nerves. At the very least, she would know if she had a genuine reason to be scared.

  It had not taken her long to lug the PERSONA gear to a position with a partial view of the jetty and the ruined mine buildings. The Vityaz was stationary and silent off to her right. Most of the men were clumped together, slowly shuffling through the snow towards the lakeside. She realised they were carrying something.

  The RTG. Al-Rais had got what he came for. And now he was about to take it away.

  She assumed Adam had somehow sabotaged the Vityaz. But there was no sign of him – and since the men were carrying the generator rather than scouring the woods, he had obviously remained undiscovered. That realisation eased her tension, slightly. If nobody was looking for Adam, they weren’t looking for her either. She hunched behind a tree, keeping watch.

  The men carrying the RTG reached the jetty, then the plane. Some talking – she recognised Zykov’s voice – and then the soldiers headed back the way they had come. The helicopter started up. Sevnik and his men were leaving.

  What about the terrorists? And where was Adam? All she could do was wait, the cold gnawing at her again. The noise of the helicopter grew louder. She turned her head towards the sound, but couldn’t see the aircraft through the snow-heavy trees.

  She looked back—

  The stab of cold through her heart had nothing to do with the temperature. It was pure fear.

  Someone was moving through the woods.

  It wasn’t Adam. Too broad, coat the wrong colour. The Vityaz’s driver? He was looking down at the ground.

  Following Adam’s tracks.

  The tracks that would lead right back to her.

  Bianca choked the breath in her throat, afraid she would be heard. She had to run! But if she did, the driver would see the sudden movement. All she could was crouch behind the tree trunk and make herself as small as possible, terror rising within her as he drew closer . . .

  ‘How far is he from her?’ Adam demanded. He glimpsed the driver through the trees, but still didn’t know where Bianca was in relation to him.

  ‘About a hundred feet, maybe?’ Kyle replied, unsure.

  Adam stared into the gloom beneath the branches, but saw no trace of her. At least that was something; she was hiding. Maybe the driver would give up and return to the Vityaz . . .

  ‘Is it secure, Qasid?’ al-Rais asked his comrade as he reached the shore.

  ‘Almost,’ came the reply. ‘You are finished here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Al-Rais glanced round as the gunship took flight, the pounding thrum of its rotors fading as it wheeled about and headed west over the hills. But a new noise rose to replace it – the Beriev’s engines starting up.

  ‘If you need any more weapons,’ Zykov said to al-Rais, ‘you know how to reach me. But for now, we go our separate ways, eh?’ He looked up the cutting to see how work on the Vityaz was progressing. ‘Hey, Ogurtsov! Where are you?’

  ‘Over here,’ came a reply from the trees.

  ‘What are you doing there? Is the Vityaz fixed?’

  Al-Rais had no interest in Zykov’s transportation issues. He spoke briefly to Qasid, then the pair started down the jetty. Adam tensed, bringing up his gun. Time was rapidly running out.

  ‘There’s something weird,’ the driver called. ‘I found some footprints.’

  On the dock, al-Rais stopped abruptly. ‘What footprints?’

  Adam took aim—

  Bianca had no idea what the driver was saying, but he was getting closer. She hunched up more tightly, shivering. Maybe he wouldn’t see her, maybe Zykov would call him back, maybe . . .

  She heard a muffled metallic clack.

  A gun!

  Ogurtsov drew a revolver and cocked it as he advanced on Bianca’s hiding place. ‘There’s someone here!’

  Al-Rais whirled, yelling to the men in the plane. ‘It’s an ambush! Get your guns, get out of the—’

  Adam fired.

  Not at the terrorist leader, but at the driver. The Russian crumpled to the ground less than ten feet from Bianca, blood spraying over his coat from a head wound.

  Adam brought his gun back towards al-Rais, but his target was already moving, drawing a weapon of his own as he and his companion raced back to the shore. They dived behind a snow-covered pile of rusted machinery. The American’s second shot clanked off the corroded metal a fraction of a second later.

  ‘Find them, kill them!’ al-Rais screamed. His men started to scramble from the Beriev, AKs at the ready.

  Zykov and his bodyguards had also hurried into cover behind a mound of rubble. ‘They’re in the buildings!’ he shouted.

  Al-Rais glared at him. ‘You set us up!’ he snarled, raising his gun. Qasid rolled on to his front and aimed his Kalashnikov at the Russians.

  Zykov’s eyes widened. ‘No, I swear—’

  Al-Rais fired, four bloody holes bursting open in the arms dealer’s head and chest. Qasid opened up with his AK on full auto, spraying the bodyguards with lead. Their bullet-riddled corpses flopped to the ground beside Zykov.

  The last of the terrorists jumped from the plane, following his comrades down the jetty—

  Shots tore into them, sending three men spinning into the icy water amid spouting trails of gore. A fourth was hit in the arm. He staggered, screaming – only to take another shot to the throat and collapse dead on the dock. The last two men managed to hurl themselves behind the ice-encrusted scrap on the shore.

  Adam had been as surprised as the terrorists by the onslaught – but he knew where it had come from.

  Tony, Baxter and his men had joined the battle.

  He could tell from the sound of the gunfire that they were still some distance away, using their rifles’ scopes to engage from extreme range. ‘Holly Jo! Where are they?’

  ‘They’re coming along the shore to the south,’ she replied. ‘About five hundred metres from you.’

  It only took him a moment to visualise the relative positions of all the combatants – and to realise that if the terrorists moved a short distance further from the lake, the American team’s sight lines would be blocked by the buildings.

  Al-Rais had come to the same conclusion. ‘Cover me!’ he shouted. Adam briefly saw him gesturing towards a single-storey building on the cutting’s north side, but wasn’t able to line up a clear shot. ‘Get into there!’

  The whine of the Beriev’s engines rose sharply. The young co-pilot reached from the open hatch to unfasten the mooring rope as the seaplane shifted, ice churning and bobbing around its belly—

  A hole suddenly exploded in the windscreen, the pilot’s head snapping back out of Adam’s sight as a gunshot echoed along the shore. Not the dry mechanical rattle of the G36s, but the enormous boom of Rossovich’s XM500 sniper rifle. Five hundred metres was nothing for the Barrett; the weapon was designed to hit targets well over a mile away. The co-pilot shrieked and ducked back inside. The Beriev jerked to a stop, held by the line.

  Al-Rais made a break for the building. Adam took aim – but forced himself not to fire. The mission objective was to capture al-Rais, not kill him. Instead he found a new target as the other three terrorists sprinted after their leader. This time, he didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. One of the running men fell from a bullet wound to his upper back.

  He tracked the next man – but al-Rais had already kicked open the broken door, his remaining followers piling in after him. Unlike the other ruined structures, this had stone walls rather than wood, giving the terrorists much more cover.

  But they hadn’t gone there purely for protection. For Zykov to have contacted him, al-Rais must have had a satellite phone of his own. If he warned his organisation, anythi
ng Adam learned from the terrorist’s persona would be rendered worthless.

  It would take Tony and his team a couple of minutes to reach him. More than enough time for al-Rais to make a call . . .

  Adam ran back through the building and out of the rear door, rounding the side of the derelict structure. He paused at the corner, glancing across the tracks at the stone building. Movement behind a broken window, one of the terrorists pointing an AK towards the shore.

  He ran—

  The Kalashnikov swung towards him, but Adam raised his own gun and fired five rapid shots as he raced across the cutting. The bullets smacked off the stonework. The AK briefly jerked away from the impacts – then returned, unleashing a burst of automatic fire. Rounds sliced through the air just behind him. He fired once more, then dived headlong behind a couple of overturned mine carts.

  Snow sprayed in his face as he landed. He wiped his eyes, then ejected his SIG’s magazine. It still had three bullets remaining, but he wanted to reload while he was still in cover.

  The new mag clacked home. He popped his head out from the side of the wagon, seeing broken planks piled against the stone building’s windowless side wall, then ducked back as the gunfire resumed. Screaming ricochets bounced off the thick metal, but an AK couldn’t rock ’n’ roll on full auto for long . . .

  The gun fell silent. Now it was the terrorist’s turn to reload, the thirty rounds in the curved magazine gone.

  Adam burst out from behind the carts. He heard a warning shout, but kept running for the stacked planks. They were slippery with ice and rot, but he had enough momentum to charge up them and vault on to the roof.

  There was a large hole where decay and the weight of a winter’s snow had made a combined attack. He jumped down through it, landing with a thump inside a back room.

  Al-Rais was just six feet from him, whirling in surprise at the noise. He had a satphone in one hand, gun in the other.

  The pistol came up—

  Adam charged, slamming his shoulder into the Saudi’s stomach and driving him back against a wall. He lashed out with his gun hand, metal striking metal and sending the terrorist’s weapon clattering across the room, then whipped it back up to smash against his opponent’s skull. Al-Rais slumped to the floor.