Behind the Wire (A Dan Taylor thriller)

by Rachel Amphlett

  Antonia’s brother?

  He groaned, the memories painful. The betrayal by a beautiful Iranian agent had cost the life of one of the team, and he’d never forgiven himself.

  Was this to be his future? Dealing with a man who sought revenge for his sister’s death?

  He turned to find three worried faces staring back at him and exhaled, trying to lose some of the tension that cramped his shoulders.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ said David. ‘I’ll bring you up to speed.’

  He pulled a folded sheaf of papers from the inside pocket of his linen jacket and lay them out on the table so the whole team could see.

  ‘Gulzar is a computer prodigy,’ he began. ‘More so than his sister.’ He pointed to the first page. ‘This is a copy of a communiqué from the Saudi embassy in Washington.’ He looked up to the three pairs of eyes watching him intently. ‘The Saudis believe Gulzar is going to mount an imminent attack on American soil and sent a copy of their warning to London as well. Their belief is that if Gulzar is successful in the United States, then England will be next.’

  ‘What is it with that family?’ said Mitch, rubbing his chin.

  ‘I said he was a computer prodigy,’ said David. ‘I didn’t say he was sane.’

  ‘The Americans have stepped up checks on their infrastructure?’

  David nodded at Dan. ‘Yes, but Gulzar is clever,’ he said. ‘And we don’t want to take any chances. The British government want to get their hands on Gulzar before the Americans do. And, given we have a lot more information about that family on our files than they do, we stand a very good chance of stopping whatever it is he’s got planned.’

  Dan tapped his fingers on the table, an uneven rhythm. His mind raced. Was he ready to work with David again?

  He glared at Mitch, who for once remained silent.

  ‘No wise cracks?’

  Mitch shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘Mel?’

  The analyst shrugged. ‘Your call, boss.’

  ‘All right,’ said Dan. He turned to David. ‘I’m in,’ he said. ‘But on one condition.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want to finish what we started here. I want to go to Russia.’

  ‘You’ve already been cleared for action,’ said David. He leaned across the table and held out his hand.

  ‘Welcome back, Dan.’

  CHAPTER 49

  Two weeks later

  North Moscow

  Dan checked over his shoulder as the front door to the apartment opened, then returned his attention to the building opposite his position, the wheels from a packed commuter tram squealing against its rails as it turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

  He rubbed his hands together, the apartment heating having been turned off by the utility company when the last owner had left some six months previously. A heavy downpour lashed the window while a northerly wind shook the pane in its frame.

  A brown paper bag appeared next to his elbow, and his stomach rumbled, despite the monotony of the diet he and Mitch had adopted the past few days.

  ‘Great. More Pirozhki,’ he muttered, and then sighed. ‘Thanks, Tim.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Dan turned to face the British-born agent. ‘Anything to report?’

  The man pulled a hat from his head, sending a spray of water across the linoleum floor, tossed it onto the table, then shrugged his jacket off his shoulders and hung it over the back of a chair. ‘All quiet out there,’ he said. ‘What about here?’

  ‘She turned up an hour ago as usual,’ said Mitch, helping himself to the second of the bags Tim had placed on the table. ‘Regular as clockwork.’

  Dan checked his watch, a new model he’d purchased on his way through Heathrow before he and Mitch had caught separate flights into the former Soviet Union. ‘You’re sure he’s here on Thursdays?’

  Tim nodded and took a large bite of Pirozhki before responding. ‘We’ve had an eye on him for a while,’ he said, and then grinned. ‘Just been waiting for an opportunity to do something about him.’

  Dan exhaled, unwrapped the top of the paper bag, and fished out another one of the meat-filled pastries, then returned his attention to the street below while he chewed.

  He pushed back his chair, leaned forward, and peered through the rifle scope that was trained on an apartment on the sixth floor of the concrete structure.

  A gap in the net curtains allowed a view of sumptuous furnishings; décor splashed across the walls in hues of red and pink, and mirrors added light to an otherwise dull space. A fake chandelier hung from the ceiling, the light bulbs casting shadows into the corners of the room.

  A woman pranced into view, naked except for a pair of black lace knickers, her head thrown back as she laughed. She moved across the room, then pulled a man into view, his gut hanging over his boxer shorts doing little to hide the erection that pushed at the fabric.

  ‘Busy girl,’ Mitch commented through a mouthful of food.

  Dan moved away from the scope and checked his watch. ‘She is.’ He took a bite of Pirozhki. ‘Guess it pays well.’

  ‘She’s a favourite with a lot of the government ministers,’ said Miles. ‘Not to mention some of the foreign diplomats.’

  Mitch shook his head. ‘Shame we can’t get a listening device in the room.’

  ‘What’s to say we haven’t?’ said Tim.

  Dan choked on his food. ‘Really?’

  Tim inclined his head.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  Upon their arrival in the country, Dan and Mitch had kept a low profile while David and Mel worked with the other British security agencies, gathering intelligence about the man who had employed the military enterpriser and devising a plan to deal with him, once and for all.

  They had taken the name Abramov had given to Dan in his last dying moments and had traced Kozlov’s current whereabouts with vigour.

  Luckily, Sergei Kozlov was already known to the British establishment.

  He had visited arms fairs in London on several occasions, legitimately purchasing weapons on behalf of the Russian government. He had wined and dined with minor royalty and charmed his way into the upper echelons of British society.

  And, on the side, he had quietly siphoned off weapons from each shipment of arms sent to the mother country, stockpiling a cache for a small private army of mercenaries that only served to do his bidding, and that of the state’s puppet-masters.

  Both Dan and Mitch had fought down the impatience that came with an impending operation; they knew when the time was right, they’d be put into action.

  After his involvement in the attempted coup in Western Sahara had become apparent, together with the weapons thefts, it hadn’t taken much persuasion to convince the Prime Minister that Kozlov was about to become a major embarrassment for him.

  The orders were released without delay.

  That call had come from David four days earlier, and within two hours they’d met up with Tim Fallon, a young British agent who ran several safe houses around the Russian capital.

  At once, the team of three had moved into position, taking up residence in an abandoned apartment the secret service had kept under wraps for over a year.

  Tim’s admission that the apartment in the building opposite had been fitted with listening devices confirmed Dan’s original suspicions – all the time the woman entertained the higher echelons of the Russian government, her presence in the building was assured, and her life along with it. He wondered if she was aware that she was currently the centre of the British intelligence agencies’ attention.

  Mitch joined Dan at the window and folded his arms across his chest as the previous customer stepped from the apartment block and raised a black umbrella to ward off the rain.

  He hurried across the road to a waiting car, whereupon the driver emerged and opened the back door, taking the umbrella from the man as he squeezed his large bulk into the back seat.

  Once h
is passenger was settled, the driver closed the door, retracted the umbrella, and gave the street a cursory glance before taking his seat behind the wheel and pulling the car into the flow of traffic.

  Dan checked his watch again, fighting the adrenalin rush that threatened to shred his nerves.

  Five minutes later, Mitch rocked forward on his toes. ‘Next,’ he said, and jerked his head towards a figure walking towards the apartment from the opposite direction.

  Tim joined them. ‘This is our man.’

  ‘Where’s his car?’ said Dan.

  ‘He has his driver drop him off two streets away,’ said Tim. ‘Prefers to walk, and then the car picks him up outside the building afterwards.’

  ‘Risky,’ said Mitch.

  Tim shrugged. ‘As a politician in Moscow, everything is risky.’

  Dan ignored them both and instead narrowed his eyes as he observed the man approaching the building.

  As Kozlov strode up the steps and entered the apartment building, Dan exhaled and moved back to his position at the rifle.

  He settled his eye socket against the scope and concentrated on his breathing, his finger on the trigger guard.

  ‘Our man has entered the building,’ said Mitch. ‘You should see her open the door to him in about forty seconds if the elevator’s clear.’

  ‘Count it down,’ said Dan.

  Silence enveloped the room as the three men waited expectantly, before Mitch’s voice cut the air.

  ‘Three. Two. One.’

  A heartbeat later, Dan watched through the scope as the woman in the apartment walked past the window, a satin robe draped around her body, and moved to the front door. A moment later, she returned, leading the man towards the bedroom at the right of the apartment and out of sight of Dan’s position.

  ‘Based on intel, they’ll be in the bedroom for about fifteen minutes, and then she’ll serve him brandy in the living room,’ said Tim, a pair of binoculars to his eyes. ‘That’s when you’ll get your clear shot.’

  A moment later, Mitch swore. ‘What the hell is she doing?’

  The prostitute had reappeared, peered through the window to the street below, and then pulled the curtains closed.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  Tim’s words echoed what was going through Dan’s mind at the exact same time.

  ‘She’s never done that before,’ the British agent said. ‘Christ, what a fuck up.’

  Dan swore and pushed himself away from the rifle.

  ‘Pack this up. Get ready to roll,’ he said, and grabbed his jacket, pushing his pistol into his belt loop and tucking his shirt down.

  Tim cornered him at the door. ‘Wait – what are you doing?’

  ‘I came here to do a job,’ said Dan. He pointed towards the building opposite. ‘I reckon I’ve got about twenty minutes before Kozlov’s official car picks him up, right?’

  The agent nodded.

  ‘Right,’ said Dan. He reached into his belt loop for the pistol tucked under his shirt, checked the magazine, and slammed it back into place before glaring at Tim. ‘This is the only chance we’ve got,’ he said. ‘If we don’t stop him, we’re always going to have the risk of a coup hanging over our heads.’

  ‘There has to be another way,’ insisted the agent. ‘You’ll never get away with this.’

  Dan pointed at the agent. ‘I will, because you’re going to turn off the microphones in that apartment, do you understand me?’ His mouth quirked. ‘After that, it’s probably time you went back to the office,’ he said. He checked over his shoulder.

  Mitch had dismantled the rifle, put the components into a duffel bag, and now stood in the middle of the room, his eyes darting between Dan and Tim.

  ‘Are we going, or what?’ he demanded.

  Dan faced Tim. ‘Clear out,’ he said, and punched the man’s shoulder. ‘We’ll take it from here. You never saw us.’

  Tim sighed and stepped to one side. ‘For Christ’s sake, be careful.’

  Dan winked and led Mitch into the hallway, breaking into a run.

  He pushed open the emergency exit door and ran down the stairs, Mitch’s footsteps in his wake.

  At the bottom, he slowed, opened the fire door a crack, and checked the way was clear.

  ‘Give me two minutes,’ he said. ‘If we both run, people will notice. I’ll meet you outside the front door.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  Despite being early summer in the city, a chill clung to the air, and for a moment Dan couldn’t fathom whether it was real or imagined. The enormity of their task hadn’t left him since his arrival four days ago.

  He tugged his collar up and launched himself across the street, dodged between a car and a cyclist, and hurried up the stone steps to the apartment block he’d been staring at for the past four days.

  He knew the layout intimately. Tim had provided copies of construction drawings, and in between stints watching the building and monitoring its occupants, he’d studied every line of the architect’s handiwork.

  He had hoped they wouldn’t need to step inside the building itself; Tim was right – it was risky.

  If one of the other residents spotted him before he’d had a chance to complete his mission, he and Mitch would be compromised.

  They’d planned for contingencies as much as possible; Mitch had parked around the corner from the building they’d been hiding in for the past four days, and Tim had made a point to check their escape route hadn’t been tampered with each time he’d left the apartment to fetch food.

  Tim had ensured he’d built up a presence at the apartment in the two days leading up to Dan and Mitch’s arrival, his fluent Russian tinged with the right amount of local dialect so as not to raise suspicions amongst his new neighbours, and his cover story was water-tight.

  Dan and Mitch had arrived under cover of darkness, easily avoiding detection on the security cameras after Tim had disconnected them remotely; the circuit would be returned to normal on their departure.

  Now, he pushed through the entrance door and stepped into a long narrow foyer. Ignoring the two elevators to his left, he took the stairs, keeping his step light.

  As he reached the landing for the sixth floor, he took a few seconds to get his breathing under control before striding towards the door to the prostitute’s apartment.

  His Russian was atrocious, but he hoped to instil a sense of panic in the woman and indignation in the politician.

  ‘Here goes,’ he muttered, drew his weapon, and hammered on the door.

  Nothing happened.

  He waited a few seconds and then repeated the action, shouting at the top of his voice to open the door.

  The woman’s voice sounded through the wooden surface, her tone both angry and confused.

  Dan stilled his breathing as he heard her approach the door, his fingers tightening the suppressor to the barrel of his weapon, and then her voice became pacifying as she told her client to wait in the bedroom, and the sound of the chain being removed reached his ears.

  The door opened a crack, and Dan used all his weight to drive it open, sending the woman stumbling backwards across the carpeted living area.

  ‘Don’t scream,’ he said, aiming the gun at her.

  Her eyes wide, she shook her head.

  ‘Where is he?’

  She raised a trembling hand and pointed to the bedroom.

  ‘Okay, go.’ Dan pointed at the door. ‘Go. Don’t come back.’

  He kept his gun pointed at the bedroom door while she scurried across the floor, gathering her clothes, pulling her jeans on, and wrapping a coat around her shoulders.

  She whimpered as she brushed past him on the way to the door, then snatched her handbag from a small table next to him, and fled.

  Dan kicked the door shut in her wake and crossed the room.

  The aroma of cheap perfume and incense sticks clung to the air, while candles burned on a coffee table under the window.

  He reminded himself he was trying to kill the ver
y successful leader of a group of mercenaries – someone who was, in all likelihood, armed.

  That man was also, in all likelihood, placing a call on a mobile phone, seeking help from his men.

  Dan swung round the door frame to the bedroom, gun raised.

  Sergei Kozlov sat on the bed, the phone to his ear, his mouth gaping as his soft white gut escaped from his open cotton shirt and pooled over his boxer shorts.

  Dan didn’t hesitate.

  The shot caught Kozlov in the chest, sending him tumbling over the double bed, blood splatter covering the satin sheets.

  Dan reached over, picked up the mobile from where it had fallen, and ended the call, ignoring the Russian’s fingers as they clawed the air, trying to reach the phone.

  Kozlov’s mouth moved, his eyes wide as his dying breath cursed the man who had shot him.

  Dan waited a second, then raised the gun once more and shot the Russian between the eyes.

  His head jerked up at the sound of a motorcycle revving outside the building.

  He’d agreed with Mitch that he was to wait only one minute, and if Dan didn’t show up, then he was to leave – immediately.

  Time to go.

  He hurried towards the bedroom door before pausing and reaching under his jacket.

  He turned back, bent over the dead Russian, and then placed the photograph of Abramov’s daughter into the man’s shirt pocket.

  ‘Job done,’ he murmured.

  << THE END >>

  From the Author

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