Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  “You can kill me, no doubt about it.” His words were like ice, a cold, unemotional analysis of the situation at hand. “But know this: if you pull that trigger, I will kill Valentin before I die.”

  He could feel the man’s gaze flicker from himself to Andropov and back again. Uncertainty. “You’re mad.”

  That inhuman smile appeared once more on Harry’s face, stretching at the fabric of the balaclava. “You really want to roll the dice on my mental state? If I kill your boss, you not only lose a job…you lose his protection. How do you think the US government will react once they realize that you helped terrorists enter this country?”

  Fear. He could feel the indecision in the security chief. Time to end this, before reinforcements arrived to bolster his courage. His finger caressed the H&K’s trigger, taking up the slack. “Ready to take that chance? Put your guns on the ground…or I put a bullet through your boss’s head. Your choice.”

  “Nyet, Maxim,” the oligarch exclaimed, his face contorted in fury. “Don’t listen to him, you fool.”

  “Now,” Harry prompted gently. “Before I lose my patience.”

  The man threw his submachine gun on the floor, metal clattering against the wood as he motioned angrily for his companions to do the same. Harry nodded, circling until he stood behind Andropov, his weapon covering both the oligarch and his disarmed security team.

  Alexei favored him with an incredulous smile. “Remind me never to play poker with you, tovarisch.”

  “I wasn’t bluffing.” He knew what had to be done, but it never got any easier. To take a man’s life in cold blood…

  He might have prayed for forgiveness, but that would have been a sacrilege against a God he had offended more than enough. He might have hesitated, but there was no time for that. The UMP-45 came up, its fire selector flipped to full-automatic.

  A look of shock crossed the security chief’s face, his empty hands coming up, as if the gesture would save him.

  Harry squeezed the trigger.

  9:07 P.M.

  San Francisco

  Nothing. Korsakov stepped into the opening of the apartment’s main bedroom, the barrel of his Steyr AUG bullpup sweeping the empty space.

  “Room clear,” he announced softly, shooting his partner a puzzled look. “Give me an update, Viktor.”

  “The tracker hasn’t moved. The back room on the far left from the entry point.”

  “That’s where I am. And the room’s clear.”

  The boy’s voice began to tremble nervously. “It has to be there. I can pin it down within a five-foot radius, and that’s where it is. I wouldn’t lie to you, you know that.”

  “I know,” Korsakov responded, taking a cautious step into the bedroom, his eyes roving for hiding places. The closet?

  Motioning for his partner to cover him, he moved in. If it had been an American movie, he might have riddled the doors of the closet with his assault rifle, but his orders were to take Chambers alive.

  If at all possible.

  A faint metallic whirring noise smote Korsakov’s ears—something moving, at his very feet. He jumped back, depressing the AUG’s trigger almost instinctively.

  Automatic rifle fire ripped through the air, sending the small object careening toward the wall of the bedroom.

  There was no explosion, no return fire. Nothing. Willing his heart rate to return to normal, Korsakov lowered his weapon. What was that?

  “Tovarisch—are you there?” Viktor’s voice, hushed and nervous.

  “Da, da. False alarm. What is it?”

  “The tracker—it disappeared off my screens, just after you opened fire.”

  He took a step forward, examining the twisted metal and plastic that had once been a small vacuum cleaning robot. A hail of bullets had torn apart the brand name—Roomba?

  Korsakov shook his head. It couldn’t be. And yet it was—this was how the tracker had kept moving all over an empty apartment.

  They had been played.

  9:08 P.M.

  Andropov’s estate

  Beverly Hills

  The room smelled of blood—blood and brimstone, the sulphurous smell of gunpowder burning Harry’s nostrils as he checked the zip-ties around Andropov’s hands and feet. He wasn’t going anywhere. Rising to his feet, Harry moved to the door of the study, motioning to Vasiliev.

  On my mark. The security chief’s lifeless eyes stared accusingly up into his face as he dropped to one knee beside the body, listening.

  Voices, low and hushed. Very close. The rest of Andropov’s security team? Hard to tell, but they were odds worth gambling on. A Hollywood superhero might have poked his head around the door and taken a look down the hall, but in the real world that was a fast way to get that head blown off.

  Ready? He signaled, glancing at the former KGB officer. A nod.

  Time to roll the dice. Harry pulled a flashbang from the front of his assault vest, pulling the pin and softly tossing the cylinder out onto the plush carpet of the hallway.

  One. Two…

  The blinding light of the stun grenade reflected off the study’s windows, an ear-shattering wave of sound rolling through the house. There were few things on earth so disorienting, if you weren’t prepared for it.

  Now! Harry sprang to his feet, the UMP-45 coming up to his shoulder as he entered the hallway, Vasiliev at his right hand. Four men in tactical gear, dazed and disoriented. Blinded by the blast.

  The fifth had remained back near the staircase, keeping watch.

  No hesitation, no time for mercy. The submachine gun spat fire, the suppressed reports sounding like hammer blows in the narrow confines of the hall, along with the louder crack of Vasiliev’s Grach. The young man by the staircase was the first to die, his weapon clattering to the wood as he crashed through the bannister, falling to the marble floor below.

  Three of the assaulters went down, the fourth ran for the stairs as the H&K’s magazine emptied, returning fire as he went.

  Firing wildly.

  Bullets tore into the wood paneling around Harry’s head as he ejected the empty magazine and replaced it mere seconds later, pulling the charging handle to chamber a round.

  A crystal chandelier over Vasiliev’s head shattered in a shower of glass, bringing a curse from the Russian as he ducked for cover. Too late. A wild bullet caught him in the left arm, staining his sleeve crimson.

  Calm. Focus. Harry raised his weapon, the red dot of a laser beam appearing on the man’s forehead. Squeeze.

  His head snapped back as if he had been struck with a mallet, his nerveless body crumpling to the carpet.

  Dead silence.

  “You okay, Alexei?” Harry demanded, shooting a glance across the hallway at his partner.

  The Russian grunted, pushing himself to his feet. “Of course, tovarisch. But the idiot ruined my best shirt.”

  Harry couldn’t help but chuckle. The response was so typically Alexei. His eyes scanned the carnage of the hallway, his heart still racing with the adrenaline of combat. They had been lucky. Very lucky.

  And then a woman screamed…

  9:12 P.M.

  San Francisco

  Something was going wrong. Very wrong. He could feel it, an old operational instinct. Korsakov looked down at his phone, verifying the number once again before pressing SEND. He and Andropov had been communicating through a series of “burner” phones, rotating every twenty-four hours.

  It was the right number.

  Korsakov looked up as his driver accelerated into the passing lane, narrowly inserting the SUV into a hole in the traffic. It wasn’t just that Andropov wasn’t answering—the call wasn’t even connecting.

  “I’m not getting through to Valentin. Give me the contact number for Maxim.”

  He could see the boy tense, his eyes visible in the luminescent glow of the laptop. Fear flickering in their depths. “I don’t want to see them again.”

  “You won’t have to,” the assassin promised, his mind racing. “Just give m
e the number.”

  He listened, punching in the ten-digit number as Viktor read it off. Send. It didn’t even ring, just a persistent beep informing him that the call could not be completed. Exactly as it had with Andropov.

  Korsakov closed the phone, staring out the SUV’s tinted windows at the passing traffic—the lights of San Francisco. He could still see the destroyed vacuum laying there in the safehouse. All of it misdirection…

  He had a choice to make. Fight or flight, neither of them good options. Every ounce of his common sense screamed warning, but walking away wasn’t as easy as it might have sounded.

  Giving up the contract…if there had been a mistake, he would have to face the wrath of Andropov. Face the havoc that such an enemy could wreak among his business in Eastern Europe. Perhaps Yuri had been right, but there was no time for such recriminations. Not in the face of such danger.

  He looked in his mirror, eyes meeting with Viktor’s. “Get Andropov’s pilot on the phone. Tell him nothing, give him no warning, but divert him to meet up with Yuri at the Commodore Heliport.”

  The boy looked confused. “That’s a private-access helipad. Permission is required before landing.”

  “Then get permission.”

  9:13 P.M.

  Andropov’s estate

  Beverly Hills, California

  She was barely out of her teens, Harry realized, gazing down from the broken bannister. Blonde, impossibly tanned.

  Her nightgown matched the pool of blood at her bare feet—blood still trickling from the broken body of the dying bodyguard.

  Too young to be involved in all of this.

  He felt movement beside his head, looked up to see Vasiliev’s hand outstretched, his finger tightening around the Grach’s trigger.

  Let him do it, a voice urged, a dark whisper curling around Harry’s thoughts. No witnesses. It made sense.

  It was just one more life. The face of Andropov’s security chief flashed before his eyes, the look of disbelief changing to horror.

  Who will know of your lofty principles when you’re dead?

  Harry thrust his left hand upward, striking Vasiliev’s arm just as he pulled the trigger. The bullet buried itself in the wall across the massive foyer. The girl looked up into their eyes, mouth opening as if she would scream, but no sound came out.

  For a moment they stood there, a frozen tableau. The living among the dead.

  Panic. Tears flowing down her face, she turned to run, bare feet against the tile. “Fool!”

  He had been, Harry thought—throwing his H&K aside as he charged down the staircase. If she got away…everything they had done was for nothing, everything they had sacrificed so much to gain.

  Ahead of him, a fleeing shape through the darkness of the kitchen. A flash of red lace in the glow of a lamp.

  He could hear the girl’s sobbing as she fumbled with the patio door, fear slowing her actions even as he closed.

  The door opened and she slipped out into the night just as he grabbed her wrist, fingers closing in an iron grip.

  She screamed something incoherent, her voice ringing out through the clear, cool air. If someone was passing by on the street…

  Her hand came back as if she intended to hit him, and then her eyes settled on the Colt in his hand, the mouth of the long, black suppressor only inches away from her chest.

  “Settle down and stay quiet,” he stated, his eyes flashing a warning from behind the mask. “No one else needs to die.”

  9:30 P.M.

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  “You live proud in your cities, boastful and entrenched in your selfishness.” Jamal glanced furtively down at the sheet of notepaper in his hand, then back up at the steady red light of the camera. “You deny to others the gifts of Allah’s spacious earth and think it as nothing. I came to this country three years ago, a student, never dreaming that I would have this opportunity to strike a blow for my faith, that I would be chosen to die a shahid alongside my brothers.”

  He caught the approving eye of the shaikh and continued, steadying his voice. “Listen to my words, America, and tremble, for surely you must be extinguished, as was the fate of the Ad and the Thamud, the apostates of Arabia in the days of the Prophet, peace be upon him. How swiftly were they wiped out! As if they had never been?”

  Jamal’s voice began to swell with excitement as he remembered the words of the sura. It seemed impossible that only a few short days had passed since he had left behind his classes at the University of Michigan. “But wrong can never stand! Allahu akbar!”

  The rifle trembled in his hands, his face distorted in passion as he chanted the words of praise into the lens of the camera, imagining the terror that would seize hold of the viewers. The Pakistanis joined in the chorus, their voices ringing across the floor of the convention center, echoing off the concrete walls. This was the moment they had lived their lives for, the fulfillment of destiny. “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”

  Long live death…

  9:35 P.M.

  Andropov’s estate

  Beverly Hills, California

  “It was a brilliant plan, really,” Harry announced, circling the bound Andropov. “Some people would have kept it simple—just brought in a bombmaker, but you anticipated every eventuality, didn’t you?”

  The oligarch remained silent. His confidence had evaporated after the execution-style slaying of his bodyguards, replaced by a sullen defiance.

  “Sergei Korsakov is expensive enough…” Harry paused, watching the man’s eyes for any sign of recognition. Just a momentary flash, almost gone before he caught it. “But you hired his entire team, ex-Spetsnaz all. That tells me that money was no object—that your cut was large enough that you could afford to hire the best. Overkill even, but that always was what you Soviets were best known for.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vasiliev smile. His glance flickered to the opposite side of the room, where Andropov’s mistress sat, gagged and bound to a chair. If the incident with her had meant anything, it had only confirmed that he couldn’t trust the Russian.

  Fortunately, trust was something he could work without. “Are we ready?”

  A nod from Vasiliev. Harry walked over to Andropov’s desk, unfolding one of the thick, plush hand towels they had taken from the master bathroom. He dropped to one knee, plunging the towel elbow-deep into one of the five-gallon buckets of water he had carried up to the study. Alexei had tried to help, but with his arm…

  “You know what I’m going to do, don’t you?” Harry asked, walking back around to the front of the oligarch, sparkling drops of water dripping all over the carpet.

  “Da,” Andropov admitted grudgingly. “Do you think it will work?”

  Harry smiled, pushing the oligarch’s chair until it tilted back against the desk, Andropov’s feet in the air. “I think we’ll both find out, now won’t we?”

  He reached behind the man’s head, tying the towel tight back of the ears and arranging it over the forehead and eyes.

  “Time to boogie, Valentin. Unless you’d rather save me the trouble?”

  Drip. Drip. Drip. He felt the water splash against his bare cheeks, cold water, his brain registering the chill. The towel began to moisten, growing heavier as it hugged his face.

  Drip. Drip. A calloused hand running over the bottom of his face, up his cheek until it met the edge of the towel, tugging the wet cloth down over his nose, then mouth. Drip, drip, drip.

  The water was coming faster now, the soaked, heavy fabric sealing off his air.

  Andropov closed his eyes against the blackness, forcing himself to focus. To remain calm.

  Droplets trickled down his throat as he struggled to breathe, his oxygen-starved lungs inhaling the water instead. A burning sensation overwhelmed him, pain searing through his body.

  Drowning, one of man’s most primal fears. He gagged violently, thrashing uncontrollably against the restraints that bound him to the chair.

  He felt the metallic tas
te of blood in his mouth and realized through the near-unconscious haze that he had bitten his own tongue.

  The darkness seemed to reach out, enfolding him, drawing him into its bosom. Almost gone—the cloth was ripped back suddenly, leaving him to gasp in huge mouthfuls of air.

  The masked face appeared over him, hazy, almost as if he were hallucinating—seeing double. “You know what they all say about waterboarding, that it’s ‘unreliable’—makes people lie, tell their interrogator whatever he wants to hear? Well that leaves you in a bit of a bind, Valentin…because you have no idea what I want to hear, and I will know if you lie to me.”

  Before he could even think of a response, the towel descended again, plunging him back into the depths of hell.

  10:02 P.M.

  The abandoned mansion

  They had been inside well over an hour, Carol thought, glancing down at the clock in the lower right-hand corner of her computer screen. A pre-arranged signal of shades opening and closing in an upper window was their only assurance that Harry and Vasiliev had been successful.

  Successful? She wondered for a moment what was going on across the street, then decided it was probably better that she didn’t know.

  In her desire to get to the bottom of her father’s murder, she had unleashed the forces of destruction. And there was as much hope of capturing the wind as reining them in now.

  A beeping sound emitted from the computer, a program that she had set up as an early warning system monitoring the online police bandwidth.

  We have a possible four-one-five, neighbor reporting a domestic disturbance. The address was for the Andropov estate.

  Raising a hand, she waved Han over to where she sat. “We’ve got a new problem.”

  Andropov’s estate

  “I really don’t enjoy doing this, Valentin,” Harry announced, pulling the wet, blood-flecked towel away from the Russian’s nose and mouth. “But then it doesn’t matter what I enjoy, does it? Because this is business—and I can keep it up all night unless you give me what I want.”

  Andropov shook his head, his eyes still defiant against the ghostly pallor of his face. “No, you can’t.”

  “Care to tell me who is going to stop me, Valentin Stephanovich?”