by Rob Sinclair
With them both distracted, Logan took two deep breaths and then sprang into action. He leaped to his feet. He darted forward, aware that his approach would be anything but silent, but banking on his speed over the short distance giving him the element of surprise.
When he was three steps away, he swung the log back and began to bring it forward, aiming for the back of Butler’s head. It was a cheap shot. Taking the solider out from behind. Butler had shown no qualms, though, when he’d done the same thing to Logan earlier. In the moment, Logan really didn’t care what the consequences would be. Butler had it coming. Fleming too.
But when the log was just a few inches from making contact, Butler suddenly reacted. Logan knew his foe’s movement, his speed of thought, was too quick and deliberate for him to have been alerted by Logan’s approach. There simply hadn’t been enough time.
Which meant Butler had known the attack was coming.
Which meant Fleming had likely spotted Logan after all.
All of this dawned on Logan in the split second that he was in mid-swing with the log. By then, it was too late to do anything about it.
Butler twisted his body. He brought up his arm to protect himself from the incoming blow. The log smacked against Butler’s forearm. The contact was solid. It sent a judder through the log and all the way up Logan’s arm, into his shoulder.
But the force of the blow wasn’t enough to stop Butler’s counterattack. He was already shooting up, his other fist balled and hurtling toward Logan’s midriff.
Butler’s fist caught Logan in his kidney and sent him reeling back in pain. He slouched down, fighting against the haze that suddenly clouded his vision. He lifted his head. He caught sight of Fleming, already on his feet, moving fast around the side of him.
Logan instinctively turned his body, following Fleming’s movement. He was completely oblivious when Butler’s fist came toward him again, an upper-cut that caught Logan right on the edge of his chin, snapping his head back painfully.
He was on the ground in a heap before he knew it.
Logan heard Fleming laugh.
‘Great shot, Butler!’ Fleming said. ‘Jesus, I thought that one was going to take his jaw clean off!’
Logan opened and closed his eyes, waiting for the stars to disappear. His body felt distant.
‘Get him up on his feet.’
A thick hand wrapped around Logan’s arm and began to tug at him. Then there was a shout of pain.
‘Fuck!’ Butler screamed, letting go of Logan and falling backward. ‘I think my arm’s broken. That little piece of shit!’
He thrust a heavy boot into Logan’s side. Logan winced in pain, though he couldn’t help but crack a wry smile once the throbbing from the blow began to subside. He knew the contact with the log had been good. Certainly enough to smash the thin bones in the lower arm.
‘Hey, Butler. How’s that arm?’ Logan murmured through laboured breaths.
‘I’m going to fucking kill him!’
Butler lunged toward Logan but Fleming leaped up at him, holding him back.
‘Not like this,’ Fleming said, his hard stare fixed on Logan.
Fleming held on to the raging Butler, keeping him at bay, waiting for the red mist to dissipate.
Logan was still dazed but he was beginning to feel some focus returning. He lifted his torso, placing his weight onto his elbow, grimacing from the pain in his side and jaw.
‘Help him up,’ Fleming said, releasing Butler.
Butler stood staring daggers at Logan. His left arm, the one Logan had struck, was dangling uselessly down by his side. Butler grabbed Logan with his good hand and hauled him up onto his feet.
‘So what was the plan, Boy Wonder?’ Fleming spat. ‘Take us out with our backs turned, then leave us out here to die?’
‘No worse than what you did to me,’ Logan slurred.
He felt around his jaw. It had seized up and was painfully sore to touch but didn’t seem to be broken.
The fog in his mind from the initial kidney blow was fading and, despite the odds, Logan began to plan his next move. But he was caught unawares when Fleming hurled a fist into his stomach and he doubled over in pain again.
‘You forgot one thing, though, didn’t you?’ Fleming said. ‘You’re not dealing with dumb civvies out on the streets of London here. We’re better than you. We’re trained for this shit.’
Fleming wound up for another hit, but this time Logan was ready. Adrenaline was surging through his body. He was way past the pain. Anger and hatred were boiling up inside him. He dodged Fleming’s fist and the soldier’s momentum sent him stumbling past. Logan twisted and threw a hook into Fleming’s back, sending him to the ground.
As Logan tried to reset, he spotted Butler lunging toward him. Logan stooped down and charged forward, catching Butler below the waist and sending him up into the air. The soldier somersaulted over Logan and landed in a heap on the ground, head first.
These soldiers were tough, trained fighters. The best the army had to offer. Logan might have been less experienced, less gnarled and slower too, but he was bigger. The soldiers lacked the brute strength that Logan had. He knew that his hits could make the difference in this fight.
But what the SAS men lacked in sheer strength, they made up for in speed and cunning and pure fighting instinct. When Fleming next came forward, Logan tried again to dodge him, winding up for a killer blow. But he never saw the feint from Fleming coming.
Fleming spun around in an arc, completely flummoxing Logan. As he completed the turn, Fleming’s elbow caught Logan just below the ear. The jolt of pain caused him to stumble sideways. Before Logan could do anything to react, to defend himself, to offer up any kind of response, Fleming crashed the sole of a thick boot against Logan’s lower leg.
It was a perfect shot. Full of power and purpose. Timed and placed with absolute accuracy. Logan’s weight was planted, his leg stiff, making the impact worse. If his leg had been relaxed, bouncy, the strike would have taken his foot off the ground, the moving limb cushioning the blow. As it was, his foot didn’t budge and his lower leg simply caved in, the tibia and fibula snapping like they were nothing more than dried twigs.
Logan screamed in pain and fell to the ground, immediately clutching at his stricken limb.
‘You just don’t listen, do you?’ Fleming growled, righting himself, then crowding over Logan. ‘You’re not like us, Logan. You’re just not good enough. You never will be. The sooner you stop fighting it, the better for everyone.’
Logan heard the words but he didn’t respond. He was still screaming in pain, his body tumbling this way and that as he fought against the agony. He looked down at his leg. The white of broken bone protruding awkwardly through a tear in his fatigues was clear even in the dull light. There was already a large, dark, wet patch from the blood that was flowing out of the open wound.
Logan’s eyes rolled at the sight and from the pain coursing through him. He felt like he would pass out. He hoped he would, to escape the pain.
He caught sight of Butler on the ground just a few feet in front of him. He was sitting up, nursing his neck.
‘Butler, come on, get up,’ Fleming said. ‘It’s time to get going.’
Butler looked over at Logan, at his injured leg, then into his defeated eyes.
‘Shit, Captain. What are we going to do?’ he said.
‘What do you mean? We’re going. This prick got what he deserved.’
Butler clambered to his feet, grimacing, his broken arm hanging like it was merely an attachment to his clothing rather than one of his limbs.
‘We need to get you out of here,’ Fleming said to Butler. ‘Get you back to camp so they can get your arm seen to. Fuck knows what damage’s been done.’
‘He’ll die out here,’ Butler said. ‘I can still walk but Logan’s completely screwed now.’
Fleming looked over. Logan, panting heavily, caught his gaze and fought hard to keep his stare on Fleming. He wanted to get up an
d rip the captain’s head off, even though he was absolutely certain that his opportunity had now gone.
This fight was over.
‘He brought it on himself,’ Fleming said.
‘Captain, I–’
‘Soldier, move out! That is an order.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
Butler glanced at Logan one last time, a sorry look on his face. But he didn’t question Fleming’s orders again. He hung his head and turned around, then he and Fleming walked off, back into the dark treeline, without saying another word to Logan or to each other.
Within a few moments, they were gone, out of sight.
And Logan finally closed his eyes.
Chapter 13
Moscow, Russia
It was Evans’s second day in Moscow. The first had been pretty much a complete waste of his time. He understood why both Winter and Lindegaard had insisted he come here – it was the last place they had been able to pinpoint Logan. The problem was that everyone who had seen Logan or been with him was now dead.
All except one, that is. Lena Belenov. The FSB agent who had been central to the deal that Mackie and the JIA had been trying to broker for Logan’s release following his capture on Russian soil, back in the autumn.
She was still alive. A gunshot wound to the stomach. Another in her shoulder. She was one of the few people who really knew what had happened in Moscow. And what had happened to Logan not only during his captivity but in the days following his escape from the FSB’s jail cell.
The problem now was that she was holed up in a private hospital clinic near Taganka Square in central Moscow. Evans had done his best to scope out the facility the day before, but there was no way he was getting in there on his own. The clinic took up the far end of a sprawling four-storey building, a nondescript structure with block-like features and pale-yellow rendered walls – part of the 1930s’ constructivism architecture still seen throughout central Moscow.
Evans had walked past the clinic three times the previous afternoon. Each time, the same police patrol car had been stationed across the street from the hospital’s entrance. And each time other men had been conspicuously hanging around the entrance, either plain-clothed police or FSB, Evans guessed. Either way, it was clear the clinic wasn’t used by your average citizen and Evans could only assume that the security inside would be greater still.
So at the moment speaking to Lena Belenov was a no-go. At least until he found a friendly way in.
Belenov wasn’t Evans’s only lead, though. He hadn’t been sent to Moscow entirely without direction. He looked down and lifted the sleeve of his thick black windbreaker to check the time. Five to eleven. Five minutes before his planned rendezvous with Nikolai Medvedev.
Evans stuffed his hands back into the fleece-lined pockets of his windbreaker. When he’d left England the day before, the weather had been sunny and warm. In Moscow, it was grey and dull. Although it wasn’t cold by Moscow winter standards, there was a chilling wind that was all the fiercer for the open position where Evans was sitting: on the bank of the Moskva River, not far from the Borodinsky Bridge.
The spot that had been chosen for the meet was neither the quietest nor the busiest area around. There was always a careful calculation to be made for the location of meetings with informants. Each had its advantages and disadvantages.
To a large extent, the choice depended on how likely it was that either you or the informant would be under surveillance. The quieter and more secluded the meeting place, the easier it was to spot any lurkers. But it also made the meeting so much more obvious. Not a problem in some cases; for example, a very brief exchange or where the threat of surveillance was very low, such as meeting a low-ranking official or a simple civilian informant. Conversely, very busy places – tourist traps and the like – were much easier to get lost in, but it was also harder to spot anyone watching.
The location that Medvedev had chosen was something like middle ground. It certainly wasn’t deserted – there were plenty of pedestrians and even one or two eager tourists dotted about – but it wasn’t exactly thriving either. All in all, it felt like a comfortable spot for the meeting that was to take place. Evans, who had only been in the country since the previous day, had no reason to suspect he was being surveilled. The fact Medvedev had agreed to meet at all led Evans to assume the FSB agent felt he was in the same boat.
At the very least, the UK embassy was only a mile up the riverbank. If the meeting didn’t go to plan, if Evans needed to run, he could head there. He wasn’t sure what Medvedev’s exit route would be if he became spooked, but could only assume the experienced agent had one.
Evans looked down and checked the time on his watch again. One minute to eleven. Medvedev had never yet been late for a meeting and thoughts began to creep through Evans’s mind as to what it might mean if this time the FSB agent weren’t on time. But as he looked back up, a figure walking toward him caught his attention. Medvedev.
He was wearing casual attire: jeans and trainers, a bulky brown leather jacket, matching cotton gloves and a scarf and baseball cap. The cap was pulled down, obscuring his face, but Evans knew it was Medvedev. If nothing else, the thick white stubble covering his wide jaw was a dead giveaway.
Medvedev put his hands in his pockets as he reached Evans, who was still seated. ‘Let’s take a walk,’ he said in Russian.
His voice was husky and dry and monotonous. But Evans thought that even in the brief introduction, he had detected tension. Not unusual, given the circumstance of their meeting, but it made Evans feel anxious.
Evans said nothing but got to his feet, looking left and right. Several people were walking in each direction across the riverfront, but no one caught Evans’s eye as being out of place. No signs of surveillance. And if they kept moving, it would give them the chance to keep an eye on the people and vehicles following their direction.
‘Okay, this way,’ Evans said, turning to his left.
No other preamble, no pleasantries, no shaking of hands. In fact, in all of their meetings, they’d never once had any bodily contact or hand-to-hand exchanges at all. Unless passing documents over, a feat not undertaken lightly, the lack of contact was an absolute necessity. It had been standard protocol for years, ever since the revelations in the 1980s that the Russians were using the chemical compound NPPD to mark Americans they suspected of spying.
NPPD, routinely referred to as spy dust, had been used to identify Russian officials who had been in contact with the marked Americans. Any kind of bodily contact – a handshake, an arm on the shoulder, passing of documents or disks – would spread the dust. A Russian official who exhibited the telltale glow under fluorescent light, either on his hands, his clothes or his belongings, must have been in contact with one of the marked people.
And it was the gulag or worse for them.
In truth, many spy agencies had used similar marking techniques both before and after the use of NPPD hit mainstream media attention in the 1980s, but the implications remained the same.
‘Is something the matter?’ Evans asked.
He could sense by the edgy way Medvedev was walking, glancing here, there and everywhere, that he was on high alert.
‘There’s a lot of heat out there. I can feel it.’
Evans remained calm. ‘Heat on you or me?’
‘There’s heat on everyone right now.’
They carried on walking, slow steps, both aware of everyone around them, but Evans doing a better job of hiding his spying.
‘Were you followed?’ Evans said.
‘Usually I’d say no, for sure. Today, the answer is: I don’t think so.’
It was an unusual response. And one that drained any remaining confidence Evans had.
‘Okay. Then let’s keep this brief. We’ll walk to the next bridge and then head off.’
Evans calculated that at a slow pace, it would give them somewhere between five and ten minutes.
‘Agreed,’ Medvedev said.
; Medvedev, who was in his late forties, had been an FSB agent for his entire career. He was a classic intelligence agent, the matters he dealt with largely to do with politics and diplomacy. But like many long-serving agents, he’d grown disillusioned some time ago over the shades of grey in which he found himself living.
Evans’s role at the JIA was about as close to traditional espionage as there was. Even with only a few years of field experience, he could already see how someone could be turned. After a while, the monotony of lying, deceiving and forever playing games simply grinds people down and it becomes hard to remember exactly who you really are, whom you’re working for and why.
Plus, the longer you’re an agent, the more baggage you generate, and with that baggage comes leverage that others will inevitably use against you. A combination of these factors had led to Medvedev first becoming an informant for the JIA more than five years ago.
It was MI6 who had first tapped him up. They had been profiling the FSB agent, as they did with all senior foreign officials. One day MI6 had caught Medvedev in the act of passing information to the Chinese in exchange for a not-insubstantial amount of money. That was enough leverage to bring on board an agent who was clearly already disillusioned with his own people, or perhaps just greedy. Either way, after that incident, he had been passed along the food chain to the JIA, who had been milking him ever since.
Evans had so far been the sole agent from the JIA to have met Medvedev face to face. He was Evans’s first informant and continued to be his most important, which as a result had seen Evans spend much of his time with the JIA in Moscow, deciphering and following up on the information Medvedev had provided.
That said, over the course of five years, he had only met with Medvedev seven times. Although theirs was an important relationship, it was nevertheless a fraught and dangerous game they were playing, and each of their meetings had been carefully planned and orchestrated.
All except this one, that is, which had been much more spur of the moment. Perhaps that was the reason Medvedev seemed so tense.
