by Rob Sinclair
Medvedev followed, but just a few seconds later another car, a black saloon, turned into the road up ahead. It crawled just a few yards before turning lengthways and stopping, blocking the road. There was now a vehicle and two people on foot blocking each end of the street.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Evans bellowed. ‘You set me up?’
‘No, I didn’t!’
‘Come on. I’m not getting caught today.’
Evans sprinted over toward the entrance to an alley that ran parallel to the riverfront road. Medvedev followed. This wasn’t how Evans had planned the rendezvous to end. Not at all. Something had gone badly wrong. There were multiple patrol teams on them. That kind of heat didn’t happen by chance. Even if Medvedev hadn’t set him up, it was clear the FSB agent’s cover had been blown. Medvedev certainly wasn’t an asset anymore.
Evans ran as fast as he could down the alley, looking back every couple of seconds to check Medvedev was still with him and whether the tracker teams were following. His mind was in overdrive, his body too, his limbs pumping away. The alley was dark and dingy, only just wide enough to fit a vehicle. As Evans turned his head again, he spotted the saloon car behind him, just entering the alley. The glare from the beam of the bright headlights caused him to squint.
‘When we get to the end, we have to split,’ Medvedev shouted.
Evans didn’t say anything. He just hoped they would make it that far.
‘You go right,’ Medvedev added.
The end of the alley was now only twenty yards away. Evans took one last glance behind, hoping the progress of the car was being hampered by the narrow passageway, which was obstructed here and there with industrial bins and fire escapes. But the car was nearly upon them. The growl of its engine filled his ears.
Was the driver just going to mow them down in the alley? Surely that wasn’t protocol. But the car certainly didn’t seem to be letting up.
Evans tried to pump his arms and legs faster. Medvedev, who was a good few years older, was already fading and falling behind. Evans ignored the daggers he was feeling in his legs. The pain in his lungs, which felt like they were about to explode. His legs pounded away. He pulled closer and closer to the end of the alley. The groan of the saloon car behind him became louder with each step he took. He wondered whether Medvedev had already been run down, not that he dared look.
Just as he came to within touching distance of the end of the alley, to safety, a battered grey van appeared from nowhere and screeched to a halt, blocking the opening up ahead. Evans had to throw on his brakes to avoid running slap bang into the van.
He stumbled forward, coming to a stop just in time to avoid a collision. Behind him, he heard screeching tyres as the driver of the saloon car tried desperately to do the same. Before Evans could catch a breath, or turn to look behind to see just how close the car had come to crushing him, the side door of the van slid open.
The first thing Evans saw emerge from the van was the barrel of a gun. He noticed it just a split second before he saw the leather-gloved hand that was wrapped around the trigger. The hand belonged to a figure decked in black, a woollen balaclava obscuring the face.
Despite the ominous scene, it was the distinctive shape and contours of the gun barrel that drew Evans’s attention. It was a German-made Walther PPK. One of Evans’s favourite guns. A much better gun, in Evans’s eyes, than the more recent American PPKs that were manufactured under licence in the US. The German Walther PPK was famous as the gun that Adolf Hitler shot and killed himself with. It had been used in service since 1935. It was a stalwart. A true legend.
Evans should have been terrified to see the barrel of the Walther protruding from the van. But he wasn’t. Because the gun wasn’t pointing at him. It was pointing at Medvedev.
Evans looked over at the Russian, who caught his gaze. He was panting heavily. His warm breath billowed into the cold air. A look of bewilderment was on his face. Just a few yards behind Medvedev was the saloon car – at a stop but with its engine still rumbling. Clearly the chase was over now.
Evans’s whole body jolted when the deafening bang rang out. He saw the neat, circular hole appear in Medvedev’s forehead and watched, frozen to the spot, as Medvedev’s body crumpled to the ground in slow motion, the perplexed look still etched on his face.
Evans turned to where the shot had come from. His brain again registered surprise when he noticed that the barrel of the gun was no longer pointing out of the van’s open doorway. In fact, there was no sign of the figure who had been there before at all. But then, as he was determining what he should do next, he felt a sharp stab in his arm. He recoiled and looked down to see a long syringe being pulled from the sleeve of his windbreaker.
Cold liquid from the syringe surged through his arm, up his shoulder and into his core, sending a sinister shiver right through him. With the drugs pumping through his blood immediately taking hold, he was only partially aware of the gloved hands that grasped him and thrust him aggressively into the waiting van.
Chapter 16
Aktobe Province, Kazakhstan
Ultimately, crossing the border out of Russia had been simple. Even without the acquired passports of the Russian agents, Logan’s plan had always been to exit Russia into one of the neighbouring ex-Soviet countries. He knew that Russia’s borders with these countries were extensive and, road and rail network aside, largely unmarked and unguarded.
Kazakhstan alone, the country to which Logan and Grainger had headed, had a border with Russia that stretched more than four thousand miles. Although border posts were in place on major routes, some multilateral, allowing internationals to pass through, and others bilateral, only allowing nationals from the two countries to pass, keeping full control of such a vast stretch of land was impossible. And entirely unnecessary for two such closely allied countries.
As it was, with the Russian passports in hand, there had been no need to abandon the vehicle and traipse over frozen ground to leave Russia. Logan had simply driven up to the bilateral border post near to the tiny Kazakh village of Zhanybek, shown his and Grainger’s IDs and passed through into the vast Central Asian country of Kazakhstan. The fact they only barely resembled the pictures on the passports didn’t matter. A couple of Russians passing into the ex-Soviet state was hardly worthy of a raised eyebrow even.
Being in Kazakhstan was a means to an end. Logan wasn’t planning on staying in the country any longer than necessary. It was simply a stepping stone. The problem was it wouldn’t be quite so easy to leave Kazakhstan, unless he was simply going to head back into Russia, which he had no intention of doing. That meant he needed help.
Which was why he and Grainger were heading along the twisting roads of western Kazakhstan, through the barren, frozen deserts and grassy steppes toward the city of Aktobe.
Logan had a basic understanding of the country’s geography from previous assignments there, but he was glad to have the assistance of the GPS unit. The drive from where they crossed the border to Aktobe was more than six hundred miles, yet wouldn’t even take them halfway across the vast country – one of the world’s largest and most uninhabited places. Kazakhstan was the ninth largest country by land area in the world, but its population, largely clustered in the larger eastern cities, was just seventeen million.
Logan had never been to Aktobe before, but he knew exactly the address to head to. With the aid of the GPS unit, he knew they were now only twenty miles from their destination.
They had stopped twice since leaving Russia: the first to rest and refuel themselves, the second time to refuel the car. They had both taken turns driving, giving the other a chance to sleep and meaning they had been able to keep going through the night. The drive to Aktobe had taken more than twelve hours and it was now mid-afternoon.
‘Do you really think he’ll be here?’ Grainger asked.
She had woken up about ten minutes before, after sleeping for the best part of the last two hours, but had so far not spoken.
<
br /> ‘He certainly was last time I checked.’
‘Which was when?’
Logan didn’t answer immediately. Not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he knew the answer wouldn’t instil much confidence in Grainger.
‘About two years ago,’ he said eventually.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shaking her head.
‘About two years? So is it two or is it more or less than that?’
‘More like three,’ he admitted.
Grainger tutted. ‘So we could just be greeted out here by some local farmer and his flock. That’s really going to help, isn’t it? Maybe he can sell us a cow.’
‘That could be quite useful actually,’ Logan gibed. ‘Would feed and clothe us for a while.’
‘So you know how to make leather goods now? You really are a master of all trades.’
They both smiled before Grainger returned to her point.
‘But if he is here, do you really think he can help us?’
‘It’s got to be worth a shot. Unless you have any better ideas.’
He certainly wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea, but they needed somewhere to stay away from watchful eyes. With someone who would have the means or at least the connections to help them to keep travelling away from Russia and onwards to safer ground. The more respite they had and the closer to safety they got, the more opportunity Logan would have to determine exactly what to do next. When it came down to it, there were really only two options: run away and hide, or fight back. His natural instinct preferred the latter but he had no clue yet where to start.
‘Carl, I just hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘Me too.’
He’d told her why they were going there. Whom they were going to see. Not a friend. Someone he knew. From a long time ago. So long ago it almost felt like a different life. Until recently, Logan would never have thought to turn to this man on whom he had kept a careful eye for much of his adult life.
As they neared the destination, the GPS took them on a route that circumvented the city of Aktobe, taking them further north, back toward the Russian border. Over the course of the six-hundred-mile journey, they had snaked back and forth toward the border numerous times, coming within just a few miles of it as they bypassed the northern city of Oral, the capital of the West Kazakhstan Province. The mood in the car had become strained and somewhat awkward each time they had come closer to Russia, as though they were fearful of a sudden onslaught from hordes of Cossacks.
Whatever the outcome of their visit to Aktobe, they would need to look for alternative transport from here on in. They had to believe the Russians would follow them over the border at the least and would probably already be in touch with the Kazakhstan NSC – the National Security Committee, successor intelligence agency to the KGB – to ensure Logan and Grainger were on their wanted list. Although they had made hours of solid progress, now was a good time to lay low while they figured out their next steps.
They passed the small city of Aktobe and the landscape soon returned to largely uninhabited hinterland. In the summer months, temperatures in this part of the country would soar – much of the area was sandy desert with just small pockets of grassland and vegetation. In the winter, it was cold and dark, icy and foreboding.
Through the night, the temperature had dropped to below minus twenty. It was currently a more balmy minus five, but the cloud cover of the day had also brought with it heavy snow, which was making driving almost impossible. The main roads they had travelled on from the border had been well gritted and clear of snow and ice, but now they had moved onto a smaller, twisting singe-track road and the conditions were worsening by the minute.
Logan slowed the car to less than ten miles an hour, squinting as though it would help him see through the sheet of white hitting the windscreen. The wipers vibrated and shuddered as they whizzed across the glass as fast as they could go, but the snow was falling so quickly that it made little difference.
They took a left onto a narrow lane that rose into the distance and had deep cuts in the snow from the wheels of previous vehicles. Snow, piled up on the side of the road, towered over them.
As Logan edged the car up the track, he felt the back end lose grip and begin to fishtail. He pressed down hard on the accelerator. The engine whined and the tyres spun and skidded but eventually found traction and the vehicle shot forward suddenly. Logan eased off the accelerator momentarily while he restored control, then pushed down again, slowly building up the power, willing the inadequate vehicle to keep going up the hill.
After another hundred yards, the GPS unit showed they had reached their destination.
‘I don’t see anything,’ Grainger said. ‘There’s nothing here at all.’
She was right. But this had to be it, Logan thought. They had to be near.
‘Those things aren’t always accurate, you know,’ Grainger continued. ‘I mean, we could just be driving aimlessly here. Wouldn’t we be better sticking to some semblance of civilisation?’
‘No,’ Logan said. ‘This track isn’t here just for the hell of it. The house must be here somewhere. We’ll keep going.’
‘I can’t see a thing out of the windows. It’s just snow everywhere.’
Logan huffed in agreement but didn’t otherwise respond. Visibility couldn’t have been more than a few yards. But then, as they rounded a bend in the track, the view in front began to clear. Logan wasn’t sure whether the snow was dying down or the change of direction, which meant the snow was now coming at them from behind, had helped give them a better line of sight.
Not long after, in the near distance, Logan caught sight of what they were looking for and felt a wave of relief wash over him.
In front of them was a large, sandy-coloured wall with thick snow sitting on it like icing on a cake. Within the layer of snow, there were flashes of metallic grey here and there: barbed wire. Beyond the wall was a house. It was huge: three storeys tall, many windows wide. But it was also plain, box-like, much of it with a flat roof. It was unassuming and unattractive. The walls were white-washed but their colour against the bright white snow made the house look stained and yellow and dirty.
The track led to a set of sliding metal gates at the front of the property. The gates were a simple structure. Functional. Security rather than decoration. There was a small wooden guard post in front of the gates.
All in all, the building and its security-driven trimmings didn’t look like a residence. More like a small barracks or army outpost. Logan wondered whether that had indeed been its original purpose. The city of Aktobe had long been a strategically important position and had played a large part in many Central Asian conflicts over the years.
‘Are you sure about this, Carl?’ Grainger asked. ‘Just what the hell is this place?’
‘It’s nothing more than I expected,’ Logan said. ‘And it at least tells me that he’s definitely still here.’
‘Right now, I’m not sure if I’m happy about that or not.’
‘Well, we’re here now. What have we got to lose?’
‘Out of the frying pan, into the fire.’
‘Something like that,’ he conceded.
‘I think we can at least safely say that we’re not going to be buying any cows today.’
Chapter 17
Logan pulled the car to a stop at the guard post. A man emerged wearing a thick green overcoat that reached down almost to his ankles. On his head he wore a military-style ushanka, the flaps tied under his chin so that much of his face and head was protected from the bitter elements.
‘I certainly don’t envy him,’ Logan said to Grainger, ‘sitting out here in this.’
Logan spotted an assault rifle inside the wooden hut, propped up against the back wall. It wasn’t clear whether the man had any other weapons on him. Logan wound down his window and squinted as a blast of ice-cold air hit his face.
The man – who was a similar age to himself, Logan thought, a
nd who had distinctive Kazakh features, the epicanthic folds on his eyes that all Mongoloid peoples have – bent down and stuck his head toward the open window. He said something that Logan didn’t understand. Logan guessed it was Kazakh, a language of which he could remember only a small number of words. The man’s tone was brash, his look suspicious.
Logan spoke back to him in Russian. Although Kazakh was the national language, he knew almost everyone in Kazakhstan also spoke or at least understood Russian – although many of the inhabitants spoke a hybrid of the two languages, throwing in random words from one or the other tongues almost subconsciously. In any case, it was clear this man understood Logan’s words by the change in his facial expression. Even so, he didn’t make any move to accommodate his guests.
‘Just tell him it’s Carl Logan,’ Logan added. ‘I’m sure he’ll remember me.’
The man huffed and stood tall, taking a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. He spoke quickly into the receiver. The howling of the wind drowned out his voice but Logan could tell the man was again speaking in the unfamiliar language. The only word Logan made out was his own name as it was repeated to whoever was on the other end. When the guard finished speaking, there was a short pause and then Logan heard a distorted voice give a response. The guard listened and when the voice finished, he put the radio back into his pocket and bent down again.
‘Drive through and park on the left,’ he said, now speaking in Russian. ‘Park behind the other vehicles. Someone will come and meet you there.’
The man trudged over to his hut and sat down on his chair. A few seconds later, there was an electronic whir as the metal gate began to open, sliding on its rollers, across to the right. The man on the outside certainly hadn’t activated it, so it must have been controlled by another guard on the inside.
As Logan drove the car through the open gates, he spotted the small parking area on the left. Three other vehicles were there – two large four-by-fours and a pickup truck. All silver, all virtually new.
