“I got him,” he told her, remembering the moment when the gun had bucked in his hand, remembering Nash’s final moments. “There’s others, though … That might take a while.”
After a time, Marc stood up and saw someone coming his way, a serious, bearded man in a long coat.
“All right, mate?” said John Farrier. “Sorry if I’m interrupting.”
Marc shook his head. “Come to pay my respects.”
Farrier nodded. “It was a nice service. Good turn-out.”
“Was Royce there?”
The other man frowned. “Gave a speech.”
Marc tensed. “He played us all. And he doesn’t even think he was wrong.”
“Royce is done,” Farrier told him. “Welles will bury him deep, have no doubt.”
“That’ll have to be enough,” Marc replied. “For now.” He took a breath. “What are you doing here, John?”
“We tailed you,” he said. “I thought you and me should have a talk.”
“You forgive me for Rome and getting you in the shit?”
Farrier waved the question away. “Worked out all right. The old dog has asked me to take charge of K Section while we sort out this mess. Royce’s arrest … Well, we’re left with a lot of pieces to pick up. It’s not just him, either. That data you dropped on us means we have to scour the house for any other rats that might be lurking in the basement.”
“The Americans will be doing the same,” Marc told him. “The Combine are going to be on the back foot for a while. Might even force them into the open.”
“It’s possible,” admitted Farrier. “You want to come in and help?”
“Back to Six?” Before, that had been foremost on Marc’s mind. But now the offer was there, out in the open, he found he couldn’t reach for it. “You’re talking about reinstatement?”
“Eventually,” said the other man.
He shook his head again. “I’ll pass.”
“You sure?” Farrier came closer. “If you’re at large, you are going to make a lot of people very nervous. And I won’t be able to help you.”
“They’re worried I’m going to go the Full Snowden on them.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Marc’s eyes flashed. “Do you know how deep the Combine’s reach goes? Can you promise me that someone won’t throw me in a cell for safety’s sake?” He nodded in the direction of figures loitering nearby, field officers who had accompanied his old friend out to find him.
When Farrier didn’t answer, he looked back toward Sam’s grave. “I’ve lost a lot. That’s going to stop now. I’m going to stay off the radar, find my own road. Not just for me, but for Kate and her family. I put them in harm’s way and that’s not going to happen again.”
Farrier accepted this with a sigh. “Yeah. I’ll keep an eye on them for you. But for fuck’s sake, phone her when you have a minute. Your sister needs to know what went on, and you need to tell her.” He paused, thinking. “Look, all this has pushed the Combine up to the premier league in terms of threat value. We’re going to be actively hunting them now. When I tell you we could use you, I mean it … Unless, of course, you’ve already signed on somewhere else?”
“Not yet,” he noted. “I’m considering all options.”
“Rubicon,” said Farrier, sounding out the word. “You know where that name comes from?”
“The river in Italy,” explained Marc. “A boundary line in the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar crossed it and provoked a civil war. ‘The die has been cast,’ he said. No turning back.”
“Yeah, I saw that movie too. Your metaphorical point of no return. And that’s what Rubicon is, Marc. That’s who Ekko Solomon is. Because for all that man’s good deeds and high ideals, he’s not the noble crusader he paints himself. Solomon is a very dangerous bloke. He’s got a lot of secrets trailing after him.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
Farrier nodded once more, turning away. “Watch your step, mate.”
Alone with the lost, Marc closed his eyes and listened to the silence.
* * *
The mansion on The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead was off a sheltered drive that had only one way in or out, and the other buildings surrounding it were a full story lower. Pytor Glovkonin liked the way the other houses seemed to be bowing to the larger building, as if they were serfs paying fealty to a lord.
The Mercedes-Benz rolled to a halt and Glovkonin stepped out, not waiting for Gregor to open the door for him. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was barely keeping his anger in check and his fury was something he didn’t often unleash in front of his employees. He had learned the value of self-control and the power of correctly applied force. It was how he had become a rich man.
That, and a perfect sense of self-preservation. That ridiculous piece of theater in the gentleman’s club had been a mistake, and he chastised himself for falling for it. But it had served one important purpose, to alert him that the British were turning against him.
“Wait here,” he told his bodyguards. “We’ll be going to the airfield.” He left them and walked up the steps to the house, pushing open the thick oak door framed by a pair of faux-Doric columns.
Glovkonin had known all along that Royce was of limited value. All assets eventually became stale and unusable, but it was a pity that the Englishman had done so prematurely. Glovkonin had contingencies for every possible endgame involving the MI6 officer, designed to deflect attention away from the Combine and its organization, and now those would swing into action.
On the road from the Rapier Club, a few calls had set the wheels turning. The Gulfstream jet G-Kor kept at London City Airport was being fueled, and there would soon be a flight plan filed to show Glovkonin and his wife had planned a trip to Monaco weeks earlier. The apartment on Saint Roman would be ready for them, and if the British security services were foolish enough to move against him, it would not be a simple matter. This was not fleeing, he told himself, merely a tactical withdrawal.
“Elena!” He called out to his wife as he ascended the staircase from the marble-tiled reception.
She didn’t answer, and as he mounted the second flight of stairs, Glovkonin noticed the quiet. The house seemed strangled of sound, as if it were holding in a breath.
Glovkonin paused on the next landing and reached for a telephone that doubled as an intercom system. No tone issued from the handset, even when he tapped the key to connect him to an outside line. He reached for his cell phone. Detailed in gold plate and black glass, the phone had a dedicated hotline that could connect him instantly with his security staff—but where he should have had a full signal, there was only a blacked-out “X.” Glovkonin knew the effect of a jamming device when he saw it.
He turned to look back down the stairs and something caught his eye, something he hadn’t seen on the way up. There was an odd shadow by the sofa, just visible from where Glovkonin was standing. He craned his neck to get a better look, and it became clear that he was looking at the body of Erno, one of the other security men he had hired in Moscow. Erno had a halo of dark, arterial blood around him; it appeared that he had been shot through the throat at close range.
The reason for the silence, then. If Erno—who had been recruited out of the Russian Army’s Spetznaz—was dead, then so were all the other men in the building.
Was this the British moving against him, or the Americans? It seemed unlikely. He knew their tactics; MI6 would have taken him in the car and a CIA strike would have been loud and destructive. This was someone else. Someone who wanted him to walk in.
Glovkonin considered his options. He could retreat back the way he had come, perhaps make it back to the car and find safety elsewhere; or he could press on to the upper floor where his rooms were situated, where Elena would be.
It was true that he was a ruthless man, and it was certainly not beyond him to consider his wife expendable if her life was weighed against his. But Glovkonin was also a proud man, and resentful of any
enemy who dared to invade his home and damage his property. If someone was waiting to face him, it would be cowardice not to answer that challenge.
He continued his ascent, pausing to open a safe secreted behind a painting of Vilnius Cathedral. He quietly removed a loaded Makarov PM semi-automatic. Then, Glovkonin walked the last few steps up to the master bedroom that filled the house’s upper floor.
The doors leading to the bedroom were already open, and Elena’s bodyguard, a German woman named Yuta, lay slumped in a chair on the landing. Like Erno, she had been shot in the neck and bled out quickly.
Glovkonin tensed as he entered the room, the ghost of anger and the anticipation building in him at what bloody ruin he might find. He saw his wife lying on the wide bed beneath gales of cotton sheets, and he froze. At length, she gave a low, airy gasp and turned over, deep in sleep, utterly unaware of what had gone on around her.
A soft voice from behind him said “That is far enough. Drop the gun and turn around.”
Reluctantly, Glovkonin allowed the Makarov to fall to the thick pile carpet at his feet. Hands open and held away from his sides, he turned to find a swarthy, well-dressed man sitting in the chair beside Elena’s makeup mirror.
The man had the predatory glare of a lion, the chained violence of a killer in his element. The pistol in his hand was an assassin’s gun, a Ruger 22/45 modified to mount a silencer.
They had never met before now, but Glovkonin knew this man and knew his capabilities. “Omar Khadir,” he said, inclining his head in a greeting. “This is unexpected.”
“Speak quietly,” Khadir demanded, pointing at the bed with the Ruger’s barrel. “If she wakes, I’ll be forced to kill her.”
“Of course.” Glovkonin’s annoyance at the invasion of his home faded, to be replaced with more pragmatic emotions. He found another chair and sat so he could look the terrorist in the eye. “Did you leave anyone alive?”
“Only the woman. I needed a lure.”
“If you came here to murder me—”
“I am disappointed,” said Khadir. “Assurances were made by your group. Against my better judgment, I chose to ally with the Combine to advance my work and you failed me. A meticulously planned operation, thousands of man-hours and hundreds of assets deployed … for nothing. Promises from you that this would succeed, all worthless.”
“Regrettable,” offered Glovkonin, as if he were assessing the result of an unsatisfactory business transaction.
Khadir went on, ignoring his words. “All this because of your failure to deal with the British agent and the African.” He leaned forward, and his grip on the pistol never wavered. “Because you were unable to solve this problem, the efforts of Al Sayf to strike against our targets have proven futile … and I am not a man to waste my time.”
“Clearly,” Glovkonin replied. He understood that whatever he said in the next few seconds would determine if his life would end in this room, his neck punctured by a .22 caliber bullet. “You have every right to be angry. But I suggest we take this opportunity to discuss how to make certain that these sort of … complications … never occur again.”
Khadir raised the gun and aimed it at Glovkonin’s throat. “Speak,” he said, “while you still can.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It’s been a long road for this project, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t pause here to show appreciation to a few people. First, a moment to tip my hat to Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, and Tom Clancy, three very different writers and very different men, whose works cast an enduring shadow over the thriller genre, and who were all great influences on this novel.
I would also like to thank my fellow author Ben Aaronovitch, whose enthusiasm, comradeship, and dogged insistence helped bring Nomad to life; Professor Alison Leary and Jeff Punshon of the Royal Free Hospital for answering my medical and surgical questions; Shaun Kennedy for insights and insults; Rowland White, for being a fellow traveler and the first to show interest; Ian Peters, for Infosec 101; Evan Booth, for improvised weapons; my agent Robert Kirby, for leading the charge; and Jonathan Lyons and Marco Palmieri, for bringing this book across the Atlantic.
Much love to my mother, who has always liked this kind of stuff, and my father, who taught me tradecraft; and last but never least, my eternally supportive better half Mandy.
This book was written on location in London, New York City, and Norfolk.
FORGE BOOKS BY JAMES SWALLOW
24: Deadline
Nomad
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JAMES SWALLOW is a three-time New York Times bestselling author. He has been nominated by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for his writing on the blockbuster video game Deus Ex: Human Revolution. You can sign up for email updates here.
@jmswallow
jamesswallow.blogspot.co.uk
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Acknowledgments
Forge Books by James Swallow
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NOMAD
Copyright © 2016 by James Swallow
All rights reserved.
Cover photographs: map by Getty Images; two men running by Paul Gooney/Arcangel Images
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-9511-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9513-9 (ebook)
eISBN 9780765395139
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First published in Great Britain by Zaffre Publishing, an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre, a Bonnier Publishing company
First U.S. Edition: September 2018
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