They moved swiftly past her. Once they were far enough behind her, she slipped into the darkness.
Chapter Three
Barranquilla, Colombia
‘No one can escape their destiny,’ the lead shooter said.
Three masked gunmen aimed suppressed carbines at Damien and Nasira. There was nowhere in the underground parking lot to run; the shooters had blocked the ramp to the surface. Behind Damien and Nasira, the vehicle bay led back to the facility, now swarming with more shooters who seemed intent on burning the place down.
The leader stood ten meters in front of Damien, too far to close on him unarmed. Damien was on his knees, desperately packing Jay’s wounds to stem the blood loss. Jay was pale and barely conscious. Damien wanted to roll him onto his side, but it was too late.
Over the sound of the idling engine, Damien’s enhanced hearing picked up on a new pair of footsteps. Feather-light across concrete, moving around the 4x4. For a moment he thought he imagined it.
‘Fire,’ the leader said.
A ribbon of blood spilled from the leader’s neck. Something moved past him, slashed open another shooter, who collapsed on his side. An artery squirted blood into the air.
The driver opened fire—seemingly at nothing—drilling small holes through the windshield. Nasira rolled left to avoid the shots. The third shooter tracked her with his sights, but Damien saw the glint of a blade. The gunman dropped to his side, bleeding onto concrete.
All three masked gunmen—their necks cut.
The leader clutched his throat, his carbine hanging from its sling. He finally dropped to his knees, face to face with Damien.
The driver opened his door and stepped out. He aimed over the hood at Nasira. Damien was on his feet, running. He reached the kneeling leader and grasped the hanging carbine. He twisted the weapon on the driver, who ducked behind the vehicle’s door. Damien punched three rounds through the door and the driver slumped.
‘Go!’ Nasira yelled.
Damien saw the third gunman, bleeding from his neck and lying flat on his stomach. He tried to aim his carbine, but Damien finished him off.
Behind the door, the driver stirred; he’d collected the rounds in his armored vest. Damien charged toward him and kicked the door. It struck the driver in the head and he sprawled onto his back, out cold. Damien checked for the unseen intruder but saw no one. He ran back for Jay.
Nasira reached over a dead gunman and cut his sling with a knife. She slid the carbine out from under his chest. ‘Get him in!’ she yelled, her barrel sweeping the parking lot.
Damien slung one of Jay’s arms over his shoulder and lifted him to his feet. Damien dragged him to the 4x4. As they approached the side, he saw movement behind the vehicle.
‘Look out!’ Nasira yelled.
Damien saw the unseen intruder. ‘Nasira, stop!’
The intruder was gone.
‘Who the hell was that?’ she asked.
The skin on Damien’s neck prickled. ‘Someone we owe our life to.’
He opened a rear door and lifted Jay onto the seat, resting him on his side. Jay’s skin felt clammy. This 4x4 might be traceable and the unseen intruder might be hostile, but right now Damien didn’t care.
Nasira pivoted on her knee, firing through the parking lot as more shooters poured from the facility and took cover behind concrete pillars.
Shit.
He snatched the driver’s carbine and fired through the open door, covering Nasira as she ran for the vehicle. She threw herself across to the driver’s seat and took the wheel. Damien took the back seat, beside Jay.
‘Keep shooting!’ she yelled.
Damien fired from the back seat, through the windshield. The shooters returned fire.
Nasira reversed the 4x4 up the ramp, her foot to the floor. Rounds punched finger-sized holes in the windshield and Damien ducked. He checked himself, then Jay for wounds. Nasira whipped them up the ramp so fast they went airborne. Damien held onto whatever he could. They hit the ground again and she lined up their escape.
‘Are you hit?’ Damien asked.
With one hand on the wheel, Nasira checked herself.
‘I’m good.’ She accelerated.
Damien gripped his carbine and inspected their path ahead. Four 4x4s and two vans were stationed outside the front entrance. Nasira drove right through. Damien kept his barrel trained on the vehicles as they passed, but no one stood guard. All the shooters were inside the facility—where the action was.
Once they hit the open road, Damien remembered to breathe again. Nasira kept watching her mirrors while Damien kept an eye on Jay. He’d lost consciousness and his pulse was fast and erratic.
At least it was pumping blood, Damien thought.
He inspected the exit and entry wounds. The gauze was still packed in and Jay wasn’t bleeding through. That was something, at least. But Jay had already lost a lot of blood, and then there was the damage he’d taken from the round, which Damien hoped hadn’t fragmented inside his chest.
A moment later Nasira pulled to a stop on cracked asphalt. Their own vehicle—well, their own stolen vehicle—was right where they’d left it, three blocks from the facility: a gray Daewoo sedan. Yet another vehicle that could be traced.
He quickly searched the 4x4 for medical supplies and salvaged a small first aid kit littered with bandages and tape. Jay was going to need a little more than that.
Nasira helped him transfer Jay to the back seat of the Daewoo, then took the wheel again. She put as much distance between them and the facility as possible.
Jay was in shock and he needed blood now.
‘We have to find a hospital,’ Damien said. ‘Jay needs a transfusion.’
Nasira ignored him. She took another corner and swerved to avoid an oncoming car. ‘Too dangerous.’
They could report the shooting as loosely connected to the raid on the facility. They would be questioned by police, but at least it’d give Jay time to be patched up by surgeons.
‘He’s dying,’ Damien said.
‘He won’t die,’ Nasira said.
‘His pseudogenes are gone.’
She accelerated harder. ‘What? What do you mean gone?’
‘They’re switched off,’ Damien said. ‘He told me.’
‘He told—shit.’ She shook her head. ‘How much blood has he lost?’
‘Before I packed the wounds, one, maybe two liters.’
‘How much?’ Nasira yelled. ‘Exactly?’
‘I don’t know!’ Damien yelled back. ‘They were going to shoot us, I wasn’t—’
‘He won’t make it,’ Nasira said.
‘But you just—look, he has to.’
Her fingers were white on the steering wheel.
‘You have Jay’s Brazilian passport,’ he said. ‘We can buy him enough time at the hospital until he’s stable.’
‘Those people will come searching for us. If we go to the nearest hospital they’ll find us there and kill us all.’
‘That’s what we have to do,’ Damien said.
‘You want to get us all killed?’ she asked.
‘We go for one further away. One they won’t look in immediately. Buy us a little time.’
She tossed her phone at him; her way of agreeing. He switched to maps and ran a search for hospitals, then chose a hospital beyond the nearest one.
Nasira hit her horn and swerved around another vehicle. ‘Found one?’
‘Twenty minutes out,’ he said.
‘Twenty, my ass.’ Nasira looked over at the phone. ‘I’ll do it in five.’
Damien navigated for her. ‘Five hundred meters, take a left.’
Nasira risked a glance over her shoulder. Tears streaked her face. ‘How’s he doing?’
Damien felt Jay’s pulse. ‘Still out. Still in shock.’
‘Hang in there,’ she said. ‘Just a little longer.’
They tore through the night.
Nasira kicked the emergency doors open. Together, the
y hauled Jay inside.
‘He’s been shot!’ Damien said in Spanish.
A pair of nurses ran from behind the glass. Another nurse pushed a stretcher toward them. They laid Jay on it and wheeled him away. Damien let them go.
‘They’ll call the police,’ Nasira said quietly.
By the time another nurse could question them, Damien had settled on a new story. They’d heard gunshots at a nearby factory, then Jay was on the ground. Damien struggled with his Spanish, so Nasira explained why they’d stuffed Jay with combat gauze.
The nurse left them in emergency. Damien stood, unmoving, aware of people watching him. Nasira pulled him by the arm, picking a spot in the corner to sit. He didn’t feel like sitting but she locked his arm and forced him down.
Finally, Nasira spoke. ‘They’ll be putting blood into him now.’
Damien swallowed. ‘Do you think the surgeons can save him?’
Nasira’s hands were trembling. ‘They got to.’
Chapter Four
Moscow, Russia
Shadows darkened Illarion’s face, under his eyes and aquiline nose. The lines in his face were deeper today. He stared down at the briefing room table, at their notes and photos, barely acknowledging Olesya and Ark, and ran a hand over his shaved graying hair.
Olesya inspected their world map on the table. It was peppered with photos of Fifth Column operatives, each of them pinned to their last known location. Many were located in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia; the rest were outdated, still children in their photos. These were pinned to the edge of the map, unknown and untracked. Olesya checked each of them with Ark, trying to identify new operatives. They did this after every encounter, but this time she took a bit longer than Ark.
When she finished, she took notes in her notebook, something Illarion always encouraged.
Ark didn’t bother with that. ‘What’s the point? They could look like anyone now.’
‘Just to be sure,’ she said.
Of all the children pinned to the side of the map, none were called Sophia. It probably wasn’t even her real name. But her manipulation of that operative’s programming seemed very real.
Who was she? And how could she do that?
Olesya’s gaze always came to rest on Xiu’s face, but never for too long. Today her gaze rested on a new face, an adult face. Val’s. She wasn’t supposed to be on the map, and seeing her there made Olesya’s stomach turn.
‘Olesya?’ Illarion was watching her. His silver whiskers were cropped shorter than usual. ‘Is there anything else you have to share, or is that all?’
There was something. ‘Maybe I’m not good enough.’
Illarion let out a slow breath. ‘Is that what you believe?’
Ark started to talk, but Illarion raised his hand. He wanted her to answer.
She swallowed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s not what I believe,’ Illarion said.
That will change soon, she thought.
Illarion checked his papers. ‘Val is the third hunter to go missing this week.’
‘Wait, there were two others?’ Ark blinked back tears. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘Because it doesn’t concern you,’ Illarion said evenly.
‘It does now,’ Ark said.
Illarion met his stare. ‘Would you like to run operations? Shall I take my leave and promote you in my stead?’
‘No.’ Ark brushed a curl of hair from his face.
‘Then until I do, this concerns me,’ Illarion said. ‘You have your own responsibilities and they are burden enough. As of now, you both carry tracking devices. On and off duty.’
Olesya’s gaze wandered to the photo of Xiu, with her brown eyes and ink-black hair.
‘In the event you are captured, we will be able to track and recover you,’ Illarion said. ‘Is that clear?’
Xiu wasn’t smiling in her photo—no one was—but Olesya remembered her smile. She wondered if Xiu was still alive and where she might be.
‘Olesya?’ Illarion said. ‘Is that clear?’
She looked up to find he was watching her.
‘Very clear.’ Olesya closed her notebook.
From the table, she picked out the only piece of evidence they had. A business card she’d found on the man who she’d knocked off the van. He was dead by the time she’d reached him, and he was clean except for the card.
She held it up so both Illarion and Ark could see. It was white on both sides with a small logo on the front. It looked like two arrows intersecting each other, but there were no contact details. Illarion and Ark had seen it already, and no doubt Illarion had looked into it.
‘So who are these people?’ Olesya asked. ‘Are they a Fifth Column proxy or do we have a new player in town?’
‘Previous incidents point to the Fifth Column.’ Illarion cleared his throat. ‘This is the first time another faction or group has been implicated.’
‘Isn’t that obvious?’ Ark said. ‘Fifth Column proxy.’
‘The men in the van weren’t Fifth Column operatives or soldiers,’ Olesya said. ‘This isn’t some Fifth Column proxy like the Islamic State. These people were totally different.’
‘And what tells you that? A stupid scribble on a bit of paper?’ Ark said.
Illarion raised his voice only a fraction. ‘Gleb has already identified the logo.’
‘That was quick,’ Olesya said.
‘That’s because they aren’t hiding,’ Illarion said. ‘Intron Genetics Incorporated has been around for a long time, with a long line of respectable accomplishments in genetic engineering. If it’s a proxy, then it’s a very well established one.’
‘And with a unique interest in Val’s DNA,’ Olesya said.
Ark grunted. ‘Or the Fifth Column is framing them.’
‘There are many possibilities,’ Illarion said. ‘And I will be exploring all of them.’
‘We can help.’ Ark pushed off the balls of his feet. ‘Assign us to search, we can find them.’
‘I can’t spare you for that,’ Illarion said. ‘We have too many Fifth Column operatives crawling the region and you’re our last line of defense.’
‘Then how do we find her?’ Ark’s fists struck the table. He looked down, barely aware of the impact.
‘Arkadiy,’ Illarion said sharply. ‘You need to control yourself or I’ll have no choice but to pull you from service. And trust me, I don’t want to do that.’
Ark retreated from the table, his eyelids red. ‘You can’t afford to do that.’
Illarion’s eyes glimmered in the dull light. ‘We have specialists assigned to find the missing hunters, your sister included.’
Ark swallowed. ‘Are they hunters, or are they—’
Illarion’s deep voice stopped him mid-sentence. ‘They are experts in their field. We’re all upset and we all want her back. But you need to remain focused.’
Ark muttered an apology.
Olesya tried to think of a solution, something Illarion had trained her to do. But nothing came to mind. Not this time.
‘Mark my words,’ Illarion said. ‘We will get them back. But until then you two continue working. Right now, the most important thing is making sure you don’t become the next victims.’
Olesya nodded. ‘Understood.’
Ark mumbled the same.
Illarion walked to the door. His assistant, Gleb, was standing patiently outside, his head visible through the glass.
‘What happens if they are Fifth Column? They’ll interrogate Val and the others?’ Ark asked.
‘This has always been a risk,’ Illarion replied. ‘And that is why I limit your operational knowledge. The less you know, the less you can reveal.’
‘But what happens after that?’ Ark asked. ‘They just kill her and move on to the next hunter?’
‘They won’t harm her,’ Olesya said. ‘Think about it. Val is a highly trained weapon with unique genetics. Either way she’s more valuable alive than dead.’
> ‘Until we know more, there is little point in theorizing,’ Illarion said. ‘Right now I’m afraid we have graver concerns.’
Illarion opened the door and motioned Gleb inside. The intelligence officer hugged a folder of print-outs and a tablet to his chest.
‘OK, so Eastern Europe.’ Gleb said, stepping inside.
‘Eastern Europe?’ Ark said.
Gleb opened his folder and cleared his throat, but Illarion spoke first.
‘A large number of Fifth Column operatives are shifting east. What does that tell you?’
‘They’re coordinating—’ Gleb said, before Illarion waved his hand.
Gleb fell silent and let Olesya and Ark answer.
‘For something larger,’ Olesya said. ‘Something in Eastern Europe.’
‘Those other hunters were abducted from this region,’ Illarion said. ‘We’re relocating there to assist. Gleb will brief you.’
Illarion stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving his assistant to take over.
Gleb handed out papers, which Olesya skimmed quickly before folding and inserting them into her notebook. The Fifth Column were far more active in Eastern Europe than she thought. Not that she paid much attention; the operatives moving through Moscow were enough to keep her busy.
‘You can just tell us,’ Ark said. ‘We screwed up and we’re being transferred out.’
‘Read the brief, Ark,’ Olesya said. ‘They need us out there.’
‘It’s your fault we’re going there.’ He threw the papers on the table. ‘How am I supposed to find my sister if I’m in some backwater oblast?’
He got to his feet. Gleb stumbled over a response, but Ark was already opening the door and walking out.
Olesya leaned on the table. ‘We’ve had a rough day.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ Gleb blinked. ‘What he said, it’s not your—’
‘And why do you think that?’ she asked.
‘This was a coordinated capture,’ Gleb said. ‘Just like the other two. Even if you were both there when she was taken, you may not have been able to prevent it.’
Exile Page 3
