Sentinel

by Matthew Dunn

  Will took a tiny sip of the liquor, then placed his glass down on a side table. Sentinel and Shashka sat back down in their armchairs while Will moved around the room, pulling curtains over its windows. He shut the lounge door, grabbed a dining chair, and sat so that he was partially facing the entrance. Glancing at Shashka, he could see that the man was not looking in his direction. Discreetly, Will removed his handgun from his belt and gripped it by his side, hiding it from view.

  Shashka took a big gulp of vodka and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why was this meeting so urgent?”

  Sentinel answered, “Taras Khmelnytsky. Head of Spetsnaz Alpha. Is there any way of locating him?”

  Shashka frowned. “Why do you need to find him?”

  “I can’t tell you anything, other than it’s vital I know where he is.”

  “That’s not much incentive to help you.” The Russian general swirled the vodka in his glass. “He’s on a classified training exercise with elements of Alpha. For most of the time, even high command doesn’t know where he is because the exercise requires Colonel Khmelnytsky and his men to retain an element of surprise.”

  Like placing a nuclear bomb in an army barracks without anyone knowing.

  “Someone must know where he is.”

  The general took out an elegant cigarette holder and cigarette. Attaching them to each other, he lit the cigarette with a gunmetal lighter, snapped the lighter shut, and blew a thin stream of smoke. “In case of emergency, he can be tracked. My colleagues choose not to know where he is because it benefits them not to know. But they’re not stupid. Khmelnytsky’s working with some very . . . valuable equipment. If anything happens to the colonel or his men, it’s vital the equipment be recovered and returned to a safe location.”

  “There are beacons on the equipment?”

  Shashka nodded. “Yes, and they’re visible. But the colonel and his men are unaware that their civilian vehicles have been secretly equipped with tracking devices.”

  “Are they activated?”

  “No. As long as the colonel provides his daily reports on time, the beacons are kept off to make the exercise as realistic as possible.”

  Sweat began to trickle down Will’s back. He desperately wanted the meeting to end, because he knew that Razin could strike at any moment. But what Shashka was saying was adding a whole new range of possibilities to capturing the man.

  Sentinel asked, “Can they be turned on?”

  Shashka smiled. “Even I don’t have that authority. The only men who could authorize that are my boss Luchinski, Barkov, Nikitin, Fursenko, or the big man himself—Platonov.”

  Lieutenant General Vladimirsky Luchinski, Lieutenant General Ilya Barkov, Lieutenant General Daniil Nikitin, and Lieutenant General Viktor Fursenko. Respectively, heads of the Western, Central, Southern, and Eastern Commands. Colonel General Platonov was their superior and answered only to the Russian president and prime minister.

  “You could try to persuade Luchinski to activate the beacons. Maybe say they need to be tested.”

  Shashka shook his head quickly. “I’m quite happy to feed you information. But if I make a request like that, it’ll be viewed as highly suspicious. The only reason I know about Alpha’s training exercise is because it falls under Western Command and sometimes I have to countersign some of Luchinski’s orders. But I’m not special forces. For me to attempt to interfere would seem odd, to say the least.”

  Will stood, knowing that Sentinel would be feeling overwhelming disappointment and also knowing that the three of them were sitting ducks. He moved around the room carefully, so as not to let Shashka see his gun.

  Shashka looked at him. “Why are you pacing? Is there something out there that I should be aware of?”

  Will smiled. “Ignore me. I’m just here to make sure you’re safe.”

  A bullet tore a hole in the lounge wall, traveled across the room, and removed a large part of Shashka’s head from his body.

  Sentinel dived to the ground, shouting, “Fifty caliber with thermal!”

  Razin.

  With a precision weapon that could rip through buildings and kill on impact.

  And a telescopic, heat-sensing sight that could detect any living creatures within the house.

  Will lunged at the door, kicking it open. “Get to the back of the house!” He spun around, dropping low in the doorway. A second bullet struck the door frame, right where his head had been a second before. Sentinel was leopard-crawling fast across the floor, his handgun held in one fist. Will reached out, grabbed Sentinel’s other outstretched hand, and yanked him toward the doorway with all of his strength. A third bullet crashed into the skirting board.

  Will pulled him to his feet, turned, and sprinted into the hallway and along it. “Move!”

  He reached another closed door and threw his body sideways at it, causing it to come off its hinges and fall to the floor. Sentinel was right by him. Both men moved deeper into the room. It was the kitchen. They crouched down, breathing fast.

  Sentinel gritted his teeth. “Bastard.”

  Will looked quickly around. The four walls between them and Razin would make him blind to their position, so Razin would now be moving to get another line of sight.

  Sentinel also looked around, his eyes now filled with hatred. “He’s not going to leave us alone.”

  Will’s heart raced. “I know.” He looked at the back door. “We’ve got to close him down.”

  They both knew the only way to do that was with speed and erratic movement. Even then, the chances of success were slim.

  “Let’s go.”

  They moved to either side of the door. Will opened it, nodded at Sentinel, and dived through the exit. Crashing to the outside ground, he rolled and dived for cover just as another shot rang out. The bullet struck the ground inches from him, but it had given him what he needed. “He’s on our two o’clock. One-fifty yards away.”

  They ran again, heading toward the shooter, keeping low and sidestepping left and right to make them difficult targets. They reached a point thirty feet from the house. The gun fired again, and a bullet grazed Sentinel’s upper arm, causing him to stumble, but he regained his footing and ran even faster.

  Gripping their handguns, the MI6 officers sprinted toward the place where they had last seen Razin’s muzzle flash. They ran along the track leading away from the house, the whole time Will scouring the rough ground to the right of it, where he thought Razin might still be. But all ahead of them was in darkness, and the faint moonlight enabled Will to see only a few feet in front of him.

  Then he saw something move rapidly from a hedgerow onto the track. He raised his gun, but whatever he saw had now disappeared. Sentinel dashed to his right, jumped off the track, and disappeared into the darkness. Will knew that the officer had also seen the movement and was trying to flank whatever it was. Will ran faster but was now almost blind in the nighttime.

  Sentinel shouted from behind Will, “I’ve found the rifle, but there’s no sign of him here.”

  Will cursed, desperately looking left and right as he ran.

  It all happened in an instant. The man appeared before Will, rushing at him with tremendous speed. Still running, Will raised his gun and shot, but the man twisted, dodging the bullet, and punched a fist into Will’s jaw with enough power to not only stop Will dead in his tracks but to also lift his body high in the air, hurtling backward. As Will thumped to the ground, his grip on his handgun involuntarily released and his weapon went flying away from the track into the darkness. His body was in agony from the force of the punch and from the impact on the ground. The man was over him. He looked to be in his late thirties, had a smooth face and jet-black straight hair, was tall, muscular, and clearly immensely powerful.

  It was Razin.

  Will slammed his foot into Razin’s ankle, used his other foot to kick his kneecap, and thrust his boot full force into his gut. Razin gasped and staggered back, giving Will just enough time to get to h
is feet. Stepping forward, Will jabbed his knee into Razin’s rib cage, causing the man to double over in pain. He swung a fist at his head, but Razin grabbed his speeding hand in midair, held it still with a viselike grip, and twisted his arm until he was holding Will in a lock. He moved closer to Will. Will instantly twisted his arm in the other direction, pulling Razin toward him, and head butted him in the face. Razin flew backward, holding his hands against his nose. Charging forward, Will dived at him, but Razin sidestepped and banged his elbow into Will’s back as he was still in midair. He hit the ground, rolled sideways to avoid Razin’s boot as it descended toward his head, jumped up, and took two steps away from the big Russian.

  The men stared at each other, breathing fast, their faces screwed up in pain.

  Then they moved forward.

  Will lowered his upper body and swung his fist up toward Razin’s jaw.

  Razin punched fast toward Will’s cheekbone.

  Their fists impacted simultaneously.

  The operatives fell away from each other.

  They slowly got to their feet, their breathing now even more labored, and stared at each other. Neither man moved.

  Razin gasped, “Who are you?”

  Will answered through gritted teeth, “The man sent to stop you, Razin.”

  Razin’s eyes narrowed. “If you know my code name, then you must be an MI6 officer.”

  A shot rang out from Sentinel’s handgun; the bullet sliced across Razin’s cheekbone. The Russian special forces commander did not move, but anger was now on his face. “We’ll meet again.”

  He turned and disappeared into the darkness a split second before another of Sentinel’s shots raced through the place where he’d been standing.

  Will immediately gave chase, running fast but blindly across the rough ground, desperate to hear a noise from Razin. After three hundred feet he stopped, looked around, heard and saw nothing, and stamped his foot on the ground in frustration.

  Razin had escaped.

  He jogged back to the track. Sentinel was there, his handgun pointing right at Will.

  “It’s me! Don’t shoot!”

  Sentinel lowered his pistol as Will came into view. “What happened?”

  What had happened was unprecedented. In his operational career, Will had engaged in unarmed combat with hundreds of very dangerous and skilled men. But Razin’s assault on him was like no other fight he had ever been in. For the first time in his life, Will had come up against a man who was physically his equal.

  Will rubbed his hand over his face; the pain behind his eyes and running down his back was immense. “He got away. I couldn’t beat him.”

  Sentinel looked around. “We’ve got to get out of Russia. But only for a few days. I need to come back to meet another agent.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got to, and I’ve got to notify Moscow Station.”

  Will couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Your plan failed!”

  “Only because we were outgunned.” He shook his head. “Razin has to pay for what he did to Shashka.”

  “Even if it means that another agent loses his life?”

  “No.” Sentinel looked toward the house. “We need expert help. Do you think you can get a team?”

  “What about your Eastern European or Russian assets?”

  “They’re gifted amateurs, no match for Razin.”

  Will was still incredulous. “I’m not going to let you put your life and another agent’s life at risk again.”

  “You’ve got to, because we’ve just been given another opportunity to capture Razin. Shashka didn’t know this, but one of the men he mentioned—Lieutenant General Ilya Barkov, the head of Central Operational Strategic Command—is one of my other tier-one agents. He’s the only other general I have on my books, but he’s just become a very important one.”

  “You’re going to ask him to activate the beacons so that we can locate Razin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will he do it?”

  “I don’t know; he’s a difficult man to handle. I need to lure Razin to the meeting in case Barkov says no.”

  Will could see that Sentinel was exhausted. “You’re pushing yourself too hard.”

  Sentinel muttered, “What other choice do I have?”

  “You could trust me to do my job.”

  Sentinel folded his arms. “Get me a team. Either we’ll take down Razin at the Barkov meeting, or we’ll get a grid reference for his location and make an assault on him.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Will awoke as the Lufthansa flight touched down in Slovenia. The aircraft slowed to a taxi, and Will looked out of his window but barely registered the snow-covered surroundings or the activities in the airport. Instead, his thoughts returned to his confrontation with Razin.

  He tried to understand what he felt about his inability to defeat the Russian. Anger, frustration, perhaps even shame? Yes, maybe all of those things. But there was something else that was far more overwhelming.

  It came to him.

  More than anything else, his fight with Razin had brought into question everything he’d been trained to do and tasked on. He’d been prepared to make all of the mental and physical sacrifices to endure the Spartan Program because it had been drilled into him that if he successfully completed the course, he would be able to succeed in any mission.

  Until yesterday, that had been true.

  But now that he’d come up against someone who was his equal, he wondered if the hell he’d gone through for twelve months and the subsequent eight years of constant deployment had been worth it. For the first time in his life, he doubted not only himself but also those who had put their faith in him.

  He thought about one of the Program’s tests. He’d had to do a HALO parachute insertion from 70,000 feet into Washington’s Olympic Mountains, carrying a communications and survival kit weighing eighty pounds. After landing, he’d trekked across harsh terrain for fifty miles in freezing conditions until he reached the isolated house where he’d been told to rendezvous with an instructor who would be role-playing an agent. Will had covertly watched the house for six hours and had seen no one. He hadn’t expected to. But as he carefully made his way toward the house he knew that the real test was about to begin. When he entered, men with guns grabbed him, put him in shackles, and covered his head with a hood. He was placed in a truck and driven two hours away before being dragged into a building, stripped naked, repeatedly punched, and forced into agonizing stress positions for hours at a time, throughout which white noise blared from speakers.

  He estimated it was twelve hours before the noise stopped, his hood was removed, and he was kicked to the floor. An instructor crouched down next to him, patted him on the head, and said, “So far, so good. But that was just the warm-up. Now we’re going to put drugs into you to make you tell us the name of the man you were coming to meet. After one day, every thought and instinct in your body will be crying out to release the information. If you manage to hold out until day two, you’ll think you’ve lost your mind. By day three, you’ll want to kill yourself. But you’re going to need to last five days to stay in the Program.”

  Will wondered why this particular memory had come into his mind. It wasn’t the worst test he’d had to endure.

  Of course. It was what had come after that five-day ordeal that mattered.

  When the drugs were out of his system, he’d been allowed to wash, shave, and change into clean clothes. But sleep was not yet permitted. Instead, he was guided into a classroom where an elderly gentleman was standing by a large blackboard. Will was told to sit at a desk and was left alone with the man.

  He’d never seen this instructor before; he looked over retirement age. The man was dressed in a tweed suit and bow tie, was tall and thin, and was holding a piece of chalk. He drew two small circles on the board, one in the top left-hand corner, the other on the bottom right. Turning to face Will, he said in a well-spoken English accent, “I know from my
experience in the field in the fifties that all of the physical stuff is nothing compared to what you can do with a brain.” He jabbed the chalk on the lower circle. “This is you.” Then he did the same on the higher circle. “And this is the man you want to capture.” He smiled. “Using intellect alone, we’re going to see which one can get to the other first.”

  For the next four hours, the theoretical exercise was played out, with the instructor throwing obstacle after obstacle, new information, and unexpected events at Will, who was trying to formulate an ongoing plan to get to the other circle. Finally, the instructor put a cross through the highest circle and said, “Impressive. You got him.” He nodded. “I hope you’ve learnt more about yourself in the last few hours than you have in the last week.”

  The Lufthansa flight came to a halt. People around Will started to stand up and extract their bags from the overhead lockers.

  Will was motionless. He knew why the memory had come to him. Razin had matched him blow for blow. But he had not yet proven that he was Will’s intellectual equal.

  But if he did, Will’s future in the Spartan Section was in doubt.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Will sat at a table and waited. The restaurant provided stunning views of Ljubljana and the snow-covered Slovenian mountains beyond the city. It was breakfast time, but the restaurant was nearly empty.

  Kryštof arrived and sat opposite him. The former Czech intelligence officer looked even worse than when Will had last seen him, and he stank of cigarettes and stale alcohol. He shook Will’s hand. “Hello, David.”

  Will smiled. “You look well.”

  “No, I don’t.” Kryštof pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “Let’s get a drink.”

  “I’ve already ordered us some coffee.”

  “Coffee? Okay.” He glanced out of the windows at the view. “Thanks for meeting me here. It saved me having to reroute my flights.” He looked back at Will. “I’ve got a name.”

  “Excellent.”

  Kryštof smiled. “I’m not completely off the rails.”

  “I never thought you were.”