by Matt Rogers
‘They pay money,’ Bogdan said, eyes wide. ‘To Viktor. To stay quiet. He no talk to anyone. Not even us.’
‘But he wasn’t involved, was he?’
Pasha shook his head. ‘That was the last thing Viktor wanted. I have a theory about what happened. He’s too much of a good man to voluntarily involve himself. I think he did stumble onto it, but months ago. Instead of killing him, they paid him to keep quiet. Because they couldn’t make too many workers disappear.’
‘Seems like they don’t care about that anymore.’
‘The unveiling of the icebreaker happens tomorrow. I don’t think they care anymore.’ He paused for effect. ‘Or…’
‘Or?’
‘You said a lady friend of yours was abducted.’
‘Yes.’
‘She worked at Medved?’
‘Yes.’
‘That might be something separate. Half of Vladivostok works at the plant. Especially because of the icebreaker. It’s not as notable as you think.’
‘So it might—’
Pasha said, ‘It might have something to do with you.’
‘That wouldn’t surprise me,’ Slater said.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I attract bad shit.’
‘Maybe this is good thing,’ Bogdan said. ‘Because you deal with bad shit. It seem very easy. You kill man just before. No problem. You do this at Medved. You find bad thing.’
‘Yeah,’ Slater muttered. ‘I find bad thing.’
31
Deep in the upper levels of a decrepit office complex, abandoned long ago as its tenants succumbed to the global financial crisis, a man sat at a desk.
The desk and its surroundings were a far cry from his previous occupation. But that was another life. He’d been reduced to this. Reduced to feeding off scraps. But for a man like Magomed Petrov, scraps was all he needed to succeed.
He no longer used his last name. Not to his co-conspirators. Not to anyone. Everyone knew him as Magomed, because any connection to his past had to be severed. It was the nature of the world he lived in. And if he was caught before he pulled off the impossible, he wanted to die as anonymously as he could. He would be carted off to a black site, tortured to within an inch of his life and then left to rot. And he wouldn’t blame them in the slightest for it. Not after it came to light what he was attempting.
He wasn’t even sure he was comprehending the consequences correctly.
It would probably turn out far worse than he was anticipating.
And that satisfied him, deep down to his core.
Nothing motivated a man like soul-crushing rage.
He hated the world. He hated everything about it. He’d spent what felt like a lifetime being careful, presenting himself with grace, choosing his words carefully, forming the right connections, climbing the political ladder, getting cosy with the right people, never voicing his own opinion, instead curtailing everything that left his mouth to what would impress the man in front of him.
So that he could ascend.
And then they’d thrown him out in the street and left him for dead.
Blamed him for things he didn’t do.
Accused him of plots he couldn’t fathom.
But Magomed had experience. He had a lifetime’s worth of learning how to form connections, learning how to impress, learning how to blend in wherever he went. He’d been utilising those skills for the last few months.
And he’d almost reached the final hurdle.
The most important step of all.
Shivering in the cold, he pulled the winter jacket tighter over his broad shoulders and steeled himself against the wind howling in through the broken windows behind him. He had a desk, a computer, a phone, and a mountain of official-looking documents that almost weighed the same as he did.
If he pulled this off, it would go down in history.
If there was anyone left to record history, that is.
He dialled a familiar contact and raised the landline receiver to his ear. There was no central heating in the dilapidated office complex, but his voice came out calm and composed. ‘Any updates?’
‘None. They still think I’m running the show.’
‘Of course they do. Your name’s on all the documents.’
‘The mercenaries work for you, but I don’t understand what you want to do with them.’
‘Today, nothing. Tomorrow, everything.’
‘It’s all been leading to this?’
‘You don’t know what I know.’
‘Which is?’
‘I know what the government is doing on its maiden voyage.’
‘How?’
‘Are you forgetting who I was in a previous life?’
‘I didn’t think you had the same connections.’
‘They’re not connections anymore. But I know who runs the show behind the scenes. I know how to get to them.’
‘Threaten their families?’
Magomed smiled, but there was no joy in the expression. ‘You are old school. You don’t know the half of it. There are methods much worse than threatening their loved ones.’
‘Such as?’
‘I’ll keep you in the dark. That way you can sleep at night.’
‘What’s the end game here, Magomed?’ the voice at the other end of the line said. ‘I’ve never questioned you. I’ve always trusted you. I’ve put my name on everything you needed me to. But I fear my old age has made me pliable. I fear you’ve been shaping me to cover for you. And that makes me think — why? We have the same values. We have the same aims. Or, at least, I think we do.’
‘You have been incredibly useful, and I can’t thank you enough.’
‘I want answers.’
‘You will get them. I won’t be around to see the end of this. You will have to watch the show for me.’
‘I am old and rich and disillusioned. You know this. Why do you think I care about what you have to show me?’
‘Because it’s going to be a fucking spectacle,’ Magomed hissed. ‘And I need to make sacrifices to ensure it happens.’
‘But yourself? That is too great a sacrifice.’
‘There is no other way.’
‘If you’re not around to see it, what’s the point?’
‘You have no idea how often I’ve been asked that.’
‘You are telling people that you’re going to martyr yourself?’
‘It creates allegiance like you wouldn’t believe. I hold every mercenary in Medved in the palm of my hand.’
‘Surely they don’t all believe you.’
‘It doesn’t matter what they think. As long as they follow through with what I tell them to do.’
‘They will die too.’
‘Maybe. We will see how it plays out. But they are savages. They don’t know what they’ll be doing tomorrow. So if we wind up in the end game, they will try to fight their way out. Some will probably get away.’
‘You could get away. If you tried.’
‘And if I get caught? Then they know it’s all a ruse. I can plan well in advance, but I’m not impervious to interrogation methods. Not in today’s day and age. I need to make sure they never know it wasn’t legitimate.’
‘What wasn’t legitimate?’
‘War.’
Magomed let the syllable hang in the air in all its intoxicating glory. It tantalised him, supercharging him with the necessary motivation to sleep only a couple of hours a night, spending the rest of his waking moments plotting, scheming, making calls, sending encrypted messages, co-ordinating a chessboard on a global scale in preparation for a single moment in time in which the world would tear itself apart.
‘Is that why you needed my resources?’ the old man said. ‘For this phone call?’
‘It’s the most important piece of the puzzle.’
‘What if I don’t like where you’re taking the world?’
‘You are old and rich and disillusioned,’ Magomed said, repeating the man’s self-descri
ption back to him. ‘You saw what happened in Russia. What the Americans did. They sent their operatives into our motherland and had their way. They killed our countrymen. And then we became the bad guys, because a rogue force attacked one of their supercarriers. A force we had no affiliations with.’
‘No affiliations,’ the old man said, smug.
‘I know you bankrolled some of the operation. That’s why I came to you.’
‘Why do you think I want to watch the world tear itself apart?’
‘Because you’ve done everything you wanted with your life. And you know where Russia is heading. You’ve seen the incompetence of the government. This isn’t about making a better future. It’s about tearing down everything that stands right now. And watching with a smile on our faces.’
‘You won’t be here to watch.’
‘I don’t want to spend another minute longer than necessary on this godforsaken planet.’
‘What did they do to you? When they cast you out? How did they make you like this?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
Silence.
Magomed said, ‘Did you get everything ready?’
‘I’ve spent weeks on this,’ the old man said. ‘You have no idea about the favours I needed to call in. It’s all in place.’
‘He’s on the line?’
‘He’s expecting your call.’
‘And he thinks I’m Russian military intelligence?’
‘Of course.’
‘Just needed to confirm.’
‘This is it,’ the old man said, his voice weak. ‘This is what you’ve been working toward for months.’
‘I won’t let you down,’ Magomed said.
He ended the call and dialled another number, barely able to contain his nerves. It connected in seconds, and a gruff voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘Is this Admiral Ramirez of the U.S. Navy?’
‘It is.’
‘My warmest greetings, Admiral. I was told to contact you with information pertaining to the maiden voyage of the Moschnost icebreaker in Vladivostok. We have particulars about the route through the Bering Strait.’
‘We were waiting on specific details about that. May I connect you to a conference call? We’re all looking forward to co-operating with you and your government on this endeavour.’
‘Certainly,’ Magomed said. ‘I’m looking forward to it too.’
He gripped the edge of the desk with white knuckles, sweating freely, barely able to believe his ploy had worked. They suspected nothing. He had control.
Waiting with bated breath as Admiral Ramirez rang through to a smattering of high-ranking U.S. military officials, Magomed prepared for the end game.
32
‘I … have seen something,’ Bogdan said, his head bowed, his hands clammy and shaking.
Slater leant forward, ignoring the chill in the atmosphere. ‘Bogdan.’
The man looked up.
‘I need you to tell me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Bogdan said. ‘You are American. What if you want to put me in jail?’
‘I’m American. But I don’t care if you’ve turned a blind eye to it. In fact, I don’t blame you at all. This stuff is terrifying. What did you see?’
Pasha muttered, ‘I didn’t know about this.’
Slater said, ‘If you did, would you have done anything differently?’
‘Probably not.’
‘I respect people who tell the truth.’
‘There is place in Medved,’ Bogdan said. ‘It is off limits. No-one can go there. Just collection of empty warehouse. But sometimes I put my head in. I look around. See what happens.’
‘You haven’t been caught?’
‘No. And if I caught, I good at acting. I pretend I’m lost. You see?’
‘I see. But that’s a dangerous game, Bogdan.’
‘Da.’
‘What do they tell you happens in the off-limits section?’
‘They say guard live there. Temporary shelter. And some do.’
‘The mercenaries?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had you ever seen any of these men before construction started? Protecting other sites, for example?’
‘We didn’t work there before,’ Pasha said. ‘We came when the work opportunities came. And the guards were already there.’
‘How long have you been working on the icebreaker?’
‘Years.’
‘And they’ve always been there?’
‘Yes.’
‘So it could be normal?’
‘It could be. But it seems like there’s more and more of them every day. And the rules changed a few months ago. Any kind of contact was prohibited.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Upper management.’
‘Who controls upper management?’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’
Slater turned back to Bogdan and said, ‘What did you see?’
‘Two of the guards. Mercenaries, you say. They drag young man into one of the warehouses. Young man not happy. Crying. Not walking. They drag him by arms. And man in suit follow. Like rich man. Businessman.’
Slater thought of Iosif. ‘Describe the businessman.’
‘Young, too. Dark hair. Black hair. He look foreign. Caucasian.’
Not Iosif.
Slater bent down, put his head in his hands, and let out a groan. ‘This is a mess.’
‘What do we do?’ Pasha said.
Slater looked up and realised the man was deadly serious. All his independence had vanished in the face of Slater’s arrival, as had Bogdan’s. They were both staring expectantly at Slater, figuring he had all the answers, looking to him for support.
After all, they were out of their depth.
I am too, Slater thought.
But he could take it step by step. He could investigate. He could win.
‘You two can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘Considering what you know. Your friend and co-worker died because he got scared. You two can’t go back to work. You said you were on stable incomes for years. Good contracts. You have savings?’
‘Yes,’ Pasha said. ‘Nothing to spend money on out here. We both have more than enough to survive for a while.’
‘Then use that to stay afloat. Get as far away from here as you can.’
‘What if they track us?’
Slater paused to consider how to phrase his next words. ‘I don’t think anyone will bother to track down construction workers who violate their contracts after what’s about to happen.’
‘What will you do?’ Bogdan said, eyes wider than ever. ‘How do you know what will happen?’
Slater clasped his hands together, rubbed them to stave off the cold, and took a deep breath. ‘Want to hear a story?’
Pasha shrugged. ‘We’re in too deep to say no.’
‘If I tell you this, you can never tell a soul. But I’m truly sorry about what happened to your friend. I tried to protect Viktor and I failed. So I owe you an explanation for who I am.’
‘Okay,’ Pasha said.
‘I used to work for a division of the U.S. government that doesn’t officially exist. Black operations. I was recruited to this division because of a genetic predisposition. My reaction speed is faster than almost anyone on the planet. You both saw that first-hand, just before.’
‘I didn’t think that was real,’ Pasha said, turning pale. ‘I can’t believe how fast you killed that man.’
‘That’s what I do. And I did it for years.’
‘Did you kill Russians?’
‘Many. You won’t miss any of them. I only targeted scum. I killed just as many Americans.’
‘And you got out?’
‘I tried to. It didn’t work out. I ran away when I was sent to track down another operative. A man better than me. His name was Jason King. I found out that the orders from the top weren’t always accurate, and I became disillusioned. I tried to lay low in Antigua and enjoy the fruits of my labour
s, but I couldn’t do it. And Jason King went back to work. We swapped roles.’
‘Wait a second,’ Pasha said. ‘A year ago. In Russia. Those were government operatives—’
‘King was sent to the Russian Far East. He botched it completely. I flew halfway around the world to pull him out of a gold mine, but we found something down there that no-one wanted us to see. Then everything went to hell. I’m sure you saw it on the news.’
‘I thought we were in for another World War when I heard Russian paramilitary had attacked a U.S. Navy vessel. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘They were trying to finish us off. Because of what we knew.’
‘What did you find in the gold mine?’
‘Nothing I want to talk about. But that’s why you two need to run. Nothing good follows me. I’ve been at the centre of all this chaos over the last year. It’s all because of me.’
‘Or maybe you are blessing,’ Bogdan said. ‘Maybe without you, world be much worse. Maybe life terrible for you. But good for everyone else. Because of you.’
Slater exhaled. ‘You know what, Bogdan? I think you’re absolutely right.’
‘So you’re just going to let us go?’ Pasha said.
Slater paused. ‘What makes you think I’m holding you here against your will?’
‘We just watched you cut a man’s throat. We’re a little intimidated.’
‘Get out of here. Both of you. And never come back. But give me one last thing before you go.’
‘What?’
‘I just told you my story. Or, at least, a condensed version of it. You can trust me. You need to give me access to the shipbuilding plant. Whatever credentials you have, whatever gate codes you know. I need it all. Everything in your head. If I’m going to have even the slightest chance at this.’
Pasha shook his head, shockingly pale, eyes wide and bloodshot. ‘No. What if you get caught? Taken alive? Then they know what codes you used. It’s in the system. You know we gave them to you. They track us down, they find our families, they kill them all. Like they did to Viktor.’
‘You’re just going to have to trust that I’ll succeed.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘I can,’ Bogdan said. ‘V12XY. Gate code. Gets you in the front. Two guards there. Distract them, maybe. But they mercenary. Like the others. All bad. Do what you need to do.’
