Pushing Brilliance

by Tim Tigner

  That satisfied Max for about five minutes. As the windshield wipers sloshed a hypnotic rhythm, he hit me with his next nervous question. “What would be a bad sign?”

  “Basically any activity other than our ringing phone.”

  “Should we move up to the FOB?” He asked, after another three hundred painful seconds had ticked by with his fingers drumming away. He was referencing the forward operating base we’d picked out, directly across the street from GasEx.

  The FOB was a parking lot in an apartment complex. The front parking spaces gave us line of sight on both Barsukov’s Rocket and the guard gate. They also left us exposed. Distant from the door was an odd and conspicuous place to park an ambulance. I hoped the heavy rain would fend off rubberneckers.

  I considered asking Max to stick to the plan, and remain at out current location for another three minutes, but that would be pointlessly fastidious. Truth was, Max wasn’t the only one growing nervous. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 105

  Alternative Scenarios

  I POWERED ON the radio as we drove toward the FOB, hoping for something soothing. It came to life with a rapper venting frustrations about his mother. Odd choice for an ambulance driver. I turned it back off.

  Max stopped the ambulance before the orange cones that reserved our parking spot. He looked over at me with an unstated request.

  I looked out at the pouring rain, and prayed that an umbrella was the only thing I’d forgotten. “I don’t want to get my makeup wet. Drive over the cones.”

  I’d made my face up to look like Scar’s. Speaking of which … I craned my neck and spotted our stolen GasEx van. We’d parked it nearby in a less conspicuous spot. I wanted it handy, in case we needed Plan B.

  Max rolled slowly forward, attempting to nudge the cones out of the way. It didn’t work. Both tipped. We listened to them scraping the pavement beneath the ambulance. With a shrug, he shifted into park and glanced at his watch. “I’m sure she’ll call any minute.”

  I indicated agreement.

  She didn’t call. Not within five minutes. Not within ten.

  I gave the radio another try. Found some jazz.

  “How long has she been in there?” Max asked, when the song ended.

  “About thirty minutes. Tell me again about the tranquilizers you gave her.” I knew all the details. I wouldn’t have approved the mission otherwise. But it would relax Max to talk about biochemistry.

  “The microinjectors in the haircombs you gave me have a very limited capacity, just a tenth of a milliliter. So we needed something that would work with a minute dose, and we needed something that would act immediately. I went with etorphine, also known as M99. It’s a common veterinary tranquilizer that’s lethal in humans because of our opioid sensitivity. A single drop will kill most people, a mere twentieth of a milliliter. She’ll use that to knock Barsukov out. It’ll drop the bastard like a bullet to the brain. Then she’ll administer the antidote, naltrexone. I’ve got that stashed in the left cup of her bra. Before he regains his senses, she’ll dose him with the chloroform stashed in the right cup, to keep him under.” He nodded, reassuring himself.

  “Overall the plan is more complicated than I’d like, but it’s surefire, and it will leave him looking like something’s definitely medically wrong. It will also wipe out his short-term memory. In that regard, M99 is like Rohypnol squared.”

  “Brilliant, Max. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

  “Bastard killed Saba. You sure Katya’s okay? What if there’s more than one guy in the room. What if Barsukov wants his bodyguard to watch?”

  “She’s got four doses of M99. Two combs, two ends.”

  “Yeah, but wouldn’t the presence of multiple bodies ruin the heart attack ruse?”

  “Katya’s very quick on her feet. She’ll think of something. You should have seen her when we got attacked at the hotel. The guy who seized her was literally twice her size, and she latched onto his trigger finger like a pit bull on a bone. Saved both our lives. And then at Vondreesen’s castle, she did it again.”

  I was speaking to myself as much as to Max. Truth was, I was kicking myself for agreeing to Katya’s plan. I should have nixed it back in San Francisco, but we had the whole partner thing going. It was working for us and I didn’t want to ruin it by vetoing her idea. At the time, I’d expected to come up with a better proposal once we got here.

  We had four days in Moscow to prep for the Angels on Fire plan. That seemed like a lot at first, especially with my trial less than a week away, but it proved barely adequate given all the practice, equipment, and contingency planning required.

  I’d searched for alternative plans at every opportunity, but had come up empty. We didn’t have sufficient data on Grigori’s routines to uncover weaknesses — and none were apparent. He lived and worked in a fortress. But I could have gotten more aggressive. I could have broken into the complex and poked around. I had retrieved a blue key card from the stolen GasEx van, using safe-cracking equipment brought from the US.

  “How long’s it been now?” Max asked. He was working hard to keep calm, but his voice was cracking like an old telephone wire.

  I looked at my watch. Two-thirty. Katya had been in there nearly an hour.

  The hardest part of most missions was fending off demons while waiting in the proverbial dark, but this was the worst ever. This wasn’t an A-Team gone quiet. This was Katya working alone. “She can’t drug him until they’re alone and getting intimate. Plenty of things could cause a delay. A late dinner to set the mood. A phone call requiring immediate attention. His waiting for the Viagra to kick in.”

  “How do we know when our worrying becomes legitimate?”

  “It’s not a question of worrying. It’s a question of alternative action. The proper question is: when does it make sense to switch to Plan B? In this case, that will be when we decide Plan A is off track, because it’s more likely that she’s been identified or thwarted than delayed.”

  “And when will that be?”

  I ran through alternative scenarios in my mind, weighing each against my probability meter, then racking and stacking the results. “Right about now. I’m going in.”

  Chapter 106

  Dangerous Heights

  ONE GOOD THING about Plan B was that it didn’t void Plan A. If Katya called, Max could still execute the ambulance scenario.

  “If a guard asks why you’re alone, tell him there’s another emergency, an accident with members of the Duma involved,” I said, referencing Russia’s parliament. “Everyone understands the hoops that have to be jumped through when politicians are involved.”

  Since Plan B got me into GasEx using Scar’s blue key card, I didn’t expect to have any human interaction at all. But just in case, I’d made my face up and styled my hair to resemble Scar’s ID. Our physiques and features were in similar ballparks. In my experience, that combination would be good enough for late-night guards. They’d be second-tier, tired, and focused on the deformity.

  If not, I had the Glock.

  I set about changing out of my EMT uniform, into a black suit and t-shirt. My other gear was waiting for me in the GasEx van, all pre-packed and ready to go.

  Max watched me with his mouth half open. “I still can’t believe you’re going to climb that thing, in the rain no less. But I’m sure glad that you are. What are you going to do once you reach the top?”

  “Depends on what I see. I’ll have you on comm the whole time, so you’ll know when I do. You just remain ready to roll down here. Hopefully Katya will call, but in any case, the ambulance will likely remain our best ticket out.”

  “You can count on me.”

  “I know I can, Max. Thank you.”

  We bumped fists, and I left to climb a castle wall.

  The employee gate responded to the stolen key card without delay, and I rolled toward the Rocket like a lion stalking a gazelle.

  I had identified the southeast corner of the tower
as the best place for climbing. The wind was blowing from north to south, so the southern walls were the most protected from the rain, and the southeast was the least visually exposed. I’d be hidden from neighboring apartments, the guard building, and Max. Probably better for his blood pressure that way. I parked as near as I could get without being conspicuous, and went into the back to grab my gear.

  I’d decided to climb wearing the black suit rather than one of my homemade camouflaging leotards since this was a covert assault rather than a lay-in-wait sniping mission. Nonetheless, those silly suits would come along in my bag for contingencies. I was also packing a large sport parachute, heavy-duty cable ties, and a lock-picking set in addition to my shoulder-holstered Glock. My specialty items were a sonic glass-shattering pick, and a pair of sophisticated suction cups.

  “How’s it looking?” I said into my headset mike.

  “All quiet.”

  “Keep an eye on the pyramid and the guardhouse with the scope. Let me know if anything changes.”

  “Roger that.”

  I ran for the southeast corner and came to a stop with my back pressed into the southern wall. It was nearing 3:00 a.m. I paused there for my final pre-engagement reconnaissance, a black figure in the shadow of a stormy night. Quiet all around, except for the wind and the rain and my pounding pulse.

  I was worried about Katya.

  Turning back to the building, I raised the suction cups over my head. Fashioned from the shells of a popular push-up tool, my friend had designed them specifically for use on glass. Each had a suction cup the size of a salad plate. A thumb switch alternatively blew compressed air in, and then sucked it out, enabling swift and solid attachment and detachment. His clever invention would cut my ascent time by over fifty percent. I just had to be careful not to confuse my thumbs. That was one of those mistakes you only got to make once.

  I pressed my left thumb, felt the cup suck in, and pulled myself up the length of my arm. Twenty-five inches from the top of my deltoid to the center of my clenched fist. My feet now dangling, I reached my right arm up as far as I could, and depressed my thumb. Feeling it engage, I pulled myself up another couple of feet. I hit my left thumb, felt the tension release, and began to repeat. Katya, here I come.

  I wanted to test my ability to climb without the suction cups before I reached breakneck height, so after a few pulls, I tried wedging myself into the corner. Without a rope, this cornering grip was my only safety, my only alternative to falling if the suction cups failed. I’d lined the parachute pack with an extremely tacky rubber, similar to the soles of my shoes. The opposing sticky surfaces would normally make it possible for me to cling to the corner without the use of my hands, but the rain made the pollution-coated glass too slick. I tried every angle and every technique, but nothing gave me sufficient purchase to ascend.

  I was about to break a cardinal rule of climbing.

  I was about to risk my life on a piece of experimental equipment.

  Rain poured down on me as I looked up to the sky. Somewhere thirty stories above, the most wonderful woman I’d ever known was battling the man who had brought nightmares into my life. The man who had ended my father’s and brother’s dreams. Those thoughts kicked my adrenaline into overdrive, and I resumed the climb with savage intent. Left. Right. Left. Right. Twenty meters. Forty. Sixty.

  I was two-thirds of the way up, about twenty stories, when the lightning started. The first bolt came with a thunderous clap that made me glad I was conditioned to working around gunfire. I said, “I’m fine,” for Max’s benefit, then decided this was a good time to pause and replace the air canisters. My friend said each was good for well over a hundred cycles on the suction cups, but I didn’t want to push it. Failure would be catastrophic, and Katya was counting on me.

  Chapter 107

  Lack of Transparency

  A SIMPLE STRAP ran from my belt through each suction cup’s handle and back down. This loop provided a measure of safety throughout the climb, and freed up my hands for the swapping operation.

  The first time I’d used one of those simple tethers was in Airborne School at Fort Benning. During the final practice exercise, before they threw us out of an actual plane, the Black Hats hoisted us up a tower about the same height as the GasEx complex. During the ascent, our parachutes were held open above our heads by a giant ring. When we reached the top, the drill was to remove the safety tether running between our belt and the ring, and then give the thumbs-up to signal that we were ready for release.

  I’ll never forget watching one of my fellow paratroopers get confused and give the release signal without unclipping his tether. He ended up dangling by a thread still hooked to the ring, while his inflated parachute dropped below him, caught a breeze, and started pulling him toward the ground. I’d never seen someone so scared in all my life.

  But the tether did its job.

  We all walked away with a deeply engrained respect for our safety equipment.

  “Anything happening?” I asked Max.

  “All’s quiet. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m glad you’re on your way. I’ve been afraid to speak. I worry about breaking your concentration.”

  “Good instinct. I’ll talk to you in a few from the top.”

  I rolled onto the roof fourteen minutes after my feet left the ground. My arms and deltoids were burning, but nothing like my heart.

  Grigori’s rooftop terrace ran about three-meters deep, from the edge I’d just clambered over to the base of the glass pyramid. The shiny black helicopter that had delivered Katya loomed behind me, off to the right. I rolled away from the edge so I wouldn’t be silhouetted against the night sky and looked for a place to stash the suction cups. I didn’t plan on using them to go down, but contingency planning was like breathing. It had often kept me breathing.

  The roof didn’t appear to have the usual assortment of exhaust pipes and HVAC units, so I made do with stashing my tools against the wall of the nearest corner tower, which rose about a foot higher than the main building. I stashed the parachute there as well, then turned up my jacket collar in an attempt to appear like a guard stuck on perimeter patrol in the pouring rain.

  “I’m on the roof,” I told Max. “You see any lights on your side?”

  “All’s dark. I still can’t believe you climbed that thing.”

  I palmed the Glock and crawled to the wall to Grigori’s East Wing office. Cupping my eyes, I put my face up to the glass. I couldn’t see anything through it. Illumination from the next lightning strike confirmed my suspicion. The glass was electronically opaqued.

  The last time I’d encountered this kind of glass was in the unisex restroom of a trendy Belgian nightclub. Customers had the choice of making the door to their stall clear or leaving it opaque. I remembered doubting that many patrons would take advantage of the exhibitionist opportunity, but being certain that all would talk about it. My practical take away from that experience was the knowledge that unlike most mirrored glass, the opacity worked both ways.

  I stood and checked the triangular panes one by one. They were huge. Each was roughly two meters in height, and probably weighed a hundred pounds. Twelve rows of panes rose up into the darkness, beginning with twenty-three triangles in the first row on the bottom, and of course ending with just a single triangle in the last row at the top. The entire first and second rows appeared to be opaque.

  I began making my way around the pyramid. Looking for doors and signs of life. I made the full three-sixty circuit and found neither. “There aren’t any traditional doors on this thing,” I told Max. “Just hinges on a few of the panes. I’m guessing they swing out like doors, but they don’t have traditional handles I can lever or locks I can pick. Just touch pads.”

  “Can you get inside?”

  “I figure the odds are fifty-fifty that the touch pads will respond to my palm. Either they are biometric, or they aren’t.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  “Submarines an
d space shuttles don’t have locks on their doors, and this is no less remote. But I hesitate to try without knowing if the coast is clear on the other side. I’m going to climb the pyramid. He’s got the ground-level glass electronically opaqued, but maybe there will be clear panes higher up. I’ll start on the southeast wall and will work my way around, so you’ll be able to see me soon.”

  “Roger that. I’ll keep watch.”

  Ten minutes later, I reported back to Max. “We’re out of luck. Not a single pane on the pyramid is currently transparent.” I sat on the apex and looked in Max’s direction for his benefit.

  “What now?” he asked. “She’s been in there for two hours.”

  I scared myself with my own reply. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 108

  Lost Luggage

  PERCHED ATOP BARSUKOV’S ROCKET like Rodin’s Thinker, I weighed my options. I considered picking a pane to shatter and dropping in with guns blazing, Hostage Rescue Team style. The core issue with that kind of breach was that I’d only get one shot at picking the right window, and it would literally be blind. If I guessed wrong, Katya and I would both be dead, and in all likelihood, so would President Silver.

  “What are you thinking?” Max asked, breaking a long silence.

  “I’m thinking it’s time to try the doors.”

  The rain had stopped and the sky had cleared, but I was still wet as a washcloth as I worked my way back down the southeast wall to the hinged pane in the corner. An electric motor the size of an orange Home Depot pail drove the axle that hinged the triangular door. It resembled the engine of the Tesla I’d rented.

  Electric motors tend to be quiet, but hinges often squeak. I readied the Glock in my right and pressed my left palm against the sensory pad. A tiny red LED illuminated. “Dammit!” I swapped hands but again struck red. Grigori had gone biometric.