by Tom Clancy
The cyclists rode a bit faster now, reached the hoverport, set down their bikes, and raced up a small gangway set in place by two crew members.
Brent watched them like a hawk perched on a branch and studying a mouse who’d come up on his hind legs to sniff the air. The swoop and attack were already racing through his mind.
Lakota reported that the team was ready to drop on both ropes.
He nodded, then faced one of the door gunners. He tapped his Cross-Com, indicating that the man should open his intercom channel. He did. “Once she’s disabled, there’s a good chance we’ll take some fire.”
“Don’t worry, Captain. When people shoot at me, I always return the favor.” The guy wriggled his brows.
Brent slapped a palm on his shoulders. “I like your style.”
The hovercraft was a newly designed, high-speed model with hybrid engines, according to Brent’s HUD. With a crew of five and about a hundred passengers, it wasn’t the largest ferry around but arguably the swiftest, able to cross the channel in less than twenty minutes. A few decades prior, hovercraft travel had all but ceased and was only returning in the past few years with a new company, new technology, and a new influx of international businesspeople trying to navigate around chaotic relationships strained by the war.
The craft powered up and slid backward off the hoverport, turned tail, and headed swiftly out of the harbor.
“Hammer, this is Ghost Lead, she’s heading out.”
“We’ll give them about ten minutes to move farther off shore. I’ve already got laser strike authorization and controllers on standby.”
“Roger that.” Brent switched channels and asked the pilot about their fuel. They would have enough to complete the mission but probably not enough to get back to base. He could put down somewhere else, though, and had several smaller facilities in mind.
And so they circled, watching as the hovercraft moved farther away.
After several minutes, Dennison appeared: “Laser strike in five, four, three, two—”
Sparks arced high from the hovercraft’s stern, and Brent knew the lasers had done their job. Smoke began billowing, and the broad wake behind the craft began to fade.
“Ghost Lead, this is Hammer! Move in!”
“Roger that.” Brent waved his gloved hand in the air. “Ready on the ropes!”
As the chopper pilot throttled up and took them out and over the English Channel, Brent flexed his fingers and mentally prepared for the descent. The ropes were specially braided, and their gloves were designed of a Kevlar-Nomex outer shell that quickly absorbed the high heat they’d generate while sliding down. Fast-roping wasn’t easy, wasn’t safe, but it sure as hell was, ahem, fast. Grab the rope and slide. Three-meter gaps between operators. And you’d better not get any second thoughts. You loved the adrenaline rush but loathed the idea of being the guy in the middle, with operators sliding above and below you.
The Blackhawk banked around the still-billowing smoke and descended.
Both door gunners swung their 7.62-millimeter machine guns to bear on the hovercraft, and Brent came up behind one, clutching a wall rung for balance.
“Get ready for incoming,” said the pilot. “Here we go.” He brought the chopper in lower, slowing, pitching the nose up a bit until they glided not fifteen meters above the deck.
The gunners kept panning with their guns. Civilians who’d been outside on the deck began rushing back into the enclosed bay, while crew members were throwing up their hands, confused.
Brent listened in as the pilot spoke to the hovercraft’s captain, telling him to prepare to be boarded.
“Keep your eyes on all sides of this boat,” said Lakota. “She could slip off and try to make a swim for it.”
“Is it really a boat?” asked Riggs. “I mean technically—”
“Just watch it!” Lakota ordered.
The captain lodged his protests but was allowing them to board. Brent issued the orders.
Without hesitation the ropes dropped and thumped on the bobbing deck.
“Go, go, go!” hollered Brent.
And drop they did, rifles slung over their backs, gloved hands clutching those ropes, balanced between life and serious injury.
Brent was the last one down, his people already moving forward, rifles raised to begin clearing the deck.
The civilians were understandably shaken, but this was wartime and many were already settling in, realizing that the boarding and search operation was a necessary evil. If they sat quietly and didn’t intervene, they’d be fine, especially since they’d been told that “an American boarding party” had arrived.
As the others went below to continue the search, Brent ordered Park and Noboru to circulate through the passengers with photographs of the Snow Maiden. Within a minute, a few said they’d seen a woman who looked like her heading back to one of the rear restrooms.
After hearing that report, Brent charged toward the stern, went down a narrow flight of stairs, and found the hatch to the restroom locked. He rapped, called. Nothing. He ordered Daugherty and Heston to join him, and Heston grabbed a small prying tool from his web gear and busted open the hatch.
What the hell?
“Captain, did they do this?” asked Heston.
“No, someone else,” said Daugherty.
A short, dark-skinned man, a teenaged boy, and a woman with spiked hair were all piled into the small room. The boy had a gunshot wound to the chest. The man had been shot in the head. Heston moved in, reached down, and turned the woman’s head, revealing a bloody mess. As he did so, the short black wig slipped off, revealing blond hair pulled into a tight bun.
Decoys.
Brent took a step back and began screaming the word No! over and over.
He screamed so loud that even the chopper pilot could have heard him.
* * *
The Snow Maiden had to give Patti credit for her assistance and organizational skills. She’d set up the entire decoy run, right down to having the decoys themselves murdered at the last minute so they couldn’t be tortured into confessing. Now there was only one man on board the hovercraft who worked for the Ganjin, and he was just a simple, unassuming passenger, a potbellied, gray-haired old codger more interested in the news flashing across his smartphone’s display than in some boarding party search of his hovercraft.
For the moment, she, Chopra, and Hussein were being driven far away from Fat Sam’s by a taxi driver who’d been paid to take them up to Dover, their original destination. From there, Patti had arranged transport across the channel by private yacht, but that would not happen until nightfall. They would spend the day at the West Bank Guest House, south of Dover, where Patti had made all the arrangements, no questions asked.
Once they reached the house, the driver said he’d already been paid and left. They entered into a main foyer/reception area, where a heavyset woman with shimmering white hair showed them to a room. Chopra and Hussein remained strangely silent, until she closed the door and faced them. “I want to thank you for your cooperation thus far. This could be much more difficult. You’ve made the right choice.”
“I’m starving. When do we eat?” demanded Hussein.
“Relax, you’ll get fed,” she shot back.
“We’re not going to Geneva,” said Chopra. “We’re not leaving this room.”
She sighed deeply for effect and pointed at Hussein. “You’ve obviously been looking for him, and I’ve been looking for you. So now that we’ve all found each other, why can’t we just live happily ever after?”
“I don’t appreciate your sarcasm. This is a grave matter. But I guess you aren’t much more than an evil person.”
“You think I’m evil? How do you know that?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“The murders?”
Chopra shrugged. “Of course.”
“They were obstacles. There were no evil intentions in my heart when I killed them, only a job to do.”
“And being th
at cold is not evil?”
“There are those who are much colder than I am. Trust me. Much colder. You don’t know evil. If I had the time, I would show it to you.”
Hussein took a deep breath and strode over to her. “You need us. So you won’t kill us, so really, we’re calling the shots. The gun doesn’t really mean anything because you won’t use it. You can’t. I can open the window and start shouting.”
“You could,” she told him. “And you’re right, I won’t kill you. But I can make you feel pain.” With that she drew her silenced pistol and aimed it at the boy’s leg. “Care to find out?”
“No, no, no,” he said, backing away and bending over, as though he’d been struck by a softball in the groin.
“Okay, then do me a favor. Sit down at the desk. And Chopra, you sit there, and you explain to this spoiled brat why he needs to lead his country. He wasn’t listening the first time. Tell him again.”
Chopra scowled. “Another sick game? You want us to entertain you?”
She shook her head. “What you’re telling him is the truth, and I agree with it. I admire your ambition and loyalty to him and his family. There aren’t many people like you in this world, a world controlled by greed and corruption. And I’m no different. I only want the money and the oil-reserve locations. But his nation will recover. And he needs to lead it. He can help the emirates rise up against Russia.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said.
She holstered her pistol beneath her coat. “I am. Believe me. I am.”
Just then the room’s phone rang, and they all looked at each other. Holding her breath, the Snow Maiden answered, and her heart sank as the man on the other end said, “Is this Viktoria Antsyforov?”
She slammed the receiver down and raced to the window. “Come on, we’re leaving!” she shouted.
With the latch thrown, she shoved up the window and was about to climb out when gunfire pummeled the wall beside her, splintering the wooden shingles. She caught the briefest glimpse of a man standing near a small car, aiming an automatic rifle. His green balaclava concealed most of his face. He’d intentionally worn green to send her a message.
FIFTEEN
West Bank Guest House
South of Dover
The Snow Maiden hit the floor and crawled across the room as Chopra wrenched open the door, placing himself between Hussein and the incoming fire.
She screamed for them to go, and she was just behind, bolting up to slam the door after herself but not before something thumped on the wood.
Oh, no…
She hollered again for them to move.
And just as she reached the staircase, the room exploded behind her, the concussion knocking her down the stairs and crashing into Chopra and Hussein, who tumbled themselves as shouts and screams rose from below.
Her pistol slipped from her holster as she tried to pull herself up from the tangled mess of the old man and kid.
Before she could sit up, Hussein had her gun and pointed it at her. “Now you work for me. Just like him,” the kid said, flicking a glance at Chopra, who was just sitting up and straightening his glasses.
A crash came from the other side of the house, and after a few loud footfalls, the man wearing the green balaclava rushed into the doorway, turned, and spotted them.
“Shoot him!” she cried as she reached for her second micro pistol tucked into an ankle holster. She had a third gun and a couple of knives as well — a switchblade and a small, sheathed neck knife that hung from a piece of paracord.
Remarkably — perhaps even miraculously — the kid got off the first shot, striking the terrorist thug in the shoulder. The guy’s first salvo went wide as he took the hit, and then another ripped across the ceiling, sending plaster tumbling down onto their heads.
The Snow Maiden squinted through all the dust and finished him with two more shots — much to the kid’s surprise. She gave him a look: You think I carry only one gun? Then she bolted off the stairs and grabbed the thug’s rifle, searched his pockets, and found a set of keys.
“Shoot me or come along,” she told Hussein. “Because this bastard’s not working alone.”
“They’ll kill the sheikh!” cried Chopra. “We must protect him!”
“They’re after me. You’re excess baggage, and those guys travel light. So yeah — they’ll kill the kid.” She rushed to Hussein and thrust out her hand. “Give me back the gun.”
“I think I’ll just—”
The kid didn’t get to finish. She ripped the pistol from his hand in one deft movement, and he’d screamed as she’d bent his trigger finger.
“Out now!”
They complied, and once clear of the stairwell, they charged out a back door, leaving the house staff lying on the floor behind sofas or beneath tables.
She told them to hold there, just outside, where she called Patti, who told her she was clear to go for the thug’s car.
Taking a long breath and holding it, she made her break, racing around the house, weaving between bushes, traversing a small stone path, then wrenching open a wrought-iron gate to race across a brown patch of grass toward where the thug had parked his car. She fervently believed he was not working alone and felt a pang of fear over trusting Patti, who no doubt was watching via hacked satellite transmissions.
As she crossed the grass, the gunfire came in from across the street.
She dove onto her belly near an old oak, then elbowed her way behind it. Using the camera function on her cell phone, she kept tightly behind the trunk and slowly moved the camera out until she could see the street in the tiny screen: Two men had set up behind the row of parked cars.
The shuffling of feet from behind made her whirl back. Chopra and the kid had joined her. “I told you to hold back there!”
“The house is on fire,” cried Chopra.
He wasn’t kidding. The stench had already grown unbearable, and the staff members were rushing out into the yard, screaming and talking on phones. Sirens began to sound in the distance.
“You have the keys to that car?” asked Chopra. “Give them to me. I’ll be ready to get us out of here.”
“Sure, I’ll trust you with those,” she said. “Come on.” She rose and fired some covering shots to drive the men down as she ran from the tree to the car, just ten meters. The thugs returned fire, the rounds booming and ricocheting as she threw herself behind the back wheel. Chopra and Hussein charged up and crouched behind her. The old man could barely catch his breath, and the kid wasn’t faring much better. This was probably more exercise than they’d had in a year.
With a pop and hiss both tires on the opposite side of the car went flat.
“There goes our ride,” said Hussein.
The Snow Maiden cursed, looked back at Chopra, and handed him the car keys.
“Thanks a lot,” he spat.
Two thugs. No escape plan. And Patti’s intel was obviously worthless.
She closed her eyes for just a moment. Took a breath. All right, she’d been in worse situations. Time to go on the offensive.
* * *
The Blackhawk could not land on the hovercraft and didn’t have enough fuel left to engage in a slow, one-by-one extraction of Brent’s team via the hoist.
So Brent had no choice but to cut loose the pilot. The hovercraft was equipped with two small Zodiacs for emergencies, so he and the others would launch them and head back to Dover, where Dennison said she’d have them picked up.
“Wait, getting something else now,” she told Brent, showing him streaming video from a house near Dover that was now on fire. “Reports of an explosion and gunfire. Not sure if it’s related.”
“It has to be,” said Brent, watching as his people prepared the two Zodiacs for launch. “Can you get me some ground transport once we reach the harbor?”
“I’m on it. But don’t get your hopes up, Brent. This could just be something else. Looters? Who knows…”
“They pulled a switch at the restaurant, so
they didn’t get very far, I’m telling you.”
“I’ll see if there’s any other air support available. If we can get another chopper over there, we might have a shot.”
* * *
Chopra flinched as another bullet burrowed into the car and sparks flew somewhere above him. He crouched tightly near the rear wheel, keeping Hussein close to his side. He draped an arm around the boy, who threw the arm off, saying, “You’re not my father. And that’s creepy.”
“Who are they?” Chopra asked the Snow Maiden, whose expression had formed a tight knot of intense thought. “Did you hear me?” he added, raising his voice.
“Stay here. Don’t move,” she said, then shifted around the car, out of sight.
“We can make our break now,” Hussein said. “We’ll run back to the house. Hear that? The fire department’s coming.”
“We’re staying here,” said Chopra. “And if those guys out there are her enemies, they might be our friends.”
“You know, you got a point,” said Hussein.
“Finally, you’re willing to listen to the old man.”
Hussein snorted. “For now.”
“Your father was a great man.”
“That was random.”
“You can be as great…”
A fresh spate of gunfire made Chopra lean out from behind the car.
He gasped.
* * *
The Snow Maiden had darted across the street, drawing the fire of one man while the other ducked back behind his car. She made it all the way across without being struck, or at least it felt so, and then she dropped onto her belly and glanced ahead, where she spotted a pair of legs.
She propped up the rifle, held her breath, and fired a three-round burst, striking the man in the ankle. He cried out, went down, and that’s when she rushed up, around the car, and ran straight at him.
He looked at her and began to bring around his gun, only the eyes showing beneath his green balaclava.
