This dream of countless spy organizations and intelligence agencies was now a reality in Markov’s hands. Back in the sixties, the CIA had carried out some controversial experiments under the code name “MK Ultra.” The KGB had also worked for many years to develop this type of technology to create the perfect spy. Both the Americans and the Russians had failed—but Markov had not. He had pulled it off.
Anna opened her eyes and noticed again that she was strapped down. “Let me go,” she said to the empty room in an even, but indignant, voice.
Markov tapped the glass, and she turned her head and looked at him.
He smiled, tilted his head, and replied sweetly, “Not yet, my dear.”
*
The temperature outside dropped rapidly as the Novus team left St. Petersburg and continued out into the countryside. The roads became trickier to navigate, but on the plus side, the amount of traffic had dwindled.
Their driver rolled over a beach-ball-sized pothole in the road, and the sudden jolt made everyone in the van moan.
Sussie hissed at the driver, “Oстерегайтесь этого!” (Watch out!)
The man mumbled something unintelligible in response and slowed down. Hugo, seated in the van’s center row, opened one of the backpacks, removed two knives, and checked their condition. He examined them both from various angles and carefully touched the blades. When he was satisfied, he nodded to himself and replaced them.
Mikko was sitting two seats to his left, next to the window. “Those your knives?”
“Yep.”
Mikko turned to look out the window at the swiftly growing darkness that increasingly engulfed the snow-clad surroundings. “I had a friend who was a knife specialist,” he said. “There was nothing the man couldn’t do with a knife.”
“Was?”
“He was killed. Three years ago.” Mikko paused and said, “There’s always someone better.”
Hugo scratched his scruffy chin. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Mikko frowned and slapped his knees. “It doesn’t matter now. We have other things to tend to.”
Behind Mikko, Freya kicked the back of the seat. “You better believe it,” she said. “I’ve gone through our equipment.”
Hugo turned and looked at her. She sat in the back row with four of the team’s heavy bags surrounding her. Two huge machine guns were lying across her knees, making her look strangely like a child. Her blonde hair stuck out from underneath a beanie. Freya met Hugo’s gaze and winked.
“Everything looks okay. What we’ve got is in good condition.”
“Good. How much do we have?”
“We have these two,” she patted the two M249 belt-fed light machine guns, “plus two Steyr AUGs, two Glock 19s, and a shit-ton of ammunition.”
The van hit another hole in the road, and Sussie lambasted the driver. Hugo didn’t understand what she was saying as she railed on him on and on, but given the driver’s body language, she was probably cussing him up and down. Sussie was petite, but not dainty; she compensated for her small frame with a violent, volatile temper.
Hugo leaned over to her. “Hey, I never said thank you.”
Sussie laughed and replied, “Don’t mention it. You don’t have to thank me.”
“Yes, I do. If you hadn’t arrived at just the right time, Mikko and I would’ve been dead.”
She shrugged but didn’t answer.
“So, thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Sussie said with another shrug.
Mikko rolled his shoulders and stretched. “We’re almost halfway to the villa. We need to go through the last details.”
During their flight, the team had established a relatively simple plan of attack. Two of them would conduct a diversionary attack on the eastern side of the area that, with any luck, would pull away most of the guards. They assumed Markov would remain where he was; the other two team members would go in under the cover of darkness and grab him. It was the best plan they could come up with on the short flight, and Hugo gave them a fifty percent chance of survival.
“You’re right,” he said to Mikko. “Let’s do it.”
Sussie handed him an iPad and he activated it. A greenish map slid forward on the screen, surrounded by a black, uneven line. Sussie handed out tablets to the rest of the team.
“Novus just sent us their most recent satellite images. Madeleine had to twist a few arms over at the Department of Defense to get them.”
On the map, there were half a dozen dark red dots—some stationary, others creeping along slowly, a couple on their own, the rest in pairs—that surrounded a dark square in the center.
“Those dots are the guards. There are six of them that we know of, and we have to assume they’re all armed. Two cars and three vans are parked to the northeast of the house. Markov is in the basement with all his security. The two floors above grade serve as his lab.”
Hugo slid his fingers over the map, zoomed in, and tapped on two dark circles that sat between the house and the cars.
“And this is where we’ll detonate?”
“Yes. Because of Markov’s research, they had to install gas and pressure vessels for oxygen.”
Mikko chuckled. “That’s going to be a fabulous bang.”
Sussie bared her teeth and chuckled dryly. “Hell yeah, it will. But that’ll be the easy part. When it goes off, we’re betting that most of the guards will run. Mikko and I will stay in the van with Zeb.” She nodded toward the driver, who turned his head at the mention of his name.
She continued, “As the guards get closer, we’ll take off. We’ll go fast enough to get away, but slowly enough that they’re sure to see us escape. Then it’s up to you.”
Freya nodded. “Right. That’s when we’ll go to work.”
A tinge of excitement glimmered at the base of Hugo’s skull—that familiar feeling of elation before a dangerous assignment. It had been six months since he’d last felt it, and now it was flowing through him again, clearing away everything that didn’t matter. All he could see now was the raw focus on the mission that thundered inside him. He turned and locked eyes with Freya.
“We go in quick and quiet, okay? We’re both professionals—I saw your capabilities back at the airport.”
“Yes, we are.” Freya lifted her chin a little and looked ahead stoically. “Indeed. We get this done quickly and efficiently.”
Hugo gazed out into the gloomy afternoon and wondered what fate had in store for them.
13
Zeb slowed down too late. When they hit the soft snowdrift, everyone inside the van flew forward into the brusque arms of their seat belts. There was a collective grunt.
Before Sussie could bark at him, Zeb started talking. Although Hugo didn’t understand Russian, he got the gist through Zeb’s body language: sorry, sorry. Sussie looked like she was going to hit him. Hugo put a hand on her shoulder.
“Come on,” he said. “We have work to do.”
With a last glare at Zeb, Sussie gathered her things that had slid onto the floor, pulled open the side door, and hustled out. Hugo and the others followed. They were less than four hundred meters from the electric fence that surrounded the villa.
The van had been alone on the deserted stretch of the gravel roadway it had followed for the last ten minutes. They hadn’t seen a single oncoming car, and Hugo was sure they could avoid detection here. The soft snow made everything around them subdued and dreamlike.
Mikko wrapped his arms around his body. When he spoke, large clouds erupted from his mouth. “Jeez, it’s almost as cold here as it is in my hometown in Finland.”
Hugo turned to Sussie. “What do you need?”
Sussie pointed at two of the big, dark bags in the van and said, “That one, and that one too.”
Hugo and Mikko each took a bag and dragged them out into the snow. Hugo opened his, pulled out an iPad, and gave it to Sussie.
“Thanks.”
Mikko and Hugo worked fast, putting the different c
omponents together under Sussie’s direction. After three minutes, it was done. Sussie took a step back and nodded contently.
“There you go, looks good. Now I’ll just need to run a couple of diagnostic programs so we know everything’s okay before we start.”
While Sussie was working on that, Hugo took out a pair of powerful zoom binoculars and went up to the tree line. There, he surveyed their target and saw a couple of dark figures moving along the fence. Despite the cold, Hugo felt warm inside. He’d done this many times before. With all the missions he’d performed, all the people he had liquidated during the secret assignments, he’d become something of a legend in military intelligence circles.
But this mission was different. The other times, he’d been sanctioned for use of deadly force, and that was a clearance he didn’t have now. Madeleine had been quite explicit on that point—no lethal violence, except in self-defense.
He lowered the binoculars and made his way back down to the others.
“We do our utmost to avoid killing anyone,” he reiterated to the team. “It may make things a little more difficult, but that’s the way it has to be on this mission.”
Mikko pulled a weapon from his pack, checked it, and secured it in its holster. “That’s nothing new for us,” he replied. “We’re used to working that way.”
Before Hugo could answer, Sussie gave a thumbs-up.
“Okay, we’re ready. Everything’s working the way it should.”
“Good. Let’s go through the plan one more time,” Hugo said.
Soon, Hugo and Freya grabbed their backpacks and weapons and headed into the dark forest toward the goal. The deep snow made the walking take longer than they’d planned, and now it was getting dark; without a word, they each activated the night-vision settings on their helmets.
Hugo checked his watch. It was twelve minutes until Sussie would be activating the next step in their quickly progressing plan. Freya motioned for them to stop, and he froze. Hugo held his breath and listened intently, but heard nothing.
Freya pointed to the right, and Hugo stared hard into the greenish darkness. Ah, there! A shadow moved. He raised his weapon with his right hand and held the binoculars to his eyes with his left.
A bear. Hugo cursed under his breath and lowered his weapon. The bear, thirty meters from where they stood, didn’t seem to have discovered them—Hugo hoped so, anyway. He and Freya watched as it milled about and scratched the ground with its huge paws. The minutes crept along as the bear continued foraging, but eventually it tired of the spot and trudged on. Hugo exhaled heavily, his breath pounding the cold air like a sledgehammer.
Freya motioned to continue on. They walked for a few more minutes until they arrived at the fence. A cracked, worn metal sign was tied there, its bilingual message weather-beaten but still legible: электрический забор. Electric Fence.
Hugo dropped to his knees and looked through his binoculars. A lone guard was coming around the corner of the house thirty feet away. The smooth quilt of snow stretched to the edge of the cleared path that circled the house. A wider road extended away from the house toward the parked cars. Two large floodlights blared from one side of the house, but the others were dark.
Freya squatted beside Hugo and whispered, “How does it look?”
“Just as we thought. It’s not abandoned, but there’s not much activity, either. One of the guards just turned the corner.”
Freya pulled a thin microphone down from inside her helmet. “Come in, Talisman,” she murmured. “This is Hammer. Come in.”
“Talisman here. Go for Hammer.”
“We’re in position. Surroundings look clear. Ready for step two.”
“Roger, Hammer. Step two commences in sixty seconds.”
Hugo raised the binoculars again and surveyed the surroundings. Everything was calm—maybe a little too calm, he thought. During his years as a special forces soldier, Hugo had acquired a highly developed sense of danger, and even though it wasn’t on full alarm right now, something still felt strange.
He lowered the binoculars and was about to turn to Freya when a hazy, rumbling figure began to race toward them. Hugo turned toward the movement and saw the bear, and instinct took over. The massive animal pulsed through the spraying snow, the snarling growing louder the closer it got. It was twenty meters away now and fast approaching. Freya staggered to her feet and stared, mesmerized, at the beast. It was close enough now that they could see its silver teeth.
Hugo raised his rifle and reluctantly took aim and shot a short, muffled burst. The powerful rounds hit their target, but the bear didn’t stop. Then, a second later, blood spurted from its nose. The bear staggered but continued forward. Freya threw herself aside and almost disappeared as she sank into a snowdrift. Two more shots slowed the animal down even more, but still it continued. Finally, Hugo had to leap out of the way, too.
The bear stumbled forward and collapsed against the electric fence. Its heavy body cracked the bottom strands, and four of the previously darkened floodlights around the house turned on, bathing the area in light.
*
Ilya had just closed the door, taken a glass of vodka from Leonid and downed it when the alarm went off. The blaring sound cut through the room, and all the men recoiled. Everyone’s eyes turned toward the wall of video monitors. Leonid pointed.
“Look!”
On one of the screens, a section of the fence was visible and a dark shadow lay still in the middle of it. Ilya rushed over to Andrei, the tech sitting in front of the monitors.
“Can you zoom in?”
Andrei adjusted the camera and zoomed in on the dark shadow. Ilya leaned forward, squinting.
“What is that?” he asked.
Andrei zoomed to the right and pulled back. He narrowed his eyes and looked up at Ilya. “It looks like a bear.”
“A bear? Why would a bear throw himself against the fence?”
“No idea,” Andrei said. “Maybe something in the woods scared him, so he panicked and rushed into the fence and died.”
Ilya frowned. He’d never heard of something like that happening before. Sure, half a dozen small animals—foxes, things like that—had met their creator when they’d come upon the fence, but never a bear. The blaring of the alarm continued; Ilya couldn’t think with all the damn noise.
“Turn the alarm off! And send out some men to cut power to the fence so we can see what this thing looks like.” He turned to Leonid and said, “Go down to Markov and tell him what happened. He doesn’t need to do anything, but we should probably keep him informed.”
Leonid hesitated. “Uh, do I really need to? Honestly, the boss gives me shivers. Especially down there in the basement.”
Ilya frowned at Leonid and glared. “Are you kidding me? What, do you think he’s going to eat you? Don’t be stupid—toughen up and just do it.”
Leonid pursed his lips, then spun around and walked away.
Ilya sighed, turned to Andrei, and asked, “Is the power off?”
Andrei stood, and went to the breakers on the wall, and snapped down a switch. “Is now.”
“Good.” Ilya pointed to two of the other men in the room. “Niktin, Orlov, take a quad drag away that bear, or whatever it is. Make sure that as little damage as possible is done to the fence. We’ll fix it tomorrow, first thing. Okay?”
The rough-headed Niktin nodded and slapped Orlov, stern-faced and dull, on the arm.
“Roger. Come on, Orlov. Let’s go pull a bear.”
The two men trudged from the room, leaving Ilya and Andrei alone.
“Keep track of when those two idiots pull the bear away,” Ilya instructed. “Given how clumsy they are, they might tear half the fence off with it.”
Andrei chuckled, then dropped his smile as he saw the dark shape of the Novus team approach the fence.
*
When the floodlights came on, Hugo and Freya threw themselves to the ground. They high-crawled through the soft snow, Hugo barely noti
cing the cold through his pumping adrenaline.
He pulled down the microphone on his helmet. “Talisman, this is Hammer. Come in.”
“Talisman here. Go for Hammer.”
As Hugo opened his mouth to speak, he heard an engine start up.
“Cancel, stand by,” he murmured into the mic.
“Roger.”
He gestured to Freya to keep going, and they crawled along the track the bear had left as it had stormed toward them.
“Go, go,” he hissed. The sound of the engine was getting closer. Hugo peered over a snowdrift at the light dancing over the whitewashed surroundings. He didn’t think they had left any trace behind them, and if they were lucky, the guards would think it was only the bear’s trail that they saw.
A four-wheeler swung around the corner of the house and headed toward the fence. It rumbled off the roadway and continued toward the motionless bear. Surprised voices rolled over the snow; Hugo was able to make out a few of the words.
“Там!” (There!)
Two men jumped off the ATV and approached the downed bear. One of them stood to the side and held a rifle while the other kicked at the motionless animal anxiously. When it didn’t move, the men calmed down and started to talk to each other.
The cold began to creep into Hugo’s legs, and he gently turned his head toward Freya. She was lying three meters away with her eyes fixed on the men. She gently pulled up her weapon, but Hugo shook his head.
“No. Wait.”
Freya’s eyes glittered, and for a moment Hugo thought she hadn’t heard him. But after a couple of seconds, she lowered the weapon. They watched as the men attached a thick rope around the bear’s humongous corpse. Then one of them jumped up on the four-wheeler and gunned the engine. The little vehicle struggled and the tires spun, but eventually, they found purchase and the massive animal began to slide away from the fence.
Revenge Page 8
