by Tom Clancy
Double click: No.
“Yours?”
There was a pause and then Spellman said, his voice barely a whisper, “Coming up the ladder.”
• • •
JACK HEARD the double pop of a handgun, followed by one more.
“Shit!” Dom growled.
“Go put eyes on the other car,” Jack ordered.
Dom hopped off the steps, sprinted to the corner of the building. After a moment he said, “Nothing.”
“Hold there and keep me posted.”
Jack went left and crossed the entrance of the alley to the front barracks, where he crouched down. He aimed his binoculars at the tower and zoomed in. There was no sign of Spellman.
“Matt,” he called.
No response.
“Give me a click . . . something if you’re alive.”
Spellman came on the line, breathing heavily. “I’m alive. I got another dead one up here with me. Had to bash the fucker’s head in. You guys okay?”
Before Jack could answer, Dom replied, “Nope. I got movement back here. Three guys coming out of Bravo Six and heading for an SUV, looks like another Volvo. They’re pushing a fourth guy ahead of them. His head’s covered by a blanket. Gotta be Koikov.”
“Do you have a shot on the others?” Jack asked.
He heard the muffled crack of Dom’s ARX. “Got one,” he replied. “The rest are in the vehicle. It’s moving away, coming around the other side of the building.”
Jack radioed Spellman: “Matt, get ready to put some rounds in the engine block.”
“Roger.”
“Dom, come to me.”
“Roger.”
On the other side of the tower, Jack saw a rectangle of light slant across the ground. “Matt, someone’s coming out of Building One,” he called.
“Try to keep ’em off me.”
Jack raised his ARX, looking for a target. He heard the roar of the Volvo’s engine. He glanced right. The SUV came around the corner of the first barracks, its tail end skidding, throwing up an impenetrable cloud of dust.
“I got no shot!” Spellman shouted.
A few seconds later, the Volvo charged from the cloud and accelerated toward the tower. The muzzle of Spellman’s Dragunov flashed once, then again. A pair of holes appeared in the Volvo’s hood and the vehicle began slaloming.
“Adjusting,” said Spellman.
Dom came up behind Jack and together they sprinted after the Volvo.
The Dragunov flashed again. “Hit.”
Steam gushed from the Volvo’s grille, but it kept going, rapidly closing the gap to the tower and leaving Jack and Dom behind, enveloped in swirling dust.
Spellman called again, “Hit.”
Jack heard overlapping gunfire erupt somewhere to their front and knew the men from Building One had opened up.
Spellman shouted, “Shit, shit, I’m taking fire!”
“Drop flat!”
“Fuck that!”
Spellman’s ARX started chittering from the tower.
Jack heard a crash of steel against wood, then a grating shriek.
Spellman shouted over the gunfire, “Bastards just sideswiped my tower. I think they rammed the side of the garage, too.”
Jack and Dom kept running. The dust cloud thinned. Looming before Jack’s face were the tower’s crisscrossed support beams. He dodged left. His shoulder slammed into a stanchion, knocking him sideways. From the corner of his eye he saw three muzzles flashing near Building One. The shots were directed at the tower.
“I’m running out of ammo,” Spellman called.
Dom appeared at Jack’s side and lifted him to his feet.
“Come on, Jack, let’s light these fuckers up.”
Jogging abreast of each other, they opened fire on the group. Jack’s ARX ran dry. He ejected the magazine, inserted a new one, and kept firing until they reached the safety of the next building’s wall.
A man lunged around the corner, his rifle coming up. Jack stepped forward, butt-stroked him across the jaw. As he fell, Jack shot him in the chest.
“Clear!” Dom called from somewhere up ahead. “All down. You good, Jack . . . Matt?”
Spellman replied, “The Volvo just went through the fence. It’s limping, slowing down.”
Jack and Dom took off running.
• • •
THE VOLVO HAD COVERED a couple hundred yards, having nearly reached the boulder pile where Jack and the others had scouted the compound.
“Matt, you have us covered?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, but just with the Dragunov. My ARX is dry.”
Its tires bumping over rocks, the Volvo coasted to a stop. The engine revved, then sputtered and went silent.
Jack and Dom kept running, ARXs tucked into their shoulders.
“We’re wide open out here, Jack. No cover.”
“I know.”
Simultaneously, the Volvo’s front doors burst open. A man hopped out of the passenger side and, hunched over, rounded the door and knelt by the tire. He opened fire.
“Shot,” Spellman called, and the top of the man’s head disintegrated.
Now the driver emerged, but instead of taking cover he charged down the side of the Volvo, firing from the hip. As he passed the rear door it opened. Two men piled out, one in camouflage, the second in civilian clothes.
Koikov.
Spellman shot the man charging Jack and Dom.
At the Volvo, Koikov stumbled, almost pitched forward to the ground, but the second man grabbed him by the collar and jerked him back. He wrapped his arm around Koikov’s neck and jammed the barrel of his pistol behind Koikov’s earlobe.
Shocked, Jack realized he recognized the man holding Koikov. Black hair, long sideburns . . . This was Captain Salko, Medzhid’s ERF commander.
With his face pressed tight against Koikov’s, Salko began backing toward the front of the SUV.
Spellman called over the headset, “Jack, I’m losing any shot I’ve got . . .”
“Percentage?”
“Fifty-fifty and dropping fast.”
Salko stepped left, and he and Koikov disappeared around the Volvo’s bumper.
“Shot’s gone, Jack,” Spellman radioed.
“Stay on him. I’ll see if I can get you an angle.”
Jack released his grip on the ARX and let it dangle across his chest. He called, “Salko! Captain Salko, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.”
Jack started walking forward.
Dom warned over the headset, “Jack . . .”
“Find a spot. If Matt doesn’t have a clear line, take your best shot.”
A wounded Pavel Koikov is better than no Koikov at all, he thought.
“Salko, I’m coming around the right side of the vehicle,” Jack called. “My weapon’s down.”
Jack didn’t wait for a response, but kept walking. Hands raised, he passed down the Volvo’s right side. When Salko and Koikov came into view, Jack stopped so that the SUV’s hood was between himself and Salko.
Pavel Koikov’s lip trembled and his eyes darted back and forth from Salko’s gun hand to Jack’s face. Jack ignored him and focused on Salko, whose own face was bathed in sweat, the muscles of his jaw pulsing.
“This is going to break Medzhid’s heart,” Jack said with a chuckle he hoped didn’t sound as forced as it felt. “You’re the best politsiya he has.”
“What he’s planning is treason,” said Salko.
Jack had myriad questions he wanted to ask the man, the foremost of which was: Who ordered you to do this? But Salko wouldn’t answer, and the longer this standoff went on, the greater the chance that he’d simply kill Koikov.
“Maybe so,” Jack replied, “but what you’re doing won’t make any difference.”
“What do you mean?”
Before Jack could answer, Dom’s whispered voice came over Jack’s headset: “I’m almost in place. Ten more seconds.”
Jack said, “They didn’t tell you? Medzhid found another witness to Almak, a private named Shimko. He’s probably in the capital by now.”
“There was no one else at Almak. Just this one.”
“No, they missed Shimko. He’s alive. The man you’ve got here is useless now. You might as well let him go.”
In his ear, Jack heard Dom whisper, “Say when.”
Salko said, “I want to call—”
“Go,” Jack said.
Lying on his belly beneath the Volvo’s rear bumper, Dom took the only shot he had. The ARX’s bullet slammed into Salko’s right ankle, propelling the leg backward as though it had been jerked hard by a rope. As Salko pitched forward his weight shifted onto Koikov, who crumpled, his neck still clenched in the crook of Salko’s forearm.
Salko’s face slammed into the ground. Jack, his ARX already up and tucked into his shoulder, ran around the Volvo’s bumper. Salko lifted his head, his eyes glassy, and saw Jack approaching. He tried to raise his pistol. Jack kicked it away.
Dom jogged up. He stared down at Salko, then said, “Well, what do you know? We got a live one.”
• • •
MEDZHID WAS WAITING by the Tortoreto’s private elevators when Seth steered the Suburban into the parking spot and shut off the engine. As Matt Spellman climbed out, Medzhid walked up with Anton a few paces behind. “Where is he?”
Which one? Jack thought. He hadn’t told Medzhid about Captain Salko.
Jack reached back into the rear passenger seat and helped Pavel Koikov down. When he saw Medzhid, the old sergeant stiffened as though trying to come to attention. “Mr. Minister.”
Medzhid cupped Koikov’s face in his hands. “Stop with that, Pavel.” He wrapped Koikov in a hug. “I am sorry this happened to you. Are you injured?”
“No, just tired. And hungry.”
“I can remedy both those things. Here, go with Anton and Seth. They’ll get you settled upstairs.” When the elevator doors closed behind the trio, Medzhid turned to Jack and Spellman and shook their hands. “Well done.”
“You need to see something,” Jack said.
He led Medzhid to the back of the Suburban and opened the gate. Captain Salko lay on his side in the SUV’s cramped cargo well, his wrists and ankles bound and his mouth covered with a strip of silver duct tape.
When he saw Medzhid he started mumbling through the tape, his eyes angry.
“What is this?” Medzhid asked. “Why is he—”
“He was holding Koikov—with a gun to his head.”
“That cannot be.”
“It is,” Spellman replied. “He thinks you’re a traitor.”
Medzhid stared at Salko for a few seconds, then leaned down and spat in his face. “I’m done looking at him.”
Spellman shut the tailgate.
“I’ll send Vasim down to take him away,” said Medzhid.
“We’ve got a better idea,” Jack said. “Aside from the five of us, nobody knows we have him. Let’s keep it that way. For now, stash him someplace nobody will look.”
If they didn’t already, the opposition would soon know what had happened at Bamlag. Their lever was gone, along with their mole inside the ERF, a man Jack feared might have been a cancer. According to Seth, the ERF fielded four platoons of twenty-eight men each, along with armored personnel carriers and heavy weapons. It was the closest thing the MOI had to Special Forces. Medzhid needed to know if he could count on them.
“I’d start taking a hard look at your people, Rebaz. Did Salko know about the coup?”
“Not from me.”
“Whoever told him to take Koikov does, and we should assume Salko told others in the ERF,” said Spellman.
Jack said, “We’ve got some pictures for you to look at later—the other men at Bamlag—and a couple VINs for you to check.”
Before they’d left the camp they’d jotted down the VIN of the second Volvo, then searched Building One and the remaining barracks, but came up with nothing save the cell phone in Salko’s pocket and a collection of Beretta ARXs.
“Let’s hope Captain Salko was an aberration. In the meantime, I have a safe house that will suit him.”
“Call ahead and tell them we’re coming,” said Jack. “And, Rebaz, resist the impulse to pay Salko a personal visit, okay?”
Medzhid’s expression turned hard. “Jack, since we don’t know one another very well, I’ll forgive you that comment. But only once. The last four men who held this job had no qualms about torture. I am not them. Captain Salko will be tried, and if he is found guilty he will be imprisoned. Do we understand one another?”
“We do.”
Makhachkala
FOR THE FIRST TIME in what felt like months, Jack slept soundly, for a full eight hours before Ysabel woke him. She held a steaming cup of coffee under his nose until he groaned and opened his eyes.
“What time is it?”
“Two o’clock,” she replied. “Tuesday. The coup is over.”
Jack sat up and took the mug. “Not funny. Have I missed anything?”
“Medzhid’s called a press conference on the steps of the Parliament Building. He and Sergeant Koikov are testifying before Nabiyev’s panel.”
“How’s the city?” he asked.
“Quiet. It’s like the protests never happened.”
“The calm before the storm.”
“Then let’s make the most of it,” Ysabel replied with a sly smile.
She took the coffee mug from his hands and put it on the nightstand.
• • •
AFTER A SHOWER and a second cup of coffee, Jack phoned Dom at his hotel to check that all was well, then he and Ysabel found Spellman sitting in the conference area. Medzhid’s cadre of assistants was nowhere to be seen, as were Medzhid’s bodyguards. The apartment was quiet, save the gurgle of the floor-to-ceiling fountain set into the wall.
“Where’s Seth?” Jack asked.
“He went to visit Salko.”
The stashing place Medzhid had sent them to had been an unremarkable two-story house in one of Makhachkala’s southern neighborhoods. A middle-aged man and woman in civilian clothes directed them to pull into the garage, where they helped Salko out of the Suburban’s cargo area, then escorted him into the house’s back door. The entire exchange took less than a minute and not a word was spoken.
“Will he get anything out of him?” asked Ysabel.
“Probably not. I think Seth just wanted to look him in the eye. Seth told me he should’ve personally vetted Salko.”
“It wasn’t his job,” Jack replied.
“By the way, I think Salko’s phone is probably a dead end,” Spellman said. “It went to a landline—some cooking supply shop in Leninsky district. I’ll check it out, but I suspect they paid some sap a few bucks to play operator. Salko’s phone shows a call there at about the time the Volvo sideswiped my tower. I liked that tower, too.”
“Let’s call Gavin and see if he’s got anything for us,” Jack said. He dialed the number, then put the phone on speaker.
It took four rings before Gavin picked up. Groggily, he said, “Yeah, sorry, I fell asleep. I have something on the Chirpoy Road apartment. It belongs to the Office of the Mayor.”
“So by default, President Nabiyev. According to Medzhid, they play racquetball twice a week.”
“They use the place for visiting foreign VIPs, both political and business types, and a few local officials as well,” said Gavin, “so I guess it makes sense that Wellesley’s holed up there.”
“Why?” asked Ysabel.
“Wellesley would want someplace secure, but President Nabiyev can’t put th
em up in a state or federal government building,” Jack replied. “He needs the same kind of deniability Volodin does, otherwise nobody will believe the coup failed because Dagestanis love good old Mother Russia and want to stay part of the Federation.”
Spellman said, “We need to get into that apartment, Jack.”
“Dom’s going to poke around there tonight.”
“Tell him not to bother,” Gavin said. “The two plates he gave me came back to generic government lease cars, but the one you got is registered to a private citizen—a woman named Zoya Vetochkina in the city’s Department of Culture. She looks on the up-and-up. If you’re lucky, maybe she leaves her car unlocked and her key card in the visor. Jack, you said you don’t know whether one key card works on both the gate and the doors, right?”
“Right. Is that a problem?”
Gavin laughed. “Hell, no. Chances are the locks are Quanix brand. All you gotta do is scan the thirty-two-bit key, feed it back to the lock, and you’re in. You’re going to have to do a little shopping, though. Matt, does Makhachkala have any Devpulse clubs?”
“I’ve got no idea what that is.”
“Google it. It’s an open-source hobby electronics thing.”
Spellman typed the term into his laptop, then scrolled and clicked a few times. “I’ll be damned. Yeah, there are four of them.”
“E-mail the webmaster, tell him you’re working on a school project for your son that’s due tomorrow and you need an ATmega32u4—”
“Whoa, slow down. Say that again.”
“Just tell him you need a twenty-IO controller and a standard barrel jack. He’ll know what you’re talking about. Once you’ve got the stuff, I’ll walk you through everything.”
“Super. What exactly are we building?”
Jack said, “Don’t encourage him, Matt. He’ll talk your ear off. Gavin, call Dom with Zoya Vetochkina’s details.”
“Will do. Okay, I saved the best news for last: I got a text back from the number we have for Pechkin. He didn’t identify himself, but he seemed to buy that I was Captain Osin. He asked for a meeting.”
Almost there, Jack thought. They now knew that after he and Ysabel had left for Khasavyurt, either Vasim or Anton called Pechkin, who had in turn called Osin.
