Terminal Black

by Adrian Magson

  ‘They and their equipment are a threat. I want to end it. Now.’

  FORTY-FIVE

  Katya stood up and looked, too. ‘If it is as Rik says, they are just one of many groups, what will it achieve? They will switch to another one.’

  Harry nodded. ‘You’re probably right. But if it hurts them just a little, I’ll feel a lot better. I can’t just walk away and hope for the best.’ He looked at the sports bag Katya had brought with her. ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘I thought you might need some extra supplies. They’re all untraceable, confiscated from extremists. But that’s all I can do. I cannot be seen to go against them, no matter what they are doing here. I might not like it but they must have some authorization locally as well as in Moscow. It would mean instant recall if I was identified and seen to have interfered. I do not like to think what would happen … not just to me but to Clare.’

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ said Harry. ‘Rik and I can handle it.’ He went over to the bag and opened it. It contained a selection of semi-automatics and clips of ammunition. He was hoping they wouldn’t have to use any of the guns. Otherwise, as Rik had said, this was going to get noisy.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Katya warned, ‘they are GRU. They have trained as hard as special forces; they will not be easy to take down.’

  Clare was on her feet, a cold look of determination on her face. ‘You’re not leaving me out.’ She glanced at Katya who nodded before the two of them turned and went down the steps together.

  ‘Almost the old team,’ Rik commented. ‘She’s not so bad, is she? Clare, I mean.’

  ‘She never has been. Underneath that grumpy exterior she’s still one of us.’

  Rik dipped into the bag and came up with a pistol and extra clips. ‘She has a weird way of showing it.’

  Harry checked his gun had a full load. ‘You remember that pink powder compact you gave her in hospital?’

  ‘Sure. What about it?’

  ‘She keeps it in her car. What does that tell you?’

  Harry led the way downstairs where Clare and Katya were talking in subdued tones. Clare broke off and Katya turned and hurried away into the trees behind the lot.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ Clare queried. She sounded relaxed but Harry saw the tension in her face. He guessed she hadn’t had to consider this kind of action for some time, and would be feeling rusty. At the same time, he knew from experience that she was quite capable of handling herself in the toughest of situations.

  ‘We’ll check the buildings before we go in,’ he replied. ‘But keep an eye out for Perry and his crew just in case. They won’t be far away.’

  They left the building and reached the road, where they ducked behind a pile of rusting wire-and-metal stillages once used for storage. From there they had a closer view of the coach and the area around it. It was deserted save for the driver, who was standing by the open baggage bay, smoking. He appeared to be taking no part in whatever was going on inside the building, but the gun on his hip showed that his function was unlikely to be benign.

  ‘What’s the likely plan for them packing up?’ Harry asked. He didn’t want to get any of the hackers between him and Kraush and his people, otherwise they’d be in a no-win situation. Hackers weren’t fighters but he wouldn’t put it past Kraush to use them as a very effective shield.

  ‘If they’re leaving,’ Rik said, ‘they’ll be unplugging laptops, servers and power lines, and any other electricals like fans and heaters. It’ll take time but they’ll have practised this before. If they have any programs running they might not want to do it too quickly.’

  Harry nodded. Moving that amount of equipment couldn’t be done in five minutes, no matter how practised they were. It was too valuable to risk any damage and neither would they want to leave their servers and computers behind in a rush to escape.

  ‘What’s the worst we can do to their stuff?’ he asked.

  ‘Depends what you want to achieve,’ Rik replied. ‘Smashing it up would be good, although it would take a while. Unless …’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘We could always leave it so that they can’t use it again … but they won’t know it until they try.’ He grinned. ‘You get us into the building and I’ll deal with it.’

  Harry didn’t bother asking. He knew instinctively that Rik was thinking of planting a virus. ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘Depends. If I can use one of their computers to download a virus onto the servers, it shouldn’t take long. Once it’s down and in place, the first time they hook up it’ll be inside their system and running.’

  ‘Will they be able to tell?’

  ‘Not unless they have some top-level detection software in place and someone thinks to check. With a bit of luck one of them will try to communicate with another group or their controllers and it’ll spread from there.’

  ‘Where is Kraush likely to be?’

  ‘In the building on the right, where I was kept. The other one’s for the hacking operation.’

  Harry thought about it. He doubted Kraush would risk finding himself isolated in the first building. Even with Irina it would be too large an area to defend and he’d be vulnerable. Ten to one they’d be in the second building using the hackers as cover. But they would have to check first. As Katya had warned, they were GRU and military trained.

  ‘Will the hackers be guarded?’

  Rik nodded towards the driver. ‘Probably. If he’s out here it means they’ve likely got a couple inside making sure the hackers get on with their job. It depends what their orders are.’

  ‘Let’s go.’ Harry led the way across the road. A glance each way revealed the area was deserted, with no signs of movement either way along the central road. If there were any of the locals about they were probably keeping their heads down until the weather improved. He briefly considered the tracks they’d leave in the layer of snow. They’d be all too visible if anyone cared to look, but there was no way of avoiding it and taking a detour would use up valuable time they didn’t have.

  ‘Follow me,’ Rik said, and headed along the side of the building.

  Harry and Clare followed, trusting in his confidence that he knew where he was going. He stopped at the rear corner of the building and peered round, then stepped out and slid along the back wall. There was a soft scraping sound and he said, ‘Come on. We’re in.’

  It was a single door opening into a small room. The air was damp and dead. Harry took out a small torch and flicked it on at ground level, shielding it with his hand. The floor was concrete, littered with rodent and bird droppings, and with small puddles of water forming where snow-melt was dripping from the roof. It was cold and unwelcoming.

  Harry stepped over to the inner door and peered out. The silence was intense. But it was the silence of a dead building, with no other presence nearby.

  Rik tapped him on the arm and whispered, ‘Follow me. We need to check out where they kept me first. It’s the biggest space. They might be there.’ He was holding his pistol ready, finger along the trigger-guard.

  Harry nodded. It made sense and Rik already had a rough idea of the building’s layout. He also had unfinished business here and needed to take the lead for his own peace of mind.

  Two turns down a long corridor, checking locked doors as they went, and they reached a large sliding door, standing partly open. Rik signalled them to stop before peering through the gap, then stepping through.

  ‘Torch,’ said Rik, and Harry switched on the light and played it over the room; at least, as much as he could see. It was an immense area with a cavernous space above them and, after the narrow confines they’d just come through, a sense of openness where the night’s chill seemed to hang in the air like a dry mist.

  The oil-stained and puddled concrete floor showed traces where machinery had once been bolted down, with regular areas in between worn down by the passage of who knew what kind of wheeled trolleys and the innumerable tread of feet in rough boots. Else
where, just visible in the torchlight, they caught glimpses of unnameable nests of foliage and dried-out scraps of paper and cardboard tucked into corners, and a few skeletal remains of small animals that had not been quick enough or strong enough to fight off the predators that haunted this vast deserted night-time world.

  And, standing in the centre of the floor was a hard-backed chair.

  The sight of that single piece of furniture, held to the floor by brackets and bolts in such a miserable place, and clearly meant for one thing and one thing only, seemed to dominate everything.

  ‘God Almighty,’ Clare breathed, softly, as if in deep shock at the tableau before them. ‘This is where they had you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rik replied. ‘A regular home from home.’ He reached out and directed Harry’s arm so that the torchlight came to rest on a mattress and blankets in one corner and, further over, a plastic bucket and a partly-used toilet roll rippled with damp. ‘And all mod cons provided.’

  Seconds later they moved as one to step back through the door, glad to be out of there. Taking the lead again, Rik lead them along the corridor and stopped outside another door.

  ‘I don’t need to see this again,’ he said. ‘Against the back wall. Alex.’

  Harry went inside with Clare on his heels. They saw immediately what Rik had meant. A shape lay under a bundle of cloth against the wall. Harry lifted it to one side and saw the dead FBS man, a single bullet wound to his forehead.

  Beside him Clare gave a soft murmur.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, and turned and went back out of the room. He wanted to be out of this dead space and on the move, somewhere where there might be the promise of light and fresh air.

  ‘Where else?’ he said to Rik. The building was still silent but he was getting a prickly feeling across the back of his neck. Probably because of seeing the body. But they had to make sure it was clear before tackling the one next door.

  Rik set off into the gloom, sure of himself this time, and stopped at another room.

  ‘This is the store-room where they kept supplies,’ he whispered, his breath warm on Harry’s neck. ‘Nothing much worth seeing, though.’

  Harry moved past him, holding the torch with one hand and his gun with the other, side by side. A store-room would be a natural place to come back to if Kraush or Irina needed anything. It would also be an ideal spot to lie in wait if they’d heard Harry and the others coming. He stepped inside with a swift movement and flicked the torch on. But there was nothing save for a few cardboard boxes, a sink and the plink-plink of water pooling on the floor. Beneath the overriding smell of damp he detected the familiar aroma of garlic. And something else. Gun oil.

  He was standing next to a pile of boxes at shoulder height. A hole ripped in the side of the top-most box showed tins of something inside. But that wasn’t what caught his attention, or explained the smell of gun oil. That came from a pair of assault rifles perched on the top, side by side.

  ‘Cool,’ said Claire, and moved up alongside him. ‘AK-Nines. I’ve seen one before but not up close.’

  ‘Special forces?’

  Clare nodded. ‘I heard they were on a limited-use only list.’

  For GRU operatives in other words. The guns were short, with detachable stocks and the bulbous shapes of suppressors on the barrels. They held curved magazines with a likely capacity of twenty rounds. Enough to start a short but fairly quiet war. Ideal for close-quarter combat where space would be restricted and stealth a necessity. He passed one to Clare and took the other himself, shoving the pistol inside his coat. If they were forced to engage, it would be better to keep the noise down.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Clare asked, and pointed to a military-style backpack on the floor.

  Harry bent and flipped open the top. Inside was nestled a transmitter with a display window, a small covered keyboard and a telescopic aerial. Next to it was the bracelet he’d last seen on Rik’s leg. Harry left it where it was. Maybe they could find a use for it later.

  ‘Nice,’ Rik commented, eyeing the weapons. ‘Can we get out of here? It’s giving me the chills.’

  ‘Good idea. Out the back way then round to the left.’

  They hurried through to the back door where they’d come in. Harry checked the outside first, then eased through the gap with Rik on his heels. Clare was behind him but had stopped further back to pull her jacket closer around her shoulders.

  The wind had picked up since they had come inside, with snow swirling through the air around them and snapping off the skin of their faces like a million cold, angry insects. Oddly, it brought with it an improvement in visibility, showing the immediate area of fencing, grass and rubbish in a faint but ghostly detail.

  They had only taken a few steps away from the building when they heard a metallic rattle. It was familiar and shocking, a sound they had all heard many times before. It was followed by a slim figure appearing from behind a pile of metal crates.

  ‘Well, well,’ said a man’s voice, reaching them through the wind noise. ‘If it isn’t Mr Tate and his little friend.’

  FORTY-SIX

  It was Garth Perry, dusted with snow across the top of his head and the shoulders of his heavy coat. The hems of his trousers were as dark with damp from the snowy overgrowth of grass around the deserted factory units. If he was feeling the cold he didn’t show it, but grinned in triumph, his stance relaxed.

  Harry didn’t move, his brain careering into overdrive. Perry was holding a machine pistol which he recognized as a Czech-made Skorpion. It was short and ugly and he knew it possessed a high rate of deadly fire.

  ‘Life’s shit, isn’t it, Tate?’ Perry said coolly. ‘You come all this way to help out a traitor and it’s all been a waste of time.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Harry said, inching up the muzzle of the assault rifle. He carried on talking to slow the man down. ‘In case you hadn’t heard, this is my assignment. You don’t get a look-in.’

  Playing the part of someone defending his turf wouldn’t come as a surprise to this man; theirs was a crowded field and contractors like him were paid by results. Someone horning in on their action was a threat to their income and reputation. He hoped Perry didn’t take the short cut to completion by pulling the trigger and sending them all into the unknown.

  ‘Is that a Skorpion?’ he continued, edging his voice with surprise. ‘I thought they were old hat by now.’ And, he wanted to add, used by second-rate gang-banger types who relied on a spray-and-pray use in the knowledge that they’d have to hit something eventually, even if by accident. But he guessed Perry might take offence at that.

  Perry sniffed. ‘Doesn’t matter. It does the job. And the rules of this job have changed. This is now my game. You’re out of it.’ He pointed the weapon towards Rik, who had emerged from the doorway partly behind Harry. ‘Is that Ferris? I believe it is. If you could stand aside I’ll complete my assignment and get the hell out of here. No hurt, no harm.’ He used the machine pistol’s barrel to indicate which way Harry should move. ‘Of course if you don’t want to play it makes no difference to me. What say you? Oh, and if you lift that AK-Nine another millimetre, you’ll be dead.’

  Harry froze. His head was telling him what to do but with Perry standing so close with that murderous little gun in his hand, one false move and they’d all be caught in a withering blast of rounds. Then he heard the tiniest scuff of movement in the background. He thought it was Rik about to step out from behind him and opened his mouth to stop him. But then he saw Perry stiffen, and realized the contractor wasn’t looking at either of them, but further back.

  Clare.

  The report from the AK-9 she was holding was little more than a damp paper bag popping, and Harry swore he felt the round go past his ear. But it found its target somewhere in Perry’s shoulder and spun him around, his momentary expression one of open-mouthed shock. Amazingly, he didn’t try to fight it but used the momentum to keep turning and launch himself behind the metal crates. One second he was th
ere, the next he was gone.

  Clare stepped past Harry looking as if she was about to give chase, but he grabbed her arm. ‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘The others won’t be far away.’

  She didn’t resist, but turned back. It was true: going out into the dark after a fleeing killer would be suicide.

  ‘What now?’ said Rik. ‘It’s going to be harder to deal with the hackers with Perry and his men here.’

  ‘But easier than going looking for them. Clare and I will watch your back while you deal with the technical stuff.’ Turning his back on the direction Perry had taken took an extreme effort of will, but there was no alternative. If Kraush got even the first level of their planned cyber assault off, it would be disastrous. They had to stop it now. Perry would have to wait.

  He led the way along the rear of the first building and into the yard around the next one, stepping through a large hole in the rotting wire fence. He stopped on the other side and waited, listening to the sighing of wind as it flowed through the trees and coursed around the structure, setting up a low, mournful moan from holes in the fabric like some enormous low-level orchestral instrument. If there were any guards stationed around here, he couldn’t see them, and hearing any movement over the wind noise was impossible.

  He stepped forward and saw a faint glimmer of light through a window, where the paint he’d noticed on his first recce must have fallen or been scraped away. He gestured for Rik to take a look while he stood with his back to the building, watching for any signs of attack.

  Rik studied the inside for a few moments, then said, ‘I can see fifteen, maybe twenty in all … and a couple of guards with handguns on watch. There’s no sign of Kraush or Irina.’ He turned back to Harry. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Get them all out of there.’ Harry checked out the window. It was big enough to get through but too high to make it easy. If the guards inside knew their job, they’d be able to pick them off one by one. Unless they could find a back door, that left a frontal assault. And he didn’t like the odds.