by Jack Mars
Moscow, Russia
It was dark. It was the middle of the night.
Everything was quiet outside—the calm before the storm. The lights of Red Square shone into Marmilov’s living room.
His suite was beginning to appear run down, unkempt. A few days ago, he had barred the cleaning ladies from entering. Tamara was gone, and Marmilov hadn’t ordered another girl—a girl was too distracting at a time like this.
Tonight, he was drinking heavily. He held a glass of vodka on ice.
Putin had disappeared from his Black Sea dacha. There was some indication he might have fled the country. If so, that was good. There were rumors he had returned to Moscow to fight for his political life. If so… Marmilov wasn’t sure.
In any event, Putin dropping out of sight was disconcerting. The man was a scoundrel. He was underhanded. He was dangerous.
Babayev was here. He was giving his report.
“Chemicals in the basement of the mosque appear to have ignited,” he said. “The truck bomb caused a firestorm. Indications are that the local fire departments can contain the blaze, but they cannot put it out. It should burn until it dies of its own accord. It is likely to destroy all evidence of whatever was happening in that building.”
“This is good,” Marmilov said. “Now tell me the bad.”
Babayev hesitated. “Why do you believe there is bad?”
Marmilov smiled, but there was no joy in it. “My dear Babayev, you will learn that there is always bad.”
Babayev shrugged. “Members of the American assault force survived the truck bombing. Their helicopter was damaged, but they escaped with their lives.”
“Keep going,” Marmilov said.
“Our friend inside the White House has heard that a scientist was alive inside the mosque. Apparently, he was captured by the Americans. The leader of the Special Response Team espionage agency approached the White House with news of this scientist, and of the weapon deployment. Apparently, he was rebuffed and his funding was cut off. Our friend may have helped this process along.”
It was terrible news, of course. Babayev had done his best to sugar-coat it, but no matter—it was a bitter pill to swallow. This American spy agency would not stop. They kept appearing places. They kept discovering things. Supposedly, there was no danger from them, but if so, then why were they still involved?
“They will try to sabotage the weapon.”
Babayev was noncommittal. “Maybe they will try.”
Marmilov raised his voice, just a small amount. “Of course they will try.”
He took a slug of the vodka.
“They will fail,” Babayev said. “We are told they have no funding. Their agency may be closed. No one listens to them. Will they go to the Arctic by themselves, and fight through the Spetsnaz? Even if they could, there is almost no time left.”
“How much?” Marmilov said.
“By my watch?” Babayev said. “Only a little more than five and a half hours. They were just in Beirut a short time ago. Now they must go to the Arctic? If it is the same ones, they will never make it there in time.”
Marmilov smiled and shook his head.
Never. The man had said never.
He had practically cursed the entire operation with that one word.
“Alert the facility,” Marmilov said. “Tell them to expect an attack incoming within the next several hours. Assume highest preparation levels. Tell them that once you give them their instructions, they are to cut off all communications with the outside world. They must repulse any attack, and fight to the last man. They must not surrender, and they must not take any prisoners. Any and all invaders are to be killed.”
Babayev nodded. “As you wish, sir.”
“It is my wish, Babayev. It is my wish that every American who attacks that facility lays dead and frozen on the ice.”
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT
02:15:38 until detonation
Inside an airplane
The skies over Northern Europe
Luke came alert very gradually.
He glanced around.
The passenger cabin wasn’t much to look at. This was a jump plane. There were two benches along either side of the fuselage. There were a bunch of guys sitting on the benches. A couple of guys were stretched out on the floor next to equipment lockers, apparently asleep. The lockers were strapped down, and Luke knew they were full of weapons, scuba gear, the welding gear.
Near the rear of the plane was a jump door. There were overhead lights at the front and back. When those lights went green, that meant:
Go!
It was dark in here, dark and cold. The plane was bouncing along with some turbulence.
There was Ed Newsam in a jumpsuit, sitting with his eyes closed. Maybe he was meditating. Maybe he was dozing.
Ed was a mountain of a man, the biggest one on the plane.
Near him was a guy playing a handheld computer game.
Here was a guy with a little overhead spotlight mounted on his helmet, reading a magazine on his lap, with one leg crossed over the other. He could be waiting in a dentist’s office.
Here was a guy compulsively checking and rechecking weapons.
It took all kinds.
Here was the scientist Yakov Trutnev, sitting right next to Luke. If Ed was the biggest, Trutnev was the smallest. He was swimming in his flight suit. He had insisted on coming, and nobody had cared enough to stop him. He said he wanted to see the project through to the end.
“No one is going to be able to protect you,” Luke told them before they climbed aboard the airplane. “There’s just not going to be time. And saving you is no longer a priority. We got what we needed.”
Luke figured he should be honest and get that out there. Maybe the guy would change his mind.
Instead, he just nodded. “I know.”
Now Trutnev was awake. His eyes met Luke’s.
“Did you try to contact your family?” Luke said.
Trutnev nodded. “Yes.”
“Did you reach them?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Luke said.
Trutnev sat very still. “I am too.”
Luke had tried to call his own family. By the time he called, he had completely lost track of time, so he had no idea whether Becca would be awake, asleep, at her mother’s house… he didn’t know. And they hadn’t spoken in days.
He reached her voice mail.
Her voice was vibrant and bright. He pictured her: beautiful, smiling, optimistic, and energetic. That’s how he wanted to think of her, now and forever.
“Hi, this is Becca. I can’t answer your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone, and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” Luke said. “It’s me. I love you. I love Gunner. I love both of you, and I want to be with you.”
That was all he could think of to say. So he said it and hung up.
He looked up and down the rattling, shaking plane again. He was tired. He had a Dexedrine in a plastic baggie, all ready to go. But he wasn’t ready to take it yet.
He was numb from the fight in Beirut, and Murphy’s death. He was numb from the fight in Alaska. He was numb from witnessing the aftermaths of two massacres. He was numb from being suspended from work again, and having his image on TV screens worldwide. He was numb from Becca cutting him out again. And the constant traveling didn’t help any.
“It’s been a long week,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE
00:34:56 until detonation
Inside an airplane
The skies over the Arctic Circle
“Stone.”
Luke woke with a start.
Big Daddy Bill Cronin was crouched in front of him. His jumpsuit was a touch too form-fitting for his bulk. It would almost be funny to see the red-bearded, desk-jockeying, string-pulling torture specialist out here on a suicide mission. But his eyes were serious.
The plane was no lo
nger dark. Natural light was coming through the window on the jump door. It was bright out there.
“What’s up?” Luke said.
“Listen, sorry about before. That whole Murphy thing. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”
Luke shook his head. “No worries.”
But Big Daddy didn’t drop it. “Are we cool?”
“We’re cool.”
Big Daddy nodded. “Good, because we’re coming in.”
“Now?”
“Soon. Look, these are my guys, but today they’re yours, okay? You’re the quarterback. I know that. There’s nobody like you in the field. You don’t know these guys, but some of them know you. Your reputation is way out ahead of you. Okay?”
Luke nodded. “Good. I’ll talk to them.”
He reached into the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out the Dexedrine pill. He ripped open the plastic baggie and put the blue and white capsule in his mouth. He gulped it down. These were fast-acting.
He glanced at his watch: 00:33:33
The seconds seemed to run impossibly fast. Not good.
That pill had better act at least as fast.
Big Daddy smiled. “I don’t think anybody knows this place is here.”
“What do you mean?”
He raised his hands. “We’re flying in. This is a secret installation. I talked to the pilots. Nobody approached us all night. Nobody questioned us. No fighter planes buzzed us. Nobody shot us down. Nothing. We were just a plane flying over international waters.”
Luke stared at him.
“It’s not official. The Russians really don’t know about it. That guy Marmilov—it’s his thing, and nobody else’s. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m beginning to suspect it. When we took off last night, I figured we’d be challenged as soon as we got within five hundred miles of this place. Didn’t happen. Still hasn’t.”
“Does that change anything?” Luke said.
Big Daddy shook his head. “No. Not at the moment. But it might later.”
He looked up and down the row of men. They were all coming to life, fiddling with weapons, running through their own mental checklists. They were all freelancers, and that was their problem. They had come here because Big Daddy had promised them money. They didn’t act anything like a cohesive unit. They were barely even speaking.
“You ready?” Big Daddy said.
Luke nodded. Already he felt the stir of adrenaline. It couldn’t be the pill yet—it was his brain and his body gearing up for action. This was the game. This was the show. His mind started to race, the way it tended to.
“How’s the landing going to be?” he said.
Big Daddy shrugged. “Icy. They said they’re going to try to spin sideways, with the exit on the back side, and the plane between us and the bad guys.”
“Can they do that?”
Big Daddy smiled. “Pilots do it all the time by accident. Who’s to say someone can’t do it on purpose?”
There was a burst of static and a voice came over the plane’s loudspeaker.
“Gentlemen, we are five minutes from the target destination. Prepare for landing and disembark. Repeat, five minutes from target.”
Big Daddy gestured at the other men with his head. “Go get ’em, tiger. They know me, and I’ve got your back.”
Luke stood. He looked down the line. It was a motley crew. There was nothing uniform about any of them. Tattoos, beards, scars, bandanas, all manner of weirdness and individualism.
Luke had seen it a lot. Guys got out of the military and they went their own way. When they came back for the payday, or the excitement, or because they just couldn’t stop, they were still going their own way.
“Listen up, guys!” he shouted.
All along the line, men turned to look at him.
“I’m Agent Luke Stone of the FBI Special Response Team. I’m your commanding officer on this mission. Thanks for coming out today. Big Daddy Cronin tells me you guys are the best of the best, and I believe him. I’ll tell you that I’m former 75th Rangers, and former Delta Force.”
“We know who you are,” a heavily bearded, thick-bodied man said. He had a pair of Oakley sunglasses perched on his head.
Luke glanced at Ed.
“My partner Ed Newsam is right over there.”
Ed raised his hand.
“Ed is former 82nd Airborne and former Delta Force himself. Point being that we both know what you guys are about. We’re going in hard today, so be ready for that. There’s a bomb under the ice, it’s about to go off, and me and Ed have to get down there and defuse it. There’s a dome on this base, and the hole we need to go through is inside that dome. But we need you to get us there.”
“First things first, mate,” a blond-haired guy said. He might have had an Australian accent, it might have been South African. Luke wasn’t good with accents. “How we getting back out of here?”
Luke shook his head. “We’re not. You bought a one-way ticket, mate. These are Russian Spetsnaz down there, and we have to assume they’re going to eat this plane for lunch. That means there’s only one way out. We have to get that bomb defused, and we have to win the fight. In that order.”
“Kill ’em all,” a guy said.
Luke shrugged. “If they want a fight, we give them what they want. If they stand down…”
He let that lie there.
The men laughed. Every single one of them. Not Ed, not the scientist, not Big Daddy. But every one of the mercenaries had a hearty chuckle. These were guys who had stopped taking prisoners a long time ago. There was no nuance with them, no gray area. They were still alive because everything was black and white to them.
The plane lurched and bounced over some turbulence. Luke grabbed an overhead strap. Otherwise he barely noticed.
“I need an A-Team. Four hands.”
Six hands went up. Luke picked four.
“Say hello to your best friends. You guys are out that door first. Sorry, you volunteered. The pilots are going to try to slide this thing sideways. If they manage it, it’s going to put the plane between us and the bad guys. You’re out the door, on the ground, behind the wheels, wherever you can find cover. I need you laying down suppressing fire as soon as you hit the ground. It’s going to be wide open out there. Just pick a target and kill it. If you don’t see a target, just shoot. Keep them bogged down. Shoot until your gun melts, then grab another one. Got it?”
The men murmured their assent.
“I said GOT IT?” Luke shouted.
“Got it!” one shouted.
“Rock star!” shouted another.
“Hoo-ah!”
The plane lurched again, then banked hard..
A voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Gentlemen, we have enemy contact. I repeat, enemy contact! They are firing surface to air missiles. We are three minutes from the target. Prepare for evasive action. Brace positions for hard landing.”
“B-Team, four hands,” Luke shouted.
The plane bounced and trembled now.
Exactly four hands went up.
“We’ve got two belt-fed .50-caliber machine guns on tripods,” Luke said. “Tell me if you don’t know how to work one of those.”
They all looked at him impassively.
“Two guys on each fifty. One guy feeds, one guy shoots. A-Team is going to be suppressing, so you should get a bit of time to set up. But not long. Find some cover, one on each end of the plane. Then tear it up. You guys are our muscle. Rip them a new one. If you see any heavy ordnance, take it out first. But be especially aware—we need to carve a path to that dome. Everybody keep that in your heads. The dome is the target. If we can’t get there, this was all for nothing.”
“Incoming!” the loudspeaker squawked.
All down the line, guys were belting in.
There were two guys left without an assignment. One was the Australian or South African. Whatever he was, he hadn’t been quick to volunteer.
“C-Te
am, you accompany us to the dome. We’re going to be carrying heavy stuff. You guys are our bodyguards. Kill everything that stands in our way.”
The plane lurched banking hard to the right. Luke rode the angle, hanging from the strap, his feet barely touching the ground. The plane rode like that for a long moment, then righted.
Somewhere behind them came the distant sound of an explosion.
Missed us.
“A-Team! When those fifties are up and running, your first job is done. Second job is to get us to that dome. If there’s resistance there, you have to take it out. Once we get there, you set up and hold those entrances. Make it there, okay?”
He stared up and down the line. Not a single face registered fear.
Luke nodded. “Good. Hit hard fellas, early and often. No slacking, head on a swivel, take care of each other out there. Maybe we’ll all come back alive.”
The loudspeaker sputtered static.
“Prepare for landing. Hard landing! Crash positions.”
Luke sat down and belted in.
This was not going to be pretty.
Trutnev was there beside him. His eyes were wild. They didn’t seem able to focus. They found Luke. His mouth hung open. Luke had seen the look before.
It was terror.
“I think I made a mistake coming here,” Trutnev said.
Luke nodded. “I think you did, too.”
He looked at his watch. 00:27:44.
Oh. My. God.
Suddenly, the plane hit hard and bounced.
Luke got that sickening stomach drop as the plane fell and bounced the second time. His helmet tumbled away from him. Damn! He should have put it on. But you can’t rile your people up with your helmet on.
Now the plane was down, skating along the ground. There were no windows. There was no way to see if it was on the runway or not.
Then came the slide. It didn’t feel controlled at all. The plane spun, righted, then slid again. It was still moving fast, but beginning to slow. It tilted to the right side, slid, then righted again. That felt like they went off the runway.
The pilots were eerily silent.
Luke got up and stumbled to the jump door. Out the window, he saw a cluster of small buildings ahead. The plane was sliding sideways toward them, but the door was in front. That was not good. Luke spotted men in white jumpsuits. They were running, abandoning shooting positions.