by Tom Clancy
* * *
Four men abruptly entered the Snow Maiden’s cell. She glanced up through the blinding shaft of light coming in from the open cell door. It took a moment, but they finally came into full view: three baby-faced guards who gaped at her like she was a Hollywood celebrity, along with an older man dressed in a black uniform. A thick shock of gray hair, along with a closely cropped beard seemed unfamiliar to her, but his eyes . . . there was something about his eyes.
“We’ve been ordered to clean you up,” he said, a trace of sadness in his tone.
“And how do you feel about that?”
“If it were up to me, you would be drugged, docile. But the president wants you untouched. No drugs, no more Taser, nothing. So . . . either you will cooperate and enjoy a hot shower, perhaps your last, or we’ll simply leave you in here.” He sniffed several times and grimaced. “You’ve soiled yourself. It’s disgusting. Wouldn’t you like to clean up?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll come with us? Willingly? Quietly?”
She nodded, her gaze flicking to the Tasers clutched in the hands of the other three. “But why are they armed if you’re not going to hurt me?”
“They won’t be used, but if their lives are endangered, we’ll have no choice.”
“You’ll have to answer to the president for that.”
“And I will. But let’s not go there. Let’s be civilized.”
His smile was weak, pathetic really, but it was the first time in a very long while that anyone had showed even a modicum of kindness. “I’m ready,” she said.
Two of them helped her to her feet, and she followed the old man out through the door, the awestruck guards pulling up the rear. She’d been too distracted to get a good look at the curving hallway outside the cell when they’d brought her here, so now it was time to refresh her memory and draw the mental map.
The walls were constructed of heavy concrete buffed smooth and painted gray, the ceiling crisscrossed by pipes, with banks of LED lights glowing along the corners. Not much effort had been made to make the facility aesthetically pleasing; it was all pure function, like the bowels of a Russian tank or submarine.
She counted twenty-five footsteps to the next door, where a guard placed his hand on the biometric control station mounted to the wall, and the door clunked open.
Inside was a large shower and toilet area, the tile an industrial white that left her squinting. The old man shoved a heavy key into her shackles, opening the ankles first, then moving up to the wrists.
“Now, this is the moment where you try to escape, and if you do, you sacrifice the shower, and I take you back there to wallow in your own piss.”
“Where would I run?” she asked.
“Exactly. Now, while you’re here, you will be watched.” He gestured to the cameras hidden behind black domes on the ceiling. “Over there, you’ll find a bar of soap and a towel. Please don’t try to kill yourself or do anything else. A clean prisoner’s uniform is in the locker to your left.”
“Are you religious?” she suddenly asked him.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Will God forgive you for your sins?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been having trouble remembering people, places. I didn’t recognize you at first, but now it’s come to me.”
“Just take your shower.” He turned abruptly and slammed the door behind her.
His name was Dr. Anton Halitov, a medical doctor and chief interrogator for the Spetsnaz for more than twenty years. They called this place the Black Mountain primarily because of him. They said he’d tortured more than a thousand prisoners. They said he’d extracted information from JSF captives when no one else could. He’d even managed to turn the leaders of several Middle East terror groups against each other.
Expert on pain. Delivering and relieving.
But this man, who’d spent countless hours listening to human suffering while turning cold eyes away from the agony he created, this man who some claimed had turned torture into an art form because of his success rate, had changed. His voice was different. The gray hair and beard were new. He seemed broken. The titanium box that protected his heart had been smashed open. He felt something.
And that intrigued her.
Wincing, she slid off her blouse and pants and pried her feet out of the boots. She realized there was no way to avoid the cameras and simply ignored them, prying off her panties and grimacing as she let them fall to the tile. She moved quickly to the showerhead, turned on the water, and waited. The warm spray finally came, grew hot, and she groaned as she began washing her battered body. There were too many new bruises to count, and the places that ached far outnumbered the ones that didn’t. She frowned as she took in each new wound, trying to remember where she might have acquired it: The fight back at the refinery? The chase through the woods? The struggle when they’d finally wrestled her into the shackles?
Still clutching the bar of soap, she collapsed on her rump, pulled her knees into her chest, and sat there in the spray, realizing that Halitov was probably right: This would be the last shower of her life.
And now she ached for something much greater than the physical relief. She wanted to let God know that it was okay, that she understood she would burn in the fires of hell and that he shouldn’t feel guilty about that. Lying to him now about being repentant, about how she really did deserve a second chance, would only prove how selfish and pathetic she really was, and so she would face the end bravely, admitting her wrongdoing, accepting the punishment, and understanding that there was no reason to weep.
The snow melted, but every year it would return.
Deep down, though, there was one regret, a longing that scared her to the core, one she kept repressed because she knew it would weaken her.
She wept again, damn it, then gave up, surrendered to the feeling and fully admitted it to herself. If only she could have shared her blood, brought a child into the world, taught her how to be a woman—
If only there were someone who would remember her.
With love.
* * *
From his desk terminal on level one in the command-and-control center, Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Osin watched the Snow Maiden huddling in the shower.
He’d already reported her arrival to Christopher Theron, using his skills as a signals and intelligence officer to encrypt and conceal his transmission to the man. That signal report had just earned him enough money to retire early, and his next one, updating Theron on the woman’s status, would ensure that said retirement would be lavish. Absolutely lavish. His earlier work for the Bilderberg Group had been lucrative; however, Theron and his associates were, according to the rumors, making big plans and paying operatives double for their efforts. Osin was grateful he’d been contacted all those years ago and gone to work for these people. He was not a peon, cog in the wheel, or simple statistic for the Russian military. He was his own man, and he’d exploited his position and intellect to secure himself a life the government would never provide him.
After all, if he hadn’t been working for the group since he was a junior officer, he would have wound up like the Snow Maiden, turning openly on them, then captured, tortured, and murdered.
It was sad, really, what they’d do to her. She’d been a proud and terribly efficient officer, better than he ever was. His stint with the GRU as an operative had lasted no more than a year before he’d been forced back into the Spetsnaz to play with computers instead of guns.
She had some long legs, this Snow Maiden, this rogue spy that the president wanted protected. He longed to go down there now and have his way with her, listen to her curse him in that smoky, contralto voice, feel her scratch his back.
He shuddered and switched off the feed as the next message reached his tablet computer.
/> Theron was calling for his update?
No, this was a report from North Ossetia, from the mountains where Brandenburg was directing the arms shipments. His eyes widened as he read the news.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Forgotten Army Weapons Depot
Caucasus Mountains
Near North Ossetia, Russia
Halverson’s gunfire ricocheted off the dirt bike’s engine before she finally struck the driver in the left leg.
But this only enraged him. He sped up, bringing his bike less than a meter from the tailgate, then reached for his holster and came up with his pistol.
Before she could shoot him, rounds pinged off the windowsill and door, driving her back into the cab as another of the three bikers still pursuing them freed his sidearm and cut loose.
“You have an automatic rifle,” cried Aslan, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the wheel. “Can you please kill those bastards!”
“I’m trying!” She turned back, leaned once more out the window, and opened fire, her bead sweeping from left to right to finally make contact, booting one of the bikers off his ride, the engine racing before the machine spun and crashed into the rocks.
“Got him!”
“That’s a start,” Aslan grunted.
Cursing him under her breath, Halverson ejected a magazine and drove a fresh one home. She chambered a round, held her breath, then three, two, one, she was hanging back outside the truck, screaming to gain more courage and firing madly, intent on emptying the mag into these two fools.
It was glorious. The first biker swallowed her incoming and toppled sideways, forcing his partner to drive right over him and get thrown from his bike in a surreal arc like a Hollywood stuntman who gaped as he realized his inflatable mattress had been removed. He hit the riverbed and rolled, limbs snapping and twisting at weird angles, the trauma lost in a dust cloud wafting up from the truck’s rear wheels.
As she ducked back into the truck, she heard both her phone ringing and the whomping of helicopters. “That’s my QRF,” she shouted to Aslan.
“Your what?”
“Quick Reaction Force. Help’s on the way!”
He glanced up through the windshield. “I don’t think so.”
She did likewise. Mi-24s. Was the QRF flying undercover in Russian helos? If so, why wasn’t she notified? With those questions still hanging, she answered the phone, the voice on the other end sounding breathless:
“It’s Voeckler. I’m at the bottom of the hill. I can see you coming down. I’m on your right side.”
“Do you see the choppers?”
“Yeah.”
“Are they ours?”
“Negative.”
“Shit!”
“Just pick me up!”
“So we’re saving you, huh?”
He’d already hung up. She swore as the Mi-24s passed overhead, moving back toward the mountain—
But then one broke off, banking hard to come back for them. “Oh, man, you’d better hurry,” she cried.
“Three more choppers,” Aslan said stoically, stealing a quick look through his open window and cocking his thumb skyward. “This is . . . this is maybe what I thought would happen . . .”
“So that’s it?”
He faced her. “I’m a Chechen. It’s not over.” With that he brought the truck up beside Voeckler, pulled to a halt, and began to open his door.
“Why are you getting out?” Halverson demanded.
“Yeah, why?” added Voeckler, his shaggy hair and scruffy beard covered in dirt.
Aslan left the cab and crossed to the truck’s tailgate, where he began unbuttoning the tarp covering the flatbed.
Halverson stormed out of the cab and was a half second away from screaming at him—
When she caught a glimpse of what was lying beneath that tarp. “Holy shit. Bathing suits? Really?”
He snorted. “I wasn’t totally unprepared.”
“You have Javelins?” asked Voeckler, his mouth falling open as he, too, stared slack-jawed at the two crates of launchers. “Wait, did these come from the mountain? If they did, then they’re evidence, and we can’t—”
“The hell we can’t,” said Aslan. “You either help or run—because if we don’t take out those choppers, our story ends here.”
Voeckler didn’t waste time mulling that over. One look back at the Mi-24s was all the convincing he needed. He hopped up onto the flatbed. “Okay, let me ask you something, asshole, whoever you are, have you ever fired one of these?”
Aslan scowled at him. “What do you think?”
Voeckler looked to Halverson. “What about you?”
“I’m a fighter pilot. We don’t play with missiles that small.”
He smirked and began opening one of the crates. “Better move our asses. The refrigeration component has to cool the system to get the thermal views online. Takes thirty seconds or more. Might take less time in this cold . . .”
“Fifteen seconds,” said Aslan. “We’ve already tested.”
“I see I’m in good hands,” Halverson said, now helping Voeckler open the crate. “I didn’t know you spies got to play with this stuff.”
“We train with all kinds of toys when we’re hanging out at Fort Benning. Oh, and before I forget, thanks.”
“For what?”
“Nothing much. Just saving my life. Sandhurst. Ghost Team. Russian Ka-65 . . . ring a bell?”
“You were down there?”
“Hell, yeah, I was. Come to return the favor.”
“Well, goddamn, Mr. Voeckler, I’m impressed.”
He gave her the once-over with wolf’s eyes. “So am I.”
Her snort sent him hopping down from the truck. He hoisted the big launcher onto his shoulder.
Aslan took up a position on the other side of the truck, the launcher appearing like a dumbbell lying across his shoulder.
“Back blast is minimal,” said Voeckler. “But if I were you, I’d get behind those trees.”
As Halverson ran toward the trees he’d indicated with his thumb, Aslan shouted, “Here they come. Line of sight. Remember!”
The booming of both helicopters and rotor wash tearing across the trees like multiple tornadoes drove Halverson down to her knees, shielding her eyes—
And in the next breath, she heard the missiles fire, one after the other, the flashes and hiss rising above the intense rotor wash.
While the Javelin was primarily deployed as an anti-tank missile, able to launch straight up and make a top-down attack on armored vehicles, hitting them where they were most vulnerable, the system could also be set for direct-attack mode against hardened targets and airborne threats.
Halverson followed the contrails, squinting now in the direction of the choppers, just as the HEAT warheads exploded, their shaped charges creating streams of superplastically deformed metal formed from trumpet-shaped metallic liners. This high velocity particle stream easily penetrated the Mi-24s’ fuselages and detonated in clouds of blazing debris—tail rotors sheared off, canopies bursting outward, flaming bodies tumbling across the sky—
While the thunderclaps of the explosions echoed over the mountainside. Next came fireballs as their fuel tanks ignited, both helos drawing red-orange slash marks across the sky as they plunged. The next gust of wind brought the stench of the explosions to Halverson, the burning rubber, melting glass, and flaming fuel coming in a blast wave.
Then, in the distance, the chaotic drumming of debris crashing down through the trees began, thousands of chopper parts falling in a hailstorm, along with the larger sections of fuselage that barreled through the trees, shredding limbs and branches and ka-thudding with secondary explosions across the forest floor.
Aslan and Voeckler threw their empty launchers onto the ground, and Halverson sprang from the trees and joined them�
�all three leaping back into the cab.
“Two for two,” said Voeckler, baring his teeth.
“Still one more back there,” said Aslan. “But he’s turning tail now, heading back to the mountain!”
“Thank God,” said Halverson.
“Get us back down to the highway,” Voeckler told Aslan.
The Chechen recoiled. “Are you crazy? We’ll be in plain sight.”
“No,” said Voeckler. “My contacts will be waiting for us. You’ve made a really loud and really unfortunate exit, but I’m going to make sure we do the rest of this quietly.” He put a finger to his lips.
“Good luck with that,” said Aslan.
“What about my QRF?” Halverson asked Voeckler.
“I think they’ve been trying to keep your spirits up,” he said. “According to my intel, I’m the only rescue you got. They can’t send in any air assets. Way too risky.”
“Bullshit.” She got back on the satellite phone, but Voeckler tore the phone from her hands.
“Forget it,” he said. “Listen to me. I’m here to get you out.”
“How?”
“Trust me.”
She tipped her head toward Aslan. “What about him? He saved me back there.”
“Hey, you can come,” Voeckler told Aslan. “In exchange for information, right?”
The Chechen made a face. “I know how the game is played. Everyone has a price.”
“Oh, I’m not playing any games,” said Voeckler. “If you say no, I shoot you in the head. That’s how I define operational security. And if you don’t believe me, you can go back to Grozny and talk to your friend the Bear. He might not say much with that bullet in his head.”
“You killed him?” asked Aslan, sounding half-surprised, half-impressed.
“It wasn’t the plan. But he wasn’t very cooperative.”
“I see. Well, if I don’t have a choice here, then why bother asking?”