“Did you inform the universities in Moscow and Yakutsk about the discovery?” Reynolds asked Zakhava. She realized that she was slurring her words and set her cup down. That was enough for one night.
“Yes, I emailed them the pictures we took in the tunnel before coming over here,” replied Zakhava, offering some of the still-half-full bottle of vodka in his hand to Reynolds.
“No, thanks. I think I’ve had more than enough for one evening.”
“Suit yourself. Plenty more for me,” said Zakhava, winking at Reynolds.
She took that as her cue to leave. Reynolds stood up and with as much grace as she could muster after drinking a little too much, she moved about the room saying her goodnights before stepping outside. She quickly pulled on her thick woolen gloves and zipped up her down-filled parka. For a few seconds, she chose to ignore the cold and looked up into the night sky. Reynolds was always amazed how brilliantly clear the sky became when a person was far away from the light pollution of a major city. A bit of an astronomy buff, she could easily recognize the North Star, Venus, and Mars in the night sky. With a smile, she watched a meteor brightly streak across the heavens. After a quick stop at the bathroom, Reynolds opened the flap to her tent and crawled inside. In no time, she was in her nice, warm sleeping bag, fast asleep.
Several hours later, Reynolds rolled over on her cot. Her full bladder was screaming at her to get up and walk the ten meters through the cold to the washroom. It was coming up on five in the morning. With a few choice curse words on her lips, she unzipped her warm sleeping bag and quickly jumped out. When it was this cold, Reynolds always slept in her favorite red long underwear. Mumbling to herself, she threw on her parka and boots. Without bothering to do either of them up, she opened up her tent flap and crawled out into the frigid morning air. Almost immediately, she was aware of a rhythmic beating sound somewhere in the dark. At first, she thought it was from her hangover, but the sound seemed to grow closer by the second. On the horizon, she could just make out three flashing red lights flying a few meters above the icy ground, moving incredibly fast towards their camp. Reynolds instantly forgot about her bladder and jogged over to the tent they used for their office. She was a little surprised to find the room empty. It was camp policy that one of the Russian staff members was on duty throughout the night while everyone else slept. It was a prudent security measure, in case there was a fire or another emergency.
From behind, a voice called out.
Reynolds turned around and saw that it was one of the Russian workers making his way back from the bathroom.
Weak bladder like me, thought Reynolds.
The man stopped in his tracks and turned to look up into the star-filled sky.
“Helicopters,” said the man to Reynolds. A second later, he repeated himself this time pointing into the air. She quickly realized that his English vocabulary was limited to a few words.
Switching into Russian, Reynolds asked, “Do you know who they are?”
“No,” replied the man. “No one is supposed to come for us for another week.”
“Could it be the army on maneuvers?” asked Reynolds.
“I don’t know,” replied the man, shrugging his shoulders.
A few seconds later, a couple more groggy people joined them. They stood there, staring at the three helicopters as they noisily came in to land on the camp’s designated landing zone, a patch of flat ground one hundred meters from their tents. It was then that it hit Reynolds. Aside from their running lights, the helicopters were completely blacked out.
Her gut told her something wasn’t right.
She looked for Professor Zakhava among the growing throng of people who had been attracted by the noise of the helicopters like moths drawn to the light. When she didn’t see him, her stomach began to tie up in knots. As the senior Russian on the site, she wanted him nearby to talk with whomever had just landed in the dark.
One of the Russian students saw the darkened shapes of men jumping from the helicopters. With a friendly wave, he walked towards them. He hadn’t gone two steps before he was cut down in a hail of bullets fired by one of the new arrivals.
With a loud scream, a young female student turned to run, only to die where she stood.
Within seconds, more students were mercilessly shot down.
“Run!” yelled someone from behind Reynolds.
Suddenly, a surge of adrenaline and the instinctive need for self-preservation kicked in. Reynolds turned on her heels and ran into the night. Behind her, she could hear the sound of automatic gunfire. People screamed and pleaded for their lives only to die, killed at the hands of their unknown attackers.
It was a horrible massacre.
With tears in her eyes, Reynolds ran straight past the tent that held their office. Her instincts told her to seek the safety of the tunnel system dug under the ice. She could no longer hear the sounds of death being sown as her ears were filled with the sound of her own heart beating loudly. She opened the door leading down into the tunnel and ran as fast as she could down the stairs. A second later, she lost her footing and fell onto her back. A sharp pain shot from her spine as she slid along the icy floor, until she landed in a heap alongside an old generator. With fear coursing through her body, she scrambled up on her feet and ran down the nearest tunnel, looking for a safe place to hide. Up ahead, she saw several boxes covered by a dark-green tarp. Reynolds ran over and hid behind them. With a silent prayer on her lips, she struggled to make sense of what was going on.
Who had attacked their camp, and why? She could find no logical reason for the massacre taking place on the frozen ground above her. Reynolds closed her eyes and hoped that whoever was out there would leave and let her live.
Her heart skipped a beat when she heard the sound of another set of feet scrambling down the slippery stairs. Reynolds peered out from behind her cover and saw Freeman standing there, unsure of what to do next. Fear filled his eyes. Reynolds was about to call him over, when a shot rang out. Freeman’s body jerked slightly and then tumbled to the frozen floor.
Reynolds brought her hand up to her mouth to stifle a scream when she saw blood seeping out from under Freeman’s dead body.
Terror gripped her soul.
Reynolds bit her lip when she heard the sound of someone slowly making their way down into the icy tunnels. She pulled her parka hood over her head and tried to make herself blend in with the green tarp she was hiding behind.
Ever so slowly, Reynolds could hear the sound of ice crunching underfoot as an assassin carefully made his way down the long passage.
If she stayed where she was, she knew that she would be found. It was just a matter of time, seconds perhaps. Her only salvation lay in distracting the man long enough to make it back out into the night. She turned her head slightly and saw an abandoned thermos lying on the ground behind her. Reynolds grabbed it, and then as quietly as she could, she got up on her knees. She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart and tossed the thermos down a small side tunnel. It clattered loudly as it slid across the ice. A second later, the thermos disappeared from view. Like a runner hearing the starter pistol fire, Reynolds, with her head down, was up on her feet and running for her life down the narrow tunnel.
She never heard the shot.
To her, it all seemed to happen in slow motion. First, she felt her feet give out underneath her. The next thing she knew, she was falling to the floor and sliding along the ice until she came to a sudden stop against the wall. Unable to move, Katherine Reynolds lay on her back looking up at the roof of the tunnel. Something dark came into view. Reynolds blinked her eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at. A man stood above her, completely enclosed in a military-style biohazard suit. She could see his deep-brown eyes through the protective eyepieces of his gas mask. She tried to say something, but found that she couldn’t speak. The world was beginning to close in around her as her vision narrowed. The last thing Katherine Reynolds saw before she died was a sad look in t
he eyes of the man who was about to end her life as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
6
Las Vegas
Nevada
Ryan Mitchell stepped from the elevator into the noisy hotel lobby filled with people already half-drunk. He hadn’t gone more than a couple of meters before a young woman carrying a tall drink and wearing a cheap plastic bachelorette crown tripped over her own feet and landed in his arms. With a smile, he helped her back up onto her feet and waited for her friends to escort her into the elevator. He shook his head at the women and made his way out onto the casino floor of the Paris Hotel. The melodic chimes from hundreds of slot machines filled the air. It was late Friday night, and as usual, the hotel was packed. He paused for a moment by a tall mirror to adjust his black bow tie. Mitchell felt out of place in his snug, jet-black tux. He was more at home in his old, well-worn blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Mitchell looked around at the casino’s patrons and snickered to himself. Hardly anyone other than James Bond wore a tuxedo to a poker game anymore; however, this was the outfit he had been instructed to wear to the rendezvous. Tucked into his right ear was a nearly invisible state-of-the-art earpiece that could receive as well as transmit.
Mitchell’s penetrating blue-gray eyes searched the floor for his friends. A former U.S. Army Ranger in his early thirties, he stood at just over two meters tall and had a trim, athletic build with thick, brown hair that he liked to keep cut short. His skin was tanned from a recent skiing vacation in Colorado with his girlfriend, Jennifer March. He soon spotted Nate Jackson playing the slots. With a confident smile, he walked past his comrade without saying a word as he tried to look the part of a high-stakes poker player. Mitchell was surprised to see that Jackson was up three hundred dollars, as he was notorious for having bad luck with any game of chance.
Nathaniel Jackson was ten years senior to Mitchell and a former Ranger. Tall, with a smooth-shaven head, large, broad shoulders and strong, muscular arms, Jackson always seemed to have a few extra pounds around his midriff that he proclaimed weekly were coming off shortly; not that they ever did. His wife cooked too well, and he liked a breakfast of donuts with his morning coffee. He could, however, easily bench press his own weight or step into in a boxing ring with a man half his age and expect to win.
As Mitchell made his way towards the semi-private, high-stakes poker tables, he smiled to himself. He had never been to Vegas before. The architecture of the Paris Hotel with the legs of a scaled-down Eiffel Tower inside the casino is a clever design, thought Mitchell.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other two members of his team, Sam and Cardinal, playing craps; by the sound of Sam’s complaining, they weren’t doing very well.
Samantha Chen was officially the team medic, but she was so much more than that. Her short stature meant nothing; she was just as deadly with a rifle as any man on the team. Sam, as she preferred to be called, stood just over a meter and a half tall with a petite, but firm build. Her dark-brown eyes burned with a hunger to be the best at everything she did. A former airborne medic, she was a self-professed adrenaline junkie and loved to be outdoors. She enjoyed going free climbing, scuba diving, and parachuting whenever she could.
Right alongside Sam was her boyfriend, Gordon Cardinal. A tall, slender man with a thick, black goatee, Cardinal had grown up on a farm nestled against the Canadian Rockies. Recruited straight out of Canada’s elite JTF-2, he was the team’s sniper and surveillance expert. Whereas Sam was excitable, Cardinal was as cool as a mountain glacier; nothing ever seemed to faze him. Even now while he lost at dice, he couldn’t have looked more disinterested.
With a pissed look on her face, Sam grabbed the dice from Cardinal and announced loudly that she was taking over before they lost any more money. It was all an act. Mitchell’s friends were there to keep an eye out and to cover his back should anything go wrong at the poker tables.
Mitchell nonchalantly walked over to the private tables at the back of the casino, where he was met by a white-haired gentleman in a tuxedo. With the hint of a French accent the man asked, “Sir, may I please see your invitation?”
With a smile, Mitchell produced his invite. After bowing politely, the white-haired man escorted Mitchell to an empty table. There were several other tables in the room, all of which were filled with overly eager players trying for the estimated five million dollars in prize money to be won. Mitchell took a seat, glanced down at his watch and saw that it was midnight. He was precisely on time.
A waitress in a skimpy outfit walked over. “Would you like something to drink, sir?”
“A tonic water would be great,” he replied. Mitchell sat back and unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket.
Hired to deliver a flash drive containing the access codes to a secret Swiss bank account in exchange for the life of the son of a Saudi diplomat, Mitchell tried to look relaxed. A minute later, the waitress returned with his drink. Mitchell smiled and tipped her. He sat there sipping his drink, trying not to look like he was looking around. Mitchell slowly moved his eyes over the casino patrons. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was wasting his time. His contact could be anyone from a woman wearing a large, flower-covered dress to a skinny man with a long mullet dressed in ratty-looking shorts and a T-shirt with a monster truck on it.
He was about to dig out his phone and check the latest sports scores, when he noticed the white-haired man stop a tall, fit-looking man wearing a white suit with a light-blue shirt and tie. Mitchell quickly studied the man. He looked to be in his mid-forties. He had olive-colored skin with short, black, curly hair. Mitchell took him to be Greek.
With a smile, the man walked over to Mitchell’s table. Taking a seat right beside Mitchell, the man held out his hand in greeting.
“Good evening, my name is Alekos Alexandrakis,” said the man politely.
Mitchell shook his hand. It was firm and tight. “Ryan Mitchell. Pleased to meet you, Mister Alexandrakis.”
Alexandrakis smiled. “I’m pleased that you got my name right, Mister Mitchell. So many people seem to have a problem with it.”
“I’m lucky with names, I guess.”
Alexandrakis’ expression changed immediately, becoming serious. “I take it that you followed my directions to the letter and that you are unarmed.”
“I did, and I am not carrying any concealed weapons,” replied Mitchell, slowly opening his tuxedo jacket to show that he wasn’t carrying a gun.
“Now, do you have on you what I require for us to conclude our business?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, hand it to me and I will provide you with the room number where young Saad is being held.”
Mitchell hesitated. “How do I know that you will live up to your end of the bargain?”
“I may be many things, Mister Mitchell, but I would never harm a child. You have my word that Saad has not been harmed and is being well looked after. Once I have the flash drive, I promise to tell you where you may find him.”
Mitchell nodded his head, slowly reached into his jacket and placed the flash drive on the table in front of him.
Alexandrakis took a quick look around and placed his hand over the flash drive. He was about to pull it towards him when a waitress walked over and stopped right beside him. Turning his head, Alexandrakis’ eyes widened when he saw that the waitress was pointing a pistol, concealed under her drink tray, straight at his head.
“Be a dear, Alekos, and give me the flash drive,” said the woman, her accent Scottish.
Mitchell turned his head. His jaw dropped open. He thought he was looking up at a ghost. He instantly recognized the woman’s unforgettable, smoky, emerald-green eyes. With short red hair and extremely fit physique, she was the heir to a mercenary organization with contacts throughout the world.
“My God, I thought you were dead,” gasped Mitchell.
“So did a few other people, who are themselves now dead,” replied Grace with a wink.
; Mitchell didn’t need to be told that she had settled several scores after escaping certain death in an underground river in Liberia.
“Mister Alexandrakis, give me the flash drive,” said Grace, her voice sharp and threatening. “Also, please don’t try anything foolish, Mister Mitchell. I have several women spread throughout the casino who would put a bullet in the back of your head before you got out of your chair.”
“Miss—?” asked Mitchell, recalling her face, but not her name.
“Maxwell, Grace Maxwell, at your service.”
“Okay, Grace, you can have the flash drive for all I care. However, I need some information that Mister Alexandrakis has with him,” explained Mitchell. “Please believe me. I’m not lying. A young boy’s life is at stake.”
Grace smiled. “He’s across the street in the Bellagio Hotel in room 311.”
In his earpiece, Mitchell heard Sam and Cardinal acknowledge the information. They left their game, hurried out of the hotel, and sprinted out onto the busy street, ignoring the blaring horns of the cars as they weaved their way around them.
With a look of disgust on his face, Alexandrakis slid the drive over to Grace, who deftly picked it up and slipped it into the top of her form-fitting waitress’ outfit.
“How the hell did you know what was going on?” Mitchell asked Grace.
“Didn’t Alekos tell you? We’re working together,” said Grace with a smile. “He hired me to kidnap the boy, which I did, and now I’m double-crossing him before he can do the same to me.”
Alexandrakis went to speak, but Grace cut him off. “Please, Alekos, don’t even try to suggest that you weren’t going to take the money and then set my organization and me up to take the fall for this crime. You need to pick better people. One of your men told one of my ladies everything.”
With that, Grace winked at Mitchell and then walked away from the table and out onto the busy casino floor.
Alexandrakis jumped to his feet, yelling at the top of his lungs for someone to stop Grace before she got away. Several broad-shouldered men who had been sitting idly at a slot machine saw Grace and moved to block her path.
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