by Mike Maden
“I understand completely,” Voroshilov said. “And I’m truly sorry.”
Burutin’s eyes flashed blinding white as the wrench slammed into the back of his skull. The white-hot agony crashed his central nervous system, dropping him to the cold, wet asphalt.
* * *
—
The gentle rocking woke him. His eyes fluttered open.
Burutin’s throbbing brain ached unbearably, each beat of his heart another nail driven into the deepest recesses of his skull. He was just one step removed from unconsciousness. The rocking motion stirred him like his wife’s gentle hand on a cold, frosty morning, easing him out of bed.
As his mind opened further, his nose filled with the stench of chemicals. The rest of his body protested, too—aches and pains everywhere. His wrists especially. Tied, perhaps? He glanced down at them, but it was too dark to see.
A slight twist of his battered head revealed a series of jagged patches of dim light. Holes. Stabbed into the wall in front of him. Another twist of his aching neck showed holes above as well.
Now he felt the contours of his body—he was twisted up and nearly fetal, his shoulder pressing hard against a smooth, curved surface. His legs? Numb and bent beneath him.
He tried to reach up with his dominant left hand, but it was weighted down, zip-tied to his other hand. He lifted his bound hands together with a groan and touched the oily, round surface with the holes in front of him. Cold, like metal.
He was inside of a steel drum.
Panic shot through him like an electrical current. His breath came in short, sharp gasps.
“Calm yourself, idiot,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Think!”
The rocking motion told him he was being transported. How? A car? No. Too small. A truck. He glanced back up. His blurred eyes couldn’t make out the distant shapes passing through the holes.
Why the holes?
Air holes.
“Good,” he told himself. They didn’t want him to suffocate. That was something. But where were they taking him? To kill him? No, they would have already done that. “Good,” he told himself again.
But he couldn’t just lie there, cramped and broken in the dark. What should he do?
He reached up toward the holes above him with his bound hands. Perhaps he could push the lid off? He pressed as hard as he could, shooting pain throughout his torso. Nothing. His numbed legs and back robbed him of any leverage. He raised his hands again toward the holes—
“Damn it!” The jagged steel sliced through the tips of his fingers. His hands jerked back, the sudden movement shooting even more pain through his cramped and injured body.
“Hey! HEY! Can anybody hear me?”
The steel barrel suddenly tipped forward as it clanged to a stop, his head smashing perilously close to the jagged air holes in front of him.
Burutin pulled his face away from the steel wall. He suddenly realized the barrel had been tipped at an angle before, and now it was vertical.
And still.
What did that mean?
The sound of scraping metal screeched beneath him as the barrel jolted forward a few inches, then came to rest again.
“HEY! HELP ME! GET ME OUT OF—”
The drum pitched forward again. Burutin’s entire body fell against the steel wall, as if laid down to bed. A heartbeat later a tingling sensation ran down his spine and exploded in his gut as his body floated away from the steel wall, weightless.
What the hell?
His battered brain suddenly understood. He opened his mouth to scream—
WHAM!
The curved steel wall smashed Burutin’s face like a hammer blow, breaking his nose. Cold water poured through the air holes, seeping in from the sides, gushing in from the top, filling the barrel quickly.
Not air holes, he realized in his blind panic.
Burutin cried and mewled, kicking his bound feet uselessly against the drum floor, which was layered in rough concrete for added weight. He slammed his hands against the lid, shredding his fingers like a serrated knife. All wasted effort. Nothing budged.
Water poured in faster. What shadowy light remained melted away. The drum righted as the ice-cold sea flooded in, leaving an air pocket at the top, just enough for Burutin to scream his last in the dark before the barrel finally slipped beneath the waves.
Burutin’s death was slow. His last cries were baffled by the frozen seawater sucking into his lungs, burning his sinuses. Trapped in the blinding dark, mindless terror crushed his chest as his spasming throat locked up, pushing iron-blue salt water deep into his belly. His eardrums burst as the barrel plunged deeper into the watery abyss.
The drum finally settled in the rocky slime some nine hundred feet below the surface of the merciless sea, his lifeless mouth opened in a perpetual, silent scream.
23
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Fung was at his standing desk, coding. Or should have been. He was exhausted, mostly from worry. The conversation he’d had with Watson two days before still haunted him. When he’d left her office to chase down the IoT printer project, he was certain he’d satisfied her curiosity about the NRO workstation.
But as the days passed, he began to question his assumption. Maybe the enormous relief of just not being arrested on the spot had clouded his judgment. At the time, he thought he might have been suffering a panic attack. But her query was easily dismissed, and he thought no more about it until he woke up in a cold sweat that night.
A coincidence? The fact that the very workstation he was stealing information from was the one Watson had a question about? Sure, she had put him onto the task to fix it in the first place and it was reasonable for her to follow up with him on it. Natural, even. At least that’s what he had decided at the time.
But then it dawned on him: It was also natural for her to suspect him of breaking into that computer, since she was the one who sent him off in that direction.
Was she onto him after all?
No. She couldn’t be.
Fung stared out his window. It was late, but there were still office lights on in the building across the street, though not many. Worker ants, just like him. He wondered how many of them were coding just like—
Fung jumped out of his skin at the sound of the knock on his glass door.
“Larry? Still here?” Watson leaned in.
“Yeah, sort of. Starting to run out of gas.”
She stepped into his office. “It’s Saturday night. You should be out enjoying yourself.”
“I am enjoying myself,” he said, pointing at a duplicate printer standing next to his desk. “I love this spy shit. Besides, look who’s talking.”
She snorted. “Guess we are the last two in the office.”
“Don’t you have a date or something?” Fung’s eyes raked over her body. If he wasn’t gay, he would definitely be into it.
“Hiking Mount Tam tomorrow with an old college buddy.”
“Is he cute?”
She almost blushed. “Very. You have any plans for tomorrow?”
“Just sleep. And a little Skype time with Torré.”
“That’s good to hear. Tell him I said hello.”
“I will.”
“Don’t stay too late. The bad guys gotta get their sleep, too.”
“I won’t. Good night.”
“Good night.” Watson turned and left the office, heading for the elevators. Fung watched her enter and turn around. She shot him one last furtive glance, but he caught it. She threw an awkward wave and forced a smile. Fung smiled back as the doors slid shut.
Bitch.
Thought you would never leave.
Time to buy some insurance.
He bailed out of his programming software and pulled up the building’s security cameras. There weren’t any l
ocated on his floor, where most of CloudServe’s security clearance work took place. CloudServe was as paranoid about camera hacking as anyone on the planet. But the cameras the building security deployed in the lobby showed that the two security guards on duty were both seated at the lobby desk, so no chance of them wandering in unexpectedly.
Fung dashed over to Watson’s office, careful to leave the lights off. He powered up her machine and pulled out the PassPrint device. It recognized her fingerprint, or, at least, interpreted one of the tens of thousands of fake ones scrolling through the device as one of her prints.
Once inside her computer, he accessed the mirroring program on the NRO computer. But unlike his own setup, there was no automatic log erasure, so his time spent there right now would be recorded as her time spent there.
He glanced around the darkened office and the well-lit floor outside. No signs of life. Good. He turned his attention back to the screen. Maybe there was something that CHIBI could use. But the only thing on the NRO screen at the moment was a conversation about an air drop of Romanian AK-47s to a Tuareg militia unit by the Italian Air Force that was to take place tomorrow.
Interesting, Fung thought. But since he wasn’t getting paid for it, he decided against recording it with the HD digital video camera hidden inside his big analog TAG Heuer watch. Even in broad daylight, it was the most natural gesture in the world for him to put his elbows on the desk and clasp his hands together as if in thought, studying a computer screen, and a simple matter of sliding a finger over and tapping the crown to begin recording, storing the files on a miniature one-terabyte drive embedded behind the face. If anyone were watching him, they would never suspect what he was up to, not that anyone ever did.
The immaculate watch was an awesome device sent to him by CHIBI, his Chinese hacker friend. Fung agreed with the enclosed instructions that the video watch was a far safer approach to data transfer than downloading files onto a suspicious thumb drive, wireless or otherwise. Besides, the fewer actions taken on a computer, the better. The NRO might have been installing their own security systems without him knowing about it.
Fung did, however, spend the next few minutes rooting around recent communiques between the CIA and other agencies, including assets in the field. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular; he just wanted to leave as many incriminating footprints as possible. If the whistle were ever blown, Watson would be the one with mud on her shoes, not him.
Ten minutes later, he shut everything down, careful to wipe his own fingerprints off of anything he might have touched. With the floor still clear, he headed back to his desktop and pulled up the building’s security logs. He scrolled through the list of people leaving the building and found Watson’s name registered and a departure time of 9:28 p.m. He checked his watch. It read 9:49 p.m. It would take him five minutes to shut down, and less than ten minutes to get to the lobby to check out. He added a few more minutes and changed Watson’s checkout time to 10:14 p.m. His own computer automatically wiped away any digital footprints he might have left behind on the building’s security computer, so no chance of that blowing back on him.
Satisfied, he shut down his computer and headed for the lobby with a spring in his step. His escort service had scheduled a date for him with his favorite, Roberto, for a weekend debauch in the bridal suite at the Fairmont in less than an hour.
Fung was on fire.
Roberto had better be ready.
24
AFRIN DISTRICT, SYRIA
Captain Akar studied his map in the lamplight inside the cab of his Kobra command vehicle, the Turkish version of the Humvee. The “Maroon Berets” Special Forces commander never could sleep before a fight, even one this lopsided.
He kept the motor running for heat against the night chill. He took another long drag of his cigarette and checked his watch. Just after three a.m. The assault on the sleeping village wouldn’t begin for another two hours, covered by Italian-engineered T129A ATAK helicopter close-air support. A platoon of his best commandos was leading a group of a hundred fifty Chechen fanatics—former ISIS fighters now converted to the Turkish cause against the Syrian regime.
For the past two weeks, his combined unit had raided regime-friendly villages behind the lines, gunning down any resistance they encountered, burning down houses and farms, and leaving the women to the tender mercies of the Chechen savages. He was tasked with neutralizing armed opposition and terrorizing the countryside along the northern border to erode the morale of the obstinate Syrian Army. With any luck, this part of the border would be absorbed by his own country within the next few months.
His battle-weary troops were still bedded down in the barn and outbuildings around the small, vacated farm they would burn down later in the day. Better to let them sleep for a few more minutes, he decided. Their bellies were full after yesterday’s air drop by a Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo plane based at Incirlik. Resupplied with food, water, and ammo, they were well equipped to resume their terror campaign.
The captain yawned and stretched. Time to check with the sentries and fetch another cup of strong black coffee. He stepped out of the cab into the cool night air and crushed the last of his cigarette into the dry dust. The velvet black sky was strewn with a thick blanket of shimmering stars. It nearly took his breath away. It seemed a shame so much ugliness should thrive beneath such quiet beauty.
But such was the will of Allah, was it not?
EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Captain (2nd rank) Nikulin studied the drone’s live FLIR feed on the LCD display in the low blue light of the humming CIC. The Project 21631 missile corvette Vyshny Volochyok was one of the Russian Federation’s latest Buyan-M-class vessels, specially dispatched from duties with the Black Sea fleet for this particular mission.
The high-altitude black-and-white FLIR imagery displayed the heat differentials of the ground targets below. Chimneys glowed with heat on two of the buildings. Four sentries—or at least the parts of them not covered by uniforms—stood like white ghosts against the dark, cold ground. One figure stood off in a dark patch away from the others, a widening white puddle forming at his feet. Pissing like a cow, Nikulin thought. Enjoy it while it lasts.
What caught the captain’s eye was the brightest image on his screen: a vehicle with a warm motor glowing white hot.
The FLIR imagery was a clear visual confirmation of the bandit column the FSB report had promised.
Better still, the GLONASS tracking device implanted by an FSB agent into the air-dropped ammunition supply was operating perfectly, according to his electronic warfare officer.
Two confirmations were more than enough in his mind. It was time.
Nikulin gave the order to his weapons-control officer. Alarms rang.
The first of eight vertical launch tubes burst with a fiery flash of blinding light as the booster engine of the SS-N-30 Kalibr cruise missile fired in a deafening roar, leaving a trailing plume of white exhaust as it leaped into the dark morning sky thick with stars. Seven more missiles followed in rapid sequence.
Seconds later, the boosters fell away and the solid rocket motors of the turbojet engines engaged. Capable of reaching speeds in excess of half a mile per second, the supersonic cruise missiles would strike the objective in northern Syria in less than four minutes, delivering each of their 450-kilo high-explosive warheads on target by GLONASS satellite navigation.
AFRIN DISTRICT, SYRIA
Captain Akar stood at the back of the 4x4 Mercedes Axor truck, finishing off a cup of steaming black coffee as his bleary-eyed first sergeant lit a cigarette. He lifted up the pot. “More, sir?”
“No. I’ll just have to piss,” the captain said. He slapped the sergeant on the shoulder with a grin. “Time to wake the men!”
The sergeant nodded eagerly, the cherry tip of his cigarette bobbing in the dark.
The two men turned to leave but froze in place. The unmista
kable sound of turbojet engines roared in the distance.
“Captain—”
The first missile struck, vaporizing both men in a ground-shaking explosion that lit the sky in a fiery dawn. Seven more followed in as many seconds.
The last explosions of the burning ammo truck echoed in the low hills minutes later. Amid the flames, the screams of the few surviving wounded pierced the night.
Proof of concept number three.
25
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Lost him,” Tyler said.
Sandra Kyle tapped the mute button on her cell phone and swore.
Tyler was the newest man on her team. She was shorthanded at the moment, and the Ryan project was top-drawer because Senator Dixon was her top priority. Kyle assumed that basic surveillance for an ex–Pinkerton contractor like Tyler wouldn’t be a problem.
Apparently, she was wrong.
The acne-scarred contractor had lost his target. She unmuted her phone. “He knew you were following him?”
“I don’t think so. Just running a vehicular SDR.”
“Just for the hell of it?” Kyle couldn’t wrap her mind around Clark running a random surveillance detection route.
“It’s normal SOP for high-value targets in high-threat environments to run them.”
“I wouldn’t call Clark a high-value target, and D.C. isn’t exactly the Green Zone.”
“Maybe Clark isn’t the high-value component.”
“Who’s with him in the vehicle?”
“Unknown male. Late twenties, maybe early thirties. Bearded, short hair, clean cut. Blue eyes, dark hair. Six-one or so. Athletic build, maybe one-ninety or two hundred pounds. Carry-on leather satchel and a computer bag.”
Kyle drummed her fingers on the desk. She ran a few dates in her head. Everything but the beard made sense.