by Tim Heath
A minute later, the unit had bundled Rad into their vehicle, and they were speeding away, thankfully before any of the militants had closed in on their location. It wasn’t clear what chains of communication remained––the war was sure to reach its bitter conclusion before too long, as all sides had nearly torn everything from the other. A call came into the handset of the man still holding the satellite phone. He finished speaking moments later, already working the computer with his nimble fingers while he said:
“We have a location on the Americans. They are within range of the Assad building on the other side of the city. Chances are they’ll make an attempt today. Local intel reports they are carrying heavy firepower.”
That much Rad had expected. The Americans wouldn’t risk going in on foot themselves––the images of captured US soldiers paraded before cameras for all the world to see would not be welcome, especially when compared to the Daesh forces. The US wanted to get rid of Assad as much as they wanted to get rid of Daesh. Assad had long been a target of the West, kept safe by Russia, who saw Syria as the front line in the modern Cold War. Putin had given his word he would stand by the elected government in the nation, and would provide Assad with the protection his army needed against American aggression in the region.
As darkness fell, Rad was happy that they were now in place. He had a good line of sight on to the roof of the building the Americans were confirmed to be hiding out in, very much a black-ops operation of their own.
“I need you to take the team and storm the front door,” Rad had ordered. They were with Rad primarily to keep him safe, but he was also a senior officer in the army due to his many promotions and medals. “I’m not asking you to engage them, I need you to drive them up onto the roof.”
The unit leader seemed a little calmer at this––if word got out that Russian military personnel were actually directly confronting American soldiers in Syria, it would be disastrous. They dressed to fit into what was expected in the area, and the unit secured the building before leaving Rad alone by himself. If Daesh were to locate that building while they were away, they would undoubtedly lose the great Russian sniper.
Five minutes later the unit was in position, Rad watching them through his scope which he’d adjusted to accommodate the night vision equipment, given the fact the sun had now gone down. Right across the damaged scene before him, fires burned and a few lights shone, though it was only from buildings that were already abandoned. No one would want to draw attention to themselves in that part of Syria.
The Russians smashed open the door, throwing three grenades into the entrance hall before retreating from where they had come. Rad could hear the explosions from where he was, his scope filling with light for a moment before he refocused onto the roof. As suspected, just moments later, four figures could be seen coming out onto the flat roof area from the only door that had been visible. They approached the wall that ran around the edge of the space as if looking for a vantage point to return fire on whoever had just approached. It didn’t matter. Standing close together, and with the range less than one kilometre, Rad fired off a burst of shots that cut the men down in no time. The Russian unit on the ground then stormed the building, confirming what they had hoped to find––the building empty of all but the Americans’ weaponry. This they would take––Assad always appreciated the spoils of war––and these would go some way with a man the Russians still backed as the right person to end the conflict.
It was just two weeks after this––the unit having taken Rad two hundred miles from there the same night he’d made the kills––that Rad received the call from his newly elected President, summoning him back to Moscow. They arranged a flight for Rad from nearby Jordon, Filipov’s own jet having been sent to collect the legendary Russian sniper.
2
Belfast, Northern Ireland
1991
The city was on high alert though that was nothing uncommon. The IRA were particularly aggressive that year, and this always brought a response from the other side, not to mention the British who were stationed in Belfast patrolling the streets nightly. Even for them, there were parts of the city they wouldn’t venture into, especially after dark. West Belfast had its fair share of such areas, pubs and other establishments especially vulnerable. The IRA owned several right across the city. One of the most famous was on Royal Avenue, in the heart of the city centre.
A television sat in the corner, the news reporting a bombing in London from the day before––a cheer always went up when the news item got repeated, no matter how many times they’d heard the report. It was only men who sat around the place in groups of no more than four, but all knew each other. Most knew who to avoid.
The talk that night was in whispers. He was in town. Every time the door opened, the bell announcing yet another patron, one or two heads from every group would turn towards the door, ever so slightly. The noise level in the room dropped a little as if they were all collectively holding their breath until it would return to normal, the latest visitor just a nobody. That nobody would then join a group or others would break off and go to join him, and the whispers would start all over again. If He really were in town, then He would come calling before the night was out.
A car bomb from earlier that day in the west of the city had his fingerprints all over it. Three off-duty soldiers fried to death in what was becoming the Devil’s signature move. Born Shaun O’Doherty, his real identity known to only a few still living, and they referred to him across the waters in the UK as the Irish Devil, which got shortened for obvious reasons on the other side of the sea to simply the Devil.
A fiery death always awaited those targeted by the Devil.
The door swung open, another collective intake of breath, heads turning for yet another false alarm, and a few gulps of Irish courage always followed this for good measure. The Guinness would help them settle their nerves. They had nothing to fear, they would tell themselves. They were on the same side. While not officially an IRA stronghold, everyone––bar the British––that was anyone locally knew that pub to be such a place. It was what gave Royal Avenue such a dark reputation.
In through the door walked a man. The whispers got louder. It wasn’t the Devil himself, but a rare someone who worked with the man. It was an ominous sign for things to come. The latest visitor walked over to the bar, the men standing in his path moving to another spot, silently and without looking at him clearing a way for him. Everyone knew their place.
“Is he in?” the man said, reaching the bar and addressing the publican.
“I’ve not seen him, Gerry.”
“He’ll be in, I’ll wait.” The barman placed a pint before him––no money would change hands, and nothing demanded. If someone like this was in the place, you did what they wanted and didn’t ask a thing. It all worked better that way.
The hint that the Devil was due in fast circulated the crowded pub. It would cause a few men to finish up their drinks and within minutes head home, though for many seeing the man himself was a draw. For once, a man whose reputation was but a shadow of his real self, a man so deadly he’d had his own sister gunned down for daring to date a British soldier. The soldier himself was never found. It was the Devil’s first kill. Since then he’d discovered his passion for bomb-making, and this had become an art form, each terrorist act another performance to be topped and bettered. By the age of twenty-five, he was already the most wanted man in the IRA ranks.
Yet the British had no clue about his real identity. That would have to be the IRAs best-kept secret and would remain so for longer than they realised.
At eleven pm, the pub officially meant to be closing, O’Doherty walked in. For those men who had stayed, their wait had proved worthwhile. They knew everyone at that point, the minder who’d come in earlier clear in his mind that nobody was there who wasn’t personally known to the IRA. Such a visitor would not have lasted long.
O’Doherty moved towards the bar, his slow progress not because of
any crowds in front of him. These parted as if the man himself was Moses, the pub floor the Red Sea. He sauntered on purpose, something he did when around others. The less that people knew about him, the better.
The Devil, with his face hidden behind his hooded top, thick black hair the only thing visible, walked up to the bar, a drink already waiting for him. He stood next to the minder who’d been in the pub for over an hour by that point, well into his third pint––all just placed there by the barman who had not said another word aside from their opening conversation about the whereabouts of O’Doherty.
The Devil drank half of the pint in one smooth motion. It’d been a long day. He’d been in London that morning.
“You have what I asked for?” he said to his minder, finally setting the pint glass back onto the bar. The man had been waiting for his boss to speak first.
“All here,” the minder said, passing an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and sliding it across to O’Doherty. All eyes within the bar suddenly had somewhere else to look––anywhere other than the bar top. These men knew their place. Seeing the Devil from afar was one thing, but taking too much of an interest, especially something of this nature, never ended well. The only thing shorter than his fuse was his height, at least compared to most in the place. The Devil was a little over five feet nine. There was much danger in the man, however, to more than compensate for what might be a perceived lack of height. “When do I travel?” the Devil asked.
“Tickets valid for three months. You must fly from Dublin to Shannon, and change to get the Moscow-bound flight.”
The tickets were for two Aer Lingus flights, one bound for Boston, the other for Sheremetyevo, in the Soviet capital.
“I won’t leave it too late. From what I hear, things won’t remain stable for much longer.”
O’Doherty looked at the tickets once more, the name meaning nothing to him––an alias he had yet to use––but the passport and travel documents were all in order. Thankfully, getting an Irishman into the Soviet Union was a little easier than for the British. It would be his second time there. O’Doherty pocketed the package and returned to his drink. The venue had thinned out somewhat, especially since he’d been there, the front door long since locked, though a few late arrivers had knocked on the back door and been admitted. The place never really shut. The publican poured drinks until he had no one left to serve; it was how it always worked.
The two men stood at the bar, the only ones allowed in that position now, the rest keeping their distance and being sure to not be spotted looking their way. You didn’t look the Devil in the face and live to tell the tale.
By midnight, they saw the two finishing up their pints, and turn with nothing more spoken, heading towards the door. The barman let out a breath.
On the street, they kept their heads down, walking along Royal Avenue at a pace. They were both booked into a hostel that evening, a Republican establishment that was cheap and didn’t ask questions.
“Hey, you two, where are you going in such a hurry,” came a voice from behind them, his speech distinctly tainted by the manifest presence of alcohol. Both men stopped, turning on the spot to see the youth, no more than twenty years old, approaching them. He had a knife in his hand and a smug grin on his reddened face.
“Kid, you put that away now,” the minder said, hands coming up in front of him.
“Or what?” replied the youth, blind to the situation he had walked himself into, a trap he would be lucky to escape.
“Or what?” the Devil echoed, lowering his hood to get a better look at the kid in front of him.
“Or I’ll slice you both up real good. This is my street, this is. I rule it. And if I say stop, you stop. If I say give me your wallet, you give me your goddamn wallet, and if I say lower your bloody trousers, you…”
But he was cut off mid-sentence as the Devil thrust forward with such speed and force it knocked the youth to the ground, his arm thrust back, the knife falling to the cobbled street. The Devil had his hands to the throat of the kid and with a strength that belied his size, lifted the youth against the side of a building as if he weighed nothing.
“Do you have any idea who I am, you bloody piece of street trash?” O’Doherty said, spitting his words out into the face of the youth not two inches from him. The kid didn’t know what to say. He’d been armed just seconds before, his trusty knife always something he’d been able to use to good effect, and yet that lay on the floor, his wrist felt like it had been broken, and the man in front of him had transformed into a wild beast of a monster.
The youth didn’t give a response.
“He asked you a question, kid,” the minder said, all too calmly. The man was too calm for what should have been a frightening situation. The youth felt terrified. Both men were in absolute control of themselves and the situation. One was as aggressive and threatening as he’d ever come across, the other the exact opposite. These were men who knew how to handle themselves. And now he was weaponless. He knew he’d picked his last fight before anyone said anything else.
“Take him down there,” O’Doherty said, the minder grabbing the kid by the hair and dragging him towards the alley that the Devil had just pointed at.
“Please, sirs, I never meant to harm you. I was just messing, a prank like. I know who you are,” he cried as they got to the edge of the alleyway. The minder stopped.
“Really?” he said, total disbelief oozing from the word. “So tell me what you know.”
“Look, I know right. I ain’t stupid.”
“And yet you come at my friend with a knife.” Both glanced over to the Devil, who was nailing a piece of card to the brickwork at the opening of the alleyway. It merely had the letters ID written on it, the calling card of the Irish Devil, something O’Doherty had made to spread fear around his legend. The youth got a glimpse of the card, total panic now fixed on his face. It was clear he did not understand who he’d just tried to rob. He swore quietly, as O’Doherty drew a silenced weapon from his inside pocket, slipping in two bullets. This action was done slowly and deliberately as if he was just cleaning his glasses with a cloth.
“Holy Mary, you don’t have to do this!” the kid cried, screaming out in pain as a bullet ripped through both kneecaps––the standard mark of an IRA hit in a revenge attack. This wasn’t revenge as nothing had really happened. This was also far from an average hitman. The kid fell to the floor, and the minder stepped away from him. O’Doherty pulled out a bag of powder from his other pocket. It was a homemade mixture that was known only to himself, something highly flammable and able to burn an entire body in just two minutes, clothing and shoes included. It was usually only the charred remains––a few things always seemed to escape the scorching––and the calling card that would ever tell someone that something of this nature had just happened.
O’Doherty poured the powder right around the still whimpering kid before sprinkling it all over him. He then stood away, joining the minder at the entrance to the alleyway. The minder offered him a cigarette, the two men smoking slowly as if admiring a sunset on a summer’s evening. As his cigarette was half smoked, and the youth nearly quiet on the floor, O’Doherty flicked what remained onto the body, the flames taking just seconds to catch, before the whole scene was suddenly ablaze. Death would be almost instant––small mercy in that regard––as the fire burned at such heat. After less than three minutes, the flames were calming down; the fire burned itself out as quickly as it had started now that the powder was used up. There was little to show of what had been though a single charred remain of a shoe gave hint to the alley’s sinister secret. The card would tell the rest. Yet another killing on Royal Avenue. Yet another rumour that the Devil had been in town.
3
Moscow––Russia
Present Day
Rad was at his dacha deep in the forest that circled Moscow––a private hideaway, far away from those who might otherwise be watching. Svetlana had given him access to substantial funds,
and they had handed some of this to him in cash. He used the property to store the money and as a base to carefully plan his operations––those operations outside his role of sniper within the Russian military. These sideline roles were far from public knowledge.
Rad walked around outside his dacha once––a ritual he did meticulously every time he returned––looking for any sign that someone had gained access. If they had, they might wait for his return. He gave the area a wide berth on the first circuit. If someone had been nosing around, he could tell. As far as he could see, nobody had. He went closer, looking at the ground around the only window––which was boarded up on the inside––and the front door to the lockup itself. The front area was gravel, but even that, he had set precisely so he could tell if somebody had approached. Both access points gave him no concern. He glanced around quickly, making sure he was utterly alone, before opening the door. It paid to be vigilant in his line of work.
Once inside, he switched on the lights and secured the door behind him. It would take a small army to fight their way inside with him there. The lights flickered for a moment before casting their yellow glow onto the four walls around the space, a few shadows created by the various filing cabinets located there. A computer sat on the desk, with a large cupboard on the opposite wall housing his arsenal of weapons. There was no lock on the closet. He didn’t see the point.
Rad dropped two boxes of ammunition he had brought with him into the base of the cupboard––alongside several dozen boxes of similar munitions. He wanted to test the accuracy of one of his guns later, and with it being hunting season, his current location offered him the perfect chance. Rad was an expert hunter and tracker and would set up various traps for later. He hoped to be eating whatever he could catch that night over an outdoor fire.