by S. L. Jones
“Damn gadgets!” Heckler said gruffly over the comms. “Looks like our FBI friends are in the neighborhood as well. Damned proximity alert fired off and I didn’t even notice, over.”
Turner cracked a brief smile at his uncle’s technology woes, and decided their best option would be to use the Bratva leader, Pavel Kozlov, to help them advance to the server room. He could see that Victoria Eden was on edge, and paid special attention to make sure she remained safe. The operative was surprised by how tough the woman was. Her ability to cope with, and even contribute to the situation by taking down Kozlov, had been a pleasant surprise.
“We have Pavel Kozlov!” Turner yelled in Russian.
The gunfire died down to an eerie silence. Whispers echoed from the hallway where the soldiers were stationed. The hushed sounds of the enemy ratcheted up the tension.
After the hushed words faded, one of the Russians responded. “Surrender, and we will let you live!”
Turner looked at Throaty and shook his head, before shouting in Russian again. “Hold your fire. I repeat, hold your fire. I will let you see him.” The Russian tried to resist as the operative pushed his head above the rusty hunk of steel they’d taken refuge behind. Kozlov tried to shout, but Turner delivered a silencing blow before he finished his first word.
“Caretaker, we’re going to light it up here, over,” Turner said into his mic.
“Copy that, Finger,” Manion responded. “About to make contact with the approaching Tangos, over.”
“Roger that. On five,” Turner said. He motioned to the hallway on the right and looked deep into Victoria Eden’s eyes. “Run like you’ve never run before and stay close,” he said in a hushed tone.
She looked down at the loose-fitting shoes she’d taken from Kozlov and took a deep breath to calm her nerves.
Seconds later Turner tossed the Russian out into the open. Kozlov began to run toward his men as the operative sighted his kneecap and squeezed the trigger. The Russian screamed out in pain, his momentum taking him forward. He flopped face-first onto the concrete floor. Throaty quickly heaved a flashbang toward the enemy’s location, before advancing rapidly with the violinist in tow. The operatives would have preferred to have grenades, but the choice of gear was based on hostage extraction rather than enemy elimination. They were able to pick off two of the blinded soldiers like targets at a carnival shooting range.
Bursts of automatic gunfire rang out from Manion’s location as the three of them reached the safety of the hallway. Turner surveyed their position, and the path to their destination provided few options for cover. If their fellow operative was overrun, their chances for survival would all but disappear.
Trent exchanged an uncomfortable look with Throaty and activated his comms.
“On my way, Caretaker. Standby, over.”
He backed up into the hallway far enough for him to reach full speed by the time he emerged from cover, and sprinted off toward Brendan’s location.
Chapter 140
SHOTS FROM THE Russians peppered his path as Trent Turner made his way to the other end of the massive room. Most of the enemy’s surviving force had been busy trying to bring their leader to safety.
“Caretaker, I’m on point, over?” Turner said softly into his mic. There was no response. “Repeat, Caretaker, I’m on point. Go ahead, over.”
Turner didn’t like this one bit. Radio silence could mean a lot of things, and most of them were bad. His first thoughts were that Brendan Manion’s radio had stopped working or he was hiding somewhere with the Tangos nearby. He could be down or have been caught, but that wasn’t what he sensed. He sensed something major was about to go down.
Everything happened in a split second. Turner slowly peered around a machine and found himself looking down the barrel of an MP5. Before he could blink, Manion had swooped in from behind and neutralized the Tango, his Sig Sauer TacOps 1911 pistol pressed firmly into the man’s chin. Turner’s attention immediately went to a second man, who had taken dead aim at Manion.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Manion said calmly, before shots were exchanged.
Turner noted a flicker in the eyes of the man he had lined up in his sights. His aggression had turned to confusion.
“Hold on a second there, buddy,” Manion continued as he nodded toward Turner.
The man turned his head to see the operative and slowly, deliberately lowered his weapon. His eyes darted back and forth between the two men while he tried to assess the situation.
“Fuck, man. Brendan?” one of the men said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Chill out, Jake,” Manion said calmly. The two men had known each other for practically a lifetime. “I’m going to let your boy go, okay?”
“Yeah,” Sanders responded. “Rudy, it’s cool. Don’t shoot.”
Shots flew in from behind as the four men scrambled for cover.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Manion whispered to Sanders.
He nodded toward Turner. “We’re after him,” he said flatly.
“What?”
“He’s with the fuckin’ Russians,” Sanders said. “He had something to do with the death of Senator Soller’s kid.”
Manion shook his head slowly and said, “No, Jake, you’ve got it all wrong. We’ll sort this out later.” He took a quick look behind as a few shots ricocheted around the equipment. “No time to explain now. We’re as good as dead if we don’t pull together.”
“Right,” Sanders agreed with a wry smile. “After you.”
Chapter 141
“IT’S DONE, LET’S go!” he yelled to the soldiers in Russian.
Four of the Bratva’s heavies had been guarding the server room and its contingent of hackers. The men gave Dimitri Sokov a questioning look.
“Do it,” Sokov said with the coldness and ease of a Caesar ordering the death of a failed gladiator.
The men turned to the defenseless hackers huddled to one side of the room and unloaded their weapons. The salvo gave way to Sokov’s ringing ears as the mass of bloodied bodies collapsed to the floor.
The five of them headed for the exit, leaving the carnage behind.
“We’re coming,” one of the men barked into his radio.
They carefully worked their way down the hall. It wasn’t long before they reached Pavel Kozlov and the three soldiers who were protecting him.
“Pavel, it is done,” Sokov confirmed, his cell phone clutched in his hand. “We need to take the tunnel out and blow the room.” His expression turned to panic when he noticed the Bratva boss had been shot. “Are you okay?”
Kozlov’s eyes reflected extreme pain. He was a tough bastard and managed keep his composure.
“Good, I’m fine,” he said. “I was lucky. He missed my knee.”
“You four stay behind and kill The American,” Kozlov ordered. He turned to Sokov and said, “Let’s go.”
Two of the men pulled him up and stood him on his good leg before they headed down the hallway past the server room. They shuffled through the series of doors that led to Kozlov’s office, quickly locking them behind.
“Open it,” Kozlov said harshly as he gestured to one of the bookshelves. He hobbled over to his desk and pulled a first-aid kit out of one of the drawers.
Sokov watched the two soldiers pull a section of the bookshelves out on its hinge to uncover a thick metal door. They unlatched the door and swung it open revealing a dark passageway. The smell of dirt filled the air.
Kozlov finished tightening a tourniquet around his leg and grabbed an LED torch from his desk.
“Move, now.”
Chapter 142
THE FOUR MEN began to make their way through the massive room toward the others. They were taking fire from two directions, but the aggressors behind were clearly a much stronger force. Their forward progress had come to a stop. In order to cross the gap to Throaty and Victoria Eden, they needed to deal with the four motivated Russians in the hallway adjacent to their destination.
> Trust was an issue amongst them, but each man understood friends of convenience could prove to be just as helpful as those of choice. It was a sticky situation, but there was enough experience between them to honor their truce.
“Throaty, we’re four strong now, over,” Brendan Manion confirmed.
“Roger that, over,” Throaty responded, a question mark formed by his tone.
The soldiers behind were getting closer by the second. Jake Sanders looked in the direction of the incoming onslaught and back to Manion.
“Where’s your boy, Brendan?” he asked, pointing out that they were now a trio.
Manion shot him an annoyed look.
Rudy Pagano jumped in and said, “He took off that way.” He motioned to the other side of the room. “I hope he’s got something in mind. Otherwise, we’re screwed.”
“Shit,” Sanders said, shaking his head, “we need to get the fuck out of here pronto. I’m low on ammo.”
Manion surveyed the room and quickly looked toward the pool of red where the pair of dead Russians lay, and just beyond them, saw signs of the other four ready to pounce.
“Throaty, we’ve got Tangos breathing down our back, and if we don’t do something to move forward, soon they’ll be up our ass. Any way you can part the Red Sea, over?”
“Negative, Caretaker,” Throaty answered. “I can’t get a shot on them, and there’s no more ka-pow to toss out there, over.”
A violent screeching erupted from behind. Manion looked back and saw a massive piece of equipment being pushed toward them. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand there were several combatants tucked in safely behind. Each effort caused it to screech in protest as the steel object moved several inches closer. The makeshift shield was effective, and before long they would be sandwiched in. The situation for the three operatives had reached the critical point. The looming confrontation was about to turn bloody.
“Finger, we’re in the shit,” Manion said. “Whatever you’ve got cookin’ out there, we need you to serve it up, or you’ll be eating supper alone, over.”
Chapter 143
TRENT TURNER HAD just made it to his precarious perch high above the action. Time was short, so he worked quickly.
“Copy that, Caretaker.” He could see the enemy closing in on the three operatives, “I’m at your eight high and have eyes on you. Head to Throaty on three, over.”
Brendan Manion gave the signal to the others and started counting down with his fingers at three, two, one… Four shots spat out from Turner’s position when the three men began their sprint. Two men dropped to the floor, while Throaty provided cover fire so they wouldn’t get hit from behind.
Turner worked his way down the massive piece of machinery he had climbed. His position had been compromised. Sparks marked the heavy fire that followed his shadowed form. When he reached the bottom, he quickly dropped down to the prone position. He crawled toward the men he’d just eliminated, careful to stay out of the line of fire.
“I’ll need some cover fire, folks,” he said, “I’ll be making tracks toward the stiffs. Light it up whenever you’re ready, over.”
“Copy that, Finger. The two hallways meet up near the server room. We’ll meet you there. Go on three, over.”
Like clockwork, Turner launched his move toward the hallway. He armed himself with a stray AK-74 and scored a spare magazine before he headed off to meet the others. It didn’t take long to reach the intersection.
Throaty motioned him to stop and examined a door before kicking it open. Curiously, the door wasn’t completely shut. Had it been, it would have been sturdy enough to have given them a problem. Manion and Turner headed inside the room, while Throaty guided the others back to the position he had come from to hold off the men advancing on them.
The metallic smell of blood led Turner’s eyes to the gruesome mass of corpses. They were riddled with gunshot wounds, and the overuse of force resembled the final scene of the movie Bonnie and Clyde.
“Jesus,” Turner said in a grim tone. “They didn’t want anybody talking, that’s for sure.”
“The server room is through that door in the back,” Manion said, apparently receiving word from Zander through the comms.
They were headed toward the server room when a flicker of movement stopped Manion in his tracks. One of the men had crawled his way over to a desk and struggled to scribble something on a piece of paper. Turner continued toward the server room, while Manion headed to check out the lone survivor.
“Ghhe…t.”
The man struggled to speak as he coughed up blood. Hatred and betrayal were in his eyes. This was a man who had given everything for his motherland and had been left for dead. Pavel Kozlov’s promises had been empty.
“That’s Mikhail,” Zander said nervously as he saw the image from Manion’s helmet cam. “He’s the Russian guy who worked with us. He was one of them.”
Mikhail’s eyes showed grave concern, and his voice was more desperate. “Ghhe…t!” He coughed as he made one final effort and offered Manion the piece of paper clutched in his hand. “Ghhe…t!”
Manion pried the piece of paper from his hand and turned the cryptic message toward him. His eyes focused on the writing, he understood, and his heart began to pound. It was a four-letter word. One that could kill.
“Shit, Trent. Get the hell out of here. There’s a bomb!”
Chapter 144
Roadside, Herndon, VA
HE PULLED OUT another cigarette and held it between his thick, nicotine-stained fingers. The hacker squirmed in the passenger seat, noting it was the man’s second since they had left the compound in Leesburg, Virginia. Through the corner of his eye he watched the Bratva soldier flick his lighter open, fire it up and take a slow drag as he lit the tobacco. The thick cloud of smoke he exhaled was annoying, but he knew better than to complain.
“Is this far enough?” he questioned in Russian. It was the third time he had asked the question.
The passenger turned to the driver and nodded quickly, just wanting to get this over with. “Da, I think so.”
The driver clenched the cigarette between his teeth and pulled the car off to the side of the road. He wiped the ashes that had fallen onto his utility jacket toward his passenger and flashed him an intimidating glance, prompting him to get on with things.
The hacker looked nervously out the windows of the car as he plugged the USB stick into his computer and initiated a connection to the Internet. He pulled out a slip of paper and used the information written on it to log in to the compromised system somewhere out in the ether. He punched in the commands to transfer the files Dimitri Sokov had copied to the server onto his computer. The hacker fidgeted in his seat as the files trickled in slowly over the connection, his eyes darting from the screen to the car windows and then to the soldier next to him.
Normally, the hacker wouldn’t have been permitted to connect to the Internet, but Sokov had been forced to improvise by transferring the files over the wire, since driving them via courier this time hadn’t been an option. Another thick waft of cigarette smoke interrupted his concentration, and this time it caused his eyes to water. He blinked several times in frustration from the smoke building up in the car, and could sense his discomfort was a form of amusement for his companion. All he wanted was for the files to finish copying so he could get the hell out of there.
Chapter 145
Kozlov Bratva compound, Chicago, Illinois
THE FIVE BRATVA men emerged from the small shed and piled into a Ford pickup truck parked outside. The vehicle wasn’t in line with Pavel Kozlov’s usual tastes, but that was the point. A battered old truck wouldn’t draw attention and would be a discreet getaway option if he ever needed one. The truck was kept in good working order, so the engine fired up immediately. He was in excruciating pain but still managed to remain stoic.
“Pavel, we need to blow the server room,” Sokov said nervously in Russian.
Kozlov turned to him and winced with
a nod. He pulled his phone out and began to thumb through the display. “You are certain we have everything we need at the other location?” The Russian wanted absolute confirmation before they blew away nearly two years of work.
Sokov’s voice was confident. “Yes, the necessary files have been copied to another location. Everything will be ready, and there will be no time for the Americans to react.”
“You’re sure of this?” Kozlov questioned further. The pain from his wound reflected in his voice. “The hackers that got away, they cannot stop this?”
“No, the hackers do not know enough to stop us. The operation will go as planned. They are collecting the necessary files as we speak.”
Kozlov closed his eyes and exhaled. “As we speak?”
Sokov shrunk in the seat. “Yes, I am awaiting confirmation.”
Kozlov remained silent, with a scornful look on his face. Earlier, Sokov had overstated what had been done, and it was frustrating for the Bratva leader that to him, any work in progress was considered to be as good as done. Minor details were what led to failure.
“But we will wait to hear from Virginia first,” Sokov said, interrupting Kozlov’s thoughts. “Before we blow the place.”
Sokov pulled up the video-camera feed for the server room on his phone. Kozlov felt the hacker prodding his arm with his elbow before turning the display so the Bratva leader could see it.
Kozlov shifted his eyes to the screen, first with lack of interest and annoyance, but it quickly turned to hatred as The American and another operative came into view.