Betrayal

by Will Jordan

  There was a dull thump as the hatchet once again struck its target, and Drake’s adversary let out a snarl of pain as the weapon fell from his grip. A kick to the back of his knees dropped him to the ground, and before he could recover, Drake had jammed the barrel of the PPK against the side of his head.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he warned.

  His new friend got the message. A pistol held against one’s head was a wonderfully persuasive argument.

  Backing off a pace, Drake planted a firm kick between his shoulder blades that sent him sprawling face first on the rough stone floor. He knew better than to resist as Drake pulled his arms behind his back and used the cuffs that he’d only recently escaped from to secure his wrists. Unlike himself, this man didn’t have Anya around to provide a key.

  With his prisoner secure, Drake crossed the hallway and retrieved the fallen weapon. Unlike the PPK, this one was a six-shooter; a Smith & Wesson .38 calibre. The sort of gun wielded by Chicago cops in the Prohibition era.

  Revolvers like this were popular for home defence because they could be left loaded for long periods of time, unlike automatics whose magazine springs gradually lost their tension. A .38 revolver certainly wasn’t the kind of weapon Drake wanted to go into combat with, but it was still a gun, and better in his hands than his new friend’s.

  Shoving the weapon down the front of his jeans, he returned to the prisoner, gripped him by the shoulders and rolled him over on to his back. As Drake had thought, he was a big man, his neck thick and bullish, his chest and shoulders bulked up by heavy weight training. His face was broad and square, his hair shaved right down to the scalp, his nose flattened as if he’d once been a boxer who favoured blocking punches with his head.

  ‘Speak English?’ he demanded.

  The man in the leather jacket said nothing, apparently weighing up what to do. Still, the fact that he hadn’t spoken at all gave Drake the impression that he understood.

  Drake pressed the PPK against his forehead. ‘Let me try that again. If you don’t speak English, you’re no good to me. And you end up like your mate on the floor there. Now, do you speak English?’

  He saw the broad face twist in disgust. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s the female FSB agent?’

  The big man nodded over Drake’s shoulder. ‘That way.’

  Hope surged up inside Drake, but he knew he couldn’t allow it to override caution. His new best friend might be trying to lead him into a trap.

  ‘Here’s the deal. Take me to her, and you get to stay alive. Sound good?’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thought so,’ Drake remarked, hauling him upright.

  Miranova backed away from the door at the unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching. She had managed to loop her cuffed hands beneath her feet to get them in front of her, but otherwise she had little means of defending herself.

  The steps had halted outside her door. She backed up against the wall, listening to the gritty rasp as the bolt was withdrawn from the other side, followed by the squeal of stiff hinges.

  The door swung open, and she watched a squat, bulky figure stagger into the room, only to be struck from behind to fall forwards, landing face down on the concrete floor. It was then that she noticed his unnatural posture; the way his arms were pinned behind his back. Glancing down, she saw the metallic gleam of cuffs around his wrists.

  ‘Anika!’ a voice hissed.

  Looking up, she let out a strangled gasp as she found herself face to face with Drake. One look at him was enough to confirm that, even though he was still very much alive, he’d been in the wars since their last encounter. His face was cut and bruised, his clothes filthy and torn, and it looked as though someone had bitten a chunk out of his neck. Blood gleamed in the wan light from the corridor.

  ‘Ryan, what happened to you?’ she breathed. ‘How did you get out?’

  ‘A little help from a friend.’ Reaching into his pocket, he produced a key and set to work on her cuffs. ‘The woman in the surveillance footage from Grozny. She gave me this.’

  ‘She helped you escape?’

  Drake nodded, though he avoided her gaze as he removed the cuffs and tossed them aside. Once more she thought about his words to Kamarov during the attempted ambush on Poklonnaya Hill. Both men were somehow connected to this target.

  ‘You know her,’ she said, phrasing it as the statement it was. ‘How?’

  ‘All I know is she helped me when she didn’t have to. That counts for something in my book. The rest we can get into when this is over.’ Pulling a revolver from his jeans, he thrust it into her hand. ‘Here, a little Christmas present. I’d prefer if you didn’t use it on me.’

  She looked at him dubiously. ‘Not much firepower.’

  ‘It’s what you do with it that counts. Come on, we have to move.’

  He glanced into the cell she’d been occupying. The big man who had led him here was lying face down on the floor, though his chest was still rising and falling. He’d have quite a headache when he woke up, but he’d live.

  Stepping aside, he swung the door back into place and pulled the bolt over to lock it shut. Their friend wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘What is our situation?’ Miranova asked, glancing down the corridor with the snub-nosed revolver at the ready.

  ‘Shit, but possibly improving,’ he admitted. ‘The man behind this thing is called Atayev. He reckons Masalsky and the others were part of a plot to bring Viktor Surovsky into power, and he’s out to punish them for it.’ Reaching into his pocket, Drake held up the cellphone he’d taken from Yuri. ‘My people are on their way. All we have to do is keep Atayev busy until they get here.’

  ‘And do you have any idea how to do that?’

  ‘Fuck, no. I’m making this up as I go along,’ he admitted. ‘Just stay close to me and keep your eyes open.’

  ‘That is sound advice at any time.’

  He grinned and nodded to the far end of the corridor. ‘Let’s go.’

  They were going up. If Atayev was still here, they had to keep him busy long enough for McKnight to get here. And somehow, Drake had to find a way to stop Anya getting killed in the crossfire.

  Chapter 62

  ‘This is it!’ Pushkin yelled, gesturing to a big eighteen-wheel heavy-haulage truck rumbling along the main highway just ahead of them, watery slush churned up by its passage spraying across the roadside.

  ‘Force it over,’ Kamarov ordered.

  Accelerating hard, their driver brought them around in front of the massive vehicle and switched on his lights and sirens. A second car took up position on its left, while a third hovered close behind, boxing it in. The trailing car had orders to open fire on the truck’s wheels if the driver attempted to ram them off the road.

  However, no such thing happened. Straight away the truck driver hit his brakes and began to slow, veering right on to the loose gravel that lined the highway before coming to a complete halt.

  The moment they stopped, Pushkin and a second tactical agent in the car were out and moving, their sub-machine guns trained on the truck’s cab and the terrified-looking driver inside. He had already killed the vehicle’s massive engine, and raised his hands to show he was unarmed.

  Drawing his side arm, Kamarov hurried towards the rear of the vehicle, flanked by a pair of armed agents. Two more were converging on the big doors at the back, one of them already clambering up to secure a breaching charge to the door lock.

  Giving Kamarov a nod, he leapt down and retreated a few paces, while two of his companions lingered by the doors, ready to act when the time came. Kamarov held back, bracing himself for the blast.

  It came two seconds later. Sounding more like a rifle crack than an explosive boom, the small breaching charge nonetheless did its job with ruthless efficiency, blasting apart the locking mechanism as if it were cardboard.

  Wasting no time, the two agents by the rear sprang into action, with one hauling open the smouldering remains of t
he door while the second hurled a flashbang grenade inside.

  A second sharp crack echoed from within as the grenade detonated.

  ‘Move in!’ Kamarov ordered.

  Once again the doors were hauled open, with a trio of sub-machine guns and flashlights now trained on the interior. It took Kamarov all of three seconds to realise they weren’t going to find what they were looking for here.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ he said under his breath as he surveyed the empty cargo container.

  Turning aside, he strode back towards the vehicle’s cab. The driver, a squat, balding man in his sixties, had been hauled out and now sat on his knees by the side of the road, shivering in the cold breeze. His gaze flicked from the pair of sub-machine guns covering him, to the agent now approaching.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Kamarov demanded.

  ‘Oleg Ryumin.’

  ‘And where are you taking this truck?’

  ‘To Noginsk. I’ve just dropped off my load in Moscow.’ His eyes, wide and pleading, stared into Kamarov’s. ‘What have I done wrong? I have all my documents and licences. I’ve broken no laws.’

  This man was going to give him nothing. Whatever else he might have been, he was no terrorist.

  He looked at Pushkin. ‘You’re certain this is the truck?’

  The younger man nodded, still covering the driver with his weapon. ‘Our tracking system is locked in. Drake is here.’

  At a loss, Kamarov looked around him in search of answers. It wasn’t until he saw the ladder fixed into the steel side of the cargo container that he began to get an inkling of what might have happened.

  Holstering his weapon, he strode over to it and clambered up. The cold of the frozen steel seemed to cut right through his gloves, but nonetheless he made it up on to the roof without incident.

  The top of the container was much like the sides – corrugated-steel panels built on top of internal ribs for structural strength. With no cargo to weigh it down, the whole assembly flexed a little every time another large vehicle thundered past on the main highway.

  Squinting against the cold wind and the spray kicked up by passing vehicles, Kamarov glanced about him, searching for anything out of the ordinary.

  It didn’t take him long to find it.

  Lying about halfway back from the cab was a lump of clay-like substance about the size of his fist. It was stuck to the metal surface of the container, having no doubt been thrown down from a bridge or overpass.

  Hurrying over, he knelt down beside it, drew a small knife from his pocket and used it to slice the lump of material open.

  And there, hidden within, was a little metal cylinder no larger than a grain of rice.

  A few moments later, Kamarov leapt down from the truck and immediately headed towards the Merc a short distance away.

  ‘Pack it up. We’re leaving!’ he announced, visibly brimming with anger.

  Pushkin looked at him. ‘What about Drake?’

  The older man rounded on him. ‘Drake’s gone. They knew about the tracker and removed it. Now move!’

  They were getting close, Drake knew as they ascended the cracked, worn set of stairs leading up from the building’s basement. He could hear the distinctive rumble of the generator getting louder with each step. Miranova was following a few yards behind.

  His head pounded, and he could feel blood leaking steadily from the wound at his shoulder, but he did his best to push through the pain to carry on. None of it mattered now. He had to keep going.

  At last Drake reached the top of the stairs, eyes and weapon sweeping the shadowy recesses of the room beyond.

  The place was a shambles. Broken office furniture had been smashed against one wall, while electrical cables had been torn down from the ceiling to hang like vines across the gloomy hallway. A big industrial heating unit, now rusted and decayed, was lying in the middle of the floor as if someone had simply dropped it in the middle of carrying it away.

  However, the sound of the generator was noticeably louder now, and he could see the glow of lights coming from beyond the doorway on the other side of the room. Making his way through the debris with Miranova close behind, he crossed the derelict office, backed up beside the doorway and leaned out far enough to survey the space beyond.

  Straight away he knew they had found what they were looking for.

  The office faced out on to a wide-open area easily 50 feet high and twice as wide. It looked as though it had once served as the building’s main storage and delivery area. Steel girders supported the vaulted ceiling high above, beams of dusty light shining down from rooftop windows to illuminate the scene below.

  A big set of steel double doors on one side provided vehicle access, while a second set off to the right apparently allowed boats to load and offload their cargo inside the warehouse itself. A long canal had been excavated down one side of the room leading from those doors, its dark oily water shimmering in the glow of work lights. Clearly this building was right on the shores of the river, designed to admit barges for loading and unloading cargo.

  However, whatever goods or materials had once been stored here had long since vanished, replaced by a couple of panel vans parked near the main doors. Both were painted brown and dressed up in UPS livery. Around the vans were six or seven men, many of them armed. Drake saw AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and body armour laid out on a table near the vans – tools of the trade for the assault team who had kidnapped himself and Miranova.

  And in the centre of it all was Atayev, standing over a younger man who seemed to be engrossed in the laptop he was working over. A laptop which was connected up to a satellite transmitter – Drake could see the distinctive umbrella-shaped dish pointing skywards.

  ‘That’s Atayev,’ he whispered, nodding to the leader of the operation.

  Miranova slithered along the wall next to him and leaned out, her keen mind quickly assessing the situation. It didn’t take her long to recognise the problems they faced.

  ‘We will not win in a firefight,’ she remarked dubiously.

  Drake had to admit she was right. With only two side arms to call upon, they were hardly in a position to storm in, guns blazing. They needed backup, and fast.

  He was just reaching for the cellphone in his pocket when another figure strode into view, heading straight for Atayev.

  It was Anya.

  Chapter 63

  The warehouse was a hive of activity as Anya made her way across the wide-open space, with armed men moving back and forth, packing away gear and loading it into the pair of trucks they would use to escape Moscow. They had both been painted brown and adorned with the UPS delivery-service logo, providing an ideal cover for Atayev’s men.

  Only one computer was still up and running: the master terminal on which a skinny, scruffy-looking young man with spiked hair and a face full of metal piercings was working. It was he who had designed the program she’d uploaded into the FSB’s computer network less than an hour ago, providing a back door through their formidable security system that he could exploit.

  She had no idea where Atayev had recruited him from, but one look at him was enough to confirm that he didn’t belong in her world. He was a cyber terrorist for hire, more used to wielding a keyboard than a gun. There were many like him these days, particularly in Russia where competition amongst rival companies was fierce and ruthless. Knowing a competitor’s secrets could mean the difference between monopoly and bankruptcy.

  ‘The program is working perfectly,’ Atayev announced, having been standing over the hacker’s shoulder. ‘Tell her, Dmitry.’

  The young man glanced up from the laptop, his eyes glassy as if he’d been focusing on the screen too long.

  ‘I’m through the firewall and into their core system,’ he said, speaking in a fast, jittery manner. By the looks of him, he’d overindulged in caffeine today, or most likely something far stronger. ‘Five, six minutes from now I’ll release a virus that’ll trigger a network lockdown. Instead of protecting them,
it’ll seize control of their system and shut them out, turn their own security protocols against them.’

  ‘As soon as their security is down, we’ll broadcast the access protocol to every hacker and media website on the Internet,’ Atayev said. ‘Soon the whole world will know the FSB’s secrets.’

  Atayev’s final blow against Surovsky and the FSB wouldn’t be accomplished by force of arms, but by a far more insidious method. Rather than try to destroy them physically, he needed only to reveal the one thing they feared most of all – the truth.

  But this prospect didn’t please Anya as much as it did him. She could only imagine how many informants and operatives would die as a result of such a catastrophic breach in security. The repercussions of this cyber attack would make the raid in Grozny look like a minor skirmish by comparison. The entire organisation would be crippled for years to come.

  ‘Then I’m finished here,’ she decided. ‘I came only to say goodbye.’

  ‘Of course.’ He offered a faint smile. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me where you’re going?’

  ‘Better that you don’t know,’ she said honestly.

  The older man nodded and held out his hand. ‘Goodbye, Anya. And … good luck.’

  Staring into his eyes, she caught herself wondering what was really going on behind them. Buran Atayev, the only one of them whose mind encompassed the entire plan, with all its interdependent elements, all its subtleties and misdirections. The only man whose intentions she could never quite read.

  Releasing her grip, she turned her back on him and walked away, knowing this would be the last time they spoke. She had what she needed now, and so did he. Whether it was worth all the sacrifices, all the risks and dangers and betrayals, only time would tell.

  As she walked away, Anya found her thoughts straying from Atayev and his lust for vengeance. Instead she thought of Drake, the man who had been her saviour, her protector, her redemption.