by Will Jordan
Betraying his trust had been the hardest sacrifice of all.
Anya was walking away from Atayev, her posture and body language suggesting that whatever business she had with the man, it had apparently concluded.
A moment of hope rose within him. Perhaps she was putting all this behind her. Perhaps there was still a way out of this for them both.
And then it all changed.
Staring in shocked disbelief, Drake watched as Atayev drew a pistol from his belt, calmly levelled it at Anya’s back and fired a single shot.
The report of the gunshot echoed around the vast space like a thunderclap, so loud that even he started and recoiled from the doorway in horror. But still he could see the terrible scene playing out.
Anya jerked once as the round impacted, then stumbled and fell forwards, landing face down in a pool of oily water. She struggled feebly, trying to rise, trying to force her body to work even as her life blood flowed out, turning the pool crimson.
Always the soldier, she was trying to fight even now.
Approaching with slow, measured deliberation, Atayev kicked her over on to her back, raised the weapon and fired a second shot into her, finally ending her struggle.
Just like that, it was over. Anya was gone.
Drake fell to his knees as if the round had blasted its way through his own chest, tearing apart everything in its path. His breath was coming in short gasps, his eyes wide and staring, his hands trembling as shock took hold.
It wasn’t possible. It was terrible, horrific; a nightmare made real.
The world around him ceased to matter in that moment, everything else fading into darkness. All he could see was Anya’s lifeless body sprawled in that pool of dirty water, and the man who had killed her.
He watched as Atayev took a step back, making way for two of his men who moved forwards and picked Anya up, one taking her feet and the other her hands. Together they carried the unwieldy burden over to the canal, swung her once to build momentum and then pitched her in.
Drake heard the loud splash as her body impacted the water.
Watching without emotion as Anya’s body slipped beneath the surface, Atayev replaced his pistol in the holster at the small of his back. It wasn’t a fitting departure for a woman of her worth, but Anya had served her purpose. He had no further need of her, and felt no regret at seeing her go.
With the unpleasant task complete, he turned to address the others.
‘We’re done here,’ he announced. ‘Pack everything up.’
The rest of his group moved with quick efficiency, tossing the body armour and remaining grenades into the canal. Just as with Anya, they had no further need of these instruments of war. They had all abandoned their assault gear now, instead donning civilian clothes to aid their escape.
Two of his men were dressed in brown jackets, shirts and trousers; playing the part of truck drivers. Details were important, and Atayev had always been a man who paid attention to detail.
Both men now hurried towards their respective vehicles, clambered up into the cabs and fired up the engines, while another two strode over to the main doors and unlocked them.
In a minute or two they would be out of here.
Drake had seen enough.
Shock and grief had given way to something else entirely now. Something far more dangerous and destructive. Cold, focused, absolute hatred.
Raising the PPK, he pulled back the slide far enough to check that a round was chambered, then rose to his feet. He was no longer thinking of tactics or survival, or the practicalities of their situation. All he wanted was Atayev. No matter what happened to him, no way was that fucker getting out of this building alive.
Abandoning his cover, he strode out through the door and towards the group now preparing to leave. He gave no thought to concealment or protection. He just wanted to cover as much ground as possible before the shooting started.
Beyond the trucks, the big wooden doors barring the warehouse entrance had been hauled open to reveal a stretch of open waste ground partitioned off by a chain-link fence. Drake could just make out the dark waters of the Moskva River in the distance.
‘Ryan, what are you doing?’ Miranova hissed. ‘Ryan, come back here!’
He wasn’t hearing her. He wasn’t aware of anything now but the pounding of his heart, the surging blood in his veins, the desperate lust for revenge that had taken over every muscle, every bone, every fibre of his being.
He had made it about halfway across the room before one of them spotted him. A big man with tattoos covering his exposed arms, he opened his mouth to cry out a warning to his companions.
He never got the chance. Raising the PPK, Drake took aim and put two rounds through his head, blasting apart his skull with the twin impacts. The echo of the gunshots caused the rest of the group to flinch and glance around, seeking the source of the unexpected new threat.
Drake took full advantage of their hesitation, and a second man fell as he capped off the remainder of his magazine at his centre mass. At least one of the rounds found its mark, tearing through his unprotected gut. With blood painting the front of his grey sweater, he crumpled and fell, crying out in agony.
Drake could feel something stinging his eyes, blurring his vision, and angrily blinked to try to clear it. In some part of his mind he was aware that it was tears, but he tried not to acknowledge it as he focused all his attention on the desperate battle unfolding around him.
Without breaking stride, he thumbed the magazine eject button on the side of his weapon, jerking the gun downwards to aid the movement. No sooner had the spent clip fallen free of the housing than he grabbed a spare one from his pocket and slammed it home.
But his delay had bought his opponents a precious second or two to react, and even as Drake released the breach lock and allowed the PPK’s slide to snap forwards, he spotted a figure moving through the shadows between two support pillars. The man emerged from his cover and into a beam of sunlight slanting down from above, and Drake saw the long, bulky frame of an AK-47 being raised.
Straight away Drake knew the man had the drop on him. He wouldn’t be able to bring his side arm to bear in time, and even if he could, it was certainly no match for the raw firepower of an AK on full automatic. His brief, foolhardy attempt at heroism was about to end the only way such things could – with his death.
He felt merely a fleeting sense of disappointment that his attempt to avenge Anya’s death, however misplaced, had ended so abruptly. Deep down he knew the woman would be disappointed in him.
But then, instead of the distinctive bark of AK fire, several sharp cracks resounded through the warehouse, and suddenly Drake’s would-be killer staggered backwards and fell.
In disbelief, Drake glanced around to see Miranova advancing across the open space towards him, the revolver in her hand as she snapped off a couple more shots at Atayev and the several men still with him.
‘Cover!’ she yelled, sprinting the last few yards and gripping his arm, practically hauling him towards a brick wall that had once formed part of a smaller room within the larger space of the warehouse.
It wasn’t a moment too soon. Two of Atayev’s men dropped to their knees and opened up on full automatic, spraying a hail of 7.62mm slugs at them.
‘Get down!’ Miranova shouted, throwing herself on the ground. The wall was constructed from breeze blocks and mortar, easily 3 inches thick, but the AK rounds coming their way were more than capable of punching straight through at such range.
Drake could feel chunks of broken masonry pelting him as a burst of fire traced its way along the wall mere feet away, blasting apart the concrete blocks that stood in its path.
Raising his head up, Drake jammed the barrel of the PPK into one of the ragged holes in the brickwork and squeezed off several rounds in the general direction of their enemies, more to keep their heads down than a serious attempt to kill them.
‘Get out of here!’ he shouted. ‘Fall back. I’ll cover you.’<
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‘Shut up!’ she yelled back, clenching her fist and punching his arm as hard as she could. ‘I’m trying to stop you getting killed, you stupid bastard!’
The woman’s harsh but true words were like a mental slap in the face, and Drake hesitated, seeing his ill-judged actions for what they were.
Having vented her anger for the time being, she rolled over on to her back and snapped open the revolver’s cylinder to empty the spent cartridges, still smoking from recent use, then reached into her pocket to reload as more shots tore through the wall around them.
Then, abruptly, the firing ceased, replaced instead by frantic shouting, the roar of vehicle engines and the squeal of tyres on concrete.
For Drake, the reason was obvious – they were pulling out.
Rising up from behind the shattered remnants of the brick wall, he surveyed the scene in the warehouse. The first van was roaring towards the open doorway, its tyres screeching on the concrete floor as the driver gunned the engine hard. The second was also on the move, veering left to get in behind the first. Drake could do nothing but watch as Atayev and the remainder of his group escaped.
The first van shot out through the doors and into the open space beyond, turning hard left to head towards what Drake assumed was an access road away from the docks.
Then something happened that none of them had expected. Just as the van was coming out of its turn, a black BMW roared into view, skidding to a stop right in its path. A moment later, the driver and passenger threw open their doors and leapt out. A man and a woman, both armed with sub-machine guns.
Straight away Drake recognised McKnight and Mason, with Frost’s diminutive frame appearing just behind them. In a storm of automatic fire, all three of them opened up on the first van, spraying the cab and windshield with enough shots to kill the driver a dozen times over.
Knowing it would be suicidal to venture outside with such firepower opposing them, the driver of the second van jammed on his brakes, bringing his vehicle screeching to a halt before reaching the doors.
Even as this was happening, the van’s rear door flew open and three men jumped down, trying to make a break for it by running in different directions.
One was the young man with the spiky hair, still clutching his laptop computer. His eyes were wild with fear as he sprinted left with no apparent plan beyond getting as far from the shooting as possible.
The other two were Atayev himself and one of his group – a middle-aged man with long greasy hair tied back in a ponytail. He was clutching a Skorpion 61 – a nasty little Czechoslovakian sub-machine gun designed for concealed carrying.
He and his accomplice were making for a doorway off to the right of the main warehouse, keeping low to avoid fire from outside. Drake had no idea where it led, and he wasn’t keen on finding out.
Raising the PPK, he took careful aim at ponytail man and fired.
Hitting a moving target with an unfamiliar weapon is no easy feat, but Drake had always been a good shot and his aim didn’t let him down today. Ponytail man staggered sideways as the round slammed into him and fell in a crumpled heap, his greasy hair now matted with blood and brain tissue.
Reacting to the threat, Atayev spun around, levelled his weapon at Drake and opened fire. But he was no soldier, and it showed. He might have been able to hit Anya at pointblank range, but at 20 yards his lack of either training or accuracy was telling.
Still, even an amateur could score a lucky hit, and Drake was forced to duck behind one of the steel support pillars until the brief volley had ended. No way was he risking being brought down by a stray shot when he was so close to his enemy.
As soon as the firing had ceased, Drake glanced out in time to see Atayev disappear through the doorway. With his heart hammering in his chest, Drake took off in pursuit, determined to end this now.
Outside, the three Shepherd operatives were pushing forwards into the warehouse, spread out in a loose offensive line. There were only three of them, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in skill and experience.
‘Two o’clock!’ Frost yelled, turning her weapon towards the cab of the second van. The driver had thrown open his door and was using it as a shield while he opened fire on them.
McKnight was in no mood for negotiating with the man, and promptly levelled her MP5 sub-machine gun at his unprotected legs. A single burst took out both knees, dropping him.
‘Get him!’ she cried, continuing her advance as Frost hurried over to disarm the injured man.
Nearby, Mason spotted a young man sprinting off towards the rear of the warehouse, moving with long, loping bounds that reminded him of an ungainly gazelle. Bizarrely, he seemed to be clutching a computer rather than a gun.
‘Stop!’ he yelled, taking off in pursuit.
However, no sooner had the young man reached the shadowy archways that ran along both sides of the room than a second figure emerged from the darkness, grabbing his skinny frame and spinning him around in front to form a human shield as he drew down on Mason.
Mason could feel the world going into slow motion as he raised his weapon and took aim. In a flash he replayed that sickening moment in the rifle range at Langley, when he’d missed his target and realised his hopes of returning to field ops had been dashed. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Adjusting his aim, he exhaled slowly, allowing the tension to leave his body, then squeezed off a single shot.
The would-be hostage-taker jerked once as the round slammed into his skull, then went down as only a victim of a catastrophic gunshot wound could, jerking and thrashing as the remnants of his brain misfired. His weight had pulled the skinny young man down with him.
Still covering him, Mason hurried over and kicked the dying man aside to reveal the computer hacker beneath. He was curled into a ball, weeping and moaning in pain. There was a steaming puddle beneath him that hadn’t been there a few seconds earlier.
‘Mason!’ a familiar voice cried out.
Still keeping his weapon at the ready, Mason glanced left as Frost came running over to join him.
‘You okay?’ she asked, breathless after the brief firefight outside.
He nodded, surprised by the rush of adrenalin now surging through him. ‘I’m good.’
He thought he saw a fleeting smile on the young woman’s face, though it soon vanished as she looked around.
‘Where’s Ryan?’
Atayev might have had a head start, but he was a decade older than Drake and considerably out of shape. He could hear the rasp of the man’s laboured breathing and the heavy thump of his footfalls even as he vaulted up the stairs in pursuit.
As he had soon discovered, the doorway that Atayev had fled through opened out into a stairwell that apparently led all the way up to the roof. But wherever the man was trying to flee to, Drake would ensure he didn’t make it.
His own lungs were heaving, the muscles in his legs burning as he leapt up the stairs, taking them two at a time, but he ignored it. Pain was irrelevant to him now. Adrenalin and sheer unfettered lust for revenge drove him on with more strength than any drug.
Again and again he saw Anya stumble and fall forwards as the round slammed into her back. He saw her trying feebly to rise, defiant to the end. He saw Atayev raise his weapon and fire a second time.
He heard the squeal of a door being thrown open just above, the laboured breathing of his opponent suddenly vanishing as he fled outside. With a final burst of strength and speed, Drake ascended the last flight of steps, raised his foot and kicked the rusted steel door open.
As he’d thought, the doorway provided access to the warehouse’s gently sloping roof, probably for maintaining the rows of skylights that ran down both sides of the apex. Above them, the grey clouds that had lingered over the city in the early morning had parted, revealing snatches of blue sky and thin winter sun that struggled through.
And there, not 15 yards away, was Atayev. Unable to manage more than a breathless stagger after the hard climb
, he had halted altogether at the sound of the door being thrown open, perhaps realising the futility of his situation.
He was still clutching an automatic in his hand – the same gun with which he’d callously murdered Anya – but the slide had flown back to reveal an empty breech. The weapon was out of ammunition.
‘Drop it.’
Hesitating a moment, Atayev looked down at the weapon and threw it aside. It skidded and slid down the roof before coming to rest in the guttering some way below.
‘Turn around.’ Drake wanted him to see it coming, wanted to look him in the eye when he pulled the trigger.
Slowly Atayev turned to face him, raising his hands as he did so. His face was red and sweaty after the hard climb up here, but otherwise he betrayed no emotion at seeing the weapon pointed at him.
For a long moment, neither man said a word. They simply remained like that, staring at each other across the open roof.
‘Answer me one thing, Ryan Drake,’ Atayev said at last. ‘Did you mean what you said earlier, about wanting to help me take down Surovsky?’
Drake could feel his throat tightening. A lot of things had changed since then. ‘I did.’
The older man nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. He reached up to straighten his glasses, preparing himself for what was coming.
‘If you are going to do it, you should do it now. Before your friends arrive.’
Drake stared at him down the weapon’s sights. At this range he could scarcely miss. One shot was all it would take. One pull of the trigger and Anya’s death would be avenged.
Atayev deserved it, he told himself. He deserved to die for what he’d done.
‘Ryan,’ a soft, quiet voice said. ‘Ryan, lower the gun. Please.’
It was Miranova. She had followed him to the roof and now stood by his side, covering Atayev with her own weapon. Her attention, however, was focused on Drake.
‘This man deserves to be punished for his crimes, but it must be done the right way,’ she implored him. ‘Don’t become like him.’
Drake could feel tears stinging his eyes again as his finger tightened on the trigger. Images of Anya’s cold-blooded murder flashed before his eyes, for ever imprinted on his mind.