by Ben Coes
“How old is he?”
Katya shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Even he doesn’t know.”
Dewey pulled the black-and-white photo from the leather case, folded it in half, then stuck it in his pocket.
Katya watched him do it, a look of disbelief on her face.
“It was the only photograph Pyotr—”
“Pyotr isn’t going to be alive much longer,” said Dewey. “I don’t think he’ll miss the photo.”
“He would never have anything to do with terrorism,” she said. “He’s a kind man. I’ve known him since age thirteen. He’s gentle. Please, you must believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” said Dewey, scanning the street in front of the Four Seasons, which was now a pandemonium of police cars. “Besides, there are about a hundred cops outside. They all have guns. I don’t think they’re very happy with me at the moment.”
“Perhaps they will shoot you, like you shot my guards.”
Dewey looked at her.
“At least I’m not wearing white pants.”
Katya looked down at her white jeans.
“What’s wrong with white pants?”
“It’s an easy target for a marksman. Especially at night. They’ll probably be shooting at me, but if they miss, it’s going to hit you.”
“Why are you trying to scare me?”
Dewey walked to Katya and stood in front of her.
“Because I need you to be scared. If you’re scared, maybe you’ll listen to me. There’s only one way out of here. But you need to do exactly what I say.”
Katya became quiet.
“Where will you take me?” she asked.
“I don’t know the answer to that question.”
“Please tell me your name. I have the right to know.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“To me it does.”
Katya’s English wasn’t flawless. And yet the aristocratic softness of her accent made the imperfections somehow charming.
Dewey held the curtain to the side. A cordon of police were stretched across the road in front of the hotel.
“My name is Dewey Andreas.”
“What did he do?”
“He acquired a nuclear bomb. He put the bomb in a boat that right now is on its way to the United States. He intends to detonate it there.”
She stared at him, a look of utter shock at his words. She walked to one of the couches and sat down.
“He would never do this,” she said. “It’s a mistake.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much,” said Dewey. “And yet you have, let’s see, one, two, three bodyguards? Why would anyone need so much protection?”
“Are you implying that I’m involved?”
“I just find it strange that you have three operatives guarding you. Ex-military. Spetsnaz, if I had to guess.”
She stared.
“They’re provided to me. I’ve had guards as long as I can remember.”
Dewey stared out the window.
“The first one followed me upstairs and tried to kill me,” said Dewey.
He turned and their eyes met.
“Why would I kill you?” she asked softly. “There is already too much misery in this world. I would not kill you. I would never kill anybody.”
She stood up. She walked to the window, next to him, and looked out.
“Let’s go,” said Dewey.
She pointed at the police cordon.
“Are you insane?”
“We’re going to walk out the front door. I’m one of your guards.”
“That will not work,” Katya said, shaking her head.
“You’re probably right. They’ll kill me and you can go back and hang out with a terrorist and jump around in a bird costume. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to give it the old college try, though.”
Katya smiled.
“College try? What does this mean?”
Dewey took her wrist and lightly clutched it, pushing her toward the door. At the door, he turned.
“I’m going to explain how this works,” he said quietly. “I’ve stood where those guys we’re gonna walk by are standing, and right now they’re looking for a killer. You alone can convince them I’m not the one they’re looking for. It’s like a play, and you’re the star, and your role is to be the pissed-off ballerina who doesn’t like gunshots and sirens and wants to move to a different hotel. I’m the goon who’s supposed to protect you. Got it? Sell that and we both live. Don’t sell it and we both die.”
“What if I give you up?”
“You die.”
“You would kill me?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“If you rat on me, that qualifies as something wrong—in my book, at least.”
“I’m innocent.”
“If you’re innocent, you won’t be harmed,” he said. “You’re not the one we’re after. You’ll be asked to help us find Cloud. Then you’ll be set free. It’s that simple.”
She closed her eyes, looked at the ground, then looked up and opened them again, staring directly into his eyes.
“I will do it. I will try to help. I still do not believe the man you say is a terrorist is the same man I know. But I will help. I have nothing but fondness for the United States of America.”
He pointed at the phone on the desk.
“Call the front desk, ask them what’s going on,” said Dewey. “In English. I want to hear it. Ask why the police are here. Then tell them to bring the car around. You would like to move to the Grand Hotel.”
Katya picked up the phone. She dialed the front desk and did precisely as Dewey instructed, then hung up.
Dewey lifted her bag.
“Dewey,” she said.
“Walk in front of me, like I work for you,” he said.
Dewey handed her a pair of sunglasses.
“Put these on.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Don’t take it personally.”
Dewey followed Katya to the door. She opened it and stepped into the hallway. A pair of armed policeman in blue tactical gear were standing near the elevator.
The first officer looked at Katya, then at Dewey. Dewey maintained a cool demeanor but nodded.
“Miss Basaeyev,” he said in Russian. “We ask that everyone remain in their room.”
“I’m leaving the hotel,” she said in English, walking toward the elevator.
The agent blocked her path.
“Get out of my way,” she snapped indignantly.
The officer didn’t move.
“I’m under orders, Miss Basaeyev. I’m sorry. Until the killer is apprehended, no one goes in or out of the hotel.”
Dewey was behind Katya. He had the Colt .45 in his right hand, behind his back. He raised the gun, moved to Katya’s side, and fired. The silenced slug hit the agent in the forehead. Before the second officer could react, Dewey fired another shot, hitting him in the mouth, kicking him backward and down.
Katya stared at the dead men, her eyes wide, momentarily repulsed by the bloody scene.
Dewey grabbed Katya’s wrist and pulled her into the elevator. He pressed the button for the ground floor, then the button for the second floor. He stood in the far left corner, waiting and watching. His eyes were calm, blank, above all cold, with a hint of anger.
The elevator stopped at two. Dewey eyed Katya. Quickly, he raised his gun and trained it on the elevator doors. As they began to slide open, Dewey held Katya by the back of her jacket with his left hand.
Another agent in blue tactical gear was waiting. He had on a combat helmet and had a carbine raised and trained on the elevator as the doors opened.
The solider barked something in Russian.
“Zapustit!” Katya screamed, warning the agent. Run!
Dewey lunged towar
d the door, firing. The soldier ran. Dewey stepped into the hallway, firing as he moved, striking the officer beneath the lower edge of his helmet, a quarter inch above his Kevlar flak jacket, dropping him.
He turned back, looking for Katya. His eyes saw the white of her jeans, just a glimpse, as the elevator doors shut.
Dewey lurched, getting a finger between the doors just as they went tight. The elevator made a low mechanical grinding noise as the doors tried to close. Dewey fought against the elevator doors; if they closed, he would lose Katya. The mechanical grinding became louder as Dewey struggled to pull the doors apart, his face contorted. A low ringing noise came from somewhere inside the car. Inside the elevator shaft, below, on the other side of the doors, he could hear the cables tugging against the elevator housing, trying to lower the elevator. But Dewey would not let the doors shut, and finally, the low beeping noise stopped. The doors suddenly opened.
Dewey stepped inside and was greeted by a violent kick to the groin from Katya. The kick doubled him over. The elevator doors started to close again as Katya charged at him. From a pained crouch, he swung, but she ducked, spinning, then hammered her right foot counterclockwise, a vicious motion aimed at his head.
Dewey recognized Katya’s martial training; his brain processed it in the split second following the kick to the groin. As her foot moved toward his head, he anticipated it, bending just as her foot cut viciously across the air above his head. In the instant that followed, Dewey slashed his left arm out, slamming Katya in the knee with a fist, then speared her in the rib cage with a brutal punch that sent her flying into the wall, then down.
Dewey stepped back, gun trained on her. He glanced at the elevator door, then back at her. Both of them knew that the first floor held a waiting army of Russian police.
Dewey put his hand in the elevator door before it closed. As it moved automatically back open, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the elevator, gun raised, then moved right. At the end of the hallway, he knocked several times on the door to a room. When a woman answered the door, Dewey pushed the door in, weapon raised. The woman burst into tears. He pointed to the bathroom, ordering her to go inside.
He turned off the lights in the room, then moved to the window.
Below was a courtyard, closed for the night, with tables and sun umbrellas.
Behind it was a street. Beyond that, the canal.
He dialed Jacobsson.
“I need to move right now.”
“Go,” said Jacobsson. “I’m here.”
Dewey heard shouts from the hallway in Russian, then the loud drumbeat of footsteps. He looked at Katya just as her mouth opened and she started screaming. Dewey charged at her, catching her near the bed, and covered her mouth with his hand, silencing her. He felt her sharp teeth bite down.
Dewey pulled his hand, now bleeding, away from her mouth. He wrapped his forearm around her neck and tightened it. She struggled, kicking his legs, trying to punch him, but it was futile. In seconds, she grew weak, then went limp in his arms.
He carried her limp body to the window. He quickly surveyed the courtyard, as, behind him, a steel battering ram slammed into the door with a somber thump.
Dewey took a few steps back and aimed his gun at the window.
The battering ram slammed a second time. The door made a loud cracking noise as wood splintered.
Dewey lifted Katya’s body and wrapped it around the back of his neck, clutching her legs and neck in a tight grip with his left hand as he held his gun in his right.
He charged toward the window, as, behind him, the door crashed in. He fired a slug, shattering the window, just as he leapt into the air. Yelling in Russian was interwoven with automatic gunfire. Dewey’s right foot hit the windowsill as slugs erupted behind him. He hit the sill, then leapt out as far as he could, launching into the air as bullets flew just above his head. The momentum of the jump was quickly gone; Dewey and Katya dropped in a sharp line toward the ground two stories below. Dewey kicked his legs furiously through the air, trying to maintain his balance, holding Katya tightly around his neck. Their trajectory took them toward a red-and-white canvas umbrella. Dewey slammed into it, feetfirst. He ripped through the thick canvas and smashed painfully into the wooden pole holding the umbrella, snapping it in half, then crashed to the ground, his right palm, elbow, hip, and knee all absorbing the trauma yet protecting the unconscious Katya.
Dewey jumped to his feet, despite piercing pain in his leg.
The staccato of unmuted gunfire clotted the Saint Petersburg night.
He shifted Katya’s body to his left shoulder, fireman style, and charged across the Four Seasons courtyard. He hurdled a wall of neatly manicured boxwoods as bullets pocked the slate on the ground around him.
They were trying to slow him, or scare him into stopping, but the gunmen did not target him directly. They would not want to kill Katya, and that fact alone offered him a slim margin of protection.
Dewey could see the iron balustrade above the canal entrance, just a block and a half away. He sprinted as fast as he could, sweat drenching him. The scene was chaos. Gunfire mixed with shouting, screams, cars honking, and, in the distance, the low thunder of a chopper moving in.
From both sides, policemen swarmed. For the first time, Dewey registered the khaki-and-red uniforms of Russian soldiers. He sprinted past a block of mansions, lungs burning, then lurched out into traffic, dodging cars as he crossed the last remaining roadway before the canal. Suddenly, to his left, he eyed a pair of soldiers running toward him.
Horns blared. Bullets struck a taxicab, shattering its windshield. Sirens mixed with hysterical screaming.
Dewey leapt to the sidewalk on the other side of the road. He had a few yards on a pair of officers who were closest, but they were gaining. He had less than a block now, a block lined with a half dozen limestone mansions. After that, he would be free and clear.
Suddenly, just past the last mansion on the block, precisely where Dewey wanted to run, a police cruiser cut across the road and bounced up onto the sidewalk, blocking him.
Dewey kept running as police officers jumped from the front and back of the sedan, weapons aimed at him. As one of the men stepped toward him, Dewey slammed his left shoulder into the officer, pummeling him backward, then kept charging toward the canal ahead.
Dewey recalled Polk’s words: The nuke is through the strait … get her out, then stay in-theater …
Dewey was now running as fast as he could, despite the pain in his hip, just feet in front of a pack of Russian policemen. His eye shot right as a plainclothes agent lurched at him, diving toward his legs. Dewey kept running, bracing himself as the agent’s arms wrapped around his thighs. He broke through the tackle, his knee striking the man’s head, a loud grunt coming from him as he tumbled to the ground.
From behind, police officers swarmed, coming from what seemed like every direction, shouting at Dewey to drop Katya.
At the iron gate above the canal, Dewey threw Katya, like a rag doll, toward the water, then followed, leaping in the air, hurdling the fence. He heard a splash as Katya’s body hit the water beneath him, then, suddenly, he slammed feet first into the water next to her. Dewey dived down into the dark canal as bullets hit the surface of the water just above his head.
45
GRIBOYEDOV CANAL
SAINT PETERSBURG
In the dark waters of Griboyedov Canal, a small black object floated in a stationary position next to the four-hundred-year-old stone embankment, directly across the canal from an iron railing, past which was Nevsky Prospect, the nearest entry point to the canal from the Four Seasons.
The object appeared to be nothing more than a piece of floating debris, dull matte rubber in a dark shade of gray, a sliver of glass on one side, and that was all. It could’ve been anything: a buoy, an old boot, an empty vodka bottle. But it wasn’t just anything. The rubber was in fact the skullcap of a tactical wet suit. The glass was a specially designed full-face diving mask, e
quipped with night optics and a dynamic graphical user interface which, on the left side of the interior of the helmet, displayed a live video feed, taken from the sky, of the scene.
Wearing both was Navy SEAL John Jacobsson. He moved his legs slowly beneath him, inhaling and exhaling through a closed-circuit underwater breathing apparatus called a rebreather, which enabled him to recycle most of the unused oxygen from his exhale, thus eliminating telltale bubbles from the water, cloaking his presence as he waited. He listened to the din from the street above, the cacophony of violence, which he registered with anticipation and dread, the tumult of a chaotic extraction whose odds of success were diminishing with each passing moment.
Jacobsson’s earbud connected him to the SDV that idled directly beneath him, eighteen feet below the surface.
The rat-a-tat-tat of sporadic gunfire started less than a minute after Jacobsson surfaced. It echoed down across the flat water, bouncing between the stone walls of the canal, each round causing Jacobsson’s heart to race a little quicker.
“It sounds like fucking Beirut up there,” Jacobsson whispered into his commo as he tread water.
Jacobsson’s teammate, Davey Wray, was seated in the tight cockpit of the SDV, waiting for him to return.
“Roger that,” came Wray. “I can hear it.”
In Jacobsson’s right hand was an odd-looking weapon: HK P11, a pistol designed for underwater use, capable of firing steel darts.
The flashing lights of a police cruiser abruptly appeared, directly across from him, slamming to a screeching halt on the sidewalk just behind the balustrade.
The shouts grew closer, then were overhead.
Suddenly, an object came flying from above. It was a body, limp, like a corpse. He watched as the object came crashing from above; it was a woman, her long hair unmistakable. She splashed violently into the canal.
Jacobsson lunged beneath the water, kicking furiously, sticking the P11 back in his belt with his right hand as, with his left, he pulled a small red canister from the same belt. The canister—a ditch pipe—was the size of a pack of Life Savers. Jacobsson swam underwater to the place where he guessed she entered the water. He searched frantically for the woman, then found her, at least five feet beneath the surface, unconscious. Jacobsson pulled her even farther beneath the water, aiming for the SDV. He stuck the ditch pipe into her mouth, then pressed a black button on the end. Oxygen poured into her mouth as Jacobsson swam deeper, kicking hard, moving down into the depths of the canal.