Hunt the Lion

by Chad Zunker

  Holding the device tightly in his right hand, he placed the blade against the thick glass. He then pushed a button on the device, which began to vibrate powerfully and cut straight through the glass. The cutting device was quiet but not silent. Sam thought it sounded a hell of a lot like a damn chainsaw churning. More beads of sweat poured down his face. He watched closely to see if any lights came on inside the home. Nothing happened. Working quickly, he guided the device in a large circle all the way around the suction cup. Before fully connecting the circle, he grabbed the suction-cup handle in his left hand, then finished the cutting job.

  Holding the suction cup, Sam was able to push the glass cutout all the way through to the inside of the town house and gently set it on the carpeted floor. Using both gloved hands, he pulled himself up against the glass, stuck his feet through first, created some slack in the wire, then carefully wiggled his way inside the interior of the town house. Kneeling, he quickly released the metal black box from his vest and used a strap to secure it to the handle of the suction cup. He would need the high-tech pulley system again in a few minutes.

  “I’m in,” he whispered, his mouth completely dry.

  “We can see that,” said Roger. “Nice job.”

  From another pocket on his jacket, Sam grabbed a penlight. A powerful, narrow beam of light shot out in front of him. Getting to his feet, he began to make his way down a dark hallway, pulling up the building’s memorized floor plan in his mind. Entry into Zolotov’s office chambers should be just around the corner. If all went well, he’d be in and out within ten minutes. Then back to London.

  Using the flashlight, Sam stepped catlike down the hallway. Easing around the corner, he suddenly froze when he spotted bare feet directly in front of him. The small beam of the flashlight shifted from the feet all the way up to a face, which was staring right back at him. Sam cursed.

  THREE

  Sam was shocked. A small boy of maybe five stood in front of him, looking half-asleep and disoriented. The boy wore Batman pajamas and had disheveled brown hair, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. He was rubbing both eyes with his small fists, bothered by the blinding beam of light that was shining directly in his face. Just the same, Sam kept the flashlight on him to guard the boy from seeing him. What the hell was the kid doing on the third floor? Was he sleepwalking?

  “We’ve got company,” Sam whispered into his collar.

  “Get rid of him,” Roger ordered. “Do it quickly.”

  Sam mentally scrolled through his thirty-day crash course in the Russian language. He never expected to use any of it.

  “You okay, kid?” Sam quietly asked in Russian.

  “Stop the light,” the boy replied in Russian, squinting.

  Sam lowered the light just a bit from the kid’s eyes, asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Charlie.”

  “My name is Leo. One of the guards.”

  “You speak English?” the boy asked in English, gaining some of his sensibilities.

  Sam was surprised, didn’t respond. This was not good. Roger was in his ear again. “Get rid of him, Callahan! That kid is going to blow everything for us.”

  “I heard you speak English,” the boy insisted. “I have an English tutor.”

  The boy spoke very good English.

  Sam stuck with Russian. “Why are you down here?”

  “My room,” the boy said, in Russian, looking over his shoulder.

  “Where’s your room, Charlie?” Sam said.

  Sleepily, the boy turned, pointed down the hallway right behind him, which didn’t make any sense. There were two doors on the left, two more doors on the right. Why would the kid have a bedroom on three? According to the floor plan, all the kids’ bedrooms were supposed to be up on the fourth floor.

  Roger cursed. “They must have changed the layout or something.”

  “Fantastic,” muttered Sam.

  “What?” the boy said, confused.

  “Come on, Charlie.”

  Placing a hand on the boy’s frail shoulder, Sam guided him back to the first door on the right, which was open. Charlie walked over to a small race car–type bed pressed up against the wall. Sam did a quick scan with the flashlight. Definitely a little boy’s bedroom. There were posters of sports figures all over the walls. Most looked like Russian hockey players, although there were a couple of American basketball players. LeBron James. Stephen Curry. The boy crawled back into his bed. Sam pulled up the covers and tucked in the kid. Charlie was already asleep again. Sam took a second look at the boy’s young face, tilted his head. The boy reminded him a lot of himself when he was a five-year-old. Same scraggly brown hair. Of course, when he was five, Sam was living in a two-bedroom shack near loud railroad tracks with two angry foster parents who used to feed him a stale slice of bread covered in some kind of awful homemade jam every morning.

  Charlie, on the other hand, lived in a $100 million tower.

  “Get going,” Roger urged him.

  Easing out of the bedroom, Sam shut the door behind him. “Where?”

  “Try the other rooms first,” Roger instructed.

  Sam stepped over to the door next to Charlie’s bedroom. He turned the knob, cracked the door open. Another boy’s bedroom. A night-light was on in the room. More sports memorabilia on walls and shelves. Large toy construction trucks all over the carpeted floor. A boy with blond hair, slightly older than Charlie, was asleep under the blankets of a twin bed. Sam was careful not to wake him with the flashlight.

  Quietly shutting the door, Sam moved across the hallway and opened another door. The third bedroom was all pink. A chandelier hung from the ceiling. He poked the flashlight beam inside and found a small girl with long blonde hair, who looked Charlie’s age, lying in a castle-type bed. When she stirred under the brightness of his flashlight beam, Sam quickly exited. He moved to the fourth bedroom, cracked the door. A purple bedroom. A huge dollhouse sat against the wall. A pile of stuffed animals in one corner. Yet another tiny girl, the smallest of the group, under the sheets. Sam cursed. The third floor was all children. Every single room.

  “What the hell?” Sam whispered. “Where is the server room?”

  Off microphone, Sam heard Roger say, “Where the hell did Marcus go?”

  Sam then heard another voice respond in the background: “Said he needed to step out for a sec.”

  Roger cursed again, said, “Dammit! Go find him! Now!” Back online, Roger sighed, said, “Okay, Callahan, go up a flight.”

  “How? Using the wire?”

  “No, we don’t have time for that. Use the stairs.”

  “I thought the stairs were on security camera.”

  “They are, so be careful and be quick.”

  Sweating profusely, Sam moved farther down the hallway, peeked around the corner. No shadows, no movement. All looked clear. Still, he felt sick to his stomach. The original plan, one they’d practiced hundreds of times, was rapidly unraveling. This brought on a new level of stress. Even though he had a knack for getting himself out of tricky spots, he’d hoped he’d never have to use that skill tonight.

  That hope had just been obliterated.

  He’d have to use his free-form instincts now.

  With the flashlight beam guiding him forward, he stepped into what looked like a huge game room, with all sorts of table games in the middle—ping-pong, air hockey, pool, table soccer—and then he noticed an entire wall lined with more than a dozen modern full-size arcade games. He carefully eased through the playroom and found a hallway leading toward what he believed was a secure door to the main stairwell. According to Pelini’s surveillance, Zolotov’s security squad monitored everything outside of the town house as well as the inside stairwell and the elevator. The guts of the house, however, where Zolotov lived and entertained guests day-to-day, was off-limits and private from the guards. Zolotov understandably didn’t want his own men watching him walk around in his underwear.

  Sam was about to step outside his safety
zone and right into a highly secured area, something that had never even been discussed or considered.

  He felt a surge of panic coming on again.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  Roger was back in his earpiece. “All right, Callahan, listen up. Jabber is about to give you a quick five-second pause with the stairwell camera. Don’t hesitate. You understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “On my mark.”

  Sam took a deep breath, his hand tightly gripped on the doorknob.

  Roger said, “Three, two, one . . . go!”

  Sam turned the doorknob, pulled the door fully open, and raced straight up the private stairwell. He didn’t even search for cameras. They were there somewhere. He hit the carpeted steps at full speed, made the turn at midlevel, and rushed upward again. He found a door to the fourth level. Quickly pulling it open, he stepped inside, hoping not to see another random face waiting for him.

  “Good job, kid,” Roger stated. “Cameras are live again.”

  Catching his breath, Sam stepped down the dark hallway, passed through a large sitting room with an impressive view of the glass cylinder, then turned a corner, where he was relieved to find Zolotov’s expansive office. A huge glass desk the size of a Volvo sat on one side of the room with matching glass shelves behind it that covered the entire wall. Sam did a quick scan with the flashlight. The shelves were stuffed with books, artifacts, and hundreds of pictures showing Zolotov standing next to celebrities and powerful political figures from all over the world—Sam recognized several faces, including many prominent American leaders.

  Next to the office door stood a massive eight-foot-tall bronze statue of Leo Tolstoy. In front of Tolstoy sat two luxurious brown sofas that both faced what Sam guessed was probably a hundred-inch flat-screen TV. However, what dazzled Sam the most was the floor-to-ceiling glass window that looked out over the streets of Moscow. An unbelievable $100 million view. He could see the bright lights of the Kremlin near Red Square, home to Russia’s president, with its massive palaces, cathedrals, and towers.

  Stepping through the office, Sam found a connecting hallway on the opposite side. If the floor plan was correct, even if the levels had flipped, Sam expected to find a highly secured server room behind the first door on his right.

  When he got to the door, he put his flashlight beam on a digital touch pad on the wall. That was a good sign. Sam pulled a tightly sealed Ziploc bag from a jacket pocket. Inside, he extracted the thinnest of flesh-covered gloves and carefully tugged it onto his right hand. The glove felt like a second layer of skin. He pressed the touch pad with a finger, and it flickered to life. From memory, Sam quickly punched in an eight-digit code on the digital keypad, prayed that Jabber had given him correct information. The screen blinked and then switched from the keypad to a hand imprint. Sam lifted his gloved right hand, pressed it against the screen, held his breath.

  A second later, the screen flashed ACCESS GRANTED.

  Exhaling, Sam opened the door and stepped inside a small room with black metal shelves that housed what looked like enough electronic boxes, cables, and touch pads to run a small town. Expensive computer equipment lined every wall. Sam unzipped a slim pocket on the inside of his jacket and pulled out a black pouch the size of a paperback book. Unsealing the protected pouch, he grabbed a small computer tablet. From another pocket, he found a tightly coiled computer cable. He quickly plugged the cable into the tablet, unwound the coil, and looked for his target port on one of the dozens of metal computer boxes that sat on a middle shelf. He finally found the supposed target port, labeled B12.

  Sam whispered, “Confirming access point.”

  “Hold,” Roger instructed. Five seconds later, the man said, “Access point confirmed.”

  He pulled the current black cable out of the B12 port and immediately replaced it with the cable he’d brought with him. He paused again, waited. No alarms went off, no flashing lights, no dogs barking. So far, so good. He set the tablet on a shelf and quickly powered it up. Wiping moisture from his face, Sam watched the tablet screen begin to flash through all kinds of computer code—numbers and letters that he didn’t really understand. However, he’d seen this kind of thing aplenty over the past year because of the invaluable assistance he’d received from his good friend Tommy Kucher, a brilliant twentysomething hacker who’d helped rescue him from the hands of certain death on more than one occasion.

  To Sam, it looked like the tablet was possessed, with so many different screens pulling up and closing, all in rapid fashion. He had nothing to do with any of it. Jabber fully controlled the tablet from inside the safe house.

  Closing his eyes, Sam took a moment to gather himself. He’d done his job to this point. Against incredible odds, he’d somehow navigated his way inside the interior confines of a heavily guarded fortress and given Pelini’s team the necessary local access to Zolotov’s private network—the only way, he’d been told, they could secure the object of this secret mission. He focused his mind solely on his pathway back out of the town house. Jabber would need to give him another free pass down the stairwell. Then he’d head back to the glass cylinder, gather his gear, and travel up to the top of the town house again with the high-tech pulley system, as previously planned.

  Finally, he’d climb back down the outside of the building.

  Sighing, Sam knew this wasn’t even close to being over yet.

  He checked his watch. Jabber seemed to be taking longer than he had expected.

  “What’s going on?” Sam whispered.

  “Hold steady,” Roger replied. “He’s almost there.”

  Waiting impatiently, Sam thought of Natalie Foster, his fiancée. He was seven hours ahead of her, which meant Natalie was probably sitting inside her office cubicle. As an investigative reporter for PowerPlay, a popular online DC news site, she often worked deep into the night hours. Natalie lived and breathed to break the next big story. She was also damn good at her job. He could envision her right now, eyes locked in on her laptop, fingers pecking away, nibbling gently on her bottom lip like she always did when her mind was spinning. He was so ready to get this thing over with, get back to DC, and start his new life with her. It had really torn him up inside to keep this huge secret from her. Pelini had insisted any mention would put a target on Natalie and immediately put her life in grave danger. Sam had been intentionally dragging his feet on setting an actual wedding date. Not because he was uncertain of being with her. Hell, he’d never been surer of Natalie. However, deep down inside, he’d been carrying around this small fear for the past month that he might not return from Russia. He knew he had to get through this first.

  “He’s got it!” Roger yelled into Sam’s ear. “File secure!”

  Sam actually heard some clapping in the background of the safe house, as several members of the team were openly cheering about operational success. That made Sam smile for a fleeting moment. Growing up mostly alone on the streets, he’d rarely had the chance to experience the thrill of a team victory. He’d never high-fived teammates after gridiron glory or celebrated a game-winning shot on the basketball court. He’d never been part of a dog pile on the mound after closing out a baseball championship. The cheering made him feel good.

  But where was Pelini?

  “Good job, Callahan,” Roger said.

  “Thanks. I can disconnect?”

  “Yes, disengage. Let’s get you out of there.”

  “Music to my ears.”

  Sam powered down the tablet and pulled the cable out of the black box.

  Roger suddenly blurted, “What the hell . . . ?”

  Sam paused. “What happened?”

  “What’s going on!” Roger demanded, even louder.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Sam asked, getting concerned.

  Sam realized Roger wasn’t actually speaking to him. Instead, he was speaking to someone else inside the safe house. Then Sam heard sudden loud cursing in the background, coming from multiple voices. Something
wasn’t right. A second later, the audio in his right ear exploded with Thump! Thump! Thump! He recognized the terrifying sounds both from his political tracker assignment last year and from an infamous assassin hunting him just last month. It was the distinct sound of a gun firing with a silencer.

  Someone was shooting inside the safe house?

  More shots fired. Thump! Thump! He could hear crashing noises in the background.

  A second later, Sam’s earpiece went dead silent.

  “Hello?” Sam said into his collar.

  He tapped the earpiece. “Roger, you there?”

  Nothing. No response. This brought on a new wave of panic.

  What the hell was going on? Who was shooting?

  Standing inside the server room, Sam didn’t have much time to ponder what had just happened inside the safe house. Not with a piercing alarm suddenly going off inside Zolotov’s fortress, shaking the damn walls.

  FOUR

  Grabbing the small computer tablet, Sam quickly placed it inside the protective pouch, sealed it up tight, shoved it into his jacket, and stepped outside of the server room. The alarm was even louder in the hallway, a repetitive high-pitched sound that punished his eardrums. Hustling back through the office space and down the hallway, Sam found the door to the stairwell locked. He wiggled the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. He cursed. The guards had probably secured the building and were temporarily holding everyone in place, which meant they knew an intruder was on the inside. Did they know where, exactly?

  He couldn’t just stand there and wait to be discovered. He had to get out of the building as fast as possible. Kneeling, he studied the doorknob. There was no lock-and-key system. It was electronic, with thick dead bolts. There was no easy way for him to pick the lock and get into the stairwell. He had to find another way out. Pausing and listening, he suddenly heard voices on the other side of the stairwell door.