by Mark Henshaw
The FSB unit fired their Grachs as fast as they could. The sound of metal punching through metal added an ugly melody to the fight, low thumps mixing with the higher-pitched whine of ricochets and the angry snapping of the guns.
The tires on Lavrov’s jeep blew out, tilting the vehicle to one side. Barron pushed Kyra behind the front wheel well, then moved back and took up the same position to the rear, putting solid metal in front of her feet and his. The Russian to her right fired three more rounds, then screamed and pitched over, clutching at his shattered hand where a bullet had smashed into the fingers closed around his pistol’s grip, nearly amputating one of his digits. Kyra lunged to the side, grabbed his coat, and pulled the man back to cover. He curled up in the fetal position, trying to suppress his own screams.
His Grach sat in the open where it had landed, ten feet beyond her reach.
• • •
Lavrov pushed himself up to a kneeling position behind a metal crate, drew his Makarov, and looked for a target. Grigoriyev gave him nothing, hiding as he was behind his own makeshift parapet of cargo boxes. Lavrov unloaded three rounds at an FSB officer who raised up to fire, the second bullet catching the man in the sternum and rendering him unable to scream as the air in his lungs flooded out through the hole in his windpipe.
• • •
Kyra picked up a piece of shattered mirror and used it to look around the jeep’s hood. The Spetsnaz officer covering his team’s flank fired his 919, and the weapon ran dry. She saw him raise it to eject the clip.
Kyra dropped the mirror, pushed off, and sprinted low to the fallen Grach, keeping her eyes focused on the gun.
• • •
“No!” Barron yelled, but the woman was already in motion. He started to move toward the front of the car she had just abandoned, but a shattering window above made him think better of it. The Russian beside him raised up in a half crouch, fired, then toppled back as a 9mm round tore through his head. The man’s own Grach clattered onto the ground, still behind the vehicle. Barron scrambled over to retrieve it.
Kyra slowed just long enough to grab for the Grach, and felt the grooved handle of the pistol in her palm as her hand wrapped around it. She picked up speed again, closed the distance to the next pallet of cargo in less than a second, and threw herself behind the metal boxes.
She lowered herself onto one knee and looked around the crates. The Spetsnaz were behind cover, several in a line almost at a right angle to her position.
The soldier at the end of the line finished loading the clip into his weapon, looked up, and saw Kyra’s head before she could pull back. He racked the slide on his carbine, loading the first round, and raised it—
—Kyra’s rounds caught him high in the shoulder, smashing his collarbone and knocking him to the floor, his gun clattering on the concrete as he landed.
Kyra’s pistol locked open. She stared at the Grach in disbelief? Two rounds? I ran for a gun that had two rounds? She was a sitting target if the Russian soldiers moved on her position.
She looked over, saw Barron firing a pistol over the trunk of Lavrov’s jeep. He looked back over at her. “I’m out!” she yelled.
• • •
Barron cursed the woman for having left her position. He drew himself down behind the vehicle, set his Grach on the ground, and threw open the jacket of the dead Russian at his feet. The man had been carrying two spare clips in pouches on his belt. Barron pulled them both out, held one up for Kyra to see, and threw it across the floor to her.
• • •
The clip skittered over and Kyra stopped it with her foot. She ejected the empty, loaded the replacement, and jacked the slide. She raised herself up to fire again, then dropped back when bullets began tearing into the crates. The Spetsnaz team had seen their comrade go down and was not going to give her the chance to fire again.
• • •
Barron looked over the trunk and saw one of the soldiers firing on Kyra’s position. The woman was crouching low behind the crates, but she was pinned down. The soldier couldn’t tell how many people had moved around the flank and he was chewing into the metal barricade as hot and fast as his gun allowed.
The soldier was focused on the threat to his flank and had lost track of his own position. His head leaned forward, exposed from behind the crate hiding him.
Barron swung his pistol onto the trunk, took half a second to line up the shot, and pulled the trigger.
The 9mm round punched through the soldier’s head, spraying blood as it left an open hole behind. The soldier fell sideways, his rifle clattering on the ground as he crumpled over.
• • •
Kyra peeked over, saw the man pitch sideways, blood flying out from his shattered skull in a red mist. The enemy’s flank exposed, she raised herself up, bringing her own fully loaded weapon to bear, and began pulling the trigger.
• • •
Lavrov heard Spetsnaz officers scream, one after another as bullets tore into arms and legs, a torso. Two of his men tried to move around the other side of the helicopter for cover and the lead soldier went down as FSB officers watching that side opened up. The second man grabbed his comrade by his drag collar and tried to pull him out of the field of fire, but he went down, a bullet in his leg.
“Inside! Inside!” Lavrov ordered, pointing at the helicopter’s open cargo door. The Spetsnaz called out their acknowledgments, then began laying down covering fire as men dragged and carried their wounded up the ramp to the safety. Lavrov saw Kyra look around from behind her barricade and sent three rounds in her direction. The woman jerked her head back.
The last of the Russian soldiers scrambled up the metal incline and Lavrov followed, stepping through the line of four men covering the entrance.
• • •
The hangar fell quiet, a disturbing stillness after the wild chaos of the single minute the firefight had lasted. Grigoriyev and his men looked up, weapons still raised. The FSB director pointed his men forward, and they began to move toward the aircraft in a low crouch. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number.
Barron, head down, ran to Kyra’s position. “They would’ve eaten us alive if you hadn’t threatened their flank,” he said. “I thought it was stupid to make the run, but I won’t argue with the result.”
“Good, ’cause I’m out again.” She held up the Grach, which was locked open on an empty chamber again. “Never thought I’d help the FSB shoot other Russians.”
“I hope you enjoyed it, because we’re done. This is not what we signed up for when we agreed to come here to help arrest Lavrov. This is Grigoriyev’s problem now.” Barron waved over to the FSB director and motioned for the man to send reinforcements. Three officers crouching near their director saw the signal and moved without orders. “Come on, we’re moving,” Barron ordered.
He led Kyra back behind Lavrov’s vehicle, then around to Grigoriyev. The Russian ended his call and replaced his cell phone in his coat. “An exciting evening, I think,” he said.
“A little too much for our taste,” Barron advised. “This is your problem, not ours.”
“Mr. Barron, I think you will want to stay. The more exciting part is still coming.” Grigoriyev turned back to the helicopter and switched to his native language. “Arkady!” he yelled. “It is time to surrender. You cannot stay inside.”
• • •
Lavrov heard Grigoriyev’s voice and cursed him under his breath. The man’s arrogance was maddening. He could not have forgotten that GRU headquarters was a stone’s throw from the hangar. “You should leave now, Anatoly,” he called back. “We are in my backyard. One radio call and a battalion of men will arrive here in five minutes.”
• • •
Grigoriyev shook his head. “Send your battalion, Arkady. Send a division! It will not matter. I have already made my call. We will have a visitor soon. You might kill us before he arrives, but you will not be able to hide what you have done.”
“And wh
o is coming?” Lavrov yelled back, contempt thick in his voice.
“The one who will settle this.” Grigoriyev turned back to the Americans. “You must forgive my lack of hospitality, but I must confiscate those guns and place you under arrest. A temporary measure only, but you are American spies in the Rodina and his security detail might shoot you on sight. Foreigners with guns on our soil make them unhappy . . . and it would look very bad to him if he saw that you were not only free but helping to suppress an armed insurrection.”
“Look bad to who?” Barron asked.
“Who do you think, devushka?” Grigoriyev asked.
Kyra smiled. “The only one who can settle this,” she said.
“And that is . . . ?” Barron asked her.
“The president of the Russian Federation.” She handed Grigoriyev the Grach pistol she was holding, then offered both arms for the handcuffs.
• • •
The motorcade arrived on Grigoriynv’s schedule, a half-dozen Volkswagen Caravelles surrounding a heavy stretch limousine, an armored black Mercedes Benz S-class with solid rubber tires, dark windows, and a motor that growled low under the weight it carried. The small fleet pulled to a stop fifty meters from the hangar and men spilled out of the vans, every one carrying a carbine.
Kyra watched the team leader confer with Grigoriyev in Russian, then walk toward the cargo helicopter, his hands raised high in the air. Lavrov yelled something back and the man made his way around and disappeared up the cargo ramp. He was inside the aircraft for two minutes, then reappeared, Lavrov walking beside him.
“Are you ready to talk, Arkady?” Grigoriyev asked.
“Your men fired first,” Lavrov noted. “But as a demonstration of my innocence, I have ordered them to surrender their weapons.” He looked at Kyra, murder in his eyes. “If anyone is to visit Lubyanka tonight—”
“He will decide who visits Lubyanka tonight,” Grigoriyev said. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed the same number as before, and shared a few words with the caller on the other end before disconnecting. The FSB director looked back at the parked motorcade.
The driver dismounted, opened the rear passenger door, and the president of the Russian Federation stepped onto the tarmac.
• • •
His dark suit was bespoke, impeccable, and expensive. The man was shorter than Kyra had expected, but built solid across the chest and arms. Kyra couldn’t determine the color of his eyes in the hangar light, but she saw they were cold. He approached the small group, slowing only slightly when he saw the two Americans standing by Grigoriyev, in restraints and under guard. He reached the FSB director, stopped, and scanned the hangar, taking note of the bullet holes that seemed to cover every flat surface in sight. He sniffed the air, smelled the odor of burned gunpowder that still wafted through the open space.
“Anatoly Maksimovich,” he said. “I see that you were not wasting my time when you asked me to come.”
“I would not, sir,” Grigoriyev said.
“Very good. You have arrested some American spies, I’m told.”
“I have, but the matter is more complicated than that. There is evidence that these spies were working with one of our own,” Grigoriyev told him.
“And you have detained this traitor?”
“That is why I came here, to detain the man.” Grigoriyev turned and looked at the Russian general. “But Arkady Vladimirovich would not surrender. He ordered his men to abet his attempt to resist arrest. I have several wounded men, some seriously.”
“An extraordinary accusation,” the Russian president noted. “I presume you have extraordinary evidence. Arkady has done much for the Rodina over the years.”
“More for himself, I think,” Grigoriyev replied.
The Oval Office
President Daniel Rostow looked up from the file in his hands, the FBI’s summary of the Russian ambassador’s departure from the country. “It’s a start,” he said. “Not a good one, but I’ll take something over nothing.” He closed the file and passed it back to the FBI director. “I’d be a happier man if I was sure that more of these Russian diplomats lined up at the ticket counter at Dulles were really intelligence officers.”
“Yes, sir.” Isaac Menard’s tone was an unhappy mix of embarrassment and resolution, heavy on the former. “We listed everyone who we ever imagined was a spy and plenty more who were just abusing their diplomatic immunity to get out of driving violations. We have a second tranche who are members of the Russian delegation to the UN in New York City under review, so we’ll be able to hit them up there if this goes on.”
“Good,” Rostow encouraged him. “And I want you back here tomorrow for lunch. I’m calling down the House and Senate Intel Committee chairs. I want to discuss hiking your counterintelligence budget—”
The telephone on the Resolute desk sounded, calling for Rostow’s attention. He touched the button. “What is it, Vickie?”
“Mr. President, the Watch Office has the deputy director of national intelligence on the line. She’s asking to speak with you.”
“Kathy Cooke?” Rostow rolled his eyes and looked to Menard. “What’s it about?”
“They didn’t say, but she is calling from Moscow,” the secretary replied.
“Moscow? Put her on.” The line went mute as the secretary began to connect the call. “How did Kathy Cooke get into Russia?”
“No idea,” Menard said, shaking his head. “They stopped approving visas for any of our people the minute this started. Maybe she called someone senior over there.”
“I don’t like this—”
“Mr. President, now connecting you with Deputy DNI Cooke,” the secretary announced.
“Kathy?” Rostow asked. “What are you doing in Moscow?”
“Sir.” The distance delayed Cooke’s answer a second, and the president found even that short wait intolerable. “I came over yesterday with Clark Barron from CIA to meet with FSB Director Anatoly Grigoriyev. We’ve recovered our analyst who was abducted in Germany, and Alden Maines is presently in my custody—”
“Kathy,” Menard interrupted, “it’s Isaac. You have Maines?”
“Technically, he’s in FSB custody, but they’re going to release him to us,” Cooke told him. “I’ll need as many of the Bureau’s special agents at the embassy as you can muster to report to GRU headquarters as fast as they can get over here.”
“How did you manage that?” Rostow asked, incredulous.
“This is an unsecured line, Mr. President, so I can’t explain the details here. I’ll call you from the embassy as soon as I can. But we need someone to arrange a medical evac flight for two seriously wounded officers. Maines and Jonathan Burke were both tortured by the GRU. I want to evac them to Rammstein for treatment.”
“I’ll have the Pentagon set it up,” Rostow confirmed. “I want to hear back from you in a half hour.”
“I can do that, if Isaac’s people can get over here and take over for me,” Cooke replied.
“I’m on it.” Menard’s hand was on the Oval Office door and he was setting his course for the White House Watch Office before Rostow disconnected the call.
Khodynka Military Airfield
“Can you explain this, Arkady?” The Russian president stared down at the quarter-million euros filling the satchel retrieved from Lavrov’s car. Bullets had struck the bag and perforated several stacks of the bills.
“My officers retrieved the funds from this woman—” Lavrov pointed at Kyra. “She is a CIA officer detained by my men when she attempted to enter her embassy.”
“A partial truth,” Grigoriyev added. He held out his smartphone, Sokolov’s picture of Kyra’s letter on the screen. The president took the phone and stared at the photograph, zooming and scrolling as he read. “Arkady, this could refer to you.”
“I am not named—”
“Of course not!” the president snapped. “The CIA is not stupid enough to name an asset in a communiqué like this one! I was the FSB direc
tor once! You think I do not know how assets are run?”
“No, sir—” Lavrov started.
“Enough!” The president turned to Grigoriyev. “Is this all?”
“No. I have a GRU interrogator in custody who has confirmed that the general personally interviewed this woman alone, outside the presence of witnesses and with the cameras turned off on his order. General Lavrov personally destroyed that letter, not realizing that a photographic copy had been taken. Then he left with the money in hand and did not deliver it to his staff for accounting.”
The Russian president frowned and returned the smartphone to its owner. “And then you resisted when Anatoly asked you to come with him to explain yourself. This looks very bad, Arkady.”
“He wants to remove me from my post,” Lavrov protested. “You know this.”
“Politics is no defense for this,” the president replied, anger flashing in his eyes.
“This is a deception operation!” Lavrov yelled, thrusting his finger at Kyra and Barron again. “I have gutted their operations and now they are trying to undo me!”
“And yet you killed General Strelnikov without discussing the matter with Anatoly or myself. You have executed three other Russian citizens without trial or any evidence of their guilt other than the word of a source who you have allowed no one to interview.” The president shook his head. “I believe I have given you too much latitude, Arkady. Your successes in straining the Main Enemy by providing technology to our allies blinded me to your excesses.”
“Mr. President—”
“No, I will hear no more from you here. You will surrender yourself to Anatoly. He will investigate your actions and then we will decide what to do. You are relieved of your command of the GRU and your Foundation for Advanced Research will cease all its dealings with foreign buyers until I decide otherwise.” The president nodded to Grigoriyev, who waved his hand. An FSB officer approached the Russian general and pulled his arms behind his back.