‘Contact the commanders of these posts,’ Aminev said, pointing to the locations on the map, ‘and tell them to stop anyone who tries to cross the river.’
While an officer disappeared to relay the orders, Aminev gave instructions to gather the rest of the troops and get them mounted up. He had more than fifty vehicles under his command, enough to carry a large percentage of the five hundred men at his disposal. He decided to leave fifty behind and send the rest on the chase, with those who couldn’t fit into the vehicles following on foot, as they carefully swept the countryside.
‘Sir, don’t you want to leave more men behind?’ another officer asked. ‘What if the Tagrilistani army tries to recapture the town while we’re out searching for the British?’
Aminev dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand. ‘We’ve both been observing the ceasefire, so there is no reason for them to attack. Besides, our men will be travelling away from enemy lines, so they won’t even know we’re gone.’
In truth, the last thing he cared about was losing the town. He knew the war was almost over, and that by the end of the week the pro-Europe president would be gone, replaced by someone sympathetic to the Russian cause. How exactly that would be achieved, he didn’t know, but he’d learned about it at the same time that Andrew Harvey had been put under his control. Tasked with looking after the English prisoner, Aminev had demanded to know why the man couldn’t simply be shot in the head instead.
He was their bargaining chip, the Russian envoy had told him, to be kept alive until Moscow deemed him surplus to requirements. The penalty for failing to stick to the brief had been made all too clear, which was why Aminev was throwing almost everything he had at getting the prisoner back.
‘Will you be leading the search?’ asked the sharp young lieutenant.
‘No,’ Aminev said, rising from his seat. ‘I will interrogate the helicopter pilot when he arrives. I want to know exactly who we’re up against.’
Chapter 24
26 January 2016
Despite Ellis’s assertion that they’d done all they could, Sarah Thompson wasn’t about to let things lie. Apart from being her lover, Andrew Harvey was a damned fine operative, and to be cast aside by the government he served was unconscionable.
Thompson was sitting at her desk, the search for a replacement killer going nowhere. That didn’t surprise her, because she knew she wasn’t giving it her full attention. When she tried to concentrate, thoughts of Harvey kept jumping into her head, distracting her from the job in hand.
She rose and began pacing the room, trying to stem the anger boiling inside her. She couldn’t believe Ellis expected her to simply get on with her job when Andrew was facing certain death, but that was what she’d been told to do. Carry on and get the name of the person sent in to carry out the assassination.
Easy orders to give when it wasn’t your soulmate languishing in a filthy prison thousands of miles away.
Thompson glanced over at Ellis’s office and saw her boss on the phone. She stood, checked her watch and decided that her moment had arrived.
‘I’m going for lunch,’ she said to Elaine Solomon as she headed for the door, getting a sympathetic smile in return. It had been the same for the last couple of days – condolences for her imminent loss, lots of tiptoeing around her. None of them knew about the rescue attempt, and they were clearly under the impression that Harvey’s fate had already been sealed.
Not if she had anything to do with it.
Thompson rode the elevator down to the underground car park and climbed into her Ford, knowing that what she was about to do would probably mean kissing her job goodbye.
To her surprise, she found that she didn’t care.
Over the last year, only one thing had come to mean anything to her, and that was Andrew Harvey. If he died, there would be little of value left in her life. She certainly wouldn’t continue serving a government that had relinquished him so readily.
She drove out of the car park on autopilot, her mind concentrating on the upcoming encounter. She had to admit that she hadn’t thought it all through and had no idea how it would turn out, but the one thing she did know was that she couldn’t sit idle while Andrew’s time ran out.
She hardly registered the details of the drive, and before she became fully conscious of it, she found herself parked outside the Petrushkin, still uncertain as to what she would do once she got inside.
She decided to play it by ear.
As she got out of the car, a traffic warden approached her.
‘You’re parked on double yellows,’ he said, opening his pad to begin writing a ticket.
Thompson was conscious of the Russian thug standing watch outside the restaurant, and moved closer to the warden, her back to the building.
‘MI5,’ she whispered, flashing her temporary ID.
‘You’ll still have to shift it,’ the man said, noting down her licence plate, ‘otherwise it’ll be towed.’
Thompson leaned in closer, looking at the warden’s name badge. ‘Jeff,’ she said in a slightly harsher whisper, ‘if I come out and my car has moved one inch, I swear I will shoot you in the head. You can either call this in and report me, in which case the black-ops team I run will hunt you down and destroy you, or you can stop scribbling and walk away. I’m working a case, and if you blow my cover or cost me my transport, life for you will turn very shitty, very quickly.’
Thompson turned her body so that the Russian on the door could see her smiling at the traffic warden, hoping he saw it as an attempt to flirt her way out of a ticket. Of more concern was Jeff, who looked like he was about to soil himself.
Thompson leaned in and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Last chance,’ she whispered, and was relieved to see him pocketing the ticket book as he walked away. She walked in the opposite direction, giving the bouncer her most dazzling smile as she pushed the restaurant door open.
As she’d expected, Bessonov sat inside, waiting for his regular meeting with Polushin. Two more of his thugs were sitting near the window, instantly alert to her presence. Behind the bar, a less imposing figure slowly polished an already clean glass.
Thompson strode to the rear of the room, where Bessonov was finishing off a bowl of borscht. The Russian watched her approach, offering the slightest glance to his henchmen as she neared the table.
‘Where’s Andrew Harvey?’ Thompson asked, standing across from the mobster with her hands on her hips. She both heard and felt the footsteps behind her but kept her gaze on Bessonov, who looked up at her impassively.
In the mirror above the corner booth, Thompson could see the two bodyguards getting closer. The one in front was at least a foot taller than she and had to weigh twice as much.
Perfect.
As a meaty hand clasped her on the shoulder, Thompson grabbed the wrist and took half a step backwards, arching her back and pulling down on the arm. Her opponent’s weight worked against him, and he flew over her shoulder and landed on his back with a thud. Thompson immediately dropped to her knees, one of them coming down on the man’s face with all of her weight behind it. She heard the satisfying crunch of broken cartilage but didn’t have time to savour the moment. Her hands were already inside the man’s jacket, and a second later she was standing with the bodyguard’s Makarov jammed in Bessonov’s windpipe.
‘Call off the dogs,’ she said evenly.
Bessonov remained calm, raising a hand to halt the advance of the second bodyguard, who already had his own pistol aimed at Thompson’s head.
‘I’m warning you, tell them to back off or this’ll be the shortest meeting you ever had.’
Bessonov carefully articulated a curt order, and his henchman stowed his weapon before helping his injured colleague to his feet. Thompson found herself on the receiving end of a fierce stare, but she wasn’t there to win friends and influence people.
She waited until the pair had retreated a sufficient distance, then turned her attention back to their boss.
/> ‘Andrew Harvey. Where is he?’
‘Never heard of him.’
With lightning speed, Thompson struck the mobster across the face with the butt of the Makarov.
‘Remember him now?’ she asked, ramming the barrel back into the side of his neck.
‘You were warned to stop harassing me with these unfounded alleg—’
Thompson’s free hand came up in a flash, her fist catching Bessonov’s eyebrow with a glancing blow. The ring on her finger cut a gouge in his skin and blood immediately began seeping from the wound, but the mobster’s tone didn’t change.
‘As I said, I’ve never heard of this Andrew Harvey.’
Thompson was beginning to lose her cool. Short of shooting him, there appeared little she could do to get him to talk.
At least, not here.
But the moment she took the weapon off Bessonov, his goons would draw down on her.
‘Up!’ she ordered, reinforcing the directive with another jab of the gun’s barrel.
‘If you walk away now, I’ll forget this ever happened.’
‘Oh, it’s happening,’ Thompson snarled, ‘and this is the fluffy part. Trust me, it goes downhill from here.’
She grabbed his collar and jerked him upright, then pushed him ahead of her, the gun poised at the nape of his neck while her other hand gripped his shoulder.
Bessonov walked agonisingly slowly, and she got the impression he was stalling.
‘Move it,’ she urged, but Bessonov maintained the sedate pace.
What seemed like an age passed before they finally reached the door. The two goons were seated back in their usual positions, one emotionless while the one with the broken face glared daggers in her direction.
Bessonov stopped at the door.
‘Open it,’ Thompson ordered. ‘Slowly.’
The mobster did as he was told and took a couple of steps outside, before tripping and stumbling to his knees. Thompson realised too late that he’d done it on purpose, and in her haste to get him into her car, she’d forgotten about the third henchman standing guard in the street.
Her gun hand exploded in pain as a ball-bearing-filled cosh crashed down on it, quickly followed by a fierce punch to the temple. Like an outclassed boxer, she felt her legs turn to jelly and collapsed to the ground face first. Her nose took the brunt of the impact, and blood began pouring onto the concrete. A crimson pool began to form as she felt herself being dragged back into the building, and the last thing she saw before she blacked out was Bessonov’s equally bloody face, his dead eyes signalling the terror and pain to come.
‘Easy, now,’ Gray said as he helped Harvey down the narrow wooden staircase.
They’d come across the small farm twenty minutes earlier and he’d sent Sonny ahead to check it out. Fortunately, like many dwellings in this civil-war zone, it had been abandoned for some time, and it hadn’t taken them long to find the cellar. Its door was set into the floor of the barn, and it made the ideal place for Harvey and Howard to wait while the rest of the team went back into Dubrany to rescue McGregor.
At the bottom of the stairs they found a damp floor and very little else. Gray called to Smart and had him throw down a few bales of straw, which would at least give the pair something dry to sit on while they waited for the others to return.
Doc and Sonny appeared at the trapdoor. They’d been outside with bowls to collect some of the falling rain, and had poured their catch into two bottles. Sonny had also brought a couple of old blankets and some dry clothes from the house.
‘We should be back within six hours,’ Gray said to Howard. ‘If we’re not, it’ll be your job to get Andrew across the border to safety. I’m expecting another ruckus at the jail, and that should draw their troops back into town. That’ll be in your favour.’
Gray began to climb the stairs.
‘Tom . . .’
He looked back at Harvey, who cut a pitiful figure as he huddled inside a quilt-work blanket.
‘I just wanna say—’
‘Save it,’ Gray said. ‘We’re not home yet.’ He managed the faintest of smiles. ‘But when we get back to London, you owe us all a few pints.’
‘Deal.’ Harvey tried to return the smile, but only succeeded in cracking open the wounds on his lips. ‘I really need to speak to Ellis. It won’t take long.’
‘The battery on the sat-phone is really low, mate. It’ll have to wait. Just do exactly what Mark says.’ Gray turned to Howard. ‘Get him home, no matter what.’
Speech over, Gray climbed out of the cellar and closed the trapdoor. He helped the others to gather loose straw from around the barn and use it to cover the hatch. Once he was satisfied that it was sufficiently camouflaged, he took a bearing on the GPS and led the others back out into the rain. Sonny picked up a rake on the way out and swept away any sign that they’d been there as they retraced their footsteps from the farm.
They soon reached a small stream, and Sonny hid the rake in some rushes before Gray led them up the riverbed, water lapping up to their knees. It made heavy going, but the important thing was to distance themselves from the farm while minimising the trail back to Harvey.
Night began to give way to a battleship-grey morning, but the rain refused to yield entirely, the earlier bombardment reduced to a steady drizzle.
It wasn’t long before they encountered the enemy.
They were a mile from the outskirts of Dubrany, trekking through a mudbath. Vegetation was scarce, but ahead they saw a treeline and beyond that, the outline of the taller buildings that made up the war-torn town. They first heard, then saw, the BMP-3, its tank tracks making light work of the terrain. It came crashing through a small thicket, upending young trees and trampling bushes.
The vehicle was moving close to its top speed and Gray knew that meant the occupants didn’t expect to find them so close to the town. Thankfully, it was maintaining a steady course that would take it two hundred yards to the right of them, putting it behind them in a couple of minutes.
Gray threw himself into the muck, closely followed by Smart and Sonny. Gray slowly turned on his back, getting a curious stare from Doc.
‘Cover yourself in mud,’ Gray whispered. ‘Camouflage.’
Soon, all four of them blended into their environment. It wasn’t perfect, but there was little else they could do under the circumstances.
And not a moment too soon.
Ahead, Gray saw an open-topped Land Rover approaching, five men on board, and moving on a much closer course to their location. Gray slowly moved his body from side to side, not so quickly as to draw attention to himself, but enough to sink another inch into the sodden ground. His men followed suit, becoming a part of the landscape as best they could.
The last thing Gray wanted to do was have to engage the vehicle, and he was relieved to see it travelling as fast as the armoured BMP-3, the driver keen to get to the border, passengers staring straight ahead.
As soon as the vehicle’s roar had faded into the distance, Gray turned to Sonny.
‘I was right. They’re racing to close the border.’
It was good news, but they weren’t safe yet. There was no telling how many Russian soldiers remained in Dubrany, and now their incursion would occur in broad daylight. Hardly ideal circumstances, but Gray had to play the hand they’d been dealt. Waiting until midnight would have been the preferred strategy, but that would have given the enemy plenty of time to realise they’d fallen for a feint. It would also have meant leaving McGregor in their hands for close on twenty-four hours.
Gray waited until the vehicles had disappeared from sight, then got the others to their feet and continued the march towards town. The landscape changed, with trees and bushes replacing the stark mud plains they’d had to endure. Once Gray could make out individual windows in the buildings on the edge of town, he took another reading from the GPS, altered course a few degrees and ordered the men back onto their bellies for the last few hundred yards.
It took more th
an an hour to reach the hole they’d created in the chain-link fence. Gray was the first to break cover, sprinting for the gap while the others prepared to lay down cover fire. Once he was through, he planted himself against the wall of the nearest building and urged the next man forward. One by one they joined up, and Gray used the GPS to find the location where Smart had stashed the truck.
‘I just hope it’s still there,’ Smart said.
‘If it isn’t, we’ll just have to go in on foot,’ Sonny answered.
They walked slowly through now familiar streets, sticking to smaller avenues and avoiding major intersections. It took another thirty minutes to reach the rear of the school, and they were relieved to see the truck almost exactly as they’d left it.
The only difference was the stench of death filling the interior.
Working in pairs, they dragged the corpses from the cab and flat bed, then identified bodies with builds similar to their own. Luckily, there were plenty of puddles around, allowing them to wash off the bloodstains. Smart, being the largest, had to settle for a combat smock that he could barely button up.
‘Time to lay off the pies.’ Sonny laughed, patting the big man’s belly.
‘Knock it off,’ Gray warned.
He forced open the school door and ordered the bodies to be pushed down a stairwell, then climbed into the passenger seat. Wanting a Russian speaker up front with him, he had Doc get behind the wheel, and gave him directions.
‘Next left,’ Gray said, taking them onto the main street that bisected the town. It initially looked to be deserted but Gray could see a car in the distance, and it was getting closer.
‘Carry on, or turn off?’ Doc asked, as the vehicle drew nearer, two hundred yards away and closing fast.
‘Carry on,’ Gray said. ‘If they stop us, tell them you’re low on fuel and need to top up before you join the others.’
‘And if they don’t buy it?’
There was really little alternative. ‘We take ’em out. At your signal.’
Gray Salvation Page 17