Slingshot

by Matthew Dunn

  Will muttered, “There must be a way Kronos can get to him. You need to let me speak to the witness’s security team.”

  Metz glanced at van Acker, looked confused, then returned his attention to the intelligence officers. “If what you say is true, this places us in a very grave situation. We’ve given the witness our word that we will protect him.”

  “Let me make an independent security assessment.” Will spoke imploringly. “Bring me in on this.”

  Metz bowed his head.

  “Please!”

  The court’s president eventually looked up. “Providing you can supply me with letters of authority from your premiers, I’m willing to bring both of you in to help stop Kronos.”

  Will and Mikhail answered simultaneously, “No!”

  “It’s both, or nothing. Neutralizing the Kronos threat must be coordinated. I can’t have one of you running around doing things that could compromise the witness’s security.”

  Will felt overwhelming uncertainty, and he knew Mikhail would be feeling the same way. “Men with our respective backgrounds don’t like working together.”

  “Then grow up and overcome your differences.”

  Will glanced at Mikhail; the man was staring back at him. He turned back to the lawyers. “Our hands can’t be tied.”

  “I’m afraid they’ll have to be. You can’t interfere with the protection of our witness.”

  Will shook his head. “I don’t intend to. Kronos’s objective is to kill your witness. Our objective will be to kill the assassin before he does so.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Sixty minutes later, Will and Mikhail were standing facing each other in Alexanderkazerne. Roger had left them a few minutes earlier after Will had instructed him to rejoin his colleagues in their hunt for Rübner’s family.

  A fine rain continued to wash over Will’s face as he stared at the SVR officer. “Every instinct I have says we shouldn’t be working together.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  Will pointed at him. “If you do anything that could compromise my work, I won’t hesitate to deal with you.”

  Mikhail patted the part of his overcoat concealing his gun. “Likewise, if you fuck up, I’ll deal with you.”

  The two officers were silent for thirty seconds.

  Then Will asked, “If Kronos was employed by the Russians, why did you try to stop his activation?”

  Mikhail shrugged. “We don’t know why Kronos was deployed. But I knew that we didn’t want the activation code to get into Schreiber’s hands without authority from the Russian premier, because there was a note to that effect on the paper. That was my only lead. I had Schreiber’s location, so I tried to intercept the paper before it got to him.”

  “How did you know where he was?”

  “We’ve been tracking him for years. He moves around a lot, but so do we.”

  “Where was he?”

  “In a farmstead in Lower Saxony. I have assets there in case any of his men return, though I’m doubtful they’ll do so.” He thought about the men who’d died there and of his four-man team of professionals who been slaughtered by the convoy. He wished he could write to their families, explain how brave they’d been, but that would be impossible.

  “Does he have a base of operations in the Black Forest?”

  “No. But he does have five other bases in Germany. As soon as the paper was stolen, I got assets to watch all six properties. When he was spotted in Saxony, I diverted resources to that location.”

  “He must now be at one of his other locations.”

  Mikhail felt frustrated. “He’s not, and that means he has another base that I don’t know about.”

  Will moved right in front of him. “Is Lenka Yevtushenko alive?”

  “That information’s none of your concern.”

  “He did something stupid. But he doesn’t need to be hurt because of what he did.”

  Mikhail wondered why the British man cared. “He breached the SVR’s trust in him. He’ll be taken back to Moscow and disciplined.”

  “So he’s alive?”

  Mikhail stared at him for ten seconds. “Yes. He’s in bad shape, but I’ve ordered my men to patch him up. They wanted to kill him, because they lost friends and brothers at the farmstead.” He sighed and looked away from Will. “He was very foolish and he’ll have to account for what he did. But that will be done in the proper way.”

  “Let him go. He’s got a woman and child to look after.”

  Mikhail laughed. “He should have thought of that before he stole the paper.”

  “I believe he did think of that. Schreiber blackmailed him and no doubt would have also given him a financial incentive to do the job. Yevtushenko was faced with the choice of imprisonment in Russia, or stealing the paper and setting up life with Alina and Maria.”

  “Blackmailed him?”

  Will hesitated, didn’t know if he should give Mikhail information that could either persuade the SVR spycatcher to his way of thinking or make matters worse for the defector. “Yevtushenko had been working for the CIA. Schreiber found out and used that information to get him to steal the paper.”

  Mikhail’s expression darkened. “In that case, I’ll take him back to Russia not only to face the charge of stealing secret intelligence. He’ll also stand trial for being a CIA agent.”

  Disappointment hit Will. Telling Mikhail the truth had been the wrong decision. “To what end?”

  Mikhail moved closer to him, his eyes cold. “Against my better judgment, I’ll get the authority from my premier to work with you and the Dutch. But Yevtushenko is a Russian matter. We will severely punish him and nothing you can say or do will stop that from happening.”

  Forty

  Alfie Mayne unloaded the last of the cases from the car’s trunk and carried it toward the vacation home. Located on the Isle of Wight’s stunning and rugged southwest coast, and overlooked by a down named after the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose magnificent mansion turned hotel was toward the top of the hills, Alfie had chosen the place because it was not only remote but had been the place his cash-strapped mum and dad had brought him on vacation from their south London council apartment when he was a kid. He remembered building sand castles on the beach, tossing crab lines into rock pools, eating cheese sandwiches that had been contaminated with sand, breathing the farmland smell around the trailer site they’d always stayed at, and drinking tea out of a flask with his mother while his father had tried to repair their worn-out old Morris Minor car on the side of a country road.

  The ex-SAS sergeant wished his parents had been able to afford to stay in the large house he was headed toward; not for his benefit—he loved the excitement of sharing a trailer with his parents and waking up to the smell of wild mushrooms and bacon being cooked in the kitchenette—but for his parents, who’d never stayed anywhere more plush than places that called themselves bed and breakfasts but were really cheap rooming houses.

  He placed the case down in the hallway and turned to face the cliffs and the beach beyond them. At age seven he’d run along the same beach, laughing so much his stomach hurt, as his father chased him wearing rolled-up trousers and a knotted handkerchief on his head while pretending to be the ghost of an ancient pirate.

  It was a lifetime ago.

  He walked into the four-bedroom home, past one room containing Betty, who was singing to herself while she unpacked clothes, and another where James was on the phone to his law firm, coaching someone on the wording of a legal report. In the living room, Sarah was sitting on the sofa, her knees bunched under her chin as she stared out of the window. She’d barely spoken during the drive down from Scotland, aside from telling Alfie that she wished he wouldn’t smoke in the car and could he please wind up his window.

  He sat next to her. “Going to drive into Ventnor this afternoon. There’s a lovely fishmongers on the harbor there. Everything they sell is fresh off the boat, same-day catch. Fancy joining me for a spin?”

 
; “No thanks.”

  “Got something better to do?”

  Sarah did not answer.

  Alfie followed her gaze toward the window. Outside, waves were crashing over a beach that looked considerably less appealing during winter than it did during his summer vacations here. “My old man died out there when I was fourteen. Heart attack. Think all that rationing stodge he grew up on finally took its toll on the poor bugger. My mother never got over it, but she hung on in there until the day I joined up with the army. Then she let go. Funny, isn’t it? When they’re around, we think everything will be like that forever. Then they’re gone and you’re left with silly regrets.”

  “Regrets?”

  Alfie shrugged. “Few hours before he collapsed, me dad asked me to go fishing with him, just like we used to do when I was younger. I said no ’cos I was more interested in watching the pretty girls on the beach.”

  Sarah looked at him. “Is this another of your little pep talks?”

  Alfie kept his attention on the beach. “Dunno, petal. I guess being here just reminds me of stuff.” He glanced at her. “Given what he does for a living, it’s only a matter of time before your brother’s killed.” He returned his attention to the beach and quietly said to himself, “Yeah, should’ve gone fishing with you, Dad.”

  Forty-One

  Tibor entered the windowless room in CIA headquarters, sat down, and spoke to his Flintlock colleagues. “It’s over. Cochrane’s given up trying to find Yevtushenko.”

  Damien slapped a hand onto the table. “Excellent!”

  “Did the source say anything else?” Lawrence made no effort to hide his feelings of relief and joy.

  “Only that Cochrane’s been deployed on another mission; that his attempts to locate Yevtushenko were deemed a failure.” Tibor smiled. “But reading between the lines, I think Cochrane’s superiors have given him an almighty kicking.”

  Marcus chuckled. “Oh well. We didn’t get him killed, but hopefully we’ve screwed his career.”

  The operatives were silent for a while. All of them felt as if a weight had been lifted off them.

  Lawrence was the first to break the silence. “Gentlemen, we must be more careful in the future.”

  “No shit.” Tibor straightened his silk tie. “Yesterday I bumped into the Director of Intelligence. He said that Patrick had been sniffing around the Rübner case. He’d sent him packing, but he asked me if there was anything about the Rübner case that he should know about. I told the DI that Rübner had probably lost his nerve and had done a runner, that there was nothing more to it than that. I added that Patrick was an interfering busybody who was probably trying to dig up old cases because he had fuck-all else to do right now. The DI seemed happy with that. Plus, when I got him talking about our North Korean destabilization operation, it was clear that Rübner was completely off his mind.”

  The mention of Patrick unsettled Tibor’s colleagues. Though Flintlock was privy to most of the CIA’s secrets, they’d never been told what Patrick’s place was within the organization. Tibor was right to describe him in the way he’d done, because that was exactly how Patrick would be perceived by others in the Agency. But it was only recently that they’d learned from Peter Rhodes that Patrick was the cohead of the task force that Cochrane and Rhodes belonged to.

  Lawrence asked, “You’re sure the director got him to back off?”

  “Yep. Thank God the DI’s a rulebook guy. Patrick doesn’t have clearance to the Rübner case and his intelligence, so the DI tells him to mind his own business.”

  Lawrence was reassured by this. Because they were the DI’s chosen ones, they all knew that he would crucify them if he ever found out the truth about Yevtushenko and Rübner.

  Tibor stated, “Our priorities now are our other operations: North Korea, getting the bomb into the delegation’s building in Dar es Salaam, turning the Asian cells against each other, feeding more disinformation to the Saudis, and further positioning France against Germany.”

  Damien frowned. “It would’ve been good to know who got Yevtushenko out of Russia and why.”

  Tibor disagreed. “It will be for some low-level, chickenshit reason. Fuck Yevtushenko, fuck Rübner, fuck Cochrane. We’ve got big boys’ stuff to get on with.”

  Forty-Two

  Kronos cupped his hand under the center of the rifle, lifted the weapon a few inches, and nodded approvingly. “Perfect balance.”

  Leaning against a bench, a bespectacled gunsmith used a cloth to rub oil from his hands. Around him, the basement workshop contained more benches on all sides containing anvils, tools, manuals, electronic scales, spot lamps, magnifying glasses, a blowtorch, and gun parts. The middle-aged Dutchman pointed at the gun. “I modified parts from a German DSR-50 sniper rifle. It was a devil of a job. The customized magazine added an extra three pounds to the rear end.”

  Kronos removed the clip and looked at the large bullets. “How many?”

  “Twenty per clip, as you requested.”

  Kronos slammed the magazine back into the weapon and raised it to eye level. “You’re sure it won’t need zeroing on site?”

  “Absolutely. Once you’ve zeroed it at a range, the weapon can be transported and will be accurate when you need it to be. The case will help protect it, but even so you’d need to give the gun a fairly hard knock to put it out of alignment with the scope. I’ve spent hours ensuring the assembled parts are perfectly married.”

  “Excellent. Faults?”

  The gunsmith frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “What faults does it have?”

  “I can assure you that there are none.”

  Kronos smiled. “Every make of weapon has its own idiosyncrasies. Including”—he glanced at the man—“those made by specialists.”

  The Dutchman sighed. “I’ve tried to minimize recoil as much as I could, but you’ll need a firm grip, because it still kicks like a mule. Plus, I can’t suppress the sound any further without reducing projectile velocity. You’ll be heard from over fifty yards away. Other than that”—he ran a finger along the full length of the barrel—“this is the best rifle I’ve ever made.”

  “Good. Neither fault presents me with a problem.” Kronos rested the weapon on a table and expertly stripped it down, placing the parts into foam inlets within a rectangular case. He withdrew an envelope containing fifty thousand euros and thrust it toward the gunsmith.

  The man hesitated. “I’ll need another ten thousand. It took me much longer than I thought to complete the work.”

  Kronos slowly shook his head. “There was no deal to pay you by the hour.”

  “Nevertheless, I think I deserve . . .”

  Kronos slammed the case shut and turned to face the gunsmith, towering over the man. “Consider this: I know your name, your place of work, your home address, your favorite restaurant, the pub where you like to have an occasional glass of Grolsch, your children’s school, and a hundred other facts about you and your family. A further ten thousand euros will severely antagonize me. Do you think the extra hours you worked are worth that situation?”

  The Dutchman’s face paled and his eyes widened. “I . . .” He grabbed the envelope. “Please . . . please, forget what I said.”

  Kronos smiled, slid the case inside a canvas bag, and held out his hand. “Good. And now you can forget what I said.”

  With a sweaty palm, the gunsmith shook his hand. “Thank you.”

  “And thank you for making such an excellent weapon.” Kronos’s expression turned cold and he gripped the gunsmith’s hand very tightly, causing him to wince. “A man in your delicate line of work needs his fingers. Never give me cause to come back here”—he nodded toward the blowtorch and anvils—“to remove them.”

  Forty-Three

  Will called Patrick and updated him on recent developments. “The court’s lawyers are adamant that their security around the witness is watertight. They’re keeping him in a military installation in the south of the Netherlands. In two
days’ time, he’s going to be flown north to another secure facility in The Hague. At all times, he’s going to have a ring of steel around him.”

  “You threatened the court’s president and chief prosecutor?”

  “I had to. Time’s running out.”

  “It’ll run out for you if you keep behaving this way.”

  Will ignored the comment. “Once I persuaded them that their witness is under severe threat, they began to cooperate with me to some extent. But they won’t give me access to the witness unless they have written authorization from your president and my prime minister, confirming my credentials and that I am acting with their backing.”

  “Shit. That’s a big ask, since I’m not entirely sure you have their backing.”

  “Can you arrange the authorization?”

  The CIA officer was silent for a few seconds before answering, “I can try.”

  “Also, they’ve asked the Russian premier to gain identical authorities for SVR officer Mikhail Salkov.” He told him about the court president’s terms.

  When he spoke, Patrick’s tone was deliberate and incredulous. “Cooperating with the Russians? This could turn into a cluster fuck.”

  “I know!” Will felt frustration. “Right now, the last thing I need is to work alongside an SVR spycatcher.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got no choice. In any case, from what you’ve said, there’s no way the assassin can get to the target.”

  Will agreed. The Dutch security teams that protected witnesses appearing at The Hague were second to none. “I can’t work it out. No matter how good the assassin is, by all accounts he’ll fail. But I need to make my own security assessment by analyzing the setup around the witness.”

  Patrick sighed. “Okay.” He paused. “How’s your loved one?”

  Mention of Sarah made Will feel even more anxious. “She’s had to move locations. There was a severe threat at the previous site. I’m getting regular updates.”

  “Are you holding up?”

  Will wondered how the cohead would react if he told him the truth—that he was mentally and physically exhausted, was living in constant fear that he’d receive a call from Betty saying that they’d failed, didn’t know if it was the right decision to ally with the Russian spycatcher, had no idea how he was going to look Alina in the eye and tell her that he’d broken his promise to bring Lenka home, and so far had failed to get closer to Schreiber and Kronos.