by Tim Heath
“If you fail to make it happen I’ll get those that can take every kopeck from you to do just that. Gentleman, bear in mind when you make your bets tomorrow that Twenty is as good as broke.”
She had a smile on her flawless face as she spoke these destructive words, her speech effectively destroying any hopes that Sokoloff might have held, no one likely to even wager against him. They knew that they stood to gain nothing if they were to win, making him a dead horse. The anger on his face was evident.
“Tomorrow, Gentlemen, to mark the celebration of our first decade, I’ve arranged something particularly special for your Contestants. Five tickets are located in various spots around the city, each chosen because of the––let’s say––complicated procedure that will be needed to obtain that ticket. Some of your people, if you’ve not chosen wisely, might even be killed in the process.” There was a note of excitement in the room, a nervous energy bubbling under the surface. “Gentlemen, I promise you a week you will never forget!” There was a round of applause as if this was an audience watching a ballet at the Mariinsky. “So enjoy this evening––enjoy the city. Oh, and one final thing,” she said, more deliberately than anything else she had said, the room quiet once more.
“You’ll need to make sure each of your Contestants arrives at this location,” and an address appeared on the screen the second she spoke, “for ten tomorrow morning. The ten Contestants will be locked into this building once they are all inside. All ten will get the same information.” A photo now appeared on the screen, showing a huge warehouse some distance north of the river, in a mainly run down and deserted old commercial sector. The building had at least four floors judging by the placement of the smashed out windows. “There are only a couple of ways out of this building once the doors on the ground floor are locked. Most of the rooms will be in total darkness––though we’ve kitted the whole place out with thermal imaging cameras with night vision. You won’t miss a trick. And just to make it all a little more, well––entertaining––certain parts of this building will be packed full of various types of weaponry, guns, ammunition, grenades and knives. It could get rather messy!”
The room was in silence for a moment, though in truth each had suspected something that might involve their Contestant getting violent, though nothing like this. Still, they’d selected an exciting group of people, for sure––each convinced that their Contestant would be able to pull this one off for them.
“So I propose a toast, Gentlemen,” Svetlana said, glass in hand, as the other men in the room began to hold their glasses at the ready. “To ten years––to ten expectant Contestants and may the best amongst you win!” They each toasted her, before one man added, “S Novim Godum,” Russian for Happy New Year.
“S Novim Godum,” the room responded in one voice.
As the fireworks rose––midnight now upon the city––Alex, Anissa and Sasha stood out in the cold, snow falling around them, lost in crowds of people all wishing each other a Happy New Year. They’d not yet found what they were seeking.
Dmitry Sokoloff, sitting alone in his hotel room, a clear view of the fireworks now visible above the rooftops, faced losing everything he had, his search for resolution––for revenge––so far unsatisfied.
Phelan McDermott––thousands of miles from there––in what seemed like an entirely different world, watched his kids playing, throwing stones with them into the water.
Each of these people had their own questions they wanted answers to, each with unresolved issues, each searching for something. For everyone involved, the Hunt went on…
Character Glossary
Who’s who in The Hunt series––as of the start of this book
MI6 - Alex Tolbert, Anissa Edison, Gordon Peacock (head technician), Thomas Price (Deputy Director General, DDG for short).
FSB - Sasha Barkov (Russian agent who has previously helped MI6).
Andre Philip––Contact for Alex at MI6.
T20 - Arseni Markovic (Eleven), Dmitry Sokoloff (Twelve), Rurik Sewick (Thirteen, Mr Grey), Akim Kozlov (Fourteen), Aleksey Kuznetsov (Fifteen), Dmitry Kaminski (Sixteen), Motya Utkin (Seventeen), Dmitry Pavlov (Eighteen), Osip Yakovlev (Nineteen), Stanislav Krupin (Twenty).
Matvey Filipov––Wealthy oligarch who has no part in the Games.
Sergej Volkov (the Wolf)––Billionaire and husband of Svetlana, a man well connected and with a shady past, though now, publicly at least, a reformed character.
Svetlana Volkov ––Wife of Sergej and world famous actress.
The Pride
The Hunt series book 2
Dedication
For my Family––near and far
****
A character glossary is located at the back of the book.
1
St Petersburg, Russia
1st January
The warehouse doors were left open momentarily, allowing what little light there was at that time of year to drift in for another few brief seconds. Snow covered the ground, huge piles of the stuff. It might have come from the roof of the giant building into which they’d been delivered. It was hard to tell. As the doors were closed, the images of those others they’d seen standing in the space, their shapes just visible in the gloom, now disappeared, along with what few traces of light might have been lingering.
Being thrown into instant darkness did one of two things. For some, they went still, waiting for their eyes to adjust a little, slowing their breathing, allowing their other senses to kick into overdrive. For others, it made them take flight, to run, not knowing where they were moving, hands reaching out in front of them, their spacial awareness completely gone. Still, they’d seen the room in the seconds before the lights went out.
In that instant, both of these two reflex responses were being displayed by the group of ten individuals in that vast and mainly derelict old warehouse. The sounds of people tripping, things falling, only added to the fear now being felt by those who were standing still. Two people could be heard running into each other, their bodies slamming together, a reminder of what the dangers were. At least one of those people who’d apparently collided with someone could then be heard hitting the floor––hard. Going down wasn’t anything good. What they’d all seen as they were quickly escorted into the building was debris everywhere, as commonly found in ageing buildings on the edges of vast cities. Concrete, metal and glass were just a few of the things that those who were standing still had registered when they were ushered out of the van and moved into the gloom. That was partly why they weren’t running, though the fear was already playing tricks with them, growing like a poison inside, the faintest rush of air passing them making them dread the inevitable.
High above the floors in every corner of every space within the vast four-storey warehouse, were cameras. State of the art devices that had no issue picking up images in zero visibility. These were feeding back in real-time everything that was taking place.
In their usual house in the centre of the city, men watched and waited. Each man had something riding on one of the Contestants inside that dark wreck of a building, for once longing for their success. Pride was at stake and many other things besides.
After five minutes, all ten Contestants had moved from their original position, and the group split between five who had waited until their eyes had adjusted and five who’d run, two of this second group colliding hard with each other. The one who fell was still on the ground. At the moment, those watching on the monitors couldn’t be sure whose Contestant it was or if they had been seriously injured. The observers knew that before the day was out the situation could quickly become very serious for several of the Contestants.
It was all unchartered territory, a tenth-anniversary celebration, the Chair had said.
Inside the warehouse, a few people had made it out of the main room. No one had been given any great information about the layout of the building but had been told that there were only two viable exits, and these were all on higher floors.
Getting out of the darkness was priority one, therefore, and finding any staircase was the next. Any glimmer of daylight would be a bonus too, though, from the outside, the building hadn’t obviously had any windows or openings on its front wall as they’d approached. The whole area had been abandoned, which had been the first thing that struck each of the ten as they made their way in.
None of them had seen each other before, nor were they allowed to talk to each other. They were brought in using five vans––two Contestants in each, separated by a row of seats. It was as if they were prizefighting dogs that needed to be kept apart for fear of them attacking each other on the journey.
Suddenly the silence––and darkness––was broken by a loud explosion, a fireball some way off still illuminating the dark corridors for a few seconds. Then the gunfire started. Someone had found the weapons.
Alex Tolbert woke at nine, despite only having had a few hours’ sleep that night. The fireworks had been going off for hours, his eyes finally giving out on him and he’d dropped off not long after four. He checked his watch. Outside, light snow was falling. The shower in the adjoining room was already running as he got out of bed, telling him that next door Anissa was already awake. Anissa Edison was his partner at MI6, and they’d worked together for nearly all of her seven years in the Security Service, Alex himself having joined three years before that. Unlike Anissa, Alex was a single guy and pleased about it. He didn’t know how she was able to do what they did, often in the line of fire, and then go home to others who relied on her so much. Alex guessed her years in the army had been much the same. It seemed to work for her, and from what he could see, they were a very tight family unit. Her husband was apparently secure enough to let her travel with another man so often.
For his part, Alex had always kept it professional. Yes, he knew she was attractive, but he’d decided never to go there the moment he found out she was married, happily married, she said.
Alex was in and out of the shower in minutes, the sound of the television on next door telling him that Anissa was nearly ready, and she’d be knocking on his door soon, breakfast calling.
The hotel was a nice one, and the various breakfast offerings were what you would expect, though catering for a more Russian palate. Situated on Nevski Prospect, the main road cutting through the centre of St Petersburg, it was one of the most popular hotels for international businesspeople and wealthy Russians alike.
The breakfast hall was noticeably quiet, given the fact that many of the residents, especially the Russians, had been up all night seeing in the New Year, the most significant highlight of the Russian calendar. Still, there was a handful of guests around the well-presented tables. Alex guessed they had flights out that morning or hadn’t stayed out late the previous night.
Neither was true for Alex and Anissa at that point, but they’d come to the city in search of further evidence. Picking up on the scent of something they thought was happening a little over one year before, they’d been hunting down those behind one of Russia’s best-kept secrets. Alex desperately wanted to get to the bottom of why this group of oligarchs chose to do what they did.
As they were finishing their breakfast, which had mainly consisted of a variety of sliced meats and cheeses on a few different types of bread, a dark-haired man in his thirties entered the hotel and started walking towards them.
Sasha was an active service FSB agent, Russia’s own Security Service agency, the modern face of what once had been the much feared KGB. He was based in St Petersburg and had helped out the British on a previous occasion before becoming a link for the two agents in this latest matter. If his employers were aware of what he was doing––he’d made sure no one had followed him or knew of that morning’s meeting with the two agents––he would be finished. In that case, probably no one would find out what happened to him––just another empty desk at the office, another mystery.
“Sasha, good to see you up so early,” Alex said, rising from his chair and taking the man’s hand. Sasha had been out with them both the night before, showing them the city’s official firework display, which took place on the banks of the Neva River.
“May I join you for a coffee?” he said, taking a seat next to Anissa, who had also got up to greet him. They all sat around the table, and Alex poured Sasha a cup of coffee from the pot he’d moved onto their table from the buffet area. No one had seemed to mind too much, at least for the moment anyway.
Alex and Anissa had flown to St Petersburg a few days before, on the trail of one of their bosses, the Deputy Director General of MI6. They knew he was meeting with someone in the city, the person responsible for organising what was known as the Games. They now had a name, too––Volkov.
Sergej and Svetlana Volkov were a couple who epitomised modern Russia. A man of great wealth and influence, with an impressively dark background, and a woman of great beauty and class. She was an internationally known actress in her own right, their marriage a coming together of two very influential worlds. Sergej had undoubtedly come out brighter for the association. His network multiplied, mostly due to her involvement in all that he did.
They’d been watching Sergej, who had been hosting an informal gathering at a city conferencing facility the day before. They had it staked out, Sasha confirming that the British DDG had arrived that morning at the city’s airport, but he never showed up for a meeting with Sergej. He flew back out that evening. Then the penny dropped––they’d been watching the wrong Volkov.
“I’ve got three addresses listed under the Volkov’s here in St Petersburg,” Sasha said, having been the only one in the office at FSB HQ that morning before he’d come to the hotel. “One is almost entirely commercial premises which, from what I can tell, is fully let to other firms. I can’t see that they have any of their own businesses using that property. The other two are private dwellings, and it’s the second of these I think we should take a look at. It’s a huge building that’s very central. Must be worth millions.”
“Okay, that’s great Sasha, really good,” Anissa said, more impressed with this man beside her the more she got to know him. He wasn’t anything like she would expect an FSB agent to be, though this was the first one she’d ever knowingly met. It was clear that without him they would have got nowhere with this investigation.
“Drink up then,” Alex said, placing his empty cup back onto the table now littered with plates, as he stood, “I think we should check out the property you’ve mentioned.”
The other two got up, nothing more said, and made their way out of the hotel.
2
The night vision cameras picked up most of the Contestants, spreading out fast across multiple rooms over two of the four floors. At least two of this internationally selected group had come across various gifts left deliberately within parts of the building. One Contestant had made the explosion to create a fire to set light to a hastily assembled fabric torch. That would give at least some light in which to navigate the rest of the building. At least one other Contestant was obviously now, albeit hesitantly, following this flame bearer as they explored the building.
One body lay on the ground, the thermal imaging camera recording a continually decreasing body temperature. They were most likely dead, or on the way.
The higher up the Contestants got within the labyrinth of a warehouse, the more light they came across, though only on three sides, and then just in the rooms that were against the outside walls. None of these places offered a way out, nor stairs that led higher. There were also no gifts in the rooms that had a little light; they were only in the places hidden in darkness.
The building had not been in use for decades and had been redesigned since for this very purpose. Only two exits remained, stairways and corridors altered, making the building maze-like, and it was sometimes necessary to go down to go up. It was a three-dimensional puzzle and was designed to be as challenging for the Contestants as much as the weapons made it also life-threatening. They’d soon realise that th
ey would need one another’s help to successfully navigate a way out––though the choice of who to work with might result in not making it much further.
Three of the Contestants were seen just standing still, each far from the other two and not near another Contestant, but as if their fears were getting the better of them, as if they’d lost all sense of direction, not knowing what was up or down, besides the concrete under their feet. Total darkness, and because of the size of the whole building and thickness of the walls throughout, sound didn’t travel very far. There was so little sensory input to go on, besides the smell, and that was far from pleasant. It made it all the more sinister, not knowing if you were walking into a room filled with dead rats, or worse.
By ten, one hour into the latest and most extravagant event they’d ever hosted, two of the Contestants had a gun each, and another had some explosives. None of them had made it to the third floor yet, where the first of two exits could be found, the other on the top floor. It was becoming a test of endurance and logic.
None of the oligarchs had made these qualities high priorities when they’d sourced who would be best qualified to represent them in this latest Hunt. And it was a battle that had not even begun to get interesting, the oligarchs themselves not knowing where the five tickets in question were.