Assassin

by David Hagberg

“Fuck you,” Elizabeth shouted in Russian, and she lunged at them, swinging both fists.

  The commando grabbed her by the arms and sent her crashing into the compartment wall, bending her elbows behind her back so hard she thought her shoulders would be dislocated.

  When she settled down they pulled her out into the corridor, where one of them pawed her crotch and grinned.

  “We’ll have some fun with you tonight, you little bitch,” he promised.

  Outside, she was hustled across the tracks and shoved into the lead APC with eight commandoes. Tarankov stood on top in the gunner’s turret, and the moment the hatch slammed shut he gave the order to move out.

  Elizabeth was pushed into a bucket seat near the back of the vehicle, and had to brace herself in order not to be tossed around.

  It was happening as she feared it might, leaving her no chance of fighting back. But the opportunity would come, she kept telling herself. It was her only hope, her only connection with sanity.

  The Kremlin

  Chernov put down the telephone as one of the city engineers came rushing down the corridor into the deserted Security Center with Captain Petrovsky. The SVR helicopter he’d ordered would touch down inside the Kremlin walls on the opposite side from Red Square between the Borovitskaya and Water Drawing towers in ten minutes. The pilot, a Tarankov supporter, agreed to stand by until Chernov showed up.

  “St. Basil’s,” Petrovsky shouted.

  The engineer spread a large scale yellowed plan drawing of a part of the river and storm sewer system downtown. Over this he laid a clear plastic sheet upon which had been drawn the locations of the metro stations and tunnels, and the major buildings from Dzerzhinsky Square all the way down to the Moscow River.

  “The outflow they entered drops into what is part of the Neglinnaya River System. But it branches into three tunnels so that during the spring meltoff the system won’t overload and flood. It’s why only a portion of the dye showed up here. A third of it went directly beneath Red Square, and the last third here.” The engineer stabbed a blunt finger on St. Basil’s outlined on the plastic overlay.

  “Is there access from the river into the church?” Chernov asked.

  “Yes, sir. Through the crypts,” the engineer said. “They didn’t come up here, and they didn’t show up in the Moscow River. So unless their bodies are still down there, they came up inside St. Basil’s.”

  “Within shooting distance of the reviewing stand,” Petrovsky said.

  “That’s it,” Chernov shouted, and he bolted for the door, shouting for Petrovsky to follow him.

  Outside, they piled into Chernov’s car and shot across the Kremlin toward the Trinity Gate, figuring they could circle around the crowds in Red Square and approach the Cathedral from Varvarka Street.

  “Radio your people and have them cover every exit,” Chernov ordered.

  “They’re gone,” Petrovsky said.

  Chernov glanced at him. “What do you mean, gone?”

  “Just that, Colonel, and I can’t say that I blame them. But we have another problem. General Vashleyev’s people are going to try to arrest Tarankov.”

  “I heard,” Chernov said. “They missed him at Leningrad Station, but if they try anything down here there’s going to be a bloodbath.”

  “Mostly civilian,” Petrovsky said dourly.

  “I thought you didn’t support Tarankov.”

  “Let’s just say that I’m hedging my bets, Colonel,” Petrovsky said.

  St. Basil’s

  Tarankov’s column roared into Red Square from the north, raced down the broad boulevard in front of the masses of people who were joyously screaming his name, and pulled up in a semicircle in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum. The soldiers and police manning the barricades were overwhelmed by the press of people trying to get closer, aided only by the intimidating presence of the twelve heavily armed APCs now facing outward, their big diesel engines idling as if they were a pack of rabid dogs making ready to attack. The crowd surged only so far then stopped, their front ranks making an undulating line back up the square to the north.

  Even the international media kept its respectful distance, though dozens of television cameras were trained on the column, and a few of the bolder photographers closed in on the lead APC from both sides hoping to catch a shot of the Tarantula.

  “Target is in place, are you in position Gamov Brigade?” the radio beside McGarvey stopped at the active frequency.

  “Roger, we’re in place at the south end of the square.”

  “Sokol, any trouble at your position?

  “Nyet, we’re clear.”

  “Okay, Azarov Brigade, we’re set down here, what’s your ETA to bottle the northern route?”

  “Five minutes.”

  McGarvey studied the lead APC through the Dragunov’s telescopic sights. The top hatch of the gun turret was open but no one was manning the position as they were on the other eleven vehicles. The wind had increased in the past half hour, and whipped the exhaust from the diesel engines from McGarvey’s left to right, making any attempted shot in the cross wind difficult at best.

  The music suddenly stopped, and the crowd began to quiet down.

  “COMRADES, MY NAME IS YEVGENNI TARANKOV, AND I HAVE COME TODAY TO OFFER MY HAND IN FRIENDSHIP AND HELP,” a voice boomed from the loudspeakers.

  Now the vast crowd fell totally silent, and even the soldiers at the barricades looked over their shoulders at the lead APC.

  The APC’s personnel hatch opened, and McGarvey switched aim, moving the sniper rifle’s safety to the off position with his thumb.

  Chernov and Petrovsky were stopped from entering Red Square from the east by a skirmish line of five hundred heavily armed troops backed by three T-80 tanks, with Moscow Defense Division markings on their sides, so they had to double back to Ilyinka Street that ran along the south side of the department store GUM.

  Tarankov’s amplified voice boomed across the otherwise silent square, as Chernov and Petrovsky left the car and hurried down the street on foot.

  They had to show their IDs before they were allowed through the barricades into the square itself, which took more precious time. By now Tarankov would be climbing out of his APC, exposing himself to McGarvey’s shot.

  When they were through, they raced along the edge of the crowd, shoving people out of their way as they ran, Tarankov’s speech continuing to roll across the vast open space.

  “OUR COUNTRY IS FALLING INTO A BOTTOMLESS PIT OF DESPAIR,” Tarankov said.

  A figure appeared at the open hatch, paused a moment then stepped out. It was one of Tarankov’s young commandoes. McGarvey held the scope’s cross hairs steady on the hatch.

  “OUR FORESTS ARE DYING. OUR GREAT RIVERS AND LAKES HAVE BECOME CESSPOOLS OF WASTE. THE AIR IS UNFIT TO BREATHE. THE ONLY FOOD WORTH EATING FILLS THE BELLIES OF APPARATCHIKS AND FOREIGNERS.”

  Seven more armed commandoes dressed in plain battle fatigues climbed out of the APC, and formed a tight knot in front of the hatch.

  “OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING AND OUR WOMEN ARE CRYING, BUT NO ONE IN MOSCOW CAN HEAR THEM. NO ONE IN MOSCOW WANTS TO HEAR THEM.”

  McGarvey caught a glimpse of a smaller, much slighter figure emerging from the APC, and his stomach fluttered when he recognized his daughter. Directly behind her Tarankov climbed out, and taking Liz’s arm immediately moved behind the protective screen of his much taller, much larger commandoes, making any shot impossible.

  “OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS BANKRUPT,” Tarankov said, as he and his men moved toward Lenin’s Mausoleum.

  “All units, sixty seconds to first air strike,” the scanner radio beside McGarvey stopped at the active frequency.

  A ninth commando emerged from the APC, and went immediately over to Tarankov, who was still speaking.

  “OUR MILITARY HAS BECOME LEADERLESS AND USELESS.”

  “Azarov Brigade, what is your ETA?”

  “Two minutes,” an excited voice radioed.

  “Sokol and G
amov will back you up if he heads your way, but you’re going to have to hold him.”

  “HOOLIGANS AND PROFITEERS ERODE OUR LIVELIHOODS LIKE CANCER. THE MAFIA EATS BEEFSTEAKS AND CAVIAR, DRINKS SWEET CHAMPAGNE AND DRIVES CADILLACS AND—”

  Tarankov’s amplified voice cut off in mid-sentence.

  McGarvey caught glimpses of Tarankov, and the ninth commando to come out of the APC. They seemed to be arguing. The commando pointed back at the APC, and then up to the sky to the southwest.

  “Forty seconds, all units keep your heads down in case he doesn’t move,” the excited voice on the scanner radioed.

  Liz suddenly tried to break away, but Tarankov pulled her back, slapped her face, rocking her head back, and the commandoes surrounding him closed ranks even tighter.

  No shot. Even without the wind there would have been no guarantee that if he fired he might hit Elizabeth, and McGarvey was beside himself with frustration and rage.

  The ninth commando said something else to Tarankov, and then the knot of commandoes headed back en masse to the lead APC.

  McGarvey waited for an opening, any opening, but Tarankov ducked into the safety of the APC first, followed by Elizabeth and then his commandoes, and the hatch was shut.

  “He’s on the move! He’s on the move! Azarov Brigade, he’s coming your way right now!”

  Two of the APCs moved out, leaving Tarankov’s vehicle to take up the third position, the others falling in behind, and they roared off to the north, the crowds stunned into inaction, hardly able to believe what they were witnessing. Their savior was deserting them for some unknown reason.

  Pocketing the scanner radio, but leaving the now useless sniper rifle behind, McGarvey climbed out of the arched cupola, and scrambled down the scaffolding to the gallery level seventy-five feet below and started for the rear of the church where Jacqueline was waiting at the garden door. He was sick at heart for his daughter, because he didn’t know how he would make it in time to save her.

  He reached the rear of the main onion dome, when the church doors crashed open below him.

  “McGarvey,” a man shouted, the same man from the storm sewers. Chernov!

  McGarvey slipped back into the shadows as he took out his Walther and removed the silencer. There was no longer any need for stealth, and the silencer seriously degraded the accuracy of the gun. From where he stood he could see the arch leading to the outer vestibule.

  “It’s all over, McGarvey,” Chernov shouted. “There’s no way out for you now, but if you give yourself up you’ll live to stand trial, and your daughter will be released unharmed. You have my word.”

  McGarvey eased a little closer to the rail so that when Chernov came out of the vestibule he would have a clear shot. At this point the Russian had to believe that McGarvey was still somewhere up inside the onion dome.

  “I have him! I have him! But there’s too many civilians up here!” McGarvey’s radio blared.

  He reached in his pocket to shut it off as a man in uniform darted out from the vestibule and fired four shots up at the gallery, two of them ricochetting off the rail inches from where McGarvey stood.

  McGarvey returned fire, one of his shots catching the man in the torso, driving him backward, at the same moment Jacqueline opened fire from the rear of the church.

  McGarvey sprinted the rest of the way along the gallery to one of the corner domes and rushed downstairs to the main floor.

  Jacqueline was crouched just inside the corridor leading back to the garden exit thirty feet across the open floor from where McGarvey pulled up.

  She spotted him and started to rise, but he held up a hand for her to stay put, and she dropped back.

  The man in uniform was down, his body half in and half out of the vestibule. McGarvey didn’t think it was Chernov, but the church was silent, nothing moved.

  McGarvey took a few kopeck coins out of his pocket and tossed them toward the opposite side of the church, sending them clattering across the stone floor.

  Two shots were fired from the vestibule.

  Jacqueline returned fire, and McGarvey sprinted across to the corridor, firing over his shoulder back toward the vestibule as he ran.

  Several shots ricochetted off the floor just behind him, but then he was around the corner. He grabbed Jacqueline’s arm and together they raced to the garden exit at the rear of the Cathedral.

  “As soon as we get outside, lose yourself in the crowds, you’ll be safe,” McGarvey told her urgently.

  They heard Chernov’s footfalls as he crossed the length of the nave behind them.

  McGarvey fired the last couple of shots in the Walther’s magazine down the corridor, and then he and Jacqueline emerged into the garden.

  “Now go,” he ordered.

  “There’s a van waiting for us,” she said, out of breath. “It’s from my embassy.”

  McGarvey hesitated for just a second.

  “I brought a cellular phone. I called them,” she explained. “They’re here. They got through.”

  “Okay, let’s do it,” McGarvey said, and he followed her across the garden. He ejected the spent magazine from his gun, and put another one in, releasing the ejector slide, as the sounds of heavy weapons fire and screams came from the north end of Red Square.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Red Square

  Something slammed into the APC with a loud clang, nearly knocking them over, propelling Elizabeth out of her bucket seat and slamming her painfully into the bulkhead next to the hatch.

  They were in the middle of a fierce fire fight, the noise utterly deafening, hot shell casings falling all around her from the heavy-caliber machine guns above.

  Tarankov was strapped into the command position above and behind the driver and the two weapons officers, calmly issuing orders over his headset.

  Elizabeth clawed her way up to her knees so that she could see out the thick glass of the narrow port in the hatch as the lead APCs suddenly turned to the right, directly into the wall of human beings lining the Square and Okhotny Ryad.

  The people tried to fall back out of the way, but it was impossible because of the confusion and press of bodies behind them.

  Horrified, Elizabeth watched as the first of the people were bowled over or pushed aside, but then the lead APC gave a mighty lurch and climbed up on top of the bodies, blood and gore flying everywhere, spitting out from under the huge tracks. The second APC climbed atop the carnage directly behind the first one, plowing and smashing its way across the broad street toward Ploshchad Revolyutsi.

  Elizabeth fell back, unable to do anything else but brace herself from being tossed around as the APC she was in followed the first two, climbing and bucking and heaving over the bodies. She could imagine that she was hearing the screams, hearing the bones crunch, seeing the blood oozing up through the steel plating of the floor. And still it went on.

  She looked up at the same moment Tarankov glanced down at her, and she almost screamed in horror, because the look on his face and in his eyes was absolutely devoid of any human emotion. What they were doing, what he had ordered, the people they killed and whose bodies they were driving over, none of it had any effect on him. She had never seen that lack of feeling on any human being’s face, not even Chernov’s. And until this moment she had not even imagined that such a monster could possibly exist in the real world.

  The shooting stopped and then Elizabeth could hear the people screaming, and she screwed her eyes shut as if she could block out the inhuman shrieks.

  They lurched sharply to the right, came back onto the pavement and accelerated, but still Elizabeth could hear the screaming.

  The shooting had stopped, but pandemonium had broken out as panicked people tried to get away, climbing over each other, pushing, screaming, shoving the Militia and military barricades and soldiers out of the way.

  Chernov emerged from the garden gate and flattened himself against the wall at the corner. There was no sign of McGarvey or the French woman, but he knew that he was
just seconds behind them, and they could not have gotten very far in this mob.

  Something had gone wrong with Tarankov’s triumphal entrance. He didn’t think that McGarvey had taken his shot, because Tarankov’s commandoes would not have fought back if their leader was dead. For some reason General Vashleyev had ordered his troops to surround Red Square and box Tarankov in. But they had not counted on Tarankov fighting back in the middle of the mob. They had made the same mistake sending helicopter gunships to stop the train outside Nizhny Novgorod.

  Chernov stepped away from the wall. North or south, they could have gone either way, and once they reached the French or American embassy they would be out of his reach.

  On instinct he headed north, pushing people out of his path until he came to an abandoned Militia radio car, its lights flashing. He leaped up on the hood of the car and just caught a glimpse of McGarvey, the woman and a third person as they reached Ilynka Street and disappeared around the corner.

  He jumped down and yanked the driver’s door open when a dozen men rushed up, pushed him aside and started rocking the squad car on its springs to tip it over.

  McGarvey was getting away. It was all Chernov could think of as he fought his way up to Ilynka Street where his own car was parked. Getting across Red Square and inside the Kremlin where the SVR helicopter was waiting for him made the most sense. Once airborne he could direct the pilot to take him out of the city, and head up to St. Petersburg. From there he could catch the train to Helsinki where he could access his Swiss bank account and disappear. But McGarvey had made a fool of him, had made fools of them all. And he had killed Arkady.

  Ilynka Street was jammed with people heading away from the Square as fast as they could. The T-80 tanks were gone, and the barricades had been removed or simply shoved aside.

  Chernov reached his car in time to see McGarvey and the woman climb into a blue Chrysler van. He got in his car, and swung it around, gently easing his way through the crowd and then moving with it.