by Tim Tigner
While Achilles processed that kick in the crotch, the toastmaster approached him, and looked at him—but spoke to Team Eagle’s Captain. “Andrey, I see that you have a new player to thank for your lead. Where’s Fernando?”
“Out with food poisoning.”
“Well, that’s no fun. And where did you find your substitute?”
“Nic recommended Sergey. He’s his new star pupil.”
Achilles tried not to let his disappointment show as he again met Vazov’s eye.
“Sergey, you say? Are you certain?”
“I have no reason to doubt it,” Andrey replied, his voice suddenly wary.
“And why would you? But I have men working for me whose job it is to doubt. One of them, Gleb here, just told me a different story.” Vazov gestured toward one of his bodyguards.
The man whipped a piece of paper from his breast pocket. A printout with a picture on it. Achilles’ official photo from the 2010 Olympics. Still speaking to Andrey, Vazov said, “Gleb told me your man’s name isn’t really Sergey. He told me he isn’t even Russian. He’s American. And not just any American. An American assassin. Don’t let the wig fool you. Your new number 1 is Kyle Achilles, the disgruntled former agent who killed CIA Director Wiley Rider.”
All eyes began boring into Achilles.
Powerful grips grabbed Achilles’ arms from behind, sending his mug to the turf and his operation to the toilet. They secured his wrists, locked his elbows, and forced his face to the ground. “The game’s over,” Vazov announced. “Everybody go home.”
62
Big Ambition
Venice Beach, California
PAVEL JOINED the Air Force because he wanted to feel the excitement, power, thrill and rush of flying a fighter plane at twice the speed of sound. He wanted his nickname painted on a cockpit and wings pinned to his uniformed chest. He wanted the ability to obliterate Russia’s enemies, and attract her hottest babes.
He achieved all of it.
There was no stopping him.
He entered the academy with an intuitive feel for aerodynamics and blew through his training with a white-hot passion. The Russian Air Force teed it all up and he knocked it all down—fixed wing and rotary wing, transport planes and fighter jets. There was just one thing standing between him and a stellar career. When he wasn’t training, Pavel hated life in the military.
The pay was pathetic, the food basic, and the accommodation spartan. He was willing to look past all that to pursue his muse, but then plunging oil prices took the Russian economy to its knees, forcing the military to cut more than corners. Once oil dipped below $50 a barrel, he was lucky to get more than an hour a month behind the stick.
For most of his fellow flyboys, the smart move was obvious. Go commercial. But Pavel wouldn’t consider it. While commercial airline pilots made good money in positions of authority and prestige, flying passenger planes didn’t feed the passion that brought him to aviation. Adrenaline didn’t flow during routine trips from point A to point B.
Fortunately for Pavel, Ivan came calling.
When Ivan offered the opportunity to work on aviation’s cutting edge, he got Pavel’s full attention. When Ivan coupled that opportunity with a healthy paycheck and big bonus potential, Pavel was sold. When Ivan threw in life on the Côte d'Azur, Pavel couldn’t agree fast enough.
He put his heart and soul and every available hour into learning to play Raven like Beethoven’s piano. By the time he found himself looking across sun-drenched sand at a movie crew a quarter-mile down the beach, he wasn’t just ready, but eager to perform. The crowd didn’t matter. The police didn’t matter. The pressure didn’t matter. He was an athlete set to explode. Bring it on!
“Ready when you are,” Pavel said.
“Our scene’s up next,” Ivan replied. He was reading from the shooting script. Big Ambition had a total of four scenes taking place on Muscle Beach, and the third appeared to be the best for the grab. It had Jenks doing a SEAL-style workout in the sand at the surf’s edge.
“Are you going to tell us why?” Michael asked, looking over at Ivan from the driver’s seat.
“Why tell when I can show?”
Pavel was certain Michael was rolling his eyes, figuratively if not literally, but he couldn’t confirm it while seated behind the Drone Command Module.
“Tell me again, how much are we behind with Vazov?” Ivan teased.
“$152 million.”
Ivan didn’t comment further, and a moment later there was a lot of movement on the set. “Looks like it’s a wrap on scene two. Let’s get out and watch them prep scene three with the stand-in. Pavel, this should give you everything you need to time the grab.”
“Roger that.”
The cameras were already in place about twenty feet from the surf, allowing for both wide-angle framing shots and the obligatory zooms onto firm flesh glistening with sweat and sea spray. Twenty minutes later, the man of the hour reemerged from his trailer, wearing nothing but body-hugging black shorts and an aw-shucks smile.
“He’s a monster,” Pavel said. “You can’t always be sure, given what they can do with camera tricks, but this guy really is huge.”
“Let me guess,” Boris said. “Jenks weighs in at two hundred sixty pounds.”
Michael’s fingers flew across his phone. “Exactly two hundred sixty, at least according to Google. How’d you know?”
“Ivan had me remove the mechanisms that allow us to collapse Raven. By cutting those ten pounds, he took the cargo limit up to two hundred sixty.”
“That was part of it,” Ivan said. “But only a small part. I’m sure Pavel would have managed to get Jenks off the sand even with the hinges on.”
“So why, then?” Michael asked.
“Ask me again in an hour, if you still haven’t figured it out.”
Pavel interrupted the heated discussion with a hotter announcement. “They’re going straight to the surf shot. No down time, no fussing around. Time to rock.”
63
Amusements
French Riviera
VAZOV’S MEN kept Achilles’ face planted in the grass until all the players had left the premises and the club doors had been locked. Then they secured his wrists and ankles with thick zip ties, and rolled him over like a rug.
Achilles looked up to see Little V looking down. The playboy wore a contemptuous smile and held a polo ball.
Made of high-impact white plastic, polo balls weigh four ounces and have a diameter of three-and-a-quarter inches, making them slightly bigger than baseballs. Vazov pressed the plastic against Achilles’ lips and waited for him to pucker. “If you drop it, I’ll hit it where it lands.”
All things considered, Achilles decided to remain still and silent. It wasn’t easy, keeping his breathing regular and body from quivering with all the adrenaline coursing through his veins. And, irony of ironies, he’d still be with the CIA if he was good at puckering.
A few seconds after Vazov disappeared from his view, Achilles heard the scrunch of leather followed by pounding hooves. Feeling that vibration, he couldn’t help but do the calculation. Polo ponies weigh a thousand pounds and charge at 30 mph. It would take six pro football players to generate that much momentum. Hardly a fair match against his nose and lips. He tried telling himself that it could be worse. Given the way his cinched hands were clasped beneath his hips, his genitals were also protruding. Nonetheless, Achilles decided he’d prefer a spoonful of Salmonella. It heartened him to know that as bad as Jo had it, she was doing better than he.
While the hammering of hoofbeats shifted from receding to approaching, Achilles sent off a quick prayer that Vazov was talented enough to compensate for the ball’s raised position. Then he pushed all thoughts of peril aside, closed his eyes, and thought about Katya. The way her face seemed to soften right before she kissed him. The way she stood naked on the scale every morning, making his day before it got started. The way she smiled when—
Crack!
His lips tingled and the tip of his nose ignited, but his head remained on his shoulders and his heart remained in his chest.
He opened his eyes.
Vazov reversed course and trotted back. “Would you prefer to talk, or shall we continue working to improve my swatting skills? It’s entirely up to you.”
“A chat sounds nice, but I’m going to need a fresh mug of Panaché. I fear I spilled the first one you gave me.”
His quip generated a creepy half-smile that soon vanished. “Consider that last comment your final free pass. Anything short of serious conversation won’t hold my interest. Understood?”
Achilles gave a single nod.
“Why are you here?”
Forewarned, Achilles bit back his reflexive reply. “Polo seemed the best way to meet you.”
Vazov summoned another half-smile. “Go on.”
“Upon becoming persona non grata in the U.S., I asked myself where I’d most like to live. I got the French Riviera in answer. Since I need to work but don’t speak French, I decided to find an English or Russian-speaking employer. Since I need to avoid law enforcement, I figure it’s best if that employer is similarly predisposed.”
“You want to work for me?” Vazov asked, his voice surprisingly devoid of inclination or emotion.
“I do.”
The Russian transplant chewed on that for six beats of Achilles’ heart. “Why me in particular?”
“You’re the right age, and you’ve got panache. Given those, I thought you might be someone I could bond with. Especially if I also played polo.”
“What makes you think I’m looking to hire anybody?”
“In a word: need. My undercover work revealed that you’ve got a big one.”
“What exactly do I need?”
“A new head of security.” Achilles felt the bodyguards tense. He suspected he’d see bulging necks and bared teeth if he glanced back at them, but he kept his gaze cool and locked on target.
Vazov engaged, but he came out firing. “Gleb was good enough to catch you.”
“Only because of a fluke. If the Eagle’s attacker hadn’t eaten a bad shrimp, I’d still be within striking distance and beneath your radar.”
“My men might not be perfect, but what makes you better?”
“Beyond having worked for the world’s most revered intelligence agency?”
“Beyond that. The CIA did fire you, after all.”
“And I did take out their director. But beyond balls and brains and connections galore, I’m also a guy who can outfight your best fighter and outshoot your best shooter.”
This time the bodyguards let their exhalations be heard.
Achilles ignored them.
“My men are good. Very good. All of them.”
“They might be good, but they’re not good enough. I’m better, and I can prove it—against all of them.”
Achilles finally earned Vazov’s full smile. “Now that, I must admit, sounds amusing.”
64
Altitude and Attitude
Venice Beach, California
THE DRONE COMMAND MODULE was Pavel’s own design, and he loved it. It was light and modular and slipped into a standard padded backpack for transport. The three laptop-size screens folded like a vanity mirror and ran for hours off the built-in battery, when not plugged into the Tesla’s power supply.
The joystick was an X52 Pro system manufactured by Saitek. It snapped into a custom-fit lap desk that strapped securely to his thighs.
The makeshift cockpit he created at the back of the Tesla resembled the flight simulators in which he’d practiced for years. He had installed blackout window tinting all around, and an articulating arm that suspended the monitors from the ceiling.
The one thing Pavel had not practiced was flying Raven in and out of the truck. Boris had been modifying it up to the last minute. That was a violation of Ivan’s meticulous mandate, but for some reason, that shortcoming hadn’t bothered the boss. For his part, Pavel was more excited than nervous. Flying in and out of the truck would be fun, if not challenging. And snatching a mammoth movie star mid-shoot would be outright exhilarating.
Michael counted down. “Three, two, one—”
Pavel started the two extended rotors at their slowest speed, knowing that operating them within the truck’s confines would create turbulent conditions. They’d padded the floor and walls with packing foam, but why take chances? He slowly raised Raven up until it just cleared the truck, then extended the two collapsed rotors. Once they were locked into position, he slammed on the thrust and popped the drone into the sky like a champagne cork. “Liftoff!”
He took it straight up. Way up. High enough to put the shoot in the middle of his screen, even though it was a quarter mile to the southwest. There were three advantages to this tactic. First, it moved Raven out of ordinary sight lines. People don’t walk around city streets staring at the clouds. Second, it made navigation a breeze. A straight line. A runway approach. Finally, it gave him speed.
Under its own propulsion, Raven maxed out at 60 mph in still air. And Pavel didn’t have still air. He had a mild headwind coming off the ocean. By adding downward momentum, however, he could approach 70 mph even battling the breeze.
That breeze was a blessing in disguise. By muffling the sound, it would help him strike without warning. Seconds were crucial when success depended on surprise.
Pavel took the throttle to full and dove at Jenks like an eagle that had spotted a mouse. Graceful, fast and focused. The secret to successful strikes was keeping an unwavering eye on the target. In this case, that target was Preston Jenks’ waist. The point where his black shorts met chiseled abs.
Pavel ignored the crowds and the trucks. They were background noise. He ignored the cameras and the grips. They wouldn’t interfere. His battle was with the big man himself. The up-and-coming action hero. The muscle man movie star. All Pavel had to do was get The Claw wrapped around Jenks’ waist. The rest was up to Ivan.
65
Attitude
Venice Beach, California
PRESTON JENKS was on the brink of superstardom, and he knew it. He also knew many an actor who had reached this point and blown it with a bad script or flat performance. Big Ambition could make him or break him, so he was giving it one hundred percent.
They had started with the day’s dialogue and melodrama scenes, shooting the sensitive shots while he was freshest. Finally, they’d come to his favorite. Not just for the day, but for the whole film. It wasn’t the climactic sequence, where he solved the crime, killed the crooks and saved his costar. It was the training montage.
Jenks had grown to six-foot-six and two hundred sixty pounds while working out to similar scenes. Sylvester Stallone had set the standard in the Rocky films, and still held the title. Jenks was determined to become the Rocky of his generation. He had watched Rocky preparing to battle Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang and Ivan Drago a thousand times. When he worked out, he played those soundtracks. Gonna Fly Now. No Easy Way Out. Eye of the Tiger.
The producers had pulled together a killer soundtrack for Big Ambition, a collaboration between Pitt Bull, Ryan Tedder and Adam Levine. But it didn’t evoke inspiring images. Not yet. He hadn’t shot them. So he had Hearts on Fire playing in his mind when he hit the sand, determined to surpass Stallone—or die trying.
Working out on the ocean’s edge had been his idea. It seemed natural for a hero who had once been a Navy SEAL. He began with push-ups, one-handed of course, up and down, in and out of the breaking waves. Once his biceps were burning, his pecs were pounding, and the veins were bulging from his neck, he switched to Burpees, adding double-leg kickbacks and arm-raising jumps to the pushup routine.
It struck him on the fourth jump, a whip that lassoed his waist and clamped down like a cold collar of steel. His first thought was heart attack. His second was a change to the script. Before his third thought registered, before he snapped out of his training trance and into the external environment, his
feet left the ground.
The wind and noise and screams registered all at once, crashing in harder and colder and faster than the waves below. He looked up and saw the source of everything. Some big black flying machine. A drone. Had Hollywood decided to cash in on the Silicon Valley story? Was the director springing it on him as a surprise in order to capture an authentic reaction?
He looked down at the crew. The cameras were still on him. The cast was staring. The director was on the phone.
It took him higher. Way too high for comfort. High enough to see Marina Del Rey, the Santa Monica Pier and the Financial District.
He clutched the constraining cable with both hands. It was an impulsive move, and one he immediately regretted. He was a tough guy, being caught on film. He couldn’t appear scared. Image was everything.
Determined to salvage the situation, he readjusted his grip, putting one hand well above the other. Then he started to climb.
Jenks had no idea what he would do when he reached the mechanical beast. Disabling it would literally be suicide. But he thought about the cameras and the nightly news, and continued putting one hand over the other.
It hit him like a mule kick to the solar plexus. Blinding pain. Loss of breath. Complete muscular dysfunction. His hands released of their own accord and he dropped back to a dangling position. No doubt the crowd below had gasped, but he couldn’t hear it over the rotor wash.
What he did hear was the drone commander’s message. Loud and clear.
He looked up to see a green display come alive. A clock in countdown mode. Twenty-nine minutes. He’d heard the testimony of prior victims on the news. He knew what it meant. As he studied the numbers—shocked and transfixed, contemplative and terrorized—a set of padded headphones dropped down on a wire.