Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

  Han turned to look at him. “Yeah, I think…I mean it’s an old laptop, I don’t know—why?”

  6:43 P.M.

  Elkins, West Virginia

  Despite the hour, they were nearly the only diners at the Denny’s. Korsakov took another glance around the restaurant, glad he had sent the other half of his team to the McDonald’s on the other side of town. Eight men would have attracted too much attention.

  “Still nothing?” he asked, looking across the table. Viktor was seated on the opposite side of the booth, his laptop set up. He’d barely touched his burger, intensity written across his face as he stared at the screen.

  “Nyet. I’ve run it through every satellite database I can access. No good. My maps show nothing there, just a mountain.”

  Beside Korsakov, Yuri swallowed the french fry he’d been eating and cleared his throat. “Maybe you’re the one being blocked.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Korsakov asked, shooting him a look. With Pavel’s death the previous day, Yuri was technically the second-in-command. Second-guesser, more like it. He’d been the loudest voice against accepting the contract on the CIA director. That hadn’t changed.

  “I’m saying what I’ve said since the beginning,” Yuri replied, struggling to keep his voice to a conversational level. “I don’t believe for a minute that he’s actually inside the federal servers. We’ve been played—right from the start.”

  Korsakov leaned back in the booth, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “You doubt Valentin’s word? This is my decision, da?”

  Yuri met his eyes and for a moment he thought the Leningrad native was going to challenge his authority.

  “Da, it is your decision,” Yuri relented finally, looking away. “It’s nothing personal. I’ve never met Andropov. I don’t trust people I don’t know.”

  Korsakov took another sip of his Coca-cola, eyeing the waitress out of the corner of his eye. She was still far enough away. “He’s a tovarisch, Yuri, from the old days. I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you. If he says we have access to the American intranet, I believe him.”

  “Then what’s your solution?” Yuri fired back. Korsakov saw Viktor watching them over the top of his screen, his young eyes filled with anxiety—fear. Arguments always brought flashbacks of his time in the brothel.

  Korsakov smiled indulgently and clapped his lieutenant on the shoulder. “You and I, Yuri, are going up that mountain. Tonight.”

  7:01 P.M.

  CHRYSALIS bunker

  West Virginia

  It seemed a bad time to bring it up, but there wasn’t going to be a good time. “There’s something that’s been bothering me,” Harry announced, glancing across the small living room at Carol. Sammy hadn’t yet returned, but the Coleman sat on the low coffee table in front of her, its glow pushing back at the darkness.

  “And that would be?” she asked, looking up at his words. Her golden-brown hair glistened in the lantern light, a dirty blond. Ignore it. Focus.

  “That video—the director knew why he was being targeted. He knew in advance.” He crossed the room to take a seat on the couch opposite her. People were always more liable to talk to someone on their level. Put her at her ease. “Do you have any ideas?”

  “No,” Carol replied slowly. She didn’t look at him, staring straight into the flame of the Coleman. “Dad never talked shop—never talked much at all.”

  She lifted her head, a defiant knuckle brushing a tear from the corner of her eye. “We’d just started to reestablish a relationship, but he’s been different, moody these last couple months. Ever since the Jerusalem op. I thought it was just the discovery of a traitor in the Clandestine Service, but now I don’t know.”

  “We’ve all changed,” Harry acknowledged, filing away the mental note for future reference. “Anything else out of the ordinary?”

  She started to shake her head, then paused. “I don’t know how to say this…but you probably knew him better than I did. For more years.”

  Worst thing of it, she was probably right. His eyes narrowed as he stared across the room, watching her closely. If she was lying, he needed to know it. “What of it?”

  “What were his political views?” she asked, responding with a question of her own.

  So much for seeing that coming. Harry allowed himself a wry smile. “Political views? The director was a political agnostic—registered Independent, but always claimed that he didn’t vote. I never heard him speak well of any politician. Why?”

  Carol sat across from him in silence for a long moment, biting at her lower lip. “That’s what I thought. He’d become obsessed with the presidential election—I’d never seen him so angry as the morning the lower court approved those contested Hancock votes in New Mexico.”

  It didn’t make any sense. Harry opened his mouth, about to ask another question, but footsteps resounded on the concrete of the hallway, signaling Sammy’s arrival.

  “This is what I got,” Han announced, placing a laptop on the table between them. “Battery’s good for an hour, maybe two depending on your usage.”

  Harry acknowledged him with a nod, reaching into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He saw Sammy tense involuntarily and he withdrew his hand with painful slowness, laying his TACSAT on the table beside the computer. “I loaded the Korsakov files onto my phone before leaving Langley. Everything right here. What’s the USB interface on this thing?”

  Han propped the computer up and hit the power button. “Don’t know—it’s an old Dell Inspiron. USB 2.0, I think.”

  “That’s going to be a problem,” Carol announced, looking at the men. Harry nodded.

  “Why?” Han asked.

  Carol spun the laptop around until it was facing her. “From the moment he inserts the SIM card and powers on the phone, we’ve got thirty seconds until Langley has our general location. Sixty seconds and they’ll have us down cold. The antique interface is going to slow the file transfer. Maybe too much.”

  Harry started to speak, but she cut him off, shooting a look at the ceiling of the bunker.

  “Is this the lowest level of the bunker?”

  “No—the stairs down that hall lead to the generator and on toward the helipad.”

  “How many feet below the surface?”

  Han chuckled. “What Indian war are you fighting, girl? The generator room is located fifteen meters below the cabin.”

  “It’ll be enough to block the signal,” was Carol’s reply, closing the laptop and tucking it under her arm as she stood. “Let’s do this. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

  Chapter 9

  12:09 A.M., December 15th

  West Virginia

  They were going in blind. Korsakov pulled on the winter camouflage parka over his body armor and walked to the back of the Suburban. “Any ideas, Viktor?”

  The night was cold, well below freezing, but sweat had beaded on the boy’s face. There was a look of desperation in his eyes as he bent over the laptop, typing in commands. “Nyet, nyet. It just disappeared.”

  The assassin let out a sigh. He’d seen Viktor like this before, typically when something was going wrong. Crisis brought out the worst in the boy, a legacy of abuse. It had all started when the tracker had disappeared just over four hours before.

  “Nichevo,” Korsakov whispered, placing a hand on Viktor’s shoulder. It doesn’t matter.

  “Ready?” Yuri materialized out of the darkness, casting a critical glance at the wooded slope they had to traverse to reach the tracker’s last known position. Korsakov pulled a Steyr AUG out of the back of the SUV and slapped a 42-round magazine of 5.56mm NATO into the buttstock of the bullpup rifle.

  “Da. Let’s do this.”

  9:39 A.M. Local Time

  Bonn, Germany

  He still tied his own ties. Maybe that would be his footnote in history. Roger Hancock leaned closer to the mirror, fiddling with his collar as he adjusted the Windsor knot of his necktie. The face of the President o
f the United States stared back at him.

  He hadn’t slept. There were dark circles under his eyes, but his makeup team would take care of that. They always did. Getting ready for the cameras required him to wear about twice as much makeup as your average streetwalker. An apt comparison, Hancock thought, reaching for his cufflinks.

  The G-20 conference was going down the tubes, and the EU along with it. This was to be his legacy. Another four years might have fixed everything, but now that dream seemed to be vanishing too.

  Two months ago, with backroom deals and the promise of Iranian oil flooding onto the US market, everything had looked bright. So bright to be extinguished so soon.

  The door opened without preamble or ceremony, revealing Cahill’s diminutive form in the entrance, flanked by Secret Service agents. “Anna’s waiting for you, Mr. President. We’re on in fifty.”

  “I’ll be there,” Hancock nodded, waiting until the Irishman disappeared and the door closed. He hadn’t heard anything from the States—a disturbing silence.

  The President reached for his suit jacket and threw it on, glancing at his iPhone on the nightstand of the hotel suite. Traditionally, the Secret Service had controlled all forms of Presidential communication, but Barack Obama’s Blackberry had set a precedent that Hancock was only too happy to follow.

  Just enough time to place a call.

  4:23 A.M. Eastern Time

  The CHRYSALIS bunker

  West Virginia

  The percolator was on the end of the counter, near the refrigerator. Harry made his way into the kitchen through the darkness, not bothering to turn on the lights.

  He’d been that way even as a kid. Put him in a room once and he could find his way back through it in the dark. Times it came in handy.

  They hadn’t found anything worthwhile on Korsakov the previous night. Maybe if they’d had access to Ft. Meade’s Crays…

  Something told him that processing power wouldn’t have helped. The ex-Spetsnaz hitman had never worked in the Western Hemisphere. Everything was Eastern Europe, with a sole anomaly.

  Korsakov had killed a Russian businessman in Sudan in 2008, back before the Sudan became two separate countries. The guy had been an arms dealer—the consensus in the intelligence community was that a rival had ordered the hit.

  Carol had pored over the laptop until her eyes were red. Nothing.

  Harry tipped the coffee pot back, eyeing the day-old brew dubiously. Well, he’d always liked it black.

  He’d told her to go to bed at midnight. Get some sleep.

  What disturbed him was that he actually cared. There was something about her…

  Caring was dangerous. It had been years since he had pursued a relationship with anyone.

  Years since he’d wanted to. Harry let out a heavy sigh and poured the contents of the coffee pot into a mug. Things would be clearer once he’d woken up.

  Movement in the doorway. “Early riser, I see.” Sammy’s voice.

  The SEAL was already dressed for the weather—the SCAR in the crook of his arm. Dawn patrol. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  Harry shook his head. “You?”

  “No,” Han replied, crossing the kitchen toward the outside door.

  “You’re really not fond of windows, are you?” It was the first thing Harry had noticed upon arriving the previous afternoon. The beautiful picture window of the hunting cabin had been taken out and replaced by reinforced concrete—as had most of the other windows. Those that remained left the snow outside looking green in the sunlight—heavy, bulletresistant glass. Too small to crawl through.

  Han turned to look back at him.

  “What’s that verse you used to quote out on an op, Harry? ‘For they have loved darkness rather than light’.” He laughed. “Nobody survives, not in the end. We’re not expected to. What’s the operational strength of the Special Activities Division?”

  “One hundred and fifty men,” Harry replied, looking his old friend in the eye.

  “Yeah,” Han continued bitterly, “you see what I mean. One hundred and fifty men to fight a war without end. It’s like tossin’ sand into the teeth of the wind.”

  Harry started to respond, but Han cut him off, his hand on the door. “Get out of this business, Harry. While you still can. Before you end up like me.”

  And he was gone.

  4:01 A.M. Central Time

  Dearborn, Michigan

  Allahu akbar. La illaha illa Allah. Muhammad rasul Allah. Allahu akbar. God is great. There is no God but God. Muhammad is His prophet. God is great.

  Abdul Aziz Omar rose from the fajr, the dawn prayer, his dark hands moving reverently to fold the prayer mat. “Astaghfirullah,” he whispered, repeating the phrase three times. I ask Allah forgiveness.

  When he had approached al-Fileestini the previous year to volunteer for jihad, he had never anticipated this. Never anticipated something that would so test his faith. He hadn’t entered a nightclub since he had found the peace of Allah—since he’d been released from prison. Now, with their target revealed, he felt weak. So pitifully weak.

  The beads of the tasbih rolled between his fingers as he mouthed an earnest prayer. “I seek refuge in Allah from the outcast Satan… ”

  5:17 A.M. Eastern Time

  The CHRYSALIS cabin

  West Virginia

  Staring at the ceiling got old, if you did it long enough. Carol rolled over on the mattress of the bunk bed, staring into the luminous dial of her watch. Time to get up.

  She slipped out from beneath the blanket and got dressed in the darkness. It wasn’t hard when there was only one set of clothes to choose.

  There was no mirror in the small bedroom of the bunker, but she knew her hair was a mess. That much she could feel.

  Harry was sitting at the kitchen table when she arrived, newspapers spread out over the wooden table. His field-stripped 1911 was laid out before him, a cleaning brush held delicately in his long fingers.

  “Coffee’s perking,” came the terse announcement, but he didn’t look up. “Orange concentrate is in the fridge. Just add water.”

  He was different this morning, she realized, pausing with her hand on the refrigerator door. The care she’d seen in his eyes the previous night, the tenderness—it was all gone, like a switch had been thrown.

  It left her to wonder which was real and which was the façade. Walls within walls. A maze…

  “You find anything more on Korsakov?” she asked, forcing herself to focus.

  Harry shook his head, his eyes narrowing as he held the Colt’s slide up to the light. “Might know someone with the answers.”

  “Who?” Carol turned to face him, brushing her blond hair back from her eyes.

  “His name is Alexei Mikhailovich Vasiliev. Former KGB, transferred over to the FSB.” A wry smile crept across Harry’s face. “Same job, different letterheads. He’s currently their ‘chief of security’ at the San Francisco consulate. Read: top spy. If there’s a player in the Russkie underworld capable of bringing Korsakov into the States, he would know who it is. But it’s going to require a face-to-face.”

  There was something about the way he said it. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Problem? No, it’s just that the last time I saw Alexei Mikhailovich I had a gun on him…”

  6:23 A.M.

  West Virginia

  “What do you mean it’s back?” Korsakov asked, the realization sinking in. He pulled the Steyr’s sling from around his shoulders, holding the assault rifle loosely in his right hand as he moved around the open back of the Suburban to see the screen of the laptop. It was snowing again, heavy wet flakes falling down out of the night sky, sliding off the sleek metal skin of the SUV.

  Viktor ignored the question, his attention focused on his work. “The mountain—what did you find?”

  “There’s a dacha a few hundred feet below the crest—a small hunting lodge. Nothing remarkable.”

  “You say a government installation, perhaps?” />
  Korsakov shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it from the outside, but I don’t know how to explain the satellites. The tracker is back on-line?”

  “Da. About an hour. Could there be a basement—a bunker?”

  The assassin’s eyes lit up. “What are you saying?”

  “If the tracker goes ten meters below the surface, we lose the signal. It’s the only explanation.”

  Ten meters. Korsakov exchanged looks with Yuri and the man from Leningrad scowled back. Government.

  That presented its own problems. And advantages. Governments were more predictable than a rogue agent.

  “Well, they’re not going anywhere with this snow,” the assassin observed, opening the passenger door of the Suburban. “Yuri, take us back to the rally point. Viktor, I want you to set up a phone call for me.”

  “Where to?”

  Korsakov slipped the Steyr into its carrying case and glanced into the rearview, allowing himself a faint smile. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  8:38 A.M.

  The FBI Field Office

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Getting up late never did wonders for Caruso’s mood, and his temperament wasn’t improved by the sight of Marika Altmann standing in the foyer of the Alexandria field office, tucking up her greying hair under an FBI baseball cap.

  Her suit jacket was off, lying over the back of a nearby chair. It had been replaced by a Level II flak vest. As he stood in the door, watching, she threw on a parka with the letters FBI across the back, covering up her .40 Glock.

  “Going to stand there all day, Vic?” she asked, shooting a sharp glance over at him.

  There was no good answer to that question, so Caruso elected to respond with another question. “What’s going on?”

  “We’ve got a lead on Nichols,” Marika replied, scooping up an AR-15 carbine from the couch beside her and tossing it to him. That earned her a glance of shock and disapproval from the office receptionist, but it didn’t seem to faze Altmann.

  “Credible?”

  The older woman snorted. “Haskel thinks so.”

  Coming from Altmann, that wasn’t saying much. The Bureau chief had cut his law enforcement teeth in the Holder DOJ and his involvement in the ATF’s infamous “Fast and Furious” op wasn’t the type of record to endear him to his field agents.