by Tom Clancy
Footfalls drew closer.
Bratus called out, “Thank you, and have a good night!” The bartender responded in kind.
The front door opened.
And the back doors swung inward. The old bartender entered the storage room, glancing around.
Hansen took him from behind, drawing one of the old man’s arms behind his back and wrapping a gloved hand over the man’s mouth. Hansen muttered, “Don’t struggle, and you’ll be okay. Nadia is sleeping. Just wait for another minute. Don’t move.”
Outside, the car engines fired up. Hansen listened a moment longer, then suddenly released the man and charged out the back door and into the alley.
“Sergei? They’re going to the airport. Come on! I’ll meet you behind the petrol station.”
Hansen raced as fast as he could along the walls, waiting for his runner to reply. “Sergei?”
8
KORFOVKA, RUSSIAN FEDERATION NEAR THE CHINESE BORDER
While Hansen was off on his glory mission, Sergei had driven around the front of the petrol station, as Allen Ames had instructed him to do. Sergei waited there for Ames and his taxicab tail to show up. When he arrived, the short man remained in his car and motioned for the cabdriver to turn around and head back to Vladivostok; then Ames parked under the awning, hidden from the satellite’s prying eyes. He left his car, carrying a video camera and suitcase. He climbed into Sergei’s Toyota and took a deep breath. “Hello, Luchenko.”
“It’s too late. He’s already implicated Kovac. Grim knows. I did what I could to delay him.”
Ames raised a finger and speed-dialed a number on his satellite phone. He waited. “It’s me. Yes, sir. I’m afraid that’s already happened. Yes, sir. I know what to do now, sir. I was already prepared.” He hung up.
“What now?” asked Sergei.
“You didn’t delay Hansen. You second-guessed yourself. I told you what we had planned for you in the NSA, and you threw it all away on drinking and whores and feeling guilty about your buddy, who is not your friend, trust me. You don’t have what it takes, and that’s why you’re not a Splinter Cell. I told them we were wasting our time on you. They didn’t believe me. We gave you a second chance, and you blew it.”
“Doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. I have new orders. Hansen’s not just expendable. The boss wants him dead. I’ve brought money and a camera. You bring me the proof, and you get paid $250K.” Ames opened the suitcase and showed Sergei the stacks of bills.
Sergei stiffened. “You guys were planning this all along. I wasn’t just a mole. I’m an assassin.”
Ames slapped shut the suitcase. “You wanted to be a field operative. Welcome to the big leagues. And you don’t have a choice.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” With that, Sergei had a pistol with a long suppressor jammed against Ames’s head.
The little weasel didn’t flinch. “What’s the point? If you kill me, you’re only delaying the inevitable. They’ll find you.”
Sergei began to lose his breath. “Why do we have to kill Hansen? He’s just a rookie operative. A nobody.”
“Kovac wants him dead. That’s enough for me.”
“Why?”
“Maybe to punish Grim. Maybe he thinks Hansen is Grim’s pet. He’s got it in for her. I don’t know. I once heard him say that Grim was grooming Hansen to become the next Sam Fisher. Maybe that’s why.”
“If your boss wants him dead, you do it.”
“I can’t get close. If he saw me and I failed, it would ruin everything. They’ve got a lot invested in me.”
“So I do your dirty work? What makes you think I won’t talk?”
Ames chuckled under his breath. “Come on, Sergei. You’re dealing with the most powerful intelligence operation on the planet. Even a man like you has one thing you love more than anything in this world: one… woman. And if that woman’s life were threatened, you would do anything to protect her. Did you think we would bring you into our fold without knowing everything? When you’re little people like us, you do what the big people say. And if they throw you a bone, you take it and run as fast you can.”
Sergei began to choke up. His life had come to this. He was just a hired killer. A thug. And he’d been wrong. He had no choice. It didn’t matter that Victoria said she no longer loved him. He would love her forever, and as Ames had said, he would never allow anything to happen to her. He could smell her now, her perfume, and he felt her long, blond hair brushing against his cheek and the smooth curves of her back as her lips opened slightly, warm and wet, to touch his.
If he did what they asked, the woman he loved would be saved. He would collect a quarter of a million dollars. And a man that made him green with envy would be dead.
Sergei lowered the pistol.
Ames nodded. “Here’s the camera. The money comes back with me. Bring me the video. You tell them Hansen never came back. They’ll find his body, it’ll be another mess for Third Echelon, and we’ll laugh our way to the bank.”
“Hansen called. He’s on foot. He was coming here, but he decided to double back to the airport.”
Ames’s smile evaporated. “What?”
“Hansen’s been calling me. He’s running over to the airport right now. The group’s meeting there. Zhao says he has a surprise for them.”
“This is… unexpected. We’ll leave my car here. Drive!”
Sergei nodded and threw the car in gear. They roared away from the petrol station, and for a moment he glanced over at Ames and, with a shudder, imagined himself putting a bullet in the mole’s head.
Maybe he would.
* * *
Hansen had been running for about ten minutes, heading past groups of old houses whose icy roofs glistened in the night. He followed a rickety old fence that cordoned off an open field, and he suspected that the occupants of the two cars, well ahead on the road about a quarter kilometer to his right, couldn’t see him. The airport lay farther northeast, not far from the water tower and another collection of buildings, the tallest of which was an old Eastern Orthodox church, the three-bar cross casting a deep silhouette against the gray clouds.
“Ben, Sergei’s car has left the gas station and is headed toward the airport,” reported Grim.
“And the other car?”
“Still parked there.”
“Any idea who it is?”
“Trying to check now, but we didn’t get a tag. He’s got it under the awning, and we can’t get a good shot.”
“Why isn’t Sergei answering me?”
“Not sure, and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t trust him at this point.”
“Don’t write him off yet. Maybe we were being tailed, and he took out the guy. Maybe he’s just got a problem with his OPSAT.”
“From our end his OPSAT looks fine. Anyway, just get to the airport. We need to see Zhao’s surprise… ”
“Roger that. I’m on it.”
“And one more thing. Don’t forget to breathe.”
Hansen grinned to himself and jogged on across the snow. As he turned toward the church, the wind and swirling snow began buffeting him head-on.
He spotted another fence about a hundred meters ahead, charged toward it, crouched over, and ran along to the corner. There he climbed over and found himself in a small cemetery behind the church. Gnarled and seemingly ancient trees ringed the perimeter, theirs limbs bowing and creaking against gusts reaching at least thirty miles an hour. About two dozen grave markers sprouted up from mounds of snow, with pieces of wind-whipped ice tumbling from their granite tops. The scent of burning wood wafted everywhere now, as the flames in fireplaces farther north were stoked against the oncoming cold.
Hansen reached the church’s back door and found it spanned by yellow warning tape and signs: The place had been closed because of a roof collapse. He shifted around the side of the building, saw the airport and Quonset huts ahead; then he stopped and glanced up at the steeple. An oval-shaped window w
as positioned just below an ornate clock with a diameter of at least two meters. Hansen glanced once more down to the airport, then up at the steeple. The angle looked good, so he raced around the back, got to work on the lock, and gained entrance.
The west side of the church appeared untouched, with pews lined up before an ornate altar whose walls had stained-glass windows and holy icons of the saints and large wrought-iron sconces. Giant murals spanned the domed ceiling, and the smell of incense was still pungent.
Off to the right, lying in sharp contrast, was a disaster of fallen cross members and drywall and shingles, along with pieces of the ceiling’s amazing artwork scattered in sad piles all over the pews. It seemed the parishioners and others had just started on the cleanup work, and above it all was a gaping maw in the ceiling. Pieces of insulation and loosened shingles still attached to the ragged edges flapped in the wind, and the snow was already piling up inside.
Hansen picked his way around the debris and found a side door that led into a stairwell barely wide enough for one person. He rose straight up the steep staircase, crinkling his nose at the scent of sweet-smelling incense that was even stronger here.
At the top he found a small door, which was open, and he moved into a room with a creaking wooden floor that allowed access up and into the back of the clock, whose steady ticking was at once comforting and annoying. The window he’d seen from outside was there, but heavy wooden shutters sealed it from the inside. He unlatched and tugged open one of the shutters, and the entire piece of wood came off in his hands. He swore, set it down, then removed his backpack and got out his glass-cutting kit with suction-cup handle and blade. He etched a rectangle about twelve inches square in the single pane of glass, then affixed the suction cup, gave a tap, and eureka! The cold rushed inside. He set down the glass, then peered out across the courtyard to the airport and huts, which lay 221.6 meters away, according to the map on his OPSAT’s screen.
He brought himself closer to the opening in the window, zoomed in with the goggles, and saw now that Murdoch, Bratus, and Zhao were standing in front of two cars, arms folded, talking. Zhao turned and pointed out to the west, and Hansen looked in that direction, but he couldn’t see anything yet. And then he noted something else: The driver’s-side window was down on Bratus’s car, and there was man seated at the wheel, but Hansen couldn’t quite distinguish his face.
“Grim, you seeing this?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea who he is? Or is he just a driver.”
“Need a better image of him.”
“It’s damned windy out there, but I think I’ll deploy the COM-BAT.”
“Standing by. And it looks like now you’ve got a helicopter moving toward you.”
Hansen glanced down at his OPSAT. The map of his position zoomed out to show the oncoming helicopter’s position as a red point moving toward his green triangle. Then the image zoomed further in on the red dot and dissolved into a file photo of the helicopter, an MD600N light, single-turbine bird with NOTAR (no tail rotor) technology. The chopper could carry up to seven passengers and was fast.
With the clock drumming in his ears — both literally and figuratively — Hansen removed from his pack the nylon sleeve containing the COM-BAT, a six-inch, steel-winged robotic spy plane. While the device seemingly took its name from the Batman universe, COM-BAT actually stood for the Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology, part of the University of Michigan’s College of Engineering, which had been tapped by the military, through a five-year grant, to develop the sensors, communications tools, and batteries for “the bat.”
In addition to the usual array of cameras, minimicrophones, and small detectors for nuclear radiation and poisonous gases, the bat also featured quantum dot solar cells that were twice as effective as current photovoltaics and an autonomous navigation system that was a thousand times smaller than current systems. The bat’s body was shaped like a bullet, with a clear domed nose within which you could see its sensor array and solar panel. Its wings extended out at forty-five-degree angles in a V pattern and were slightly hooked at their ends, like a bat’s.
Exercising extreme care, Hansen unfolded those wings, tested to be sure they were locked in place, then activated the bat via its smart-phone-sized remote with touch screen. He carefully slipped it through the hole he’d cut in the window, then gave the bat a slight shove, and it immediately took to the wind. With a barely perceptible buzz from its tiny motor, the bat headed toward the airport as Hansen worked the touch-screen controls and adjusted the main camera to point down at the airport. Meanwhile, Zhao’s chopper drew closer. The gusts were increasing in strength and frequency, and it was all Hansen could do to maintain control of the little plane.
Then, without warning, the signal from the bat turned to static. Hansen checked his OPSAT. Same thing.
Someone was jamming him.
9
Sergei left the keys in the ignition and quietly stepped out of the car. He eased the door shut. The snow and wind immediately cut across his face, forcing him to turn up his collar. He squinted as he turned back to Ames, who crossed to the driver’s side.
They had taken a dirt road through a forest adjoining the airport and had pulled off into the brush so Sergei could move in from the west, hopefully undetected.
“If you leave me here,” Sergei began in a warning tone.
“Why would I do that? You need to finish the job, and I need to collect the video.”
Sergei gave a little snort. “Right. But after I hand you the video, you won’t give me the money. You’ll kill me.”
“That’s a chance you have to take. You walk away now, and we push that special button.”
Hissing, Sergei slipped the camera into his deep front pocket. “I’m not sure I can find him.”
“I’m jamming his OPSAT, his SVT, and his little spy plane. He’s deaf and blind. He’ll get in closer. He has to.”
“Whatever you say.”
Sergei took a deep breath and started away from the car, the snow already collecting on his shoulders. He saw a fuel truck parked beside the easternmost hangar. He’d have cover from the group and a good view of the west side of the airport, Hansen’s most likely route of advance because of the drainage ditches and better cover.
Sergei glanced back one last time at Ames, who was inside the car and on his satellite phone, then stopped and thought for a moment.
He could go back now and kill the little bastard. Just be done with it. Then he would find and warn Hansen. He could do the right thing, and maybe Grim and the rest of Third Echelon would deem him a hero for exposing their mole, even though he’d been one himself. Maybe they’d reconsider their decision to drop him from the Splinter Cell program. He could save Hansen now. He still had that chance.
But Victoria… They would kill her. And then, yes, they would come for him. The consequences were that simple… and that deadly.
Sergei pushed on through the trees, ducking below low-hanging boughs as the whomping of the helicopter resounded like a racing heart.
* * *
Hansen had darted out of the church and dropped down into a long embankment running parallel to a service road near the main airstrip. He’d seen how several culverts could provide fast and temporary cover before choosing his course, and he dropped into one drainage pipe just as the chopper thundered overhead and descended toward the helipad. He waited there for another few seconds, then slipped back out, dropped to his hands and knees, and crawled forward for a better view of the pad — about two hundred yards away.
He wasn’t sure if the people on board the chopper or Sergei or someone else was jamming him, but he still had no contact with Grim and no electronic surveillance of the area via the COM-BAT plane, which now was circling the airport in an endless loop, waiting for its next set of instructions. Sergei’s silence raised questions about him; but, then again, maybe he, too, was being jammed, and his signal had been cut off before Hansen’s. He wan
ted so badly to give the man the benefit of the doubt, but a more powerful sense told him, No, you can’t trust him anymore. He’s turned.
The chopper pitched up, but the pilot was skilled enough to lower the bird into a hard but efficient landing despite the crosswinds.
Bratus, Zhao, and Murdoch had moved back toward the hangars and were shielding their faces from the rotor wash as the engine began to wind down. Hansen also noted that while the window was down on Bratus’s car, the driver was no longer there. He scanned the area. No sign of him. Hmm.
It took several moments before the door on the chopper finally popped. Here we go, Hansen thought. This was either going to get very enlightening or very frustrating, depending upon what he could capture with the laser microphone in this weather and with all that rotor wash.
* * *
After making his phone call, Ames got out of the car, donned a black balaclava to conceal his face, and followed Sergei’s boot prints until he reached a stand of trees on the edge of the airport grounds. He sat on his haunches beside a thick oak, shivering. From this vantage point, he could survey most of the airport with his pair of 18 × 50 all-weather binoculars.
Within ten seconds, he spotted Sergei crouched down near the fuel truck. The fool was partially exposed and easily identifiable from this angle. Not so from where the agents and helicopter were positioned, but Ames would not have chosen that spot. Rookie.
Then, almost losing his breath, Ames spotted Hansen tucked in tightly along the embankment, surveying the scene with his trifocals and trying to listen in with his laser mic. He’d done an admirable, if imperfect, job of concealing himself from the group near the helicopter, but from the rear he was vulnerable, and that was when Ames noticed the monster of a man in a long coat and Soviet Army ushanka crouched over and drawing up behind Hansen. Unbelievable. Perhaps it was the wind or the continuing rotor wash from the chopper, but Hansen did not react to the guy’s approach. It was Bratus’s driver, and he was about to make contact.