by Matthew Dunn
They were supposed to be there until closing time, when the cafe would be empty of innocents.
Will put cash onto his table to pay for his drink, stood, pulled out a handgun, and shot the three men in their heads.
Will opened his eyes as the memory faded, but he could still remember the expression on the woman’s face turning from shock to disgust as she looked at him. He could still hear the screaming from the other people in the cafe; he could still remember standing in front of his GCP commanding officer and an anonymous French intelligence officer from the DGSE three days prior to that event. And he remembered his commander’s words to him: This is your first black operation. If you do well on this job, you’ll be given plenty more just like it.
Chapter Five
The business-class section of the Ukraine International Airlines Boeing 737 was at full capacity, with most passengers eating lunch. Will looked out of the window and saw that they were traveling over the snow-covered Transylvanian Alps of Romania. He’d not slept since departing Washington, D.C., fourteen hours before, taking flights to London, then Vienna, and now onward to Odessa. The plane would be landing in approximately one hour. Soon after that, he would be meeting Sentinel.
Not for the first time on the journey, Will wondered what Sentinel would be like. Alistair had forewarned him that Sentinel would be a complex and difficult man to deal with and rightly so. There were few men, if any, within the Western intelligence community who had proven, to such an extent, and over such a protracted period of time, that they were of such value.
He tried to sleep, but his mind was too active. More than anything, he felt an overwhelming sense of unease.
W ill walked quickly through the lobby of the Hotel Otrada toward the entrance. He’d landed in Ukraine six hours ago, taken a room in the luxury hotel, and was now heading to his meeting with Sentinel. Outside, it was twilight and icy, and a heavy fog lay motionless over the city of Odessa. He entered a taxi and soon was being driven north along a coastal city road straddled with old-fashioned lamps that cast a dim golden glow over the route. The Black Sea was beside him but barely visible in the fading light. After two miles, he was nearing the city’s old town and its adjacent port. The taxi slowed and the driver muttered in Russian, the common language of Ukraine, that they were close to his destination.
They moved northwest, with the port to their right. The place was better lit, but the fog seemed even heavier here, allowing only glimpses of the freight ships and ferries moored alongside large jetties. Pedestrians and cars milled around the area. The taxi stopped by an arterial road entrance to one of the jetties, and the driver held out a hand. Will thrust hryvnia notes at the expectant man and stepped out of the vehicle onto Prymors’ka street.
It was nearly night now and very cold, although the ground was free of snow. Will pulled up the collar of his overcoat and looked in the direction opposite to the port. Rising away from the road was the famous five-hundred-foot-long, broad stone Potemkin Stairs. On a normal day it would give tourists who climbed to its summit a view of the whole port. But tonight it was impossible to see much beyond a hundred feet.
Will frowned, looked left and right along the road, watched cars move cautiously through the fog, glanced at the port behind him, and looked back toward the Potemkin Stairs and the few tourists he could see on it. He’d been told that this was the meeting place, but now that he was here it felt wrong-too busy, too exposed, with too many routes into and out of the place.
An SUV passed him. He watched its taillights move away from his position and disappear into the thick fog. Glancing around again, he heard more engine noises; those sounded as though they belonged to other large vehicles, and they were moving fast. His heart missed a beat. Spinning to face the vehicles, Will saw two sets of headlights coming quickly toward him.
In an instant, he knew exactly what was happening.
He also knew that he had to allow it.
Two SUVs skidded to a halt by his position; eight men jumped out and ran to him. The SUV that had passed him seconds earlier reappeared, reversing fast to his position before stopping. The men grabbed and twisted him, ran him backward to the SUVs, threw him into one of the vehicles, and slammed boots and knees against his head. Everything happened in less than six seconds. Then the SUVs lurched forward. Will was pinned to the floor of the vehicle by large and very strong men.
It was impossible to see where they were going. Will looked at the two men who held him firm. Their faces were in darkness; they said nothing. They seemed quite professional, though Will wouldn’t know how good they were until he decided to do something.
The three-vehicle convoy drove for an hour before stopping. A cell phone rang. One of the five men in Will’s vehicle pulled out his phone, listened to it, said nothing, then nodded at the two men holding Will. Doors were opened. Will was dragged out of the SUV and thrown onto the ground. Boots pressed his head against the frozen soil. The three SUVs were together, and the only light around them came from the vehicles. It showed that they were adjacent to a tree-lined road. Eleven men were on foot, all of them dressed in dark winter attire. One of them walked up to Will, nodded at the man pinning him down, took three paces away from them, and pointed a gun at Will’s head.
Hands gripped Will’s chin and forced his body into a kneeling position. All but the man with the gun moved to form a large circle around him. Will and the man holding the weapon were in the center of that circle.
Will raised his head and looked at the man holding the gun. “Fuck you.”
The man smiled, took three paces forward, and kicked him in the chest, forcing him onto his back. Will’s muscles instantly tensed. He thought about trying to escape, but he knew the thought was pointless.
The man punched the pistol into Will’s mouth and smiled wider; then his face took on a cold look. He pulled out the weapon and nodded toward some of the men. One of them hit Will on the back of the head with sufficient force to send him to the ground. Immediately after his face hit the road, a boot stamped on his neck and held him still. Hands rummaged through his overcoat and suit pockets. He had nothing in them except his wallet and passport. Both were removed.
There was more rapid talking. The man with the gun moved in front of Will, crouched down, and tossed his passport and wallet onto the ground so that both were inches from his face.
Will looked at the man and spoke through gritted teeth. “Do I pass the test?”
The man said nothing for a while before nodding. “He had to be sure you were the right person and that you weren’t being followed. You’re in the outskirts of the village of Dalnik. Wait here.”
The boot on Will’s head was removed. All of the men entered two of the vehicles, then quickly sped away, leaving Will alone on the ground with the third empty SUV beside them, its engine and lights still on. Will hauled himself to his feet and picked up his ID and wallet. He looked at the area ahead of him that was illuminated by the vehicle’s headlights. It was now very quiet, very still. The freezing fog was everywhere. He brushed ice from his clothes but kept his eyes on his surroundings, waiting, urgently trying to identify a new shape or movement. After taking two steps forward, he stood still for ten minutes, listening, watching. He moved forward again until he was standing fully in the headlights of the SUV and remained there for another fifteen minutes. The SUV behind him idled almost silently; fumes from its exhaust wafted through the air and mingled with the fog that now almost encapsulated him. He was exposed to anything around him, and he hated being this vulnerable. But he knew he had to remain calm. It was very cold now, cold enough to make every intake of air cause pain in his lungs.
The village of Dalnik sounded familiar, and he tried to remember why, something he’d learned about a long time before, maybe at school. It came to him. In 1941, Nazi-allied Romanian soldiers had rounded up twenty-five thousand Jews in Odessa and made them march along the twenty-mile road he’d been driven along to get here. Three thousand of them, mostly the elderly
, children, and the physically and mentally handicapped, couldn’t walk fast enough so were shot or hanged along the way. Those who made it here alive were herded into four warehouses, probably located very close to where Will was now standing. The Romanian troops made holes in the buildings big enough for machine guns, locked the doors, placed their guns into the holes, and opened fire. Later they set the buildings ablaze and tossed grenades into them to make sure no Jew survived.
He heard a sound and looked quickly in the direction from which it had come. There was nothing else at first, but then he heard what sounded like a footstep crunching over the icy ground, followed by another, then another. He waited. The noises stopped. The motionless fog blanketed everything. Nothing else could be seen. All was quiet again. Then there was another crunch over ground, followed by another.
Then he saw him. At first he was just a dark shape, but as he drew nearer, Will could see that it was a person who was taking careful, deliberate steps toward him. He was thirty feet away, his face was still hidden in the fog, and he was holding something. It was almost certainly a pistol, and it had probably been pointing at him since he arrived here. The man stopped far enough away for his features to still be hidden. He raised his weapon high so that Will could clearly see that it was aimed in his direction, held it with two hands, and suddenly walked quickly toward him. Within a split second, Will saw that the man was tall, athletic, middle-aged, and clean-shaven, had groomed short blond hair, and was dressed in a windbreaker jacket, jeans, and hiking boots.
Sentinel.
He came to within ten feet, stopped, and barked in a well-spoken English accent, “The service had better have a damn good reason for calling this meeting.” He kept his gun pointed at Will’s head. “You’ve got ten seconds to persuade me not to pull the trigger.”
Chapter Six
The first minutes of daylight showed woodland dotted with red berries, snow-covered ground, and snowflakes falling serenely from the sky. Traces of the fog were still there and gave the place an eerie presence. Turning from the view, Will glanced around the large room. Six large windows surrounded what looked like a well-used spacious family kitchen. That was as it should be, for Sentinel’s safe houses would all have been outfitted to look like genuine homes.
Sentinel was standing in the center of the room speaking rapid Slovene into his cell phone. He finished the call, poured black coffee into a mug, and sat down at the kitchen table.
Will joined him.
Sentinel withdrew three handgun magazines from his trouser pocket and carefully removed the bullets, resting each on its percussion cap on the table, until ten of them were lined up vertically. He took out another magazine, reached behind his back, withdrew a Sig Sauer P229 handgun, and slammed the fresh magazine into the weapon. Placing the muzzle of the gun against one of the bullets, he tapped the projectile over, then did the same with three more. He looked at Will with icy blue eyes. “I’ve now got two hundred and seventy-six assets. One hundred and eighty of them are Russians who operate inside their country, seventy are Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Estonian, and Finnish men, like those who grabbed you from the base of the Potemkin Stairs, and twenty of them are Western European support agents-mostly wealthy individuals, arms dealers, and forgers-who I use to finance and supply my operations when MI6 is unable to help me. But at the forefront of them all”-he looked back at the bullets-“are my Russian agents, my tier-one intelligence producers. There were ten of them, and now I have six. They all risk their lives for me so that the West can benefit from their intelligence about Russia. Do you know why they do that?”
Will said nothing.
Sentinel smoothed his fingers over the four prone cartridges and closed his eyes before opening them again. For the briefest moment his face was filled with sadness. His expression became cold. “They do it because they love Russia and hate the people that run it.”
Will nodded.
Sentinel looked at the bullets. He pulled back the workings of the Sig Sauer, chambered a round, put the gun onto the table, and muttered to himself, “Bastard.”
“You didn’t suspect him?”
“I had no reason to. I’ve been investigating the deaths, but so far found nothing. I’d concluded the killers were SVR or FSB.”
“How does Khmelnytsky know the identity of your agents?”
Sentinel stared at him.
“Did you make tradecraft mistakes? Perhaps you were followed by Razin to your agent meetings.”
Sentinel remained motionless.
“You can trust me.”
“Trust?” The room reverberated with the volume of Sentinel’s voice. “I don’t trust anyone, and I’m not about to start doing so with someone I’ve only known for a few hours.” He spun the gun so that its nozzle was facing Will. “Do you work in the service’s Russia team?”
“No.”
“Security Department?”
“No.”
“Then what’s your fucking interest in my business?”
Will ignored the question. “You need to set up a meeting with Razin so that I can kill him.”
Sentinel laughed. “Have you read his file?”
“Of course.”
Sentinel’s expression changed. “Then you’ll know that it’s more likely he’ll kill us.”
“I’m prepared to take that risk. Are you?”
Sentinel placed a hand over the gun. “How long have you been in the service?”
“Long enough not to have to prove my worth by answering questions like that.”
“We’ll see.” Sentinel spoke fast. “I’ve no idea how Razin knows the identity of my other agents, nor do I know how Svelte found out he was a traitor.” He raised his voice. “I made no tradecraft mistakes.”
Will held his gaze. “Razin’s command of Alpha gives him a very powerful weapon, but he’s going to need more than that to try to spark a war. Any ideas what he might do?”
“Yes.”
“I’m listening.”
Silence.
Will put a finger against the tip of Sentinel’s gun and yanked it sideways so that the gun was pointing away from him.
But Sentinel’s hand remained over the weapon. “You shouldn’t have come here. And you need to leave right now because there’s nothing more I’m going to say to you.”
Will pulled out his cell phone. “We thought you might say that.” He punched some buttons, pressed SPEAKERPHONE, and placed the phone on the table between them.
A man answered. “Hold while we route the call.”
Thirty seconds later, the same man said, “Okay, you’re through to the chief.”
The chief of MI6.
Sentinel’s expression remained hostile as he glanced at Will, then the cell. “Your messenger boy’s asking too many questions. I’ve ordered him to leave.”
The chief answered, his voice measured and deep. “He has my authority to stay.”
Sentinel shook his head. “You have no authority over me.”
“You can’t speak to me like that.”
“I can. Since I’ve been in the field, I’ve worked with six chiefs. They all come and go. But I’ve stayed.”
“You’ll do what you’re told!”
Sentinel leaned closer to the phone. “I’ll do what I damn well like. And if I like, I’ll go above your head and speak directly to the prime minister. I’ll tell him that you’re interfering in my business and I don’t like it. Our premiers have always done what I’ve told them to do.” He leaned back. “You know that I have that power. Tell your messenger boy to leave, or things will get unpleasant for you.”
The chief was silent for five seconds before saying, “I’m not interfering. I’m giving you help.”
“Help that I didn’t request. You don’t make decisions like that without consulting with me first.”
More silence. Then, “The man I sent is run by a controller who was on your intake when you joined MI6.”
Sentinel’s eyes narrowed. “Name?”
“Alistair McCulloch.”
A thin smile emerged on Sentinel’s face. “I’d heard he got promoted. I’d also heard that he’d been put in charge of a trivial administrative department.”
“That’s what you and everyone else were supposed to have heard.”
The smile vanished. “The service doesn’t withhold information from people like me.”
“When did you last see Alistair?”
Sentinel answered through gritted teeth, “Nine years ago.”
“It must have been an awkward meeting. After all, that’s when you were stripped of your Spartan code name.”
The mention of the code name clearly surprised Sentinel. “They were closing down the Spartan Section.”
“Why?”
“Read the files.”
“I wonder why my predecessor sent Alistair to break the news to you.”
“Probably because the former chief was too scared to do it in person.”
“I’ve read the files. You were stripped of your title because events had moved on since your imprisonment. Russia was no longer the only major threat. For the Spartan Section to have any relevance, its officer had to be globally deployable. They couldn’t do that with you because you were too vital to the Russian operations.”
Sentinel slid the gun close to his body, away from Will’s reach.
“You’d become too… specialized.”
“Their loss.”
“Their gain. MI6 couldn’t afford to underestimate your im- portance.”
“You’d damn well better have a reason to be talking about this.”
“Oh, I do. Alistair was sent to you for a very specific reason. It had to be him, because he’d just been given command of the revamped Spartan Section.”
Sentinel stared at the phone, and his expression changed. He seemed to be deep in thought. Eventually, he brought his gaze up to Will and asked, “Is this him?”
“It is.”
Sentinel nodded slowly, looked away, and muttered, “They kept it going.”