by Matt Rogers
‘Okay,’ Pasha said.
‘I used to work for a division of the U.S. government that doesn’t officially exist. Black operations. I was recruited to this division because of a genetic predisposition. My reaction speed is faster than almost anyone on the planet. You both saw that first-hand, just before.’
‘I didn’t think that was real,’ Pasha said, turning pale. ‘I can’t believe how fast you killed that man.’
‘That’s what I do. And I did it for years.’
‘Did you kill Russians?’
‘Many. You won’t miss any of them. I only targeted scum. I killed just as many Americans.’
‘And you got out?’
‘I tried to. It didn’t work out. I ran away when I was sent to track down another operative. A man better than me. His name was Jason King. I found out that the orders from the top weren’t always accurate, and I became disillusioned. I tried to lay low in Antigua and enjoy the fruits of my labours, but I couldn’t do it. And Jason King went back to work. We swapped roles.’
‘Wait a second,’ Pasha said. ‘A year ago. In Russia. Those were government operatives—’
‘King was sent to the Russian Far East. He botched it completely. I flew halfway around the world to pull him out of a gold mine, but we found something down there that no-one wanted us to see. Then everything went to hell. I’m sure you saw it on the news.’
‘I thought we were in for another World War when I heard Russian paramilitary had attacked a U.S. Navy vessel. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘They were trying to finish us off. Because of what we knew.’
‘What did you find in the gold mine?’
‘Nothing I want to talk about. But that’s why you two need to run. Nothing good follows me. I’ve been at the centre of all this chaos over the last year. It’s all because of me.’
‘Or maybe you are blessing,’ Bogdan said. ‘Maybe without you, world be much worse. Maybe life terrible for you. But good for everyone else. Because of you.’
Slater exhaled. ‘You know what, Bogdan? I think you’re absolutely right.’
‘So you’re just going to let us go?’ Pasha said.
Slater paused. ‘What makes you think I’m holding you here against your will?’
‘We just watched you cut a man’s throat. We’re a little intimidated.’
‘Get out of here. Both of you. And never come back. But give me one last thing before you go.’
‘What?’
‘I just told you my story. Or, at least, a condensed version of it. You can trust me. You need to give me access to the shipbuilding plant. Whatever credentials you have, whatever gate codes you know. I need it all. Everything in your head. If I’m going to have even the slightest chance at this.’
Pasha shook his head, shockingly pale, eyes wide and bloodshot. ‘No. What if you get caught? Taken alive? Then they know what codes you used. It’s in the system. You know we gave them to you. They track us down, they find our families, they kill them all. Like they did to Viktor.’
‘You’re just going to have to trust that I’ll succeed.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘I can,’ Bogdan said. ‘V12XY. Gate code. Gets you in the front. Two guards there. Distract them, maybe. But they mercenary. Like the others. All bad. Do what you need to do.’
Pasha flashed his co-worker a dark look, brimming with rage. ‘You just got our families killed.’
‘Or I save lives,’ Bogdan said, shrugging. ‘This man is good man.’
‘Thank you,’ Slater said, his pulse quickening, his temples throbbing.
V12XY.
The code to get inside Medved.
The code that would help him begin to decipher the puzzle he’d stumbled across.
The code, potentially, to Natasha.
‘It’s okay,’ Bogdan said.
‘I mean it,’ Slater said. ‘You just did a bold thing. You trusted me. And now I might be able to save my friend.’
‘Might be too late,’ Pasha muttered.
‘Could be. But there’s something in that plant that needs my attention. Something to do with the icebreaker. And you know it just as well as I do.’
‘You’re getting involved with people far more powerful than yourself,’ Pasha said, his voice cold, unwavering. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. You’ll get yourself killed.’
Slater got to his feet and wrapped a hand around the back of Pasha’s neck. ‘If I had a dollar for every time someone told me that, I could build my own icebreaker. And here I am. Not dead yet.’
‘Yet,’ Pasha said.
‘We’ll see.’
33
Magomed stepped out of the dilapidated office complex into the freezing afternoon. Breath clouding in front of his face, he winced and braced himself against the cold, then glanced in either direction for signs of trouble.
But the city was dead.
The chill seeped into everything. There were barely any pedestrians about. At the far end of the street he spotted a pair of silhouettes, hovering underneath a doorway, shrouded in shadow. At this stage of his life he had enemies everywhere, in every form imaginable. He didn’t chalk anything up to coincidence. Fixated on the duo, he paused in the lee of the office complex for a moment longer than necessary.
Long enough to arouse suspicion.
Cursing his own stupidity, he turned on his heel and hurried along the freezing sidewalk, brushing between small groups of pedestrians passing by in either direction. He quickened his pace, tucking the overcoat a little tighter around his frame, feeling for the KAMPO Bayonet he kept in an appendix holster specially designed to fit into his waistband.
He’d never used the weapon yet, but he’d trained enough to know he could plunge it into delicate flesh without a moment’s hesitation.
Although it didn’t fit the job description of his previous career, Magomed knew what it felt like to take another man’s life. If it came to that, he wouldn’t be shy about it.
He sensed an unknown party on his heels. It could be the two guys he’d seen loitering in the doorway, but he knew nothing about them, not even their features. His paranoia gave him an endless list of possibilities, but he refused to spend too much time fixated on what could be. Instead, he concentrated on what was.
And there were certainly men on his heels.
He couldn’t turn around and check. If he did, he would give away the fact that he knew they were there. So he strode even faster, covering ground at an impressive rate, shouldering civilians aside who got in his way. He was heading for the port, but he figured if they were closing in, they would intercept him well before he made it to the Medved Shipbuilding Plant.
So he would need to act before then.
Heart hammering in his chest, he realised he would need to use the bayonet for the very first time. He’d last killed a man over eight years ago. He remembered the feeling, but now he second-guessed himself.
Would there be hesitation there?
At this level of espionage and deception, there was no room for error. He would have to trust his gut and have confidence in himself that he could make the requisite moves when the situation called for it.
Now he heard their footsteps, concentrating on them so fully that they thundered in his ears. Two men. Right behind him.
He suspected they were with the Federal Security Service. Or possibly a more covert division.
The secret police.
He would find out shortly.
He diverted into a tiny residential side street, the neighbourhood currently the equivalent of a ghost town. In drab Vladivostok, everyone in the surrounding apartment complexes was either at work or shut in for the day, sleeping through the afternoon if they worked nights.
The dead hours between the lunchtime and post-work rushes.
No witnesses.
Magomed assessed the street in one sweeping look, and determined that he would never get another chance to make the leap. He knew it would test him physically,
mentally, and emotionally. If his plan succeeded he would cause untold suffering on a global scale, but there was a world of difference between making demands from behind the anonymity of a phone or computer and stabbing two men to death in broad daylight.
But he if refused to go back to his old tendencies, he knew exactly what the two men would do with him. He would spend the rest of his days at a black site, punished eternally for what he almost got away with, unless they dragged him somewhere private and executed him on the spot.
Wryly, he noted that his previous occupation worked in his favour.
They wouldn’t expect him to retaliate in any capacity.
He turned on the spot, facing the men on his heels for the first time. A single glance was all it took. They wore bulky overcoats and fur caps, and their faces sported twin expressions of determination. Their mouths were sealed into hard lines, and their eyes were emotionless.
They had gone through the same transition phase as Magomed in preparation for a murder.
They had their target, and they’d been in the process of finding a quiet place to eliminate him.
Magomed’s sudden change in direction made them hesitate. He made sure to sport an expression of total innocence — befuddlement, openness, as if nothing was wrong at all. He saw the flicker of doubt in their eyes as they rounded the corner after him, following him into the desolate street. The murky weather aided the conditions, darkening the sidewalk, leeching uncertainty into the air.
The pair exchanged a look after they made eye contact with Magomed.
More uncertainty.
Is this our man?
Magomed opened his mouth to speak, a subtle gesture that stopped them from reaching for their weapons. No doubt they would have fearsome sidearms concealed under their coats, but Magomed neutralised any hostility by staring them right in the eyes, wiping any fear or tension off his face, and taking a half-step forward to get into range.
Now.
Make the switch.
He prepared to kill. In one motion he slid the chunky steel bayonet out of his appendix holster, producing it from under his own coat in a heartbeat. But they didn’t notice. Not instantaneously. He maintained eye contact with the pair of them as he brought the enormous knife into view. The grey steel, combined with the grey atmosphere, combined with the grey surroundings, shielded the knife from view for the vital half-second he needed to capitalise.
And then it was over.
They saw it at the same time, but Magomed shoved the blade into the gut of the first man before either of them could react. The steel tore through flesh and soft tissue and bone simultaneously, a fatal wound by any stretch of the imagination. Magomed made sure to move toward the man as he stabbed him, pressing himself chest to chest as he worked the blade left and right. It complicated the close-quarters nature of the incident, preventing the second man from getting a decent shot off even if he drew his gun.
But he didn’t, because it wasn’t immediately apparent what had happened. The first guy hadn’t made a sound as Magomed slipped the blade into his delicate mid-section, instead opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish. Blood drained from his face, and poured from the wound in turn.
Magomed wrenched the blade free and thrust the guy aside, toppling him to his knees with a gentle push.
Then he was free to act explosively, darting toward the second man as the guy reached for his gun.
Too late.
Magomed shifted grip on the bayonet and raised it to shoulder height, jabbing it into the man’s chest to the hilt, then pulling it out and bringing it down in an arc, finally completing the assault by plunging it into the same area of the stomach. He left the bayonet where it was, sensing the fight dissipate out of the man, draining out along with his blood.
Magomed lowered the second guy to the frozen sidewalk. The mortal fear spreading across the man’s face was justified. He would be dead in less than a minute. The first guy had seemingly accepted his fate, dropping to both knees and then pitching forward into the gutter by the side of the road, all the energy sapped from his limbs.
Magomed set to work dealing with the bodies. He’d been worried about personally transitioning two men into the afterlife, but corpses were a non-factor. He could handle them all day if he had to.
And, as the two policemen gave their final, pathetic groans, their eyes glazed over and Magomed realised the altercation hadn’t fazed him in the slightest.
I’m back, he thought.
34
Slater couldn’t babysit Bogdan and Pasha forever, but he could at least ensure them safe passage out of Vladivostok. Keeping that in the back of his mind, he elected to escort them to the outskirts of the port city, getting them on a bus or train and sending them as far away from this godforsaken town as he could.
They didn’t deserve the same fate as their co-worker just because they’d learned unscrupulous details about their employers. As the nerves set in they withdrew into themselves, saying less, hunching over, shivering in the miserable cold. Slater watched them start to understand the ramifications of what he’d told them. Their friend, Viktor, had died a horrific public death. All because he wanted to run away.
So they knew they couldn’t return to the plant.
They had to flee.
And he had to help.
He ushered them out of the warehouse where they’d had their impromptu rendezvous and guided them down a different alleyway, opting to take another path back to the street instead of having to look at the man he’d stabbed to death.
Bogdan and Pasha had reacted exactly how he’d expected two pacifistic manual labourers would react to witnessing a grisly murder up close.
They were both in shock, and neither seemed to believe that Slater was on their side. Every time he stepped too close, or reached out and laid a hand on one of their shoulders, they instinctively recoiled.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said, keeping his voice low.
They both nodded their understanding, but he could tell they didn’t mean it. The shock wouldn’t dissipate in a hurry. They would both remember what they’d seen for the rest of their lives.
When they reached the main road, they paused in the lee of the nondescript alleyway. Slater went through a rudimentary threat assessment. He scanned the street for a few beats, watching the cars rumble past, studying each passing face for any sign of hostiles. In truth, he didn’t quite know what he was looking for. He was still just as much in the dark about the puzzle as when he’d first stumbled into it.
Iosif, kidnapped by gunmen.
Viktor, assassinated by gunmen.
Natasha, abducted by gunmen.
Bogdan witnessing a young man being dragged into a warehouse at the Medved Shipbuilding Plant.
Secrets surrounding a nuclear-powered icebreaker set to make its maiden voyage tomorrow.
It all added up, somehow.
Slater knew he wouldn’t piece it together until he upped his pace. And that involved returning to a mindset he would have rather left in the past.
But things never go according to plan.
‘I’ll help you get out of here,’ Slater said. ‘The longer you spend in Vladivostok, the greater the danger.’
‘Thank you,’ Bogdan said, relief flooding his face.
Pasha seemed less grateful. ‘We don’t need your help.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘We’re not kids. We can handle ourselves.’
‘Just like Viktor could handle himself?’
‘He couldn’t,’ Pasha said. ‘But neither could you. You tried to help him and he wound up in the same place. So if we’re going to die, it’ll happen regardless. Besides, you need to go to Medved. The answers are there that you so desperately crave.’
‘I can take a detour first. For my conscience. If your bodies turn up on the outskirts of the city I’d never be able to live with myself.’
‘Why? Who are we to you? You don’t know us. Why do you care?’
; ‘The nature of my career,’ Slater muttered. ‘All part of the job.’
‘You don’t do that anymore.’
‘I do a variation of it.’
‘You’re not employed.’
‘I’m self-employed.’
‘For what?’
‘My conscience.’
‘We’ll be okay,’ Pasha said, and Slater felt inclined to believe him.
Then the blood drained from the man’s face as a pedestrian hurried past them. Pasha locked his gaze onto the back of the man’s skull, and his hands started shaking. Slater turned to Bogdan to see whether he had a similar reaction and noted his wide eyes and frozen features, like a deer caught in headlights. He found himself so perplexed by their reaction that it took him far longer than it should have to search for the stranger who’d passed them by.
He spun on his heel, peering down the sidewalk, and saw a bulky man in a giant overcoat hurrying away from them, his back turned. He had thinning ash blonde hair and a confident gait. There was purpose in his stride. He was going somewhere in a hurry.
‘You know that guy?’ Slater said.
Both of them nodded in unison.
‘If you want answers,’ Pasha said. ‘Start with him.’
‘Who is he?’
‘I’ve seen him around Medved. He only talks to the guards. I think he controls them.’
‘The mercenaries?’
Pasha nodded. ‘He might be their boss.’
‘Might be?’
‘We don’t know anything about him. He avoids the workers. And he seems permanently angry. Like someone took something away from him. That’s what all our co-workers think.’
‘How long has he been hanging around the shipyard?’
‘Ever since the manpower increased. So … a few months.’
‘That lines up with the increased interest in the icebreaker?’
‘Yes.’
‘You think he’s the ringleader?’
‘No way to know for sure.’
‘I can find out.’
‘Then you would have to let us go,’ Bogdan said, voicing what they were all thinking.