by Matt Rogers
But all that changed when the panicked voice resonated off the walls in the distance.
Someone had entered the mess hall from the other side.
King stayed deathly quiet, taking the opportunity to recharge his internal batteries, seizing as much energy from the stillness as he could. It didn’t help much. The floor still swayed underneath him, and the lactic acid still burned in his arms from throwing strikes with maximum effort.
Not the superficial kind of maximum effort he could dish out in training. That was simulated.
Not real.
Instead, he was now throwing with murderous intent.
It sapped the energy right out of you.
He listened to the voices approaching, getting ever closer, speaking English. One panicked but articulate. One confident but gruff, speaking broken English.
Even without a visual on his target, King worked out what was happening in an instant.
The panicked voice said, ‘I don’t understand. I don’t know why the emergency power’s cutting out, okay? I can’t help you.’
The firm voice said, ‘You figure it out.’
‘I’m not an engineer.’
‘You are crew.’
‘Yes, but my role is—’
‘Your role is what we say.’
‘I can’t fix this. Isn’t your boss down there already?’
‘Boss make call. He go down there to get better signal. He has device to talk. Down there.’
‘To who?’
‘Americans.’
‘Why? Is he working with them?’
‘No. We told you. Everything go to plan. We meet up with convoy. As scheduled.’
‘I don’t understand what you’re planning to do.’
‘You don’t have to. You fix power.’
‘I told you, I can’t—’
The panicked voice cut off mid-sentence, and a vicious thump resonated through the mess hall, echoing off the walls. King recognised it as the butt of a gun striking bone. He figured the mercenary must have hit the panicked guy on the forehead.
As soon as he heard the sound he burst out of cover.
The mercenary saw him out of the corner of his eye. The guy was small and built like a dump truck, almost cubic in shape. His combat gear was pulled tight over his barrel chest, and his small beady eyes were fixated on the stooped crew member hunched over one of the tables, blood pouring down the side of his head, cowering away from another strike.
King raised the HK433, still switched to select fire, and shot the short stocky mercenary through the forehead before the guy had a chance to wheel his aim around and take care of the new threat.
Sixteen down.
King hurried over to the sailor. He was tall and gangly, dressed neatly in his official uniform. White shirt tucked into black dress pants. From what little conversation he’d overheard, King figured he was Australian. He had the requisite twang in his voice.
King gently sat him down on one of the metal benches and swept the room for any sign of hostiles.
Finding nothing, he bent down and spoke slow and controlled.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You’re probably in shock. None of this feels real. But I need you to be clear with me for the next minute. I’m not a threat. Can you do that?’
The guy nodded.
‘What happened last night?’
‘I…’ the guy started.
‘You don’t need to guess. Just tell me exactly what you personally saw. There can be gaps. It doesn’t matter.’
‘It was late. We were running through the system checks for today. We’d been picked as the crew ages ago. As part of the official government program. We were told what was happening. With the U.S. Navy. So we were all nervous. We knew the world would be watching. We knew how important it was … you know, for history. So we didn’t want to screw anything up. So we were … probably too focused on our jobs. We weren’t paying attention to anything else.’
‘And then?’
‘I don’t know. Chaos. There were men everywhere. I recognised most of them. They’d been guarding the construction for as long as I could remember. As it was nearing completion the crew had been allowed aboard to get familiar with the ship. So we always had to go past these guys to get to the ship. They’d frisk us down. You know. I always thought it was too much. What were they guarding it for? There was never any threat. And then suddenly on the night before the big day they were all aboard, cramming the hallways, threatening people with weapons.’
‘Did you make any calls?’
The guy shook his head, eyes wide, throat constricted. ‘No. It all happened so fast. They’d planned it. Suddenly they were everywhere, and there was nothing we could do. We all thought it was a joke at first. Guns pointed at us. Didn’t seem real. And then … then it started to sink in. And they kept us up all night at gunpoint. We weren’t allowed to move a muscle. And they kept telling us, over and over again, that we were to follow everything exactly according to plan. It’s just … no-one could know they were aboard.’
‘So they maximised confusion.’
‘Uh … yeah.’
‘Effective. How long until you’re scheduled to meet up with the convoy?’
‘First contact is in fifteen minutes. There’ll be choppers circling above filming. For the news. You know…’
King went pale. ‘Fuck. I have to go.’
‘What about me?’
‘See where I came from, just then?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Get inside that gap, put your head down, and pretend you’re somewhere else.’
‘Where are you going?’
King held up the rifle. ‘Where do you think?’
‘Who the fuck are you, anyway? American?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How’d you get on board? Is that what all the screaming and gunfire was?’
King muttered, ‘That usually happens when I get involved.’
‘How many have you killed?’
‘Not enough.’
‘What—?’
King held up a hand. ‘Go hide. You said I’ve got fifteen minutes?’
‘Yeah. Wait … until what? What are they going to do?’
‘Nothing good. Go hide.’
He laid a hand on the man’s shoulder for reassurance, gave him a confident nod, and then took off in the direction of the wheelhouse.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
58
Slater stumbled through identical passageways with no idea where he was headed. He glimpsed a flash of movement in the far distance, barely perceptible underneath the failing emergency power supply. The lights flashed on and off at random, ruining his sense of direction, only adding to the confusion. All around him the icebreaker rumbled, picking up momentum, moving forward with renewed vigour.
Closing in on something.
Slater knew what was coming.
For some reason, he figured he was instrumental in stopping it. Even though he could barely string a thought together for longer than a few seconds. Even though the dread seeped through him, letting him know the odds were against him. Even though any time he spent lingering on the consequences of Magomed succeeding sent terror through his bones.
Magomed.
It had to be him, up ahead.
But why?
Why was he down here?
Slater pressed forward, dragging one leg behind him, trying to still his rapidly increasing heart rate. He sensed the familiar panic attack rising again, like a fist clenching tighter and tighter around his vital organs, seizing them in place. The concussion. Still there. Heightening emotions. Increasing volatility.
He paused for a beat, staring at the floor, placing his hand against the wall to steady himself. Then he regained his bearings and kept walking, kept hurrying, kept wincing through the agony.
As he passed by an open doorway, completely oblivious to his surroundings, an old man watched him go by.
59
&nbs
p; Magomed crouched low in the bowels of the icebreaker, serenely calm despite the carnage unfolding all around him. His men were dying in scores. He heard their screams. He heard the gunshots.
The mercenaries who’d proven fiercely loyal, following his every command, were now falling like dominoes to an unseen force. At first he’d thought they would be hesitant to embrace what he wanted, but as he revealed the depths of his desires their eyes had unanimously lit up with anticipation. He’d screened them well. They were men with broken souls, plucked from the wasteland of the Kamchatka Peninsula in the aftermath of Vadim Mikhailov’s grisly demise. With the collapse of the mine operation, the money had dried up.
Magomed had plenty of that.
And no need for it anymore.
Because he was going overboard not long from now.
He’d never wavered on that promise to himself. It had never been up for debate. Getting cast aside from the political system had shattered what little motivation he had left. He’d already been skating on thin ice at the tail end of his career, flirting with the dangerous dark hole of nihilism. So plunging the U.S. and Russia into an ugly modern war was obviously the logical next step. It would destroy the comfortable, secure positions his disgusting co-workers had forged for themselves, destroying the insulation.
Casting them out into the wilderness.
They’d be torn from their palaces, thrown into the street or murdered for their privileged positions. Magomed considered the utter lawlessness that would ensue. Nuclear fallout. A wasteland. A complete demolition of the existing hierarchy. It stilled his nerves. It steeled his resolve.
So when he sensed someone on his tail, and looped back into a spare room to assess his pursuer, he wasn’t surprised when Will Slater stumbled recklessly past the open doorway, heading nowhere in particular.
Completely out of sorts.
Magomed grinned.
Perfect.
Everything was going according to plan, despite the carnage unfolding this very moment above deck. None of that mattered. It was the reason he’d recruited far more mercenaries than necessary. They were expendable. Cannon fodder. All he needed was to intercept the Navy warships and get the crew to set the icebreaker’s aim straight.
And once that happened, there was nothing these intruders could do.
Because one of them was barely holding onto consciousness, and the other couldn’t possibly pilot an icebreaker on his own.
Not without the crew.
So he let Slater go. Magomed had a gun, but he didn’t know whether the other hostile had doubled back. If he was being stalked, then an unsuppressed gunshot was the last thing he wanted. So he allowed the man to careen left and right, ricocheting off the walls, hurrying down the passageway.
Heading out of sight.
He lifted a modified satellite phone to his ear, designed to bypass the signal jammer he’d implemented the previous night to prevent outside interference, and connected a call he’d been expecting at any moment.
‘We see you on our sonar,’ an American voice said on the other end of the line. ‘Any problems on your end?’
‘None,’ Magomed said. ‘Proceed as planned.’
‘You have the co-ordinates?’
‘Of course.’
‘We’ll meet up in five minutes,’ the American said.
Someone important in the U.S. Navy.
An admiral, maybe.
Magomed had forgotten the details.
Nothing seemed to matter when he knew he was about to die.
‘Perfect,’ Magomed said. ‘Allow us to lead the way.’
‘Of course,’ the American said, mirroring Magomed’s own words. ‘We look forward to it. We can see the Mochnost from here. It looks beautiful.’
‘It’s an amazing ship. I can’t wait for you to see it up close.’
In a rare moment of humanity amidst official protocol, the Navy sailor paused and said, ‘Do you think this will really help fix the problems?’
‘I hope so. It would be a great weight off all our shoulders.’
‘Yeah. I’ve got a wife. And a kid. A baby girl. She’s nearly one. I don’t want the world going to shit … you understand? I hope this is the first step, man. We shouldn’t be fighting.’
‘Of course,’ Magomed said, feeling nothing. ‘Wait for us to get into position. Then we will lead you through the Bering Strait.’
‘Can’t wait.’
Magomed ended the call.
Then he made another one.
To one of the mercenaries above deck. The most ruthless of the bunch. He’d selected the guy based on psychological vetting. He’d planned this well in advance. He knew there could be no hesitation when he gave the command. The only option was ruthless action, especially this close to the finish line.
And once this happened, there was no going back.
The final stretch.
The end game.
It went through. A sharp click. Answered with silence.
Magomed said, ‘How close?’
The man said, ‘A few minutes. There’s trouble up here.’
‘How many of them?’
‘One.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘He’s … very good.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Fuck if I know.’
‘Are you on course?’
‘We see the convoy. They’re waiting.’
‘The largest warship.’
‘In the middle.’
‘Aim for it.’
‘The crew might not … comply.’
‘You know what to do.’
‘And then?’
‘Kill every last one of them. Then there’s no chance of salvation.’
‘Understood. I’ll do it now.’
‘Hurry.’
‘Will I be compensated?’
‘As we discussed. I wired two million USD to your account in the Caymans this morning.’
A pause. A deep inhale. A rattling exhale.
Then a laugh. Despite the circumstances. Despite the war aboard.
A true madman.
‘Good,’ the man said. ‘I’ll slaughter all of them myself, then.’
‘Do it fast.’
‘Already on it. The men are making them line up with the warship now.’
‘Good,’ Magomed said, and ended the call.
When he looked up, Will Slater was there.
With a gun barrel pointing squarely between Magomed’s eyes.
60
Slater caught the final snippet of conversation before he barrelled into the room with his Makarov drawn and raised, but that was enough.
He saw what lay in front of him through swimming vision. Reality pitched left and right, tipping his perspective, accompanied by all the unfamiliar woozy sensations of being wrenched off-balance by nothing but the damage in his own mind. He steadied himself against the table — this room below deck was some kind of makeshift office.
Magomed stood on the other side of the cramped space, and watched with a noncommittal expression on his face.
‘Cancel that,’ Slater hissed through clenched teeth.
His aim wavered, but he didn’t need any kind of precision or accuracy from this distance. Even though his condition made the Makarov’s barrel droop a few inches in each direction as the room swayed around him, Slater didn’t allow himself to get perturbed by it. Magomed had a semi-automatic pistol slotted into the appendix holster at his waist. Even though Slater felt he was skirting a fine line, perilously close to being a walking zombie, he knew he could pull the trigger the second the old man reached for his gun.
So that wasn’t an issue.
Their current course, however, was more of a problem.
Slater said, ‘Did you hear me?’
‘I heard you.’
‘And?’
‘And you think threatening to shoot me is going to make me call it off?’
‘You say you’re ready for death,’ Slater said. ‘But I don’t th
ink you are.’
A final attempt. He didn’t believe his own words. But maybe there was a hope of cracking through a facade he didn’t imagine existed.
And he was right.
It didn’t.
Magomed just smiled.
‘You don’t think so? You think I was bluffing?’
‘You’re too narcissistic to be a martyr.’
‘Sounds like you know an awful lot about me.’
‘Cancel the fucking orders.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll kill you, right here.’
‘Okay.’
‘Three…’
Magomed said nothing.
‘Two.’
Magomed said nothing.
‘One.’
Magomed said nothing.
The old man crossed his arms over his chest, and raised an eyebrow. Almost bemused. Slater found it wholly unnerving. The Makarov’s barrel began to shake. He wasn’t in immediate physical danger — if the icebreaker smashed into the warship, he figured he’d live through the impact. But the utter helplessness threw him off, the quiet smugness of the old man standing across from him with nothing behind his eyes.
‘You really don’t care,’ Slater said.
‘Shoot me.’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’m not a narcissist. For once in your life you got something wrong. I couldn’t care less what happens to me. Why don’t you take a minute to actually think about why I’m doing this?’
But Slater couldn’t do that. Because he couldn’t concentrate on anything. He could barely maintain the jigsaw of puzzle pieces in his head making up his current consciousness, fitting together poorly, a jumbled mess.
All the pieces rattled and torn apart by Ruslan Mikhailov’s boot the previous night.
‘Well?’ Magomed said.
Slater didn’t respond.
‘What personal gain will I get from pulling this off? Tell me.’
Slater didn’t respond.