Slingshot s-3

by Matthew Dunn

  No! Stay in sight and within handgun range.

  But Dmitriev edged along the wall and then disappeared from view behind the building.

  There you are.

  Kronos darted between trees as he saw the old man hobbling into the forest while looking wildly around. The Russian hadn’t seen him yet. It wouldn’t matter if he did; he had no chance of escape. Silently, Kronos leapt over broken tree limbs and foliage, then slowed to walking pace. “Nikolai Dmitriev!”

  The Russian spun around, terror on his face.

  Kronos raised his gun and walked quickly toward the man. “You know who I am and you know why I’m here.”

  Dmitriev opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  “Stand still.”

  The Russian did as he was told. “Why. . why didn’t you shoot me?”

  Kronos moved behind Dmitriev, placed the muzzle of his handgun onto the crown of Dmitriev’s head and the tip of his knife under his throat. “I may still shoot you, or stab you, or both.”

  Dmitriev closed his eyes. “I won’t. . won’t beg for my life.”

  Kronos moved his mouth close to the Russian’s ear. “I’d be disappointed if you did.”

  Dmitriev opened his eyes, fear and confusion coursing through him. “Then what are you doing? You want to savor the moment before you do it?”

  The assassin smiled. “You know that’s never been my style.” His smile vanished. “I want answers, but make sure you take great care to give me the truth. Lie to me, and I’ll kill you without hesitation. First-was my activation authorized at state level? Second-what is the secret that I’ve been deployed to protect?”

  Dmitriev frowned. “They. . they didn’t tell you?”

  “Just answer me!”

  Sweat streamed down the old man’s face. “The surviving individuals present at the Berlin meeting are no longer in office, though that may change soon. That’s why I need to testify in ten days. I can’t let them assume power.”

  “Was it authorized at state level? Testify to what?”

  “No. . no. They’re acting in a private capacity to stop me from telling the world about Slingshot.”

  Kronos moved his finger over the trigger. “Slingshot?”

  “That’s the secret. It refers to genocide.”

  In a flash, Kronos pulled Dmitriev closer to him so that the old man’s body was completely in front of his. “Lower your weapon!”

  Will stopped crawling, his breathing labored, his shaking arms pointing his weapon toward the men. “Can’t do that.”

  “Englishman?”

  Will spat blood, didn’t answer.

  “Will Cochrane?”

  Mention of his name didn’t surprise Will. Schreiber would have supplied it to Kronos. “Let him go!”

  “A silly suggestion.”

  “Let him go. Otherwise I’ll put a bullet through Dmitriev’s head to get to you.”

  “You’d have done that already if you wanted to.”

  Will tried to keep his gun still, felt light-headed, wished he could see even an inch of Kronos’s face, had no idea what to do.

  But Kronos did. “I kept you, your men, and Dmitriev alive for a reason. Be grateful for that, and try to establish why I did it. Good-bye, Mr. Cochrane.”

  Kronos edged away from him, keeping Dmitriev firmly in his grip.

  Will blinked fast. Make a nonlethal shot into Dmitriev to get the man to drop to the ground? Given his age, it could still kill him. Kronos could easily kill him.

  The men moved farther away from him, into the forest.

  Will’s mind raced. Why didn’t Kronos put kill shots into the team? Why didn’t he just destroy the plane midflight? There had to be a reason.

  Answers.

  That was it.

  Kronos needed answers.

  He watched the men disappear from view, lowered his gun, felt his head spinning, then lost consciousness.

  Kronos guided Dmitriev deeper into the forest, stopped, took three steps away from him, and pointed his gun at the Russian’s head. “Turn around.”

  Dmitriev faced him, a look of resignation on his face. “I thought it would end somewhere like this.”

  The assassin was motionless. “Genocide?”

  Dmitriev nodded. “Sometime after you pull the trigger, it will happen.”

  Kronos narrowed his eyes. “I never trusted Schreiber. When he met me recently, I suspected that he wasn’t there with official authorization. Also, he gave me an instruction that I could never act upon.”

  Leaving his family.

  “I want to know every detail about the planned genocide. Based on that, I’ll decide whether to pull the trigger.”

  Will felt cold hands hitting his face, a voice, something trying to shake him. What was happening? Where was he? Something felt really bad on him. God, it felt awful! Oh yes, gunshot wound. He opened his eyes. A man was leaning over him, talking. Couldn’t make sense of the words. Who was he?

  Everything came back to him.

  Colonel Nikolai Dmitriev stared at him. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  The old man nodded. “He said that he made the right decision keeping you and your men alive, that I needed all the protection I could get before appearing at The Hague.”

  Dmitriev extended a hand and helped Will get to his feet. Wincing, and keeping his injured leg off the ground, Will placed a hand on the Russian’s shoulder and hoped the old man could take the weight. “You’re still under threat?”

  “No. To Kronos’s knowledge, not from anyone else. And he made it clear that I need never fear him. He swore that he won’t come for me again.”

  Will stared at the airport, at the distant wreckage of the airplane, and at the injured men that littered the place. He shivered, felt exhausted, every inch of his body in agony. He reflected on Kronos’s promise to Dmitriev. “Thank God.”

  Fifty-Four

  James was crouched beside Sarah in the Isle of Wight house, his arms around her, rocking her back and forth.

  Alfie shouted, “What’s happened?”

  James was in shock. “Sarah’s okay. We’re not. . not hurt. Kitchen. . kitchen. .”

  Alfie’s heart pumped fast as he walked past the couple, his gun still held high, eyes narrow, sweat pouring over his entire body. Pausing to one side of the kitchen entrance, he ducked low and swung into the room. Bacon and sausages were burning in a frying pan.

  So was something else.

  Betty’s head.

  Bullets had torn chunks out of it and had forced her dead body to collapse over the stove.

  “Betty!” Alfie looked around urgently. No one else here. The fucking bastards had long since gone. His arms involuntarily swung down, and he dropped his gun and staggered toward his beloved wife. Tears running down his face, he started shaking. “Not my Betty. My dear, dear Betty.”

  Kurt Schreiber lifted the ornate telephone handset and held it against his face.

  “It’s done, Mr. Schreiber.”

  “As I instructed?”

  “Exactly. We did it in front of the sister.”

  “Excellent. You and your men are to return back here.”

  “You don’t want us to keep watching the others?” The man laughed. “Or give them a bit more of a shock?”

  “No. Maximum damage has been done. The others are of no use to me now.”

  Schreiber replaced the handset and interlinked his fingers, deep in thought. By killing Betty Mayne, he’d sent a powerful warning to Will Cochrane. In similar situations, most men would back down from pursuing him. He wondered if Cochrane was such a man.

  Fifty-Five

  The young Dutch police officer looked nervous as he entered Will’s hospital room in Eindhoven’s Catharina Ziekenhuis hospital. He extended his arm. In his hand was a cell phone. “Sir, you have a call. Urgent.”

  Will grimaced in pain as he sat up in bed. In rooms close to him were Roger, Laith, Adam, Mark, and Mikhail. No one else was allowed into t
he ward except nurses, doctors, and armed Dutch cops. “Who is it?”

  “I’m not permitted to know. My commanding officer ordered me to bring the phone to you.”

  Will nodded. “I need some privacy.”

  The cop hesitated, seemed unsure what to do, then left the room.

  Will held the phone to his face. “Yes?”

  He listened to Alistair speak for ten minutes, though it felt like only ten seconds. When the call ended, his head was spinning, images racing through his mind. He felt disbelief, nausea, anger, and overwhelming grief.

  Unable to get hold of Will, Alfie had called his Controller to relay devastating news.

  Betty was dead.

  Will stared at the hospital equipment by his bed, though nothing registered. He was motionless, felt as if he’d been stunned by an almighty sucker punch.

  A punch that had been delivered with brilliant precision by Colonel Kurt Schreiber.

  Schreiber had known how Will had reacted to the perceived threat to his sister. The former Stasi officer had watched him eschew bringing in hired guns to protect Sarah, in favor of entrusting her safety to people who were considerably older and had wisdom and a wealth of experience, meaning they meant something to him. Schreiber had ascertained their identities and had singled out Betty as the perfect target, knowing that her death would cause Will to be debilitated with overwhelming guilt. He’d also ensured that she was murdered in front of his sister, whom Schreiber could easily have killed but instead kept alive so that she could understand that Will’s line of work caused those around him to be sacrificed.

  Schreiber had killed Betty, and no doubt he had also killed Will’s relationship with his last remaining family.

  Kurt Schreiber had completely outsmarted Will Cochrane.

  Fifty-Six

  You both need to get back to the military hospital as soon as this is done.” Though his tone was stern, Patrick’s expression held concern and compassion as he looked at Will and Roger. They’d been flown to the States on a medical flight. The rest of the team was still recuperating in Holland.

  Roger was in a wheelchair. The doctors had advised him that it would be weeks before he could get out of it, and even then he’d need several months of further treatment. Will’s injury had done less damage, though he was on crutches and would subsequently need a walking stick for a month or two. But nothing was going to stop them from being here.

  The CIA Director of Intelligence moved around the boardroom within CIA headquarters, picked up a phone, and glanced at Patrick. “You guys ready?”

  Patrick smiled as he looked at his men. “You bet we are.”

  The director pressed numbers, held the handset to his mouth, and muttered, “Grab the bastards from their offices. Do it fast. Make sure we have a minimum of eight guards outside the boardroom to take them away after it’s done.” He replaced the handset. “They’re on their way.”

  Five minutes later, Tibor, Damien, Lawrence, and Marcus were escorted into the room by burly security men. The Flintlock officers’ expensive suits were ruffled, their faces flushed. Tibor looked angrily at the director. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Sit down and shut up!”

  The men were forced into seats, facing Will and Roger across the table. The director and Patrick sat next to the Spartan Section operatives.

  Like Roger, Will was wearing an expensive suit. It had been agonizing to get into it, but he wanted to look the part. He lifted one of his crutches and slammed it down on the table with sufficient force to make the Flintlock officers flinch. “My name is Will Cochrane. It doesn’t bother me to share that information with you, because where you’re going you’re not going to have a soul to talk to for the rest of your lives. What does bother me is that your actions killed a loved one, and that you tried to have me killed in order to cover up the fact that you sold out Yevtushenko’s work for the CIA to Rubner just so you could keep getting his intelligence.”

  Tibor interjected, “Now, wait a minute. .”

  “Keep your fucking mouth shut, you little shit!” Will stared at each man. “Your treachery has given you life imprisonment with zero chance for parole. Every second you have in the facility will be hell. And it’s going to be made worse by something I’m about to tell you that you don’t know. Rubner was deliberately planted in New York so that people like you could approach him. But he was no longer working for Mossad. Instead he was working for a private individual who desperately wanted to identify a serving SVR who was on the payroll of the CIA. You played right into his hands.”

  The director pointed at them. “We can forgive you for being taken for fools by Rubner and his boss, but handing over Yevtushenko’s identity without SSCI approval is automatic big jail time.” He glanced at Will before returning his stare to the Flintlock officers. “And jeopardizing the life and the family of our best intelligence officer means you’re going to die in there.”

  The Flintlock officers looked ashen, petrified, and confused. Tibor said, “We. . we can make amends. Make a public apology. . Just let us go quietly.”

  Will lifted the crutch off the table and placed the end of it against Tibor’s chest. “Your best hope is that one of the prison guards takes pity on you and slips you a length of rope.”

  Fifty-Seven

  Mikhail’s face screwed up in pain as he put his feet onto the floor, grabbed his crutches, and forced his body out of the hospital bed. Though they would be distraught that he was injured, he hoped his wife, Diana, and their two girls, Tatyana and Yana, would laugh if they could see him now-wearing pajamas and slippers, his hair ruffled. He put some coins into a pocket and hobbled out of his room. A sweat broke out over his body as he tried to ignore the pain that was searing up his leg into the base of his spine.

  He moved along the corridor, past rooms containing Mark, Laith, and Adam. Aside from medical staff and armed Dutch police officers, no one else was allowed in the hospital wing. The injured DSI operatives had been taken to another facility, where they were not only receiving treatment but also being questioned as to what had happened during the flight.

  A nurse approached him, her expression quizzical and angry. In English, she said, “You shouldn’t be walking. What are you doing?”

  Mikhail stopped. “I need to call my family.”

  “You know what the police told you. No calls to. .”

  “The police,” Mikhail said softly, his breathing labored, “are uncertain what to make of this situation and have put in place procedures that make no sense.” He patted a hand against his leg. “We’re hardly a threat to anyone.”

  “It’s for your own protection.”

  Mikhail sighed, felt weary. “Please. I need to speak to my daughters.”

  The nurse looked unsure.

  “I just want to tell them I’m okay.”

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the pay phone. The nearest cops were in the adjacent wing, out of sight of the phone. “Just your family?”

  “Yes. I’ll be quick.”

  The nurse smiled and nodded toward his crutches. “Not with those, you won’t.” Her smile vanished, was replaced by a look of authority. “Okay. But if anyone asks me, I’ll deny we ever had this conversation.”

  She walked away, heading to the other men’s rooms to check up on them.

  Mikhail stood in front of the phone, tried to catch his breath. Glancing left and right, he saw the corridor was empty and inserted some coins into the unit. A man answered. Mikhail spoke a few words to him in Russian and waited. Diana came onto the line; his wife spoke to him for two minutes, her comments and tone ranging from anger, to fear, to delight. She passed the phone to Tatyana, who was cross and combative-it didn’t bother Mikhail because these days the teenager was frequently like that. He told her he loved and missed her and that she was to help her mother as much as she could. The phone was handed to Yana.

  His youngest daughter shouted, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” and gushed her adoration for him. Then she adop
ted a stern voice and concluded, “It’s wrong that you’re not here.”

  After saying good-bye, he ended the call and stared at the keypad. Though his family were used to the fact that he was frequently away from them while conducting overseas missions, under these circumstances it was wrong that he wasn’t there to look after them. His thoughts turned to Lenka Yevtushenko. Three days ago, he’d ordered his men to vacate the Saxony farmstead and move the Russian defector to another location in Germany. He recalled Will’s comment.

  Let him go. He’s got a woman and child to look after.

  And his riposte.

  I’ll take him back to Russia to face not only the charge of stealing secret intelligence. He’ll also stand trial for being a CIA agent.

  He placed more coins into the machine, and his finger hovered over the keypad. What was he thinking? At first he wasn’t sure. A gut instinct? If he was about to break SVR rules, he had to do so with something more concrete than a hunch. He thought for a moment, nodded, and began pressing numbers.

  Why?

  Because if he punished Yevtushenko, he’d also be punishing his family. Cochrane had known from the outset that even if everything else in the mission was a failure, reuniting a foolish but decent man with his partner and daughter would be a good outcome. Mikhail now understood that.

  He spoke to one of his assets, heard the man try to argue with him, told him to shut up, and gave him very precise instructions to transport Yevtushenko to Belarus within the next few days. “Keep him in hiding, away from Minsk for a month or two. I’m going to tell my superiors that we found him dead at the farmstead, but they may still check his lover’s address during the next few weeks. But they’ll soon get bored and move on to other matters.”