by Graham Potts
“Ma’am, we may have to get you out of here soon,” one of her bodyguards said.
Nevzorova turned to the square and saw that Korolev had ordered his men to form a defensive perimeter around the palace. Some stood with their weapons ready while others had started to force the crowd back, bashing the people with the butts of their rifles. They were making room to lay mines.
Nevzorova leapt off the roof of the car and grabbed her assistant’s sleeve. “Where’s the infantry?”
“The tanks are waiting on the other side of the fortress walls, ma’am,” her assistant replied. “All you have to do is give the order.”
Murphy grunted, leaning into the door with his shoulder. The hinges shrieked and the door opened slowly.
Elliot walked into the room and cast her eyes around. “Presidential bomb-shelter chic,” she said, unslinging her assault rifle. “It has more of an apocalyptic feel than Grigoriy’s place,” she conceded, shivering in the unstirred air.
“The threat of nuclear winter will do that to a room,” Murphy remarked. “Every interior decorator knows that.”
The railway track terminated at the bottom of a sheer concrete wall that climbed fifty feet to the ceiling. Streams of icy water cascaded down the wall, the cracked concrete straining to hold back the Moscow River. Elliot could hear the drains gurgling, returning the water to the river.
There was a raised platform that stretched along the wall and several rooms branched off from the shelter. An iron cage was recessed into the earth—an elevator, Elliot realised—and its cables ran vertically to the palace above their heads. A rusted ladder climbed up to a catwalk that crisscrossed the shelter, held by support struts bolted into the stone ceiling.
“Is there only one way out?” Elliot asked, turning on the spot. She studied the small door in the blast wall behind them. The wall was the height of the tunnel and could be opened to allow trains in and out.
Murphy pointed to the top of the dam wall. “At the end of that catwalk, there’s a concrete ledge and a ventilation shaft that goes all the way up to the bank of the river. You can fit two people side by side on the ladder.”
“I like the way we came in,” she said, staring up at the rickety catwalk.
“Me too,” Murphy said. They climbed the stairs to the platform and he opened the elevator.
“How do you know this still works?” Elliot asked.
“I used it a few days ago. Valentina had me over for a chat.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Just for a chat, huh?”
“I was scared even asking for that.”
Elliot stepped into the elevator and turned around, facing Murphy. “You do have a plan, right?”
“Trust me,” Murphy said, following her into the cage. “This gorilla knows what he’s doing.”
“I trust you.” Elliot clapped him on the shoulder and he winced in pain. “Oh, that’s right. You jumped through a window and landed on a car.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“You sound unnaturally confident.” She clicked her fingers. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”
“Honestly?” He closed the cage, unslinging his assault rifle.
“Sure.”
“I’m scared shitless,” he said calmly, chambering a round. “You?”
“Same.” She peered into the elevator shaft above them and cocked her rifle. “I hope we’re as good as everyone thinks we are.”
He slapped the lever and the elevator groaned. “How hard could it be, right?” The cable heaved the rattling cage upwards into the palace.
Nikolay Korolev stared through the window and gritted his teeth. He clutched his radio close to his mouth, holding it tight. “I want the bulk of the men deployed to the forecourt. I want the other exits in the palace secured by sentries. I want roving patrols through the palace. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, sir,” the radio crackled.
“Tell the men in the forecourt to stand guard and keep the crowd back. Do not open fire unless you hear the order from me.”
“Yes, sir. Confirm hold fast and don’t fire until you give the order.”
“The ammunition cache has been set up on the ground floor,” Maxim said, entering the committee room. “We can hold them off until dawn, if they attack.”
Korolev grunted, glaring through the window.
“I’ve deployed men with RPGs to the windows above the forecourt,” Maxim continued. “They’ll be set up in a matter of minutes.”
“Good.”
“Where do you want me?” Maxim asked.
“Here, Maxim,” Korolev replied, pointing at the floor. “By my side where you belong.” He toggled the transmit button on his radio and held it to his mouth. “Disperse the crowd. Fire at will.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I need another hour,” the radio crackled.
“One hour?” Nevzorova growled. “You’re in charge of the Spetsnaz. You’re supposed to be ready to move within thirty minutes.”
“Ma’am, we’re doing the best we can. We’ve been caught flatfooted,” the Spetsnaz commander replied.
Nevzorova dropped the radio when she heard the gunfire. The burst prompted bodyguards to reach for the president but she slapped their hands away, looking towards the palace.
Boyeviks were pouring rounds into the crowd and volleys of automatic fire rattled through the compound. The people screamed and moaned but they stood their ground and the rage boiled over. They lobbed Molotov cocktails and started to fire their own guns at the Organizatsiya.
“Mobilise the tanks,” Nevzorova ordered. A grenade exploded in the crowd and her breath caught in her throat. Her assistant was frozen, his mouth gaping open. She grabbed his jacket by the lapels. “Deploy the fucking tanks!” she roared. “Take down the fortress walls and get them into the fight.”
“Status report,” Korolev demanded, spluttering into his radio. “Answer me!”
The radio squealed back at him and he could hear distant shouts and the screams of dying men.
“What the fuck is going on?” he yelled, staring through the window. The fortress walls suddenly fell in a cough of dust and tanks rumbled through the dark cloud. They rolled up the grassed embankment, knocking down trees and shuddering over shrubs, plunging towards the forecourt.
Korolev stepped back from the window, his eyes darting around the room. Six of his generals stood guard on the other side of the long oak table, holding their weapons tight.
“Somebody answer me!” he shouted into his radio. His broken voice echoed back through the hissing static. He rushed to the window and looked down at his men. They were firing at the crowd and tossing grenades. The people were surging forward, triggering mines on the ground before ebbing back and leaving the dead behind. The crowd parted to let the tanks into the square. A soldier sat atop the turret of each tank embracing mounted machine guns, and the people regrouped behind them.
The people climbed over the tanks and crashed into Korolev’s men, swarming over the compound. They snatched the boyeviks’ guns and fired. If they didn’t have weapons, they scrounged for anything they could find, stabbing the boyeviks with bottles and pounding them with bats and bricks. Then they used their hands, pummelling the men with fists and ripping limbs from sockets.
No. She can’t win.
Maxim snatched the radio out of Korolev’s hands and changed to an alternate frequency. “This is Maxim. Rockets?”
“We’re still getting into position,” the radio crackled.
“Hurry up!” Maxim shouted. “Get those tanks!”
Murphy dropped a dead body at his feet and lowered his knife. Elliot ejected her empty magazine and slapped a new one into her weapon.
They crept to the end of the hall and Murphy peeked around the corner. Two men were sprinting towards them. He held up two fingers before pointing to her and waving to the far side of the hall.
Elliot nodded and raised her weapon to her shoulder.
Murphy stuck out his arm
and caught the first boyevik around the neck. The man tumbled backwards, flipping on to his face. Murphy ducked, plunging his knife into the base of the man’s skull, and Elliot leaned around the corner, firing a three-round burst. The bullets struck the other boyevik in the chest and he fell, sliding on the marble floor.
“Is it just me, or does it feel a little lonely in here?” Elliot asked.
“I think Nikolay deployed all his guys into the square.” They could hear the crowd outside, the roar pounding against the walls and shaking the palace. “We’d better find him before he runs.”
“We’re going to have to split up to find him,” Elliot said, stealing a pistol from a dead boyevik.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Murphy said slowly.
She shoved the pistol into the back of her jeans and hefted her assault rifle. “I can take care of myself, you know.”
“I know.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“I, uh—” He sighed.
She kissed him. “They’re not getting rid of me that easily,” she said. “Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes,” he repeated. Elliot checked her watch. “Or whenever the palace starts burning down.”
“Take care of yourself, okay, Slim?” he said, brushing her hair from her eyes.
She winked and ran down the hallway.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA SUNDAY 18 SEPTEMBER 11:12 PM MSK
After an hour of evading the boyeviks patrolling the Kremlin, Singh had managed to reach one of the palace’s kitchens. He had hoped to find a weapon, but he was forced to hide when two hungry boyeviks arrived behind him. When they placed their shotguns on the stainlesssteel counter, Singh grabbed a butcher’s knife from a wooden block and stalked silently along the tiled floor. The blade whirled through the air and caught one of the men in the throat, blood washing over his hands. Singh pounced on the other boyevik, swiping at the man’s face with a frying pan. The boyevik blocked and punched Singh in the ribs before reaching for his shotgun. The gun boomed as Singh kicked it away, buckshot smashing plates on the shelves. He grabbed the barrel of the gun, pushed the boyevik against the wall, and headbutted him until the boyevik’s nose burst. He wrestled the shotgun barrel under the man’s chin and pumped the handle. The Russian’s eyes widened.
Singh pulled the trigger.
Stephen Murphy could hear Nikolay Korolev yelling through the window of the committee room. A smashed mirror was on the floor nearby and he grabbed a shard of glass before creeping to the doorway. He held the glass in front of him to study the room’s reflection.
Six men stood to the rear of the committee room, eyeing each other nervously. Korolev was standing in the corner clutching his head, flanked by Maxim who was shouting into the radio. Murphy checked his weapon. He was running out of ammunition. He rifled through his duffel, finding some detcord, and cut off three feet with his knife before taping a wireless detonator to the end.
It’s not enough, he thought, glancing back towards the committee room.
I need something bigger.
“Fire!” Maxim spat into the radio. The missiles streaked down to the square and a tank exploded. The people nearby were swallowed by fire and ripped apart by shrapnel. Splinters of metal rained down upon the forecourt. Three more missiles lanced through the sky and burst. Blood splashed on to the stone ground.
The tanks were trapped, hemmed in by swarms of people. One of the machine gunners started to pour rounds at the palace, pocking the brickwork and shattering the windows. Another tank started elevating its gun, lurching and spitting fire.
Maxim dived away from the window, the incoming shell whistling through the air.
Emily Hartigan peeped out from behind the curtain and saw that the study was empty. The roar of the crowd was punctuated by gunshots and the palace shuddered violently under her feet, but that was all outside. In the study, the only sound was a ticking clock.
Twenty minutes earlier, a man had come in to check the room but he hadn’t looked behind the heavy curtains. He’d simply turned off the television and left. Hartigan had held her breath until he’d walked out but her relief had only lasted until she’d thrown up on the floor. Now, she made a choice.
I’m not waiting here to die.
She wiped her palms on her pants and stepped warily from behind the curtain, stripping her jacket off and dropping it on the floor. She opened the door.
“Hey!”
A boyevik stood in front of her, his assault rifle pointed at her face. She slapped the weapon away and kicked him in the groin, his rifle spilling from his hands as he fell to his knees. Hartigan picked up the assault rifle and crashed the butt of the weapon into his face. She tossed the weapon away and stole a pistol from his unconscious body. Maxim stood up gingerly, his ears ringing. The shell had pierced the window at the other end of the room and had crashed into the ceiling behind the sentries. He was covered in plaster and glass and brushed himself off. There was no blood.
“Nikolay?” he called out.
The room was thick with dust and the lights flickered above him. He staggered towards the table, reaching for something to hold him upright. He froze when he heard two gunshots and a groan deep within the cloud of dust.
“Nikolay?” His own voice sounded muffled, drowned out by the squealing in his ears. He drew his pistol and fired three rounds into the murk.
The cloud gasped and blood sprayed across Maxim’s face. He heard someone gurgle before they thudded to the floor.
Stepan?
“Stepan?” He fired three more rounds and tried to wipe the blood from his face. “I know that’s you. Come out and fight me,” he stammered.
There was a grunt and a yell before a dead body tumbled out of the dust and rolled across the table, flopping to the floor at Maxim’s feet. He fired again and again until the magazine was empty.
“Come out and face me!” Maxim demanded, his voice breaking. He hurled his pistol into the cloud. It banged harmlessly against the wall and he shrank into the corner, his heart pounding.
Maxim felt his skin tighten under his chin and he tried to suck in air but nothing happened. He was being strangled. Something cold and hard was forced into his mouth and he was pushed to the ground.
The noose was tight and he couldn’t breathe. He pulled the obstruction from his mouth: a wolf, carved out of onyx.
Murphy appeared before him and crouched, holding a detonator taped to detcord. Murphy dropped the detonator down the back of Maxim’s shirt and retrieved a garage door opener from his pocket.
Maxim peered into Murphy’s eyes. “No,” he rasped, his hands scrambling behind him to find the detonator.
“I warned you that I’d rip your fucking head off,” Murphy said, his eyes shimmering.
“Please, no!” Maxim choked. Bright dots flashed in front of his eyes, his hands finally finding the loose strand of detcord. He fished the detonator out of his shirt and tried to tear it off the cord with his fingernails but it wouldn’t budge. He looked up, seeing Murphy’s silhouette melt away, and he closed his eyes.
Maxim heard a buzz and a click, and his headless body toppled over.
Hartigan ran around a corner and stopped in the middle of the hallway. Two men turned and raised their weapons, but her pistol dangled uselessly by her side.
A figure darted towards her and speared into her ribs, tackling her.
Elliot.
They crashed through a door on the other side of the hall while automatic fire ripped across the bricks and smashed into the plaster. The two women rolled across the tiled floor of a laundry room.
Hartigan picked herself up and levelled her pistol at Elliot’s chest.
“So it’s like that, huh?” Elliot said. Her rifle was on the floor, out of reach.
“Yeah,” Hartigan said, wiping her face with her hand. “It is.”
“Don’t do it, Emily,” Elliot warned.
“Why did you let him live?”
Elliot’s face contorted with conf
usion.
“You killed all the cops that hurt you, but not Dad.” She cocked the pistol. “Tell me why.”
Elliot jerked her thumb towards the doorway. “This isn’t the time.”
Hartigan sprang towards her. “Tell me!” she shrieked.
Elliot slapped the pistol away and seized Hartigan’s arm, heaving her on to the ground. Hartigan kicked Elliot in the stomach and forced her back into the wall.
Bullets pounded through the wall and both women ducked. Bottles of bleach shattered on the shelves and cartons of powder burst into blue clouds. The palace rumbled around them and Hartigan glanced up to see a crystal chandelier swaying from the ceiling in the hallway.
Men shouted to each other in the corridor.
Hartigan got up and steadied herself, circling Elliot. There was more gunfire and a fire extinguisher ruptured, spilling dry powder. Hartigan saw the fire cabinet on the far wall, a crash axe fixed to its mount. She pounced on the axe and ripped it from the cabinet, swinging at Elliot.
Elliot ducked under the axe and drove up at Hartigan, grabbing the axe handle, holding it against Hartigan’s throat, driving her into the wall.
Boots pounded along the hallway.
Hartigan managed to push the handle away from her neck and throw Elliot on to the floor. She wrenched the axe free, raising it above her head. Elliot rolled away and the axe crashed into the tiles.
Elliot rolled towards her rifle, snatching it up just as a boyevik appeared in the doorway. She fired and the man staggered back into the hall, collapsing on the floor. The axe was falling again and Elliot rolled over, blocking the blade with her rifle.
Hartigan wrenched the rifle away with the blade of the axe and Elliot stabbed her boot into the back of Hartigan’s thigh then tackled her into the wall. She punched Hartigan in the jaw before snatching the axe away, whirling around and driving the handle into the analyst’s stomach.